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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/27601-8.txt b/27601-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc338ed --- /dev/null +++ b/27601-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12595 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hawtrey's Deputy, by Harold Bindloss + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hawtrey's Deputy + +Author: Harold Bindloss + +Illustrator: Cyrus Cuneo + +Release Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #27601] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAWTREY'S DEPUTY *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he +sprang forward with a gasp." (CHAPTER XXVIII.)] + + + + + + +HAWTREY'S DEPUTY + + +BY + +HAROLD BINDLOSS + + + +_Author of "The Impostor," "The Liberationist," etc._ + + + + +Illustrated by + +Cyrus Cuneo + + + + +WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED + +LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO + +1910 + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER + + I.--SALLY CREIGHTON + II.--SALLY TAKES CHARGE + III.--WYLLARD ASSENTS + IV.--A CRISIS + V.--THE OLD COUNTRY + VI.--HER PICTURE + VII.--AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH + VIII.--THE TRAVELLING COMPANION + IX.--THE FOG + X.--DISILLUSION + XI.--AGATHA'S DECISION + XII.--WANDERERS + XIII.--THE SUMMONS + XIV.--AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE + XV.--THE BEACH + XVI.--THE FIRST ICE + XVII.--DEFEAT + XVIII.--A DELICATE ERRAND + XIX.--THE PRIOR CLAIM + XX.--THE FIRST STAKE + XXI.--GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND + XXII.--A PAINFUL REVELATION + XXIII.--THROUGH THE SNOW + XXIV.--THE LANDING + XXV.--NEWS OF DISASTER + XXVI.--THE RESCUE + XXVII.--IN THE WILDERNESS + XXVIII.--THE UNEXPECTED + XXIX.--CAST AWAY + XXX.--THE LAST EFFORT + XXXI.--WYLLARD COMES HOME + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he sprang forward +with a gasp." . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +"She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when his injured +leg trailed in the snow." + +"Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those dishes on the +table.'" + +"At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, +came in." + +"'Now,' he said, 'I won't let you fall.'" + +"'You!' was all she said." + +"In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his +arms about her." + +"Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble +and plunge." + +"'Do you think--that--would have mattered?'" + +"'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we promised!'" + +"Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down, and the next +moment she was strongly lifted." + +"'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said, and pointed to +the parallel of latitude that ran across." + +"It seemed that he did not immediately notice her." + +"'Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?'" + +"It shambled forward in a curious manner." + +"'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'" + +"'I was waiting for you,' she said simply." + + + + +HAWTREY'S DEPUTY. + + +CHAPTER I. + +SALLY CREIGHTON. + +The frost outside was bitter, and the prairie, which rolled back from +Lander's in long undulations to the far horizon, gleamed white beneath +the moon, but there was warmth and brightness in Stukely's wooden barn. +It stood at one end of the little, desolate settlement, where the trail +that came up from the railroad thirty miles away forked off into two +wavy ribands that melted into a waste of snow. Lander's consisted then +of five or six frame houses and stores, a hotel of the same material, +several sod stables, and a few birch-log barns; and its inhabitants +considered it one of the most promising places in Western Canada. +That, however, is the land of promise, a promise that is in due time +usually fulfilled, and the men of Lander's were, for the most part, +shrewdly practical optimists. They made the most of a somewhat grim +and frugal present, and staked all they had to give--the few dollars +they had brought in with them, and their powers of enduring toil--upon +the roseate future. + +Stukely had given them, and their scattered neighbours, who had driven +there across several leagues of prairie, a supper in his barn, and a +big rusty stove, which had been brought in for the occasion, stood in +the midst of it. Its pipe glowed in places a dull red, and Stukely now +and then wondered uneasily whether it was charring a larger hole +through the shingles of the roof. On one side of the stove the floor +had been cleared; on the other benches, empty barrels, and tables were +huddled together, and such of the guests as were not at the moment +dancing sat upon them indiscriminately. A keg of hard Ontario cider +had been provided for their refreshment, and it was open to anybody to +ladle up what he wanted with a tin dipper, while a haze of tobacco +smoke drifted in thin blue wisps beneath the big nickelled lamps. In +addition to the reek of it, the place was filled with the smell of hot +iron which an over-driven stove gives out, and the subtle odours of old +skin coats. + +The guests, however, were accustomed to an atmosphere of that kind, and +it did not trouble them. For the most part, they were lean and spare, +bronzed by frost and snow-blink, and straight of limb, for, though +scarcely half of them were Canadian born, the prairie, as a rule, +swiftly sets its stamp upon the newcomer. There was also something in +the way they held themselves and put their feet down that suggested +health and vigour, and, in the case of most of them, a certain +alertness and decision of character. Some hailed from English cities, +a few from those of Canada, and some from the bush of Ontario; but +there was a similarity between them which the cut and tightness of +their store clothing did not altogether account for. They lived well +if plainly, and toiled out in the open unusually hard. Their eyes were +steady, their bronzed skin was clear, and their laughter had a +wholesome ring. + +A fiery-haired Scot, a Highlander of the Isles, sat upon a barrel-head +sawing at a fiddle, and the shrill scream of it filled the barn. Tone +he did not aspire to, but he played with Caledonian verve and swing, +and kept the snapping time. It was mad, harsh music of the kind that +sets the blood tingling and the feet to move in rhythm, though the +exhilarating effect of it was rather spoiled by the efforts of the +little French Canadian who had another fiddle and threw in clanging +chords upon the lower strings. + +They were dancing in the cleared space what was presumably a quadrille, +though it bore almost as great a resemblance to a Scottish country +dance, or indeed to one of the measures of Bretonne France, which was, +however, characteristic of the country. The Englishman has set no +distinguishable impress upon the prairie. It has absorbed him with his +reserve and sturdy industry, and the Canadian from the cities is +apparently lost in it, too, for theirs is the leaven that works through +the mass slowly and unobtrusively, and it is the Scot and the habitant +of French extraction who have given the life of it colour and +individuality. Extremes meet and fuse on the wide white levels of the +West. + +It was, however, an Englishman who was the life of that dance, and he +was physically a bigger man than most of the rest, for as a rule, at +least, the Colonial born run to wiry hardness rather than solidity of +frame. Gregory Hawtrey was tall and thick of shoulder, though the rest +of him was in fine modelling, and he had a pleasant face of the English +blue-eyed type. Just then it was suffused with almost boyish +merriment, and indeed an irresponsible gaiety was a salient +characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though +his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his +manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one +likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten +neighbours would have chosen to stand by them through the strain of +drought and frost in adverse seasons. + +As it happened, the grim, hard-faced Sager, who had come there from +Michigan, was just then talking to Stukely about him. + +"Kind of tone about that man--guess he once had the gold-leaf on him +quite thick, and it hasn't all worn off yet," he said. "Seen more +Englishmen like him, and some folks from Noo York, too, when I took +parties bass fishing way back yonder." + +He waved his hand vaguely, as though to indicate the American Republic, +and Stukely agreed with him. They were also right as far as they went, +for Hawtrey undoubtedly possessed a grace of manner which, however, +somehow failed to reach distinction. It was, perhaps, just a little +too apparent, and lacked the strengthening feature of restraint. + +"I wonder," said Stukely reflectively, "what those kind of fellows done +before they came out here." + +He had expressed a curiosity which is now and then to be met with on +the prairie, but Sager, the charitable, grinned. + +"Oh," he said, "I guess quite a few done no more than make their folks +on the other side tired of them, and that's why they sent them out to +you. Some of them get paid so much on condition that they don't come +back again. Say"--and he glanced towards the dancers--"Dick +Creighton's Sally seems quite stuck on Hawtrey by the way she's looking +at him." + +Stukely assented. He was a somewhat primitive person, as was Sally +Creighton, for that matter, and he did not suppose she would have been +greatly offended had she overheard his observations. + +"Well," he said, "I've thought that, too. If she wants him she'll get +him. She's a smart girl--Sally." + +There were not many women present--perhaps one to every two of the men, +which was, however, rather a large proportion in that country, and none +of their garments were particularly elegant. The fabric was, for the +most part, the cheapest obtainable, and they had fashioned it with +their own fingers in the scanty interludes between washing, and baking, +and mending their husbands' or fathers' clothes. Their faces were a +trifle sallow and had lost their freshness in the dry heat of the +stove. Their hands were hard and reddened, and in figure most of them +were thin and spare. One could have fancied that in a land where +everybody toiled strenuously their burden was the heavier. One or two +of them had clearly been accustomed to a smoother life, but there was +nothing to suggest that they looked back to it with regret. As a +matter of fact, they looked forward, working for the future, and there +was patient courage in their smiling eyes. + +Creighton's Sally, who was then tripping through the measure on +Hawtrey's arm, was native born. She was young and straight--straighter +in outline than the women of the cities--with a suppleness which was +less suggestive of the willow than a rather highly-tempered spring. +She moved with a large vigour which only just fell short of grace, her +eyes snapped when she smiled at Hawtrey, and her hair, which was of a +ruddy brown, had fiery gleams in it. Anyone would have called her +comely, and there was, indeed, no women in Stukely's barn to compare +with her in that respect, which was a fact she recognised, while every +line and pose of her figure seemed expressive of an effervescent +vitality. + +"Oh yes," said Sager reflectively; "she'll get him sure if she sets her +mind on it, and there's no denying that they make a handsome pair. +I've nothing against Hawtrey either: a straight man, a hustler, and +smart at handling a team. Still, it's kind of curious that while the +man's never been stuck for the stamps like the rest of us, he's made +nothing very much of his homestead yet. Now there's Bob, and Jake, and +Jasper came in after he did with half the dollars, and they thrash out +four bushels of hard wheat for Hawtrey's three." + +Stukely made a little gesture of concurrence, for he dimly realised the +significance of his companion's speech. It is results which count in +that country, where the one thing demanded is practical efficiency, and +the man of simple, steadfast purpose usually goes the farthest. +Hawtrey had graces which won him friends, boldness of conception, and +the power of application; but he had somehow failed to accomplish as +much as his neighbours did. After all, there must be a good deal to be +said for the man who raises four bushels of good wheat where his +comrade with equal facilities raises three. + +In the meanwhile Hawtrey was talking to Sally, and it was not +astonishing that they talked of farming, which is the standard topic on +that strip of prairie. + +"So you're not going to break that new piece this spring?" she said. + +"No," said Hawtrey; "I'd want another team, anyway, and I can't raise +the dollars; they're hard to get out here." + +"Plenty under the sod," said Sally, who was essentially practical. +"That's where we get ours, but you have to put the breaker in and turn +it over. You"--and she flashed a swift glance at him--"got most of +yours from England. Won't they send you any more?" + +Hawtrey's eyes twinkled as he shook his head. "I'm afraid they won't," +he said. "You see, I've put the screw on them rather hard the last few +years." + +"How did you do that?" said Sally. "Told them you were thinking of +coming home again?" + +There was a certain wryness in her companion's smile, for though +Hawtrey had cast no particular slur upon the family's credit he had +signally failed to enhance it, and he was quite aware that his English +relatives did not greatly desire his presence in the Old Country. + +"My dear," he said, "you really shouldn't hit a fellow in the eye that +way." + +As it happened, he did not see the girl's face just then, or he might +have noticed a momentary change in its expression. Gregory Hawtrey was +a little casual in speech, but so far most of the young women he +bestowed an epithet of that kind upon had attached no significance to +it. They had wisely decided that he did not mean anything. In another +moment or two the Scottish fiddler's voice broke in. + +"Can ye no' watch the music? Noo it's paddybash!" he cried. + +His French Canadian comrade waved his fiddle-bow protestingly. + +"Paddybashy! _V'la la belle chose!_" he said with ineffable contempt, +and broke in upon the ranting melody with a succession of harsh, +crashing chords. + +Then it apparently became a contest as to which could drown the other's +instrument, and the snapping time grew faster, until the dancers +gasped, and men with long boots encouraged them with cries and stamped +a staccato accompaniment upon the benches or on the floor. It was +savage, rasping music, but one player infused into it the ebullient +verve of France, and the other was from the misty land where the +fiddler learns the witchery of the clanging reel and the swing of the +Strathspey. It is doubtless not high art, but there is probably no +music in the world that fires the blood like this and turns the sober +dance to rhythmic riot. Perhaps, too, it gains something that gives it +a closer compelling grip amidst the prairie snow. + +Hawtrey, at least, was breathless when it ceased, and Sally's eyes +flashed with the effulgence of the Northern night when her partner +found her a resting-place upon an upturned barrel. + +"No," she said, "I won't have any cider." She turned and glanced at +him imperiously. "You're not going for any more either." + +It was, no doubt, not the speech a well-trained English maiden would +have made, but, though Hawtrey smiled rather curiously, it fell +inoffensively from Sally's lips. Though it is not always set down to +their credit, the brown-faced, hard-handed men as a rule live very +abstemiously in that country, and, as it happened, Hawtrey, who, +however, certainly showed no sign of it, had already consumed rather +more cider than anybody else. He made a little sign of submission, and +Sally resumed their conversation where it had broken off. + +"We could let you have our ox-team to do that breaking with," she said. +"You've had Sproatly living with you all winter. Why don't you make +him stay and work out his keep?" + +Hawtrey laughed. "Sally," he said, "do you think anybody could make +Sproatly work?" + +"It would be hard," the girl admitted, and then looked up at him with a +little glint in her eyes. "Still, I'd put a move on him if you sent +him along to me." + +She was a rather capable young woman, but Hawtrey was very dubious of +her ability to accomplish as much as this. Sproatly was an Englishman +of good education, though his appearance seldom suggested it, who drove +about the prairie in a waggon vending cheap oleographs and patent +medicines most of the summer, and contrived to obtain free quarters +from his bachelor acquaintances during the winter. It is a hospitable +country, but there were men round Lander's who when they went away to +work in far-off lumber camps, as they sometimes did, nailed up their +doors and windows to prevent Sproatly getting in. + +"Does he never do anything?" Sally added. + +"No," said Hawtrey; "at least, never when he can help it. He had, +however, started something shortly before I left him. You see, the +house has wanted cleaning the last month or two, and we tossed up for +who should do it. It fell to Sproatly, who didn't seem quite pleased, +but he got as far as firing the chairs and tables out into the snow. +Then he sat down for a smoke, and he was looking at them through the +window when I drove away." + +"Ah," said his companion, "you want somebody to keep the house straight +and look after you. Didn't you know any nice girls back there in the +Old Country?" + +It was spoken naturally, and there was nothing to show that the girl's +heart beat a little more rapidly than usual as she watched her +companion. His face, however, grew a trifle graver, for she had +touched upon a rather momentous question to such men as him. There are +a good many of them living in Spartan simplicity upon the prairie, +well-trained, well-connected young Englishmen, and others like them +from Canadian cities. They naturally look for some grace of culture or +refinement in the woman they would marry, and there are few women of +the station they once belonged to who could face the loneliness and +unassisted drudgery that must be borne by the small wheat-grower's +wife. There were also reasons why this question had been troubling +Hawtrey in particular of late. + +"Oh, yes, one or two," he said. "I'm not quite sure, however, that +girls of that kind would find things even moderately comfortable here." + +There was a certain reflectiveness in his tone, which, since it seemed +to indicate that he had already given the point some consideration, +jarred upon his companion. She had also an ample share of the Western +farmer's pride, which firmly declines to believe that there is any land +to compare with the one the plough is slowly wresting from the wide +white levels of the prairie. + +"We make out well enough," she said with a snap in her eyes. + +Hawtrey made a little whimsical gesture. "Oh, yes," he admitted; "it's +in you. All you want to beat the wilderness and turn it into a garden +is an axe, a span of oxen, and a breaker plough. You ought to be proud +of it. Still, you see, our folks back yonder aren't quite the same as +you." + +Sally partly understood him. "Ah," she said, "they want more, and, +perhaps, they're used to having more than we have; but isn't that in +one way their misfortune? Is it what folks want, or what they can do, +that makes them of use to anybody else?" + +There was a hard truth in her suggestion, but Hawtrey, who seldom +occupied himself with matters of that kind, smiled. + +"Oh," he said, "I don't know; but, after all, it wouldn't be worth +while our raising wheat here unless there were folks back East to eat +it, and if some of them only eat it in the shape of dainty cakes that +doesn't affect the question. Anyway, there's only another dance or +two, and I was wondering whether I could drive you home; I've got +Wyllard's Ontario sleigh." + +Sally glanced at him rather sharply. She had half-expected this offer, +and it is possible would have judiciously led him up to it if he had +not made it. Now, as she saw that he really wished to drive her home, +she was glad that she had not done so. + +"Yes," she said softly, "I think you could." + +"Then," said Hawtrey, "if you'll wait ten minutes I'll be back with the +team." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +SALLY TAKES CHARGE. + +The night was clear and bitterly cold when Hawtrey and Sally Creighton +drove away from Stukely's barn. Winter had lingered unusually long +that year, and the prairie gleamed dimly white, with the sledge trail +cutting athwart it, a smear of blue-grey, in the foreground. It +was--for Lander's lay behind them with the snow among the stubble belts +that engirdled it--an empty wilderness the mettlesome team swung +across, and during the first few minutes the cold struck through them +with a sting like the thrust of steel. A half-moon hung low above it, +coppery red with frost, and there was no sound but the crunch beneath +the runners, and the beat of hoofs that rang dully through the silence +like a roll of muffled drums. + +Sleighs like the one that Hawtrey drove are not common on the prairie, +where the farmer generally uses the humble bob-sled when the snow lies +unusually long. The one in question had, however, been made for use in +Montreal, and bought back East by a friend of Hawtrey's, who was, as it +happened, possessed of some means, which is a somewhat unusual thing in +the case of a Western wheat-grower. He had also bought the team--the +fastest he could obtain--and when the warmth came back to them Hawtrey +and the girl became conscious of the exhilaration of the swift and easy +motion. The sleigh was light and narrow, and Hawtrey, who drew the +thick driving robe higher about his companion, did not immediately draw +the mittened hand he had used back again. The girl did not resent the +fact that it still rested behind her shoulder, nor did Hawtrey attach +any particular significance to the matter. He was a man who usually +acted on impulse, with singularly easy manners. How far Sally +understood him did not appear, but she came of folk who had waged a +very stubborn battle with the wilderness, and there was a vein of +somewhat grim tenacity in her. + +She was, however, conscious that there was something beneath her feet +which forced her, if she was to sit comfortably, rather close against +her companion; and it seemed expedient to point it out. + +"Can't you move a little? I can't get my feet fixed right," she said. + +Hawtrey looked down at her with a smile. "I'm afraid I can't unless I +get right outside. Aren't you happy there?" + +It was the kind of speech he was in the habit of making, but there was +rather more colour in the girl's face than the stinging night air +brought there, and she glanced at the bottom of the sleigh. + +"It's a sack of some kind, isn't it?" she said. + +"Yes," said Hawtrey; "it's a couple of three-bushel bags. Some special +seed wheat Lorton sent to Winnipeg for. Ormond brought them out from +the railroad. I promised I'd take them along to him." + +"You should have told me. It's most a league round by Lorton's place," +said Sally. + +"That won't take long with this team. Have you any great objections to +another fifteen minutes' drive with me?" + +Sally looked up at him, and the moonlight was on her face, which was a +very comely one. + +"No," she admitted, "I haven't any." + +She said it demurely, but there was a just perceptible something in her +voice which might have warned the man had he been addicted to taking +warning from anything, which was, however, not the case. It was, in +fact, his trouble that he seldom thought about what he did until he was +compelled to face the consequences; and it was, perhaps, to his credit +that he had after all done very little harm, for there was hot blood in +him. + +"Well," he said, "I'm not going to grumble about those extra three +miles, but you were asking what land I meant to break this spring. +What put that into your mind?" + +"Our folks," said Sally candidly. "They were talking about you." + +This again was significant, but Hawtrey did not notice it. + +"I've no doubt they said I ought to tackle the new quarter section?" he +suggested. + +"Yes," assented Sally. "Why don't you do it? Last fall you thrashed +out quite a big harvest." + +"I certainly did. There, however, didn't seem to be many dollars left +over when I'd faced the bills." + +The girl made a little gesture of impatience. "Oh," she said, "Bob and +Jake and Jasper sowed on less backsetting, and they're buying new teams +and ploughs. Can't you do what they do, though I guess they don't go +off for weeks to Winnipeg?" + +The man was silent. He had an incentive to work hard which she was not +acquainted with, and he had certainly done so, but the long, iron +winter, when there was nothing that could be done, had proved too much +for him. It was very dreary sitting alone evening after evening beside +the stove, and the company of the somnolent Sproatly was not much more +cheerful. Now and then his pleasure-loving nature had revolted from +the barrenness of his lot when he drove home from an odd visit to a +neighbour, stiff with cold, through the stinging frost, and, arriving +in the dark, found the stove had burned out and water frozen hard +inside the house. These were things his neighbours patiently endured, +but Hawtrey had fled for life and brightness to Winnipeg. + +Sally glanced up at him with a little nod. "You take hold with a good +grip. Everybody allows that," she said. "The trouble is you let +things go afterwards. You don't stay with it." + +"Yes," assented Hawtrey. "I believe you have hit it, Sally. That's +very much what's the matter with me." + +"Then," said the girl with quiet insistence, "won't you try?" + +A faint flush crept into Hawtrey's face. The girl was less than +half-taught, and unacquainted with anything beyond the simple, +strenuous life of the prairie. Her greatest accomplishments consisted +of some skill in bakery and the handling of half-broken teams; but she +had once or twice given him what he recognised as excellent advice. +There was something incongruous in the situation, but, as usual, he +preferred to regard it whimsically. + +"I suppose I'll have to, if you insist. If ever I'm the grasping owner +of the biggest farm in this district I'll blame you," he said. + +Sally said nothing further on that subject, and some time later the +sleigh went skimming down among the birches in a shallow ravine. +Hawtrey pulled the horses up when they reached the bottom of it, and +glanced up at a shapeless cluster of buildings that showed black amidst +the trees. + +"Lorton won't be back until to-morrow, but I promised to pitch the bags +into his granary," he said. "If I hump them up the trail here it will +save us driving round through the bluff." + +He got down, and though the bags were heavy he managed to hoist the +first of them on to his shoulders, with Sally's assistance, and then +staggered up the steep foot-trail that climbed the slope with it. He +was more or less accustomed to carrying bags of grain between store and +waggon, but his mittened hands were numbed, and his joints were stiff +with frost just then, and Sally noticed that he floundered rather +wildly. In another moment or two, however, he vanished into the gloom +among the trees, and she sat listening to the uneven crunch of his +footsteps in the snow, until there was a sudden crash of broken +branches, and a sound as of something falling heavily down a declivity. +Then there was another crash, and stillness again. + +Sally gasped, and clenched her mittened hands hard upon the reins as +she remembered that Lorton's bye trail skirted the edge of a very steep +bank, but she lost neither her collectedness nor her nerve. Presence +of mind in the face of an emergency is probably as much a question of +experience as of temperament, and, as it happened, she had, like other +women in that country, seen men struck down by half-trained horses, +crushed by collapsing strawpiles, and once or twice gashed by a mower +blade. This was no doubt why she remembered that the impatient team +would probably move on if she left the sleigh, and she drove them to +the first of the birches before she got down. Then she knotted the +reins about a branch, and called out sharply. + +No answer came out of the shadows, and her heart beat unpleasantly fast +as she plunged in among the trees, keeping below the narrow trail that +went slanting up the side of the declivity, until she stopped, with +another gasp, when she reached a spot where a ray of moonlight came +filtering down. A limp figure in an old skin coat lay almost at her +feet, and she dropped on her knees beside it in the snow. Hawtrey's +face showed an unpleasant greyish-white in the faint silvery light. + +"Gregory!" she cried hoarsely. + +The man opened his eyes, and blinked at her in a half-dazed manner. +"Fell down," he said. "Think I felt my leg go--and my side's stabbing +me. Go for somebody." + +Sally glanced round, and noticed that the grain bag lay burst open not +far away. She fancied that he had clung to it after he lost his +footing, which explained why he had fallen so heavily, but that was not +a point of any consequence now. There was nobody who could help her +within two leagues of the spot, and it was evident that she could not +leave him there to freeze. Then she noticed that the trees grew rather +farther apart just there, and rising swiftly she ran back to bring the +team. The ascent was steep, and she had to urge them up it with sharp +cries and blows with her mittened hand amidst the shadowy trunks and +through snapping undergrowth before she reached the spot where Hawtrey +lay. He looked up at her when at last they stood snorting close beside +him. + +"You can't turn them here," he said. + +Sally was never sure how she managed it, for the sleigh drove against +the slender trunks, and the fiery beasts, terrified by the snapping of +the undergrowth, were almost unmanageable; but at last they were facing +the descent again, and she stooped and twined her arms about the +shoulders of her companion, who now lay almost against the sleigh. + +"It's going to hurt, Gregory, but I have got to get you in," she said. + +Then she gasped, for Hawtrey was a man of full stature, and it was a +heavy lift. She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when +his injured leg trailed in the snow. Still, with the most strenuous +effort she had ever made she moved him a yard or so, and then +staggering fell with her side against the sleigh. She felt faint with +the pain of it, but with another desperate lift she drew him into the +sleigh, and let him sink down gently upon the bag that still lay there. +His eyes had shut again, and he said nothing now. + +[Illustration: "She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once +when his injured leg trailed in the snow."] + +It took only another moment or two to wrap the thick driving robe about +him, and after that she glanced down, with one hand still beneath his +neck. It was clear that he was quite unconscious of her presence, and +stooping swiftly she kissed his grey face. Then she settled herself in +the driving seat with only a blanket coat to shelter her from the +stinging frost, and the horses went cautiously down the slope. She did +not urge them until they reached the level, for the trail that wound up +out of the ravine was difficult, but when the wide white expanse once +more stretched away before them she laid the biting whip across their +backs. + +That was quite sufficient. They were fiery beasts, and when they broke +into a furious gallop the rush of night wind that screamed by struck +her tingling cheeks like a lash of wires. Then all power of feeling +went out of her hands, her arms grew stiff and heavy, and she was glad +that the trail led smooth and straight to the horizon. Hawtrey, who +had moved a little, lay, a shapeless figure, across her feet, but he +answered nothing when she spoke to him. + +The team went far at the gallop, and the beat of hoofs rose up, dulled +a little, in a wild staccato drumming. There was an insistent +crunching beneath the runners, and a fine mist of snow beat against the +sleigh, but the girl leaning forward, a tense figure, with nerveless +hands clenched upon the reins, saw nothing but the blue-grey riband of +trail that steadily unrolled itself before her. At length, however, a +blurred mass, which she knew to be a birch bluff, grew out of the white +waste, and presently a cluster of darker smudges shot up into the shape +of a log-house, sod stables, and strawpile granary. A minute or two +later, she pulled the team up with an effort, and a man, who flung the +door of the house open, came out into the moonlight. He stopped, and +apparently gazed at her in astonishment. + +"Miss Creighton!" he said. + +"Don't stand there," said Sally. "Take the near horse's head, and lead +them right up to the door." + +"What's the matter?" the man asked stupidly. + +"Lead the team up," said Sally. "Jump, if you can." + +It was supposed on that part of the prairie that Sproatly had never +moved with much expedition in his life, but that night he sprang +towards the horses at a commanding wave of the girl's hand. He started +when he saw his comrade lying in the bottom of the sleigh, but Sally +disregarded his hurried questions. + +"Help me to get him out," she said, when he stopped the team. "Keep +his right leg as straight as you can. I don't want to lift him. We +must slide him in." + +They did it somehow, though the girl was breathless before their task, +which the snow made a little easier, was finished, and the perspiration +started from the man. Then Sally turned to the latter. + +"Get into the sleigh, and don't spare the team," she said. "Drive over +to Watson's, and bring him along. You can tell him your partner's +broke his leg, and some of his ribs. Start right now!" + +Sproatly did her bidding, and when the door closed behind him she flung +off her blanket coat and thrust fresh billets into the stove. Then she +looked for some coffee in the store cupboard, and set on a kettle; +after which she sat down on the floor by Hawtrey's side. He lay still, +with the thick driving robe beneath him, and though the colour was +creeping back into his face, his eyes were shut, and he was apparently +quite insensible of her presence. For the first time she was conscious +of a distressful faintness, which, as she had come suddenly out of the +stinging frost into the little overheated room, which reeked with +tobacco smoke and a stale smell of cooking, was not astonishing. She +mastered it, however, and presently, seeing that Hawtrey did not move; +glanced about her with some curiosity, for this was the first time she +had entered his house. + +The room was scantily furnished, and, though very few of the bachelor +farmers in that country live luxuriously, she fancied that Sproatly, +who had evidently very rudimentary ideas on the subject of +house-cleaning, had not brought back all the sundries he had thrown out +into the snow. It then contained a table, a carpenter's bench, and a +couple of chairs, and there were still smears of dust upon the +uncovered floor. The birch-log walls had been rudely panelled with +match-boarding half-way up, which was a somewhat unusual luxury, but +the half-seasoned boards had rent with the heat, and exuded streaks of +resin to which the grime and dust had clung. A pail, which apparently +contained potato peelings, stood amidst a litter of old long boots and +broken harness against one wall, and the floor was black and thick with +grease all round the rusty stove. A pile of unwashed dishes and +cooking utensils stood upon the table, and the lamp above her head had +blackened the boarded ceiling, and diffused a subtle odour of kerosene. + +Sally noticed it all with disgust, and then, seeing that Hawtrey had +opened his eyes, she made a cup of coffee and got him to drink it. +After that he smiled at her. + +"Thanks," he said feebly. "Where's Sproatly? My side stabs me." + +Sally raised one hand. "You're not to say a word. Sproatly's gone for +Watson, and he'll soon fix you up. Now lie quite still, and shut your +eyes again." + +The man obeyed her, in so far as that he lay still, but his eyes were +not more than half-closed, and she could not resist the temptation to +see what he would do if she went away. She had half risen, when he +stretched a hand out and felt for her dress, and she sank down again +with a curious softness in her face. Then he let his eyes close +altogether, as if satisfied, and by and bye she gently laid her hand on +his. + +He did not appear to notice it, and, though she did not know whether he +was asleep or unconscious, she sat beside him, with compassion in her +eyes. There was no sound but the snapping of the birch billets in the +rusty stove. She was anxious, but not unduly so, for she knew that men +who live as the prairie farmers do, usually recover from such injuries +as had befallen him more or less readily. It would also not be very +long before assistance arrived, for it was understood that the man she +had sent Sproatly for had almost gone through a medical course in an +Eastern city before he set up as a prairie farmer. Why he had suddenly +changed his profession was a point he did not explain, and, as he had +always shown himself willing to do what he could when any of his +neighbours met with an accident, nobody troubled him about the matter. + +By and bye Sproatly brought him to the homestead, and he was busy with +Hawtrey for some time. Then they got him to bed, and Watson came back +to the room where Sally was anxiously waiting. + +"His idea about his injuries is more or less correct, but we'll have no +great trouble in pulling him round," he said. "The one point that's +worrying me is the looking after him. One couldn't expect him to +thrive upon slabs of burnt salt pork, and Sproatly's bread." + +"I'll do what I can," said Sproatly indignantly. + +"You!" said the other. "It would be criminal to leave you in charge of +a sick man." + +Sally quietly put on her blanket coat. "If you can stay that long, +I'll be back soon after it's light," she said. Then she turned to +Sproatly. "You can wash up those dishes on the table, and get a brush +and sweep this room out. If it's not quite smart to-morrow you'll do +it again." + +[Illustration: "Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those +dishes on the table.'"] + +Then, while Sproatly grinned, she went out and drove away through the +bitter frost. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +WYLLARD ASSENTS. + +Sally, who brought her mother with her, spent a couple of weeks at +Hawtrey's homestead before Watson decided that his patient could be +entrusted to Sproatly's care; but she came back afterwards twice a week +or so with odd baskets of dainties to make sure that the latter, in +whom she had no confidence, was discharging his duties satisfactorily. +She had driven over again one afternoon, when Hawtrey, whose bones were +knitting well, lay talking to another man in his little sleeping room. + +There was no furniture in it whatever, beyond the wooden bunk he lay +in, and a deerhide lounge chair he had made during the winter; but the +stovepipe from the kitchen led across part of it, and then up again +into the room beneath the roof above. It had been one of Sproatly's +duties during the past two weeks to rise and renew the fire when the +cold awakened his comrade soon after midnight. At present he was +outside the house, whipsawing birch-logs and splitting them into +billets, which was an occupation he cherished a profound dislike for. + +Spring had, however, come suddenly, as it usually does on the prairie, +a few days earlier, and the snow was melting fast under a brilliant +sun. The bright rays that streamed in through the window struck +athwart the glimmering dust motes in the little bare room, and fell, +pleasantly warm, upon the man who lay in the deerhide chair. He was a +year or two older than Hawtrey, though he had scarcely reached thirty, +a man of tranquil manner, with a rather lean and deeply bronzed face, +of average height, and somewhat spare of figure. He held a pipe in his +hand, and was then looking at Hawtrey with quiet, contemplative eyes. +They were, indeed, his most noticeable feature, though it was difficult +to say whether their colour was grey or hazel-brown, for they were +singularly clear, and there was something which suggested steadfastness +in their unwavering gaze. He wore long boots, trousers of old blue +duck, and a jacket of soft deerskin such as the Blackfeet dress; and +there was nothing about him to suggest that he was a man of varied +experience, and of some importance in that country. + +Harry Wyllard was native-born, and had in his young days assisted his +father in the working of a little Manitoban farm, when that great grain +province was still, for the most part, a wilderness. Then a more +prosperous relative on the Pacific slope had sent him to Toronto +University, where after a session or two he had become involved in a +difference of opinion with the authorities. Though the matter was +never made quite clear, it was generally believed that Wyllard had +quietly borne the blame of a comrade's action, for there was a vein of +eccentric generosity in the lad. In any case, he left Toronto, and the +relative, who was largely interested in the fur business, next sent him +north to the Behring Sea, in one of his schooners. The business was +then a remarkably hazardous one, for the skin buyers and pelagic +sealers had trouble all round with the Alaskan representatives of +American trading companies, whose preserves they poached upon, as well +as with the commanders of the gunboats sent up there to protect the +seals. + +Men's lives were staked against the value of a fur, edicts were lightly +contravened, and now and then a schooner barely escaped into the +smothering fog with skins looted close aboard forbidden beaches. It +was a perilous life, and a strenuous one, for they had every white +man's hand against them, as well as fog and gale, and the reefs that +lay in the tideways of almost uncharted waters; but Wyllard made the +most of it. He kept the peace with jealous skippers who resented the +presence of a man they might command as mate, but whose views they were +forced to listen to when he spoke as supercargo; won the good-will of +sea-bred Indians, and drove a good trade with them; and not +infrequently brought his boat back first to the plunging schooner +loaded with reeking skins. + +Then he fell into trouble again when they were hanging off the Eastern +Isles under double reefs, watching for the Russians' seals. A boat's +crew from another schooner had been cast ashore, and, as they were in +peril of falling into the Russians' hands, Wyllard led a reckless boat +expedition to bring them off again. He succeeded, in so far that the +wrecked men were taken off the roaring beach through a tumult of +breaking surf, but as they pulled seaward the fog shut down on them, +and one boat, manned by three men, never reached the schooners. They +blew horns all night, standing off and on, and crept along the smoking +beach next day, though the surf made landing impossible. Then a sudden +gale drove them off the shore, and, as it was evident that their +comrades must have perished, they reluctantly sailed for other fishing +grounds. As one result of this, Wyllard broke with his prosperous +relative when he came back to Vancouver. + +After that he helped to strengthen railroad bridges among the mountains +of British Columbia, worked in logging camps, and shovelled in the +mines, and, as it happened, met Hawtrey, who, tempted by high wages, +had spent a winter in the Mountain Province after a disastrous harvest. +In the meanwhile, his father had sold out, and taken up virgin soil in +Assiniboia. He died soon after Wyllard went back to him, and a few +months later the relative in Vancouver also died. Somewhat to +Wyllard's astonishment, he bequeathed him a considerable property, +which the latter realised and sunk most of the proceeds in further +acres of virgin prairie. Willow Range was already one of the largest +farms between Winnipeg and the Rockies. + +"The leg's getting along satisfactorily?" he said at length. + +Hawtrey, who appeared unusually thoughtful, admitted that it was. + +"Any way, it's singularly unfortunate that I'm broken up just now," he +added. "There's the ploughing to commence in a week or two, and, +besides that, I was thinking of getting married." + +Wyllard was somewhat astonished at this announcement. For one thing, +he was more or less acquainted with the state of his friend's finances. +During the next moment or two he glanced meditatively through the open +door into the adjoining room, where Sally Creighton was busy beside the +stove. The sleeves of her light bodice were rolled up well above the +elbow, and she had pretty, round arms, which were just then partly +immersed in dough. + +"I don't think there's a nicer or more capable girl in this part of +Assiniboia," he said. + +"Oh, yes," said Hawtrey. "Anybody would admit that. Still, since you +seem so sure of it, why don't you marry her yourself?" + +Wyllard looked at his comrade rather curiously. "Well," he said, +"there are one or two reasons that don't affect Miss Sally and only +concern myself. Besides, it's highly improbable that she'd have me." + +He paused to light his pipe, which had gone out, before he looked up +again. "Since it evidently isn't Sally, have I met the lady?" + +"You haven't. She's in England." + +"It's four years, isn't it, since you were over there?" + +Hawtrey lay silent a minute, and then made a little confidential +gesture. "I'd better tell you all about the thing," he said. "Our +folks were people of some little standing in the county. In fact, as +they were far from rich, they had just standing enough to embarrass +them. In most respects they were ultra-conventional with old-fashioned +ideas, and, though there was no open break, I'm afraid I didn't get on +with them quite as well as I should have done, which is why I came out +to Canada. They started me on the land decently, and twice when we'd +harvest frost and horse-sickness, they sent the draft I asked them for +along. That is one reason why I'm not going to worry them, though I'd +very much like another now. You see, there are two girls, as well as +Reggie, who's reading for the Bar." + +"I don't think you have mentioned the lady yet." + +"She's a connection of some friends of ours. Her mother, so far as I +understand it, married beneath her--a man her folks didn't like. He +died, and, when by and bye his wife died, Agatha, who was brought up by +his relations, was often at the Grange. It's a little, old-fashioned, +half-ruinous place, a mile or two from where we live in the North of +England. It belongs to her mother's folks, but I think there was still +a feud between them and her father's people, who brought her up to earn +her living. We saw a good deal of each other, and fell in love as boy +and girl. Well, when I went back, one winter, after I'd been here two +years, Agatha was at the Grange again, and we decided then that I was +to bring her out as soon as I had a home she could live in to offer +her." + +He broke off for a moment, and there was a trace of embarrassment in +his manner when he went on again. "Perhaps I ought to have managed it +sooner," he added. "Still, things never seem to go quite as one would +like with me, and you can understand that a dainty, delicate girl +brought up in comfort in England would find it rough out here." + +Wyllard glanced round the bare room in which he sat, and into the +other, which was also furnished in a remarkably primitive manner. + +"Yes," he assented, "I can quite realise that." + +"Well," said his companion, "it's a thing that has been worrying me a +good deal of late, because, as a matter of fact, I'm not much farther +forward than I was four years ago. In the meanwhile, Agatha, who has +some talent for music, was in a first-class master's hands. Afterwards +she gave lessons, and got odd singing engagements. A week ago, I had a +letter from her in which she said that her throat was giving out." + +He stopped again for a moment, with trouble in his face, and then +fumbling under his pillow produced a letter, which he carefully folded. + +"We're rather good friends," he said. "You can read that part of it." + +Wyllard took the letter, and a suggestion of quickening interest crept +into his eyes as he read. Then he looked up at Hawtrey. + +"It's a brave letter--the kind a brave girl would write," he said. +"Still, it's evident that she's anxious." + +There was silence for a moment or two, which was only broken by Sally +clattering about the stove. Dissimilar in character, as they were, the +two were firm friends, and there had been a day when, as they worked +upon a dizzy railroad trestle, Hawtrey had held his comrade fast when a +plank slipped away. He had, it was characteristic, thought nothing of +the matter, but Wyllard was one who remembered things of that kind. + +"Now," said Hawtrey, "you see my trouble. This place isn't fit for +her, and I couldn't even go across for some time yet, but her father's +folks have died off, and there's nothing to be expected from her +mother's relatives. Any way, she can't be left to face the blow alone. +It's unthinkable. Well, there's only one course open to me, and that's +to raise as many dollars on a mortgage as I can, fit the place out with +fixings brought from Winnipeg, and sow a double acreage with borrowed +capital. I'll send for her as soon as I can get the house made a +little more comfortable." + +Wyllard sat silent a moment or two, and then leaned forward in his +chair. + +"No," he said, "there are two other and wiser courses. Tell the girl +what things are like here, and just how you stand. She'd face it +bravely. There's no doubt of that." + +Hawtrey looked at him sharply. "I believe she would, but considering +that you have never seen her, I don't quite know why you should be sure +of it." + +Wyllard smiled. "The girl who wrote that letter wouldn't flinch." + +"Well," said Hawtrey, "you can mention the second course." + +"I'll let you have $1,000 at bank interest--which is less than any +land-broker would charge you--without a mortgage." + +Again Hawtrey showed a certain embarrassment. "No," he said, "I'm +afraid it can't be done. I'd a kind of claim upon my people, though it +must be admitted that I've worked it off, but I can't quite bring +myself to borrow money from my friends." + +Wyllard, who saw that he meant it, made a gesture of resignation. +"Then you must let the girl make the most of it, but keep out of the +hands of the mortgage man. By the way, I haven't told you that I've +decided to make a trip to the Old Country. We'd a bonanza crop last +season, and Martial could run the range for a month or two. After all, +my father was born yonder, and I can't help feeling now and then that I +should have made an effort to trace up that young Englishman's +relatives, and tell them what became of him." + +"The one you struck in British Columbia? You have mentioned him, but, +so far as I remember, you never gave me any particulars about the +thing." + +Wyllard seemed to hesitate, which was not a habit of his. "There is," +he said, "not much to tell. I struck the lad sitting down, played out, +upon a trail that led over a big divide. It was clear that he couldn't +get any further, and there wasn't a settlement within a good many +leagues of the spot. We were up in the ranges prospecting then. Well, +we made camp and gave him supper--he couldn't eat very much--and he +told me what brought him there afterwards. It seemed to me he'd always +been weedy in the chest, but he'd been working waist-deep in an icy +creek, building a dam at a mine, until his lungs had given out. The +mining boss was a hard case and had no mercy on him, but the lad, who +seemed to have had a rough time in the Mountain Province, stayed with +it until he played out altogether." + +Wyllard's face hardened a little as he mentioned the mining boss, and a +rather curious little sparkle crept into his eyes, but after a pause he +proceeded quietly: + +"We did what we could for him. In fact, it rather broke up the +prospecting trip, but he was too far through," he added. "He hung on +for a week or two, and one of us brought a doctor out from the +settlements, but the day before we broke camp Jake and I buried him." + +Hawtrey made a sign of comprehension. He was reasonably well +acquainted with his comrade's character, and fancied he knew who had +brought the doctor out. He also knew that Wyllard had been earning his +living as a railroad navvy or chopper then, and, in view of the cost of +provisions brought by pack-horse into the remoter bush, the reason why +he had abandoned his prospecting trip after spending a week or two +taking care of the sick lad was clear enough. + +"You never learned his name?" he asked. + +"I didn't," said Wyllard. "I went back to the mine, but several things +suggested that the name upon their pay-roll wasn't his real one. He +commenced a broken message the night he died, but the hemorrhage cut +him off in the middle of it. The wish that I should tell his people +somehow was in his eyes." + +He broke off for a moment with a deprecatory gesture, which in +connection with the story was very expressive. + +"I have never done it, but how could I? All I know is that he was a +delicately brought up young Englishman, and the only clue I have is a +watch with a London maker's name on it and a girl's photograph. I've a +very curious notion that I shall meet that girl some day." + +Hawtrey, who made no comment, lay still for a minute or two after this, +but his face suggested that he was considering something. + +"Harry," he said presently, "I shall not be fit for a journey for quite +a while yet, and if I went over to England I couldn't get the ploughing +done and the crop in; which, if I'm going to be married, is absolutely +necessary." + +There was no doubt about the latter point, for the small Western farmer +has very seldom a balance in hand, and, for that matter, is not +infrequently in debt to the nearest storekeeper. He must, as a rule, +secure a harvest or abandon his holding, since, as soon as the crop is +thrashed, the bills pour in. Wyllard made a sign of assent. + +"Well," said Hawtrey, "if you're going to England you could go as my +deputy. You could make Agatha understand what things are like here, +and bring her out to me. I'll arrange for the wedding to be soon as +she arrives." + +His comrade was not a conventional person, but he pointed out several +objections. Hawtrey over-ruled them, however, and eventually Wyllard +reluctantly assented. + +"As it happens, Mrs. Hastings is going over, too, and if she comes back +about the same time the thing might be managed," he said. "I believe +she's in Winnipeg just now, but I'll write her. By the way, have you a +photograph of Agatha?" + +"I haven't," said Hawtrey. "She gave me one, but somehow it got +mislaid one house-cleaning. That's rather an admission, isn't it?" + +It certainly occurred to Wyllard that it was. In fact, it struck him +as a very curious thing that Hawtrey should have lost the picture which +the girl he was in love with had given him. He sat silent for a moment +or two, and then stood up. + +"When I hear from Mrs. Hastings I'll drive round again. Candidly, the +thing has somewhat astonished me. I always had a fancy it would be +Sally." + +Hawtrey laughed. "Sally?" he said. "We're first-rate friends, but I +never had the faintest notion of marrying her." + +Wyllard went out to harness his team, and, as it happened, did not +notice that Sally, who had approached the door with a tray in her hands +a moment or two earlier, drew back before him softly. When he had +crossed the room she set down the tray and leaned upon the table, with +her cheeks burning. Then, feeling that she could not stay in the +stove-heated room, she went out, and stood in the slushy snow. One of +her hands was tightly closed, and all the colour had vanished from her +cheeks now. She, however, contrived to give Hawtrey his supper by and +bye, and soon afterwards drove away. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A CRISIS. + +While Wyllard made arrangements for his journey, and Sally Creighton +went very quietly about her work on the lonely prairie farm, it +happened one evening that Miss Winifred Rawlinson sat uneasily +expectant far back under the gallery of a concert hall in an English +manufacturing town. She could not hear very well there, but it was the +cheapest place she could obtain, and economy was of some importance to +her. Besides, by craning her neck a little to avoid the hat of the +rather strikingly dressed young woman in front of her, she could, at +least, see the stage. The programme which she held in one hand +announced that Miss Agatha Ismay would sing a certain aria from a great +composer's oratorio, and she leaned further forward in her chair when a +girl of about her own age, which was twenty-four, slowly advanced to +the centre of the stage. + +She was a tall, well-made, brown-haired girl, with a quiet grace of +movement and a comely face, attired in a long trailing dress of a +shimmering corn-straw tint, but when she stood looking at the audience +Miss Rawlinson noticed a hint of tension in her expression. Agatha +Ismay had sung at unimportant concerts with marked success, but that +evening there was something very like shrinking in her eyes. + +Then a crash of chords from the piano melted into a rippling prelude, +and Winifred breathed easier when her friend began to sing. Her voice +was sweet and excellently trained, and there was a deep stillness of +appreciation when the clear notes thrilled through the close-packed +hall. No one could doubt that the first part of the aria was a +success, for half-subdued applause broke out when the voice sank into +silence, and for a few moments the piano rippled on alone; but it +seemed to Winifred that the look of tension was still in the singer's +face, and once more she grew uneasy, for she understood the cause for +it. + +"The last bit of the second part's rather trying," said a young man +behind her. "There's an awkward jump of two full tones that was too +much for our soprano when we tried it at the choral union. Miss +Ismay's very true in intonation, but I don't suppose most of the rest +would notice it if she shirked a little and left that high sharp out." + +Winifred had little knowledge of music, but she was sufficiently +acquainted with her friend's character to be certain that Agatha would +not attempt to leave the sharp in question out. This was one reason +why she sat rigidly still when the clear voice rang out again. It rose +from note to note, full and even, but she could see the singer's face, +and there was no doubt whatever that she was making a strenuous effort. +Nobody else, however, seemed to notice it, for Winifred flung a swift +glance round, and then fixed her eyes upon the dominant figure in the +corn-straw dress that the glare of light fell shimmering on. The sweet +voice was still rising, and she longed that the accompanist would force +the tone to cover it a little, and put the loud pedal on. He, however, +was gazing at his music, and played on quietly until, with startling +suddenness, the climax came. + +The voice sank a full tone, jarring horribly on the theme, rose, and +hoarsely trailed off into silence again. Then the accompanist glanced +over his shoulder, and struck a ringing chord while he waited for a +sign, and there was a curious stirring among the audience. The girl in +the shimmering dress stood quite still for a moment with a spot of +crimson in her cheek and a half-dazed look in her eyes, and then, +turning swiftly, moved off the stage. + +Then Winifred rose with a gasp, and turned upon the young man next her, +who looked up inquiringly. + +"Yes," she said sharply; "can't you let me pass? I'm going out." + +It was about half-past nine when she reached the wet and miry street. +A fine rain drove into her face, and she had rather more than a mile to +walk without an escort, but that was a matter which caused her no +concern. She was a self-reliant young woman, and accustomed to going +about unattended, while she was also quite aware that the scene she had +just witnessed would bring about a crisis in her and her friend's +affairs. For all that, she was unpleasantly conscious of the leak in +one rather shabby boot when she stepped down from the sidewalk to cross +the street, and when she opened her umbrella beneath a gas lamp she +pursed up her mouth. There were a couple of holes in it near where the +ribs ran into the ferrule, which she had not noticed before. She, +however, plodded on resolutely through the drizzle, until three +striplings who came with linked arms down the pavement of a quieter +street barred her way. One wore his hat on one side, the one nearest +the kerb flourished a little cane, and the third of them smiled at her +fatuously. + +"Oh my!" he said. "Where's dear Jemima off in such a hurry?" + +Winifred drew herself up. She was little and determined, and, it must +be admitted, not quite unaccustomed to that kind of thing. + +"Will you let me pass?" she said. "There's a policeman at the next +turning." + +"There really is," said one of them. "The Dook has another engagement. +Dream of me, Olivia!" + +A beat of heavy feet drew nearer, and the three roysterers disappeared +in the direction of a flaming music-hall, where the second "house" was +probably commencing, while Winifred, who had stepped into the gutter to +avoid the one with the cane, turned as a stalwart, blue-coated figure +moved towards her. + +"Thank you, officer," she said; "they've gone." + +The man merely raised a hand as if in comprehension, and plodded back +to his post. Perhaps he felt sorry for young women who have to earn +their living, for he had, at least, appeared promptly when he was +needed; and perhaps he attached no great importance to the matter. +There is a good deal that the policeman knows and accepts with +undisturbed equanimity, which if plainly expressed would, no doubt, +form a somewhat grim commentary on our complex civilisation. + +In the meanwhile Winifred went on until she let herself into a house in +a quiet street, and ascending to the second floor entered a simply +furnished room. It, however, contained a piano; and a little table on +which a typewriter stood amidst a litter of papers occupied the +opposite side of it. The girl sloughed off her waterproof, and rather +flung than hung it on a peg behind the door, after which she sat down +in a low chair beside the little fire. She was not a handsome girl, +and it was evident that she did not trouble herself greatly about her +attire. Her face was too thin, her figure too slight and spare, but +there was usually, even when she was anxious, as she certainly was that +night, a shrewdly whimsical twinkle in her eyes, and though her lips +were set her expression was compassionate. + +She was, however, not the person to sit still very long, and in a +minute or two she rose and placed a little kettle on the fire, after +which she took a few scones, a coffee-pot, and a tin of condensed milk +from a cupboard. When she had spread them out upon a table she +discovered that there was some of the condensed milk upon her fingers, +and it must be admitted that she sucked them. They were little, stubby +fingers, which somehow looked capable. + +"It must have been four o'clock when I had that bun and a cup of tea," +she said. + +She glanced at the table longingly: for she occasionally found it +necessary to place a certain check upon a healthy appetite. She was, +however, not singular in this respect, since the practice of such +self-denial is, unfortunately, not a very unusual thing in the case of +a good many young women in our cities who work remarkably hard. Then +she resolutely shook her head. + +"I must wait for Agatha," she said, and crossing the room towards the +typewriter table stopped to glance at a little framed photograph that +stood upon the mantel. It was a portrait of Gregory Hawtrey taken some +years ago, and she apostrophied it with quiet scorn. + +"Now you're wanted you're naturally away out yonder," she said. +"You're like the rest of them--despicable!" + +This seemed to relieve her feelings, and she sat down before the +machine, which clicked and rattled for several minutes under her stubby +fingers. Then the clicking ceased with sudden abruptness, and she +prodded the mechanism viciously with a hairpin. As this appeared +unavailing she used her forefinger, and when at length the carriage +slid along the rod with a clash there was a smear of grimy oil upon her +cheek and her somewhat tilted nose. The machine, however, gave no +further trouble, and she endeavoured to make up some, at least, of the +time she had spent at the concert. It was necessary that it should be +made up, but she was also conscious that she was putting off an evil +moment. + +At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, +came in. She permitted Winifred to take it from her, and then sank +down into a chair. There was a strained look in her eyes, and her face +was very weary. + +[Illustration: "At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in +a long cloak, came in."] + +"You're working late again?" she said. + +Winifred nodded. "It's the men who loaf, my dear," she said. "When +you undertake the transcription of an author's scrawl at ninepence the +thousand words you have to work unusually hard, especially when, as it +is in this case, the thing's practically unreadable. Besides, the +woman in it makes me lose my temper. If I'd had a man of the kind +described to deal with I'd have thrashed him." + +She was throwing words about, partly to conceal her anxiety, and partly +with the charitable purpose of giving her companion time to approach +the subject that must be mentioned as she thought best; but she rather +over-did it, and Agatha looked at her sharply. + +"Winny," she said, "you know. You've been there." + +Winifred turned towards her quietly, for she could face a crisis. + +"Yes," she said, "I have, but you're not going to talk about it until +you have had supper. Don't move until I make the coffee." + +She was genuinely hungry, but while she satisfied her own appetite she +took care that her companion, who did not seem inclined to eat, made a +simple meal. Then she bundled the plates into a cupboard, and sat down +facing her. + +"Well," she said, "you have broken down exactly as that throat +specialist said you would. The first question is, How long it will be +before you can go on again?" + +Agatha laughed, a little harsh laugh. "I didn't tell you everything at +the time: I've broken down for good." + +There was a moment or two's tense silence after that, and then Agatha +made a dejected gesture. "He warned me that this might happen if I +went on singing, but what could I do? I couldn't cancel my engagements +without telling people why. He said I must go to Norway and give my +throat and chest a rest." + +They looked at one another, and there was in their eyes the +half-bitter, half-weary smile of those to whom the cure prescribed is +ludicrously impossible. It was Winifred who spoke first. + +"Then," she said, "we have to face the situation, and it's not an +encouraging one. Our joint earnings just keep us here in decency--we +won't say comfort--and they're evidently to be subject to a big +reduction. It strikes me as a rather curious coincidence that a letter +from that man in Canada and one from your prosperous friends in the +country arrived just before you went out." + +She saw the look in Agatha's eyes, and spread her hands out. + +"Yes," she admitted; "I hid them. It seemed to me that you had quite +enough upon your mind this evening. I don't know if they're likely to +throw any fresh light upon the question what we're going to do." + +She produced the letters from a drawer in her table, and Agatha +straightened herself suddenly in her chair when she had opened the +first of them. + +"Oh," she cried, "he wants me to go out to him!" + +Winifred's face set hard for a moment, but it relaxed again, and she +contrived to hide her dismay. + +"Then," she suggested with a trace of dryness, "I suppose you'll +certainly go. After all, he's probably not worse to live with than +most of them." + +Miss Rawlinson was occasionally a little bitter, but she had, like +others of her kind, been compelled to compete in an overcrowded market +with hard-driven men. She was, however, sincerely attached to her +friend, and she smiled when she saw the flash in Agatha's eyes. + +"Oh," she added, "you needn't try to wither me with your indignation. +No doubt he's precisely what he ought to be, and I dare say it will +ease your feelings if you talk about him again; at least, it will help +you to formulate your reasons for going out to him. I'll listen +patiently, and try not to be uncharitable." + +Agatha fell in with the suggestion. It was a relief to talk, and she +had also a certain respect, which she would not always admit, for her +companion's shrewdness. She meant to go, but she desired to ascertain +how a less interested person would regard the course she had decided on. + +"I have known Gregory since I was a girl," she said. + +Winifred pursed her lips up. "I understood you met him at the Grange, +and you were only there for a few weeks once a year. After all, that +isn't a very great deal. It seems he fell in love with you, which is, +perhaps, comprehensible. What I don't quite know the reason for is why +you fell in love with him." + +"Ah," said Agatha, "you have never seen Gregory." + +"I haven't," said Winifred sourly; "I have, however, seen his picture, +and one must admit that he's reasonably good-looking. In fact, I've +seen quite an assortment of them, but it's, perhaps, significant that +the last was taken some years ago." + +Agatha smiled. "Can a photograph show the clean, sanguine temperament +of a man, his impulsive generosity, and cheerful optimism?" + +Miss Rawlinson rose, and critically surveyed the photograph on the +mantel. "I don't want to be discouraging, but after studying that one +I'm compelled to admit that it can't. No doubt it's the artist's +fault, but I'm willing to admit that a young girl would be rather apt +to credit a man with a face like that with qualities he didn't +possess." Then she sat down again with a thoughtful expression. "The +fact is, you set him up on a pedestal and burned incense to him when +you were not old enough to know any better, and when he came home for a +few weeks four years ago you promised to marry him. Now it seems he's +ready at last, and wants you to go out. Perhaps it doesn't affect the +question, but if I'd promised to marry a man in Canada he'd certainly +have to come for me. Isn't there a certain risk in the thing?" + +"A risk?" + +Winifred nodded. "Yes," she said, "rather a serious one. Four years +is a long time, and the man may have changed. In a new country where +everything's different it must be a thing they're rather apt to do." + +A faint, half-compassionate, half-tolerant smile crept into Agatha's +eyes. The mere idea that the sunny-tempered, brilliant young man whom +she had given her heart to could have changed or degenerated in any way +seemed absurd to her. Winifred, however, went on again. + +"There's another point," she said. "If he's still the same, which +isn't likely, there has certainly been a change in you. You have +learned to see things more clearly, and acquired a different standard +from the one you had then. One can't help growing, and as one grows +one looks for more. One is no longer pleased with the same things; +it's inevitable." + +She broke off for a moment, and her voice grew gentler. + +"Well," she added, "I've done my duty in trying to point this out to +you, and now there's only another thing to say: since you're clearly +bent on going, I'm going out with you." + +Agatha looked astonished, but there was a suggestion of relief in her +expression, for the two had been firm friends and had faced a good deal +together. + +"Oh," she said, "that gets over the one difficulty." + +Winifred made a little whimsical gesture. "I'm not quite sure that it +does. The difficulty will probably begin when I arrive in Canada, but +I'm a rather capable person, and I believe they don't pay one ninepence +a thousand words in Winnipeg. Besides, I could keep the books at a +store or hotel, and at the very worst Gregory could, perhaps, find a +husband for me. Women, one understands, are after all held in some +estimation in that country. Perhaps there's a man out there who would +treat even a little, plain, vixenish-tempered person with a turned-up +nose decently." + +Crossing the room again she banged the cover down on the typewriter, +and then turned to Agatha with a wide gesture and a suggestion of +haziness in her eyes. + +"Anyway, I'm very tired of this one. It would all be intolerable when +you went away." + +Agatha stretched out a hand and drew her down beside her. She, at +least, no longer feared adverse fortune and loneliness, and she was +filled with a gentle compassion, for she knew how hard a fight this +girl had made, and part at least of what she had borne. + +"My dear," she said, "we will go together." + +Then she opened the second letter, which she had forgotten in the +meanwhile. + +"They want me to stay at the Grange for a few weeks," she said, and +smiled. "An hour ago I felt crushed and beaten--and now, though my +voice has probably gone for good, I don't seem to mind. Isn't it +almost bewilderingly curious that both these letters should have come +to sweep my troubles away to-night?" + +"No," said her companion; "it's distinctly natural--just what one would +have expected. You wrote the man in Canada soon after you'd seen the +specialist, and his answer was bound to arrive in the next few days." + +"But I certainly didn't write the folks at the Grange." + +Winifred's eyes twinkled. "As it happens, I did, two days ago. I +ventured to point out their duty to them, and they were rather nice +about it in another letter." + +Agatha stretched herself out in the low chair with a little sigh of +content. "Well," she said, "it probably wouldn't have the least effect +if I scolded you. I believe I'm horribly worn out, Winny, and it will +be a relief unspeakable to get away. If I can arrange to give up those +pupils I'll go to-morrow." + +Winifred made no answer, and kneeling with one elbow resting on the arm +of her companion's chair gazed straight in front of her. They were +both of them very weary of the long grim struggle, and now a change was +close at hand. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE OLD COUNTRY. + +It was a still, clear evening of spring when Wyllard, unstrapping the +ruchsack from his shoulders, sat down beside a frothing stream in a +dale of Northern England. On arriving in London a week or two earlier +he had found a letter from Mrs. Hastings, who was then in Paris, +awaiting him, in which she stated that she could not at the moment say +when she would go home again, but that she expected to advise him +shortly. After answering it he started North, and, obtaining Agatha's +address from Miss Rawlinson, went on again to a certain little town +which stands encircled by towering fells beside a lake in the North +Country. + +He had, however, already recognised that his mission was rather a +delicate one, and he decided that it would be advisable to wait until +he heard from Mrs. Hastings before calling upon Miss Ismay. There then +remained the question, what to do with the next few days. A +conversation with some pedestrian tourists whom he met at his hotel, +and a glance at a map of the hill-tracks decided him, and remembering +that he had on several occasions kept the trail in Canada for close on +forty miles on end, he bought a Swiss pattern ruchsack, and set out on +foot through the fells. + +Incidentally, he saw such scenery as gave him a new conception of the +Old Country, and nearly broke the hearts of his new friends the +tourists, who volunteered to show him the way over what they evidently +considered to be a rather difficult pass. To their great astonishment +the brown-faced stranger, who wore ordinary tight-fitting American +attire and rather pointed American shoes, went up it apparently without +an effort, and for the credit of the clubs they belonged to, it seemed +incumbent on them to keep pace with him. They naturally did not know +that he had carried bags of flour and mining tools over very much +higher passes close up to the limit of eternal snow, but after two +days' climbing they were, on the whole, relieved to part company with +him. + +A professional guide who overtook them, however, recognised the +capabilities of the man when he noticed the way he lifted his feet and +how he set them down. This, he decided, was one accustomed to walking +among the heather, but he was wrong; for it was the trick the bushman +learns when he plods through leagues of undergrowth and fallen +branches, or the tall grass of the swamps; and it is a memorable +experience to make a day's journey with such a man. For the first hour +the thing seems easy, for the pace is never forced, but it also never +slackens down; and as the hours go by the novice, who flounders and +stumbles, grows horribly weary of trying to keep up with that steady, +persistent swing. + +Wyllard had travelled since morning along a ridge of fells when he sat +down beside the water and contentedly filled his pipe. On the one +hand, a wall of crags high above was growing black against the evening +light, and the stream came boiling down clear as crystal among great +boulder stones; but he had wandered through many a grander and more +savage scene of rocky desolation, and it impressed him less than the +green valley in front of him. He had, at least, never seen anything +like that either on the Pacific slope or in Western Canada. + +Early as it was in the season, the meadows between rock and water were +green as emerald, and the hedge-rows, just flushed with verdure, were +clipped and trimmed as though their owner loved them. There was not a +dead tree in the larch copse which dipped to the stream, and all its +feathery tassels were sprinkled with tiny flecks of crimson and +wondrous green. Great oaks dotted the meadows, each one perfect in +symmetry. It seemed that the men who held this land cared for single +trees. The sleek, tame cattle that rubbed their necks on the level +hedge-top and gazed at him ruminatively were very different from the +wild, long-horned creatures whose furious stampede he had now and then +headed off, riding hard while the roar of hoofs rang through the +dust-cloud that floated like a sea fog across the sun-scorched prairie. +Here, it seemed, all went smoothly; the whole vale was steeped in peace +and tranquillity. + +Then he noticed the pale primroses that pushed their yellow flowers up +among the withered leaves, and the faint blue sheen beneath the beech +trunks not far away. There was a vein of artistic daintiness in this +man, and the elusive beauty of these things curiously appealed to him. +He had seen the riotous, sensuous blaze of flowers kissed by Pacific +breezes, and the burnished gold of wheat that rolled in mile-long +waves; but it seemed to him that the wild things of the English North +were, after all, more wonderful. They matched its deep peacefulness; +their beauty was chaste, fairy-like, and ethereal. + +By and bye a wood pigeon cooed softly somewhere in the shadows, and a +brown thrush perched on a bare oak bough began to sing. The broken, +repeated melody went curiously well with the rippling murmur of sliding +water, and Wyllard leaned back with a smile to listen, though he could +not remember ever having done anything of that kind before. His life +had been a strenuous one, spent for the most part in the driving-seat +of great ploughs that rent their ample furrows through virgin prairie, +guiding the clinking binders through the wheat under a blazing sun, or +driving the plunging dories through the clammy fog over short, slopping +seas. Now, however, the tranquillity of the English valley stole in on +him, and he began to understand how the love of that well-trimmed land +clung to the men out West, who spoke of it tenderly as the Old Country. + +Then, for he was in an unusually susceptible mood, he took a little +deerhide case, artistically made by a Blackfoot Indian, from his +pocket, and extracted from it the somewhat faded photograph of an +English girl. He had got it from the lad he had buried among the +ranges of the Pacific slope, and it had been his companion in many a +desolate camp and on many a weary journey. The face was delicately +modelled, and there was a freshness in it which is, perhaps, seldom +seen outside the Old Country; but what pleased him more was the +serenity in the clear, innocent eyes. + +He was not in love with the picture--he would probably have smiled at +the notion--but he had a curious feeling that he would meet the girl +some day, and that it would then be a privilege only to speak to her. +This was, after all, not so extravagant a fancy as it might appear, for +romance, the mother of chivalry and many graces, still finds shelter in +the hearts of such men as him from the wide spaces of the newer lands. +Shrewd as they are, and practical, they see visions now and then, and, +what is more, prove them to be realities with bleeding hands and toil +incredible. + +By and bye he put the photograph back in his pocket, and filled his +pipe again, while it was almost dark before he had smoked it out. The +thrush had gone, and only the ripple of the water broke the silence, +until he heard footsteps on the stones behind him. Then, looking +round, he saw a young woman moving towards the river, and he watched +her with a quiet interest, for his perceptions were a little sharper +than usual then, and it seemed to him that she was very much in harmony +with what he thought of as the key-tone of the place. She was tall and +shapely, and she moved with a quiet grace. When she stopped a moment, +poised upon a shelf of rock as though considering the easiest way to +the water, her figure fell into reposeful lines, but that was after all +only what he had expected, for he now remembered that he had +half-consciously studied the Englishwomen he had met in the West. + +The Western women usually moved, and certainly spoke, with an almost +superfluous vivacity and alertness. There was in them a feverish +activity, which contrasted with the English deliberation. The latter +had sometimes exasperated him, but it was becoming comprehensible, and +taking on a more favourable aspect now. It was, he felt, born of the +tranquillity of this well-trimmed land, a steadfastness that progressed +slowly by system and rule, and he recognised that it would have +troubled his sense of fitness if this girl had clattered down across +the stones hurriedly and noisily. + +As yet he could not see her face, but when she went on a little further +it became evident that she desired to cross the river, and was +regarding the row of stepping stones that stretched across it somewhat +dubiously. One or two had apparently fallen over, or been washed away +by a flood, for there were several rather wide gaps between them, +through which the stream frothed whitely. As soon as Wyllard noticed +that, he rose and moved towards her. + +"You want to get across?" he said. + +She was still glancing at the water, but although he did not think she +had seen him or heard his approach, she turned towards him quietly. +Then a momentary sense of astonishment held him almost embarrassed, for +it was her picture he had gazed at scarcely half an hour ago, and he +would have recognised her anywhere. + +"Yes," she said. "It is rather a long way round by the bridge, but +some of the stones seem to have disappeared since I last came this way." + +She spoke, as Wyllard had expected, softly and quietly, but he was +first of all a man of action, and, somewhat to her astonishment, he +forthwith waded into the river. Then he turned and held out his hand +to her. + +"It isn't a very long step. You ought to manage it," he said. + +The girl favoured him with a swift glance of scrutiny. At first she +had supposed him to be one of the walking tourists or climbers who +invaded those valleys at Easter; but they were, for the most part, +young men from the cities, and this stranger's face was darkened by the +sun. There was also an indefinite suggestion of strength in the pose +of his lean, symmetrical figure, which, though she did not recognise +that fact, could only have come from strenuous labour in the open air. +She, however, noticed that while the average Englishman would have +asked permission to help her, or have deprecated the offer, this +stranger did nothing of the kind. He stood with the water frothing +about his ankles, holding out his hand. + +She had no hesitation about taking it, and while he waded through the +river she stepped lightly from stone to stone until she came to a +rather wider gap, where the stream was deeper. Then she stopped a +moment, gazing at the sliding froth, until the man's grasp tightened on +her fingers, and she felt his other hand rest upon her waist. + +"Now," he said, "I won't let you fall." + +[Illustration: "'Now,' he said, 'I won't let you fall.'"] + +She was across the gap in another moment, wondering somewhat uneasily +why she had obeyed the compelling pressure, but glad to see that his +face was perfectly unmoved, and that he was evidently quite unconscious +of having done anything unusual. She crossed without mishap, and when +they stood on the shingle he dropped her hand. + +"Thank you," she said. "I'm afraid you got rather wet." + +The man laughed, and he had a pleasant laugh. "Oh," he said, "I'm used +to it. Isn't there a village with a hotel in it, a mile or two from +here?" + +"Yes," said the girl, "this is the way. The path goes up to the high +road through the larch wood." + +She turned into it, and, though she had not expected this, the man +walked beside her. Still, she did not resent it. His manner was +deferential, and she liked his face, while there was, after all, no +reason why he should stay behind when he was going the same way. He +accompanied her silently for several minutes as they went on through +the gloom of the larches, where a sweet, resinous odour crept into the +still, evening air, and then he looked up as they came to a towering +pine. + +"Have you got many of those trees over here?" he asked. + +Then a light dawned upon the girl, for, though he had spoken without +perceptible accent, she had been slightly puzzled by something in his +speech and appearance. + +"I believe they're not uncommon. You are an American?" she said. + +Wyllard laughed. "No," he said. "I was born in Western Canada, but I +think I'm as English as you are, in some respects, though I never quite +realised it until to-night. It isn't exactly because my father came +from this country, either." + +The girl was a trifle astonished at this answer, and still more at the +indefinite something in his manner which seemed to indicate that he +expected her to understand, as, indeed, she did. Her only dowry had +been an expensive education, and she remembered that the influence of +the isle she lived in had in turn fastened on Saxons, Norsemen, +Normans, and made them Englishmen. What was more, so far as she had +read, those who had gone out South or Westwards had carried that +influence with them and, under all their surface changes, and sometimes +their grievances against the Motherland, were, in the great essentials, +wholly English still. + +"But," she said at random, "how can you be sure that I'm English?" + +It was quite dark in among the trees, but she fancied there was a smile +in her companion's eyes. + +"Oh," he answered simply, "you couldn't be anything else!" + +She accepted this as a compliment, though she fancied that it had not +been his direct intention to pay her one. His general attitude since +she had met him scarcely suggested such a lack of sense. She was +becoming mildly interested in this stranger, but she possessed several +essentially English characteristics, and it did not appear advisable to +encourage him too much. She said nothing further, and it was he who +spoke first. + +"I wonder," he said, "if you knew a young lad who went out to Canada +some few years ago. His name was Pattinson--Henry Pattinson." + +"No," said his companion, "I certainly did not. Besides, the name is +not an uncommon one. There are a good many Pattinsons in the North." + +Wyllard was not astonished at this answer. He had reasons for +believing that the name the lad he had befriended had enrolled himself +under was not his correct one. It would, of course, have been easy to +describe him, but Wyllard was shrewd, and noticing that there was now a +restraint in his companion's manner he was not prepared to do that yet. +He was aware that most of the English are characterised by a certain +reserve, and apt to retire into their shells if pressed too hard. He +did not, however, mean to let this girl elude him altogether. + +"It really doesn't matter," he said, "I shall no doubt get upon his +trail in due time." + +They reached the high road a minute or two later, and the girl turned +to him. + +"Thank you again," she said. "If you go straight on you will come to +the village in about a quarter of an hour." + +Then she turned away and left him standing with his soft hat in his +hand, and, as it happened, he stood quite still for almost a minute +after she had gone. In due time, however, he reached the inn he had +inquired about, and its old-world simplicity delighted him. It was +built, feet thick, of slate stone, against the foot of the fell, and +roofed, as he noticed, with ponderous flags. In Canada, where the +frost was Arctic, they used thin cedar shingles. The room his meal was +brought him in was panelled with oak that had turned black with age. +Great rough-hewn beams of four times the size that anybody would have +used for the purpose in the West supported the low ceiling, and--for +there was a fire on the wide hearth--the ruddy gleam of burnished +copper utensils pierced the shadows. The room was large, and there was +only a single candle upon the table, but he felt that a garish light +would somehow be out of harmony with the atmosphere of that interior. + +By and bye his hostess appeared to clear the things away, and she was a +little, withered old woman, immaculately neat, with shrewd, kindly +eyes, and a russet tinge in her cheeks. + +"There's a good light, and company in the sitting-room," she said. +"We've three young men staying with us. They've been up the Pike." + +"I'd sooner stay here, if I may," said Wyllard. "I don't quite know +yet if I'll go on to-morrow. One can get through to Langley Dale by +the Hause, as I think you call it?" + +The wrinkled dame said that pedestrians often went that way, and +Wyllard asked a question casually. + +"There are some prosperous folks--people of station living round here? + +"There's the vicar. I don't know that he's what you'd call prosperous. +Then there's Mr. Martindale, of Rushyholme, and Little, of the Ghyll." + +"Has any of them a daughter of about twenty-four years of age?" and +Wyllard described the girl he had met to the best of his ability. + +It was evident that the landlady did not recognise the description, but +she seemed to consider. + +"No," she said, "there's nobody like that; but I did hear that they'd a +young lady staying at the vicarage." + +Then she changed the subject abruptly, and Wyllard once more decided +that the English did not like questions. + +"You're a stranger, sir?" she said. + +"I am," said Wyllard. "I've some business to attend to further on, but +I came along on foot, to see the fells, and I'm glad I did. It's a +great and wonderful country you're living in. That is," he added +gravely, "when you get outside the towns. There are things in some of +them that most make one ill." + +Then he stood up. "That tray's too heavy for you. Won't you let me +carry it?" + +The landlady seemed astonished, but she made it clear that she desired +no assistance, and when she went out Wyllard, who sat down again, took +out the photograph. He gazed at it steadfastly, and then put it back +into his pocket. + +"There's rather more than mere prettiness there, but I don't know that +I want to keep it now," he said. "It's way behind the original. She +has grown in the meanwhile--just as one would expect that girl to grow." + +Then he lighted his pipe, and smoked thoughtfully until he appeared to +arrive at a decision. + +"One can't force the running in this country. They don't like it," he +said. "I'll lie by a day or two, and keep an eye on that vicarage." + +In the meanwhile his hostess was discussing him with a niece. + +"I'm sure I don't know what that man is," she informed the younger +woman. "He has got the manners of a gentleman, but he walks like a +fell shepherd, and his hands are like a navvy's. A man's hands now and +then tell you a good deal about him. Besides, of all things, he wanted +to carry his tray away. Said it was too heavy for me." + +"Oh," said her niece, "he's an American. There's no accounting for +them." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +HER PICTURE. + +Wyllard stayed at the inn three days without seeing anything more of +the girl he had met beside the stream, though he diligently watched for +her. For one thing, he had long felt it was his duty to communicate +with the relatives of the lad he had befriended, and the fact that he +had found her photograph in the young Englishman's possession made it +appear highly probable that she could assist him in tracing them. +Apart from this, he could not quite analyse his motives for desiring to +see more of her, though he was conscious of the desire. Her picture +had, however, been a companion to him in his wanderings, and he had, +indeed, now and then found a certain solace in gazing at it, while now +he had seen her in the flesh he was willing to admit that he had never +met any woman who had made the same impression on him. What he meant +by that he was not quite certain; but it was in the meanwhile as far as +he would go. + +It was, of course, open to him to call at the vicarage, but though he +meant to adopt that course as a last resort, there were certain +objections to it. He did not even know the girl's name, and there was +nobody to say a word for him; while, so far as his experience went, the +English were rather apt to be reticent and reserved to an unknown +stranger. It seemed to him that, although she might give him the +information he required, their acquaintance would probably terminate +then and there, which was not what he desired. She would, he decided, +be less likely to stand upon her guard if he could contrive to meet her +casually without pre-arrangement. + +On the fourth day fortune favoured him, for he came upon her +endeavouring to open a tottering gate where a stony hill track led off +from the smooth white road. As it happened, he had received a letter +from Mrs. Hastings that morning, fixing the date of her departure, +which rendered it necessary for him to discharge the duty Hawtrey had +saddled him with as soon as possible. The Grange, where he understood +Miss Ismay was then staying, lay thirty miles away across the fells, +and he had already decided to start early on the morrow. That being +the case, it was clear that he must make the most of this opportunity; +but he also realised that it would be advisable to proceed +circumspectly. Saying nothing, he set his shoulder to the gate, and +lifting it on its decrepit hinges swung it open. + +"Thank you," said the girl, and then, remembering that this was the +last thing she had said to him, she smiled, as she added, "It is the +second time you have turned up when I was in difficulties." + +In spite of his resolution to proceed cautiously, a twinkle crept into +Wyllard's eyes, and suggested that the fact she had mentioned was not +so much of a coincidence as it probably appeared. She saw it, and was +about to pass on, when he stopped her with a gesture. He was, after +all, usually a candid person. + +"The fact is, I have been looking out for you the last three days," he +said. + +He fancied the girl had taken alarm at this, and spread his hands out +deprecatingly. "Won't you hear me out?" he added. "There's a matter I +must put before you, but I won't keep you long." + +His companion was a little puzzled, and naturally curious. It struck +her as somewhat strange that his rather startling admission should have +roused in her very little indignation; but she felt that it would be +unreasonable to suspect this man of anything that savoured of +impertinence. His manner was reassuring, and she liked his face. + +"Well?" she said inquiringly. + +The man indicated a big oak trunk that lay just inside the gate. + +"If you'll sit down, I'll get through as quick as I can," he said. "In +the first place, I am, as I told you, a Canadian, come over partly to +see the country, and partly to carry out one or two duties. In regard +to one of them, I believe you can help me." + +His companion's face was expressive of a very natural astonishment. + +"I could help you?" + +Wyllard nodded. "I'll explain my reasons for believing it later on," +he said. "In the meanwhile, I asked you a question the other night, +which I'll now try to make more explicit. Were you ever acquainted +with a young Englishman who went to Canada from this country several +years ago? He would be about twenty then, and had dark hair and eyes. +That, of course, isn't an unusual thing, but there was a rather curious +white mark on his left temple. If he was ever a friend of yours, that +scar ought to fix it." + +"Oh!" said the girl, "that must have been Lance Radcliffe. I was with +him when the scar was made--ever so long ago. But you said his name +was Pattinson--and we heard that he was dead." + +"I did," said Wyllard gravely. "Still, I wasn't quite sure of it, and +he's certainly dead. I buried him." + +His companion made a little abrupt movement, and he saw the sudden +softening of her eyes. There was, however, only a gentle pity in them, +and nothing in her manner suggested the deeper feeling he had +half-expected. That was also a relief to him. + +"Then," she said, "I am sure that his father would like to meet you. +There was some trouble between them--I don't know which was wrong--and +Lance went out to Canada, and never wrote. By and bye, Major Radcliffe +tried to trace him through a Vancouver banker, and only found that he +had died in the hands of a stranger who had done all that was possible +for him." She turned to Wyllard with a look which set his heart +beating rather faster than usual. "You are that man?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "I did what I could for him. It didn't +amount to very much. He was too far gone." + +Then at her request he told her the story he had told to Hawtrey, and +when he had finished her face was soft again, for it had stirred her +curiously. + +"But," she said, "he had no claim on you." + +Wyllard lifted one hand as if in expostulation. "He was dying in the +bush. Wasn't that enough?" + +The girl made no answer for a moment or two. She had earned her living +for several years, and was, because of it, to some extent acquainted +with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are +certainly hard men in Canada, the small farmers and ranchers of the +West--and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build +railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific +slope--are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them +the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still, +watching her companion covertly, she understood that this man whom she +had seen for the first time three days ago had done exactly what she +would have expected of him. Then she proceeded to give him the +information she supposed he desired. + +"I saw a good deal of Lance Radcliffe--when I was younger," she said. +"His people still live at Garside Scar, close by Dufton Holme. I +presume you will call on them?" + +Wyllard said that he proposed doing so as he had a watch and one or two +other mementoes that they might like to have, and when she told him how +to reach Dufton Holme by a very round-about railway journey he supposed +it lay somewhere in the dale to which he already purposed going. Then +she turned to him again. + +"There is one point that rather puzzles me," she said. "How did you +know that I could tell you anything about him?" + +The man thrust his hand into his pocket, and took out a little leather +case. + +"You are by no means a stranger to me," he said, and quietly handed her +the photograph. "This is your picture; I found it among the dead lad's +things." + +The girl, who started visibly, flashed a very keen glance at him. +There was, however, no doubt that he had not intended to produce any +dramatic effect. Then she flushed a little. + +"I never knew he had it," she said. "Perhaps he got it from his +sister." She paused, and then, as though impelled to make the fact +quite clear, added, "I certainly never gave it him." + +Wyllard smiled gravely, for he recognised that while she was clearly +grieved to hear of his death, she could have had no particular +tenderness for the unfortunate lad. He was, however, a little off his +guard just then. + +"Well," he said, "perhaps he took it in the first place for the mere +beauty of it, and it afterwards became a companion--something that +connected him with the Old Country. It appealed in one of those ways +to me." + +Again she flashed a sharp glance at him, but he went on unheeding: + +"When I found it I meant to keep it merely as a clue, and so that it +could be given up to his relatives some day," he added. "Then I fell +into the habit of looking at it in my lonely camp in the bush at night, +and when I sat beside the stove while the snow lay deep upon the +prairie. There was something in your eyes that seemed to encourage me." + +"To encourage you?" + +"Yes," Wyllard assented gravely; "I think that expresses it. When I +camped in the bush of the Pacific slope we were either out on the gold +trail--and we generally came back ragged and unsuccessful after +spending several months' wages which we could badly spare--or I was +going from one wooden town to another without a dollar in my pocket and +wondering, how I was to obtain one when I got there. For a time it +wasn't much more cheerful on the prairie: twice in succession the +harvest failed. Perhaps Lance Radcliffe felt as I did." + +The girl cut him short. "Why didn't you mention the photograph at +once?" + +Wyllard smiled at her. "Oh," he said, "I didn't want to be +precipitate--your folks don't seem to like that; I've met them out +West. I think"--and he seemed to consider--"I wanted to make sure you +wouldn't be repelled by what might look like Colonial _brusquerie_. +You see, you have been over snow-barred divides and through great +shadowy forests with me. We've camped among the boulders by lonely +lakes, and gone down frothing rapids. I felt--I can't tell you +why--that I was bound to meet you some day." + +It was, perhaps, a trifle startling, but the girl now showed neither +astonishment nor resentment. She felt curiously certain that this +stranger was not posing or speaking for effect. It did not occur to +him that he might have gone too far, and for a space he leaned against +the gate, saying nothing, while she looked at him with what he thought +of as her gracious English calm. + +Pale sunshine fell upon them, though the larches beside the road were +rustling beneath a little cold wind, and the song of the river came up +brokenly out of the valley. An odour of fresh grass floated about +them, and the dry, cold smell of the English spring was in the air. +Across the valley dim ghosts of hills lighted by evanescent gleams rose +out of the east wind greyness with shadowy grandeur. + +Then Wyllard seemed to rouse himself. "I wonder if I ought to write +Major Radcliffe and tell him what my object is before I call?" he said. +"It would make the thing a little easier." + +The girl rose. "Yes," she assented, "that would, perhaps, be wiser." +Then she glanced at the photograph which was still in her hand. "It +has served its purpose. I scarcely think it would be of any great +interest to Major Radcliffe." + +She saw his face change as she made it evident that she did not mean to +give the portrait back to him; but there was, at least, one excellent +reason why she would not have her picture in a strange man's hands. + +"Thank you," she said, "for the story. I am glad we have met; but I'm +afraid I have already kept my friends waiting for me." + +Then she turned away, and it occurred to Wyllard that he had made a +very indifferent use of the opportunity, since she had neither asked +his name nor told him hers. It was, however, evident that he could not +well run after her and demand it, and he decided that he could in all +probability obtain it from Major Radcliffe when he called upon him. +Still, he regretted his lack of adroitness as he walked back to the +inn, where he wrote two letters when he had consulted a map and his +landlady. Dufton Holme, he discovered, was a small village within a +mile or two of the Grange where, as Miss Rawlinson had informed him, +Agatha Ismay was then staying. One letter was addressed to her, and he +formally asked permission to call upon her with a message from Gregory +Hawtrey. The other was to Major Radcliffe, and in both he said that an +answer would reach him at the inn which his landlady had informed him +was to be found not far from either of the houses he proposed to visit. + +He set out on foot next morning, and after climbing a steep pass +followed a winding track across a waste of empty moor until he struck a +smooth white road, which led past a rock-girt lake and into a deep +valley. It was six o'clock when he started, and three when he reached +the inn, where he found an answer to one of his letters awaiting him. +It was from Major Radcliffe, who desired an interview with him as soon +as possible. + +Within an hour he was on his way to the Major's house, where a +grey-haired man, whose yellow skin suggested long exposure to a +tropical sun, and a little withered lady were waiting for him. They +received him graciously, but there was an indefinite something in their +manner and bearing which Wyllard, who had read a good deal, recognised, +though he had never been brought into actual contact with it until +then. He felt that he could not have expected to come across such +people anywhere but in England, unless it was at the headquarters of a +British battalion in India. + +He told his story tersely, softening unpleasant details, and making +little of what he had done, and the grey-haired man listened gravely +with an unmoved face, though a trace of moisture crept into the little +lady's eyes. There was silence for a moment or two when he had +finished, and then Major Radcliffe, whose manner was very quiet, turned +to him. + +"You have laid me under an obligation which I could never wipe out, +even if I wished it," he said. "It was my only son you buried out +there in Canada." + +He broke off for a moment, and his quietness was more marked than ever +when he went on again. + +"As you have no doubt surmised, we quarrelled," he said. "He was +extravagant and careless--at least I thought that then--but now it +seems to me that I was unduly hard on him. His mother"--and he turned +to the little lady with an inclination that pleased Wyllard +curiously--"was sure of it at the time. In any case, I took the wrong +way, and he went out to Canada. I made that, at least, easy for +him--and I have been sorry ever since." + +He paused again with a little expressive gesture. "It seems due to +him, and you, that I should tell you this. When no word reached us I +had inquiries made, through a banker he called upon, who, discovering +that he had registered at a hotel as Pattinson, at length traced him to +a British Columbian silver mine. He had, however, left it shortly +before my correspondent learned that he had been employed there, and +all the latter could tell me was that an unknown prospector had nursed +him until he died." + +Wyllard, who said nothing, took out a watch and the clasp of a +workman's belt from his pocket, and laid them gently on Mrs. +Radcliffe's knee. He saw her eyes fill, and turned his head away. + +"I feel that you may blame me for not writing sooner, but it was only a +very little while ago that I was able to trace you, and then it was +only by a very curious--coincidence," he said presently. + +This was the most apposite word that occurred to him, for he did not +consider it advisable to mention the photograph. It seemed to him that +the girl would not like it. Nor, though he was greatly tempted, did he +care to make inquiries concerning her just then. In another moment or +two the Major spoke again. + +"If I can make your stay here pleasanter in any way I should be +delighted," he said. "If you will take up your quarters with us I will +send down to the inn for your things." + +Wyllard excused himself, but when the lady urged him at least to dine +with them on the following evening he appeared to consider. + +"The one difficulty is that I don't know yet whether I shall be engaged +then," he explained. "As it happens, I've a message for Miss Ismay, +and I wrote offering to call upon her at any convenient hour. So far I +have heard nothing from her." + +"She's away," Mrs. Radcliffe informed him. "They have probably sent +your letter on to her. I had a note from her yesterday, however, and +expect her here to-morrow. You have met some friends of hers in +Canada?" + +"Gregory Hawtrey," said Wyllard. "I have promised to call upon his +people, too." + +He saw Major Radcliffe glance at his wife, and the faint gleam in the +latter's eyes. + +"Well," she said, "if you will promise to come I will send word over to +Agatha." + +Wyllard agreed to this, and went away a few minutes later. He noticed +the tact and consideration with which his new friends had refrained +from expressing any sign of the curiosity he fancied they naturally +felt, for Mrs. Radcliffe's face had suggested that she understood the +situation. The latter was, however, commencing to appear a little more +difficult to him. It was, it seemed, his task to explain to a girl +brought up among such people delicately what she must be prepared to +face as a farmer's wife in Western Canada. He was not sure that this +would be easy in itself, but it was rendered much more difficult by the +fact that Hawtrey would expect him to accomplish it without unduly +daunting her. Her letter had certainly suggested courage, but, after +all, it was as he reflected the courage of ignorance, and he had now +some notion of the life of ease and refinement her English friends led. +He was commencing to feel sorry for Agatha Ismay. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH. + +Next evening Wyllard sat with Mrs. Radcliffe in a big low-ceilinged +room at Garside Scar, looking about him with quiet interest. He had +now and then spent a day or two in huge Western hotels, but he had +never seen anything quite like that room. The sheer physical comfort +of its arrangements appealed to him, but after all he was not one who +had ever studied his bodily ease very much, and what he regarded as the +chaste refinement of its adornment had a deeper effect. Though he had +lived for the most part in the bush and on the prairie, he had been +endued with or had somehow acquired an artistic susceptibility. + +The furniture was old, and perhaps a trifle shabby, but it was, as he +noticed, of beautiful design. Curtains, carpets, tinted walls, formed, +it seemed to him, a harmony of soft colouring, and there were scattered +here and there dainty works of art, little statuettes from Italy, and +wonderful Indian ivory and silver work. Then a row of low, +stone-ribbed windows pierced the front of the room, and looking out he +saw the trim garden lying in the warm evening light. Immediately +beneath the windows ran a broad gravelled terrace, which was apparently +raked smooth every day, with a row of urns in which hyacinths bloomed +upon its pillared wall. From the middle of it a wide stairway led down +to the wonderful velvet lawn, which was dotted with clumps of cupressus +with golden gleams in it, and beyond that clipped yews rose smooth and +solid as a rampart of stone. + +It all impressed him curiously--the order and beauty of it, the signs +of loving care. It gave him a key, he fancied, to the lives the +cultured English led, for there was no sign of strain and fret and +stress and hurry here. Everything, it seemed, went smoothly with +rhythmic regularity, and though it is possible that a good many +Englishmen would have regarded Garside Scar as a very second-rate +country house, and seen in Major Radcliffe and his wife nothing more +than a somewhat prosy old soldier and a withered lady, old-fashioned in +her dress and views, this Westerner had what was, perhaps, a clearer +vision. He could imagine the Major standing fast at any cost upon some +minute point of honour, and it seemed to him that his lady might have +stepped down from some old picture with all the graces of an earlier +age and the smell of the English lavender upon her garments. Then he +remembered that, after all, Englishwomen lived somewhat coarsely in the +Georgian days, and that he had met hard-handed men grimed with dust and +sweat who could also stand fast by a point of honour in Western Canada. +Though the latter fact did not occur to him, he had, for that matter, +done it more than once himself. + +Then he recalled his wandering thoughts as his hostess smiled at him. + +"You are interested in all you see?" she asked frankly. + +"Yes, madam," said Wyllard--and the word rose instinctively to his +lips, for it seemed to him the only fitting way to address her. "In +fact, I'd like to spend some hours here and look at everything. I'd +begin at the pictures and work right round." + +His companion's smile suggested that she was not displeased. + +"But you have been in London?" + +"I have," said Wyllard. "I had one or two letters to folks there from +big flour shippers, and they did all they could to entertain me. +Still, their places were different; they hadn't the--charm--of yours. +It's something which I think could only exist in these still valleys +and in cathedral closes. It strikes me more because it is something +I've never been accustomed to." + +The lady was interested, and fancied that she partly understood his +attitude. + +"Your life is necessarily different from ours," she suggested. + +Wyllard smiled. "It's so different that you couldn't realise it. It's +all strain and effort from early sunrise until after dusk at night. +Bodily strain of aching muscles, and mental stress in adverse seasons. +We scarcely think of comfort, and never dream of artistic luxury. The +dollars we raise are sunk again in seed and extra teams and ploughs." + +"After all, a good many people are driven rather hard by the love of +money here." + +"No," said Wyllard gravely, "that's not it exactly. At least, not with +most of us. It's rather the pride of wresting another quarter-section +from the prairie, taking--our own--by labour, breaking the wilderness. +You"--and he added this as though to explain that he could hardly +expect her to quite grasp his views--"have never been out West?" + +His hostess laughed. "I have stayed down in the plains through the hot +season in stifling cantonments, and I have once or twice been in Indian +cholera camps. Besides, I have seen my husband sitting, haggard and +worn with fever, in his saddle holding back a clamorous crowd that +surged about him half-mad with religious fury. There were Hindus and +Moslems to be kept from flying at each others' throats, and at a +tactless word or sign of wavering either party would have pulled him +down." + +"You'll have to forgive me, madam"--and Wyllard's gesture was +deprecatory, though his eyes twinkled. "The notion that we're the only +ones who really work, or, at least, do anything worth while, is rather +a favourite one out West. No doubt it's a delusion. I should have +known that all of us are born like that." + +His hostess forgave him readily, if only for the "all of us," which +struck her as especially fortunate. A few minutes later there were +voices in the hall, and then the door opened, and the girl he had met +at the stepping stones came in. She was dressed differently, in +trailing garments which, it seemed to him, became her wonderfully, and +he noticed now the shapely delicacy of her hands and the fine, ivory +pallor of her skin. Then his hostess turned to him. + +"I had better present you formally to Miss Ismay," she said. "Agatha, +this is Mr. Wyllard, who I understand has brought you a message from +Canada." + +There was no doubt that Wyllard was blankly astonished, and for a +moment the girl was clearly startled, too. + +"You!" was all she said. + +[Illustration: "'You!' was all she said." + +She, however, held her hand out before she turned to speak to Mrs. +Radcliffe, but it was a slight relief to both when somebody announced +that dinner was ready. + +Wyllard sat next to his hostess, and was not sorry that he was only +called upon to take part in casual general conversation, though he +fancied once or twice that Miss Ismay was unobtrusively studying him. +It was also nearly an hour after the meal was over when Mrs. Radcliffe +left them alone in her little drawing-room. + +"You have, no doubt, a good deal to talk about, and you needn't join us +until you're ready," she said. "The Major always reads the London +papers after dinner." + +Agatha sat down in a low chair near the hearth, and it first of all +occurred to Wyllard, who took a place opposite her, that she was, +although of full stature, too delicate and dainty, too over-cultivated, +in fact, to marry Hawtrey. This was rather curious, since he had +hitherto regarded his comrade as a typical, well-educated Englishman; +but it now seemed to him that there was a certain streak of coarseness +in Gregory. The man, it suddenly flashed upon him, was self-indulgent, +and his careless ease of manner, which he had once liked, was rather +too much in evidence. In a few moments, however, Agatha turned to him. + +"I understand that Gregory is recovering rapidly?" she said. + +Wyllard assured her that this was the case, and Agatha said quietly, +"He wants me to go out to him." + +Wyllard felt that if a girl of this kind had promised to marry him he +would not have sent for her but have come in person, if he had been +compelled to pledge his last possessions, or crawl to the tideway on +his hands and knees. For all that, he was ready to defend his friend. + +"I'm afraid it's necessary," he said. "Gregory was quite unfit for +such a journey when I left, and he must be ready to commence the +season's campaign with the first of the spring. Our summer is short, +you see, and with our one-crop farming it's indispensable to get the +seed in early: in fact, he will be badly behind as it is." + +This was not particularly tactful since, without intending it, he made +it evident that he felt his comrade had been to some extent remiss; but +Agatha smiled. + +"Oh," she said, "I understand! You needn't labour the excuse. But +doesn't the same thing apply to you?" + +"It certainly did. Now, however, things have become a little easier. +My holding's larger than Gregory's, and I have a foreman who can look +after it for me." + +"Gregory said that you were a great friend of his." + +Wyllard seized this opportunity. "He is a great friend of mine, and I +like to think it means the same thing. In fact, it's reasonably +certain that he saved my life for me." + +"Ah!" said Agatha; "that is a thing he didn't mention. How did it come +about?" + +Wyllard was glad to tell the story: he was anxious to say all he +honestly could in Hawtrey's favour. + +"We were at work on a railroad trestle--a towering wooden bridge, in +British Columbia. It stretched across a deep ravine with great +boulders and a stream in the bottom of it, and we stood high up on a +staging close beneath the metals. A fast freight, a huge general +produce train, came down the track, with one of the new big locomotives +hauling it, and when the cars went banging by above us we could hardly +hold on to the bridge. Still, the construction foreman was a hustler, +and we had to get the spikes in. I was swinging the hammer when I felt +the plank beneath me slip. The train, it seems, had jarred the bolt we +had our lashings round loose. For a moment I felt that I was going +down into the gorge, and then Gregory leaned out and grabbed me. He +had only one free hand to do it with, and when he felt my weight one +foot swung out from the stringer he had sprung to. It seemed certain +that I would pull him with me, too. We hung like that for a space--I +don't quite know how long." + +He paused for a moment, apparently feeling the stress of it again, and +there was a faint thrill in his voice when he went on. + +"It was then," he said, "I knew just what kind of man Gregory Hawtrey +was. Anybody else would have let me go; but he held on. Then I got my +hand on some of the framing, and he swung me on to the stringer." + +He saw the gleam in Agatha's eyes. "Oh!" she said, "that is just what +he must have done. He was like that always--impulsive, splendidly +generous." + +Wyllard felt that he had succeeded, though he knew that there were men +on the prairie who called his comrade slackly careless, instead of +impulsive. Agatha, however, spoke again. + +"But Gregory wasn't a carpenter," she said. + +"In those days when dollars were scanty we had to be whatever we could. +There wasn't much specialisation of handicrafts out there then. The +farmer whose crop was ruined took up the railroad shovel, or borrowed a +saw from somebody and set about building houses, or anything else that +was wanted." + +"Of course!" said Agatha. "Besides, he was always wonderfully quick. +He could learn any game by just watching it awhile. He did all he +undertook brilliantly." + +It occurred to Wyllard that Gregory had, at least, made no great +success of farming; but that occupation, as practised on the prairie, +demands a good deal more than quickness and what some call brilliancy +from the man who undertakes it. He must, as they say out there, +possess the capacity for staying with it; the grim courage to hold fast +the tighter under each crushing blow, when his teams die, or the grain +shrivels under the harvest frost, or ragged ice hurtling before a +roaring blast does the reaping. It was, however, evident that this +girl had an unquestioning faith in Gregory Hawtrey, and once more +Wyllard felt compassionate towards her. He wondered if she would have +retained it had the man spent those four years in England instead of +Canada: for it was clear from the contrast between her and her picture +that she had grown in many ways since she had given her promise to her +lover. He had said what he could in Hawtrey's favour, but now he felt +that something was due to the girl. + +"Gregory told me to explain what things are like out there," he said. +"I think it is because they are so different from what you are +accustomed to that he has waited as long as he has done. He wanted to +make them as easy as possible for you, and now he would like you to +realise what is before you." + +He was almost astonished at the girl's comprehension, for she glanced +round the luxurious room with a faint smile. + +"You look on me as part of--this? I mean it seems to you that I fit in +with my surroundings, and would only be in harmony with them?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard gravely, "I think you fit in with them excellently." + +Agatha laughed. "Well," she said, "I was once, to a certain extent, +accustomed to something similar; though, after all, one could hardly +compare the Grange with Garside Scar. Still, that was some time ago, +and I have earned my living for several years now. That counts for +something, doesn't it?" + +She glanced down at her dress. "For instance, this is the result of a +good deal of self-denial, though the cost of it was partly worked off +in music lessons, and the stuff was almost the cheapest I could get. I +sang at concerts--and it was part of my stock-in-trade. After all, why +should you think me only capable of living in luxury?" + +"I didn't quite go that far." + +She laughed again. "Then is Canada such a very dreadful place? I have +heard of other Englishwomen going out there as farmers' wives. Do they +all live unhappily?" + +"No," said Wyllard; "at least, they show no sign of it, and some of +them and the city-born Canadians are, I think, the salt of this earth. +Probably it's easy to be calm and gracious in such a place as +this--though I naturally don't know since I've never tried it--but when +a woman who toils from sunrise to sunset most of the year keeps her +sweetness and serenity, it's a very different and much finer thing. +But I'll try to answer the other question. The prairie isn't dreadful; +it's a land of sunshine and clear skies. Heat and cold--and we have +them both--don't worry one there. There's optimism in the crystal air. +It's not beautiful like these valleys, but it has its beauty. It's +vast and silent, and, though our homesteads are crude and new, once you +pass the breaking it's primevally old. That gets hold of one somehow. +It's wonderful after sunset in the early spring, when the little cold +wind's like wine, and it runs white to the horizon with the smoky red +on the rim of it melting into transcendental green. When the wheat +rolls across the foreground in ochre and burnished copper waves, it's +more wonderful still. One sees the fulfilment of the promise, and +takes courage." + +"Then," said Agatha, who had scarcely suspected him of a capacity for +such flights as this, "what is there to shrink from?" + +"In the case of a small farmer's wife, the constant, never-slackening +strain. There's no hired assistance; she must clean the house, and +wash, and cook--though it's not unusual for the men to wash the plates." + +The girl was evidently not much impressed, for she laughed. + +"Does Gregory wash the plates?" she asked. + +Wyllard's eyes twinkled. "When Sproatly won't," he said. "Still, in a +general way they only do it once a week." + +"Ah," said Agatha, "I can imagine Gregory hating it. As a matter of +fact, I like him for it." + +"Then she must bake, and mend her husband's clothes. Indeed, it's not +unusual for her to mend for the hired man too. Besides that, there are +always odds and ends of tasks, but the time when you feel the strain +most is in the winter. Then you sit at night, shivering, as a rule, +beside the stove in an almost empty log-walled room, reading a book you +have probably read three or four times before. Outside, the frost is +Arctic; you can hear the roofing shingles crackle now and then; and you +wake up when the fire burns low. There's no life, no company, rarely a +new face, and if you go to a dance or supper somewhere, perhaps once a +month, you ride back on a bob-sled frozen almost stiff beneath the +robes." + +"Still," said Agatha, "that does not last." + +The man understood her. "Oh!" he said, "one makes progress--that is, +if one can stand the strain--but, as the one way of doing it is to sow +for a larger harvest and break fresh sod every year, there can be no +slackening down in the meanwhile. Every dollar must be guarded and +ploughed into the soil again." + +He broke off, feeling that he had done all that could reasonably be +expected of him, and Agatha asked one question. + +"A woman who didn't slacken could make the struggle easier for the man?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "in every way. Still, she would have a +great deal to bear." + +Agatha's face softened. "Ah," she said, "she would not grudge the +effort in the case of one she loved." + +Then she looked up again with a smile. "I wonder," she added, "if you +really thought I should flinch." + +"When I first heard of it, I thought it quite likely. Then when I read +your letter my doubts vanished." + +He saw he had not been judicious, for there was, for the first time, a +trace of hardness in the girl's expression. + +"He showed you that?" she asked. + +"One small part of it," said Wyllard. "I want to say that when I saw +this house, and how you seemed fitted to it, my misgivings about +Gregory's decision troubled me once more. Now"--and he made a little +impressive gesture--"they have vanished altogether, and they'll never +come back again." + +He spoke as he felt. This girl, he fancied, would feel the strain; but +it seemed to him that she had strength enough to bear it cheerfully. +In spite of her daintiness, she was one who, in time of stress, could +be depended on. He often remembered afterwards how they had sat +together in the little, luxuriously furnished room, she leaning back, +with the soft light on her delicately tinted face, in her big, low +chair. In the meanwhile she said nothing, and by and bye he looked up +at her. + +"It's curious that I had your photograph ever so long, and never +thought of showing it Gregory," he said. + +Agatha smiled. "I suppose it is," she admitted. "After all, except +that it might have been a relief to Major Radcliffe if he had met you +sooner, the fact that you didn't show it Gregory doesn't seem of any +particular consequence." + +Wyllard was not quite sure of this. He had thought about this girl +often, and had certainly been conscious of a curious thrill of +satisfaction when he had met her at the stepping-stones a few days +earlier. That feeling had also suddenly disappeared when he had +learned that she was his comrade's promised wife. He had, however, +during the last hour or two made up his mind to think no more of her. + +"Well," he said, "the next thing is to arrange for Mrs. Hastings to +meet you in London, or, perhaps, at the Grange. Her husband is a +Canadian, a man of education, who has quite a large homestead not far +from Gregory's. Her folks are people of station in Montreal, and I +feel sure that you'll like her." + +They decided that he was to ask Mrs. Hastings to stay a few days at the +Grange, and then he looked at the girl somewhat diffidently. + +"She suggests going in a fortnight," he said. + +Agatha smiled at him. "Then," she said, "I must not keep her waiting." + +She rose, and they went back together to join their hostess. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE TRAVELLING COMPANION. + +A grey haze, thickened by the smoke of the city, drove out across the +water when the _Scarrowmania_ lay in the Mersey, with her cable hove +short, and the last of the flood tide gurgling against her bows. A +trumpeting blast of steam swept high aloft from beside her squat +funnel, and the splash of the slowly turning paddles of the couple of +steam tugs that lay alongside mingled with the din it made. A gangway +from one of them led to the _Scarrowmania's_ forward deck, and a stream +of frowsy humanity that had just been released from overpacked emigrant +boarding-houses poured up it. There were apparently representatives of +all peoples and languages among that unkempt horde--Britons, +Scandinavians, Teutons, Italians, Russians, Poles--and they moved on in +forlorn apathy, like cattle driven to the slaughter. One wondered, +from the look of them, how they had raised their passage money, and how +many years' bitter self-denial it had cost them to provide for their +transit to the land of promise. + +At the head of the gangway stood the steamboat doctors, for the +_Scarrowmania_ was taking out an unusual number of passengers, and +there were two of them. They were immaculate in blue uniform, and +looked very clean and English by contrast with the mass of frowsy +aliens. Beside them stood another official, presumably acting on +behalf of the Dominion Government, though there were few restrictions +imposed upon Canadian immigration then, nor for that matter did anybody +trouble much about the comfort of the steerage passengers. Though they +have altered all that latterly, each steamer, in a general way, carried +as many as she could hold. + +As the stream poured out of the gangway, the doctor glanced at each new +comer's face, and then seizing him by the wrist uncovered it. Since +this took him two or three seconds, one could have fancied that he +either possessed peculiar powers, or that the test was a somewhat +inefficient one. Then he looked at the official, who made a sign, and +the man moved on. + +In the meanwhile a group of first-class passengers leaning on the +thwart-ship rails close by looked on, with complacent satisfaction with +the fact that they were born in a different station, or +half-contemptuous pity, as their temperament varied. Among them stood +Mrs. Hastings, Miss Winifred Rawlinson, and Agatha. The latter noticed +that Wyllard sat on a hatch forward near the head of the gangway, with +a pipe in his hand. She drew Mrs. Hastings's attention to it. + +"Whatever is Mr. Wyllard doing there?" she asked. + +Her companion, who was wrapped in furs, for there was a sting in the +east wind, smiled at her. + +"That," she said, "is more than I can tell you; but Harry Wyllard seems +to find an interest in what other folks would consider most unpromising +things, and, what's more to the purpose, he's rather addicted to taking +a hand in. It's a habit that costs him something now and then." + +Agatha asked nothing further. She was interested in Wyllard, but she +was at the moment more interested in the faces of those who swarmed on +board. She wondered what they had endured in the lands that had cast +them out, and what they might still have to bear. It seemed to her +that the murmur of their harsh voices went up in a great protest, an +inarticulate cry of sorrow. While she looked on the doctor held back a +long-haired man who was following a haggard woman shuffling in broken +boots. He drew him aside, and when, after he had apparently consulted +with the other official, two seamen hustled the man towards a second +gangway that led to the tug, the woman raised a wild, despairing cry. +It, however, seemed that she blocked the passage, and a quartermaster +drove her, expostulating in an agony of terror, forward among the rest. +Nobody appeared concerned about this alien's tragedy, except one man, +but Agatha was not astonished when Wyllard rose and quietly laid his +hand upon the official's shoulder. + +A parley appeared to follow, somebody gave an order, and when the alien +was led back again the woman's cries subsided. Agatha looked at her +companion, and once more a smile crept into Mrs. Hastings's eyes. + +"Yes," she said, "I guessed he would feel he had to stand in. That's a +man who can't see any one in trouble." Then she added, with a little +whimsical sigh, "He had a bonanza harvest last fall, any way." + +They moved aft soon afterwards, and the _Scarrowmania_ was smoothly +sliding seawards with the first of the ebb when Agatha met Wyllard. He +glanced at the Lancashire sandhills, which were fading into a pale +ochre gleam amidst the haze over the starboard hand, and then at the +long row of painted buoys that moved back to them ahead. + +"You're off at last! The sad grey weather is dropping fast astern," he +said. "Out yonder, the skies are clear." + +"Thank you," said Agatha, "I'm to apply that as I like? As a matter of +fact, however, our days weren't always grey. But what was the trouble +when those steerage people came on board?" + +Wyllard's manner, as she noticed, was free alike from the complacent +self-satisfaction which occasionally characterises the philanthropist, +and any affectation of diffidence. + +"Well," he said, "there was something wrong with that woman's husband. +Nothing infectious, I believe, but they didn't seem to consider him a +desirable citizen. They make a warning example of somebody with a +physical infirmity now and then. The man, they decided, must be put +ashore again. In the meanwhile, somebody else had hustled the woman +forward, and it almost looked as if they'd have taken her on without +him. The tug was almost ready to cast off." + +"How dreadful!" said Agatha. "But what did you do?" + +"Merely promised to guarantee the cost of his passage back if they'd +refer his case to the immigration people at the other end. It's +scarcely likely that they'll make trouble. As a rule, they only throw +folks who're certain to become a charge on the community." + +"But if he really had any infirmity, mightn't it lead to that?" + +"No," said Wyllard drily. "I would engage to give him a fair start if +it was necessary. You wouldn't have had that woman landed in Montreal, +helpless and alone, while the man was sent back again to starve in +Poland?" + +He saw a curious liquid gleam in Agatha's eyes, and added in a +deprecating manner, "You see, I've now and then limped without a dollar +into a British Columbian mining town." + +The girl was a little stirred; but there was another matter that must +be mentioned, though she felt that the time was somewhat inopportune. + +"Miss Rawlinson, who had only a second-class ticket, insists upon being +told how it is that she has been transferred to the saloon." + +Wyllard's eyes twinkled, but she noticed that he was wholly free from +embarrassment, which was not quite the case with her. + +"Well," he said, "that's a matter I must leave you to handle. Anyway, +she can't go second-class now. One or two of the steerage exchanged +when they saw their quarters, for which I don't blame them, and they've +filled every room right up." + +"You haven't answered the question." + +Wyllard waved his hand. "Miss Rawlinson is your bridesmaid, and I'm +Gregory's best man. It seems to me it's my business to do everything +just as he'd like it done." + +He left her a moment later, and, though she did not know how she was to +explain the matter to Miss Rawlinson, who was of an independent +disposition, it occurred to her that he, at least, had found a rather +graceful way out of the difficulty. The more she saw of this Western +farmer, the more she liked him. + +It was after dinner when she next met him, and, for the wind had +changed, the _Scarrowmania_ was steaming head-on into a glorious +north-west breeze. The shrouds sang; chain-guy, and stanchion, and +whatever caught the wind, set up a deep-toned throbbing; and ranks of +little, white-topped seas rolled out of the night ahead. A half-moon +hung low above them, blurred now and then by wisps of flying cloud, and +odd spouts of spray that gleamed in the silvery light leapt up about +the dipping bows. Wyllard was leaning on the rails, with a cigar in +his hand, when she stopped beside him, and she glanced towards the +lighted windows of the smoke-room not far away. + +"How is it you are not in there?" she asked, for something to say. + +"I was," said Wyllard. "It's rather full up, and it seemed they didn't +want me. They're busy playing cards, and the stakes are rather high. +In a general way, a steamboat's smoke-room is less of a men's lounge +than a gambling club." + +"And you object to cards?" + +"Oh, no!" said Wyllard. "They merely make me tired, and when I feel I +want some excitement for my dollars I get it another way. That one +seems tame to me." + +"Which is the one you like?" + +The man laughed. "There are a good many that appeal to me. Once it +was collecting sealskins off other people's beaches, and there was zest +enough in that, in view of the probability of the dory turning over, or +a gunboat dropping on to you. Then there was a good deal of very +genuine excitement to be got out of placer-mining in British Columbia, +especially when there was frost in the ranges, and you had to thaw out +your giant-powder. Shallow alluvial workings have a way of caving in +when you least expect it of them. After all, however, I think I like +the prairie farming best." + +"Is that exciting?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard, "if you do it in one way. The gold's there--that +you're sure of--piled up by nature during I don't know how many +thousand years, but you have to stake high if you want to get much of +it out. One needs costly labour, teams--no end of them--breakers, and +big gang-plough. The farmer who has nerve enough drills his last +dollar into the soil in spring, but if he means to succeed it costs him +more than that. He must give the sweat of his tensest effort, the +uttermost toil of his body--all, in fact, that has been given him. +Then he must shut his eyes tight to the hazards against him, or, and we +can't all do that, look at them without wavering--the drought, the +hail, the harvest frost. If his teams fall sick, or the season goes +against him, he must work double tides. Still, it now and then happens +that things go right, and the red wheat rolls ripe right back across +the prairie. I don't know that any man could want a keener thrill than +the one you feel when you drive the binders in!" + +Agatha had imagination, and she could realise something of the toil, +the hazard, and the clean thrill of that victory. + +"You have felt it often?" she said. + +"Twice we helped to fill a big elevator up," said Wyllard quietly. +"Still, I've been very near defeat." + +The girl looked at him thoughtfully. It seemed that he possessed the +power of acquisition, as well as a wide generosity that came into play +when by strenuous effort success had been attained, which, so far as +her experience went, were things that did not invariably accompany each +other. + +"And when the harvest comes up to your expectations, you give your +dollars away," she said. + +Wyllard laughed. "You shouldn't deduce too much from a single +instance. Besides, that Pole's case hasn't cost me anything yet." + +Mrs. Hastings joined them soon afterwards, and when Wyllard strolled +away they spent some time leaning on the rails, and looking at the +groups of shadowy figures on the forward deck. Their attitude was +dejected and melancholy, but one cluster had gathered round a man who +stood upon the hatch. + +"Yes," he said, "you'll have no trouble. Canada's a great country for +a poor man. He can sleep beneath a bush all summer, if he can't strike +anything he likes." + +This did not appear particularly encouraging, but the orator went on. +"Been over for a trip to the Old Country, and I'm glad I'm going back +again. Went out with nothing except a good discharge, and they made me +sergeant of Canadian militia: After that armourer to a rifle club. +There's places a blame long way behind the Dominion, and I struck one +of them when we went with Roberts to Afghanistan. It was on that trip +I and a Pathan rolled all down a hill, him trying to get his knife arm +loose, and me jabbing his breastbone with my bayonet before I got it +into him. I drove it through to the socket. You want to make quite +sure of a Pathan." + +Miss Rawlinson winced at this. "Oh," she said, "what a horrible man!" + +"It was 'most as tough as when you went after Kiel, and stole the +Scotchman's furs," suggested a Canadian. + +The sergeant let the jibe go by. "Oh," he said, "Louis's bucks could +shoot! We had them corralled in a pit, and every time one of the boys +from Montreal broke cover he got a bullet into him. Did any of you +ever hear a dropped man squeal?" + +Agatha had heard sufficient, and she and her companions turned away, +but as they moved across the deck the sergeant's voice followed her. + +"Oh, yes," he said, "a grand country for a poolman. In the summer he +can sleep beneath a bush." + +For some reason this eulogy haunted Agatha when she retired to her room +that night, and she wondered what awaited all those aliens in the new +land, until it occurred to her that in some respects she was situated +very much as they were. Then, for the first time, vague misgivings +crept into her mind as she realised that she had cut herself adrift +from all that she had been accustomed to. She felt suddenly depressed +and lonely. + +The depression had, however, almost vanished when, awakening rather +early next morning, she went up on deck. A red sun hung over the +tumbling seas that ran into the hazy east astern, and they rolled up in +crested phalanxes that gleamed green and incandescent white ahead. The +_Scarrowmania_ plunged through them with a spray cloud flying about her +dipping bows. She was a small, old-fashioned boat, and--for she had +some 3,000 tons of railway iron in the bottom of her--she rolled +distressfully. Her tall spars swayed athwart the vivid blueness of the +morning sky, with the rhythmic regularity of a pendulum. The girl, +however, was troubled by no sense of sickness; the keen north-wester +that sang amidst the shrouds was wonderfully fresh; and when she met +Wyllard crossing the saloon deck her cheeks were glowing from the sting +of the spray, and her eyes were bright. + +"Where have you been?" she asked. + +"Down there," said Wyllard, pointing to the black opening in the +fore-hatch that led to the steerage quarters. "An acquaintance of mine +who's travelling forward asked me to take a look round, and I'm rather +glad I did. When I've had a word with the chief steward I'm going back +again." + +"You have a friend down there?" + +"I met the man for the first time yesterday, and rather took to him. +One of your naval petty officers, forcibly retired, who can't live upon +his pension, which is why he's going out to Canada. Now you'll excuse +me." + +"I wonder," said Agatha, "if you would let me go back with you?" + +Wyllard looked at her rather curiously. "Well," he said, with an air +of reflection, "you'll probably have to face a good deal that you don't +like out yonder, and in one way you won't suffer from a little +preparatory training. This, however, is not a case where sentimental +pity is likely to relieve anybody. It's the real thing." + +"I think I told you at Garside Scar that I haven't lived altogether in +luxury!" + +Wyllard, who made no comment, disappeared, and merely signed to her +when he came back. They reached the ladder that led down into the +gloom beneath the hatch, and Agatha hesitated when a sour and musty +odour floated up to her, apparently out of the depths of the ship. She +went down, however, and a few moments later stood, half-nauseated, +gazing at the wildest scene of confusion her eyes had ever rested on. +A little light came down the hatchway, and a smoky lamp or two swung +above her head, but half the steerage deck was wrapped in shadow, and +out of it there rose a many-voiced complaining. Flimsy, unplaned +fittings had wrenched away, and men lay inert amidst the wreckage, with +the remains of their last meal scattered about them. There were +unwashed tin plates and pannikins, knives, and spoons, sliding up and +down everywhere, and the deck was foul with slops of tea, and trodden +bread, and marmalade. Now and then, in a wilder roll than usual, a +frowsy, huddled object slid groaning down the slant of slimy planking, +but in every case the helpless passenger was fully dressed. Steerage +passengers, in fact, seldom take off their clothes. For one thing, all +their worldly possessions are, as a rule, secreted among their attire, +and for another, most of those hailing from beyond the Danube have +never been accustomed to disrobing. In the midst of the confusion, two +half-sick steward lads were making wholly ineffective efforts to +straighten up the mess. + +Then Agatha made out that a swarm of urchins were huddled together in a +helpless mass, along one side of the horrible place. The sergeant was +haranguing them, while another man, whom she supposed to be the petty +officer, pulled them to their feet one by one. A good deal of his +labour was wasted, for the _Scarrowmania_ was rolling viciously, and as +soon as he had got a few upright half of them collapsed again. Wyllard +glanced towards them compassionately. + +"I believe most of them have had nothing to eat since they came on +board, though it isn't the company's fault," he said. "There's food +enough served out, but before we picked the breeze up the men laid +hands upon it first and half of it was wasted in the scramble. Then it +seems they pitched these youngsters out of their berths." + +"Don't they belong to anybody?" Agatha asked. "Is there no one to look +after them?" + +Wyllard smiled drily. "I believe one of your charitable institutions +is sending them out, and there seems to be a clergyman, who has a +curate and a lay assistant to help him, in charge. The assistant won't +be available while this rolling lasts, and the other two very naturally +prefer the saloon. In a way, that's comprehensible." + +He left her, and proceeded to help the man who was dragging the urchins +to their feet. + +"Get up!" said the sergeant. "Get up, and fall in. Dress from the +left, and number off, the ones who can stand." + +It appeared that the lads had been drilled, for they scrambled into a +line that bent and wavered each time the _Scarrowmania's_ bows went +down. After that, every other lad stepped forward at the word; the +order was, "Left turn! March, and fall in on deck," and when they +feebly clambered up the ladder Wyllard, who turned to Agatha, pointed +to a door in a bulkhead of rough white wood. + +"It should have been locked, but I fancy you can get in that way, and +up through another hatch," he said. "The single women, and women with +children are in yonder, and if you want to be useful there's a field +for you. Get as many as possible up on deck." + +Agatha left him, and her face was rather white when at last she came up +into the open air, with about a dozen forlorn, draggled women trailing +helplessly after her. The lads were now sitting down in a double line +on deck, each with a tin plate and a steaming pannikin in front of him. +There were, she fancied, at least a hundred of them, and a man with a +bronzed face and the stamp of command upon him was giving them the +order of the voyage. He was the one she had already noticed. + +"You'll turn out at the whistle at half-past six," he said. "Shake +mattresses, roll up blankets, and prepare for berth inspection. Then, +at the next whistle, you'll fall in on deck stripped to the waist for +washing parade. Fourth files numbering even are orderlies in charge of +the plates and pannikins." + +"And," said the sergeant, "any insubordination will be sharply dealt +with. Now, when I was with Roberts in Afghanistan----" + +Wyllard, who was standing close by, turned to Agatha. + +"I don't think we'll be wanted. You have probably earned your +breakfast." + +They went back to the saloon deck, and the girl smiled when he looked +at her inquiringly. + +"It was a little horrible, but I hadn't so many to deal with," she +said. "Do you, and those others expect to bring any order out of that +chaos?" + +"No," said Wyllard, "with a little encouragement they'll do it +themselves--that is, the English, Danes, and Germans. One can trust +them to evolve a workable system. It's in their nature. You can trace +most things that tend to wholesome efficiency back to the old Teutonic +leaven. By and bye, they'll proceed to put some pressure on the +Latins, Slavs, and Jews." + +"But is it your business to offer them that encouragement?" + +Wyllard laughed. "Strictly speaking, it isn't in the least, but +unnecessary chaos is rather hateful, and, any way, I'm not the only one +who doesn't seem to like it. There's the petty officer, and our +friend, the sergeant, who was with Roberts in Afghanistan." + +Agatha said nothing further. She was a little surprised to feel that +she was anxious to keep this man's good opinion, though that was not +exactly why she had nerved herself for the venture into the single +women's quarters. Leaving him out altogether, it seemed to her that +there was something rather fine in the way the petty officer who was +going out almost penniless to Canada, and the sergeant, had saddled +themselves with the task of looking after those helpless lads. It was +wholly unpaid labour, for which the men who preferred to remain within +the safe limits of the saloon deck would presumably get the credit. +After all, she decided there were, no doubt, men in every station who +helped to keep the world sweet and clean, and she fancied that her +companion was to be counted among them. He certainly differed in many +ways from Gregory, but then Gregory was unapproachable. She did not +remember that it was four years since she had seen the latter, and that +her ideas had been a little unformed then. + +During the evening, Mrs. Hastings, with whom he was evidently a +favourite, happened to speak of Wyllard, and the efforts he was making +in the steerage, and Agatha asked a question. + +"Does he often undertake this kind of thing?" + +"No," said Mrs. Hastings with a smile. "Any way, not on so large a +scale. He's very far from setting up as a professional philanthropist, +my dear. I don't ever remember him offering to point out their duty to +other folks, and I don't think he goes about in search of an +opportunity of benefiting humanity. Still, as I suggested, when an +individual case thrusts itself beneath his nose, he generally--does +what he can." + +"I've heard people say that the individual method only perpetuates the +trouble," said Agatha. + +Her companion laughed. "That," she said, "is a subject I'm not well +posted on, but it seems to me that if other folks only adopted Harry +Wyllard's simple plan, there would be considerably less need for +organised charity." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE FOG. + +During the next two days the _Scarrowmania_ shouldered her way +westwards through the big, white-topped combers that rolled down upon +her under a lowering sky before a moderate gale. There were no +luxurious, steam-propelled hotels in the Canadian trade just then, and, +loaded deep with railway metal as she was, she slopped the green seas +in everywhere, and rolled her streaming sides out almost to her bilge. +She also shivered and rattled horribly when her single screw swung +clear and the tri-compound engines ran away. + +Wyllard went down to the steerage every now and then, and Agatha, who +contrived to keep on her feet, not infrequently accompanied him. She +was glad of his society, for Mrs. Hastings was seldom in evidence, and +no efforts could get Miss Rawlinson out of her berth. The gale, +however, blew itself out at length, and the evening after it moderated +Agatha was sitting near the head of one fiddle-guarded table in the +saloon waiting for dinner, which the stewards had still some difficulty +in bringing in. Wyllard's place was next to hers, but he had not +appeared yet, nor, as it happened, had the skipper, who, however, did +not invariably dine with the passengers. One of the two doors which +led from the foot of the branching companion stairway into either side +of the saloon stood open, and presently she saw Wyllard standing just +outside it. + +He beckoned to the doctor, who sat at the foot of her table, and the +latter merely raised his brows a trifle. He was a rather consequential +person, and it was evident to the girl that he resented being summoned +by a gesture. She did not think anybody else had noticed Wyllard, and +she waited with some curiosity to see what he would do. He made a sign +with a lifted hand, and she felt that the other would obey it, as, in +fact, he did, though his manner was very far from conciliatory. By +dint of listening closely, she could hear their conversation. + +"I'm sorry," said Wyllard, "to trouble you just now, and I didn't come +in because that would have set everybody wondering what you were wanted +for; but one of those boys forward has been thrown down the ladder, and +has cut his head." + +"Ah!" said the doctor. "I'll see to him--after dinner." + +"It's a nasty cut," said Wyllard. "He's losing a good deal of blood." + +"Then I would suggest that you apply to my assistant." + +"As I don't know where he is, I have come to you." + +The doctor made a sign of impatience. "Well," he said, "you have told +me, which I think is as far as your concern in the matter goes. I may +add that I'm not accustomed to dictation on behalf of a steerage +passenger." + +Agatha saw Wyllard quietly slip between him and the entrance to the +saloon, but she also saw, as neither of the others apparently did, the +skipper appear a few paces behind them, and glance at them sharply. He +was usually a silent man, at home in the ice and the clammy fog, but +not a great acquisition in the saloon. + +"Something wrong down forward, Mr. Wyllard? They were making a great +row a little while ago," he said. + +"Nothing very serious," said Wyllard. "One of the boys, however, has +cut his head." + +The skipper turned towards the doctor quietly; but Agatha fancied he +had overheard part of the conversation. + +"Don't you think you had better go--at once?" he said. + +The doctor evidently did, for he disappeared, and Wyllard, who entered +the saloon with the skipper, sat down at Agatha's side. + +"How do you do it?" she asked. + +"What?" asked Wyllard, attacking his dinner. + +"We'll say persuade other folks to see things as you do." + +"You evidently mean the skipper, and I suppose you heard something of +what was going on. In this case, as it happens, I'm indebted to his +prejudices. He's one of the old type--a seaman first of all--and what +we call bluff, and you call bounce, has only one effect upon men of his +kind. It gets their backs up." + +Agatha fancied that he did not like it, either, but she changed the +subject. + +"There really was a row forward," she said. "What was the trouble +over? You were, no doubt, somewhere near the scene of it." + +Wyllard laughed. "I sat upon the steerage ladder, and am afraid I +cheered the combatants on. It was really a glorious row. They +hammered each other with tin plates, and some of them tried to use +hoop-iron knives, which fortunately doubled up. They broke quite a few +of the benches, and wrecked the mess table, but so far as I noticed the +only one seriously hurt was a little chap who was quietly looking on." + +"And you encouraged them?" + +"I certainly did. It was a protest against dirt, disorder, and the +slothfulness that's a plague to the community. Isn't physical force +warranted when there's no other remedy?" + +A grey-haired Canadian looked up. "Yes," he said, "I guess it is. The +first man who pulled his gun in British Columbia was hanged right away, +and they've scarcely had to make an example of another ever since, +though it's quite a while ago." + +He paused, and smiled approvingly. "A mess of any kind worries us, and +we don't take long to straighten it out. Same feelings in the Germans +and Scandinavians. I'll say that for them, any way. Your friends +swept up the steerage?" + +"They took the Slavs and Jews, and pitched them down the second hatch +on to the orlop deck. Things will go smoothly now our crowd are on +top." + +"Your crowd?" said Agatha. + +The Canadian nodded. "That's what he meant," he said. "There are two +kinds of folks you and the rest of them are dumping into Canada. One's +the kind that will get up and hustle, break land, and build new +homes--log at first, frame and stone afterwards. They go on from a +quarter-section and a team of oxen to the biggest farm they can handle, +and every fresh furrow they cut enriches all of us. The other kind +want to sit down in the dirt and take life easily, as they've always +done. The dirt worries everybody else, and we've no use for them. By +and bye our Legislature will have to wake up and stop them getting in." + +He went on with his dinner after this, but his observations left Agatha +thoughtful. She was, for one thing, beginning to understand one side +of her companion's character. He, it seemed, stood for practical +efficiency. There was a driving force in him that made for progress +and order. It was apparently his mission to straighten things out. +Some folks of his kind, she reflected, now and then made a good deal of +avoidable trouble; but there was in this man, at least, a +half-whimsical toleration, which rendered that an unlikely thing in his +particular case. Besides, she had already recognised that she was in +some respects fortunate in having such a man for her companion. + +Her deck chair was always set out in the most sheltered and comfortable +place. If there was anything to be seen, a cargo boat plunging along +forecastle under, or a great iron sailing ship thrashing out to the +westwards, with the spray clouds flying about her hove up weather side, +he almost invariably appeared with a pair of powerful glasses. She was +watched over, her wishes anticipated, and the man was seldom +obtrusively present when she felt disposed to talk to somebody else. +It struck her that she had thought a good deal about him during the +last few days, and rather less than usual about Gregory, which was +partly why she did not walk up and down the deck with him, as usual, +after dinner that evening. + +Three or four days later the _Scarrowmania_ ran into the Bank fog, and +burrowed through it with whistle hooting dolefully at regular +intervals. Now and then an answering ringing of bells came out of the +clammy vapour, and the half-seen shape of an anchored schooner loomed +up, rolling wildly on grey slopes of sea. Once, too, a tiny dory, half +filled with lines and buoys, slid by plunging on the wash flung off by +the _Scarrowmania's_ bows, and Agatha understood that the men in her +had escaped death by a hairsbreadth. They were cod fishers, Wyllard +told her, and he added that there was a host of them at work somewhere +in the sliding haze. She, however, fancied, now and then, that the fog +had a depressing effect on him, and that when the dory lay beneath the +rail there had been a somewhat unusual look in his face. + +Then a breeze came out of the north-west, with the sting of the ice in +it, but the fog did not lift, and the _Scarrowmania_ plunged on through +it with spray-wet decks and the grey seas smashing about her bows. It +was bitterly cold and clammy, the raw wind pierced to the bone, but the +voyage was, at least, rapidly shortening, and one evening Agatha paced +the deck with Wyllard in a somewhat curious mood. Perhaps it was +merely the gloom re-acting upon her, for she was looking forward to the +landing with a certain half-conscious shrinking. + +They stopped by the rails presently, looking out upon the tumbling seas +that rolled out of the sliding haze tipped with livid froth, and the +dreariness of the surroundings intensified the girl's depression. +There was something unpleasantly suggestive in the sight of the fog +that hid everything, for she had of late been troubled with a +half-apprehensive longing to see what lay before her. In the +meanwhile, she noticed the look-out standing, a lonely, shapeless +figure, amidst the spray that whirled about the plunging bows. By and +bye she saw him turn and wave an arm apparently towards the bridge +behind her, and she heard a hoarse, wind-out cry. What it meant she +could not tell, but in another moment the _Scarrowmania's_ whistle +shrieked again. + +Then a grey shape burst out of the vapour, and grew with astonishing +swiftness into dim tiers of slanted sailcloth swaying above a strip of +hull that moved amidst a broad white smear of foam. It was a brig +under fore-course and topsails, and as Agatha watched her she sank to +her tilted bowsprit, and a big grey and white sea foamed about her bows. + +"Aren't we dreadfully near?" she asked. + +Wyllard did not answer. He was gazing up at the bridge, and once more +the whistle hurled out a great warning blast. It hardly seemed to her +that the two vessels could pass clear of each other. Then Wyllard laid +a hand upon her shoulder. + +"The skipper's starboarding. We'll go round her stern," he said. + +His grasp was reassuring, and she watched the straining curves of +canvas and line of half-submerged hull. It rose with streaming bows, +swung high above the sea, sank again, and vanished with bewildering +suddenness into a belt of driving fog. She was not sure that there had +been any peril, but it was certainly over now, and she was rather +puzzled by her sensations when Wyllard had held her shoulder. For one +thing, she had felt instinctively that she was safe with him. She, +however, decided not to trouble herself about the reason for this, and +by and bye she looked up at him. The expression she had already +noticed was once more in his face. + +"I don't think you like the fog any more than I do," she said. + +"No," said Wyllard, with a quiet forcefulness that almost startled her. +"I hate it." + +"Why do you go as far as that?" + +"It recalls something that still gives me a very bad few minutes every +now and then. It has been worrying me again to-night." + +"I wonder," said Agatha simply, "if you would care to tell me?" + +The man looked down on her with a little wry smile. "I haven't told it +often, but you shall hear," he said. "It's a tale of a black failure." +He stretched out a hand and pointed to the sliding fog and ranks of +tumbling seas. "It was very much this kind of night, and we were +lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians' beaches, when I asked for +volunteers. I got them--two boats' crews of the finest seamen that +ever handled oar or sealing rifle." + +"But what did you want them for?" + +"A boat from another schooner had been cast ashore. It was blowing +tolerably hard, as it usually does where the Polar ice comes down into +the Behring Sea. They'd been shooting seals from her. We meant to +bring the men off if we could manage it." + +"Wouldn't one boat have been enough?" + +"No," said Wyllard drily, "we had three, and I think that was one cause +of the trouble. There was one from the other schooner. You see, those +seals belonged to the Russians, and we free-lances could only shoot +them clear off shore. I'm not sure that the men in the wrecked boat +had been fishing outside the limit." + +Agatha did not press for further particulars, and he went on: + +"We managed to make a landing, though one boat went up bottom +uppermost," he said. "I fancy they must have broken or lost an oar +then. We also got the wrecked men, but we had trouble while we were +getting the boats off again. The surf was running in savagely, and the +fog shut down solid as a wall. Any way, we pulled off, and went out +with a foot of water in us, while one of the rescued men took my oar +when I let it go." + +"Why had you to let it go?" + +Wyllard laughed in a rather grim fashion. + +"I got my head laid open with a sealing club," he said. "Some of the +rest had their scratches, but they managed to row. For one thing, they +knew they had to. They had reasons for not wanting to fall into the +Russians' hands. Well, we cleared the beach, and once or twice as I +tried to bale there was a shout somewhere near us, and the loom of a +vanishing boat. It was all we could make out, for the sea was slopping +into her, and the spray was flying everywhere. If there had only been +two boats we'd probably have found out our misfortune, and perhaps have +set it straight. As it was, we couldn't tell it was the same boat that +had hailed us." + +He broke off for a moment, and then added quietly, "Two boats reached +the schooners. There was a nasty sea running then, and it blew +viciously hard next day. There were three men in the other." + +"Ah," said Agatha, "they were drowned?" + +Wyllard made a little forceful gesture. "I'm not quite sure. That's +the trouble. At least, the boat was nowhere on the beach next day, and +it's difficult to see how they could have faced the sea that piled up +when the gale came down. In all probability, they had an oar short, +and she rolled them out when a comber broke upon her in the darkness." +The girl saw him close one hand tight as he added, "If one only knew!" + +"What would have befallen them if they'd got ashore?" + +"It's difficult to say. In a general way, they'd have been handed over +to the Russian authorities. Still, sealers poaching up there have +simply disappeared." + +He stopped again, and glanced out at the gathering darkness. "Now," he +added, "you see why I hate the fog." + +"But you couldn't help it," said Agatha. + +"Well," said Wyllard, "I asked for volunteers, and the money that's now +mine came out of those schooners. It's just possible those men are +living still--somewhere in Northern Asia. I only know they +disappeared." + +Then he abruptly commenced to talk of something else, and by and bye +Agatha went down to the saloon, where Miss Rawlinson, who had not been +much in evidence during the voyage, presently made her appearance. + +"Aren't you going into the music-room to play for Mr. Wyllard--as +usual?" she said. + +Agatha was almost disconcerted. She had fallen into the habit of +spending half an hour or longer in the little music-room every evening, +with Wyllard standing near the piano; but now her companion's question +seemed to place a significance upon the fact. + +"No," she said, "I don't think I am." + +"Then the rest of them will wonder it you have fallen out with him." + +"Fallen out with him?" + +Winifred laughed. "They've naturally been watching both of you, and, +in a general way, there's only one decision they could have arrived at." + +Agatha flushed a little, but her companion went on: + +"I don't mind admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love +with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with +a whimsically rueful gesture, "Still, it's most unlikely." + +Agatha looked at her with a little glint in her eyes. + +"He is merely Gregory's deputy," she said, with a sub-conscious feeling +that the epithet was not a remarkably fortunate one. "In that +connection, I should like to point out that you can estimate a man's +character by that of his friends." + +"Oh," said Winifred, "then if Mr. Wyllard's strong points are merely to +heighten Gregory's credit, I've nothing more to say. Anyway, I'll +reserve my homage until I've seen him. Perfection among men is scarce +nowadays." + +She turned away, and left Agatha thoughtful. In the meanwhile, Mrs. +Hastings came upon Wyllard in the music-room. There was just then +nobody else in it. + +"You look quite serious," she said. + +"I've been thinking about Miss Ismay and Gregory," said Wyllard. "In +fact, I feel a little anxious about them." + +"In which way?" + +"Without making any reflections upon Gregory, I somehow feel sorry for +the girl." + +Mrs. Hastings nodded. "As a matter of fact, that's very much what I +felt from the first," she said. "Still, you see, there's the important +fact that she's fond of him, and it should smooth out a good many +difficulties. Anyway, what we can call the material ones won't count. +She's evidently rather a courageous person." + +The man sat silent a moment or two. "I wasn't troubling about them," +he said. "I was wondering if she really could be fond of him. It's +some years since she was much in his company." + +"Hawtrey is not a man to change." + +"That," said Wyllard, "is just the trouble. I've no doubt he's much +the same, but one could fancy that Miss Ismay has changed a good deal +since she last saw him. She'll look for considerably more than she was +probably content with then." + +"In any case, it isn't your affair." + +"In one sense it certainly isn't; but I can't help feeling a little +troubled about the thing. You see, Gregory is quite an old friend." + +"And the girl is going out to marry him," said Mrs. Hastings. + +Wyllard rose. "That," he said, "is quite uncalled for. I would like +to assure you of it." + +He went out, and the lady sat still in a reflective mood. + +"If she begins to compare him with Hawtrey, there can be only one +result," she said. + +The fog had almost gone next morning, and pale sunshine streamed down +upon a froth-flecked sea. A bitter wind, however, still came out of +the hazy north, and the _Scarrowmania's_ plates were crusted with ice +where the highest crests of the tumbling seas reached them. The spray +also froze, and the decks grew slippery, until when darkness came +nobody but the seamen faced the stinging cold. Agatha felt the engines +stop late that night, and when she went out next morning the decks were +white, and she could see dim ghosts of sliding pines through a haze of +falling snow. It grew bewilderingly thick at times, but the steamer +slid on through it with whistle hooting, and when at last towards +sunset the snow cleared away Agatha stood shivering under a deck-house, +looking about her with a curiously heavy heart. + +A grey haze stretched across the great river, which was also dim and +grey, and odd wisps of pines rose raggedly beneath the white hills that +cut against a gloomy, lowering sky. Deck-house, boat, and stanchion +dripped, and every now and then the silence was broken by a doleful +blast of the whistle. Nothing moved on the still, grey water; there +was no sign of life ashore; and they seemed to be steaming into a great +desolation. + +By and bye, Wyllard appeared from somewhere, and after a glance at her +face slipped his hand beneath her arm, and led her down to the lighted +saloon. Then her heart grew a little lighter. Once more she was +conscious of an unreasoning feeling that she was safe with him. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +DISILLUSION. + +The long train was speeding smoothly across the vast white levels of +Assiniboia, when Agatha, who sat by a window, looked up as the +conductor strode through the car. Mrs. Hastings asked him a question, +and he stopped a moment. + +"Yes," he said, "we'll be in Clermont inside half an hour." + +Then he went on, and Mrs. Hastings smiled at Agatha. + +"We're a little late, and Gregory will be waiting for us in the depôt +now," she said. "No doubt he's got the waggon fixed up right, but I'd +like to feel sure of it. There's a long drive before us, and I want to +reach the homestead before it's dark." + +Agatha said nothing, but a faint tinge of colour crept into her cheeks, +and her companion was glad to see it, for she had noticed that the girl +was looking rather pale and haggard. This was partly due to the fact +that the strain of the last few months she had spent in England was +commencing to tell on her. She had borne it courageously, but a +reaction had afterwards set in, and, as it happened, the _Scarrowmania_ +had plunged along bows under against fresh north-westerly gales most of +the way across the Atlantic. There is very little comfort on board a +small, deeply-loaded steamer when she rolls her rails in, and lurches +with thudding screw swung clear over big, steep-sided combers. In +addition to this, Agatha had scarcely slept during the few days and +nights she had spent in the train. It takes some time to become +accustomed to the atmosphere of a stove-heated sleeper car, and since +she had landed she had been in a state of not altogether unnatural +nervous tension. + +Indeed, she had found it a little difficult to preserve an outward +serenity the previous day, and when at length the great train ran into +the depôt at Winnipeg, where Gregory had arranged to meet them, it was +with a thrill of expectancy and relief that she stood upon the car +platform. There was, however, no sign of him, and though Wyllard +handed her a telegram from him a few minutes later the fact that he had +not arrived had a depressing effect on her. Quiet as she usually was, +the girl was highly strung. It appeared that something had gone wrong +with Hawtrey's waggon while he was driving in to the railroad, and as +the result of it he had missed the Atlantic train. She could not blame +him for this, but for all that his absence had been an unpleasant shock. + +Feeling that her companion's eyes were upon her, she turned, and +looking out of the window found no encouragement in what she saw. The +snow had gone, and a vast expanse of grass ran back to the horizon; but +it was a dingy, greyish-white, and not green as it had been in England. +The sky was low and grey, too, and the only thing that broke the dreary +monotony of lifeless colour was when the formless, darker smear of a +birch bluff rose out of the empty levels. Her heart throbbed +unpleasantly fast as the few remaining minutes slipped away, and at +length she started when a dingy mass of something that looked like +buildings lifted itself above the prairie. + +"The Clermont elevators," said Mrs. Hastings. "We'll be in directly." + +The mass separated itself into two or three tall component blocks. A +huddle of little wooden houses grew into shape beneath them, and a +shrill whistle came ringing back above the slowing cars. Then a willow +bluff, half filled with old cans and garbage, flitted by, a big bell +commenced tolling, and Agatha rose when Mrs. Hastings took up her furs +from a seat close by. After that, she found herself standing on the +platform of the car, though she did not quite know how she got there, +for she was sensible only of the fact that in another moment or two she +would greet the lover she had last seen four years ago. + +In the meanwhile, though she paid them no great attention, the +surroundings had a depressing effect on her. There was, however, very +little to see; the mass of the great elevators that cut against a +lowering sky, the little cluster of houses, and the sea of churned-up +mire between them and the track. There also appeared to be no station +except a big water tank and a rather unsightly shed, about which stood +a group of blurred and shapeless figures. It seemed very cold, and +Agatha shivered as she felt the raw wind strike through her. + +Then one of the figures detached itself from the rest and grew clearer. +The man wore an old skin coat spattered with flakes of mire, and his +long boots were covered with clots of the same material. His fur cap +looked greasy, and the fur had been rubbed off it in patches; but while +she noticed these things it was his face that struck her most, and she +became conscious of an astonishment which was mixed with vague +misgivings as she gazed at it, for it had subtly changed since she had +last seen it. The joyous sparkle she remembered had gone out of the +eyes. They were harder, bolder, than they used to be. The mouth was +slack--it almost looked sensual--and the man's whole personality seemed +to have grown coarser. Then as she thrust the disconcerting fancies +from her the car stopped. + +In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his +arms about her. That brought the blood to her face, but she felt none +of the thrill she had expected. Indeed, she was subconsciously +sensible of a certain shrinking from his embrace. Then, and she +fancied he must have lifted her bodily down, she stood beside the track +with Mrs. Hastings, a man whom she supposed to be the latter's husband, +Winifred, and Wyllard about her. Another man was also standing close +by, apparently waiting until they noticed him. He was flecked with +mire all over, his skin coat was very dilapidated, and Agatha fancied +that his boots had never been cleaned. His hair, which had evidently +been very badly cut, straggled out from under his old fur cap. + +[Illustration: "In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, +and she felt his arms about her."] + +In the meanwhile, Gregory was apparently explaining something to Mrs. +Hastings. "No," he said, "I'm sorry it can't be for another week. +Horribly unfortunate. It seems they've sent the Methodist on down the +line, and we'll have to wait for the Episcopalian. He'll be at +Lander's for a few days." + +Then Agatha's cheeks flamed, for she recognised that it was her wedding +they were speaking of; but it brought her a curious relief to hear that +it had been deferred. A moment or two later Gregory turned to her with +questions about her throat, and his people in England, and Winifred +separated herself from the group. She was standing near her baggage, +which had been flung out beside the track, a little, lonely figure, +while the train went on, when Wyllard strode up to her. + +"Feeling rather out of it? I do, any way," he said. "Since we appear +superfluous, we may as well make the most of the opportunity, +especially as it will probably save you a long drive. There's a man +here who wants to see you." + +Winifred had felt very forlorn a few moments earlier, but the +announcement Wyllard had just made was reassuring, and she pulled +herself together as he signed to a man standing a little further along +the track. The latter wore rather neat store clothes, and his manner +was brisk and wholly business-like. It was a certain relief to the +girl to see that he evidently regarded her less as a personality than +as a piece of commercial machinery, which he had apparently been asked +to make use of. She had found it easier to get on with men who +confined themselves to that point of view. + +"Mr. Hamilton, in charge of the elevator yonder," said Wyllard, +pointing to one of the huge buildings. "This is Miss Rawlinson." + +The elevator man made her the curtest of inclinations, and proceeded to +arrange matters with a rapidity which almost took her breath away. + +"Typist and stenographer?" he said. "Know anything about +account-keeping?" + +Winifred admitted that she possessed these abilities, and Hamilton +appeared to reflect for a moment or two. + +"Well," he said, "in a fortnight we'll give you a show. You can start +at--" and he mentioned terms which rather astonished Winifred. "If you +can keep things straight we may raise you later." + +"Won't you want to see any testimonials?" she asked. + +"No," said Hamilton. "I've seen a good many, and I'm inclined to fancy +some of the folks who showed them me must have bought them." He waved +his hand. "Mr. Wyllard assures me that you'll do, and in the meanwhile +that's quite enough for me." + +It struck Winifred as curious that, while Agatha had written to Hawtrey +on her behalf, it was Wyllard who had secured her the opportunity she +had longed for; but she thanked the elevator man before she turned to +him. + +"There's another matter," she said hesitatingly. "I'll have to live +here?" + +Wyllard smiled. "I've seen to that, though if you don't like my +arrangements you can alter them afterwards. Mrs. Sandberg will take +you in, and even if she isn't particularly amiable you'll be in safe +hands." + +Hamilton laughed. "Oh, yes," he said. "She's Scotch--old type +Calvinist at that. No frivolity about that woman. Married a +Scandinavian, and was just breaking him in when he was killed back East +along the track." + +"We'll consider it as fixed, but in the meanwhile you're to stay with +Mrs. Hastings for the fortnight," said Wyllard. "Sproatly"--and he +signed to the man in the skin coat--"will you get Miss Rawlinson's +baggage into your waggon?" + +The man took off his fur cap. "If Miss Rawlinson would like to see +Mrs. Sandberg, I'll drive her round," he suggested. "We'll catch you +up in a league or so. Gregory has a bit of patching to do on his +off-side trace." + +"He might have had things straight for once," said Wyllard half-aloud. + +Winifred permitted Sproatly to help her into his waggon--a high, +narrow-bodied vehicle, mounted on tall, spidery wheels, but she had to +hold fast to it while they jolted across the track and through a sea of +mire into the unpaved street of the little town. She liked her +companion's voice and manner, though she was far from prepossessed by +his appearance. Two or three minutes later he drew up before a little +wooden house, where they were received by a tall, hard-faced woman, who +frowned at Sproatly. + +"Ye'll tak' your patent medicines somewhere else. I'm wanting none," +she said. + +Sproatly grinned. "You needn't be afraid of them. They couldn't hurt +you. I was talking to a Winnipeg doctor who'd a notion of coming out a +day or two ago. I told him if he did he'd have to bring an axe along." + +Then he explained that Wyllard had sent Winifred there, and the woman +favoured her with a glance of careful scrutiny. + +"Weel," she said, "ye look quiet, anyway." Then she added, as though +further satisfied, "I'll make ye a cup of tea if ye can wait." + +Sproatly assured her that this was not the case, and in a few more +minutes the girl, who went into the house, got into the waggon again, +with relief in her face. + +"I think I owe Mr. Wyllard a good deal," she said. + +Sproatly laughed. "You're not exactly singular in that respect, but +you had better hold tight. These beasts are rather less than half +broken." + +He flicked them with the whip, and they went across the track at a +gallop, hurling great clods of mud left and right, while the group of +loungers who still stood about the station raised a shout. + +"Got any little pictures with nice motters on them?" asked one, and +another flung a piece of information after the jolting waggon. + +"There's a Swede down at Branker's wants a bottle that will supple up a +wooden leg," he said. + +Sproatly grinned, and waved his hand to them before he turned to his +companion. + +"We have to get through before dark, if possible, or I'd stop and sell +them something sure," he said. "Parts of the trail further on are +simply horrible." + +It occurred to Winifred that it was far from excellent as it was, for +spouts of mud flew up beneath the sinking hoofs and wheels, and she was +already getting unpleasantly spattered. + +"You think you would have succeeded?" she asked. + +"Oh, yes," said Sproatly. "If I couldn't plant something on to them +when they'd given me a lead like that, I'd be no use in this business. +At present, my command of Western phraseology is my fortune." + +"You sell things, then?" + +Sproatly pointed to a couple of big boxes in the bottom of the waggon. +"Anything from cough cure to hair restorer, besides a general purpose +elixir that's specially prepared for me. It's adaptable to any +complaint and season. All you have to do"--and he lowered his voice +confidentially--"is to put on a different label." + +Winifred, who had not felt like it a little earlier, laughed when she +met his eyes. + +"What happens to the people who buy it?" she asked. + +"Most of them are bachelors, and tough. They've stood their own +cooking so long that they ought to be, and if anybody's really sick I +hold off and tell him to wait until he can get a doctor. A sensitive +conscience," he added reflectively, "is quite a handicap in this +business." + +"You have always been in it?" asked Winifred, who was amused at him. + +"No," said Sproatly, "although you mightn't believe it, I was raised +with the idea that I should have my choice between the Church and the +Bar. The idea, however, proved--impracticable--which, in some +respects, is rather a pity. It has seemed to me that a man who can +work off cough cures and cosmetics on to healthy folks with a hide like +leather, and talk a scoffer off the field, ought to have made his mark +in either calling." + +He looked at her as if for confirmation of this view, but Winifred, who +laughed again, glanced at the two waggons that moved on, perhaps, two +miles away across the grey-white sweep of prairie. + +"Will we overtake them?" she asked. + +"We'll probably come up with Gregory. I'm not sure about Wyllard." + +"He drives faster horses?" + +"That's not quite the reason. Gregory has patched up one trace with a +bit of string, and odd bolts are rather addicted to coming out of his +waggon. Sometimes it makes trouble. I've known the team leave him +sitting on the prairie, thinking of endearing names for them, and come +home with the pole." + +"Does he generally let things fall into that state?" + +Sproatly, however, was evidently on his guard. + +"Well," he said, "it's certainly that kind of waggon." + +Then he flicked the team again, and the jolting rendered it difficult +for Winifred to ask any more questions. The prairie sod was soft with +the thaw, and big lumps of it stuck to the wheels, which every now and +then plunged into ruts other vehicles had made. + +In the meanwhile, Agatha and Hawtrey found it almost as impossible to +sustain a conversation, which was, on the whole, a relief to the girl. +The string-patched trace still held, and the waggon pole was a new one, +but where they were just then the white grass was tussocky and long, +and the trail they occasionally plunged into to avoid it had been +churned into a quagmire. Hawtrey had packed the thick driving robe +high about his companion, and slipped one arm about her waist beneath +it; but she was conscious that she rather suffered this than derived +any satisfaction from it. She strove to assure herself that she was +jaded with the journey, which was, in fact, the case, and that the +lowering sky, and the cheerless waste they were crossing, had +occasioned the dejection she felt, which was also possible. There was +not a tree upon the vast sweep of bleached grass which ran all round +her to the horizon. It was inexpressibly lonely, a lifeless +desolation, with only the ploughed-up trail to show that man had ever +traversed it; and the raw wind which swept it set her shivering. + +She was, however, forced to admit that her weariness and the dreary +surroundings did not quite explain everything. Even her lover's first +embrace had brought her no thrill, and now the close pressure of his +arm left her quite unmoved. This was almost disconcertingly curious; +but while she would admit no definite reason for it, there was creeping +upon her a vague consciousness that the man was not the one she had so +often thought of in England. He seemed different--almost, in fact, a +stranger--though she could not exactly tell where the change in him +began. His laughter jarred upon her. Some of the things he said +appeared almost inane, and others were tinged with a self-confidence +that did not become him. It almost seemed to her that he was shallow, +lacking in comprehension, and once she found herself comparing him with +another man. She, however, broke off that train of thought abruptly, +and once more endeavoured to find the explanation in herself. +Weariness had induced this captious, hypercritical fit, and by and bye +she would become used to him, she said. + +Hawtrey was, at least, not effusive, for which she was thankful, but +when they reached a somewhat smoother surface he commenced to talk of +England. + +"I suppose you saw a good deal of my folks when you were at the +Grange?" he said. + +"No," said Agatha, "I saw them once or twice." + +"Ah!" said the man, with a trace of sharpness, "then they were not +particularly agreeable?" + +It seemed to Agatha that he was tactless in suggesting anything of the +kind, but she answered candidly. + +"One could hardly go quite so far as that," she said. "Still, I +couldn't help a feeling that it was rather an effort for them to be +gracious to me." + +"They did what they could to make things pleasant when they were first +told of our engagement." + +Agatha was too worn-out to be altogether on her guard, which was partly +why she had admitted as much as she had done, though his relatives' +attitude had wounded her, and she answered without reflection. + +"I have fancied that was because they never quite believed it would +lead to anything." + +She knew this was the truth now, though it was the first time the +explanation had occurred to her. Gregory's folks, who were naturally +acquainted with his character, had, it seemed, not expected him to +carry his promise out. She, however, felt that she had been +injudicious when she heard his little harsh laugh. + +"I'm afraid they never had a very great opinion of me," he said. + +"Then," said Agatha, looking up at him, "it will be our business to +prove them wrong; but I can't help feeling that you have undertaken a +big responsibility, Gregory. There must be so much that I ought to do, +and I know so little about your work in this country." She turned, and +glanced with a shiver at the dim, white prairie. "It looks so +forbidding and unyielding. It must be very hard to turn it into wheat +fields--to break it in." + +It was merely a hint of what she felt, and it was rather a pity that +Hawtrey, who lacked imagination, usually contented himself with the +most obvious meaning of the spoken word. Things might have gone +differently had he responded with comprehending sympathy. + +"Oh," he said, with a laugh that changed her mood, "you'll learn, and I +don't suppose it will matter a great deal if you don't do it quickly. +Somehow or other one worries through." + +She felt that this was insufficient, though she remembered that his +haphazard carelessness had once appealed to her. Now, however, she +realised that to undertake a thing light-heartedly was a very different +matter from carrying it out successfully. Then it once more occurred +to her that she was becoming absurdly hypercritical, and she strove to +talk of other things. + +She did not find it easy, nor, though he made the effort, did Hawtrey. +There was a restraint that he chafed at upon him, for he had when he +first saw her been struck by the change in the girl. She was graver +than he remembered her, and, it seemed, very much more reserved. He +had tried and failed, as he thought of it, to strike a spark out of +her. She did not respond, and he became uneasily conscious that he +could not talk to her as he could, for instance, to Sally Creighton. +There was something wanting in him or her, but he could not at the +moment tell what it was. Still, he said, things would be different +next day, for the girl was evidently very weary. + +In the meanwhile, the creeping dusk settled down upon the wilderness. +The horizon narrowed in, and the stretch of grass before them grew dim. +The trail they now drove into seemed to grow rapidly rougher, and it +was quite dark when they came to the brink of a declivity still at +least a league from the Hastings's homestead. It was one of the steep +ravines that seam the prairie every here and there, with a birch bluff +on the sides of it, and a little creek flowing through the hollow. + +Hawtrey swung the whip when they reached the top, and the team plunged +furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with +both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the +light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Then +something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and +plunge. The other beast flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, +and there was a great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen +branches as they drove in among the birches. Then the team stopped, +and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily among the undergrowth, +while another thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels grew louder behind +them up the trail. In a minute or two he came back and lifted Agatha +down. + +[Illustration: "Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the +off-side horse stumble and plunge."] + +"It's the trace broken. I had to make the holes with my knife, and the +string's torn through," he said. "Voltigeur got it round his feet, +and, as usual, tried to bolt. Anyway, we'll make the others pull up +and take you in." + +They went back to the trail together, and reached it just as Hastings +reined in his team. He got down and walked back with Hawtrey to the +latter's waggon. It was a minute or two before they reappeared again, +and Mrs. Hastings, who had got down in the meanwhile, drew Hawtrey +aside. + +"I almost think it would be better if you didn't come any further +to-night," she said. + +"Why?" the man asked sharply. + +"I can't help thinking that Agatha would prefer it. For one thing, +she's rather jaded, and wants quietness." + +"You feel sure of that?" + +There was something in the man's voice which suggested that he was not +quite satisfied, and his companion was silent a moment. + +"It's good advice, Gregory," she said. "She'll be better able to face +the situation after a night's rest." + +"Does it require much facing?" Hawtrey asked drily. + +Mrs. Hastings turned from him with a sign of impatience. "Of course it +does. Anyway, if you're wise you'll do what I suggest, and ask no more +questions." + +Then she got into the waggon, and Hawtrey stood still beside the trail, +feeling unusually thoughtful when they drove away. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +AGATHA'S DECISION. + +It was with an expectancy which was slightly toned down by misgivings +that Hawtrey drove over to the homestead where Agatha was staying the +next afternoon. The misgivings were, perhaps, not unnatural, for he +had been chilled by the girl's reception of him on the previous day, +and her manner afterwards had, he felt, left something to be desired. +Indeed, when she drove away with Mrs. Hastings he had felt himself a +somewhat injured man. + +His efforts to mend the harness, and extricate the waggon in the dark, +which occupied him for an hour, had, however, partly helped to drive +the matter from his mind, and when he reached his homestead rather late +that night he went to sleep, and slept soundly until sunrise, which was +significant. Hawtrey was, at least, a man who never brooded over his +troubles beforehand, and this was, perhaps, one reason why he did not +always cope with them successfully when they could no longer be avoided. + +When he had made his breakfast he, however, became sensible of a +certain pique against both Mrs. Hastings and the girl, which led him to +remember that he had no hired man, and that there was a good deal to be +done. He decided that it might be well to wait until the afternoon +before he called on them, and for several hours he drove his team +through the crackling stubble. His doubts and irritation grew weaker +as he did so, and when at length he drove into sight of Hastings's +homestead, his buoyant temperament was commencing to reassert itself. +Clear sunshine streamed down upon the prairie out of a vault of +cloudless blue, and he felt that after all any faint shadow that might +have arisen between him and the girl could be readily swept away. + +He was, however, a little less sure of this when he saw her. Agatha +sat near an open window, in a scantily furnished match-boarded room, +and she, at least, as it happened, had not slept at all. Her eyes were +heavy, but there was a look of resolution in them which seemed out of +place just then, and it struck him that she had lost the freshness +which had characterised her in England. + +She rose when he came in, and then, to his astonishment, drew back a +pace or two when he moved impulsively towards her. + +"No," she said, with a hand raised restrainingly, "you must hear what I +have to say, and try to bear with me. It is a little difficult, +Gregory, but it must be said at once." + +The man stood still, almost awkwardly, looking at her with +consternation in his face, and for a moment she looked steadily at him. +It was a painful moment, for she was just then gifted with a clearness +of vision which she almost longed to be delivered from. She saw that +the impression which had brought her a vague sense of dismay on the +previous afternoon was wrong. The trouble was that he had not changed +at all. He was what he had always been, and she had merely deceived +herself when she had permitted her girlish fancy to endue him with +qualities and graces which he had, it seemed, never possessed. There +was, however, no doubt that she had still a duty towards him. + +He spoke first with a trace of hardness in his voice. + +"Then," he said, "won't you sit down. This is naturally a +little--embarrassing--but I'll try to listen." + +Agatha sank into a seat by the open window, for she felt physically +worn-out, and there was a task she shrank from before her. + +"Gregory," she said, "I feel that we have come near making what might +prove to be a horrible mistake." + +"We?" said Hawtrey, while the blood rose into his weather-darkened +face. "That means both of us." + +"Yes," said Agatha, with a quietness that cost her an effort. + +Hawtrey spread his hands out forcibly. "Do you want me to admit that +I've made one?" + +"Are you quite sure you haven't?" + +She flung the question at him sharply in tense apprehension, for, after +all, if the man was sure of himself, there was only one course open to +her. He leaned upon the table, gazing at her, and as he did so his +indignation melted, and doubts commenced to creep into his mind. + +She looked weary, and grave, and almost haggard, and it was a fresh, +light-hearted girl he had fallen in love with in England. The mark of +the last two years of struggle was just then plain on her, though, +while he did not recognise this, it would pass away again. He tried to +realise what he had looked for when he had asked her to marry him, and +could not do so clearly; but there was in the back of his mind a +half-formulated notion that it had been a cheerful companion, somebody +to amuse him. She scarcely seemed likely to do the latter now. He +was, however, not one of the men who can face a crisis collectedly, and +his thoughts became confused, until one idea emerged from them. He had +pledged himself to her, and the fact laid a certain obligation upon +him. It was his part to over-rule any fancies she might be disposed to +indulge in. + +"Well," he said stoutly, "I'm not going to admit anything of that kind. +The journey has been too much for you. You haven't got over it yet." +He lowered his voice, and his face softened. "Aggy, dear, I've waited +four years for you." + +That stirred her, for it was certainly true, and his gentleness had +also its effect. The situation was becoming more and more difficult, +for it seemed impossible to make him understand that he would in all +probability speedily tire of her. She now recognised that, but to make +it clear that she could never be satisfied with him was a thing she +shrank from. + +"How have you passed those four years?" she asked, to gain time. + +For a moment his conscience smote him. He remembered the trips to +Winnipeg, and the dances to which he had attended Sally Creighton. It +was, however, evident that Agatha could have heard nothing of Sally. + +"I spent them in hard work. I wanted to make the place more +comfortable for you," he said. "It is true"--and he added this with a +twinge of uneasiness, as he remembered that his neighbours had done +much more with less incentive--"that it's still very far from what I +would like, but things have been against me." + +The speech had a far stronger effect than he could have expected, for +Agatha remembered Wyllard's description of what the prairie farmer had +to face. Those four years of determined effort and patient endurance, +which was how she pictured them, counted heavily against her in the +man's favour. It flashed upon her that, after all, there might have +been some warrant for the view she had held of Gregory's character when +he had fallen in love with her. He was younger then, there must have +been latent possibilities in him, but the years of toil had killed them +and hardened him. It was for her sake he had made the struggle, and +now it seemed unthinkable that she should renounce him because he came +to her with the dust and stain of it upon him. For all that, she was +possessed with a curious, sub-conscious feeling that she would involve +them both in disaster if she yielded. Something warned her that she +must stand fast. + +"Gregory," she said, "I seem to know that we should both be sorry +afterwards if I kept my promise." + +Hawtrey straightened himself with a smile she recognised. She had +liked him for it once, for it had then suggested the joyous courage of +untainted youth. Now, however, it struck her as only hinting at empty, +complacent assurance. She hated herself for the fancy, but it would +not be driven away. + +"Well," he said, "I'm quite willing to face that hazard. I suppose +this diffidence is only natural, Aggy, but it's a little hard on me." + +"No," said the girl sharply, with a strained look in her eyes, "it's +horribly unnatural, and that's why I'm afraid. I should have come to +you gladly, without a misgiving, feeling that nothing could hurt me if +I was with you. I wanted to do that, Gregory--I meant to--but I +can't." Then her voice fell to a tone that had vibrant regret in it. +"You should have made sure--married me when you last came home." + +"But I'd nowhere to take you. The farm was only half-broken prairie, +the homestead almost unhabitable." + +Agatha winced at this. It was, no doubt, true, but it seemed horribly +petty and commonplace. His comprehension stopped at such details as +these, and he had given her no credit for the courage which would have +made light of bodily discomfort. + +"Do you think--that--would have mattered? We were both very young +then, and we could have faced our troubles and grown up together. Now +we're not the same. You let me grow up alone." + +[Illustration: "'Do you think--that--would have mattered?'"] + +Hawtrey spread his hands out. "I haven't changed." + +He contented himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There +was no spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the +passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away +in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, +and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a +crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the +surface. There was no depth in him. + +"Aggy," he added humbly, when he should have been dominantly forceful, +"it is only a question of a little time. You will get used to me." + +"Then," and the girl clutched at the chance of respite, "give me six +months from to-day. It isn't very much to ask, Gregory." + +The man wrinkled his brows. "It's a great deal," he answered slowly. +"I seem to feel that we shall drift further and further apart if once I +let you go." + +"Then you feel that we have drifted a little already?" + +"I don't know what has come over you, Aggy, but there has been a +change. I'm what I was, and I want to keep you." + +Agatha rose and turned towards him rather white in face. "Then if you +are wise you will not urge me now." + +Hawtrey met her gaze for a moment, and then made a sign of acquiescence +as he turned his eyes away. He recognised that this was a new Agatha, +one whose will was stronger than his. Yet he was half-astonished that +he had yielded so readily. + +"Well," he said, "if it must be, I can only give way to you, but I must +be free to come over here whenever I wish." Then a thought seemed to +strike him. "But you may have to go away," he added, with sudden +concern. "If I am to wait six months, what are you to do in the +meanwhile?" + +The girl smiled wearily. Now the respite had been granted her, the +question he had raised was not one that caused her any great concern. + +"Oh," she said, "we can think of that later, I have borne enough +to-day. This has been a little hard upon me, Gregory." + +"I don't think it has been particularly easy for either of us," said +Hawtrey, with a trace of grimness. "Anyway, it seems that I'm only +distressing you." He smiled wryly. "It's naturally not what I had +expected to do. I'll come back when I feel I've quite grasped the +situation." + +He moved a pace or two nearer, and taking one of her hands swiftly +stooped and kissed her cheek. + +"My dear," he said, "I only want to make it as easy as I can. You'll +try to think of me, favourably." + +Then he went out and left her sitting with a troubled face beside the +open window. A little warm breeze swept into the almost empty room, +and outside a blaze of sunshine rested on the prairie. It was torn up +with wheel ruts about the house, for the wooden building rose abruptly +without fence or garden from the waste of whitened grass. Close to it +there stood a birch-log barn or stables, its sides curiously ridged and +furrowed where the trunks were laid on one another, roofed with wooden +shingles that had warped into hollows here and there. Further away +there rose another long building, apparently of sod, and a great +shapeless yellow mound with a domed top towered behind the latter. It +was most unlike a trim English rick, besides being bigger, and Agatha +wondered what it could be. As a matter of fact, it was a not uncommon +form of granary, the straw from the last thrashing flung over a +birch-pole framing. + +Behind that there ran a great breadth of knee-high stubble, blazing +ochre and cadmium in the sunlight. It had evidently extended further +than it did, for a blackened space showed where a fire had been lighted +to destroy it. Here Hastings, clad in blue duck, with long boots, was +ploughing, plodding behind his horses, which stopped now and then when +the share jarred against a patch of still frozen soil. Further on two +other men silhouetted in blue against the whitened grass drove spans of +slowly moving oxen that hauled big breaker ploughs, and the lines of +clods that lengthened behind them gleamed in the sunlight a rich +chocolate-brown. Beyond them the wilderness ran unbroken to the +horizon. + +Agatha gazed at it all vacantly, but the newness and strangeness of it +reacted upon her. She felt very desolate and lonely, and by and bye +remembered that she had still to grapple with a practical difficulty. +She could not stay with Mrs. Hastings indefinitely, and she had not the +least notion where to go or what she was to do. She was leaning back +in her chair wearily with half-closed eyes when her hostess came in and +looked at her with a smile that suggested comprehension. Mrs. Hastings +was thin, and seemed a trifle worn, but she had shrewd, kindly eyes. +Just then she wore a plain print dress which was dusted here and there +with flour. + +"So you have sent him away?" she said. + +It was borne in upon Agatha that she could be candid with this woman +who she fancied had already guessed the truth. + +"Yes," she said, "for six months. That is, we are not to decide on +anything until they have expired. I felt we must get used to each +other. It seemed best." + +"To you. Did it seem best to Gregory?" + +A flush crept into Agatha's face. Though his acquiescence had been a +relief to her, she felt that after all he might have made a more +vigorous protest. + +"He gave in to me," she said. + +Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Well," she said, "I believe you were +wise, but that opens up another question. What are you going to do in +the meanwhile?" + +"I don't know," said Agatha wearily. "I suppose I shall have to go +away--to Winnipeg, most probably. I could teach, I think." + +"How are you and Gregory to get used to each other if you go away?" + +Agatha made a little helpless gesture. "I hadn't looked at it in that +light." + +"Are you very anxious to get used to him?" + +Agatha shrank from the question; but there was a constraining +kindliness in her companion's eyes. + +"I daren't quite think about it yet. I mean to try. I must try. I +seem to be playing an utterly contemptible, selfish part, but I could +not marry him--now!" + +Her hostess quietly crossed the room, and sat down by her side. + +"My dear," she said, "as I told you, I think you are doing right, and +in some respects I believe I know how you feel. Everybody prophesied +disaster when I came out to join Allen from a sheltered home in +Montreal, and at the beginning my life here was not easy to me. It was +all so different, and there were times when I was afraid, and my heart +was horribly heavy. If it hadn't been for Allen I think I should have +given in and broken down. He understood, however. He never failed me." + +Agatha's eyes grew misty, and she turned her head away. + +"Yes," she said, "that would make it wonderfully easier." + +"You must forgive me," said her companion. "It was tactless, but I +didn't mean to hurt you. Well, one difficulty shouldn't give us very +much trouble. Why shouldn't you stay here with me?" + +Agatha turned towards her abruptly with a relief in her face from which +it, however, faded again. She liked this woman, and she liked her +husband, but she remembered that she had no claim on them. + +"Oh," she said, "it is out of the question." + +"Wait a little. I'm proposing to give you quite as much as you will +probably care to do. There are my two little girls to teach, and I +think they have rather taken to you. I can scarcely find a minute to +do it myself, and, as you have seen, there is a piano which has after +all only a few of the notes broken. Besides, we have only one +Scandinavian maid who smashes everything that isn't made of indurated +fibre, and I'm afraid she'll marry one of the boys in a month or two. +It was only by sending the kiddies to Brandon and getting Mrs. +Creighton, a neighbour of ours, to look after Allen, who insisted on me +going, that I was able to get to Paris with some Montreal friends. In +any case, you'd have no end of duties." + +"You are doing this out of--charity?" + +Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Allen wrote some friends of his in Winnipeg to +send me anybody out a week or two ago." + +The girl's eyes shone mistily. "Oh," she said, "you have lifted one +weight off my mind." + +"I think," said Mrs. Hastings, "the others will also be removed in due +time." + +Then she talked cheerfully of other matters, and Agatha listened to her +with a vague wonder, which was, however, not altogether justified, at +her good fortune in falling in with such a friend, for there are in +that country a good many men and women who resemble this farmer's wife +in one respect. Unfettered by conventions they stretch out an open +hand to the stranger and the outcast. Toil has brought them charity in +place of hardness, and still retaining, as some of them do, the culture +of the cities, they have outgrown all the petty bonds of caste. The +wheat-grower and the hired man eat together, his wife or daughter mends +the latter's clothes, and he, as the natural result of it, not +infrequently makes the farmer's cause his own. Rights are +good-humouredly conceded in place of being fought for, and the sense of +grievance and half-veiled suspicion are exchanged for an efficient +co-operation. It must, however, be admitted that there are also +farmers of another kind, from whom the hired man has occasionally some +difficulty in extracting his covenanted wages by personal violence. +That, too, fails now and then. + +By and bye a team and a jolting waggon swept into sight, and Mrs. +Hastings rose when the man who drove it pulled his horses up. + +"It's Sproatly; I wonder what has brought him here," she said, and as +the man who sprang down walked towards the house she gazed at him +almost incredulously. + +"He's quite smart," she added. "I don't see a single patch on that +jacket, and he has positively got his hair cut." + +"Is that an unusual thing in Mr. Sproatly's case?" Agatha asked. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings. "It's very unusual indeed. What is +stranger still, he has taken the old grease-spotted band off his hat, +after clinging to it affectionately for the last twelve months." + +Agatha fancied that the soft hat, which fell shapelessly over part of +Sproatly's face, needed something to replace the discarded band; but in +another moment or two he entered the room. He shook hands with them +both, and then sat down and smiled. + +"You are looking remarkably fresh, but appearances are not invariably +to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par," he +said. "I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind." + +"I don't," said Mrs. Hastings resolutely; "Allen doesn't, either. +Besides, didn't you get into some trouble over that tonic?" + +"It was the cough cure," said Sproatly with a grin. "I sold a man at +Lander's one of the large-sized bottles and when he had taken some he +felt a good deal better. Then he seems to have argued the thing out +like this: if one dose had relieved the cough, a dozen should drive it +out of him altogether, and he took the lot. He slept for forty-eight +hours afterwards, and when I came across him at the settlement he +attacked me with a club. The fault, I may point out, was in his logic. +Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph +of the Deutcher Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects +recognised it. One hung it up in his shanty. The other asked me to +hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it. +He, however, produced his dollar; said he felt so much better after +what he'd done that he didn't grudge it." + +"I'm afraid we're not worth powder and shot," said Mrs. Hastings. "Do +you ever remember our buying any tonics or pictures from you?" + +"I don't, though I have felt that you ought to have done it," and +Sproatly, who paused a moment, turned towards Agatha with a little +whimsical inclination. "The professional badinage of an unlicensed +dealer in patent medicines may now and then mercifully cover a good +deal of embarrassment. Miss Ismay has brought something pleasantly +characteristic of the Old Country along with her." + +His hostess disregarded the last remark. "Then if you didn't expect to +sell us anything, what did you come for?" + +"For supper," said Sproatly cheerfully. "Besides that, to take Miss +Rawlinson a drive. I told her last night it would afford me +considerable pleasure to show her the prairie. We could go round by +Lander's and back." + +"Then you will probably come across her somewhere about the straw-pile +with the kiddies." + +Sproatly took the hint, and when he went out Mrs. Hastings laughed. + +"You would hardly suppose that was a young man of excellent education?" +she said. "So it's on Winifred's account he has driven over; at first +I fancied it was on yours." + +Agatha was astonished, but she smiled. "If Winifred favours him with +her views about young men he will probably be rather sorry for himself. +He lives near you?" + +"No," said Mrs. Hastings; "in the summer he lives in his waggon, or +under it, I don't know which. Of course, if he's really taken with +Winifred he will have to alter that." + +"But he has only seen her once--you can't mean that he is serious." + +"I really can't speak for Sproatly, but it would be quite in keeping +with the customs of the country if he was." + +A minute or two later Agatha saw Winifred in the waggon when it +reappeared from behind the strawpile, and Mrs. Hastings turned towards +the window. + +"She has gone with him," she said significantly. "Unfortunately, he +has taken my kiddies too. If he brings them back with no bones broken +it will be a relief to me." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +WANDERERS. + +Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings when the latter, who was +driving over to Wyllard's homestead with her one afternoon, pulled up +her team while they were still some little distance away from it, and +looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast +breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now +faintly flecked with green. On the other, ploughing teams were +scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of +clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out +behind them. The great sweep of grasses that rustled joyously before a +glorious warm wind, gleamed almost luminous, and overhead hung a vault +of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, skeins and +wisps of birds moved up from the south. + +"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall +back-set," she said. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind +of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly." Then she glanced +towards where the teams were hauling unusually heavy ploughs through +the grassy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll +probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich +man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against +him. Some of his neighbours, including my husband, would have sown a +little less and held a reserve in hand." + +Agatha remembered what Wyllard had told her one night on board the +_Scarrowmania_, and smiled, for she fancied that she understood the +man. He was not one to hedge, as she had heard it called, or +cautiously hold his hand. He staked boldly, but she felt that this was +not only for the sake of the dollars that he might stand to gain. It +was part of his nature--the result of an optimistic faith or courage +that appealed to her, and sheer love of effort. She also fancied that +his was no spasmodic, impulsive activity. She could imagine him +holding on as steadfastly with everything against him, exacting all +that men and teams and machines could do. It struck her as curious +that she should feel so sure of this; but she admitted that it was the +case. + +In the meanwhile he was approaching them, sitting in the driving-seat +of a big machine that ripped broad furrows through the crackling sod. +Four horses plodded wearily in front of it until he thrust one hand +over, and there was a rattle and clanking as he swung them and the +machine round beside the waggon. Then he got down, and stood smiling +up at Agatha with his soft hat in his hand and the sunlight falling +full upon his weather-darkened face. It was not a particularly +striking face, but there was something in it, a hint of restrained +force and steadfastness, she thought, which Gregory's did not possess, +and for a moment or two she watched him unobtrusively. She felt she +could not help it. + +He wore an old blue shirt, open at the throat and belted into trousers +of blue duck at the waist, and she noticed the fine symmetry of his +somewhat spare figure. The absence of any superfluous fleshiness +struck her as in keeping with her view of his character. The man was +well-endued physically; but apart from the strong vitality that was +expressed in every line of his pose he looked clean, as she vaguely +described it to herself. There was, at least, an indefinable something +about him that was apparently born of a simple, healthful life spent in +determined labour in the open air. It became plainer as she remembered +other men she had met upon whom the mark of the beast was unmistakably +set. Then Mrs. Hastings broke the silence. + +"Well," she said, "we have driven over as we promised. I've no doubt +you will give us supper, but we'll go on and sit down with Mrs. Nansen +in the meanwhile. I expect you're too busy to talk to us." + +[Illustration: "'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we +promised!'"] + +Wyllard laughed, and it occurred to Agatha that his laugh was wholesome +as well as pleasant. + +"I generally am busy," he admitted. "These beasts have, however, been +at it since sun-up, and they're rather played out now. I'll talk to +you as long as you like after supper, which will soon be ready. It's +bad economy to ask too much from them." + +Agatha noticed that though the near horse's coat was foul with dust and +sweat he laid his brown hand upon it, and she supposed she must be +fanciful, for it seemed to her that the gentleness with which he did it +was very suggestive. + +"I wonder if that's the only reason that influences you," she said. + +A twinkle crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It seems to me a good one as far +as it goes; anyway, I've been driven rather hard myself now and then, +and I didn't like it." + +"Doesn't that usually result in making one drive somebody else harder +to make up for it, when one has the opportunity?" + +"If it does it certainly isn't logical. Logic's rather a fine thing +when it's sound." + +"Then," Mrs. Hastings broke in, "I'll suggest a proposition: what's to +be the result of all this ploughing if we have harvest frost or the +market goes against you?" + +"Quite a big deficit," said Wyllard cheerfully. + +"And that doesn't cause you any anxiety?" + +"I'll have had some amusement for my money." + +Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until +it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amusement!" Then she looked +back at Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your +back as straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks +as if it wanted to lie down." + +Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two +more rows of furrows still to do." + +"I suppose that is a hint," and Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when +the waggon jolted on. + +"That man," she said, "is a great favourite of mine. For one thing, +he's fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some +respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then runs away with +him." + +"What do you mean by fastidious?" + +"It's a little difficult to define, but I certainly don't mean +pernicketty. Of course, there is a fastidiousness which makes one +shrink from unpleasant things, but Harry's is the other kind. It +impels him to do them every now and then." + +Agatha made no answer. She was uneasily conscious that it might not be +advisable to think too much about this man, and in another minute or +two they reached the homestead. The house was a plain frame building +that had apparently grown out of an older and smaller one of logs, part +of which remained. It was much the same with the barns and stables, +for while they were stoutly built of framed timber or logs one end of +most of them was lower than the rest, and in some cases consisted of +poles and sods. Even to her untrained eyes all she saw suggested +order, neatness, and efficiency. The whole was flanked and sheltered +by a big birch bluff, in which trunks and branches showed up through a +thin green haze of tiny opening leaves, though here and there uncovered +twigs still cut in lace-like tracery against the blue of the sky. + +A man whom Wyllard had sent after them took the horses, and when she +got down Agatha commented on what she called the added-to look of the +buildings. + +"The Range," said Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took +hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's +efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of +some capital since a relative of his died, but I never thought that +explained everything." + +Then they entered the house, and a grey-haired Swedish woman led them +through several match-boarded rooms into a big, cool hall. She left +them there for awhile, and Agatha was busy for a minute or two with her +impressions of the house. It was singularly empty by comparison with +the few English homesteads she had seen. There were neither curtains +nor carpets nor hangings of any kind, but it was commodious and +comfortable. + +"What can a bachelor want with a place like this?" she asked. + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Hastings; "perhaps it's Harry's idea of +having every thing proportionate. The Range is quite a big, and +generally a prosperous, farm. Besides, it's likely that he doesn't +contemplate remaining a bachelor for ever. Indeed, Allen and I +sometimes wonder how he has escaped so long." + +"Is that the right word?" Agatha asked. + +"It is," said her companion with a laugh. "You see, he's highly +eligible from our point of view, but at the same time he's apparently +invulnerable. I believe," she added drily, "that's the right word, +too." + +Then the Swedish housekeeper appeared again, and they talked with her +until she retired to bring the six o'clock supper. Soon after it was +laid out Wyllard and the men came in. He was attired as when Agatha +had last seen him, except that he had evidently brushed himself and put +on a store jacket. He led his guests to the head of the long table, +but the men--and there were a number of them--sat below, and had +evidently no diffidence about addressing question or comment to their +employer. + +They ate with a somewhat voracious haste, but that appeared to be the +custom of the country, and Agatha could find no great fault with their +manners or conversation. The latter was, for the most part, quaintly +witty, and some of them used what struck her as remarkably fitting and +original similes. Indeed, as the meal proceeded she became curiously +interested in the men and their surroundings. + +The windows were open wide, and a sweet, warm air swept into the barely +furnished room. The spaciousness of the latter impressed her, and she +was pleased with the evident unity between these brown-faced, +strong-armed toilers and their leader. He sat, self-contained, but +courteous and responsive to all alike, at the head of his table, and +though that is, as she had discovered, in most respects an essentially +democratic country, she felt that there was something almost feudal in +the relations between him and his men. She could not imagine them +being confined to the mere exaction of so much labour and the +expectation of payment of wages due. She was also pleased that he had +not changed his dress, which would, she felt, have been a singularly +unfitting action. In fact, so strong was her interest that she was +almost astonished when the meal was over, though it must be admitted +that most of the men rose and went out in fifteen minutes. Afterwards +she and Mrs. Hastings talked with the housekeeper for awhile, and an +hour had slipped away when Wyllard suggested that he should show her +the sloo beyond the bluff. + +"It's the nearest approach to a lake we have until you get to the +alkali tract," he said. + +Agatha went with him through the shadow of the wood, and when at length +they came out of it he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house +and ploughing were hidden now, and they were alone on the slope to a +slight hollow, in which half a mile of gleaming water lay. Its surface +was broken here and there, by tussocks of grass and reeds, and beyond +it the prairie ran back unbroken, a dim grey waste, to the horizon. +The sun had dipped behind the bluff, and the sky had become a vast +green transparency. There was no wind now, but a wonderful +exhilarating freshness crept into the cooling air, and the stillness +was only broken by the clamour of startled wildfowl which presently +sank again. Agatha could see them paddling in clusters about the +gleaming sloo. + +"Those are ducks--wild ones?" she asked. + +"Yes," said Wyllard; "duck of various kinds. Most of them the same as +your English ones." + +"Do you shoot them?" + +Agatha was not greatly interested, but he seemed disposed to silence, +and she felt, for no very clear reason, that it was advisable to talk +of something. + +"No," he said, "not often, anyway. If Mrs. Nansen wants a couple I +crawl down to the long grass with the rifle and get them for her." + +"The rifle? Doesn't the big bullet destroy them?" + +"No," said Wyllard. "You have to shoot their head off or cut their +neck in two." + +"You can do that--when they're right out in the sloo?" asked Agatha, +who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle +than a shot-gun, which spreads its charge. + +Wyllard smiled. "Generally; that is, if I haven't been doing much just +before. It depends upon one's hands. We have our game laws, but as a +rule nobody worries about them, and, anyway, those birds won't nest +until they reach the tundra by the Polar Sea. Still, as I said, we +never shoot them unless Mrs. Nansen wants one or two for the pot." + +"Why?" + +"I don't quite know. For one thing, they're worn out; they just stop +here to rest." + +His answer appealed to the girl. It did not seem strange to her that +the love of the lower creation should be strong in this man, who had no +hesitation in admitting that the game laws were no restraint to him. +For the most part, at least, when these Lesser Brethren sailed down out +of the blue heavens worn with their journey he gave them right of +sanctuary. + +"They have come a long way?" she asked. + +Wyllard pointed towards the South. "From Florida, Cuba, Yucatan; +further than that, perhaps. In a day or two they'll push on again +towards the Pole, and others will take their places. There's a further +detachment arriving now." + +Looking up, Agatha saw a straggling wedge of birds dotted in dusky +specks against the vault, of transcendental green. It coalesced, drew +out again, and dropped swiftly, and the air was filled with the rush of +wings; then there was a harsh crying and splashing, and she heard the +troubled water lap among the reeds until deep silence closed in upon +the sloo again. + +"I wonder," she said, "why they do it?" + +A rather curious smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It's their destiny: +they're wanderers and strangers without a habitation: there's unrest in +them. After a few months on the tundra mosses to gather strength and +teach the young to fly, they'll unfold their wings to beat another +passage before the icy gales. Some of us, I think, are like them!" + +Agatha could not avoid the personal application. It would have +appeared less admissible among her friends at The Grange, but she felt +that the constraints of English reticence were out of place in the +wilderness. + +"You surely don't apply that to yourself," she said. "You certainly +have a habitation--the finest, isn't it, on this part of the prairie?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard slowly; "I suppose it is. I've now had a little +rest and quietness, too." + +This did not appear to call for an answer, and Agatha sat silent. + +"Still," he said, "I have a feeling that some day the call will come, +and I shall have to take the trail again." He paused, and looked at +her before he added, "It would be easier if one hadn't to go alone, or, +since that would be necessary, if one had at least something to come +back to when the journey was done." + +"It would be necessary?" said Agatha, who was rather puzzled by his +steady gaze. + +"Yes," he said with a somewhat impressive gravity, "the call will come +from the icy North if it ever comes at all." + +There was another brief silence, and Agatha wondered what he was +thinking of until he went on again. + +"I remember how I last came back from there. We were rather late that +season, and out of our usual beat when the gale broke upon us between +Alaska and Asia in the gateway of the Pole. We ran before it with a +strip of the boom-foresail on her and a jib that blew to ribands every +now and then. She was a little schooner of ninety tons or so, and for +most of a week she scudded with the grey seas tumbling after her, +white-topped, out of the snow and spume. They ranged high above her +taffrail curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The +one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching her +screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let +her fall off or claw up, the next one would have made an end of her. +He was knee deep half the time in icy brine, and his hands had split +and opened with the frost, but the sweat dripped from him as he clung +to the jarring wheel. One of those helmsmen--perhaps two--had another +trouble which preyed on them. They were thinking of the three men they +had left behind. + +"Well," he added, "we ran out of the gale, and I had bitter words to +face when we reached Vancouver. As one result of it I walked out of +the city with four or five dollars in my pocket--though there was a +share due to me. Then I rode up into the ranges in an open car to mend +railroad bridges in the frost and snow. It was not the kind of +home-coming one would care to look forward to." + +"Ah," said Agatha, "it must have been horribly dreary?" + +The man met her eyes. "Yes," he said, "you--know. You came here from +far away, I think a little weary, too, and something failed you. Then +you felt yourself adrift. There were--it seemed--only strangers round +you, but you were wrong in one respect; you were by no means a stranger +to me." + +He had been leaning against a birch trunk, but now he moved a little +nearer, and stood gravely looking down on her. + +"You have sent Gregory away?" he said. + +"Yes," said Agatha, and, startled as she was, it did not strike her +that the mere admission was misleading. + +Wyllard stretched his hands out. "Then won't you come to me?" + +The blood swept into the girl's face. For the moment she forgot +Gregory, and was only conscious of an unreasoning impulse which +prompted her to take the hands held out to her. Then she rose and +faced the man, with burning cheeks. + +"You know nothing of me," she said. "Can you think that I would let +you take me--out of charity?" + +"Again you're wrong--on both points. As I once told you, I have sat +for hours beside the fire beneath the pines or among the boulders with +your picture for company. When I was worn-out and despondent you +encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the +ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all, however, +though it's difficult to speak of such things to you. There were times +when as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide, +all one's physical nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labour. +The pay-days came round, and opportunities were made for us--to forget +what we had borne, and had still to bear, in the snow and the icy +water. Then you laid a restraining hand on me. I could not take your +picture where you could not go. Is all that to count for nothing?" + +Then he spread his hands out forcibly. "As to the other question: +can't you get beyond the narrow point of view? We're in a big, new +country where the old barriers are down. We're merely flesh and +blood--red blood--and we speak as we feel. Admitting that I was sorry +for you--I am--how does that tell against me--or you? There's one +thing only that counts at all: I want you." + +Agatha was stirred, and almost dismayed at the effect his words had on +her. He had spoken with a force and passion that had nearly swept her +away with it. The vigour of the new land throbbed in his voice, and, +flinging aside all cramping restraints and conventions, he had, as he +had said, claimed her as flesh and blood. There was no doubt that her +nature responded, and it was significant that Gregory had faded +altogether out of her mind; but there was, after all, pride in her, and +she could not quite bring herself to look at things from his +standpoint. All her prejudices and her sense of fitness were opposed +to it. For one thing, he had taken the wrong way when he had admitted +that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she +shrank from the shadow of the thought that she would marry him--for +shelter. It brought her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered +the haste with which marriages were, it seemed, arranged on the +prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost +compelled her to yield to him passed away, she remembered that it was +scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was +intolerable that he should think she would be willing to fall into his +arms merely because he had held them out to her. + +"It's a little difficult to get beyond one's sense of what is fit," she +said. "You--I must say it again--can't know anything about me. You +have woven fancies about that photograph, but you must recognise that +I'm not the girl you have, it seems, created out of them. In all +probability she's wholly unreal, unnatural, visionary." She contrived +to smile, for she was recovering her composure. "Perhaps it's easy +when one has imagination to endow a person with qualities and graces +that could never belong to them. It must be easy"--and though she was +unconscious of it, there was a trace of bitterness in her +voice--"because I know I could do it myself." + +Again the man held his hands out. "Then," he said simply, "won't you +try? If you can only feel sure that the person has them it's possible +that he could acquire one or two." + +Agatha drew back, disregarding this. "Then I've changed ever so much +since that photograph was taken." + +Wyllard admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I recognised that; you were a +little immature then. I know that now--but all the graciousness and +sweetness in you has grown and ripened. What is more, it has grown +just as I seemed to know it would do. I saw that clearly the day we +met beside the stepping-stones. I would have asked you to marry me in +England only Gregory stood in the way." + +Then the colour ebbed suddenly out of the girl's face as she remembered. + +"Gregory," she said in a strained voice, "stands in the way still. I +didn't send him away altogether. I'm not sure I made that clear." + +Wyllard started, but he stood very still again for a moment or two. + +"I wonder," he said, "if there's anything significant in the fact that +you gave me that reason last? He failed you in some way?" + +"I'm not sure that I haven't failed him; but I can't go into that." + +Again Wyllard stood silent awhile. Then he turned to her with the +signs of a strong restraint in his face. + +"Gregory," he said, "is a friend of mine; there is, at least, one very +good reason why I should remember it, but it seems that somehow he +hadn't the wit to keep you. Well, I can only wait in the meanwhile, +but when the time seems ripe I shall ask you again. Until then you +have my promise that I will not say another word that could distress +you. Perhaps I had better take you back to Mrs. Hastings now." + +Agatha turned away, and they walked back together silently through the +bluff. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE SUMMONS. + +Mrs. Hastings was standing beside her waggon in the gathering dusk when +Agatha and Wyllard joined her, and when the latter had helped them up +she looked down at him severely as she gathered up the reins. + +"By this time Allen will have had to put the kiddies to bed," she said. +"Christina, as you might have borne in mind, goes over to Branstock's +every evening. Anyway, you'll drive across and see him about that team +as soon as you can; come to supper." + +"I'll try," said Wyllard with a certain hesitation; and Mrs. Hastings +turned to her companion as they drove away. + +"Why did he look at you before he answered me?" she asked, and laughed, +for there was just light enough left to show the colour in Agatha's +cheek. "Well," she added, "I told Allen he was sure to be the first." + +Agatha looked at her in evident bewilderment, but she nodded. "Yes," +she said, "of course, I knew it would come. Everybody knows by now +that you have fallen out with Gregory." + +"But, as I told you, I haven't fallen out with him." + +"Then you certainly haven't married him, and if you have said 'No' to +Harry Wyllard because you would sooner take Gregory after all, you're a +singularly unwise young woman. Anyway, you'll have to meet him when he +comes to supper. Allen's fond of a talk with Harry; I can't have him +kept away." + +"I was a little afraid of that," said Agatha quietly. "What makes the +situation more difficult is that he told me he would ask me again." + +Mrs. Hastings appeared thoughtful. "In that case he will in all +probability do it; but I don't think you need feel diffident about +meeting him, especially as you can't help it. He'll wait and say +nothing until he considers it advisable." + +She changed the subject, and talked about other matters until they +reached the homestead; but as the weeks went by Agatha found that what +she had told her was warranted. + +Wyllard drove over every now and then, but she was reassured by his +attitude. He greeted her with the quiet cordiality which had hitherto +characterised him, and it went a long way towards allaying the +embarrassment she was conscious of at first. By and bye, however, she +felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the disturbing possibility +that he might at some future time once more adopt the rôle of lover. +In the meanwhile, she realised that in face of the efforts she made to +think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory; and +she had, as it happened, two further offers of marriage before the +wheat had shot up a hand's breadth above the rich black loam. This was +a matter of regret to her, and, though Mrs. Hastings assured her that +the "boys" would get over it, she was rather shocked to hear that one +of them had shortly afterwards involved himself in difficulties by +creating a disturbance in Winnipeg. + +The wheat, however, was growing tall when, at Mrs. Hastings's request, +she drove over with her again to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when +they reached it, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together +she wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff +and towards the sloo, which had almost dried up now, and it was with a +curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard +had said to her there. Through them all there ran a regret that she +had not met him four years earlier. + +That, however, was a train of thought she did not care to indulge in, +and in order to get rid of it she walked more briskly up a low rise +where the grass was already turning white again, over the crest of it, +and down the side of another hollow. The prairie rolled just there in +wide undulations as the sea does when the swell of a distant gale +under-runs a glassy calm. She had grown fond of the prairie, and its +clear skies and fresh breezes had brought the colour to her cheeks and +given her composure, though there were times when the knowledge that +she was no nearer a decision in regard to Gregory weighed upon her like +a chill depressing shadow. She had seen very little of him, and he had +not been effusive then. What he felt she could not tell, but it had +been a relief to her when he had ridden away again. Then for a while +he faded to an unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind. + +That afternoon the prairie stretched away before her gleaming in the +sunlight tinder a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down +the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and for the first +time she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow at the foot +of it, where there had been another sloo. It had, however, evidently +dried up weeks ago, and as there were men and horses moving amidst the +dust she supposed that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows +longer in such places than it does upon the levels. She went on +another half-mile, and then sat down some distance off, for she had +already walked further than she had intended. She could now see the +men more clearly, and though it was fiercely hot they were evidently +working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing and bare brown arms +appeared among the white and ochre tinting of the grass that seemed +charged with brightness, and the sounds of their activity came up to +her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of the mowers, the +crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of waggon wheels. + +By and bye a great mound of gleaming grass overhanging two half-seen +horses moved out of the sloo, and she watched it draw nearer until she +made out Wyllard sitting in a depression in the front of it. She sat +still until he pulled the team up close beside her and looked down with +a smile. + +"It's 'most two miles to the homestead. If you could manage to climb +up I could make you a comfortable place," he said. + +Agatha held her hands up with one foot upon a spoke of the wheel as the +man leaned down, and next moment she was strongly lifted and felt his +supporting hand upon her waist. Then she found herself standing upon a +narrow ledge clutching at the hay while he tore out several big armfuls +of it and flung it back upon the rest. + +[Illustration: "Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down, +and the next moment she was strongly lifted."] + +"Now," he said, "I guess you'll find that a snug enough nest." + +She sank into it with at least a certain sense of physical +satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm, scented with the aromatic +odours of wild peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath +her limbs. Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she +fancied she had seen a sudden sign of tension in the man's face when he +had for a moment held her on the edge of the waggon. Unobtrusively she +flashed a glance at him, and was reassured. He was looking straight +before him with unwavering eyes, and his face was as quiet as it +usually was again. Neither of them said anything until the team moved +on. Then he turned to her. + +"You won't get jolted much," he said. "They've been at it since four +o'clock this morning." + +"That," said Agatha, "must have meant that you rose at three." + +Wyllard smiled. "As a matter of fact, it was half-past two. There was +no dew last night, and we started early. I've several extra teams this +year, and there's a good deal of hay to cut. Of course, we have to get +it in the sloos or any damp place where it's long. We don't sow grass, +and we have no meadows like those there are in England." + +Agatha understood that he meant to talk about matters of no particular +consequence, as he usually did. There was, as she had noticed, a vein +of almost poetic imagination in this man, and his idea that she had +been with him through the snow of the lonely ranges and the gloom of +the great forests of the Pacific slope appealed to her, merely as a +pretty fancy, in particular. He had, however, of late very seldom +given it rein, and sitting close beside him among the yielding hay she +decided that it was wiser to let him talk about his farm. + +"But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven't +you?" she said. + +"I had, but he left me three or four days ago. It's a pity in several +ways, since I've taken up rather more than I can handle this year." + +"Then why didn't you keep him?" + +There was a certain grimness in Wyllard's laugh. "Martial was a little +muleish, and I'm afraid I'm troubled with a shortness of temper now and +then. We had a difference of opinion as to the best way to drive the +mower into the sloo, and he didn't seem to recognise that he should +have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys were standing by, I +had to insist upon him getting out of the saddle." + +He had turned a little further towards her, and Agatha noticed that +there was a bruise upon one side of his face. After what he had just +told her the sight of it jarred upon her, though she would not admit +that there was any reason why it should do so. She could not deny that +on the prairie a resort to physical force might be warranted by the +lack of any other remedy, but it hurt her to think of him descending to +an open brawl with one of his men. + +Then it occurred to her that the other man had in all probability +suffered more, and this brought her a certain sense of satisfaction +which she admitted was more or less barbarous. She had made it clear +that Wyllard was nothing to her, but she could not help watching him as +he lay among the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face, which, +though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring--she felt that +was the best word--to look at. The dusty shirt and old blue trousers, +as she had already noticed, accentuated the long, clean lines of his +figure, and she realised with a faint sense of anger that his mere +physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, appealed to her. +This was, she recognised, an almost repugnant thing, a feeling to be +judiciously checked, but it would obtrude itself. After all, in spite +of her fastidiousness, she was endued with most of the characteristics +of flesh and blood. + +"You must have a good deal to look after alone," she said. + +"Oh yes," said Wyllard; "I'm making my biggest effort this year. We've +sown at least a third more than I've ever done before, and I've bought +a big bunch of horses, too. If all goes satisfactorily we should reap +a record harvest, but in the meanwhile the thing's rather a pull. One +can't let up a minute; there's always something to be done, and a +constant need for supervision." + +"Suppose you neglected the latter?" + +Wyllard smiled. "Then I'm 'most afraid there'd be the biggest kind of +smash." + +After that they talked of other matters of no great consequence, for +both of them were conscious of the necessity for a certain reticence; +and when they reached the homestead Agatha joined Mrs. Hastings, while +Wyllard pitched the hay off the waggon. He, however, came in to supper +presently with about half of the others, and they all sat down together +in the long, barely furnished room. Wyllard seemed unusually animated, +and drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout of whimsical badinage, but he looked +up sharply when, by and bye, a beat of hoofs rose from the prairie. + +"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants?" he said. "I certainly +don't expect anybody." + +The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for +the sod was hard and dry. Then it broke off, and Agatha saw Wyllard +start as a man came into the room. He was a little, thick-set man with +a weather-darkened face, dressed in rather old blue serge, and he +looked and walked like a seaman. In another moment or two he stood +still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A little +thrill of disconcertion ran through Agatha, for she felt she knew what +this stranger's errand must be. + +Then Wyllard rose, and walked towards the man with outstretched hand. + +"Sit right down and get some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden +in from the railroad," he said. "We'll talk afterwards." + +The stranger nodded. "I'm from Vancouver," he said; "had quite a lot +of trouble tracing you." + +He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take his horse, went +back to his seat, but he was rather silent during the rest of the meal. +When it was over he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the +stranger into a smaller room pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar box +on the table. + +"Now you can get ahead," he said. + +The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed +it to his companion. + +"That's what I came to bring you," he said quietly. + +Wyllard's eyes grew very grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip +of willow which will grow close up to the limits of the eternal ice, +and it bore a rude representation of the British ensign union down, +which signifies "In distress." Besides this there were one or two +indecipherable words scratched on it, and three common names rather +more clearly cut. Wyllard recognised every one of them. + +"How did you get it?" he asked, in tense suspense. + +The sailorman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of +paper cut from a chart. He flattened it out on the table, and it +showed, as Wyllard had expected, a strip of the Kamtchatkan coast. + +"I guess I needn't tell you where that is," he said, and pointed to the +parallel of latitude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it me. He was +up there late last season well over on the western side. A +north-easterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of +her. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury +mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that +being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail. +Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept +heading them from the east she sidled away down south through the +Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which +explains why Dunton only fetched Vancouver a week ago." + +[Illustration: "'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said, +and pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across."] + +"But the message?" + +"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove her to not far +off the beach with ice about, and a Husky came down on them in some +kind of boat." + +"A Husky?" said Wyllard, who knew he meant an Esquimaux. + +"That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a +Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and +he had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They +couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message +from three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out +how long ago." + +"Dunton tried for them?" + +"How could he? She'd hardly look at the wind, and the ice was piling +up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two with the +floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and blew him +out." + +He had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose, stood leaning on his +chair-back very grim in face. + +"That," he said, "must have been eight or nine months ago." + +"It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the +boat." + +"It's unthinkable," said Wyllard. "The thing can't be true." + +His companion gravely produced a little common metal watch made in +Connecticut, and worth some five or six dollars. Opening it he pointed +to a name scratched inside it. + +"You can't get over that," he said simply. + +Wyllard strode up and down the room, and when he sat down again with a +clenched hand laid upon the table he and the sailorman looked at each +other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a little +gesture. + +"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?" + +"I'm going for them." + +The sailorman smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start +right away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner." + +He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. +"Well," he said, "I'm coming with you, but you'll have to buy my ticket +to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty with a +blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me. Sealing's not +what it used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later. I won't +keep you from your friends." + +Wyllard went out and left him, and though he did not see Mrs. Hastings +just then he came upon Agatha sitting outside the house. She glanced +at his face when he sat down beside her. + +"Ah," she said, "you have had the summons." + +Wyllard nodded. "Yes," he said, "that man was the skipper of a +schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three +men are." + +Then he told her quietly what he had heard, and the girl was conscious +of a very curious thrill. + +"You are going up there to search for them?" she said. "Won't it cost +you a great deal?" + +She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his +expression was very resolute. + +"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my dollars are +locked up in this crop, and there's need of constant watchfulness and +effort until the last bushel's hauled in to the elevators. It probably +sounds egotistical, but now I've got rid of Martial I can't put my hand +on any one as fit to see the thing through as I am. Still, I have to +go for them. What else could I do?" + +"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia, or your +authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?" + +Wyllard's smile was somewhat grim. "It wouldn't be wise to give them +an opportunity. For one thing, they've had enough of sealing cases, +and that isn't astonishing. We'll say they applied for the persons of +three British subjects who are supposed to be living somewhere in +Russian Asia--and for that matter I couldn't be sure that two of them +aren't Americans--the Russians naturally enquire what the men were +doing there. The answer is that they were poaching the Russians' +seals. Then the affair on the beach comes up, and there's a big claim +for compensation and trouble all round. It seems to me the last thing +those men--they're practically outlaws--would desire would be to have a +Russian expedition sent up on their trail. They would want to lie +hidden until they could somehow get off again." + +"But how have they lived up there? The whole land's frozen, isn't it, +most of the year?" + +"They'd sealing rifles, and the Koriaks make out farther north in their +roofed-in pits. One can live on seal and walrus meat and blubber." + +Agatha shivered. "But they'd no tents, or furs, or blankets. It's +horrible to imagine it." + +"Yes," said Wyllard, gravely, "that's why I'm going for them." + +Agatha sat still a moment. She could realise the magnitude of the +sacrifice he was making, and in some degree the hazards that he must +face. It appealed to her with an overwhelming force, but she was also +conscious of a strange dismay. Then she turned to him with a flush of +colour in her cheeks and her eyes shining. + +"Oh," she said, "it's splendid!" + +Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them." + +Then somewhat to Agatha's relief Mrs. Hastings came out of the house, +and Wyllard moved away towards the stable to bring out her team. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE. + +It was two days later when Agatha, coming back from a stroll across the +prairie with the two little girls, found Mrs. Hastings awaiting her at +the homestead door. + +"I'll take the kiddies. Harry Wyllard's here, and he seems quite +anxious to see you, though I don't know what he wants," she said. + +She flashed a searching glance at the girl, whose face, however, +remained expressionless. It was, at least, not often that Agatha's +composure broke down. + +"Anyway," she added, "you had better go in. Allen has been arguing +with him the last half-hour, and can't get any sense into him. It +seems to me the man's crazy; but he might, perhaps, listen to you." + +"I think that's scarcely likely," said Agatha quietly. + +Her companion made a sign of impatience. "Then," she said, "it's a +pity. Anyway, if he speaks to you about his project you can tell him +that it's altogether unreasonable." + +She drew aside, and Agatha walked into the room in which she had had +one painful interview with Gregory. Wyllard, who was sitting there, +rose as she came in, and half-consciously she contrasted him with her +lover. Then what Mrs. Hastings had once predicted came about, for +Gregory did not bear that comparison favourably. Indeed, it seemed to +her that he grew coarser and meaner in person and character. Then she +turned to Wyllard, who stood quietly watching her. + +"Nellie Hastings or her husband has been telling you what they think of +my idea?" he said. + +Agatha admitted it. "Yes," she said. "Their opinion evidently hasn't +much weight with you." + +"I wouldn't go quite so far as that, but you might have gone a little +further than you did. Haven't you a message for me?" Then he smiled +before he added, "You were sent to denounce my folly--and you can't do +it. If you trusted your own impulses you would give me your +benediction instead." + +Agatha, who was troubled with a sense of regret, noticed that there was +a suggestive wistfulness in his face. + +"No," she said slowly, "I can't denounce it. For one reason, I have no +right of any kind to force my views on you." + +"You told Nellie Hastings that?" + +It seemed an unwarranted question, but the girl admitted it candidly. + +"In one sense I did. I suggested that there was no reason why you +should listen to me." + +Wyllard smiled again. "Nellie and her husband are good friends of +mine, but sometimes our friends are a little too officious. Anyway, it +doesn't count. If you had had that right, you would have told me to +go." + +Agatha felt the warm blood rise to her cheeks. It seemed to her that +he had paid her a great and sincere compliment in taking it for granted +that if she had loved him she would still have bidden him undertake his +perilous duty. + +"Ah," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps I should not have been brave +enough." + +It was not a judicious answer. She quite realised that, but she felt +that she must speak with unhesitating candour. + +"After all," she added, "can you be quite sure that this thing is your +duty?" + +The man laughed in a rather grim fashion. "No," he said, "I can't. In +fact, when I sit down to think I can see at least a dozen reasons why +it doesn't concern me. In a case of this kind that's always easy. +It's just borne in upon me--I don't know how--that I have to go." + +Agatha crossed to the window and sat down. She knew there was more to +follow, and it seemed advisable to secure whatever there might be in +her favour in a pose of physical ease. Besides, where she stood the +glare of light flung back by the white and dusty grass outside struck +full upon her face, and she did not want the man to read every varying +expression. He leaned upon a chair-back looking at her gravely. + +"Well," he said, "we'll go on a little further. It seems better that I +should make what's in my mind quite clear to you. You see, I and +Captain Dampier start in a week." + +Agatha was certainly conscious of a thrill of dismay, but the man +proceeded quietly. "We may be back before the winter, but it's also +quite likely that we may be ice-nipped before our work is through, and +in that case it would be a year at least before we reach Vancouver. In +fact, there's a certain probability that all of us may leave our bones +up there. Now, there's a thing I must ask you. Is it only a passing +trouble that stands between you and Gregory? Are you still fond of +him?" + +The girl felt her heart beating unpleasantly fast. It would have been +a relief to assure herself that she was as fond of Gregory as she had +been, but she could not do it. + +"That," she said, "is a point on which I cannot answer you." + +"We'll let it go at that. The fact that Gregory sent me over for you +implied a certain obligation. How far events have cleared me of it I +don't know--and you don't seem willing to tell me. But I fancy there +is now less cause than there was for me to thrust my own wishes into +the background, and, as I start in another week, the situation has +forced my hand. I can't wait as I had meant to do, and it would be a +vast relief to know that I had made your future safer than it is before +I go. Will you marry me at the settlement the morning I start?" + +Half-conscious, as she was, of the unselfishness which had prompted +this suggestion, Agatha turned and faced him in hot anger. + +"Can you suppose for a moment that I would agree to that?" she asked. + +"Wait," said the man gravely. "Try to look at it quietly. First of +all, I want you. You know that--though you have never shown me any +tenderness, you can't doubt it--but I can't stay to win your liking. I +must go away. Then, as things stand, your future is uncertain; and as +my wife it would, at least, be safer. However badly the man I leave in +charge of the Range may manage there would be something saved out of +the wreck, and I would like to make that something yours. As I said, I +may be away a year, perhaps eighteen months, and I may never come back. +If I don't, the fact that you would bear my name could cause you no +great trouble. It would lay no restraint on you in any way." + +Agatha looked him steadily in the eyes, and spoke as she felt. "We +can't contemplate your not coming back. It's unthinkable." + +"Thank you," said Wyllard, still with the grave quietness she wondered +at. "Then I'm not sure that my turning up again would greatly +complicate the thing. There would, at least, be one way out of the +difficulty. You wouldn't find the situation intolerable if I could +make you fond of me." + +The girl broke into a little, high-strung laugh that had a tinge of +bitterness in it. + +"Oh," she said, "aren't you taking too much for granted? Am I really +to believe you are making this fantastic offer seriously? Do you +suppose I would marry you--for your possessions?" + +"It sounds bloodless? Perhaps it is in one way, but you wouldn't +always find me that. Just now, because my hand is forced, I am only +anticipating things. If I live, you will some day have to choose +between me and Gregory. In this case he must hold his own if he can." + +"Against what you have offered me?" She flung the question at him. + +He looked at her with his face set and the signs of restraint very +plain on it. + +"I expect I deserved that. I wanted to make you safe. It's the most +pressing difficulty." + +The bitterness was still in the girl's eyes. + +"So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only one." +Then her anger seemed to carry her away. "Oh," she said, "do you +imagine that an offer of the kind you have made me, made as you have +made it, would lead anyone to love you?" + +Wyllard smiled. "When I first saw your picture, and when I saw you +afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem to have got +rid of it, I love you better as you are. There is, however, one thing +I must ask again, and it's your clear duty to tell me. Are you fonder +of Gregory than you feel you ever could be of me?" + +Agatha's eyes fell. She felt she could not look at him just then, nor +could she answer his question honestly as she almost wished to. + +"At least, I am bound to him until he releases me." + +"Ah," said Wyllard, "that is what I was most afraid of. All along it +hampered me, and in it you have the reason for my bloodlessness. It is +another reason why I should go away." + +"For fear that you should tempt me from my duty?" + +The man's expression changed, and there crept into his eyes a gleam of +the passion that she knew he was capable of. + +"My dear," he said, "I seem to know that I could make you break faith +with that man. You belong to me. For three years you have been +everywhere with me, but we will let that go. I must go away, and +Gregory will have a clear field, but the probability is in favour of me +coming back again, and then, if he has failed to make the most of it, +I'll enforce my claim." + +He turned and seized one of her hands, holding it strongly against her +will. + +"That is my last word. At least, you will let me think that when I go +up yonder into the mists and snow I shall take your good wishes for my +success away with me." + +She lifted her face, which was flushed, and once more looked him +steadily in the eyes. + +"They are yours, most fervently," she said. "It would be intolerable +that you should fail." + +He smiled very gravely, and let her hand fall. "After all," he said, +"one can only do what one can." + +Then he went out without another glance at her, and not long afterwards +Mrs. Hastings, who was endued with a reasonable measure of curiosity, +found occasion to enter the room. + +"You have said something to trouble Harry?" she began. + +Agatha contrived to smile. "I'm not sure he's greatly troubled. In +any case, I told him I would not marry him--for the second time." + +"He has given up his crazy notion, then?" + +"He never suggested doing that." + +Mrs. Hastings made a little sign of compassionate astonishment. + +"Oh," she said, "he's mad." + +"I believe I told him he was bloodless. At least, that was how he +interpreted what I said." + +Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Harry Wyllard bloodless! My dear, can't you +see that the restraint he now and then practises is the sign of a +tremendous vitality? Still, the man's mad. Did he tell you that he +means to leave Gregory in charge of Willow Range?" + +Agatha was certainly astonished at this, but Mrs. Hastings nodded. +"It's a fact," she said. "He asked him to meet him here to save time, +and"--she turned towards the window--"there's his waggon now." + +She moved towards the door, and then turned again. "Is there any +blood--red blood we will call it--or even common-sense in you? You +could have kept that man here if you had wanted." + +"No," said Agatha, "I don't think I could. I'm not even sure that if +I'd had the right I would have done it. He recognised that." + +Mrs. Hastings looked at her very curiously. "Then," she said, "you +have either a somewhat extraordinary character, or are in love with him +in a way that is beyond most of us. In any case, I can't help feeling +that you will be sorry for what you have done some day." + +Next moment the door closed with a bang, and Agatha was left alone +endeavouring to analyse her sensations during her interview with +Wyllard, which was difficult, for they had been confused and +fragmentary. She had certainly been angry with him, but the cause for +this was much less apparent, though there were one or two +half-sufficient explanations. For one thing, it was almost intolerable +to feel that he had evidently taken it for granted that the greater +security she would enjoy as his wife would appeal to her, though there +was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her +dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, +his reserve had been at least perplexing, and it was borne in upon her +that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him +had he spoken with fire and passion. The restraint, however, had been +evident, and he could not have practised it unless there had been +something to hold in check; and then it became apparent that it was +more important to ascertain his motives than her own. + +If the man had been fervently in love with her, why had he not insisted +on that fact, she asked. Could it have been because he had with the +fantastic generosity, which he was evidently capable of, been willing +to leave his comrade unhandicapped with an open field? That, however, +seemed too much to expect from any man. Then there was the other +explanation that he preferred to leave the choice wholly to her lest he +should tempt her too strongly to break faith with Gregory, which +brought the blood to her face as it had done already, since it +suggested that he fancied he had only to urge her sufficiently and she +would yield. There was, it seemed, no satisfactory explanation at all. +Only the fact remained that he had made her a somewhat dispassionate +offer of marriage, and had left her to decide, which she had done. + +As it happened, Wyllard could not just then, at least, have made the +matter very much clearer. Shrewdly practical, as he was, in some +respects, there were times when he acted blindly, merely doing without +reasoning what he sub-consciously felt was right. This had more than +once involved him in disaster, but it is, perhaps, fortunate that there +are others like him, for, after all, in the long run the failures of +such men now and then prove better than the dictates of calculating +wisdom. + +In any case, Agatha found a momentary relief from her thoughts as she +watched Hawtrey get down from his waggon and approach the house. The +change in him was plainer than it had ever been, which may have been +because she had now a standard of comparison. He was tall and +well-favoured, and he moved with a jaunty and yet not ungraceful swing; +but it almost seemed to her that this was merely the result of an empty +self-sufficiency. There was, she felt, no force behind it which when +the strain came would prove that jaunty bearing warranted. He was +smiling, and for some reason his smile appeared a trifle inane, while +there was certainly a hint of sensuousness in his face. It suggested +that the man might sink into self-indulgent coarseness. She, however, +remembered that she was still pledged to him, and determinedly brushed +these thoughts aside, until she heard his footsteps inside the house, +when she became possessed of a burning curiosity as to what Wyllard had +to say to him, which, however, remained unsatisfied. + +In the meanwhile, Hawtrey entered a room where Wyllard sat awaiting him +with a paper in his hand. + +"I asked you to drive over here because it would save time," he said. +"I have to go in to the railroad at once. Here's a draft of the scheme +I suggested. You had better tell me if there's anything you're not +quite satisfied with." + +He threw the paper on the table, and Hawtrey, who took it up, perused +it. + +"I'm to farm and generally manage the Range on your behalf," he said. +"My percentage to be deducted after harvest. I'm empowered to sell out +grain or horses as appears advisable, and to have the use of teams and +implements for my own place when occasion requires it." + +He looked up. "I've no fault to find with the thing, Harry. It's +generous." + +"Then you had better sign it, and we'll get Hastings to witness it in a +minute or two. In the meanwhile there's a thing I have to ask you. +How do you stand in regard to Miss Ismay?" + +Hawtrey pushed his chair back noisily. "That," he said, "is a subject +on which I'm naturally not disposed to give you any information. How +does it concern you? + +"In this way. Believing that your engagement must be broken off I +asked Miss Ismay to marry me." + +Hawtrey was clearly startled, but in a moment or two he smiled. + +"Of course," he said, "she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, our +engagement isn't broken off. It's merely extended." + +They looked at each other in silence for a moment or two, and there was +a curious hardness in Wyllard's eyes. Then Hawtrey spoke again. + +"In view of what you have just told me why did you want to put me of +all people in charge of the Range?" he said. + +"I'll be candid," said Wyllard. "For one thing, you held on when I was +slipping off the trestle that day in British Columbia. For another, +you'll make nothing of your own holding, and if you run the Range as it +ought to be run it will put a good many dollars into your pocket, +besides relieving me of a big anxiety. If you're to marry Miss Ismay, +I'd sooner she was made reasonably comfortable." + +Hawtrey looked up with a flush in his face. + +"Harry," he said, "this is extravagantly generous." + +"Wait," said Wyllard; "there's a little more to be said. I can't be +back before the frost, and I may be away eighteen months. While I am +away you will have a clear field--and you must make the most of it. If +you are not married when I come back I shall ask Miss Ismay again. +Now"--and he glanced at his comrade steadily--"does this stand in the +way of your going on with the arrangement we have arrived at?" + +There was a rather tense silence for a moment or two, and then Hawtrey +broke it. + +"No," he said; "after all, there is no reason why it should do so. It +has no practical bearing upon the other question." + +Wyllard rose. "Well," he said, "if you will call Allen Hastings in +we'll get this thing fixed up." + +The document was duly signed, and a few minutes later Wyllard drove +away; but Mrs. Hastings contrived to have a few words with Hawtrey +before he did the same. + +"I've no doubt that Harry took you into his confidence on a certain +point," she said. + +"Yes," admitted Hawtrey; "he did. I was a little astonished, besides +feeling rather sorry for him. There is, however, reason to believe +that he'll soon get over it." + +"You feel sure of that?" and Mrs. Hastings smiled. + +"Isn't it evident? If he had cared much about her he certainly +wouldn't have gone away." + +"You mean you wouldn't?" + +"No," said Hawtrey, "there's no doubt of that." + +His companion smiled again. "Well," she said drily, "I would like to +think you were right about Harry; it would be a relief to me." + +Hawtrey, who said nothing further, presently drove away, and soon after +he did so Agatha approached Mrs. Hastings. + +"There's something I must ask you," she said. "Has Gregory consented +to take charge of Wyllard's farm?" + +"He has," said her companion in her dryest tone. + +Agatha's face flushed, and there was a flash in her eyes. + +"Oh," she said, "it's almost insufferable!" + +Then she turned and left Mrs. Hastings without another word. + +She only saw Wyllard once again, and that was when he called at the +homestead early one morning. He got down from the waggon where Dampier +sat, and shook hands with her and Allen and Mrs. Hastings. Very few +words were spoken, and she could not remember what she said, but when +he swung himself up again and the waggon jolted away into the white +prairie she went back to the house with her heart beating unpleasantly +fast and a very curious feeling of depression. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE BEACH. + +For a fortnight after they reached Vancouver Wyllard and Dampier were +very busy. They had various difficulties to contend with, for while +they would have preferred to slip away to sea as quietly as possible a +British vessel's movements are fenced about with many formalities, and +they did not wish to ship a white man who could be dispensed with. +Wyllard fancied there were sailormen and sealers in Vancouver and down +Puget Sound who would have gone with him, but there was a certain +probability of their discussing their exploits afterwards in the +saloons ashore, which was about the last thing that he desired. It +appeared essential that he should avoid notoriety as much as possible. + +He had further trouble about obtaining provisions and general +necessaries, for considerably more attention than the free-lance +sealers cared about was being bestowed upon the North just then, and he +did not desire to rouse the curiosity of the dealers as to why he was +filling his lazaret up with Arctic stores. He obviated that difficulty +by dividing his orders among the whole of them, and buying as little as +possible. Dampier, however, proved an adept at the difficult business, +and eventually the schooner _Selache_ crept out from the Narrows at +dusk one evening under all plain sail, painted a pale green, with her +big main-boom raking at least a fathom beyond her taffrail. There were +then Wyllard, Dampier, and two other white men on board her. A week +later she sailed into a deep, rock-walled inlet on the western coast of +Vancouver Island with a settlement at the top of it, where the +storekeeper made no difficulty about selling Wyllard all his flour and +canned goods at higher figures than there was any probability of his +obtaining from the local ranchers. + +Then the _Selache_ slid down the inlet again, and lay for several days +in a forest-shrouded arm near the mouth of it, while, when she once +more dropped her anchor off a Siwash rancherie far up on the wild West +coast, she was painted a dingy grey, and her sawn-off boom just topped +her stern. One does not want a great main-boom in the northern seas, +and a big mainsail needs men to handle it. Wyllard, however, shipped +several sea-bred Indians who had made wonderful perilous voyages on the +trail of the seal and halibut in open canoes. All of them had, as it +happened, also sailed in sealing schooners. Their comrades sold him +furs, and filled part of the hold up with redwood billets and bark for +the stove, for he had not considered it advisable to load too much +Wellington coal. Then he pushed out into the waste Pacific, and when +once a beautiful big white mail boat reeled by him, driving with +streaming bows into an easterly gale, he sent back a message to his +friends upon the prairie. It duly reached them, for some three weeks +afterwards Allen Hastings, opening _The Colonist_, which he had ordered +from Victoria as soon as Wyllard sailed, read out to his wife and +Agatha a paragraph in the shipping news: + +"_Empress of India_, from Yokohama, reports having passed small grey +British schooner, flying----" There followed several code letters, the +latitude and longitude, and a line apparently by the water-front +reporter: "No schooner belonging to this city allotted the signal in +question." + +Hastings smiled as he laid down the paper. "No," he said, "that +signal's Wyllard's private code. Agatha, won't you reach me down my +map of the Pacific? It's just behind you." + +Then he looked round, and noticed the significant smile in his wife's +eyes, for the girl had already turned towards the shelf where he kept +the lately purchased map. + +The easterly gale, however, did not last, for the wind came out of the +west and north, and sank to foggy calms when it did not blow wickedly +hard. This meant that the _Selache's_ course was all to windward, and +though they drove her at it unmercifully under reefed boom-foresail, +main trysail, and a streaming jib or two, with the brine going over her +solid forward, she had made little when each arduous day was done. +They were drenched to the skin continuously, and lashed by stinging +spray. Cooking except of the crudest kind was out of the question, and +sleep would have been impossible to any but worn-out sailormen. Even +then, they were often roused in the blackness of the night, when she +lay with her lee rail under, and would not lift it out, to get another +reef in, or crawl out on plunging bowsprit washed by icy seas to haul a +burst jib down. It was even more trying, glad as they were of the +respite in some respects, to lie rolling wildly on the big smooth +undulations that hove out of the windless calm, while everything in her +banged to and fro, and when the breeze came screaming through the fog +or rain they sprang to make sail again. + +Fate seemed dead against them, as it was certain that, if their purpose +was suspected, the hand of every white man they might come across would +be; but they held on over leagues of empty ocean while the season wore +away, until once more the wind freshened easterly, and they ran for a +week under boom-foresail and a jib, with the big grey combers curling +as they foamed by high above her rail. Then the wind fell, and +Dampier, who got an observation, armed his deep-sea lead, and finding +shells and shoal water came aft to talk to Wyllard with the strip of +Dunton's chart. + +Wyllard, who was clad in oilskins, stood, a shapeless figure, by the +wheel, with his face darkened and roughened by cold and stinging brine. +There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were +raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the +windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-grey sea +opened up beyond them beneath the dripping jibs. Then the bows would +go down again, and all that was visible was the fore-shortened slope of +deck and the breast of the big undulation that hove itself up ahead. +The _Selache_ was carrying everything and lurching over the steep swell +at some four knots an hour. + +Dampier stopped near the wheel, and glanced at Wyllard's oilskins. + +"You'll have to take them off. It's stuffed boots and those Indian +seal-gut things or furs from now on," he said. "That leather cuff's +chewing up your hand." + +"We'll cut that out," said Wyllard; "it's not to the point. Can't you +get on?" + +Dampier grinned. "We're on soundings, and they and Dunton's longitude +most agree. With this wind we should pick the beach up in the next two +days. Next question is, where those men were?" + +"Where they are," said Wyllard. + +"If they've pushed on it's probably a different thing, though if they'd +food yonder I don't quite see why they'd want to push on anywhere. It +wouldn't be south, anyway. They'd run up against the Russians there." + +"We've decided that already." + +"I'm admitting it," said the skipper. "There's the other choice that +they've gone up north. It's narrower across to Alaska there, and it's +quite likely they might have a notion of looking out for one of the +steam whalers. The Koriaks up yonder will have boats of some kind. If +they're skin ones like those the Huskies have they might sledge them on +the ice." + +It was a suggestion that had been made several times already, but both +the men realised that there was in all probability very little to +warrant it. Wyllard had wasted no time endeavouring to learn what was +known about the desolation on the western shore of the Behring Sea. He +had bought a schooner and set out at once. It, however, appeared +almost impossible to him that any three men could haul the skin boats +and supplies they would need far over hummocky ice. + +"The point is that we'll have to fix on some course in the next few +days," added his companion. "Say we run in to make inquiries"--and a +gleam of grim amusement crept into his eyes--"what are we going to +find? A beach with a roaring surf on it, and if we get a boat through, +a desolate, half-frozen swamp behind it. It's quite likely there are +people in the country, Koriaks or Kamtchadales, but if there are +they'll probably move up and down after what they get to eat like the +Huskies do, and we can't hang on and wait for them. Most any time next +month we'll have the ice closing in." + +Wyllard said nothing for another minute, and as he stood with hands +clenched on the wheel a little puff of bitter spray splashed upon his +oilskins. They had been over it all often before, weighing conjecture +after conjecture, and had found nothing in any that might serve to +guide them. Now, when winter was close at hand, they had leagues of +surf-swept beach to search for three men who might have perished twelve +months earlier. + +"We'll stand in until we pick up the beach," he said at length; "then +if there's no sign of them we'll push north as long as we can find open +water. Now if you'll call Charly I'll let up at the wheel." + +Another white man walked aft, and Wyllard, entering the little stern +cabin, the top of which rose some feet above the deck, sloughed off his +wet oilskins and crawled, dressed as he was, into his bunk. Evening +was closing in, and for awhile he lay blinking at the swinging lamp, +and wondering what the end of that search would be. The _Selache_ was +a little fore and aft schooner of some ninety-odd tons, wholly +unprotected against ice-chafe or nip, and he knew that prudence +dictated their driving her south under every rag of canvas now. There +was, however, the possibility of finding some sheltered inlet where she +could lie out the winter, frozen in, and he had, at least, blind +confidence in his men. The white men were sealers who had already +borne the lash of snow-laden gales, the wash of icy seas, and +tremendous labour at the oar, while the Indians had been born to an +unending struggle with the waters. All of them had times and times +again looked the King of Terrors squarely in the face. What was as +much to the purpose, they had been promised a tempting bonus if the +_Selache_ came home successful. + +While Wyllard pondered upon these things he went to sleep, and slept +soundly, as he did the next night, though Dampier expected to raise the +beach some time next morning. His expectation also proved warranted, +and when Wyllard turned out it lay before them, a dingy smear on a +slate-green sea that was cut off from it by a wavy line of livid +whiteness, which he knew to be a fringe of spouting surf. It had cost +him in several ways more than he cared to contemplate to reach that +beach, and now there was nothing that could excite any feeling except +shrinking in the dreary spectacle. There was little light in the heavy +sky or on the sullen heave of sea; the air was raw, the schooner's +decks were sloppy, and she rolled viciously as she crept shorewards +with her mainsail peak eased down. What wind there was blew dead +on-shore, which was not as he would have had it. + +He heard the splash of the lead as he and the white man Charly made +their breakfast in the little stern cabin. Then there was a clatter of +blocks, and on coming out again he found the others swinging a boat +over. Charly and he and two of the Indians dropped into her, and +Dampier, who had hove the schooner to, looked down on them over her +rail. + +"If you knock the bottom out of her put a jacket on an oar, and I'll +try to bring you off," he said. "If you don't signal I'll stand off +and on with a thimble-header topsail over the mainsail. You'll start +back right away if you see us haul it down. When she won't stand that +there'll be more surf than you'll have any use for with the wind dead +on the beach." + +Wyllard made a sign of comprehension, and they slid away on the back of +a long sea. Others rolled up behind them, cutting off the schooner's +hull so that only her grey canvas showed above dim slopes of water, but +there was no curl on any and the beach rose fast. It looked very +forbidding with the spray-haze drifting over it, and the long wash of +the Pacific weltering among its hammered stones, and when they drew a +little nearer Wyllard stood up with the big sculling oar in his hand. +There was no point to offer shelter, and in only one place could he see +a strip of surf-lapped sand. + +"It's a little softer than the boulders, anyway; we'll try it there," +he said. + +The oars dipped again, and in another minute or two the sea that came +up behind them hove them high and broke into a little spout of foam. +The next had a hissing crest, part of which splashed on board, and they +went shorewards like a toboggan down an icy slide on the shoulders of +the third. To keep her straight while it seethed about them was all +that they could do, but it was also essentially necessary, and for a +moment their hearts were in their mouths when it left them to sink with +a dizzy swing into the hollow. Then they pulled desperately as another +white-topped ridge came on astern, and went up with it amidst a chaotic +frothing and splashing and a haze of spray. After that there was a +shock and a crash, and they sprang out knee-deep and held fast to the +boat while the foam boiled into her, floundering and stumbling over +sliding sand. Still, before the next sea came in they had run her up +beyond its reach, and there did not seem to be much the matter with her +when they hove her over. Wyllard, however, looked back at the tumbling +surf. + +"Dampier was right about that topsail; it won't be quite as easy +getting off," he said. "You'll stand by, Charly, and watch the +schooner. If the surf gets steeper you can make some sign. I'll leave +one of the Siwash on the rise yonder." + +Then he walked up the beach, and stopped awhile on the crest of the low +rise a mile or two behind it, gazing out at what seemed to be an empty +desolation. There were willows in the hollow beneath him, and upon the +slope a few little stunted trees, which he fancied resembled the +juniper he had seen among the ranges of British Columbia, but he could +see no sign of any kind of life. What was more portentous, the mossy +sod he stood upon was frozen, and there were smears of snow among the +straggling firs upon a rather higher ridge. Inland, the little breeze +seemed to have fallen dead away, and there was an oppressive silence +which the rumble of the surf accentuated. + +He left an Indian on the rise, and going on with the other scrambled +through a half-frozen swamp in the hollow; but when they came back +hours afterwards as the narrow horizon was drawing further in they had +found nothing to show that any man had ever entered that grim, silent +land. The surf seemed a little smoother, and they reeled out through +it with no more than a few inches of very cold water splashing about +their boots, and pulled across a long stretch of darkening sea towards +the rolling schooner. + +Wyllard was a little weary, and more depressed, but it was not until he +sat in the stern cabin with its cheerful twinkling stove and swinging +lamp that he understood how he had shrunk from that forbidding +wilderness. His consultation with Dampier, who came in by and bye, was +very brief. + +"We'll head north for a couple of days, and try again," he said. + +He crawled into his berth early, and it was some time after midnight +when he was awakened by being rudely flung out of it. That fact, and +the slant of deck and sounds above, suggested that the schooner had +been hove down by a sudden gale. He had, however, grown more or less +accustomed to occurrences of this kind and to sleeping fully dressed, +and in another moment or two he was out of the deck-house. Then a wind +that seemed sharp as steel drove stinging flakes of snow into his face. +It was very dark, but he fancied that the schooner's rail was in the +sea, which was washing over her to weather, and that some of the others +were struggling to get the mainsail off her. Then a man whom he +supposed to be Charly ran into him. + +"Better come for'ard. Got to haul outer jib down before it blows +away," he said. + +Wyllard staggered after him up to his knees in water, and made out by +the mad banging that some of them had already cast the peak of the +boom-foresail loose. Then he reached the windlass, and clutched it as +a sea that took him to the waist frothed in over the weather rail. The +bows lurched out of it viciously, hurling another icy flood back on +him, and he could see a dim white chaos about and beneath them. Over +it rose the black wedge of the jibs. + +He did not want to get out along the bowsprit to stop one of them down. +Indeed his whole physical nature shrank from it, but there are many +things flesh and blood shrink from which must be faced at sea. Then he +made out that a Siwash was fumbling at the down-haul made fast near his +side, and when his companion's shadowy figure rose up against the +whiteness of the foam he made a jump forward. Then he was on the +bowsprit, lying upon it while he felt for the foot-rope slung beneath. +He found it, and was cautiously lowering himself when the man in front +of him called out harshly, and he saw a white sea range up ahead. It +broke short over with a rush and roar, and he clung with hands and feet +for his life as the schooner's dipping bows rammed the seething mass. + +She went into it to the windlass. He was smothered in an icy flood +that seemed bent on wrenching him from his hold, but that was only for +a moment or two, and then he was swung, gasping and streaming with +water, high above the sea again. It was bad enough merely to hold on, +but that was a very small share of his task, for the big black sail +that cut the higher darkness came rattling down its stay and fell upon +him and his companion bodily. As it dropped the wind took hold of the +folds of it and buffeted them cruelly. This was a thing he had once +been accustomed to, but as he clutched at the canvas it seemed to him +incredible that he had not already been flung off headlong from the +reeling spar. Still, that banging, thrashing canvas must be mastered +somehow, though it was snow-soaked and almost unyielding, and he clawed +at it furiously with bleeding hands while twice the bowsprit raked a +sea and dipped him waist-deep in. At length the other man flung him +the end of the gasket, and they worked back carefully, leaving the sail +lashed down, and scrambled aft to help the others who were making the +big main-boom fast. When this was done Wyllard fell against Dampier +and clutched at him. + +"How's the wind?" he roared. + +"North-east," said the skipper. + +They could scarcely hear each other, though the schooner was lurching +over it more easily now with shortened canvas, and Wyllard only made +Dampier understand that he wished to speak to him by thrusting him +towards the deck-house door. They went in together, and stood +clutching at the table with the lamplight on their tense, wet faces and +the brine that ran from them making pools upon the deck. + +"It's hauled round," said the skipper, "the wrong way." + +Wyllard made a savage gesture. "We've had it from the last quarter we +wanted ever since we sailed, and we sailed nearly three months too +late. We're too close in to the beach for you to heave her to?" + +"A sure thing," said the other. "I was driving her to work off it with +the sea getting up when the breeze burst on us. She put her rail right +under, and we had to let go most everything before she'd pick it up. +She's pointing somewhere north, jammed right up on the starboard tack +just now, but I can't stand on." + +This was evident to Wyllard, and he closed one hand tight. He wanted +to stand on as long as possible before the ice closed in, but he +realised that to do so would put the schooner ashore. + +"Well?" he said sharply. + +Dampier made a grimace. "I'm going out to heave her round. If we'd +any sense in us we'd square off the boom then, and leg it away across +the Pacific for Vancouver." + +"In that case," said Wyllard, "somebody would lose his bonus." + +Dampier swung round on him with a flash in his eyes. + +"The bonus!" he said. "Who was it came for you with two dollars in his +pocket after he'd bought his ticket from Vancouver?" + +Wyllard smiled at him. "If you took that up the wrong way I'm sorry. +She ought to work off on the port tack, and when we've open water to +leeward you can heave her to. When it moderates we can pick up the +beach again." + +"That's just what I mean to do." + +Then Dampier went out on deck, while Wyllard, flinging off his dripping +clothing, crawled into his bunk and went quietly to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE FIRST ICE. + +Daylight broke on a frothing sea, across which there scudded wisps of +smoke-like drift and thin showers of snow, before they hove her to. +Then, with two little wet rags of canvas set she lay almost head on to +the big combers, and met their onslaught with a hove-up weather bow. +Having little way upon her, she lurched over instead of ramming them, +and though now and then one curled on board across her rail it was not +often that there was much heavy water upon her slanted deck. + +All round the narrow circle a leaden sky met the sea. To weather the +combers were bitten into it in cleancut serrations, but to leeward the +dim horizon was blurred by flying spray, save when the snow whirled +down in thicker wisps and blotted it out altogether. It was bitterly +cold, and the spray stung the skin like half-spent pellets from a gun. +There was, however, only one man exposed to it in turn, and he had +little to do but brace himself against the savage buffeting of the wind +as he clutched the wheel. The _Selache_, for the most part, steered +herself, lifting buoyantly while the froth came sluicing aft from her +tilted bows, falling off a little with a vicious leeward roll when a +comber bigger than usual smote her to weather, and coming up again +streaming to meet the next. Sometimes she forged ahead in what is +called at sea, by courtesy, a "smooth," and all the time shroud and +stay to weather gave out tumultuous harmonies, and the slack of every +rope to leeward blew out in unyielding curves. + +In the meanwhile, three of the white men lay sleeping or smoking in the +little cabin, which was partly raised above and partly sunk beneath the +after-deck. It was a reasonably strong structure, but it worked, and +sweated, as they say at sea, and the heat of the stove had further +opened up the seams of it. Moisture dripped from the beams overhead, +moisture trickled up and down the slanting deck, there were great +globules of it on the bulk-heading, and everything, including the men's +clothes and blankets, was wet. They lay in their bunks from necessity, +because it was a somewhat laborious matter to sit, and said very little +since it was difficult to hear anything amidst the cataclysm of +elemental sound. Indeed, it became at length almost a relief to turn +out into inky darkness or misty daylight dimmed by flying spray to take +a trick at the jarring wheel. + +For three days this continued, and then, when the gale broke and a +little pale sunshine streamed down on the tumbling sea, changing the +grey combers to flashing white and green, they gave her a double-reefed +mainsail, part of the boom-foresail, and a jib or two, and thrashed her +slowly back to the northwards on the starboard tack. Still, more than +one of them glanced over the taffrail longingly as she gathered way. +She was fast, and with a little driving and that breeze over her +quarter she would bear them south towards warmth and ease at some two +hundred miles a day, while the way they were going it would be a fight +for every fathom with bitter, charging seas, and there lay ahead of +them only cold and peril and toil incredible. + +There are times at sea when human nature revolts from the strain the +over-taxed body must bear, the leaden weariness of worn-out limbs, and +the sub-conscious effort to retain warmth and vitality in spite of the +ceaseless lashing of the icy gale. Then, as aching muscles grow lax, +the nervous tension becomes more insupportable, unless, indeed, utter +weariness breeds indifference to the personal peril each time the decks +are swept by a frothing flood, or a slippery spar must be clung to with +frost-numbed and often bleeding hands. That is, at least, on board the +sailing ships where man must still, with almost brutal valour, pit all +the feeble powers of flesh and blood against the forces of the elements. + +They knew this, and it was to their credit that they obeyed when +Dampier gave the word to put the helm up and trim the sheets over. +Their leader, however, stood a little apart with a hard-set face, and +he looked forward over the plunging bows, for he was troubled by a +sense of responsibility such as he had not felt since he had, one night +several years ago, asked for volunteers. He realised that an account +of these men's lives might be demanded from him. + +It was a fortnight later, and they had twice made a perilous landing +without finding any sign of life on or behind the hammered beach, when +they ran into the first of the ice. The grey day was almost over, and +the long heave ran sluggishly after them faintly wrinkled here and +there, when creeping through a belt of haze they came into sight of +several blurrs of greyish white that swung with the dim, green swell. +The _Selache_ was slowly lurching over it with everything aloft to the +topsails then. Dampier glanced at the ice disgustedly. + +"Earlier than I expected," he said. "Anyway, it's a sure thing there's +plenty more where that came from." + +"Big patch away to starboard!" cried a man in the foremast shrouds. + +Dampier turned to Wyllard. "What are you going to do?" + +"What's most advisable?" + +The skipper laughed grimly. "Well," he said, "that's quite simple. +Get out of this, and head her south just as soon as we can, but I guess +that's not quite what you mean." + +"No," admitted Wyllard. "I meant for the next few hours or so. In a +general way, we're still pushing on." + +"Then I'm not worrying much about pushing her through. That ice is +light and scattered, and as she's going it won't hurt her much if she +plugs some in the dark. It's what we're going to do the next two weeks +I'm not sure about. If there's ice we mayn't fetch the creek the chart +shows where we'd figured on laying her up in. It's still most a +hundred miles to the north of us. The other inlet I'd fixed on is way +further south." + +This brought them back to the difficulty they had grappled with at many +a council. The men they were in search of might have gone either north +or south; or they might, though this seemed less likely, have gone +inland, if, indeed, any of them survived. + +"If we only knew how they'd headed," said Wyllard quietly. "Still, +right or not, I'm for pushing on." + +Then Charly, who held the wheel, broke in. + +"I guess it's north," he said. "They'd have no use for fetching up +among the Russians, and there's nobody else until you get to Japan. No +white men, any way. Besides, from the Behring Sea to the Kuriles is +quite a long way." + +"If you were dumped down ashore there, which way would you go?" Dampier +asked. + +"If I'd a wallet full of papers certifying me as a harmless traveller, +it would be south just as hard as I could hit the trail. Guess I'd +strike somebody out prospecting, or surveying, and they'd set me along +to the Kuriles. Still, if I'd been sealing, I wouldn't head that way. +No, sir. That's dead sure." + +There was a reason for this certainty, right or wrong, in the minds of +the sealermen. How many of the skins they brought home were obtained +in open water where they could fish without molestation they alone +knew; but they were regarded in certain quarters as poachers and +outlaws, who deserved no mercy. They had their differences with the +Americans who owned the Prbyloffs, but the latter, it was admitted, had +bought the islands, and might reasonably be considered to have some +claim upon the seals which frequented them. The free-lances bore their +execrations and reprisals more or less resignedly, though that did not +prevent them occasionally exchanging compliments with oar butts or +sealing clubs, but the Muscovite was a grim, mysterious figure they +feared and hated. + +"Then you'd have tried up north?" Wyllard suggested. + +"Sure," said the helmsman. "If I'd a boat and a rifle, and it was +summer, I'd have pushed across for Alaska. You can eat birds and +walrus, and a man might eat a fur-seal if he'd had nothing else for a +week, though I've struck nothing that has more smell than the +holluschack blubber. If it was winter, I'd have tried the ice. The +Huskies make out on it for weeks together, and quite a few of the steam +whaler men have trailed an odd hundred or two miles over it one time or +another. They hadn't tents and dog-teams either." + +Wyllard's face grew grave. He had naturally considered both courses, +and had decided that they were out of the question. Seas do not freeze +up solid, and that three men should transport a boat, supposing that +they had one, over leagues of ice appeared impossible. An attempt to +cross the narrow sea, which is either wrapped in mist or swept by +sudden gales, in any open craft would clearly only result in disaster, +but admitting that he felt that had he been in those men's place he +would have headed north. There was one question which had all along +remained unanswered, and that was how they had reached the coast from +which they had sent their message. + +"Anyway," he said, "we'll stand on, and run into the creek we've fixed +on, if it's necessary." + +In the meanwhile, dusk had closed down on them, and it had grown +perceptibly colder. The haze crystallised on the rigging, the rail was +white with rime, and the deck grew slippery, but they left everything +on her to the topsails, and she crept on erratically through the +darkness, avoiding the faint spectral glimmer of the scattered ice. +The breeze abeam propelled her with gently leaning canvas at some four +knots to the hour, and now and then Wyllard, who hung about the deck +that night, fancied he could hear a thin, sharp crackle beneath the +slowly lifting bows. + +Next day the haze thickened, and there seemed to be more ice about, but +the breeze was fresher, and there was, at least, no skin upon the +ruffled sea. They took the topsails off her, and proceeded cautiously, +with two men with logger's pikepoles forward, and another in the eyes +of the foremast rigging. As it happened, they struck nothing, and when +night came the _Selache_ lay rolling in a heavy, portentous calm. +Dampier and one or two of the others declared their certainty that +there was ice near them, but, at least, they could not see it, though +there was now no doubt about the crackling beneath the schooner's side. +It was a somewhat anxious night for most of them, but a breeze that +drove the haze aside got up with the sun, and Dampier expected to reach +the creek before darkness fell. + +He might have done it but for the glistening streak on the horizon, +which presently crept in on them, and resolved itself into detached +grey-white masses, with openings of various sizes in and out between +them. The breeze was freshening, and the _Selache_ going through it at +some six knots, when Dampier came aft to Wyllard, who was standing +rather grim in face at the wheel. There was a moderately wide opening +in the floating barrier close ahead of him. The rest of the crew stood +silent watching the skipper, for they were by this time more or less +acquainted with Wyllard's temperament. + +"You can't get through that," said Dampier, pointing to the ice. + +Wyllard looked at him sourly, and the white men, at least, understood +what he was feeling. So far, he had had everything against him--calm, +and fog, and sudden gale--and now, when he was almost within sight of +the end of the first stage of his journey, they had met the ice. + +"You're sure of that?" he said. + +Dampier smiled. "It would cost too much, or I'd let you try." He +called to the man perched high in the foremast shrouds, and the answer +came down: + +"Packed right solid a couple of miles ahead." + +Wyllard lifted one hand, and let it suddenly fall again. + +"Lee, oh! We'll have her round," he said, and spun the wheel. + +The rest of them breathed more easily as they jumped for the sheets, +and with a great banging and thrashing of sailcloth she shot up to +windward, and turned as on a pivot. Then, as she gathered way on the +other tack, they glanced at their leader, for her bows were pointing to +the south-east again. They felt that was not the way he was going. + +In the meanwhile, Wyllard turned to. Dampier with a little wry smile. + +"Baulked again!" he said. "It would have been a relief to have rammed +her in. With this breeze we'd have picked that creek up in the next +six hours." + +"Sure!" said Dampier, who glanced at the swirling wake. + +"Then, if we can't get through it we can work her round. Stand by to +flatten all sheets in, boys." + +They did it cheerfully, though they knew it meant a thrash to windward +along the perilous edge of the ice, and, for the sea was getting up, +she flung the spray all over her forward half as she smashed the +growing combers with her bows. Soon the windlass was caked with +glistening ice, and long spikes of it hung from her rail, while the +slippery crystals gathered thick on deck. Then lumps and floes of ice +detached themselves from the parent mass, and sailed out to meet her, +crashing on one another, while it seemed to the men who watched him +that Wyllard tried how closely he could shave them before he ran the +schooner off with a vicious drag at the wheel. None of them, however, +cared to say a word to him. + +They brought her round when she had stretched out on the one tack a +couple of miles, and standing in again close-hauled found the ice +thicker than ever. Then she came round once more, and until the early +dusk fell Wyllard stood at the jarring helm or high up in the forward +shrouds. Then he called Dampier aside. + +"We can't work along the edge in the dark?" he said. + +"Well," said Dampier drily, "it wouldn't be wise. We could stand on as +she's lying until half through the night, and then come round and pick +up the ice again a little before sun-up." + +Wyllard made a sign of acquiescence. "Then," he said, "don't call me +until you're in sight of it. A day of this kind takes it out of one." + +He moved aft heavily towards the deck-house, and Dampier watched him +with a smile of comprehension, for he was a man who had also in his +time made many fruitless efforts, and quietly faced defeat. After all, +it is possible that when the final reckoning comes some failures will +count. + +For several hours the _Selache_ stretched out close-hauled into what +they supposed to be open water, and they certainly saw no ice. Then +they hove her to, and when the wind fell light brought her round and +crept back slowly upon the opposite tack. Wyllard had gone to sleep in +the meanwhile, and daylight was just breaking when he next went out on +deck. There was scarcely an air of wind, and the heavy calm seemed +portentous and unnatural. The schooner lay lurching on a sluggish +swell, with the frost wool thick on her rigging, and a belt of haze +ahead of her. On the edge of it, the ice glimmered in the growing +light, but in one or two places stretches of blue-grey water seemed to +penetrate it, and Dampier, who strode aft when he saw Wyllard, said he +fancied there must be an opening somewhere. + +"By the thickness of it, that ice has formed some time, and as we've +seen nothing but a skin it must have come from further north," he +added. "It gathered up under a point or in a bay most likely, until a +shift of wind broke it out, and the stream or breeze set it down this +way. That seems to indicate that there can't be a great deal of it, +but a few days' calm and frost would freeze it solid." + +"Well?" said Wyllard impatiently. + +"It lies between us and the inlet, and it's quite clear that we can't +stay where we are. Once we got nipped, there'd probably be an end of +her. We have got to get into that inlet at once or make for the other +further south." + +Wyllard smiled. "It all leads back to the same point. We must get +through the ice. The one question is--how's it to be done?" + +"With a working breeze I'd stand into the biggest opening, but as +there's none we'll wait until it clears a little, and then send a boat +in. The sun may bring the wind." + +They made breakfast in the meanwhile, but the wind did not come, and it +was some hours later when a pale coppery disc became visible and the +haze grew thinner. Then they swung a boat out hastily, for it would +not be very long before the light died away again, and two white men +and an Indian dropped into her. They pulled across half a mile of +sluggishly heaving water, crept up an opening, and presently vanished +among the ice. Soon afterwards the low sun went out, and wisps of +ragged cloud crept up from the westwards, while smears of vapour +blurred the horizon, and the swell grew steeper. There was no wind at +all, but blocks and canvas banged and thrashed furiously at every roll, +until they lowered the mainsail and lashed its heavy boom to the big +iron crutch astern. The boat remained invisible, but its crew had been +given instructions to push on as far as possible if they found clear +water, and Dampier, who did not seem uneasy about her, paced up and +down the deck while the afternoon wore away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +DEFEAT. + +A grey dimness was creeping in upon the schooner when a little bitter +breeze sprang up from westwards, and Dampier bade them get the mainsail +on to her. + +"I don't like the look of the weather, and I'm beginning to feel that +I'd like to see that boat," he said. "Anyhow, we'll get way on her." + +It was a relief to hoist the mainsail. The work put a little warmth +into them, and the white men, at least, had been conscious of a growing +uneasiness about their comrades in the boat. The breeze had, however, +freshened before they set it, and there were white caps on the water +when the _Selache_ headed for the ice. It had somewhat changed its +formation when they approached it, for big masses had become detached +from it and were moving out into the open water, while the opening had +become perceptibly narrower. The light was now fading rapidly, and +Wyllard took the wheel when Dampier sent the man there forward. + +"Get the cover off the second boat, and see everything clear for +hoisting out," he said to him, and then called to Wyllard. "We're +close enough. You'd better heave her round." + +She came round with a thrashing of canvas, stretched out seawards, and +came back again with her deck sharply slanted and little puffs of +bitter spray blowing over her weather rail, for there was no doubt that +the breeze was freshening fast. Then Dampier sent a man up into the +foremast shrouds, and looked at Wyllard afterwards. + +"I'd heave a couple of reefs down if I wasn't so anxious about that +blamed boat," he said. "As it is, I want to be ready to pick her up +just as soon as we see her, and it's quite likely she'd turn up when +we'd got way off the schooner, and the peak eased down." + +Wyllard fancied that he was right as he glanced over the rail at the +dimness that was creeping in on them. It was blowing almost fresh now, +and the _Selache_ was driving very fast through the swell, which +commenced to froth here and there. It is, as he knew from experience, +always hard work, and often impossible, to pull a boat to windward in +any weight of breeze, which rendered it advisable to keep the schooner +under way. If the boat drove by them while they were reefing it might +be difficult to pick her up afterwards in the dark. He was now +distinctly anxious about her. At length, just as the light was dying +out, the man in the shrouds sent down a cry. + +"I see them, sir," he said. + +Dampier turned to Wyllard with a gesture of relief. "That's a weight +off my mind. I wish we had a reef in, but"--and he glanced up at the +canvas--"she'll have to stand it. Anyway, I'll leave you there. We +want to get that second boat lashed down again." + +This, as Wyllard recognised, was necessary, though he would sooner have +had somebody by him, and the rest of them ready to let the mainsheet +run, for he was a little to windward of the opening, and surmised that +he would have to run the schooner down upon the boat. It was a few +moments later when he saw her emerge from among the ice, and the men in +her appeared to be pulling strenuously. They were, perhaps, half a +mile off, and the schooner was sailing very fast and heading for the +ice. Then he lost sight of her again, for a thin shower of whirling +snow suddenly obscured the light. Dampier called to him. + +"You'll have to run her off," he said. "Boys, slack out your sheets." + +There was a clatter of blocks, and when Wyllard pulled his helm up it +taxed all his strength. The _Selache_ swung round, and he gasped with +the effort to control her as she drove away furiously into the +thickening snow. She was carrying far too much canvas, but they could +not heave her to and take it off her now. The boat must be picked up +first, and the veins rose swollen to Wyllard's forehead as he struggled +with the wheel. There is always a certain possibility of bringing a +fore-and-aft rigged vessel's mainboom over when she is running hard, +and this is rather apt to result in disaster to her spars. So fast was +she travelling that the sea piled up in a big white wave beneath her +quarter, and, cold as it was, the sweat of tense effort dripped from +Wyllard as he forecasted what he had to do. First of all, he must hold +her straight before the wind without letting her fall off to leeward, +which would bring the booms crashing over; then he must run past the +boat, which he could no longer see, and round the schooner up with +fore-staysail aback to leeward of her, to wait until she drove down on +them. + +This would not have been difficult in a moderate breeze, but the wind +was freshening furiously and the schooner was horribly pressed with +sail. He thought of calling the others to lower the mainsail peak, but +with the weight of wind there was in the canvas he was not sure that +they could haul the gaff down. Besides, they were busy securing the +boat, which must be made fast again before they hove the other in, and +it was almost dark now. In view of what had happened in the same +waters one night four years ago, the desire to pick the boat up while +there was a little light left became an obsession. + +In the meanwhile, the swell was rapidly whitening and getting steeper. +The _Selache_ hove herself out of it forward as she swung up with +streaming bows. It almost seemed to Wyllard that he must overrun the +boat before he noticed her, but at length he saw Dampier swing himself +on to the rail. He stood there clutching at a shroud, and presently +turned towards Wyllard, swinging up an arm. + +"Right ahead!" he shouted. "Let her come up a few points before you +run over them." + +Wyllard put his helm down a spoke or two, which was easy, and then as +the bows swung high again there was a harsh cry from the man who stood +above Dampier in the shrouds. + +"Ice!" he roared. "Big pack of it right under your weather bow." + +Dampier shouted something, but Wyllard did not hear what he said. He +was only conscious that he had to decide what he must do in the next +few seconds. If he let the _Selache_ come up to avoid the boat, there +was the ice ahead, and at the speed she was travelling it would +infallibly crush her bows in, while if he held her straight there was +the boat close in front of her. To swing her clear of both by going to +leeward he must bring the mainsail and boom-foresail over with a +tremendous shock, but that seemed preferable, and with his heart in his +mouth he pulled his helm up. + +He fancied he cried out in warning, but was never sure of it, though +three men came running to seize the mainsheet. The schooner fell off a +little, swinging until the boom-foresail came over with a thunderous +bang and crash. She rolled down, heaving a wide strip of wet planking +out of the sea, and now for a moment or two there were great breadths +of canvas swung out on either hand. Then the ponderous mainboom went +up high above his head, and he saw three shadowy figures dragged aft as +they tried in vain to steady it. The big mainsail was bunched up, a +vast, portentous shape above him, and then he set his lips, and pulled +up the helm another spoke as it swung. He never quite knew what +happened after that. There was a horrible crash, and the schooner +appeared to be rolling over bodily. The spokes he clung to desperately +reft themselves from his grasp, the deck slanted until one could not +stand upon it, and something heavy struck him on the head. He dropped, +and Dampier flung himself upon the wheel above his senseless body. + +Then there was mad confusion, and a frantic banging of canvas as the +schooner came up beam to the wind, with her rent mainsail flogging +itself to tatters. Its ponderous boom was broken, and the +mainmast-head had gone, but it was not the first time the sealermen had +grappled with somewhat similar difficulties, and Dampier kept his head. +He had the boat to think of, and she was somewhere to windward, hidden +in the sudden darkness and the turmoil of the quickly rising sea, but +in the meanwhile the schooner counted most of all. His crew could +scarcely hear him through the uproar the thundering canvas made, and +the screaming of the wind, but the orders were given, and from habit +and the custom of their calling they knew what they must be. + +They hauled a jib down, backed the fore-staysail, and got the +boom-foresail sheeted in, but they let the rent mainsail bang, for it +could do no more damage than it had already done. Then a man sprang up +on the rail with a blue light in his hand, and as the weird radiance +flared in a long streak to leeward a cry rose from the water. In +another few moments a blurred object, half hidden in flying spray, +drove down upon the schooner furiously on the top of a sea, and then +there was sudden darkness as the man flung down the flare. + +Another harsh and half-heard cry rose out of the obscurity. An +indistinguishable object plunged past the schooner's stern, there was a +crash to leeward as she rolled, and a man standing up in the boat +clutched her rail. He was swung out of it as she rolled back again, +but he crawled on to the rail with a rope in one hand, and after +jamming it fast round something sprang down with the hooks of the +lifting tackles which one of the rest had given him. Then, while two +more men scrambled up, there was a clatter of blocks, but a shattered +sea struck the boat as they hove her dear, and when she swung in the +brine poured out through the rents in her. Dampier waved an arm as +they dropped her on the deck, and they heard him faintly. + +"Boys," he said, "you have got to cut that mainsail down." + +They did it somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, buffeted and now and +then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas, floundering below amidst a +raffle of fallen gear, while the bitter spray lashed them, and the +broken boom held up by the clew ring banged savagely to and fro. After +that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a +curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung +off before the sea. Then somebody lighted a lantern, and Charly +stooped over Wyllard, who lay limp and still beside the wheel. His +face showed grey in the feeble light, save where a broad red stain had +spread across it. Dampier cast a glance at him. + +"Get him below, and into his bunk, two of you," he said. + +They did it with difficulty, for the _Selache_ lurched viciously each +time a white-topped sea came up upon her quarter, and as soon as it +seemed advisable to leave the deck Dampier went down. Wyllard lay in +his bunk, with his eyes half-open, but there was no expression in them, +and his face was almost colourless except for the broad smear of blood. +It was oozing fast from a laceration in his scalp, but Dampier, who +noticed his chilliness, did not in the meanwhile trouble about that. +He stripped off the senseless man's long boots, and unshipping a hot +fender iron from the stove laid it against his feet. Afterwards he +contrived to get some whisky down his throat, and then set to work to +wash the scalp wound, dropping into the water a little of the +permanganate of potash, which is freely used at sea. When that was +done he applied a rag dipped in the same fluid, and seeing no result of +his efforts went back on deck. He was anxious about his patient, but +not unduly so, for he had discovered long ago that men of his +description are apt to recover from more serious injuries. By and bye, +he said, Wyllard's brain, which had evidently been rudely jarred by the +shock, would resume its functions. + +It was blowing very hard when he stood near the wheel. A steep sea was +already tumbling after the schooner, but she was, at least, heading out +from where they supposed the ice to be, and he let her go, keeping her +away before it, and heading a little south of east. When morning came +the sea was very high, and the faint light further dimmed by snow, but +it seemed to him just safe, and no more, to run, and they held on while +the big combers came up astern and forged by, ridged with foam, high +above her rail. + +She was travelling very fast, to the eastwards, under boom-foresail and +one little jib, with her mainmast broken short off where the bolts of +the halliard blocks had traversed it, and Dampier realised that because +of that every knot she made then could not by any means be recovered +that season. He wondered, with a little uneasiness, what Wyllard would +say when he came to himself again. In the meanwhile he said nothing, +but lay like a log in his bunk, only that there was now a little warmth +in him. + +Next day the breeze moderated somewhat, and they let her come up a +little, heading further south; while on the morning after that Wyllard +showed signs of returning consciousness. Dampier, however, kept away +from him, partly to allow his senses to readjust themselves, and partly +because he rather shrank from the coming interview. At length, when +dusk was falling, Charly came up to say that Wyllard, who seemed quite +sensible, insisted on seeing him, and Dampier went down with some +misgivings into the little cabin. The lamp was lighted, and when he +sat down Wyllard, who raised himself feebly on his pillow, turned a +pallid face to him. + +"Charly tells me you picked the boat up," he said. + +"We did," said Dampier. "She had three or four planks on one side +ripped out of her." + +Wyllard's faint grimace implied that this did not matter, and Dampier +braced himself for the question he dreaded. He had to face it in +another moment. + +"How's she heading?" + +"A little south of east." + +Wyllard's face hardened. It was still blowing moderately fresh, and by +the heave of the vessel and the wash of water outside he could guess +how fast she was travelling. Except for the latter sound, however, +there was for a moment or two an almost oppressive silence in the +little cabin. Then Wyllard spoke again. + +"You have been running to the eastwards since I was struck down?" he +said. + +Dampier nodded. "Three days," he said. "Just now the breeze is on her +quarter." + +He winced under Wyllard's gaze, and spread his hands out deprecatingly. + +"Now," he added, "what else was there I could do? She wrung her +masthead off when you jibed her and there's not stick enough left to +set any canvas that would shove her to windward, I might have hove her +to, but the first time the breeze hauled easterly she'd have gone up on +the beach or among the ice with us. I had to run!" + +Wyllard closed a feeble hand. "Dunton was crippled, too. It's almost +incredible." + +"In one way, it looks like that, but, after all, a jibe's quite a +common thing with a fore-and-after. If you run her off to lee when +she's going before it her mainboom's bound to come over. Of course, +nobody would run her off in a wicked breeze unless he had to, but you'd +no choice with the ice in front of you." + +Wyllard lay very still for almost a minute. It was clear to him that +his project must be abandoned for that season, which meant that at +least six months must elapse before he could even approach the +Kamtchatkan coast again. + +"Well," he said at length, "what do you mean to do?" + +"If the breeze holds we could pick up one of the Aleutians in a few +days, but I'm keeping south of them. There'll probably be ugly ice +along the beaches, and I've no fancy for being cast ashore by a strong +tide when the fog lies on the land. With westerly winds I'd sooner +hold on for Alaska. We could lie snug in an inlet there, and, it's +quite likely, get a cedar that would make a spar. I can't head right +away for Vancouver with no mainsail." + +This was clear to Wyllard, who made a feeble gesture. "If the wind +comes easterly?" + +Dampier pursed his face up. "Then unless I could fetch one of the +Kuriles we'd sure be jammed. She won't beat to windward, and there'd +be all Kamtchatka to lee of us. The ice is packing up along the north +of it now, and the Russians have two or three settlements to the south. +We don't want to run in and tell them what we're after." + +A faint smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "No," he said, "not after +that little affair on the beach. Since it's very probable that the +vessel they send up to the seal islands would deliver stores along the +coast, the folks in authority would have a record of it. They'd call +the thing piracy--and, in a sense, they'd be justified." + +He said nothing more for a little, and then looked up again wearily. + +"I wonder," he said, "how that boat's crew ever got across to +Kamtchatka. It was north of the islands where the man brought Dunton +the message." + +Dampier understood that he desired to change the subject, for this was +a question they had often discussed already. + +"Well," he said, "I still hold by my first notion. They were blown +ashore on the beach we'd just left, and made prisoners. Then a supply +schooner or perhaps a steamer came along, and they sent them off in her +to be handed over to the authorities. The vessel put in somewhere. +We'll say she was lying in an inlet with a boat astern, and somehow +they cut that boat loose in the dark, and got away in her." + +He broke off for a moment, and then looked at his companion +significantly. + +"You can find quite a few points where that idea seems to fail," he +added. "They were in Kamtchatka, but I'm beginning to feel that we +shall never know any more than that." + +Wyllard made a little weary gesture of concurrence, but before he +closed them Dampier saw no sign that he meant to abandon his project in +his eyes. In another few minutes he seemed to sink into sleep, and +Dampier, who went up on deck, paced to and fro awhile before he stopped +by the wheel and turned to the helmsman. + +"You can let her come up a couple of points. We may as well make a +little southing while we can," he said. + +Charly, who was steering, looked up with suggestive eagerness. "Then +he's not going for the Aleutians?" + +"No," said Dampier drily. "I was kind of afraid of that, but I choked +him off. Anyway, this year won't see us back in Vancouver." He +paused, with a little jarring laugh. "We're going to stay up here +until we find out where those men left their bones. The man who has +this thing in hand isn't the kind that lets up." + +Charly made no answer, but his face hardened as he put his helm down a +spoke or two. + +Next day the wind fell lighter, but for a week it still held westerly, +and after that it blew moderately fresh from the south. Crippled as +she was, the _Selache_ would lie a point or two south of east when they +had set an old cut down fore-staysail on what was left of her mainmast, +and the hearts of her crew grew a little lighter as she crawled on +across the Pacific. They had no wish to be blown back to the frozen +North. The days were, however, growing shorter rapidly, and the sun +hung low in the southern sky when at length she crept into one of the +many inlets that indent the coast of Southern Alaska. There was just +wind enough to carry her in round a long, foam-lapped point, and soon +afterwards they let the anchor go in four fathoms in a sheltered arm, +with a river mouth not far away. There was no sign of life anywhere +about it, and the ragged cedars that crept close down to the beach +stood out in sombre spires against the gleaming snow. + +The cold was not particularly severe when she crept in, but when +Dampier went ashore next morning to pick a log that they could hew a +mast out of the temperature suddenly fell, and that night the drift ice +from the river mouth closed in on them. When the late daylight broke +she was frozen fast, and they knew it would be several months before +she moved again. It was then before the gold rush, and in winter +Alaska was practically cut off from all communication with the south. +No man would have attempted to traverse the tremendous snow-wrapped +desolation of almost impassable hills and trackless forests that lay +between them and the nearest of the commercial factories on the north, +or the canneries on the other hand. Besides, the canneries were shut +up in winter time. They were prisoners, and could only wait with what +patience they could muster until the thaw set them free again. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +A DELICATE ERRAND. + +There was sharp frost outside, and the prairie was white with a thin +sprinkle of snow, when a little party sat down to supper in the +Hastings homestead one Saturday evening. Hastings sat at the head of +the table, his wife at the foot with her little daughters, Agatha, +Sproatly, and Winifred between them. The latter two had just driven +over from the railroad settlement, as they did now and then, which +explained why the meal, which is usually served early in the evening, +had been delayed an hour or so. The two hired men, whom Mrs. Hastings +had not kept waiting, had gone out to some task in the barn or stables. + +By and bye Sproatly took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and laid +them on the table. There had been a remarkable change in his +appearance of late, for he now wore store clothes, and the skin coat he +had taken off when he came in was, as his hostess had noticed, a new +one. It occurred to her that there was a certain significance in this, +though Sproatly had changed his occupation some little time ago, and +now drove about the prairie on behalf of certain makers of agricultural +implements. + +"I called for your mail and Gregory's before we left," he said. "I had +to go round to see him, which is partly what made us so late, though +Winifred couldn't get away as soon as she expected. They've floods of +wheat coming in to the elevators, and I understand that the milling +people can't take another bushel in." + +Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha, who understood what she meant, for +Sproatly had hitherto spoken of Winifred circumspectly as Miss +Rawlinson. Hastings, however, took the papers which Agatha handed him, +and laid them aside. + +"We'll let them wait until supper's over. I don't expect any news +that's particularly good," he said. "The bottom's apparently dropping +out of the wheat market." + +"Hamilton can't get cars enough, and we'll have to shut down in another +day or two unless they turn up," said Winifred. "It's much the same +all along the line. The Winnipeg traffic people wired us they haven't +an empty car in the yards. Why do you rush the grain in that way? +It's bound to break the market." + +Hastings smiled rather drily. "Well," he said, "a good many of us have +bills to meet. For another thing, they've had a heavy crop in +Manitoba, Dakota, and Minnesota, and I suppose some folks have an idea +they'll get in first before the other people swamp the Eastern markets. +I think they're foolish. It's a temporary scare. Prices will stiffen +by and bye." + +"That's what Hamilton says, but I suppose the thing is natural. Men +are very like sheep, aren't they?" + +Hastings laughed. "Well," he admitted, "we are, in some respects. +When prices break a little we generally rush to sell. One or two of my +neighbours are, however, holding on, and it's hardly likely that very +much of my wheat will be flung on to a falling market." + +"We have been getting a good deal from the Range." + +There was displeasure in Hastings's face. "Gregory's selling largely +on Harry's account?" + +"They've been hauling wheat in to us for the last few weeks," said +Winifred. + +Hastings, as Agatha noticed, glanced at his wife significantly, but she +interposed and forbade any further conversation of the kind until +supper was over, while when the table had been cleared Hastings opened +his papers. The rest sat expectantly silent, while he turned them over +one after another. + +"No," he said, "there's no news of Harry, and I'm afraid it's scarcely +possible that we'll hear anything of him this winter." + +Agatha was conscious that Mrs. Hastings's eyes were upon her, and she +sat very still, though her heart was beating a little faster than +usual. Hastings, however, went on again. + +"The _Colonist_ has a line or two about a barque from Alaska, which put +into Victoria short of stores," he said. "She was sent up to an A.C.C. +factory, and had to clear out before she was ready. The ice, it seems, +was closing in unusually early. A steam whaler at Portland reports the +same thing, and from the news brought by a steamer from Japan all +communication with North-Eastern Asia is already cut off." + +None of the others said anything for a moment or two, and Agatha, +leaning back in her chair, glanced round the room. There was not much +furniture in it, but, though this was unusual on the prairie, door and +double casements were guarded by heavy hangings. The big brass lamp +overhead shed down a cheerful light, the birch billets in the stove +snapped and crackled noisily, and its pipe, which was far too hot to +touch, diffused a drowsy heat. One could lounge beside it contentedly, +knowing that the stinging frost was drying the snow to dusty powder +outside. That heightened the contrast, for Agatha pictured the little +schooner bound fast in the Northern ice, and then two or three +travel-worn men crouching in a tiny tent buffeted by an Arctic gale. +She could see the poles bend, and the tricings strain. + +After that, with a sudden transition, her thoughts went back to the +early morning when Wyllard had driven away, and every detail of the +scene rose up clearly in her mind. She saw him and the stolid Dampier +sitting in the waggon, with nothing in their manner to suggest that +they were setting out upon a very perilous venture, and she felt his +hand close tight upon her fingers, as it had done just before the +waggon jolted away from the homestead. She could once more see it +growing smaller and smaller on the white prairie, until it dipped +behind the crest of a low rise, and the sinking beat of hoofs died +away. Then, at least, she had realised that he had started on the +first stage of a journey which might lead him through the ice-bound +gates of the North to the rest that awaits the souls of the sailormen. +She could not, however, imagine him shrinking. Gripping helm, or +hauling in the sled traces, he would gaze with quiet eyes steadfastly +ahead, even if they saw only the passage from this world to the next. +Once more, as it had done that morning, a curious thrill ran through +her, and there was pride as well as regret in it. Then she became +conscious that Hastings was speaking. + +"What took you round by the Range, Jim?" he asked. + +"Collecting," said Sproatly. "I sold Gregory a couple of binders +earlier in the season, but, as it happened, I couldn't get a dollar out +of him." He laughed. "Of course, if it had been anybody else I'd have +stayed until he handed over, but I couldn't press Gregory too hard +after quartering myself upon him as I did last winter, though I'm +rather afraid my employers wouldn't appreciate that kind of delicacy." + +Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Gregory should have been able to +pay. He thrashed out a moderately good crop." + +"About two-thirds of what it should have been, and I've reason for +believing that he has been putting up a mortgage. Interest's heavy. +There's another matter. I wonder if you've heard that he's getting rid +of two of Harry's hands? I mean Pat and Tom Moran." + +"You're sure of that?" Hastings asked somewhat sharply. + +"Tom told me." + +Mrs. Hastings leaned forward suddenly in her chair. "Then," she said, +"I'm going to drive across on Monday, and have a few words with +Gregory. Did Moran tell you that Harry had decided to keep the two of +them on throughout the year?" + +"He wasn't very explicit, but he seemed to feel he had a grievance +against Gregory. Of course, in a way, you can't blame Gregory. He's +in charge, and it isn't in him to carry out Harry's policy. This fall +in wheat is getting on his nerves, and in any case he'd probably have +held his hand and cut down the crop next year." + +"I do blame him," and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "You will +understand that in a general way there's not much that can be done when +the snow's upon the ground, and as one result of it the hired man +prefers to engage himself for the year. To secure himself from being +turned adrift when harvest's over he will frequently make a concession +in wages. Now I know Harry intended to keep those two men on, and Tom +Moran, who has a little half-cleared ranch back somewhere in the bush +of Ontario, came out here tempted by higher wages. I understand he had +to raise a few dollars or give the place up, and he left his wife +behind. A good many of the little men can't live upon their holdings +all the while. Well, I'm going over on Monday to tell Gregory he has +got to keep them, and you're coming with me." + +Agatha said nothing. In the first place, she knew that if Mrs. +Hastings had made her mind up she would gain nothing by objecting, and +in addition to this she was conscious of a certain desire to go. It +appeared in some respects an unreasonable wish, but she felt deep down +in her that if Wyllard had let the men understand that he would not +dismiss them the promise, implied or explicit, must be redeemed. He +would not have attempted to release himself from it--she was sure of +that--and it appeared intolerable to her that another should be +permitted to do anything that would unfavourably reflect on him. Then, +somewhat to her relief, Hastings started another topic. + +"You have sold quite a few binders and harrows one way or another, +haven't you, Jim?" he said. + +Sproatly laughed. "I have," he said. "As I told the Company's Western +representative some time ago, a man who could sell patent medicine to +the folks round here could do a good trade in anything. He admitted +that my contention sounded reasonable, but I didn't wear store clothes +then, and he seemed very far from sure of me. Anyway, he gave me a +show, and now I've got two or three quite complimentary letters from +the Company. They've added a few dollars to my salary, and hint that +it's possible they may put me in charge of an implement store." + +"And you're satisfied?" + +"Well," said Sproatly, with an air of reflection, "in some respects, I +suppose I am. In others, the thing's galling. You have to report who +you've called upon, and, if you couldn't do business, why they bought +somebody else's machines. If you can't get a farmer to take you in you +have to put up at a hotel. There's no more camping in a birch bluff +under your waggon. Besides, you have to wear store clothes." + +Hastings glanced at Winifred, and Agatha fancied she understood what +was in his mind. + +"Some folks would sooner sleep in a hotel," he said, with a twinkle in +his eyes. + +"Then," said Sproatly, decisively, "they don't know very much. They're +the kind of men who'd spend an hour every morning putting their clothes +on, and they haven't found out that there's no comfort in any garment +until you've had to sew two or three flour bag patches on to it. Then +think of the splendid freeness of the other thing. You make your +supper when you want, and just how you like it, when you put up in a +bluff, and no tea tastes as good as the kind you drink with the wood +smoke in it out of a blackened can. You can hear the little birch +leaves and the grasses whispering about you when you lie down at night, +and you drive on in the glorious freshness--just when it pleases +you--when morning comes. Now the Company have the whole route and +programme plotted out for me. They write me letters demanding most +indelicately why I haven't done this and that." + +Winifred looked at him sharply. "Civilisation," she said, "implies +responsibility. You can't live just how you like without it being +detrimental to the community." + +"Oh yes," said Sproatly with a rueful gesture, "it implies no end of +giving up. You have to fall into line, and that's why I kept outside +it just as long as I could. I don't like standing in a rank, and," he +glanced down at his clothing, "I've an inborn objection to wearing +uniform." + +Agatha laughed as she caught Hastings's eye. She fancied that Sproatly +would be sorry for his candour afterwards, but she understood what he +was feeling to some extent. It was a revolt against cramping customs +and conventionalities, and she partly sympathised with it, though she +knew that such revolts are dangerous. Even in the West, those who +cannot lead must march in column with the rank and file or bear the +consequences of their futile mutiny. It is a hard truth that no man +can live as he pleases. + +"Restraint," said Winifred, "is a wholesome thing, but it's one most of +the men I have met are singularly deficient in. That's why they can't +be left alone but must be driven, as they are, in companies. It's +their own fault if they now and then find it a little humiliating." + +There was a faint gleam in her eyes at which Sproatly apparently took +warning, for he said no more upon that subject, and they talked about +other matters until he took his departure an hour or two later. It was +next afternoon when he appeared again, and Mrs. Hastings smiled at +Agatha as he and Winifred drove away together. + +"Thirty miles is a long way to drive in the frost. I suppose you have +noticed that she calls him Jim?" she said. "Anyway, there's a good +deal of very genuine ability in that young man. He isn't altogether +wild." + +"His appearance rather suggested it when I first met him," said Agatha +with a laugh. "Was it a pose?" + +"No," said her companion reflectively. "I think one could call it a +reaction, and it's probable that some very worthy people in the Old +Country are to blame for it. Sproatly is not the only young man who +has suffered from having too many rules and conventions crammed down +his throat. In fact, they're rather plentiful." + +Agatha said nothing further, for the little girls appeared just then, +and it was not until the next afternoon that she and Mrs. Hastings were +alone together again. Then as they drove across the prairie wrapped in +the heavy waggon robes her companion spoke of the business they had in +hand. + +"Gregory must keep those men," she said. "There's no doubt that Harry +meant to do it, and it would be horribly unfair to turn them loose now +when there's absolutely nothing going on. Besides, Tom Moran is a man +I'm specially sorry for. As I told you, he left a young wife and a +very little child behind him when he came out here." + +"One would wonder why he did it," said Agatha. "He had to. There +seems to be a notion in the Old Country that we earn our dollars +easily, but it's very wrong. We'll take that man's case as an example. +He has a little, desolate holding up in the bush of Ontario, a hole +chopped out of the forest studded all over with sawn-off fir-stumps, +with a little, two-roomed log shack on it. In all probability there +isn't a settlement within two or three leagues of the spot. Now, as a +rule, a place of that kind won't produce enough to keep a man for +several years after he has partially cleared it, and unless he can earn +something in the meanwhile he must give it up. Moran, it seems, got +heavily into debt with the nearest storekeeper, and had to choose +between selling the place up or coming out here where wages are higher. +Well, you can probably imagine what it must be to the woman who stayed +behind in the desolate bush, seeing nobody for weeks together, though +I've no doubt that she'd bear it uncomplainingly believing that her +husband would come back with enough to clear the debt." + +Agatha could imagine it, and a certain indignation against Gregory +crept into her heart. She had once liked to think of him as pitiful +and chivalrous, and now, it seemed, he was quite willing that this +woman should make her sacrifice in vain. + +"But why have you taken the trouble to impress this on--me?" she asked. + +Her companion smiled. "I want you to plead that woman's cause. +Gregory may do what you ask him gracefully. That would be much the +nicest way out of it." + +"The nicest way?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings, with a trace of dryness, "there is another +one. Gregory is going to keep Tom Moran, anyway. Harry has one or two +friends in this neighbourhood who feel it more or less of an obligation +on them to maintain his credit." + +Agatha felt the blood rise to her face, but it was not her companion +she was angry with. It was an unpleasant thing to admit, but she +fancied that Gregory might yield to judicious pressure when he would +not be influenced by either compassion or a sense of equity. It also +flashed upon her that had Mrs. Hastings believed that she still +retained any tenderness for the man she would not have spoken as she +had done. The whole situation was horribly embarrassing, but there was +courage in her. + +"Well," she said simply, "I will speak to him." + +They said nothing more until they approached the Range, and as they +drove by the outbuildings Agatha glanced about her curiously. It +occurred to her that the homestead did not look quite the same as it +had done when Wyllard had been there. A waggon stood near the +strawpile without one wheel. A door of the barn hung awkwardly open in +a manner which suggested that it needed mending, and the snow had blown +inside the building. There was a gap in the side of one sod and pole +structure which should evidently have been repaired, and all this and +several other things she noticed jarred upon her. They suggested +slackness and indifference. Then she saw Mrs. Hastings purse her lips +up. + +"There is a change in the place already," she said. + +They got down in another minute or two, and when they entered the house +the grey-haired Swedish woman greeted them moodily. She seemed to +notice the glance Mrs. Hastings cast around her, and her manner became +deprecatory. + +"I can't keep things straight now. It is not the same," she said. + +Mrs. Hastings asked if Hawtrey was in, and hearing that he was turned +to Agatha. "Go along and talk to him. I've something to say to Mrs. +Nansen," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE PRIOR CLAIM. + +It was with confused feelings among which a sense of repugnance +predominated that Agatha walked towards Hawtrey's room. She was not +one of the women who take pleasure in pointing out another person's +duty, for while she had discovered that this task is apparently an easy +one to some people she was quite aware that a duty usually looks much +more burdensome when it is laid upon one's self. Indeed, she was +conscious just then that one might be shortly thrust upon her which she +would find it very hard to bear, and she became troubled with a certain +compunction as she remembered how she had of late persistently driven +all thought of it out of her mind. + +There was no doubt that she was still pledged to Gregory, and that she +had loved him once. Both facts must be admitted, and it seemed to her +that if he insisted she must marry him. Deep down in her there was an +innate sense of right and honesty, and she realised that the fact that +he was not the man she had once imagined him to be did not release her. +In the meanwhile, it was clear that if he was about to commit a cruel +and unjustifiable action she was the one person of all others whose +part it was to restrain him. + +The colour was a little plainer in her face than usual when she quietly +entered the room where he lay, pipe in hand, in a lounge chair, and, +for it seemed that he did not immediately notice her, his attitude of +languid ease irritated her. There were, as she had seen, several +things which should evidently have had some claim on his attention +outside. A litter of letters and papers lay upon a little table at his +side, but the fact that he could not reach them as he lay was +suggestive. Then he rose, and came forward with outstretched hand. + +[Illustration: "It seemed that he did not immediately notice her."] + +"I didn't hear you," he said. "This is a pleasure I scarcely +anticipated." + +Agatha sat down in the chair he drew out for her near the stove, and he +seemed to notice that she glanced at the papers on the table, for he +laughed. + +"Bills, and things of that kind. They've been worrying me for a week +or two," he said. Then he seized the litter, and bundling it together +flung it into an open drawer, which he shut with a snap. "Anyway, +that's the last of them for to-day. I'm awfully glad you drove over." + +Agatha smiled. The action was so characteristic of the man. She had +once found no fault with Gregory's careless habits, and his way of +thrusting a difficulty into the background and making light of it had +appealed to her. It had suggested his ability to straighten out the +trouble when it appeared advisable. Now, she said, she would not be +absurdly hypercritical, and he had, as it happened, given her the lead +that she desired. + +"I should have fancied that you would have had to give them more +attention as wheat is going down," she said. + +Hawtrey looked at her with an air of reproach. "It must be nearly +three weeks since I have seen you, and now you expect me to talk of +farming." He made a whimsically rueful gesture. "If you quite +realised the situation it would be about the last thing you would ask +me to do." + +Agatha was a little astonished to remember that three weeks had +actually elapsed since she had last met him, and they had only +exchanged a word or two then. He had certainly not obtruded himself +upon her, for which she was grateful. + +"Nobody is talking about anything except the fall in prices just now," +she persisted. "I suppose it affects you, too?" + +The man, who seemed to accept this as a rebuff, looked at her rather +curiously, and then laughed. + +"It must be admitted that it does. In fact, I've been acquiring +parsimonious habits and worrying myself about expenses lately. They +have to be kept down somehow, and that's a kind of thing I never took +kindly to." + +"You feel it a greater responsibility when you're managing somebody +else's affairs?" suggested Agatha, who was still waiting her +opportunity. + +"Well," said Hawtrey, in whom there was, after all, a certain honesty, +"that's not quite the only thing that has some weight with me. You +see, I'm not altogether disinterested. I get a certain percentage--on +the margin--after everything is paid, and I want it to be a big one. +Things are rather tight just now, and the wretched mortgage on my place +is crippling me." + +It had slipped out before he quite realised what he was saying, and he +saw the girl's look of astonishment and concern. She now realised what +Sproatly had meant. + +"You are in debt, Gregory? I thought you had, at least, kept clear of +that," she said. + +"So I did--for a while. In any case, if Wyllard stays away, and I can +run this place on the right lines, I shall, no doubt, get out of it +again." + +She was vexed that he had said this, for it was clear to her that if +Wyllard did not return until another crop was gathered in it would be +because he was held fast among the Northern ice in peril of his life. +Then another thought struck her. She had never quite understood why +Gregory had been willing to undertake the management of the Range, in +view of the probability of Wyllard having plainly told him what he had +said to her, but he had made that point clear by admitting that he had +been burdened with a load of debt, which suggested the question why he +had incurred the latter. The answer appeared in another moment or two, +as she remembered having heard Mrs. Hastings or somebody else say that +he had spent a good many dollars upon his house and furnishings for it. +It brought her a sudden sense of confusion, for as one result of that +expenditure he had been forced into doing what she fancied must have +been a very repugnant thing, and she had never even crossed his +threshold. + +"When did you borrow that money?" she asked sharply. + +There was no doubt that the man was embarrassed, and her heart softened +towards him for his hesitation. It was to further her comfort he had +laid that load upon himself, and he was clearly unwilling that she +should recognise it. That counted for a good deal in his favour. + +"Was it just before I came out?" she asked again. + +Hawtrey made a little sign of expostulation. "You really mustn't worry +me about these matters, Aggy. A good many of us are in the +storekeepers' or mortgage-jobbers' hands, and there's no doubt that if +I have another good year at the Range I shall clear off the debt." + +Agatha turned her face away from him for a moment or two. The thing +the man had done laid a heavy obligation on her, and she remembered +that she had only found fault with him. Even then, however, stirred as +she was, she was conscious that all the tenderness she had once felt +for him had gone. The duty, however, remained, and with a little +effort she turned to him again. + +"Oh!" she said, "I'm so sorry." + +Hawtrey smiled. "I really don't think I deserve a very great deal of +pity. As I have said, I'll probably come out all right next year if I +can only keep expenses down." + +Then Agatha remembered the task she had in hand. It was a very +inauspicious moment to set about it, but that could not be helped, and +even for the man's own sake she felt that she must win him over. + +"There is one way, Gregory, in which I don't think it ought to be +done," she said. "You took over Wyllard's obligations when you took +the farm, and I think you should keep the two Morans on." + +Hawtrey started. "Ah!" he said, "Mrs. Hastings has been setting you +on; I partly expected it." + +"She told me," Agatha admitted. "Unless you will look at the thing as +I do, I could almost wish she hadn't. The thought of that woman shut +up in the woods all winter only to find that what she must have to bear +has all been thrown away troubles me. Wyllard promised to keep those +men on, didn't he?" + +"There was no regular engagement so far as I can make out." + +"Still, Moran seems to have understood that he was to be kept on." + +"Yes," admitted Hawtrey, "he evidently does. If the market had gone +with us I'd have fallen in with his views. As it hasn't, every man's +wages count." + +Agatha was conscious of a little thrill of repugnance. Of late +Gregory's ideas had rather frequently jarred on hers. + +"Does that release you?" + +Hawtrey did not answer this. + +"I'll keep those men on if you want me to," he said. + +Agatha winced at this. She had discovered that she must not look for +too much from Gregory, but to realise that he had practically no sense +of moral obligation, and could only be influenced to do justice by the +expectation of obtaining her favour positively hurt her. + +"I want them kept on, but I don't want you to do it for that reason," +she said. "Can't you grasp the distinction, Gregory?" + +A trace of darker colour crept into Hawtrey's face, but while she was a +little astonished at this he looked at her steadily. He had not +thought much about her during the last month, but now the faint scorn +in her voice had stirred him. + +"Now," he said, "there are just three reasons, Aggy, why you should +have troubled yourself about this thing. You are, perhaps, a little +sorry for Moran's wife, but as you haven't even seen her that can +hardly count for much. The next is, that you don't care to see me +doing what you regard as a shabby thing; perhaps it is a shabby thing +in some respects, but I feel it's justifiable. Of course, if that's +your reason there's a sense in which, while not exactly +complimentary--it's consoling." + +He broke off, and looked at her with a question in his eyes, and it +cost Agatha an effort to meet them. She was not prudish or over +conscious of her own righteousness, but once or twice after the shock +of her disillusionment in regard to him had lessened she had dreamed of +the possibility of enduing him little by little with some of the +qualities she had once fancied he possessed, and, as she vaguely +thought of it, rehabilitating him. Now, however, the thing seemed +impossible, and, what was more, the desire to bring it about had gone. +Hateful as the situation was becoming, she was honest, and she could +not let him credit her with a motive that had not influenced her. + +In the meanwhile, her very coldness and aloofness stirred desire in the +man, and she shrank as she saw a spark of passion kindling in his eyes. +It was merely passion, she felt, for she recognised that there was a +strain of grossness in him. + +"No," she said, "that reason was not one which had any weight with me." + +Hawtrey's face hardened. "Then," he said grimly, "we'll get on to the +third. Wyllard's credit is a precious thing to you; sooner than +anything should cast a stain on it you would beg a favour from--me. +You have set him up on a pedestal, and it would hurt you if he came +down. Considering everything, it's a remarkably curious situation." + +Agatha grew a trifle pale. Gregory was horribly right, for she had no +doubt now that he had merely thrust upon her a somewhat distressing +truth. It was to save Wyllard's credit, and for that alone she had +undertaken this most unpalatable task. She did not answer, and Hawtrey +stood up. + +"Wyllard has his faults, but there's this in his favour--he keeps a +promise," he said. "One has a certain respect for a person who never +goes back upon his word. Well, because I really think he would like +it, I'll keep those men." + +He paused for a moment, as if to let her grasp the drift of this, and +then turned to her with something that startled her in his voice and +manner. "The question is--are you willing to emulate his example?" + +Agatha shrank from the glow in his eyes. "Oh!" she broke out, "you +cannot urge me now--after what you said." + +Hawtrey laughed harshly. "Well," he said, "I'll come for my answer +very shortly. It seems that you and Wyllard attach a good deal of +importance to a moral obligation--and I must remind you that the time +agreed upon is almost up." + +Agatha sat very still for perhaps half a minute, while a sense of +dismay crept over her. There was no doubt that Gregory's retort was +fully warranted. She had, as she admitted, insisted upon him carrying +out an obligation which would cost him something, not because she took +pleasure in seeing him do what was honourable, but to preserve the +credit of another man, and now it was with intense repugnance she +recognised that there was apparently no escaping from the one she had +incurred. The man's attitude was perfectly natural and logical. She +had promised to marry him, and he had saddled himself with a load of +debt on her account, but the slight pity and tenderness she had felt +for him a few minutes earlier had utterly gone. Indeed, she felt she +almost hated him. His face had grown hard and almost brutal, and there +was a look she shrank from in his eyes. + +Then she rose. + +"Do you wish to speak to Mrs. Hastings?" she asked. + +Hawtrey smiled rather grimly. "No," he said, "if she'll excuse me, I +don't think I do. If you tell her you have been successful, she'll +probably be quite content." + +Agatha went out without another word, and Hawtrey lighted his pipe and +stretched himself out in his chair, when he heard the waggon drive away +a few minutes later. He did not like Mrs. Hastings, and had a +suspicion that she had no great regard for him, but he was conscious of +a somewhat grim satisfaction. There was, though it seldom came to the +surface, a taint of crude brutality in his nature, and it was active +now. When Agatha had first come out the change in her had been a shock +to him, and it would not have cost him very much to let her go. Since +then, however, her coldness and half-perceived disdain had angered him, +and the interview which was just over had left him in an unpleasant +mood. Though this was, perhaps, the last thing he would have expected, +it had stirred him to desire. It was consoling to feel that he could +exact the fulfilment of her promise from the girl. His face grew +coarser as he assured himself of it, but he had, as it happened, never +realised the shiftiness and instability of his own character. It was +his misfortune that the impulses which swayed him one day had generally +changed the next. + +This became apparent when, having occasion to drive in to the elevators +on the railroad a week later, he called at a store to make one or two +purchases. The man who kept it laid a package on the counter. + +"I wonder if you'd take this along to Miss Creighton as a favour," he +said. "She wrote for the things, and Elliot was to take them out, but +I guess he forgot; anyway, he didn't call." + +Hawtrey told the clerk to put the package in his waggon. He had +scarcely seen Sally since his recovery, and he suddenly remembered +that, after all, he owed her a good deal, and that she was very pretty. +Besides, one could talk to Sally without feeling the restraint that +Agatha's manner usually laid on him. Then the storekeeper laid an open +box upon the counter. + +"I guess you're going to be married by and bye," he said. + +Hawtrey was thinking of Sally then, and the question irritated him. + +"I don't know that it concerns you, but in a general way it's +probable," he said. + +"Well," said the storekeeper good-humouredly, "a pair of these mittens +would make quite a nice present for a lady. Smartest thing of the kind +I've ever seen here; choicest Alaska fur." + +Hawtrey bought a pair, and the storekeeper took a fur cap out of +another box. + +"Now," he said, "this is just the thing she'd like to go with the +mittens. There's style about that cap; feel the gloss of it." + +Hawtrey bought the cap, and smiled as he swung himself up into his +waggon. Gloves are not much use in the prairie frost, and mittens, +which are not divided into finger-stalls, will within limits fit almost +anybody. This, he felt, was fortunate, for he was not quite sure that +he meant to give them to Agatha. + +It was bitterly cold, and the pace the team made was slow, for the snow +was loose and too thin for a sled of any kind, which, after all, is not +very generally used upon the prairie. As the result of this, night had +closed down and Hawtrey was frozen almost stiff when at last a birch +bluff rose out of the waste in front of him. It cut black against the +cold blueness of the sky and the spectral gleam of snow, but when he +had driven a little further a stream of ruddy orange light appeared in +the midst of it. A few minutes later he pulled his team up in front of +a little log-built house, and getting down with difficulty saw the door +open as he approached it. Sally stood in the entrance silhouetted +against a blaze of cheerful light. + +"Oh!" she said. "Gregory!" + +Hawtrey recognised the thrill in her voice, and took both her hands, as +he had once been in the habit of doing. + +"Will you let me in?" he asked. + +The girl laughed in a rather strained fashion. She had been a little +startled, and was not quite sure yet as to how she should receive him; +but in the meanwhile Hawtrey drew her in. + +"The old folks are out," she said. "They've gone over to Elliot's for +supper. He's bringing us a package." + +Hawtrey, who explained that he had got it, let her hands go, and sat +down somewhat limply. He had come suddenly out of the bitter frost +into the little, brightly-lighted, stove-warmed room. In another few +moments, however, the comfort and cheeriness of it appealed to him. + +"This looks very cosy after my desolate room at the Range," he said. + +"Then if you'll stay I'll make you supper. I suppose there's nothing +to take you home?" + +"No," said Hawtrey, with a significant glance at her, "there certainly +isn't, Sally. As a matter of fact, I often wish there was." + +He saw her sudden uncertainty, which was, however, not tinged with +embarrassment, and feeling that he had gone far enough in the meanwhile +he went out to put up his team. When he came back there was a cloth on +the table, and Sally was busy about the stove. He sat down and watched +her attentively. In some respects, he thought, she compared favourably +with Agatha. She had a nicely moulded figure, and a curious lithe +gracefulness of carriage which was suggestive of a strong vitality, +while Agatha's bearing was usually characterised by a certain rather +frigid repose. This and the latter's general manner had a somewhat +inciting effect on him when he was in her presence, but he now and then +remembered it afterwards with resentment. Then Sally's face was at +least as comely in a different way, and there was no reserve in it. +She was what he thought of as human, frankly flesh and blood. Her +quick smile was, as a rule, provocative, and never chilled one as +Agatha's quiet glances sometimes did. + +"Sally," he said, "you've grown prettier than ever." + +The girl turned partly round towards him with a slow, sinuous movement +that he found seductively graceful. + +"Now," she said, "you oughtn't to say those things to me." + +Hawtrey laughed; he was usually sure of his ground with Sally. + +"Why shouldn't I, when it's just what you are?" + +"For one thing, Miss Ismay wouldn't like it." + +The man's face hardened. "I'm not sure she'd mind. Anyway, Miss Ismay +doesn't like a good many things I'm in the habit of doing." + +Sally, who had watched him closely, turned away again, but a little +thrill of exultation ran through her. It had been with dismay she had +first heard him speak of his marriage, which was, perhaps, not +altogether astonishing, and she had fled home in an agony of anger and +humiliation. That state of mind had, however, not lasted long, and +when it became evident that the wedding was, at least, postponed +indefinitely, she commenced to wonder whether it was quite impossible +that Hawtrey should come back to her. She felt that he belonged to her +although he had never given her any very definite claim in him. She +was a trifle primitive and passionate, but she was determined, and now +he had done what she had almost expected him to do, she meant to keep +him. + +"You have fallen out?" she said, and contrived to keep the anxiety she +was conscious of out of her voice. + +The question, and more particularly the form of it, rather jarred upon +Hawtrey, but he answered it. + +"Oh no," he said. "As a matter of fact, Sally, you can't fall out +nicely with everybody. Now when we fell out you got delightfully +angry--I don't know if you were more delightful then or when you +graciously agreed to make it up again." He laughed. "I almost wish I +could make you a little angry now." + +Sally had moved a little nearer to take a kettle off the stove, and she +looked down on him with her eyes shining in the lamplight. She +realised that she would have to fight Miss Ismay for this man; but +there was this in her favour, that she appealed directly to one side of +his nature, as Agatha, even if she had loved him, would not have done. + +"Would you?" she said. "Dare you try?" + +"I might if I was tempted sufficiently." + +She leaned upon the table still looking at him mockingly, and she was +probably aware that her pose and expression were wholly provocative. +Indeed, she could not have failed to recognise the meaning of the +sudden tightening of his lips, though she did not in the least shrink +from it. She had not the faintest doubt of her ability to keep him at +a due distance if it appeared necessary. + +"Oh," she said, "you only say things." + +Hawtrey laughed, and stooping down picked up a package he had brought +from the store. + +"Well," he said, "after all, I think I'd rather try if I can please +you." He opened the package. "Are these things very much too big for +you, Sally?" + +[Illustration: "'Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?'"] + +The girl's eyes glistened at the sight of the mittens he held out. +They were very different from the kind she had hitherto been in the +habit of wearing, and when he carelessly took out the fur cap she broke +into a little cry of delight. In the meanwhile Hawtrey watched her +with a rather curious expression. He was not quite sure he had meant +Sally to have the things when he had purchased them, but he was quite +contented now. The one gift he had somewhat diffidently offered Agatha +since her arrival in Canada had been almost coldly laid aside. + +In another few minutes Sally laid out supper, and as she waited upon +him daintily or filled his cup Hawtrey thrust the misgivings he had +felt further behind him. Sally, he thought with a little dry smile, +could certainly cook. When the meal was over he sat talking about +nothing in particular for almost an hour, and then stood up. It +occurred to him that Sally's mother would be back before very long, and +she was a person he had no great liking for. + +"Well," he said, "I must be getting home. Won't you let me see you +with that cap on?" + +Sally, who betrayed no diffidence, put on the cap, and stood before a +little dingy mirror with both hands raised while she pressed it down +upon her gleaming hair. Then she flashed a smiling glance at him. It +was quite sufficient, and as she turned again Hawtrey slipped forward +as softly as he could. She swung round, however, with a flush in her +face and a forceful, restraining gesture. + +"Don't spoil it all, Gregory," she said sharply. + +Hawtrey, who saw that she meant it--which was a cause of some +astonishment to him--dropped his hand. + +"Oh," he said, "if you look at it in that way I'm sorry. Good-night, +Sally!" + +She let him go, but she smiled when he drove away; and half an hour +later she showed the cap and mittens to her mother with significant +candour. Mrs. Creighton, who was a severely practical person, nodded. + +"Well," she said, "he only wants a little managing if he bought you +these, and nobody could say you ran after him. I wouldn't, anyway; +some of them don't like it." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE FIRST STAKE. + +A fortnight had slipped by since the evening Hawtrey had spent with +Sally, when Winifred and Sproatly once more arrived at the Hastings +homestead. The girl was looking a trifle jaded, and it appeared that +the manager of the elevator, who had all along treated her with a good +deal of consideration, had insisted upon her going away for a few days +now the pressure of business which had followed the harvest had +slackened. Sproatly, as usual, had driven her in from the settlement. + +When the evening meal was over they drew their chairs close up about +the stove, and Hastings thrust fresh birch billets into it, for there +was a bitter frost. Mrs. Hastings installed Winifred in a canvas +lounge and wrapped a shawl about her. + +"You haven't got warm yet, and you're looking quite worn out," she +said. "I suppose Hamilton has still been keeping you at work until +late at night?" + +"We have been very busy since I was last here," Winifred admitted, and +then turned to Hastings. "Until the last week or so there has been no +slackening in the rush to sell. Everybody seems to have been throwing +wheat on to the market." + +Hastings looked thoughtful. "A good many of the smaller men have been +doing so, but I think they're foolish. They're only helping to break +down prices, and I shouldn't wonder if one or two of the big, +long-headed buyers saw their opportunity in the temporary panic. In +fact, if I'd a pile of dollars lying in the bank I'm not sure that I +wouldn't send along a buying order and operate for a rise." + +His wife shook her head at him. "No," she said; "you certainly +wouldn't while I had any say in the matter. You're rather a good +farmer, but I haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. +Some of our friends have tried it--and you know where it landed them. +I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice +fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear +him." + +Hastings laughed. "I should like to point out that most of the farmers +in this country are decidedly thin, and have uncommonly little wool on +them." Then he turned to the rest. "I feel inclined to tell you how +Mrs. Hastings made the expenses of her Paris trip; it's an example of +feminine consistency. She went round the neighbourhood and bought all +the wheat anybody had left on hand up, or, at least, she made me do it." + +His wife, who had, as it happened, means of her own, nodded. "That was +different," she said; "anyway, I had the wheat, and I--knew--it would +go up." + +"Then why shouldn't other folks sell forward, for instance, when they +know it will go down? That's not what I suggested doing, but the +point's the same." + +"They haven't got the wheat." + +"Of course; they wouldn't operate for a fall if they had. On the other +hand, if their anticipations proved correct, they could buy it for less +than they sold at before they had to deliver." + +"That," said Mrs. Hastings severely, "is pure gambling. It's sure to +land one in the hands of the mortgage jobber." + +Hastings smiled at the others. "As a matter of fact, it not +infrequently does, but I want you to note the subtle distinction. The +thing's quite legitimate if you've only got the wheat in a bag. In +such a case you must naturally operate for a rise." + +"There's a good deal to be said for that point of view," observed +Sproatly. "You can keep the wheat if you're not satisfied, but when +you try the other plan the margin that may vanish at any moment is the +danger. I suppose Gregory has still been selling the Range wheat, +Winifred?" + +"I believe we have sent on every bushel." + +Sproatly exchanged a significant glance with Hastings, whose face once +more grew thoughtful. + +"Then," said the latter drily, "if he's wise he'll stop at that." + +Mrs. Hastings changed the subject, and drew her chair closer in to the +stove, which snapped and crackled cheerfully. + +"It must be a good deal colder where Harry is," she said with a shiver. + +She flashed a swift glance at Agatha, and saw her expression change, +but Sproatly broke in again. + +"It was bad enough driving in from the railroad this afternoon," he +said. "Winifred was almost frozen, which is why I didn't go round by +Creighton's for the pattern mat--I think that's what he said it +was--Mrs. Creighton borrowed from you. I met him at the settlement a +day or two ago." + +Mrs. Hastings said that he could bring it another time, and while the +rest talked of something else Winifred turned to Agatha. + +"It really was horribly cold, and I almost fancied one of my hands was +frost-nipped," she said. "As it happens, I can't buy mittens like your +new ones." + +"My new ones?" said Agatha. + +"The ones Gregory bought you." + +Agatha laughed. "My dear, he never gave me any." + +Winifred pursed her face up. "Well," she persisted, "he certainly +bought them and a fur cap, too. I was in the store when he did it, +though I don't think he noticed me. They were lovely mittens--such a +pretty brown fur." + +Just then Mrs. Hastings, unobserved by either of them, looked up and +caught Sproatly's eye. His face became suddenly expressionless, and he +looked away. + +"When was that?" asked Agatha. + +"A fortnight ago, anyway." + +Agatha sat silent, and was rather glad when Mrs. Hastings asked +Winifred a question. She desired no gifts from Gregory, but since he +had bought the cap and mittens she wondered what he could have done +with them. It was rather disconcerting to feel that, while he +evidently meant to hold her to her promise, he must have given them to +somebody else. She had, as it happened, never heard of his +acquaintance with Sally Creighton, but it struck her as curious that +although the six months' delay he had granted her had lately expired, +he had neither sent her any word nor called at the homestead. + +A few minutes later Mrs. Hastings took up a basket of sewing she had +been engaged in, and moved towards the door. Sproatly, who rose as she +approached him, drew aside his chair, and she handed the basket to him. + +"You can carry it if you like," she said. + +Sproatly took the basket, and followed her into another room, where he +sat it down. + +"Well?" he said, with a twinkle in his eyes. + +Mrs. Hastings regarded him thoughtfully. "I wonder if you know what +Gregory did with those mittens?" + +"I'm rather pleased that I can assure that I don't." + +"Do you imagine that he kept them?" + +"I'm afraid I haven't an opinion on that point." + +"Still, if I said that I felt certain he had given them to somebody you +would have some idea as to who it would probably be?" + +"Well," said Sproatly reluctantly, "If you insist upon it, I must admit +that I could make a guess." + +Mrs. Hastings smiled in a manner which suggested comprehension. "So +could I," she said. "I shouldn't wonder if we both guessed right. Now +you may as well go back to the others." + +Sproatly, who made no answer, turned away, and he was talking to Agatha +when, half an hour later, a waggon drew up outside the door. In +another minute or two he leaned forward in amused expectation as Sally +walked into the room. + +"I'm going on to Lander's, and just called to bring back the mat you +lent us," she said to Mrs. Hastings. "Sproatly was to have come for +it, but he didn't." + +Sproatly, who said he was sorry, fixed his eyes on her. It was clear +to him that Agatha did not understand the situation, but he rather +fancied from her expression that Sally was filled with an almost +belligerent satisfaction. She was then wearing a very smart fur cap, +and she carried a pair of new fur mittens which she had just stripped +off in one hand. Sproatly, who glanced at them, noticed that Winifred +did the same. Then Mrs. Hastings spoke. + +"I don't think you have met Miss Ismay, Sally," she said. + +Sally merely said that she had not, and Sproatly became more sure that +the situation was an interesting one, when Mrs. Hastings formally +presented her. It was clear to him that Agatha was somewhat puzzled by +Sally's attitude. + +As a matter of fact, Agatha, who said that she must have had a cold +drive, was regarding the new arrival with a curiosity she had not +expected to feel when she first came in. Miss Creighton, she admitted, +was comely, though she was clearly somewhat primitive and crude. The +long skin coat she wore hid her figure, but her pose was too virile, +and there was a look which puzzled Agatha in her eyes. It was almost +openly hostile, and there was a suggestion of triumph in it. Agatha, +who could find no possible reason for this, resented it. + +In the meanwhile Sally remained standing, and, as she said nothing +further, there was a somewhat awkward silence. She was the dominant +figure in the room, and the others became sensible of a certain slight +constraint and embarrassment as she gazed at Agatha with unwavering +eyes. In fact, it was rather a relief to them when at length she +turned to Mrs. Hastings. + +"I can't stop. It wouldn't do to leave the team in this frost," she +said. + +This was so evident that they let her go, and Mrs. Hastings, who went +with her to the door, afterwards sat down beside Sproatly a little +apart from the rest. + +"I've no doubt you noticed those mittens," she said softly. + +"I did," Sproatly admitted. "I think you can rely upon my discretion. +If you hadn't wanted this assurance I don't suppose you'd have said +anything upon the subject. It, however, seems very probable that +Winifred noticed them, too." + +"Does that mean you're not sure that Winifred's discretion is equal to +your own?" + +Sproatly's eyes twinkled. "In this particular case the trouble is that +she's animated by a sincere attachment to Miss Ismay, and has, I +understand, a rather poor opinion of Gregory. Of course, I don't know +how far your views on that point coincide with hers." + +"Do you expect me to explain them to you?" + +"No," said Sproatly, "I'm only anxious to keep out of the thing. +Gregory, as it happens, is a friend of mine, and, after all, he has his +strong points. I should, however, like to mention that Winifred's +expression suggests that she's thinking of something." + +His companion smiled. "Then I must endeavour to have a word or two +with her." + +She left him with this, and not long afterwards she and Winifred went +out together, while when the others were retiring she detained Agatha +for a minute or two in the empty room. + +"Haven't the six months Gregory gave you run out yet?" she asked. + +Agatha said they had, but it was evident that she had attached no +particular significance to the fact that Sally had worn a new fur cap. + +"He hasn't been over to see you since." + +The girl, who admitted it, looked troubled, and Mrs. Hastings laid a +hand upon her shoulder. + +"My dear," she said, "if he does come you must put him off." + +"Why?" Agatha asked, in a low, strained voice. + +"For one thing, because we want to keep you," and Mrs. Hastings looked +at her with a very friendly smile. "Are you very anxious to make it up +with Gregory?" + +A little shiver ran through the girl. "Oh," she said, "I can't answer +you that. I must do what is right." + +Then, somewhat to her astonishment, her companion drew her a little +nearer, stooped and kissed her. + +"Most of us, I believe, have that wish, but the thing is often horribly +complex," she said. "Anyway, you must put Gregory off again if it's +only for another month or two. I fancy you will not find it remarkably +difficult." + +She turned away with that, but her manner had been so significant that +Agatha, who did not sleep very well that night, decided that if it was +possible she would act on her advice. + +In the meanwhile, it happened that a little very dapper gentleman who +was largely interested in the land-agency and general mortgage business +was spending the evening with Hawtrey in Wyllard's room at the Range. +He had driven round by Hawtrey's homestead earlier in the afternoon, +and had deduced a good deal from the state of it, though this was a +point he kept to himself. Now he lay in a lounge chair beside the +stove smoking one of Wyllard's cigars and unobtrusively watching his +companion. There was a roll of bills in his pocket which the latter +had very reluctantly parted with. + +"In view of the fall in wheat it must have been rather a pull for you +to pay me that interest," he said. + +"It certainly was," Hawtrey admitted with a somewhat rueful smile. +"I'm sorry it had to be done." + +"I don't quite see how you made it," persisted the other man. "What +you got for your wheat couldn't have done much more than cover working +expenses." + +Hawtrey laughed. He was quite aware that his companion's profession +was not one that was regarded with any great favour by the prairie +farmers, but he was never particularly cautious, and he rather liked +the man. + +"As a matter of fact, it didn't, Edmonds," he said. "You see, I +practically paid you out of what I get for running this place. The red +wheat Wyllard raises generally commands a cent or two a bushel more +from the big milling people than anything put on the market round here." + +Edmonds made a sign of agreement. He had without directly requesting +him to do so led Hawtrey into showing him round the Range that +afternoon, and having of necessity a practical knowledge of farming he +had been impressed by all that he had noticed. The farm, which was a +big one, had evidently been ably managed until a little while ago, and +he felt the strongest desire to get his hands on it. This, as he +admitted, would have been out of the question had Wyllard been at home, +but with Hawtrey, upon whom he had a certain hold, in charge, the thing +appeared by no means impossible. + +"Oh, yes," he said. "I suppose he was reasonably liberal over your +salary." + +"I don't get one. I take a share of the margin after everything is +paid." + +Edmonds carefully noted this. He was not sure that such an arrangement +would warrant one in regarding Hawtrey as Wyllard's partner, but he +meant to gather a little more information upon that point by and bye. + +"If wheat keeps on dropping there won't be any margin at all next year, +and that's what I'm inclined to figure on," he said. "There are, +however, ways a man with nerve could turn it to account." + +"You mean by selling wheat down." + +"Yes," said Edmonds, "that's just what I mean. Of course, there is a +certain hazard in the thing. You can never be quite sure how the +market will go, but the signs everywhere point to still cheaper wheat +next year." + +"That's your view?" + +Edmonds smiled, and took out of his pocket a little bundle of market +reports. + +"Other folks seem to share it in Winnipeg, Chicago, New York, and +Liverpool. You can't get behind these stock statistics, though, of +course, dead low prices are apt to cut the output." + +Hawtrey read the reports with evident interest, and, as it happened, +they were all in the same pessimistic strain, though he was not aware +that his companion had carefully selected them with a view to the +effect he fancied they would produce. Edmonds, who saw the interest in +his eyes, leaned towards him confidentially when he spoke again. + +"I don't mind admitting that I'm taking a hand in a big bear +operation," he said. "It's rather outside my usual business, but the +thing looks almost certain." + +Hawtrey glanced at him with a gleam in his eyes. There was no doubt +that the prospect of acquiring dollars by an easier method than toiling +in the rain and wind appealed to him. + +"If it's good enough for you it should be safe," he said. "The trouble +is that I've nothing to put in." + +"Then you're not empowered to lay out Wyllard's money. If that was the +case it shouldn't be difficult to pile up a bigger margin than you're +likely to do by farming." + +Hawtrey started, for the idea had already crept into his mind. + +"In a way, I am, but I'm not sure that I'm warranted in operating on +the market with it." + +"Have you the arrangement you made with him in writing?" + +Hawtrey opened a drawer, and Edmonds betrayed no sign of the +satisfaction he felt when he was handed a somewhat informally worded +document. He perused it carefully, and it seemed to him that it +constituted his companion a partner in the Range, which was +satisfactory. Then he looked up thoughtfully. + +"Now," he said, "while I naturally can't tell what Wyllard +contemplated, this paper certainly gives you power to do anything you +think advisable with his money. In any case, I understand that he +can't be back until well on in next year." + +"I shouldn't expect him until late in the summer, anyway." + +There was silence for a moment or two, and during it Hawtrey's face +grew a trifle hard. It was unpleasant to look forward to the time when +he would be required to relinquish the charge of the Range, and of late +he had been wondering how he could make the most of the situation in +the meanwhile. Then his companion spoke again. + +"It's almost certain that the operation I suggested can only result one +way, and it appears most unlikely that Wyllard would raise any trouble +if you handed him several thousand dollars over and above what you had +made by farming. I can't imagine a man objecting to that kind of +thing." + +Hawtrey sat still with indecision in his eyes for half a minute, and +Edmonds, who was too wise to say anything, leaned back in his chair. +Then Hawtrey turned to the drawer again with an air of sudden +resolution. + +"I'll give you a cheque for a couple of thousand dollars, which is as +far as I care to go just now," he said. + +He took a pen, and Edmonds watched him with quiet amusement as he +wrote. As a matter of fact, Hawtrey was in one respect, at least, +perfectly safe in entrusting the money to him. Edmonds had deprived a +good many prairie farmers of their possessions in his time, but he +never stooped to any crude trickery. He left that to the smaller fry. +Just then he was playing a deep and cleverly thought-out game. + +He pocketed the cheque Hawtrey gave him, and then discussed other +subjects for half an hour or so until he rose. + +"You might ask them to get my team out. I've some business at Lander's +and have ordered a room there," he said. "I'll send you a line when +there's any change in the market." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND + +Wheat was still being flung on to a lifeless market when Hawtrey walked +out of the mortgage jobber's place of business in the railroad +settlement one bitter afternoon. He had a big roll of paper money in +his pocket, and was feeling particularly pleased with himself, for +prices had steadily fallen since he had joined in the bear operation +Edmonds had suggested, and the result of it had proved eminently +satisfactory. This was why he had just given the latter a further +draft on Wyllard's bank, with instructions to sell wheat down on a +considerably more extensive scale. He meant to operate in earnest now, +which was exactly what the broker had anticipated, but in this case he +had decided to let Hawtrey operate alone. Indeed, being an astute and +far-seeing man he had gone so far as to hint that caution might be +advisable, though he had at the same time been careful to show Hawtrey +only those market reports which had a distinctly pessimistic tone. +Edmonds was rather disposed to agree with the men who looked forward to +a reaction before very long. + +Hawtrey glanced about him as he strode down the street. It was wholly +unpaved, and rutted deep, but the drifted snow had partly filled the +hollows up, and it did not look very much rougher than it would have +done if somebody had recently driven a plough through it. A rude plank +sidewalk ran along both sides of it, raised a foot or two above the +ground that foot-passengers might escape the mire of the thaw in +spring, and immediately behind the sidewalk squat, weatherbeaten, frame +houses, all of much the same pattern, rose abruptly. In some of them, +however, the fronts were carried up as high as the ridge of the +shingled roof, giving them an unpleasantly square appearance. Here and +there a dilapidated waggon stood with lowered pole before a store, but +it was a particularly bitter afternoon, and there was nobody in the +street. The place looked desolate and forlorn, with a leaden sky +hanging over it and an icy wind sweeping through the streets. + +Hawtrey, however, was used to that, and strode along briskly until he +reached the open space which divided the little wooden town from the +unfenced railroad track. It was strewn with fine dusty snow, and the +huge bulk of the grain elevators towered high above it against the +lowering sky. As it happened, a freight locomotive was just hauling a +long string of wheat cars out of a side-track amidst a discordant +tolling of its bell. It stopped presently, and though Hawtrey could +not see anything beyond the big cars he fancied by the shouts which +broke out that something unusual was going on. He was expecting Sally, +who was going East to Brandon by a train due in an hour or two. + +When the shouts grew a little louder he walked round in front of the +locomotive which stood still with the steam blowing noisily from a +valve, and as soon as he had done so he saw the cause of the commotion. +A pair of vicious, half-broken bronchos were backing a light waggon +away from the locomotive on the other side of the track, and a +fur-wrapped figure sat stiffly on the driving seat. Hawtrey called out +and ran suddenly forward as he saw that it was Sally. + +Just then one of the horses lifted its fore hoofs off the ground, and +being jerked back by the pole plunged and kicked furiously, until its +companion flung up its head and the waggon went backwards with a run. +Then they stopped, and there was a further series of resounding crashes +against the front of the vehicle. Hawtrey was within a pace or two of +it when Sally recognised him. + +"Keep off," she said, "you can't lead them. They don't want to cross +the track, but they've got to if I pull the jaws off them." + +This was more forcible than elegant, and the shrill harshness of the +girl's voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to +Sally's phraseology. He, however, recognised that she would not have +his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful, +and he reluctantly moved back towards the group of loungers who were +watching her. + +"I guess you've no call to worry about her," said one of them. "She's +holding them on the lowest notch, and it's a mighty powerful bit +fixing. Besides, that girl could drive anything that goes on four +legs." + +"Sure," said one of the others. "She's a daisy." + +Hawtrey was a little annoyed to notice that in place of being +embarrassed by it Sally evidently rather enjoyed the situation, though +several of the freight train and station hands had now joined the group +of loungers and were cheering her on. He had already satisfied himself +that she had not a trace of fear. In another moment or two, however, +he forgot his slight sense of disconcertion, for Sally, sitting tense +and strung up on the driving seat with a glow in her cheeks and a snap +in her eyes, was wholly admirable. There was lithe grace, virility, +and resolution in every line of her fur-wrapped figure. It is possible +that her appearance would have been less effective in a drawing room, +but in the waggon she was in her place and in harmony with her +surroundings. Lowering sky, gleaming snow, fur-clad men, and even the +big, dingy locomotive, all fitted curiously into the scene, and she +made an imposing central figure as she contended with the half-tamed +team. Hawtrey was conscious of a stirring of his physical nature as he +watched her. + +The struggle lasted for several minutes during which the horses plunged +and kicked again, until Sally stood boldly erect a moment while the +waggon rocked to and fro, a tall, straight figure with a tress of +loosened hair streaming out beneath her fur cap, as she swung the +stinging whip. Then it seemed that the team had had enough, for as she +dropped lightly back into the seat they broke into a gallop, and in +another moment the waggon, jolting horribly as it bounced across the +track, vanished behind the locomotive. Gregory heard a shout of +acclamation as he turned and hurried after it. + +Sally, however, drove right through the settlement and back outside it +before she could check the horses, and she had just pulled them up in +front of the wooden hotel when Hawtrey reached it. He stood beside the +waggon holding up his hand to her, and Sally, who laughed, dropped +bodily into his arms, which was, as he recognised, a thing that Agatha +certainly would not have done. He set her down upon the sidewalk, and +when a man came out to take the team they went into the hotel together. + +"It was the locomotive that did it," she explained. "They were most +too scared for anything, but I hate to be beaten by a team. Ours know +too much to try, but I got Haslem to drive me in. I dropped him at +Norton's, who'll bring him on." + +"He oughtn't to have left you with them," said Hawtrey severely. + +Sally laughed. "Well," she said, "I'd quit driving if I couldn't +handle any team you or Haslem could put the harness on." + +In a general way, the hotels in the smaller prairie settlements offer +one very little comfort or privacy. As a rule they contain two general +rooms, in one of which the three daily meals are served with a +punctuality which is as unvarying as the menu. The traveller who +arrives a few minutes too late for one must wait until the next is +ready. The second room usually contains a rusty stove, and a few +uncomfortable benches; and there are not infrequently a couple of rows +of very small match-boarded cubicles on the floor overhead. The +Occident was, however, a notable exception. For one thing, the +building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to +study the requirements of his guests, who came for the most part from +the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general +lounge, one of which was reserved for the wives or daughters of the +farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing. In +the other, dry-goods travellers were permitted to display their wares, +and, though this was very unusual in that country, any privileged +customer who wished to leave by a train, the departure of which did not +synchronize with the hotel arrangements, was occasionally supplied with +a meal. + +It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two +rooms, where the proprietor's wife was just lighting the big lamp. She +smiled at the man, who was, as it happened, a favourite of hers. + +"Go right along, and I'll bring your supper up in a minute or two," she +said. "I guess you'll want it after your drive." + +Hawtrey strode on down a short corridor towards the second room, but +Sally stopped behind him a moment. + +"Is Hastings in town?" she asked. "I thought I saw his new waggon +outside." + +"His wife is," said the other woman. "She and Miss Ismay drove in to +buy some things." + +Sally asked no further questions. It was evident that Mrs. Hastings +would not start home until after supper, and as the regular hotel meal +would be ready in about half an hour it seemed certain that she would +come back to the hotel very shortly. That left Sally very little time, +for she had no desire that Hawtrey should meet either Mrs. Hastings or +Agatha until she had carried out the purpose she had in hand. It was +at Gregory's special request she had permitted him to drive in to see +her off, and she meant to make the most of the opportunity. She had +long ago regretted her folly in running away from his homestead when he +lay helpless, but things had changed considerably since then. + +She said nothing about what she had heard to Hawtrey when she entered +the second room. It was cosily warm and brightly lighted, and the +little table was laid out for two with a daintiness very uncommon on +the prairie. It was a change for Sally to be waited on and have a meal +set before her which she had not made with her own fingers, and she +sank into a chair with a smile of appreciation. + +"It's real nice, Gregory," she said. "Supper's never quite the same +when you've had to stand over the stove ever so long getting it ready." +She sighed whimsically. "When I have to do that after working hard all +day I don't want to eat it." + +The man felt compassionate. Sally, as he was aware, had to work +unusually hard at the little desolate homestead where she and her +mother perforce undertook a good many duties that do not generally fall +to a woman's share. Creighton, who was getting an old man, was of +grasping nature, and only hired assistance when it was indispensibly +necessary. + +"Well," he said, "I'm not particularly fond of cooking either." + +Sally glanced at him with a provocative smile, for he had given her a +lead. "Then," she said, "why don't you get somebody else to do it for +you?" + +This was, as the man recognised, almost painfully direct, but there was +no doubt that Sally looked very pretty with the faint flush of colour +in her cheeks and the tantalising light in her eyes. + +"As a matter of fact, that's a thing I've been thinking over rather +often the last few months," he said, and laughed. "It's rather a pity +you don't seem to like cooking, Sally." + +Sally appeared to consider this. "Oh," she said, "it depends a good +deal on who it's for." + +Hawtrey became suddenly serious for a moment or two. There was no +doubt that he would at one time have considered it impossible that he +should marry a girl of Sally's description, and even now he had +misgivings. He had, however, almost made up his mind, and he was not +exactly pleased that the proprietor's wife came in with the meal just +then, and stayed to talk awhile. + +When she went out he watched Sally with close and what he fancied was +unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was sensible of the +indelicacy of this, he was once more relieved to find that she did +nothing that was actually repugnant to him. After all, there was a +certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation of the +good things set before her only amused him. She was certainly much +more amusing than Agatha had been since she came out to Canada, and her +cheerful laughter had a pleasant ring. When at length the meal was +over she bade him draw her chair up to the stove. + +"Now," she said, and pointed to another chair across the room, "you can +sit yonder and smoke. I know you want to." + +Hawtrey remembered that Agatha did not like tobacco smoke, and had +always been inclined to exact a certain conventional deference which he +had grown to regard as rather out of place upon the prairie. + +"That's a very long way off," he objected. + +Sally showed no sign of conceding the point as he had expected, and he +took out his pipe. He wanted to think, for once more instincts deep +down in him stirred in faint protest against what he almost meant to +do. There were also several points that required practical +consideration, and among them were his financial difficulties, though +these did not trouble him so much as they had done a few months +earlier. For a minute or two neither of them said anything, and then +Sally spoke again. + +"You're worrying about something, Gregory?" she said. + +Hawtrey admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I am. My place is a poor one, +and when Wyllard comes home I shall have to go back to it again. +Things would be so much easier for me just now if I had the Range." + +The girl looked at him steadily with reproach in her eyes. + +"Oh," she said, "your place is quite big enough if you'd only take hold +and run it as it ought to be run. You could surely do it, Gregory, if +you tried." + +The man's resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence +was at variance with his desires. Sally's words were in this case +wholly guileless, as he recognised, and they stirred him. He said +nothing, however, and she spoke again. + +"Isn't it worth while, though there are things you would have to give +up?" she said. "You couldn't go away and waste your dollars in +Winnipeg every now and then." + +Hawtrey laughed. "No," he admitted; "I suppose if I meant to make +anything of the place that couldn't be done. Still, you see, it's +horribly lonely sitting by oneself beside the stove in the long winter +nights. I wouldn't want to go to Winnipeg if I had only somebody to +keep me company." + +He turned towards her suddenly with decision in his face, and Sally +lowered her eyes. + +"Don't you think you could get anybody if you tried?" she asked. + +"The trouble," said Hawtrey gravely, "is that I have so little to offer +them. It's a poor place, and I'm almost afraid, Sally, that I'm rather +a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don't stay +with things. Still, it might be different if there was any particular +reason why I should." + +He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. "Sally," +he added, "would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make +of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would +probably be very hard work, my dear." + +The blood surged into the girl's face, and she looked up at him with +open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened, +was not afraid of anything. + +"Oh!" she said; "you really want me?" + +"Yes," said Hawtrey quietly; "I think I have wanted you for ever so +long, though I did not know it until lately." + +"Then," she said, "I'll do what I can, Gregory." + +Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference he had not +expected to feel, for there was something in the girl's simplicity and +the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed +astonishing, laid a restraint on him. Then, as he sat down on the arm +of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished +still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from +him. For one thing, he realised that she meant him to take and keep a +foremost place among his neighbours, and, though Sally had not the gift +of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was +less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude +forcefulness, trying to rouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to +incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he +remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of +confusion crept upon him. + +She seemed to recognise it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply. + +"What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?" she asked. + +Hawtrey smiled in a rather curious fashion. Hitherto she had made her +appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no +doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he +had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was +becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession +of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the +thing seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him. + +"My dear," he said, "I can't quite tell you--but you have made me +rather badly ashamed. In some respects, I'm afraid it's a very rash +thing you are going to do." + +She looked at him with candid perplexity, and then appeared to dismiss +the subject with a smile. + +"There is so much I want to say, and it mayn't be so easy--afterwards," +she said. "It's a pity the train starts so soon." + +"We can get over that difficulty, anyway," said Hawtrey. "I'll come on +as far as I can with you, and get back from one of the way stations by +the Pacific express." + +Sally made no objections, and drawing a little closer to him she talked +on in a low voice earnestly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +A PAINFUL REVELATION. + +A sprinkle of snow was driving down the unpaved street before the +bitter wind, when Mrs. Hastings came out of a store in the settlement +and handed Sproatly, who was waiting close by, several big packages. + +"You can put them into the waggon, and tell Jake we'll want the team as +soon as supper's over," she said. "We're going to stay with Mrs. +Ormond to-night, and I don't want to get there too late." + +Sproatly took the parcels, and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha, who +stood a pace or two behind her with Winifred. + +"Now," she said, "if there's nothing else you want to buy we'll go +across to the hotel." + +They reached it a few minutes later, and were standing in a big and +rather comfortless room when Sproatly rejoined them. + +"This place is quite shivery," said Mrs. Hastings. "They generally +have the stove lighted in the little room along the corridor. Go and +see, Jim." + +Sproatly went out, and, as it happened, he was wearing gum-boots, which +make very little noise. He proceeded along a dark corridor, and then +stopped abruptly when he had almost reached a partly-open door, for he +could see into a lighted room. Hawtrey was sitting near the stove +inside it on the arm of Sally's chair. + +Then, though he was not greatly astonished, Sproatly drew back a pace +or two into the shadow, for it became evident that there were only two +courses open to him. He could judiciously announce his presence by +making the door rattle, and then go in and mention as casually as +possible that Mrs. Hastings and Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that +he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn +Hawtrey without embarrassing Sally. Sproatly pursed his face up in +honest perplexity as it became evident that the situation was a +delicate one, and then decided on the alternative. He would go back +quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done. + +"I think you would be just as comfortable where you are," he informed +her when he joined the others. + +"I'm rather doubtful," said Mrs. Hastings. "Wasn't the stove lighted?" + +"Yes," said Sproatly, "I fancy it was." + +"But I sent you to make sure." + +"The fact is I didn't go in," said Sproatly, uneasily. "There's +somebody in the room already." + +"Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it." + +"Oh yes," said Sproatly. "Still, you see, it's only a small room, and +one of them has been smoking." + +Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner +he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections +in the meanwhile she had by no means abandoned the subject. + +"Well," she said, "what shall we do until supper? This stove won't +draw properly, and I don't feel inclined to sit shivering here." + +Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate +inspiration. + +"It's really not snowing much, and we'll go down to the depôt and watch +the Atlantic express come in," he suggested. "It's one of the things +everybody does." + +This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are not many amusements +open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad +track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of +unflagging interest to most of them. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the +suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy +when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel. + +"Oh," she said, "I've only brought one of my mittens." + +"I'll go back for the other," said Sproatly promptly. + +"You don't know where I left it." + +"Then I'll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on," the man +persisted. + +Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings +was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out +into the street. Agatha in the meanwhile ran back to the room they had +left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway +when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognised them, +and turned in sudden astonishment, standing, as it happened, in the +shadow, though not far away a stream of light from the door of the room +shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached +the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into +Agatha's face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly's +manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her going back for +the mitten. Then Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt +whatever that he called her "My dear." + +Agatha stood still a moment filled with burning indignation, and they +were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the +stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could +not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had, however, +at least recovered her outward composure, and they went on together +towards the track. As yet she was only sensible of anger at the man's +treachery. It possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of +anything else. + +Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and +Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the +little shed they hung about, and walked briskly up and down beside the +track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. +It grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke +behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a +bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their +faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station. + +It stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the +groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object +that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, +however, no sign of any passengers for the train until at the last +moment two figures appeared hurrying along beneath the cars. They drew +nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognised them, for the +light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey's face as he half lifted +Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the +bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with +its lights flashing upon the snow. + +Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. +The thing, she felt, only admitted of one explanation, and she did not +wish her companions to see her face for the next minute or two. +Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was +sensible of an almost intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with +Gregory, at least, as far as it was possible to her, and he had utterly +humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable. + +In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling +distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow. + +"Now," she said, "I understand. You, of course, anticipated this." + +"I didn't," said Sproatly with a decision which carried conviction with +it. "I certainly saw them at the hotel, but how could I imagine that +they had anything of the kind in view?" + +He broke off for a moment, and waved his hand. "After all," he added, +"what right have you to think it now?" + +Mrs. Hastings laughed somewhat harshly. "Unfortunately, I have my +eyes, but I'll admit that there's a certain obligation on me to make +quite certain before going any further. That's why I want you to +ascertain where he checked his baggage to." + +"I'm afraid that's more than I'm willing to undertake. Do you consider +it advisable to set the station agent wondering about the thing? +Besides, once or twice in my career appearances have been rather badly +against me, and I'm not altogether convinced yet." + +Mrs. Hastings let the matter drop, and they went back rather silently +to the hotel, while as soon as supper was over she bade Sproatly get +their waggon out and drove away with Agatha. She said very little to +the girl during the long, cold journey, and they had no opportunity of +private conversation when they reached the homestead where they were to +spend the night, which was, as it happened, a relief to Agatha. She +hated herself for the thought in her mind, but everything seemed to +warrant it, and it would not be driven out. She had heard what Gregory +had called Sally at the hotel, and the fact that he must have bought +his ticket and checked his baggage earlier in the afternoon when there +was nobody about, and then had run down with Sally at the last moment, +evidently in order to escape observation, was very significant. + +She drove home next day, and on the following morning a man who was +driving in to Lander's brought Mrs. Hastings a note from Sproatly. It +was very brief, and ran: + +"Gregory arrived same night by Pacific train. It is evident he must +have got off at the next station down the line." + +Mrs. Hastings showed it to her husband. + +"I'm afraid we have been too hasty. What am I to do with this?" she +said. + +Hastings smiled. "Since you ask my advice, I'd put it into the stove." + +"But it clears the man. Isn't it my duty to show it to Agatha?" + +"Well," said Hastings reflectively, "I'm not sure that it is your duty +to put ideas into her mind when you can't be quite certain that she has +entertained them." + +"I should be greatly astonished if she hadn't," said the lady drily. + +Hastings made a little whimsical gesture. "Oh," he said, "you'll no +doubt do what you think wisest. In a general way, when you come to me +for advice you have made your mind up, and only expect me to tell you +that you're right." + +Mrs. Hastings thought over the matter for another hour or two. For one +thing, Agatha's quiet manner puzzled her, and she did not know that the +girl had spent one night in an agony of anger and humiliation, and had +then become sensible of a relief that she was ashamed of. There was, +however, no doubt that while she blamed herself for it, and in some +degree for what had happened, she did feel relief. She was sitting +alone for the time being beside the stove in a shadowy room while the +light died off the snowy prairie outside, when Mrs. Hastings came +softly in and sat down beside her. + +"My dear," she said, "it's rather difficult to speak of, but that +little scene at the station must have hurt you." + +Agatha looked at her quietly and searchingly, but there was only +sympathy in her face, and she leaned forward impulsively. + +"Oh," she said, "it hurt me horribly, because I feel it was my fault. +I was the cause of it." + +"How could that be?" + +"If I had only been kinder to him he would, perhaps, never have thought +of her. I must have made it clear that he jarred upon me. I drove +him"--and Agatha turned her face away, while her voice grew a trifle +strained--"into that woman's arms. No doubt she was ready to make the +most of the opportunity." + +Mrs. Hastings decided that the girl's scorn and disgust which had +prompted the last outbreak were perfectly natural, but they were, as it +happened, not quite warranted. + +"In the first place," she said, "I think you had better read this note." + +Agatha took it from her, and there was light enough left to show that +the blood had crept into her face when she laid it down again. For +almost a minute she sat very still. + +"It is a great relief to know that I was wrong--in one respect, but you +must not think I hated this girl because Gregory had preferred her to +me," she said at length. "When the first shock had passed, there was +an almost horrible satisfaction in feeling that he had released me--at +any cost. I suppose I shall always be ashamed of that." + +She broke off a moment, and her voice was very quiet when she went on +again. + +"Still," she added, "what Sproatly says does not alter the case so very +much after all. It can't free me of my responsibility. If I hadn't +driven him, Gregory would not have gone to her." + +"You consider that in itself a very dreadful thing?" + +Agatha looked at her with suddenly lifted head. "Of course," she said. +"Can you doubt it?" + +Her companion laughed, though there was a little gleam in her eyes, for +this was an opportunity she had been waiting for. + +"Then," she said, "you spoke like an Englishwoman--of station--just out +from the Old Country--but I'm going to try to disabuse you of one +impression. Sally, to put it crudely, is quite good enough for +Gregory. In fact, if she had been my daughter I'd have kept him away +from her. To begin with, once you strip Gregory of his little surface +graces, and his clean English intonation, how does he compare with the +men you meet out here? What does his superiority consist of? Is he +truer or kinder than you have found most of them to be? Has he a finer +courage, or a more resolute endurance--a greater capacity for labour, +or a clearer knowledge of the calling by which he makes his living?" + +Agatha did not answer. She could not protest that Gregory possessed +any of these qualities, and her companion went on again. + +"Has he even a more handsome person? I could point to a dozen men +between here and the railroad, whose clean, self-denying life has set a +stamp on them that Gregory will never wear. To descend to perhaps the +lowest point of all, has he more money? We know he wasted what he +had--probably in indulgence--and there is a mortgage on his farm. Has +he any sense of honour? He let Sally believe he was in love with her +before you even came out here, and of late, while he still claimed you, +he has gone back to her. Can't you get away from your point of view, +and realise what kind of man he is?" + +Agatha turned her head away. "Ah!" she said, "I realised him--several +months ago. They were rather painful months to me. But you are quite +sure he was in love with Sally before I came out?" + +"Well," said Mrs. Hastings, "his conduct suggested it." Then she laid +a caressing hand on the girl's shoulder. "You tried to keep faith with +him. Tried desperately, I think. Did you succeed?" + +Agatha contrived to meet her companion's eyes. "At least, I would have +married him." + +"Then," said Mrs. Hastings, "I can forgive Gregory even his treachery, +and you have no cause to pity him. Sally's simple--primitive, you +would call her--but she's clever and capable in all practical things, +She will bear with Gregory when you would turn from him in dismay, and +when it's necessary she will not shrink from putting a little judicious +pressure on him in a way you could not have done. It may sound +incomprehensible, but that girl will lead or drive Gregory very much +further than he could have gone with you. She doesn't regard him as +perfection, but she loves him." + +She broke off, and there was for several minutes a tense silence in the +little shadowy room. It had grown almost dark, and the square of the +window glimmered faintly with the dim light flung up by the snow. + +Then Agatha turned slowly in her chair. "Thank you," she said in a low +voice. "You have taken a heavy weight off my mind." + +She paused a moment, and then added, "You have been a good friend all +along. It was supreme good fortune that placed me in your hands." + +Mrs. Hastings patted her shoulder, and then went out quietly, and +Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. It snapped and +crackled cheerfully, but save for that there was a restful quietness, +and the room was cosily warm, though she could hear a little icy wind +wail about the building. It swept her thoughts away to the frozen +North, and she realised what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory +as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the +floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the +ridged and furrowed ice. The man who had gone up into that great +desolation had been endued with an almost fantastic sense of honour, +and now he might never even know that she loved him. She admitted that +she had loved him several months ago. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THROUGH THE SNOW. + +Next morning, the mail-carrier, who drove up to the homestead +half-frozen and white all over out of a haze of falling snow, brought +Agatha a note from Gregory. It was brief, and she read it with a smile +of half-amused contempt, though she admitted that, considering +everything, he had handled the somewhat embarrassing situation +gracefully. This, however, was only what she had expected of him, and +she recognised that it was equally characteristic of the man that he +had written releasing her from her engagement instead of coming +himself. Gregory, as she realised now, had always taken the easiest +way, and it was evident that he had not even the courage to face her. +She quietly dropped his note--it did not seem worth while to fling +it--into the stove. + +She could forgive him for choosing Sally. Though she was very human in +most respects, that scarcely troubled her, but she could not forgive +him for persisting in his claim to her while he was philandering--and +this seemed the most fitting term--with her rival. Had he only been +honest, she would not have let Wyllard go away without some assurance +of her regard which would have cheered him on his perilous journey, and +it was clear to her that he might never come back again. Her face grew +hard when she thought of it, and she had thought of it of late very +frequently. For that, at least, she felt she almost hated Gregory. + +A month passed drearily, with Arctic frost outside on the prairie, and +little to do inside the homestead except to cook and gorge the stove, +and endeavour to keep warmth in one. Water froze solid inside the +building, stinging draughts crept in through the double windows, and +there were evenings when Mrs. Hastings and Agatha, shivering close +beside the stove, waited anxiously for the first sign of Hastings and +the hired man, who were bringing back a sled loaded with birch logs +from a neighbouring bluff. It was only a couple of miles away, but men +sent out to cut fuel in the awful cold snaps in that country have now +and then sunk down in the snow with the life frozen out of them. There +were other days when the wooden building seemed to rock beneath the +buffeting of the icy hurricane, and it was a perilous matter to cross +the narrow open space between it and the stables through the haze of +shirling snow. + +The weather, however, moderated a little by and bye, and one afternoon +soon after it did so Mrs. Hastings drove off to Lander's with the one +hired man they kept through the winter. Her husband, who insisted upon +her taking him, had set out earlier for the bluff, and as the +Scandinavian maid had recently been married, Agatha was left in the +house with the little girls. + +It was bitterly cold, even inside the dwelling, but Agatha was busy +baking, and she failed to notice that the frost had once more become +almost Arctic, until she stood beside a window as evening was closing +in. A low, dingy sky hung over the narrowing sweep of prairie which +stretched back, gleaming lividly, into the creeping dusk, but a few +minutes later a haze of snow whirled across it and cut the dreary scene +in half. Then the light died out suddenly, and she and the little +girls drew their chairs close up to the stove. The house was very +quiet, but she could hear the mournful wailing of the wind about it, +and now and then the soft swish of driven snow upon the walls and +roofing shingles. + +The table was laid for supper, and a kettle was singing cheerfully upon +the stove, but there was no sign of the others, and by and bye Agatha +commenced to feel a little anxious. Mrs. Hastings, she fancied, would +stay the night at Lander's if there was any unfavourable change in the +weather, which seemed to be the case, but she wondered what could be +detaining Hastings. It was not very far to the bluff, and as he could +not have continued chopping in the darkness it seemed to her that he +should have reached the homestead already. + +He did not come, however, and she grew more uneasy as the time slipped +by, while the wail of the wind grew louder and the stove crackled more +noisily, until at last one of the little girls rose with a cry, and she +fancied she heard a dull beat of hoofs. It grew plainer until she was +sure of it, but soon after that the sound ceased abruptly, and she +could not hear the rattle of flung down logs which she had expected. +This struck her as curious, since she knew that Hastings generally +unloaded the sled before he led the team to the stable. She waited a +moment or two, but except for the doleful wind nothing broke the +silence now, and when it became oppressive she moved towards the door. + +The wind tore it from her grasp when she opened it, and flung it +against the wall with a jarring crash, while a fine powder that stung +the skin unbearably drove into her face. For a few moments she could +see nothing but a filmy, whirling haze, and then, as her eyes became +accustomed to the change of light, she dimly made out the blurred white +figures of the horses standing still, with the load of birch logs +rising a shapeless mass behind them. There seemed to be nobody with +them, and though she twice called sharply no answer came out of the +sliding snow. Then she recognised the significant fact that the team +had come home alone. + +It was difficult to close the door, and before she accomplished it her +hands had stiffened and grown almost useless, and the hall was strewn +with snow, but it was very evident that there was something for her to +do. It cost her three or four minutes to slip on a blanket skirt, and +soft hide moccasins, with gum boots over them, and then, muffled +shapeless in her furs, she reassured the little girls, and opened the +door again. When she had contrived to close it, the cold struck +through her to the bone as she floundered towards the team. There was +nobody she could look to for assistance, but that could not be helped, +and it was evident to her that some misfortune had befallen Hastings. + +The first thing necessary was to unload the sled, and, though the +birches seldom grow to any size in a prairie bluff, some of the logs +were heavy. She was gasping with the effort when she had flung a few +of them down, after which she discovered that the rest were held up by +one or two stout poles let into sockets. Try as she would, she could +not get them out, and then she remembered that Hastings kept a whipsaw +in a shed close by. She contrived to find it, and attacked the poles +in breathless haste, working clumsily with mittened hands, until there +was a crash and rattle as she sprang clear. Then she started the team, +and the rest of the logs rolled off into the snow. + +That was one difficulty overcome, but the next appeared more serious. +She must find the bluff as soon as possible, and in the snow-filled +darkness she could not tell where it lay. Even if she could have seen +anything of the kind, there was no landmark on the desolate level waste +between it and the homestead. She, however, remembered that she had +one guide. Hastings and his hired man had of late hauled a good many +loads of birch logs in, and as this had made a worn-out trail it seemed +to her just possible that she might trace it back to the bluff. No +great weight of snow had fallen as yet. + +Before she set out she had a struggle with the team, for the beasts had +evidently no intention of making another journey if they could help it, +but at length she swung them into the narrow riband of trail, and +plodded away into the darkness at their heads. It was then she first +clearly realised what she had undertaken. Very little of her face was +left bare between her fur-cap and collar, but every inch of uncovered +skin tingled as though it had been lashed with thorns or stabbed with +innumerable needles. The air was thick with a fine powder that filled +her eyes and nostrils, the wind buffeted her, and there was an awful +cold--the cold that taxes the utmost strength of mind and body of those +who are forced to face it on the shelterless prairie. + +Still she struggled on, feeling with half-frozen feet for the +depression of the trail, and grappling with a horrible dismay when she +failed to find it for moments together. Indeed, she was never sure to +what extent she guided the team, and how far they headed for the bluff +from mere force of habit, but as the time went by, and there was +nothing before her but the whirling snow, she grew feverishly +apprehensive. The trail was becoming fainter and fainter, and now and +then she could find no trace of it for several minutes. + +The horses, however, floundered on, blurred shapes as white as the haze +they crept through, and at length she felt that they were dipping into +a hollow. Then a faint sense of comfort crept into her heart as she +remembered that a shallow ravine which seamed the prairie ran through +the bluff. She called out, and started at the faintness of her voice. +It seemed such a pitifully feeble thing. There was no answer, nothing +but the soft fall of the horses' hoofs and the wail of the wind, but +the latter was reassuring, for the volume of sound suggested that it +was driving through a bluff close by. + +A few minutes later she cried out again, and this time she felt the +throbbing of her heart, for a faint sound came out of the whirling +haze. She pulled the horses up, and as she stood still listening, a +blurred object appeared almost in front of them. It shambled forward +in a curious manner, stopped, and moved again, and in another moment or +two Hastings lurched by her with a stagger and sank down into a huddled +white heap on the sled. She turned back towards him, and he seemed to +look up at her. + +[Illustration: "It shambled forward in a curious manner."] + +"Turn the team," he said. + +Agatha did it, and sat down beside him when the horses moved on again. + +"A small birch I was chopping fell on me," he said. "I don't know if +it smashed my ankle, or if I twisted it wriggling clear--the thing +pinned me down. It's badly nipped, any way." + +He spoke disconnectedly and hoarsely, as if in pain, and Agatha, who +noticed that one of his gum boots was almost ripped to pieces, realised +part of what he must have felt. She knew that nobody held fast +helpless could have withstood that cold for more than a very little +while. + +"Oh," she said, "it must have been dreadful!" + +"I found a branch," Hastings added. "It helped me, but I fell over +every now and then. Headed for the homestead. Don't think I could +have made it if you hadn't come for me." He broke off abruptly, and +turned to her. "You mustn't sit down. Walk--keep warm--but don't try +to lead the team." + +Agatha struggled forward as far as the near horse's shoulder. The +beasts slightly sheltered her, and it was a little easier walking with +a hand upon a trace. It was a relief to cling to something, for the +wind that flung the snow into her face drove her garments against her +limbs, so that now and then she could scarcely move. Indeed, when her +strength commenced to flag, every yard of that journey was made with +infinite pain and difficulty. At times she could scarcely see the +horses, and again she stumbled along beside them for minutes, blinded, +breathless, and half-dazed. She did not know how Hastings was faring, +but she half-consciously recognised that if once she let the trace go +the sled would slip away from her and she would sink down to freeze. + +At length, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a +moment later a man laid hold of her. He told her that Mrs. Hastings +was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned +afterwards that they had reached it a little earlier, and had +immediately set out in search of her and Hastings. In the meanwhile +she floundered on beside the horses with another team dimly visible in +front of her until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. +Then the teams stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of +staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a +chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but by and bye +his wife who went with her to her room kissed her before she went out +again. + +Nobody could have faced the snow next morning, and it was some days +later when Watson, who had attended Hawtrey after his accident, was +brought over. He did what he could, but it was several weeks before +Hastings could use his injured foot again. Before he recovered news +was sent him of some difficulty in the affairs of a small creamery at a +settlement further along the line, in which he and his wife held an +interest, and Mrs. Hastings went East to make inquiries respecting it. +She took Agatha with her, and one evening after she had finished the +business she had in hand they left a little way station by the Pacific +train. + +The car they entered was empty except for two people who sat close +together near the middle of it. A big lamp overhead shed down a +brilliant light, and Agatha started when one of the two looked round as +she approached them. In another moment she stood face to face with +Hawtrey, who had risen, while Sally gazed up at her with a rather +curious expression in her eyes. Agatha, however, was perfectly +composed now, and felt no sympathy with Hawtrey, who was visibly +confused. She was not astonished that he found the situation a +somewhat difficult one. + +"You have been to Winnipeg?" she said. + +"No," said Hawtrey, with evident relief that she had chosen a safe +topic, "only to Brandon. Sally has some friends there, and she spends +a day or two with them once or twice each winter. Brandon's quite a +lively place after the prairie. I went in last night to bring her +back." He turned to his companion. "I think you have met Miss Ismay?" + +Agatha was conscious that Sally's eyes were fixed upon her, and that +Mrs. Hastings was watching them all with quiet amusement, but she was a +little astonished when the girl suggestively moved some wraps from the +seat opposite her. + +"Yes," she said, "I have. If Miss Ismay doesn't mind, I should like to +talk to her." + +Hawtrey's relief was evident, and Agatha glanced at him with a smile +that was half-contemptuous. He had carefully kept out of her way since +he had written her the note, and now it seemed only natural that if +there was anything to be said he should leave it to Sally. + +"I think I'll go along for a smoke," he said, and retired precipitately. + +Mrs. Hastings looked after him, and laughed in a manner at which Sally +seemed to wince. + +"He doesn't seem anxious to talk to me," she said. "You can come along +to the next car by and bye, Agatha." + +Then she moved away, and Agatha who sat down opposite Sally looked at +her quietly. + +"Well?" she said. + +Sally made a little deprecatory gesture, "I've something to say, but +it's hard. To begin with, are you very angry with me?" + +"No," said Agatha. "I think I really am a little angry with Gregory, +but not altogether because he chose you." + +Sally seemed to consider this for a moment or two before she looked up +again. + +"Well," she said, "not long ago, I wanted to hate you, and I guess I +most succeeded. It made things easier. Still, I want to say that I +don't hate you now." She hesitated a moment. "I'd like you to forgive +me." + +Agatha smiled. "In most respects I can do that willingly." + +Sally seemed disconcerted by her quiet ease of manner and perfect +candour. It was evidently not quite what she had looked for. + +"Then you were never very fond of him?" she suggested. + +"No," said Agatha reflectively, "since you have compelled me to say it, +I don't think now that I ever was really fond of him, though I don't +know how I can make that quite clear to you. It was only when I came +out here I--realised--Gregory. It was not the actual man I fell in +love with in England." + +Sally turned her face away, for Agatha had, as it happened, made her +meaning perfectly plain. Somewhat to the latter's astonishment, she +showed no sign of resentment when she looked round again. + +"Then," she said, "it is way better that you didn't marry him." She +paused, and seemed to search for words to express herself with. "I +knew all along all there was to know about Gregory--except that he was +going to marry you, and it was some time before I heard that--and I was +ready to take him. I was fond of him." + +Agatha's heart went out to her. "Yes," she said simply, "it is a very +good thing that I let him go." Then she smiled. "That, however, +doesn't quite describe it, Sally." + +Her companion flushed. "I couldn't have said that, but you don't quite +understand yet. I said I knew all there was to know about him--and you +never did. You made too much of him in England, and when you came out +here you only saw the things you didn't like in him. Still, they +weren't the only ones." + +Agatha started at this, for she realised that part of it was certainly +true, and she could admit the possibility of the rest being equally +correct. After all, Gregory might possess a few good qualities that +she had never discovered. + +"Perhaps I did," she admitted. "I don't think it matters now." + +"They're all of them mixed," persisted Sally. "One can't expect too +much, but you can bear with a good deal when you're fond of any one." + +Agatha sat silent awhile, for she was troubled by a certain sense of +probably wholesome confusion. It seemed to her that Sally had the +clearer vision. Love had given her discernment as well as charity, +and, not expecting perfection, it was the man's strong points she fixed +her eyes upon. + +"Yes," she said at length, "I am glad you look at it that way, Sally." + +The girl laughed. "Oh!" she said, "I've only seen one man on the +prairie who was quite white all through, and I had a kind of notion +that he was fond of you." + +Agatha sat very still, but it cost her an effort. + +"You mean?" she said at length. + +"Harry Wyllard." + +Agatha made no answer, and Sally changed the subject, "Well," she said, +"after all, I want you to be friends with me." + +"I think you can count on that," said Agatha with a smile, and in +another minute or two she rose to rejoin Mrs. Hastings. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +THE LANDING. + +The ice among the inlets on the American side of the North Pacific +broke up unusually early when spring came round again, and several +weeks before Wyllard had expected it the _Selache_ floated clear. Her +crew had suffered little during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept +them busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted her +with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of them had been +trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small +vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used axe and +saw to some purpose in their time. In any case, Wyllard was satisfied +when they thrashed the _Selache_ out of the inlet under whole mainsail +in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel +in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights +dropped back astern. + +He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether +Agatha had married Gregory yet. It seemed to him that this was, at +least, possible, for she was one to keep a promise, and it was +difficult to believe that Gregory would fail to press his claim. His +face grew grim as he thought of it, though this was a thing he had done +more or less constantly during the winter. He fancied that he might +have ousted Gregory if he had remained at the Range, for Agatha had, +perhaps unconsciously, shown him that she was, at least, not quite +indifferent to him, but that would have been to involve her in a breach +of faith which she would probably have always looked back on with +regret, and in any case he could not have stayed. He knew he would +never forget her, but it was, he admitted, not impossible that she +might forget him. He also realised, though this was not by comparison +a matter of great consequence, that the Range was scarcely likely to +prosper under Gregory's management, but that could not be helped, and +after all he owed Gregory something. It never occurred to him that he +was doing an extravagant thing in setting out upon the search he had +undertaken. He only felt that the obligation was laid upon him, and, +being what he was, he could not shrink from it. + +A puff of spray that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and +when by and bye a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, +he rose and helped the others to haul a reef in the mainsail down. +That accomplished, he went below and lugged out a well-worn chart, +while the _Selache_ drove away to the westwards over a white-flecked +sea. This time she carried fresh southerly breezes with her most of +the way across the Pacific, and plunged along hove down under the last +rag they dare set upon her with the big combers surging up abeam, until +at length they ran into the clammy fog close in with the Kamtchatkan +beaches. Then the wind dropped, and they were baffled by light and +fitful airs, while it became evident that there was ice about. + +The day they saw the first big mass of it gleaming broad across their +course on a raw green sea, Dampier got an observation, and they held a +brief council in the little cabin that evening. The schooner was hove +to then, and lay rolling with banging blocks and thrashing canvas on a +sluggish heave of sea. + +"Thirty miles off shore," said Dampier. "If it had been clear enough +we'd have seen the top of the big range quite a way further out to sea. +Now, it's drift ice ahead of us, but it's quite likely there's a solid +block along the beach. Winter holds on a long while in this country. +I guess you're for pushing on as fast as you can?" + +Wyllard nodded. "Of course," he said, "you'll look for an opening, and +work her in as far as possible. Then, if it's necessary, Charly and I +and another man will take the sled and head for the beach across the +ice. If there's a lane anywhere I would, however, probably take the +smallest boat. We might haul her a league or two, anyway, on the sled +if the ice wasn't very rough." + +He looked at Charly, who made a little sign. + +"Well," he said simply, "I guess I'll have to see you through. Now +we've made a sled for her I'd take the boat, anyway. We're quite +likely to strike a big streak of water when the ice is breaking up." + +"There's one other course," said Dampier; "the sensible one, and that's +to wait until it has gone altogether. Seems to me I ought to mention +it, though it's not likely to appeal to you." + +Wyllard laughed. "From all appearances we might wait a month. I don't +want to stay up here any longer than is strictly necessary." + +"You'll head north?" + +"That's my intention." + +"Then," said Dampier, pointing to the chart before them, "as you should +make the beach in the next day or two I'll head for the inlet here. As +it's not very far you won't have to pack so many provisions along, and +I'll give you, say, three weeks to turn up in. If you don't, I'll +figure that there's something wrong, and do what seems advisable." + +They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of +the creeping haze, they sailed her slowly shorewards among the drifting +ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretched +gleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard retired soon afterwards, and +slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter, +and when at length morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on +deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a +tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible +that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, +and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view. + +In the meanwhile the schooner lay to with backed forestaysail, tumbling +wildly on a dim, grey sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a +dingy haze, and there was a low, grey sky to weather. Now and then a +fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. +As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode up to him. + +"I guess you'd better put it off," he said. "I don't like the weather; +we'll have wind before long." + +Wyllard only smiled, and Dampier made a little gesture. + +"Then," he said, "I'd get on to the ice just as soon as you can. +You're still quite a way off the beach." + +Wyllard shook hands with him. "We should make the inlet in about nine +days, and if I don't turn up in three weeks you'll know there's +something wrong. If there's no sign of me in another week you can take +her home again." + +Then Dampier, who said nothing further, bade them swing the boat over, +and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one +Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were +about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing +they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had +supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner. + +They gazed at her with somewhat grim faces as they pulled away, and +Wyllard, who loosed his oar a moment to wave his fur cap when Dampier +stood upon her rail, was glad when a fresher rush of the bitter breeze +forced him to fix his attention on his task. The boat was heavily +loaded, and the tops of the grey seas splashed unpleasantly close about +her gunwale. She was running before them, rising sharply, and dropping +down out of sight of all but the schooner's canvas into the hollows, +and though this made rowing easier he was apprehensive of difficulties +when he reached the ice. + +His misgivings proved warranted as they closed with it, for it +presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea +spouted and fell in frothy wisps. There was no doubt as to what would +happen if the frail craft was hurled upon that frozen mass, and +Wyllard, who was sculling, fancied that before she could even reach it +there was a probability of her being swamped in the upheaval where the +backwash met the oncoming sea. Charly looked at him dubiously. + +"It's a sure thing we can't get out there," he said. + +Wyllard nodded. "Then," he said, "we'll pull along the edge of it +until we find an opening or something to make a lee. The sea's higher +than it seemed to be from the schooner." + +"We've got to do it soon," said Charly. "There's more wind not far +away." + +Wyllard dipped his oar again, and they pulled along the edge of the ice +for an hour cautiously, for there were now little frothing white tops +on the seas. + +It was evident that the wind was freshening, and at times a deluge of +icy water slopped in over the gunwale. The men were further hampered +by their furs, and the stores among their feet, and the perspiration +dripped from Wyllard when they approached a ragged, jutting point. It +did not seem advisable to attempt a landing on that side of it, and +when a little snow commenced to fall he looked at his companions. + +"I guess we've got to pull her out," said Charly. "Dampier's heaving a +reef down; he sees what's working up to windward." + +Wyllard could just make out the schooner, which had apparently followed +them, a blurr of dusky canvas against a bank of haze, and then, as the +boat slid down into a hollow, there was nothing but the low-hung, +lowering sky. It was evident to him that if they were to make a +landing it must be done promptly. + +"We'll pull round the point first, anyway," he said. + +A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them as +they did it, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward +now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and +handle her circumspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray all +over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice she +nearly rolled over with them, while the icy water grew steadily deeper +inside her. Then it became apparent by degrees that, as they could not +have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for +their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an +opening of some kind round the point. Its ragged tongue was horribly +close to lee of them lapped in a foaming wash when the snow cleared for +a minute or two, and they saw that Dampier had driven the _Selache_ +further off the ice. She was hove to now, and there was a black figure +high up in her shrouds. + +Just then, however, a bitter rush of wind hurled the spray about them, +and the boat fell off almost beam on to the sea, in spite of all that +they could do. The icy brine washed into her, and it seemed almost +certain that she would swamp or roll over before they could get way on +her. Still, pulling desperately, they drove her round the point. +Then, as gasping and dripping they made their last effort, a sea rolled +up ahead, and Wyllard had a momentary glimpse of an opening not far +away as she swung up with it. He shouted to his companions, but could +not tell whether they heard and understood him, for after that he was +only conscious of sculling savagely until another sea broke into her +and she struck. There was a crash, and she swung clear with the +backwash, with all one side smashed in. Then she swung in again just +beyond a tongue of ice over which the froth was pouring tumultuously, +and the Indian jumped from the bow. He had the painter with him, and +for half a minute he held her somehow, standing in the foam, while they +hurled a few of the carefully made-up packages in her as far on to the +ice as possible. Then, as Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, +she rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another +moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, +who drove towards them amidst a long wash of foam. + +They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a +sudden haze of snow whirled about them. There was no sign of the +schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards +away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their +stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across +the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her, +which it scarcely seemed worth while to attempt. The sea rumbled along +the edge of the ice, and they could not tell if the latter extended as +far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke. + +"We have got the hand-sled, and some, at least, of the things," he +said. "The sooner we start for the beach the sooner we'll get there." + +It was a relief to load the sled, and when that was done they set off +in the hide traces across the ice with the snow whirling about them. +It was arduous work apart from the hauling of the load, for the ice was +rough and broken, and covered for the most part with softening snow. +They had only gum-boots with soft hide moccasins under them, for +snow-shoes are only used in Eastern Canada, and it takes one a long +while to learn to walk on them. Sometimes they sank almost knee-deep, +sometimes they slipped and scrambled on uncovered ledges, but they +pushed on with the sled bouncing and sliding unevenly behind them until +the afternoon had almost gone. + +Then they set up the saturated tent behind a hummock, and crouched +inside it upon a ground sheet while Charly boiled a kettle on the +little oil blast stove, and the wind that screamed about it hurled the +snow upon the straining canvas. It, however, stood the buffeting, and +when they had eaten a very simple meal Charly put the stove out and the +darkness was only broken down when one of them struck a match to light +his pipe. They had only a strip of rubber sheeting between them and +the snow, for the water had got into the sleeping bags, and their +clothes dried upon them with the heat of their bodies. They said +nothing for awhile, and Wyllard was half-asleep when Charly spoke. + +"I've been thinking about that boat," he said. "Though I don't know +that we could have done it, we ought to have tried to pull her out." + +"Why?" asked Wyllard. "She'd have been all to pieces, anyway." + +"I'm figuring it out like this. If Dampier wasn't up in the shrouds +when we made the landing he'd sent somebody. We could see him up +against the sky, but we'd be much less clear to him low down with the +ice and the surf about us. Besides, it was snowing quite fast then. +Well, I don't know what Dampier saw, but I guess he'd have made out +that we hadn't hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with +the wind freshening and it getting thick he'd have to thrash the +schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it's +quite likely that he'll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me +that's going to worry him considerable." + +Wyllard, drowsy as he was getting, agreed with this view of the matter. +He realised that it would have been quite impossible for Dampier to +have sent them any assistance, and it was merely a question whether +they should retrace their steps to the edge of the ice next morning and +make him some signal. Against this there was the strong probability +that he would not run in if the gale and snow continued, and the fact +that it was desirable to make the beach as soon as possible in case the +ice broke up before they reached it. What was rather more to the +purpose, he was quietly determined on pushing on. + +"It can't be helped," he said simply. "We'll start for the beach as +soon as it's daylight." + +Charly made no answer, and the brawny, dark-skinned Siwash, who spoke +English reasonably well, only grunted. Unless it seemed necessary, he +seldom said anything at all. Bred to the sea, and living on the seal +and salmon, as he had done, an additional hazard or two or an extra +strain on his tough body did not count for much with him. He had been +accustomed to sleep wet through with icy water, and crouch for hours +with numbed hands clenched on the steering-paddle while the long sea +canoe scudded furiously over the big combers before bitter gale or +driving snow. Wyllard, who rolled over, pulled a wet sleeping-bag +across him, and after that there was silence in the little rocking tent. + +In the meanwhile, Charly's deductions had been proved correct, for when +the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed +the ominous blackness to windward, and knew what it meant, which was +why he had hauled a reef in the schooner's mainsail down, and now kept +her out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very +difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that +recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he +decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her round +the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, +though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm +to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in; +there was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the +_Selache_ sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to +Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. Then a blinding haze +of snow shut out everything, and he came down with a run. + +He stood for several minutes gazing forward grim in face beside the +wheel, but he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops +of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was +driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident to him that to +send Wyllard any assistance was utterly beyond his power. He could +have hove the schooner to while he got the bigger boat over, and two +men might have pulled her towards the ice with the breeze astern of +them, but it was perfectly clear that they could neither have made a +landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also, though this +appeared of less consequence, uncertain whether he and the other man +could have brought the schooner round or have got more sail off her, +which would, as he recognised, very soon have to be done. Still, he +stood on while the snow grew thicker until they heard the wash of the +sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched +hand he raised in sign to the helmsman. + +"On the wind. Haul lee sheets!" he said. + +She came round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away +with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray +whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a curious tense look +in the white men's faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze +to lee of her. + +They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient +water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off +her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on +her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather +clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed +its shape. Then they got a boat over, and the two men who went off in +her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly's cap +washing up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what +that meant. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +NEWS OF DISASTER. + +When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the +men, and contrived to make a landing on the ice with difficulty only to +find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though he +floundered shorewards a mile or two there was nothing except the +shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions, +but the skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, had little +doubt in his mind. After that he waited two days, until a strong +breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and then +stood out for open water, where he hove the _Selache_ to for a week or +so. Then he proceeded northwards to the inlet fixed upon. + +He was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost +clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two +scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still +partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock +rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days' march +from the schooner, he made a depôt of provisions, and raised a beacon +of piled-up stones beside them. At times when it was clear he could +see the top of a great range high up against the Western sky, but those +times were rare. For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain +or wrapped in clammy fog. + +There was, however, no sign of Wyllard, and at length Dampier, coming +back jaded and dejected from another fruitless search, after the time +agreed upon had expired, shut himself up alone for a couple of hours in +the little cabin. He was certain now that Wyllard and his companions +had been drowned while attempting to make a landing on the ice, since +they would have joined him at the inlet as arranged had this not been +the case. The distance was by no means great, and there were no +Russian settlements on that part of the coast. He sat very still, with +a clenched hand upon the little table, and a set face, balancing +conjecture against conjecture, and then regretfully decided that there +was only one course open to him. It was dark when he went up on deck +again, but the men were sitting smoking about the windlass forward. + +"You can heave some of that cable in, boys," he said. "We'll clear out +for Vancouver at sun-up." + +They said nothing, but they shipped the levers, and Dampier went back +to the cabin, for the clank of the windlass and the ringing of the +cable jarred upon him. + +Early next morning the _Selache_ stood out to sea, and once they had +left the fog and rain which hung about the coast behind, she carried +fine weather with her across the Pacific. On reaching Vancouver, +Dampier had some trouble with the authorities, to whom it was necessary +to report the drowning of three of his crew, but he was more fortunate +than he expected, and after placing the schooner in the hands of a +broker for sale, he left the city one evening on the Atlantic train. +Three days later, he was driving across the prairie towards the +Hastings homestead, and, as it happened, its inmates were sitting +together in the big general room after supper, when the waggon he had +hired swung into sight over the crest of a rise. + +It was a still, hot evening, and as the windows were open wide a faint +beat of hoofs came up across the tall wheat and dusty prairie before +the waggon topped the rise. Hastings, who lay in a cane chair near the +window, with his pipe in his hand, looked up as he heard it. + +"Somebody driving in," he said. "I shouldn't be astonished if it's +Gregory. He talked about coming over the last time I saw him." + +"If he wants to talk about a deal in wheat, he can stay away," said +Mrs. Hastings with a certain dryness. "If all one hears is true, he +has lost quite a few of Harry's dollars on the market lately." + +Hastings looked somewhat troubled at this. "I'd sooner think it was +his own dollars he'd thrown away." + +"That's quite out of the question. He hasn't any." + +"Well," said Hastings, with an air of reflection, "I'll get Sproatly to +make inquiries. He'll probably be along with Winifred this evening, +and if he finds that Gregory is getting in rather deep I'll have a word +or two with him. Anyway, I can't have him wasting Harry's money, and I +have some right to protest as one of the executors." + +Agatha started at the last word. It had an ominous ring, and she +fancied that Hastings had noticed the effect it had on her, for he +seemed to glance at her curiously. Turning from him, she rose and +walked quietly towards the window. + +The wheat stretched across the foreground, tall and darkly green, and +beyond it the white grass ran back to the rise, which cut sharp against +a red and smoky glow. The sun had dipped some little time ago, and +already there was a wonderful exhilarating coolness in the air. +Somehow the sight reminded her of another evening, when she had looked +out across the prairie from a seat at Wyllard's table, almost a year +ago. + +In the meanwhile, a waggon was drawing nearer down the long slope of +the rise, and the beat of hoofs which grew steadily louder in a sharp +staccato made the memories clearer. She had heard Dampier riding in +the night Wyllard had received his summons, and now she wondered who +the approaching stranger was, and what his business could be. She did +not know why, but she scarcely thought it was Gregory. + +Presently Hastings looked round again. "It's the team Bramfield hires +out at the settlement," he said. "None of our friends would get him to +drive them in. There seems to be two men in the waggon. Bramfield +will be one. I can't make out the other." + +Mrs. Hastings, who was evidently becoming curious about the unexpected +guest, walked forward in turn, and they stood watching the waggon until +Agatha made a little abrupt movement. + +"It's Captain Dampier," she said. + +Then she stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained +look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the waggon for another moment +or two. + +"Yes," he said, and his voice was harsh, "it's Dampier. The other +man's surely Bramfield. Harry's not with him." + +Once more he glanced at Agatha, who turned away, and sat down in the +nearest chair. She said nothing, and there was an oppressive silence, +through which the beat of hoofs and rattle of wheels rang more +distinctly. + +In another few minutes Dampier came in, while his companion drove off +to the stables. He shook hands with Agatha and Mrs. Hastings +diffidently. + +"You remember me?" he said. + +"Of course," said Mrs. Hastings, with a trace of sharpness. "Where's +Harry?" + +The skipper spread a hard hand out, and sat down heavily. + +"That," he said, "is what I have to tell you. He asked me to." + +"He asked you to?" said Agatha, and though her voice was strained there +was relief in it. + +The skipper made a little gesture, which seemed to beseech her patience. + +"Yes," he said, "if--anything went wrong--he told me I was to come here +to Mrs. Hastings." + +Agatha turned her head away, but Mrs. Hastings saw the laces which hung +beneath her neck sharply rise and fall. + +"Then," she said, "something has gone wrong?" + +"About as wrong as it could," and Dampier quietly met her gaze. +"Wyllard and two other men are drowned." + +He broke off abruptly, and Mrs. Hastings fancied she saw Agatha shiver, +but in another moment or two the girl turned slowly round with a drawn +white face. It was, however, Hastings who spoke, almost sternly. + +"Go on," he said. + +"I'm to tell you all?" + +This time it was Agatha who broke in. + +"Yes," she said with a curious quietness that struck the rest as being +strained and unnatural, "you must tell us all." + +Dampier, who appeared to shrink from his task, commenced awkwardly, but +he gained coherence and force of expression as he proceeded. At least, +he made them understand something of the grim resolution which had +animated Wyllard. He pictured, in terse seaman's words, the little +schooner plunging to windward over long phalanxes of icy seas, or +crawling white with snow through the blinding fog. His companions saw +the big combers tumbling ready to break short upon the dipping bows out +of the dark, and half-frozen men struggling for dear life with folds of +madly thrashing sail. The pictures were, however, necessarily somewhat +blurred and hazy, for after all only an epic poet could fittingly +describe the things that must be done and borne at sea, and epic +poets--it is, perhaps, a pity--are not bred in the forecastle. When he +reached the last scene he gained almost dramatic power, and Agatha's +face grew strangely white and tense. She saw the dim figures pulling +in the flying spray beneath the wall of ice. + +"We ran her in," he added, "with the snow blinding us. It was working +up for a heavy blow, and as we'd have to beat her out we couldn't take +sail off her. We stood on until we heard the sea along the edge of the +ice, and then there was nothing to do but jam her on the wind and +thrash her clear. There was only a plank or two of the boat, an oar, +and Charly's cap, when we came back again!" + +"After all, though the boat was smashed, they might have got out," +Hastings suggested. + +"Well," said Dampier simply, "it didn't seem likely. The ice was sharp +and ragged, and there was a long wash of sea. A man's not tough enough +to stand much of that kind of hammering." + +Agatha's face grew a little whiter, but Dampier, who had paused, went +on again. + +"Anyway," he said, "they didn't turn up at the inlet as we'd fixed, and +that decided the thing. If Wyllard had been alive, he surely would +have done." + +"Isn't it just possible that he might have fallen into the hands of the +Russians?" asked Hastings. + +"I naturally thought of that, but so far as the chart shows there isn't +a settlement within leagues of the spot. Besides, supposing the +Russians had got him, how could I have helped him? They'd have sent +him off in the first place to one of the bigger settlements in the +South, and if the authorities couldn't have connected him with any +illegal sealing they'd no doubt have managed to send him across to +Japan by and bye. In that case, he'd have got home without any +trouble." + +He paused, and it was significant that he turned to Agatha with a +little deprecatory gesture. + +"No," he added, "there was nothing I could do." + +It was evident that Agatha acquitted him, but she asked a question. + +"Captain Dampier," she said, "had you any expectation of finding those +three men when you sailed the second time?" + +"No," said the bronzed sailorman, with an impressive quietness, "I +hadn't any, and I don't think Wyllard had either. Still, he meant to +make quite certain." He spread a hard hand out forcibly. "He felt he +had to." + +He gazed at Agatha, and saw comprehension in her eyes. + +"Yes," she said, "and when you have said that, as you have done, you +could have said very little more of any man." + +Then she turned her head away from them, and once more there was for a +few moments a heavy silence in the room. It cost the girl a painful +effort to sit still, apparently unmoved, but there was strength in her, +and she would not betray her distress. She felt that the latter must +be quietly grappled with. It was almost overwhelming, horribly acute, +but there was mingled with it a faint consolatory thrill of pride, for +it was clear that the man who had loved her had done a splendid thing. +He had given all that had been given him--and she knew she would never +forget that phrase of his--willingly, and it seemed to her that the +gifts he had been entrusted with were rare and precious +ones--steadfast, unflinching courage, compassion, and the fine sense of +honour which had sent him out on that forlorn hope. He had gone down, +unyielding and undismayed--she felt curiously sure of that--amidst the +blinding snow, but this was his vindication which had crowned him with +immortal laurels. + +Then Mrs. Hastings rose, and set food before Dampier, while by and bye +Sproatly and Winifred arrived and were told the story. After that +Dampier, who seemed to be a man of tact, stood up. He had already, +when asked by Mrs. Hastings, promised to stay with them a day or two. + +"Well," he said, "it seems to me you'll naturally want to talk over +things. If you'll excuse me, I'll take a stroll across the prairie." + +He went out, and Hastings who lighted his pipe lay back in his chair +and looked at the rest. + +"Harry's friends are numerous, but we're, perhaps, the nearest, and, as +Dampier said, we have to consider things," he said. "To begin with, +there's a certain possibility that he has escaped, after all." + +He saw the little abrupt movement that Agatha made, and went on rather +more quickly. + +"Gregory, of course, has control at the Range until we have proof of +Harry's death, though the latter made a proviso that if there was no +word of the party within eighteen months after he had sailed, or within +six months of the time Dampier had landed him, we could assume it, +after which the will he handed me would take effect," he added. "This, +it is evident, leaves Gregory in charge for some months yet, but it +seems to me it's our duty to see he doesn't fling away Harry's +property. I've reasons for believing that he has been doing it lately." + +He looked at Sproatly, who sat silent a moment or two. + +"I'm rather awkwardly placed," the latter said at length. "You see, +there's no doubt that I'm indebted to Gregory." + +Winifred turned to him with impatience in her eyes. "Then," she said +severely, "you certainly shouldn't have been, and it ought to be quite +clear that nobody wishes you to do anything that would hurt him." She +looked at Hastings. "In case the will takes effect, who does the +property go to?" + +Hastings appeared embarrassed. "That," he objected, "is a thing I'm +not warranted in telling you in the meanwhile." + +A suggestive gleam crept into Winifred's eyes, but it vanished and her +manner became authoritative when she turned back to Sproatly. + +"Jim," she said, "you will tell Mr. Hastings all you know." + +Sproatly made a gesture of resignation. "After all," he admitted, "I +think it's necessary. Gregory, as I've told you already, put up a big +mortgage on his place, and in view of the price of wheat and the state +of his crop, it's evident that he must have had some difficulty in +meeting the interest, unless--and one or two things suggest this--he +paid it with Harry's money. Of course, as Harry gave him a share, +there's no reason why he shouldn't do this so long as he does not +overdraw that share. There's no doubt, however, that he has lost a +good deal of money on the wheat market." + +"Has he lost any of Harry's?" Mrs. Hastings asked. + +Sproatly hesitated. "I'm afraid it's practically certain." + +Then Winifred broke in. "Yes," she said, "he has lost a great deal. +Hamilton knows almost everything that's going on, and I got it out of +him. He's a friend of Wyllard's, and seems very vexed with Gregory." + +The others said nothing for a moment or two, and then Mrs. Hastings +spoke again. + +"In a general way," she said, "most of us don't keep much in the bank, +and that expedition must have cost Harry a good deal. How would +Gregory get hold of the money before harvest?" + +"Edmonds, who holds his mortgage, would let him have it," said Sproatly. + +"But wouldn't he be afraid of Gregory not being able to pay if the +market went against him?" + +Sproatly looked very thoughtful. "The arrangement Wyllard made with +Gregory would, perhaps, give Edmonds a claim upon the Range if Gregory +borrowed any money in his name. I almost think that's what he's +scheming for. The man's cunning enough for anything. I don't like +him." + +Then Hastings stood up with an air of resolution. "Yes," he said, "I'm +most afraid you're quite correct. Anyway, I'll drive over in a day or +two and have a talk with Gregory." + +After that they separated, for Hastings strolled away to join Dampier, +and Sproatly and Winifred walked out on to the prairie. When they had +left the house the man turned to his companion. + +"Why did you insist upon me telling them what I did?" he asked. + +"Oh!" said Winifred, "I had several reasons. For one thing, when I +first came out feeling very forlorn and friendless, it was Wyllard who +sent me to the elevator, and they really treat me very decently." + +"They?" said Sproatly with resentment in his face. "If you mean +Hamilton, it seems to me that he treats you with an excess of decency +that there's no occasion for." + +Winifred laughed. "In any case, he doesn't drive me out here every two +or three weeks, though"--and she glanced at her companion +provocatively--"he once or twice suggested that he would like to." + +"I suppose you pointed out his presumption?" + +"No," said Winifred with an air of reflection, "I didn't go quite so +far as that. After all, the man is my employer; I had to handle him +tactfully." + +"He won't be your employer a week after the implement people open their +new depôt," said Sproatly resolutely. "Anyway, we're getting away from +the subject. Have you any more reasons for concerning yourself about +what Gregory does with Wyllard's property?" + +"I've one; I suppose you don't know who he has left at least a part of +it to?" + +Sproatly started as an idea crept into his mind. + +"I wonder if you're right?" he said. + +"I feel reasonably sure of it," and Winifred smiled. "In fact, that's +partly why I don't want Gregory to throw any more of Wyllard's money +away. In the meanwhile, you have done all I expect from you." + +"Then Hastings is to go on with the thing?" + +"Hastings," Winifred assured him, "will fail--just as you would. This +is a matter which requires to be handled delicately--and effectively." + +"Then who is going to undertake it?" + +Winifred laughed. "Oh," she said, "a woman, naturally. I'm going back +by and bye to have a word or two with Mrs. Hastings." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE RESCUE. + +Winifred's views were shortly proved correct, for Hastings, who drove +over to the Range a day or two after her visit, came back rather +disturbed in temper after what he described as a very unsatisfactory +interview with Hawtrey. + +"I couldn't make the man hear reason," he informed his wife. "In fact, +he practically told me that the thing was no concern of mine. I +assured him that it concerned me directly as one of the executors of +Harry's will, and I'm afraid I afterwards indulged in a few +personalities. I expect that blamed mortgage broker has got a very +strong hold on him." + +Mrs. Hastings looked reflective. "You have never told me anything +about the will." + +"If I haven't, it wasn't for want of prompting," said Hastings drily. +"Still, the will was sealed, and handed me by Harry on the express +understanding that it was not to be opened until we had proof that he +was dead or the six months mentioned had expired. If he turned up it +would, of course, be handed back to him. He made me promise solemnly +that I would not offer the least hint as to its provisions to anybody." + +Mrs. Hastings made a gesture of resignation. "In that case I suppose I +must be content, but he might have made an exception of--me. Anyway, I +think I see how we can put what appears to be a little necessary +pressure upon Gregory." Then she turned again to her husband rather +abruptly. "After all, is it worth while for me to trouble about the +thing?" + +Hastings was taken off his guard. "Yes," he said decidedly, "if you +can put any pressure on Gregory I guess it would be very desirable to +do it as soon as possible." + +"Then you think that Harry may turn up, after all?" + +"I do," said Hastings gravely; "I don't know why. In any case it's +highly desirable--for several reasons--that Gregory shouldn't fling his +property away." + +Mrs. Hastings smiled. "Well," she said, "I'll think over it. I'll +probably get Agatha to see what she can do in the first place." + +She saw a trace of uncertainty in her husband's face, which was, +however, what she had expected. + +"As you like," he said. "Something must be done, but on the whole I'd +rather you didn't trouble Agatha about the matter; it would be wiser." + +Mrs. Hastings asked no more questions. She fancied she understood the +situation, and she had Agatha's interests at heart, for she had grown +very fond of the girl. There was certainly one slight difficulty in +the way of what she meant to do, but she determined to disregard it, +though she admitted that it might cause Agatha some embarrassment +afterwards. During the afternoon she found the latter alone, and sat +down beside her. + +"My dear," she said, "I wonder if I may ask whether you are quite +convinced that Harry's dead?" + +She felt that the question was necessary, though it seemed rather a +cruel one, and she saw signs of tension in the girl's expression. + +"No," said the latter very quietly; "I can't quite bring myself to +believe it." + +"Then, since you heard what Sproatly said, you would be willing to do +anything that appeared possible to prevent Gregory throwing Harry's +dollars away?" + +"Yes," said Agatha, "I have been thinking about it." A little sparkle +of disdainful anger crept into her eyes. "Gregory seems to have been +acting shamefully." + +"Then as he won't listen to Allen, we must get Sally to impress that +fact on him." + +"Sally?" said Agatha in evident astonishment. + +Mrs. Hastings smiled. "I don't think you understand Sally as well as I +do. Of course, like the rest of us, she falls a long way short of +perfection, and--though it's a difficult subject--there's no doubt that +her conduct in leading Gregory on while he was still engaged to you was +hardly quite correct. After all, however, you owe her something for +that." + +"It isn't very hard to forgive her for it," said Agatha quietly. + +"Well, I want you to realise Sally. Right or wrong, she's fond of the +man. Of course, I've told you this already, but I must try to make it +clear how that fact bears upon the business in hand. Sally certainly +fought for him, and there's no doubt that one could find fault with +several things she did; but the point is that she's evidently +determined on making the most of him now she has got him. In some +respects, at least, she's absolutely straight--one hundred cents to the +dollar is what Allen says of her--and although you might perhaps not +have expected this, I believe it would hurt her horribly to feel that +Gregory was squandering money that didn't strictly belong to him." + +"Then you mean to make her understand what he is doing?" + +"No," said Mrs. Hastings; "I want you to do it. I've reasons for +believing that your influence would go further with her than mine. For +one thing, I fancy she is feeling rather ashamed of herself." + +Agatha looked thoughtful. She had certainly not credited Sally with +possessing any fine sense of honour, but she was willing to accept her +companion's assurance. + +"The situation," she pointed out, "is rather a delicate one. You wish +to expose Gregory's conduct to the girl he is going to marry, though, +as you admit, the explanation will probably be painful to her. Can't +you understand that the course suggested is a particularly difficult +and repugnant one--to me?" + +"I've no doubt of it," said Mrs. Hastings. "Still, I think it must be +adopted--for several reasons. In the first place, I fancy that if we +can pull Gregory up now we will save him from involving himself +irretrievably. After all, perhaps, you owe him the effort. Then I +think that we all owe something to Harry, and we can, at least, +endeavour to carry his wishes out. He laid down what was to be done +with his possessions in a will, and he never could have anticipated +Gregory dissipating them as he is doing." + +The last reason, as she had foreseen, proved irresistible to Agatha, +and she made a sign of concurrence. + +"If you will drive me over I will do what I can," she said. + +Now she had succeeded Mrs. Hastings lost no time, and they set out for +the Creightons' homestead next day, while soon after they reached it +she tactfully contrived that Sally should be left alone with Agatha. +They stood outside the house together when the latter turned to her +companion. + +"Sally," she said, "there is something that I must tell you." + +Sally glanced at her face, and then walked quietly forward until the +log barn hid them from the house. Then she sat down upon a pile of +straw in its shadow and signed to Agatha that she should take a place +beside her. + +"Now," she said sharply, "you can go on; it's about Gregory?" + +Agatha, who found it very difficult to begin, though she had been well +primed by Hastings on the previous evening, sat down amidst the straw, +and looked about her for a moment or two. It was a hot afternoon, +dazzlingly bright, and almost breathlessly still. In front of her the +dark green wheat rolled waist-high, and beyond it the vast sweep of +whitened grass rolled back to the sky-line flooded with light. Far +away a team and a waggon slowly moved across it, but that was the only +sign of life, and no sound from the house reached them to break the +heavy stillness. + +Then she nerved herself to the effort, and spoke quietly for several +minutes before she glanced at her companion. It was very evident that +the latter had understood all that she had said, for she sat very still +with a hard, set face. + +"Oh!" she said, "if I'd thought you'd come to tell me this because you +were vexed with me, I'd know what to do." + +This was what Agatha had dreaded. It certainly looked as if she had +come to triumph over her rival's humiliation, but Sally made it clear +that she acquitted her of that intention. + +"Still," she said, "I know that wasn't the reason, and I'm not mad +with--you. It hurts"--and she made a little abrupt movement--"but I +know it's true." Then she turned to Agatha suddenly. "Why did you do +it?" + +"I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you." + +[Illustration: "'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'"] + +"That was all?" and Sally looked at her with incredulous eyes. + +"No," said Agatha simply, "that was only part. It did not seem right +that Gregory should go against Wyllard's wishes, and gamble the Range +away on the wheat market." + +She admitted it without hesitation, for she realised now exactly what +had animated her to seek this painful interview. She was fighting +Wyllard's battle, and that fact sustained her. + +Sally winced. "Yes," she said, "I guess you had to tell me. He was +fond of you. One could be proud of that. Harry Wyllard never did +anything low down and mean." + +Agatha did not resent her candour. Although this was a thing she would +scarcely have credited a little while ago, she saw that the girl felt +the contrast between her lover's character and that of the man whose +place he had taken, and regretted it. Then Agatha's eyes grew a trifle +hazy. + +"Wyllard, they think, is dead," she said, in a low, strained voice. +"You have Gregory still." + +Sally looked at her with unveiled compassion, and Agatha did not shrink +from it. + +"Yes," she said, with a simplicity that became her, "and Gregory must +have someone to--take care of him. I must do it if I can." + +There was no doubt that Agatha was stirred. This half-taught girl's +quiet acceptance of the burden that many women must carry once more +made her almost ashamed. + +"We will leave it to you," she said. + +Then it became evident that there was another side to Sally's +character, for her manner changed, and the suggestive hardness crept +back into her eyes. + +"Well," she said, "I'd most been expecting something of this kind when +I heard that man Edmonds was going to the Range. He has got a pull on +Gregory, but he's surely not going to feel quite happy when I get hold +of him." + +She rose in another moment, and, saying nothing further, walked back +towards the house, in front of which they came upon Mrs. Hastings. +Sally looked at the latter significantly. + +"I'm going over to the Range after supper," she said. + +Mrs. Hastings drove away with Agatha, and said very little to her +during the journey, but an hour after they had reached the homestead +she slipped quietly into the girl's room, and found her lying in a big +chair, sobbing bitterly. She sat down close beside her, and laid a +hand upon her shoulder. + +"I don't think Sally could have said anything to trouble you like +this," she said. + +It was a moment or two before Agatha turned a wet, white face towards +her, and saw gentle sympathy in her eyes. There was, she felt, no +cause for reticence. + +"No," she said, "it was the contrast between us. She has Gregory." + +Mrs. Hastings made a sign of comprehension. "And you have lost +Harry--but I think you have not lost him altogether. We do not know +that he is dead--but even if it is so, it was all that was finest in +him he offered you. It is yours still." + +She broke off, and sat silent a moment or two before she went on again. + +"My dear, it is, perhaps, cold comfort, and I am not sure that I can +make what I feel quite clear. Still, Harry was only human, and it is +almost inevitable that, had it all turned out differently, he would +have said and done things that would have offended you. Now he has +left you a purged and stainless memory--one I think which must come +very near to the reality. The man who went up there--for an idea, a +fantastic point of honour--sloughed off every taint of the baseness +that hampers most of us in doing it. It was a man changed and uplifted +above all petty things by a high chivalrous purpose, who made that last +grim journey." + +Agatha realised the truth of this. Already Wyllard's memory had become +etherealised, and she treasured it as a very fine and precious thing. +Still, though he now wore immortal laurels, that would not content her +when all her human nature cried out for his bodily presence. She +wanted him, as she had grown to love him, in the warm, erring flesh, +and the vague, splendid vision was cold and far remote. There was a +barrier greater than that of crashing ice and bitter water between them. + +"Oh!" she said. "I have felt that. I try to feel it always--but just +now it's not enough." + +Then she turned her face away with a bitter sob, and Mrs. Hastings who +stooped and kissed her went out quietly. She knew what had come about, +and that the girl had broken down at last, after months of strain. + +In the meanwhile, it happened that Edmonds, the mortgage broker, drove +over to the Range, and found Hawtrey waiting him in Wyllard's room. It +was early in the evening, and he could see the hired men busy outside +tossing prairie hay from the waggons into the great barn. They were +half-naked and grimed with dust, but Hawtrey, who was dressed in store +clothes, had evidently taken no share in their labours. When Edmonds +came in he turned to him with anxiety in his face. + +"Well?" he said sharply. + +"Market's a little stiffer," said Edmonds. + +He sat down and stretched out his hand towards the cigar-box on the +table, while Hawtrey waited until he had picked one out with very +evident impatience. + +"Still moving up?" he asked. + +Edmonds nodded. "It's the other folks' last stand," he said. "With +the wheat ripening as it's doing, the flood that will pour in before +the next two months are out will sweep them off the market. I was half +afraid from your note that this little rally had some weight with you, +and that as one result of it you meant to cover now." + +"That," admitted Hawtrey, "was in my mind." + +"Then," said his companion, "it's a pity." + +Hawtrey leaned upon the table with hesitation in his face and attitude. +He had neither the courage nor the steadfastness to make a gambler, and +every fluctuation of the market swayed him to and fro. He had a good +deal of wheat to deliver by and bye, and, for prices had fallen +steadily until a week or two ago, he could still secure a very +desirable margin if he bought in against his sales now. Unfortunately, +however, he had once or twice lost heavily in an unexpected rally, and +he greatly desired to recoup himself. Then, he had decided, nothing +would tempt him to take part in another deal. + +"If I hold on and the market stiffens further I'll be awkwardly fixed," +he said. "Wyllard made a will, and in a few months I'll have to hand +everything over to his executors. There would naturally be +unpleasantness over a serious shortage." + +Edmonds smiled. He had handled his man cleverly, and had now a +reasonably secure hold upon him and the Range, but he was far from +satisfied. If Hawtrey made a further loss he would in all probability +become irretrievably involved. + +"Then," he pointed out, "there's every reason why you should try to get +straight." + +Hawtrey admitted it. "Of course," he said. "You feel sure I could do +it by holding on?" + +His companion seldom answered a question of this kind. It was apt to +lead to unpleasantness afterwards. + +"Well," he said, "Beeman, and Oliphant, and Barstow are operating for a +fall. One would fancy that you were safe in doing what they do. When +men of their weight sell forward figures go down." + +This was correct, as far as it went, but Edmonds was quite aware that +the gentlemen alluded to usually played a very deep and obscure game. +He had also reasons for believing that they were doing it now. It was, +however, evident that his companion's hesitation was vanishing. + +"It's a big hazard, but I feel greatly tempted to hang on," he said. + +Edmonds, who disregarded this, sat smoking quietly. Since he was +tolerably certain as to what the result would be, he felt it was now +desirable to let Hawtrey decide for himself, in which case it would be +impossible for the latter to reproach him afterwards. Wheat, it seemed +very probable, would fall still further when the harvest commenced, but +he had reasons for believing that the market would rally first. In +that case Hawtrey, who had sold forward largely, would fall altogether +into his hands, and he looked forward with very pleasurable +anticipation to enforcing his claim upon the Range. In the meanwhile +he was unobtrusively watching his companion's face, and it had become +evident that in another moment or two Hawtrey would adopt the course +suggested, when there was a rattle of wheels outside. Edmonds, who saw +a broncho team and a waggon appear from behind the barn, realised that +he must decide the matter now. + +"As I want to reach Lander's before it's dark I'll have to get on," he +said carelessly. "If you'll give me a letter to the broker, I'll send +it on to him." + +Next moment a clear voice rose up somewhere outside. "I guess you +needn't worry," it said, "I'll go right in." + +Then, while Gregory started, Sally walked into the room. + +Edmonds was disconcerted, but he made her a little inclination, and +then sat down again, quietly determined to wait, for he fancied there +was hostility in the swift glance she flashed at him. + +"That's quite a smart team you were driving, Miss Creighton," he said. + +Sally, who disregarded this, turned to Hawtrey. + +"What's he doing here?" she asked. + +"He came over on a little matter of business," said Hawtrey. + +"You have been selling wheat again?" + +Hawtrey looked embarrassed, for her manner was not conciliatory. +"Well," he admitted, "I have sold some." + +"Wheat you haven't got?" + +Hawtrey did not answer, and Sally sat down. Her manner suggested that +she meant to thoroughly investigate the matter, and Edmonds, who would +have greatly preferred to get rid of her, decided that as this appeared +impossible he would appeal to her cupidity. The Creightons were +somewhat grasping folks, and he had heard of her engagement to Hawtrey. + +"If you will permit me I'll try to explain," he said. "We'll say that +you have reason for believing that wheat will go down and you tell a +broker to sell it forward at a price a little below the actual one. If +other people do the same it drops faster, and before you have to +deliver you can buy it in at less than you sold it at. A good many +dollars can be picked up that way." + +"It looks easy," Sally admitted, with something in her manner which led +him to fancy he might win her over. "Of course, prices have been +falling. Gregory has been selling down?" + +"He has. In fact, there's already a big margin to his credit," said +Edmonds unsuspectingly. + +"That is, if he bought in now he'd have cleared--several thousand +dollars?" + +Edmonds told her exactly how much, and then started in sudden +consternation with rage in his heart, for she turned to Hawtrey +imperiously. + +"Then you'll write your broker to buy in right away," she said. + +There was an awkward silence, during which the two men looked at one +another until Edmonds spoke. + +"Are you wise in suggesting this, Miss Creighton?" he asked. + +Sally laughed harshly. "Oh yes," she said, "it's a sure thing. And I +don't suggest. I tell him to get it done." + +She turned again to Hawtrey, who sat very still looking at her with a +flush in his face. "Take your pen and give him that letter to the +broker now." + +There was this in her favour that Hawtrey was to some extent relieved +by her persistence. He had not the nerve to make a successful +speculator, and he had already felt uneasy about the hazard he would +incur by waiting. Besides, although prices had slightly advanced, he +could still secure a reasonable margin if he covered his sales. In any +case, he did as she bade him, and in another minute or two he handed +Edmonds an envelope. + +The latter, who rose, took it from him quietly, for he was one who +could face defeat. + +"Well," he said, with a gesture of resignation, "I'll send the thing +on. If Miss Creighton will excuse me, I'll tell your man to get out my +waggon." + +Then he went out, and Sally turned to Hawtrey with the colour in her +cheeks and a flash in her eyes. + +"It's Harry Wyllard's money," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +IN THE WILDERNESS. + +A bitter wind was blowing when Wyllard stood outside the little tent +the morning after he had made a landing on the ice, watching the grey +daylight break amidst a haze of sliding snow. He was to leeward of the +straining canvas which partly sheltered him, but the raw cold struck +through him to the bone, and he was stiff and sore from his exertions +during the previous day. Most of his joints ached unpleasantly, and +his clothing had not quite dried upon him with the warmth of his body. +He was also conscious of a strong desire to crawl back into the tent +and go to sleep again, but that was one it would clearly not be wise to +indulge in, since they were, he fancied, still some distance off the +beach, and the ice might commence to break up at any moment. It +stretched away before him, seamed by fissures and serrated ridges here +and there, for a few hundred yards, and then was lost in the sliding +snow, and as he gazed at it all his physical nature shrank from the +prospect of the journey through the frozen desolation. + +Then with a little shiver he crawled back into the tent where his two +companions were crouching beside the cooking lamp. The feeble light of +its sputtering blue flame touched their faces which were graver than +usual, but Charly turned and looked up as he came in. + +"Wind's dropping," said Wyllard curtly. "We'll start as soon as you +have made breakfast. We must try to reach the beach to-night." + +Charly made no answer, though the dusky-skinned Siwash grunted, and in +a few more minutes they silently commenced their meal. It was promptly +finished, and they struck the tent, and packed it with their sleeping +bags and provisions upon the sled, and then, taking up the traces, set +out across the ice. The light had grown a little clearer now, and the +snow was thinning, but it still whirled about them, and lay piled in +drawn-out wreaths to lee of every hummock or ragged ridge. They +floundered through them knee-deep, and in the softer places the weight +upon the traces grew unpleasantly heavy. That, however, was not a +thing any of them felt the least desire to complain of, and it was +indeed a matter of regret to them that they were not harnessed to a +heavier burden. There was a snow-wrapped desolation in front of them, +and they had lost a number of small comforts and part of their +provisions in making a landing. Whether the latter could by any means +be replaced they did not know, and in the meanwhile it certainly did +not seem very probable. + +This was, however, an excellent reason for pushing on as fast as +possible, and they stumbled and floundered forward until late in the +afternoon, while the ice became more rugged and broken as they +proceeded. The snow had ceased, but the drifts which stretched across +their path were plentiful, and they were in the midst of one when it +seemed to Wyllard who was leading that they were sinking much deeper +than usual. The snow was over the top of his long boots, the sled +seemed very heavy, and he could hear his comrades floundering savagely. +Then there was a cry behind him, and he was jerked suddenly backwards +for a pace or two until he flung himself down at full length clawing at +the snow. After that he was drawn back no further, but the strain upon +the trace became almost insupportable, and there was still a furious +scuffling behind him. + +In a moment or two, however, the strain slackened, and looking round he +saw Charly waist-deep in the snow. The latter struggled out with +difficulty holding on by the trace, but the sled had vanished, and it +was with grave misgivings that Wyllard scrambled to his feet. Then, +saying nothing, they hauled with all their might, and after a tense +effort that left them gasping dragged the sled back into sight. Part +of its load, however, had been left behind in the yawning hole. + +Charly went back a pace or two cautiously until he once more sank to +the waist, and they had some trouble in dragging him clear. Then he +sat down on the sled, and Wyllard stood still looking at the holes in +the snow. + +"Did you feel anything under you?" he asked at length in a jarring +voice. + +"I didn't," said Charly simply. "It was only the trace saved me from +dropping through altogether, but if I'd gone a little further I'd have +been in the water. Kind of snow bridge over a crevice. We broke it +up, and the sled fell through." + +Wyllard turned and flung the tent, their sleeping bags, and the few +packages which had not fallen out off the sled, after which he hastily +opened one or two of them. His companions looked at them with +apprehension in their eyes until he spoke again. + +"The provisions may last a week or so, if we cut down rations," he said. + +He could not remember afterwards if anybody suggested it, and he +fancied that the same idea occurred to all of them at once, but in +another moment or two they set about undoing the traces from the sled, +and making them secure about their bodies. Then for half an hour they +made perilous attempt after attempt to recover the lost provisions, and +signally failed. The snow broke through continuously beneath the +foremost man, but it did not break away altogether, and they could not +tell what lay beneath it when they had drawn him out of the hole. When +it became evident that the attempt was useless they held a brief +council sitting on the sled. + +"I guess we don't want to go back," said Charly. "It's quite likely +we've crossed a good many of these crevices, and the snow's getting +soft. Besides, Dampier will have hauled off and headed for the inlet +by now." + +He spoke quietly, though his face was grim, and then pausing a moment +waved his hand. "It seems to me," he added, "we have got to fetch the +inlet while the provisions last." + +"Exactly," said Wyllard. "Since the chart shows a river between us and +it, the sooner we start the better. If the thaw holds, the stream will +break up the ice on it." + +The Indian, who made no suggestion, grunted what appeared to be +concurrence, and they silently set to work to reload the sled. That +done, they took up the traces and floundered on again into the +gathering dimness and a thin haze of driving snow. Darkness had fallen +when they made camp again, and sat, worn-out and aching in every limb, +about the sputtering lamp inside the little, straining tent. The meal +they made was a very frugal one, and they lay down in the darkness +after it, for half their store of oil had been left behind in the +crevice. They said very little, for the second disaster had almost +crushed the courage out of them, and it was very clear to all that it +would only be by a strenuous effort they could reach the inlet before +their provisions quite ran out. They slept, however, and rising in a +stinging frost next morning set out again on the weary march, but it +was slow travelling, and at noon they left the tent and poles behind. + +"In another few days," said Wyllard, "we'll leave the sled." + +They made the beach that afternoon, though the only sign of it was the +fringe of more ragged ice and the white slope beyond the latter. A +thin haze hung about them heavy with frosty rime, and they could not +see more than a quarter of a mile ahead. When darkness fell they +scraped out a hollow beneath what seemed to be a snow-covered rock, and +sat upon their sleeping bags about the cooking lamp. Then, having +eaten, they huddled close together with part of their aching bodies +upon the sled in a bitter frost, but none of them slept much that night. + +The morning broke clear and warmer, and Wyllard, climbing to the summit +of the rock, had a brief glimpse of the serrated summits of a great +white range that rose out of a dingy greyness to the west and south. +It, however, faded like a vision while he watched it, and turning he +looked out across the rolling wilderness that stretched away to the +north. Nothing broke its gleaming monotony, and there was no sign of +life anywhere in the vast expanse. By and bye it narrowed, and when he +clambered down the haze was creeping in again. + +They set out after breakfast, breaking through a thin crust of snow, +which rendered the march almost insuperably difficult, and they had +painfully made a league or two by the approach of night. The snow had +grown softer, and the thawing surface would not bear the sled, which +sunk in the slush beneath. Still, they floundered on for a while after +darkness fell, and then lay down in a hollow, packed close together, +while a fine rain poured down on them. + +Somehow they slept, and, though this was more difficult, got upon their +feet again when morning came, for of all the hard things the wanderer +in rain-swept bush or frozen wilderness must bear there is none that +tests his powers more than the bracing himself for another day of +effort in the early dawn. Comfortless as the night's lair has been, +the jaded body craves for such faint warmth as it afforded, and further +rest, the brain is dull and heavy, and the aching limbs appear +incapable of supporting the weight on them. Difficulties loom +appallingly large in the faint creeping light, courage fails, and the +will grows feeble. Wyllard and his companions felt all this, but it +was clear to them that they could not dally, with their provisions +running out, and staggering out of camp after a very scanty meal they +hauled the sled through the slush they churned up for an hour or so. +Then they stopped, gasping, the Indian slipped out of the traces, and +Charly, who nodded, cast them loose from him. + +"We've hauled that thing about far enough," he said. + +Wyllard stood looking at them for a moment or two with a furrowed face +and a hand that the frost had split tightly clenched. It was evident +that they could haul the hampering load no further, and he was troubled +by an almost insupportable weariness. Then he made a little unwilling +sign of concurrence. + +"In that case," he said, "you have to decide what you'll leave behind." + +They discussed it for some minutes, partly because it furnished an +excuse for sitting upon the sled, though none of them had much doubt as +to the result of the council. It was unthinkable that they should +sacrifice a scrap of the provisions. Then, when each man had lashed a +light load upon his shoulders with a portion of the cut-up traces, they +set out again, and it rained upon them heavily all that day. + +During the four following days they were buffeted by a furious wind, +but the temperature had risen, and the snow was melting fast, and +splashing knee-deep through slush and water they made progress. While +he stumbled along with the pack-straps galling his shoulders, Wyllard +was conscious of little beyond the unceasing pain in his joints and the +leaden heaviness of his limbs; but the recollection of that march +haunted him like a horrible nightmare long afterwards, when each +sensation and incident emerged from the haze of numbing misery. He +remembered that he stormed at and almost fought with Charly, who lagged +behind now and then in a fit of languid dejection, and that once he +fell heavily, and was sensible of a certain half-conscious regret that +he was still capable of going on when the Indian dragged him to his +feet again. They rarely spoke to one another, and noticed nothing +beyond the strip of white waste, through which uncovered brown patches +commenced to break, immediately in front of them, except when they +crossed some low elevation and looked down upon the stretch of dull +grey water not far away on one hand. The breeze, at least, had swept +the ice away, and that was reassuring, because it meant that Dampier +would be at the inlet when they reached it, though now and then a +horrible fear that their strength would fail them or their provisions +run out first crept in. + +Their faces had already grown gaunt and haggard, and each scanty meal +had been further cut down to the smallest portion which would keep life +and power of movement within them. Still, though the weight of it +hampered him almost intolerably, Wyllard clung to the one rifle that +they had saved from the disaster at the landing and a dozen cartridges. +This was a folly which he and Charly had once virulent words about. + +At length they came one evening to a river which flowed across their +path, and lay down beside it, feeling that the end was not far away. +Except in the eddies and shallows, the ice had broken up, and the +stream swirled by between in raging flood, thick with heavy masses +which it had brought down from its higher reaches. They crashed upon +the gleaming spurs that here and there projected from the half-thawn +fringe, and smashed with a harsh crackling among the boulders, and +there was no doubt as to what would befall the stoutest swimmer who +might attempt the passage. So far as Wyllard afterwards remembered, +none of them said anything when they lay down among the wet stones, but +with the first of the daylight they started up stream. The river was +not a large one, and it seemed just possible that they might find a +means of crossing higher up, though they afterwards admitted that this +was a good deal more than they expected. + +During the afternoon the ground rose sharply, and the stream flowed out +of a deep ravine which they followed. The rocks, as far as Wyllard +could remember, were of volcanic origin, and some of them had crumbled +into heaps of ragged debris. The slope of the ravine became a talus it +was almost impossible to scramble along, and they were forced back upon +the boulders and the half-thawn ice in the slacker pools. + +Still, they made some progress, and when evening drew near found a +little clearer space between rock and river. The Indian had in the +meanwhile wrenched his foot or knee, and when at length they stopped to +make camp among the rocks it was some little time before he overtook +them. Then he said that he had found the slot of some animal which he +fancied had gone up the ravine. What the beast was he did not seem to +know, but he assured them that it was, at least, large enough to eat, +and that appeared to be of the most importance then. He would not, +however, take the rifle. Nothing would compel him to drag himself +another rod that night, he said, and the others, who had noticed how he +limped, accepted his statement. He sat down among the stones with an +expressionless face, and Charly decided that it was Wyllard's part to +try to pick up the trail. + +"You could beat me every time at trailing or shooting when we went +ashore on the American side, and I'm not sorry to let it go at that +now," he said. + +Wyllard smiled very grimly, "And I've carried this rifle a week on top +of my other load. You can't shoot when you're dead played out." + +Then they called in the Indian and left it to him, and saying nothing +he gravely pointed to Wyllard. + +Charly grinned for the first time in several days. + +"Well," he said, "in this case I guess I've no objections to let it be +as he suggests." + +Wyllard, who said nothing further, took up the rifle and strode very +wearily out of camp. There was, he fancied, scarcely an hour's +daylight left, and already the dimness seemed a little more marked down +in the hollow. He, however, found the slot again, and as there was a +wall of rock on one side of him up which he did not think a beast of +any kind could scramble he pushed on up stream beside the ice. There +was nothing except this to guide him, but he was a little surprised to +feel that his perceptions which had been dull and dazed the last few +days were growing clearer. He noticed the different sounds the river +made, and picked out the sharp crackle of ice among the stones, though +he had hitherto only been conscious of a hoarse, pulsating roar. The +rocks also took distinctive shapes instead of looming in blurred masses +before his heavy eyes, and he found himself gazing with strained +attention into each strip of deeper shadow. Still, though he walked +cautiously, there was no sign of any life in the ravine. He was +horribly weary, and now and then he set his lips as he stumbled noisily +among the stones, but he pushed on beside the water while the deep +hollow grew dimmer and more shadowy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE UNEXPECTED. + +By and bye Wyllard felt a troublesome dizziness creeping over him, and +he sat down upon a boulder with the rifle across his knees. He had +eaten very little during the last few days, which had been spent in +arduous exertion, and now the leaden weariness which he had fought +against since morning threatened to overcome him. In addition to this, +he was oppressed by a black dejection, which, though his mind had never +been clearer, reacted upon his failing physical powers, for it was now +unpleasantly evident that he and his companions could not reach the +inlet while their provisions held out. There was no longer any doubt +that he had involved them in disaster, and the knowledge that he had +done so was very bitter. + +He sat still awhile with haggard face and set lips, gazing up the +ravine, for, although he scarcely fancied that either of the others had +expected anything else, he shrank from going back as empty-handed as +when he had left them. The light was getting very dim, but he could +still see the ice fringe upon the pool in front of him, and a mass of +rock that rose black against the creeping dusk not very far away. +Beyond it on the one side there seemed to be a waste of stones amidst +which a few wreaths of snow still gleamed lividly. Then a wall of rock +scarcely distinguishable in the shadow shut in the hollow. + +The latter was filled with the hoarse roar of the river and the sharp +crash and crackle of stream-driven ice, but by and bye the worn-out man +started as he caught another faint sound which suggested the clink of a +displaced stone. His hands closed hard upon the rifle, but he sat very +still, listening with strained attention until he heard the sound +again. Then a thrill ran through him, for he was quite certain of its +meaning. A stone had rolled over higher up the gorge, and he rose and +moved forward cautiously, keeping the detached rock between him and the +upper portion of the ravine. Once or twice a stone clattered noisily +beneath his feet, and he stopped for a moment or two, wondering with +tense anxiety whether the sound could be heard at any distance through +the roar of the river. This was a very much grimmer business than +crawling through the long grass for a shot at the prairie antelope, +when in case of success it had scarcely seemed worth while to pack the +tough and stringy venison back to the homestead. + +By and bye he heard the clatter of a displaced stone again, and this +time it was so distinct and near that it puzzled him. The wild +creatures of the waste were, he knew, always alert, and their +perception of an approaching danger was wonderful. It seemed strange, +since he had heard it, that the beast he was creeping in upon could +apparently not hear him, but he realised that he must face the hazard +of its doing so, for in another few minutes it would be too dark to +shoot. He had almost reached the rock by this time, and he shifted his +grasp on the rifle, holding it thrust forward in front of him while +crouching low he looked down for a spot on which to set his foot each +time he moved. It would, he knew, be useless to go any further if a +stone turned over now. None did, however, and he crept, strung up to +highest tension, into the deeper gloom behind the rock. + +A little pool ran in close beneath the latter from the river, but it +was covered with ice and slushy snow, and treading very cautiously he +crept across it, and held his breath as he moved out from behind the +stone. Then he stopped suddenly, for a man stood face to face with him +scarcely a stone's throw away. His fur-clad figure cut sharply against +a gleaming bank of snow, and he held a gun in his hand. Though the +light had almost gone, it was evident to Wyllard that he was a white +man. + +They stood very still for several seconds gazing at one another, and +then the stranger dropped the butt of his weapon and called out +sharply. Wyllard, who failed to understand him, did not move, and he +spoke again. What he said was still unintelligible, but Wyllard, who +had fallen in with a few Germans from Minnesota on the prairie, fancied +that he recognised the language. He made a sign that it was still +beyond his comprehension, and the stranger tried again. This time it +was French he spoke. + +"You can come forward, comrade," he said. + +He did not seem to be hostile, and Wyllard, who tossed his rifle into +the hollow of his left arm, moved out to meet him a pace or two. + +"You are Russian?" he said, in the language the other had used, for +French of a kind is freely spoken in parts of Canada. + +The man laughed. "That afterwards," he answered. "It is said so. My +name is Overweg--Albrecht Overweg. As to you, it appears you do not +understand Russian." + +Wyllard drew a little nearer, and sat down upon a boulder. Now the +tension had somewhat slackened his weariness had once more become +almost insupportable, and he felt that he might need his strength and +senses. In the meanwhile he was somewhat bewildered by the encounter, +for it was certainly astonishing to fall in with a man who spoke three +civilised languages and wore spectacles in that desolate wilderness. + +"No," he said, "it is almost the first time I have heard it." + +"Ah," said the other, "there is a certain significance in that +admission, my friend. It is permissible to inquire where you have come +from, and what you are doing here?" + +Wyllard, who had no desire to give him any information upon the latter +point, pointed towards the east. + +"That is where I come from. As to my business, at the moment you will +excuse me. It is perhaps not a rudeness to ask what is yours?" + +The stranger laughed. "Caution, it seems, is necessary; and to the +east, where you have pointed, there is only the sea. I will, however, +tell you my business. It is the science, and not"--he seemed to add +this with a certain significance--"in any way connected with the +administration of the country." + +Wyllard was conscious of a vast relief on hearing this, but as he was +not quite sure that he could believe it, he felt that prudence was +still advisable. In any case, he could not let the stranger go away +until he had learned whether there were any more white men with him. +He sat still, thinking rather hard for a moment or two. + +"You have a camp somewhere near?" he asked at length. + +"Certainly," said the other. "You will come back with me, or shall I +come to yours?" + +"There are several of you?" + +"Besides myself, two Kamtchadales." + +"Then," said Wyllard, "I will come with you. I have left two comrades +a little further down the ravine. Will you wait until I bring them?" + +The stranger made a sign of assent, and sitting down upon a ledge of +rock took out a cigar. Wyllard now felt more sure of him, since it was +evident that had he meditated any treachery he would naturally have +preferred him to make the visit unattended. In any case, it seemed +likely that he would have something to eat in his camp. + +Wyllard plodded back down the ravine, and when he reappeared with the +others Overweg was still sitting there in the gathering darkness. He +greeted them with a wave of his hand, and rising, silently led the way +up the hollow until they came into sight of a little tent that +glimmered beneath a rock. There was a light inside it, and two dusky +figures were silhouetted against the canvas. When the party reached +it, Overweg drew the flap back, and the light shone upon his face as he +signed them to enter. Wyllard standing still a moment looked at him +steadily, and then seeing the little smile in his eyes quietly went in. + +After that Overweg called to one of the Kamtchadales, who came in and +busied himself about the cooking lamp, while his guests sat down with a +sense of luxurious content among the skins that were spread upon the +ground sheet. After the raw cold outside the tent was very snug and +warm. They said little, however, and Overweg made no attempt at +conversation until the Kamtchadale laid out a meal, when he watched +them with a smile while they ate voraciously. He had stripped his furs +off, and sat with his knees drawn up on one of the skins, a little, +plump, round-faced man, with tow-coloured hair, and eyes that gleamed +shrewdly behind his spectacles. + +"Shall I open another can?" he asked at length. + +"No," said Wyllard. "We owe you thanks enough already. Provisions are +evidently plentiful with you." + +Overweg nodded. "I have a base camp two or three days' journey back," +he said. "It is possible that I shall make a depôt. We brought our +stores up from the south with dog sleds before the snow grew soft, but +it is necessary for me to push on further. My business, you +understand, is the scientific survey; to report upon the natural +resources of the country." + +He paused, and his manner changed a little when he went on again. "I +have," he added, "to this extent taken you into my confidence, and I +invite an equal candour. Two things are evident. You have made a long +journey, and your French is not that one hears in Paris." + +"First of all," said Wyllard, "I must ask again are you a Russian?" + +Overweg spread his hands out with a little whimsical gesture. "My +name, which I have told you, is not Sclavonic, and it may be admitted +that I was born in Bavaria. In the meanwhile, it is true that I have +been sent on a mission by the Russian Government." + +"I wonder," said Wyllard reflectively, "how far you consider your duty +towards your employers goes." + +Overweg's eyes twinkled. "It covers all that can be ascertained about +the geological structure and the fauna of the country, especially the +fauna that produce marketable furs. At present I am not convinced that +it goes very much further." + +It was clear to Wyllard that he was to a large extent in this man's +hands already, since he could not reach the inlet without provisions, +and Overweg could, if he thought fit, send back a messenger to the +Russian authorities. He was one who could think quickly and make a +momentous decision, and he realised that if he could not win the man's +sympathy there must be open hostility between them. It seemed possible +that he might obviate any necessity for the latter. + +"In that case I think I may tell you what has brought me here," he +said. "If you have travelled much in Kamchatka you can, perhaps, help +me. To begin with, I sailed from Vancouver, in Canada, going on for a +year ago." + +It took him some time to make his errand clear, and then Overweg looked +at him in a rather curious fashion. + +"It is," he said, "a tale that in these days one finds some little +difficulty in believing. Still, it must be admitted that I am +acquainted with one fact which appears to substantiate it." + +Then as he saw the blood rise to Wyllard's forehead he broke off with a +little soft laugh. + +"My friend," he added, "is it permitted to offer you my felicitations? +The men who would attempt a thing of this kind are, I think, singularly +rare." + +"The fact?" said Wyllard, impatiently. + +"There is a Kamtchadale in my base camp who told me of a place where a +white man was buried some distance to the west of us. He spoke of a +second white man, but nobody, I understand, knows what became of him." + +Wyllard straightened himself suddenly. "You will send for that +Kamtchadale?" + +"Assuredly. The tale you have told me has stirred my curiosity. As my +path lies west up the river valley, we can, if it pleases you, go on +for a while together." + +Wyllard, who thanked him, turned to Charly with a faint sigh of relief. + +"It seems that we shall not bring those men back, but I think we may +find out where they lie," he said. Charly made no comment, for this +was the most he had expected, and a few minutes later there was silence +in the little tent when the men lay down to sleep among the skins. + +They started at sunrise next morning, and followed the river slowly by +easy stages until the man sent back to Overweg's base camp overtook +them with another Kamtchadale. Then they pushed on still further +inland, and it was a week later when one evening their guide led them +up to a little pile of stones upon a lonely ridge of rock. There were +two letters very rudely cut on one of them, and Wyllard, who stooped +down beside it, took off his cap when he rose. + +"There's no doubt that Jake Leslie lies here," he said, and looked at +Overweg. "Your man is sure it was only one white man who buried him?" + +Overweg spoke to the Kamtchadale, who answered him. + +"There was only one white man," he said. "It seems he went inland +afterwards--at least a year ago." + +Then Wyllard turned to Charly, and his face was very grave. "That +makes it certain that two of them have died. There was one left, and +he may be dead by this time." He spread his hands out with a forceful +gesture. "If one only knew!" + +Charly made no answer. He was not a man of education or much +imagination, but like others of his kind he had alternately borne many +privations in the wilderness, logging, prospecting, trail-cutting about +the remoter mines, and at sea. As one result of this there crept into +his mind some recognition of what the outcast who lay at rest beside +their feet had had to face--the infinite toil of the march, the black +despair, the blinding snow, and Arctic frost. He met his leader's gaze +with a look of comprehending sympathy. + +By what grim efforts and primitive devices their comrade, had clung to +life so long as he had done it seemed very probable that they would +never know, but they clearly realised that though some might call it an +illegal raid, or even piracy, it was a work of mercy this outlaw who +had borne so much had undertaken when he was cast away. In the word to +swing the boats over and face the roaring surf in the darkness of the +night he had heard the clear call of duty, and had fearlessly obeyed. +His obedience had cost him much, but as the man who had come so far to +search for him looked down upon the little pile of stones that had been +raised above his bones in the desolate wilderness, there awoke within +him a sure recognition of the fact that this was not the end. That, at +least, was unthinkable. His comrade, sloughing off the half-frozen, +suffering flesh, had gone on to join the immortals--with his duty done. + +It was with a warmth at his heart and a slight haziness in his eyes +that Wyllard turned away at length, but when he put on his fur cap +again he was more determined than ever to carry out the search. There +were many perils and difficulties to be faced, but he felt that he must +not flinch. + +"One man went inland," he said to Overweg. "I must go that way, too." + +The little spectacled scientist looked at him curiously. + +"Ah," he said, "the road your comrade travelled is a hard one. You +have seen what it leads to." + +Then Wyllard did what is in the case of such men as he was a somewhat +unusual thing, for he gave another a glimpse of the feelings he +generally kept hidden deep in him. + +"No," he said, quietly, "the hard road leads further--where we do not +know--but one feels that the full knowledge will not bring sorrow when +it is some day given to those who have the courage to follow." + +Overweg spread his hands out. "It is not the view of the materialists, +but it is conceivable that the materialists may be wrong. In this +case, however, it is the concrete and practical we have to grapple +with, my friend. You say you are going inland to search for that man, +and for awhile I go that way, but though I have my base camp there is +the question of provisions if you come with me." + +They discussed the matter until Wyllard suggested that he could replace +any provisions his companion supplied him with from the schooner, to +which Overweg agreed, and they afterwards decided to send the Siwash +and one of the Kamtchadales on to the inlet with a letter to Dampier. +The two started next day when they found a place where the river was +with difficulty fordable, and the rest pushed on slowly into a broken +and rising country seamed with belts of thin forest here and there. +They held westwards for another week, and then one evening made their +camp among a few stunted and straggling firs. The temperature had +risen in the day-time, but the nights were cold, and when they had +eaten their evening meal they were glad of the shelter of the tent. A +small fire of resinous branches was sinking into a faintly glowing mass +close outside of it. + +The flap was, however, drawn back, and Wyllard, who lay facing the +opening, could see a triangular patch of dim blue sky with a sharp +sickle moon hanging low above a black fir branch. The night was clear +and still, but now and then there was a faint elfin sighing among the +stunted trees that died away again. He was then, while still +determined, moodily discouraged, for they had seen no sign of human +life during the journey, and his reason told him that he might search +for years before he found the bones of the last survivor of the party. +Still, he meant to search while Overweg was willing to supply him with +provisions. + +By and bye he saw Charly sharply raise his head and gaze towards the +opening. + +"Did you hear anything outside?" he asked. + +"It would be the Kamtchadales," said Wyllard. + +"They went back a mile or two to lay some traps." + +"Then," said Wyllard, decisively, "it couldn't have been anything." + +Charly did not appear satisfied, and it seemed to Wyllard that Overweg +was also listening, but there was deep stillness outside now, and he +dismissed the matter from his mind. A few minutes later it, however, +seemed to him that a shadowy form appeared out of the gloom among the +firs and faded into it again. This struck him as very curious, since +if it had been one of the Kamtchadales he would have walked straight +into camp, but he said nothing to his companions, and there was silence +for a while until Charly rose softly to his feet. + +"Get out as quietly as you can," he said, as he slipped by Wyllard, who +crept after him to the entrance. + +When he reached it his companion's voice rang out with a startling +vehemence. + +"Stop right now!" he cried, and after a pause, "Nobody's going to hurt +you. Walk right ahead." + +Then Wyllard felt his heart beat furiously, for a dusky, half-seen +figure materialised out of the gloom, and grew into sharper form as it +drew nearer to the sinking fire. The thing was wholly unexpected, +almost incredible, but it was clear that the man could understand +English, and his face was white. In another moment Wyllard's last +doubt vanished, and he sprang forward with a gasp. + +"Lewson--Tom Lewson," he said. + +Then Charly thrust the man inside the tent, and when somebody lighted a +lamp he sat down stupidly and looked at them. His face was gaunt and +furrowed, and almost blackened by exposure to the frost, his hair was +long, and tattered garments of greasy skins hung about him. There was +also something that suggested bewildered incredulity in his eyes. + +"It's real?" he said, slowly and haltingly. "You have come at last?" + +They assured him that this was the case, and for a moment or two the +man's face worked and he made a hoarse sound in his throat. + +"Lord," he said, "if I'm dreaming I don't want to wake." + +Charly leaned forward and smote him on the shoulder. + +"Shall I hit you like I did that afternoon in the Thompson House on the +Vancouver water front?" he asked. + +Then the certainty of the thing seemed to dawn upon the man, for he +quivered, and his eyes half closed. After that he straightened himself +with an effort. + +"I should have known, and I think I did," he said. "Something seemed +to tell me that you would come for us when you could." + +Wyllard's face flushed, but he said nothing, and it was Charly who +asked the next question. + +"The others are dead?" + +Lewson made a little expressive gesture. "Hopkins was drowned in a +crevice of the ice. I buried Leslie back yonder." + +He broke off abruptly, as though speech cost him an effort, and Wyllard +turned to Overweg. + +"This is the last of the men I was looking for," he said. + +Overweg quietly nodded. "Then you have my felicitations--but it might +be advisable if you did not tell me too much," he said. "Afterwards I +may be questioned by those in authority." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +CAST AWAY. + +Tom Lewson had been an hour in camp before he commenced the story of +his wanderings, and at first he spoke slowly and falteringly, lying +propped up on one elbow, with the lamplight on his worn face. + +"We broke an oar coming off the beach that night, and it kind of +crippled us," he said. "Twice she nearly went back again in the surf, +and I don't quite know how we pulled her off. Anyway, one of us was +busy heaving out the water that broke into her. It was Jake, I think, +and he seemed kind of silly. Once we saw a boat hove up on a sea, but +we lost her in the spray, and a long while after we saw the schooner. +Just then a comber that broke on board most hove us over, and when we +had dodged the next two there wasn't a sign of her. After that we knew +that we were done, and we just tried to keep her head-to and ease her +to the seas." + +He stopped a moment, and looked round at the others with troubled eyes, +as though trying to marshal uncertain memories, for this was a simple +sailorman, who contented himself with the baldest narrative. Still, +two of those who heard him could fill in the things he had not +mentioned--the mad lurching of the half-swamped boat, the tense +struggle with the oars each time a big frothing comber forged out of +the darkness, and the savage desperation of the drenched and +half-frozen men cast away with the roaring surf to lee of them and +their enemies watching upon the hammered beach. + +"It blew hard that night," he added. "Somehow she lived through it, +but there wasn't a sign of the island when morning came. Nothing but +the combers and the flying haze. Guess the wind must have shifted a +few points and drove us by the end of it. Then we found Jake had his +head laid open by a sealing club. The sea was getting longer, and as +we were too played out to hold her to it we got her away before it, and +somehow she didn't roll over. I think it was next day, though it might +have been longer, when we fetched another island. She just washed up +on it, and one of the others pulled me out. There wasn't a sign of +anybody on the beach, but there were plenty of skinned holluschackie +seals on the slope behind it, and that was fortunate for us." + +"You struck nobody on the island?" enquired Wyllard. + +"We didn't," said Lewson simply. "The Russians must have sent a vessel +to take off the killers after the last drive of the season a day or two +before, for the holluschackie were quite fresh, and perhaps it was +blowing hard and the surf getting steep, for they'd left quite a few of +their things behind them. Anyway, that was how we figured it. We +found the shacks the killers lived in, and we made out that winter in +one of them." + +It occurred to Wyllard that this was a thing very few men except +sealers could have done had they been cast ashore without stores or +tools to face the awful winter of the north. + +"How did you get through?" he asked. + +"Well," said Lewson, "we had a rifle, and the ca'tridges weren't +spoilt. The killers hadn't taken their cooking outfit, and by and bye +we got a walrus in an open lane among the ice. They'd left some gear +behind them, but we were most of two days cutting and heaving the beast +out with a parbuckle under him. There was no trouble about things +keeping in that frost. Besides, we'd the holluschackie blubber to +burn, and there was a half-empty bag or two of stores in one of the +shacks. No, we hadn't any great trouble in making out." + +"You had to stay there until the ice broke up?" said Charly. + +"And after. The boat was gone, and we couldn't get away. She broke up +in the surf, and we burned what we saved of her. At last a schooner +came along, and we hid out across the island until she'd gone away. It +was blowing fresh, and hazy, and she just shoved a new gang of killers +ashore. There was an Okotsk Russian with them, but he made no trouble +for us. He was white, anyway, and it kind of seemed to me he didn't +like one of the other men who got hurt that night on the beach." + +"Then some of them did get badly hurt?" Wyllard broke in. + +Lewson laughed, a little, almost silent laugh, which nevertheless +sounded strangely grim. + +"Well," he said, "from what that Russian told us--and we got to +understand each other by and bye--one of the killers had his ribs +broke, and it seems that another would go lame for life. Besides, +among other things, there was a white man got his face quite smashed. +I saw him after with his nose flattened way out to starboard, and one +eye canted. He was a boss of some kind. They called him Smirnoff." + +Overweg looked up sharply. "Ah," he said, "Smirnoff. A man with an +unsavoury name. I have heard of him." + +"Anyway," Lewson went on, "we killed seals all the open season with +that Russian, and I've no fault to find with him. In fact, I figure if +he could have fixed it he'd have left us on the island that winter, but +when a schooner came to take the killers off and collect the skins +Smirnoff was on board of her. That"--and an ominous gleam crept into +Lewson's eyes--"was the real beginning of the trouble." + +"He had us hauled up before him--guess the other man had to tell him +who we were--and when I wouldn't answer he slashed me with a +sled-dog-whip across the face." + +Lewson clenched a lean brown fist. "Yes," he added, hoarsely, "I was +whipped--but they should have tied my hands first. It was not my fault +I didn't have that man's life. It was most a minute before three of +them pulled me off him, and he was considerably worse to look at then." + +There was silence for a minute or two, and Wyllard, who felt his own +face grow a trifle warm, saw the suggestive hardness in Charly's eyes. +Lewson was gazing out into the darkness, but the veins were swollen on +his forehead and his whole body had stiffened. Then he spread his +hands out. + +"We'll let that go. I can't think of it. They put us on board the +schooner, and by and bye she ran into a creek on the coast. We were to +be sent somewhere to be dealt with, and we knew what that meant, with +what they had against us. Well, they went ashore to collect some skins +from the Kamtchadales, and at night we cut the boat adrift. We got off +in the darkness, and if they followed they never trailed us. Guess +they figured we couldn't make out through the winter that was coming +on." + +So far the story had been more or less connected and comprehensible. +It laid no great tax on Wyllard's credulity, and, indeed, all that +Lewson described had come about very much as Dampier had once or twice +suggested; but it seemed an almost impossible thing that the three men +should have survived during the years that followed. Lewson, as it +happened, never made that matter very clear. He sat silent for almost +a minute before he went on again. + +"We hauled the boat out, and hid her among the rocks, and after that we +fell in with some Kamtchadales going north," he said. "They took us +along, I don't know how far, but they were trapping for furs, and by +and bye--I think it was months after--we got away from them. Then we +fell in with another crowd, and went on further north with them. They +were Koriaks, and we lived with them a long while--a winter and a +summer anyway. It was more, perhaps--I can't remember." + +He broke off with a vague gesture, and sat looking at the others +vacantly with his lean face furrowed. + +"We must have been with them two years--but I don't quite know. It was +all the same up yonder--ever so far to the north." + +It seemed to Wyllard that he had seldom heard anything more expressive +in its way than this sailorman's brief and fragmentary description of +his life in the wilderness. He had heard from steam whaler skippers a +little about the tundra that fringes the Polar Sea, the vast desolation +frozen hard in summer a few inches below the surface, on which nothing +beyond the mosses ever grew. It was easy to understand the +brain-crushing sameness and monotony of an existence chequered only by +times of dire scarcity on those lonely shores. + +"How did you live?" he asked. + +"There were the birds in summer, and fish in the rivers. In winter we +killed things in the lanes in the ice, though there were weeks when we +lay about the blubber lamp in the pits. They made pits and put a roof +on them. I don't know why we stayed there, but Jake had always a +notion that we might get across to Alaska--somehow. We were way out on +the ice one day when Jim fell into a crevice, and we couldn't get him +out." + +He broke off, and sat still awhile as one dreaming. "I can't put +things together, but at last we came south, Jake and I, and struck the +Kamtchadales again. We could talk to them, and one of them told us +about a schooner lying in an inlet by a settlement. The Russians had +brought her there from the islands, and she must have been a sealer. +Jake figured it was just possible we might run away with her and push +across for the Aleutians or Alaska." + +Charly looked up suddenly. "She--was--a sealer--Hayson's _Seminole_. +I was in Victoria when we heard that the Russians had seized her." + +Wyllard turned to Overweg, who nodded when he asked a question in +French. + +"Yes," he said, "I believe the vessel lies in the inlet still. They +have used her now and then. It is understood that they were warranted +in seizing her, but I think there was some diplomatic pressure brought +to bear on them, for they sent her crew home." + +Then Lewson went on again. "Food was scarce that season, and we got +most nothing in the traps," he said. "Besides, there were Russians out +prospecting, and that headed us off. We figured that some of the +Kamtchadales who traded skins to the settlements would put them on our +trail. When we went to look for the boat she'd gone, but we hadn't +much notion of getting off in her, though another time--I don't +remember when--we gave two Kamtchadales messages we'd cut on slips of +wood. Sometimes the schooners stood in along the coast." + +Wyllard nodded. "Dunton of the _Cypress_ got your message," he said. +"He was in difficulties then, but he afterwards sent it me." + +"Well," said Lewson, "there isn't much more to it. We hung about the +beach awhile, and then went north before the winter. Jake played out +on the trail. By and bye he had to let up, and in a day or two I +buried him." + +He spread his hands out, and his voice grew hoarse. "After that it +didn't seem to matter what became of me, but I kept the trail somehow, +and found I couldn't stay up yonder. That's why I started south with +some of them before the summer came. Now I'm here--talking +English--talking with white men--but it doesn't seem the same as it +should have been--without the others." + +He broke off, and said no more that night, but Wyllard translated part +of his story for the benefit of Overweg. The latter made a little +expressive gesture. + +"The thing, it seems incredible," he commented. "This man, who has so +little to tell, knows things which would make a trained explorer +famous." + +"It generally happens that way," said Wyllard with a dry smile. "The +men who know can't tell." + +Overweg made a sign of assent, and then changed the subject. + +"What will you do now?" + +"Start for the inlet where we expect to find the schooner at sunrise. +I want to say"--and Wyllard hesitated--"that you have laid an +obligation on me which I can never repay; but I can, at least, replace +the provisions you have supplied me with." + +"That goes for nothing," said the other with a smile. "I have, +however, drawn upon my base camp rather heavily, and should be glad of +any stores from the schooner that you could let me have. The +difficulty is that I do not wish to go too far towards the beach." + +They arranged a rendezvous a day or two's march from the inlet, and in +another half-hour all of them were fast asleep. + +When the first of the daylight came Wyllard set off with his two +companions, and since it was evident that Dampier must have now lain in +the inlet awaiting them a considerable time, they marched fast for +several days. Then to their consternation they came upon the Siwash +lying beside a river badly lame. It appeared that in climbing a +slippery ridge of rock the knee he had injured had given way, and he +had fallen some distance heavily, after which the Kamtchadale finding +him helpless had disappeared with most of the provisions. None of the +party ever learned what had become of him, but they realised in the +meanwhile that the situation was now a rather serious one. Charly, who +looked at Wyllard when he had heard the Indian's story, explained it +concisely. + +"I'm worrying about the boat we left on the edge of the ice," he said. +"I've had a notion all along it was going to make trouble. Dampier +would see the wreckage when he ran in, and I guess it would only mean +one thing to him. He'd make quite certain he was right when he didn't +find us at the inlet." He paused and pointed towards the distant sea. +"You have got to push right on with Lewson as fast as you can while I +try to bring the Siwash along." + +Wyllard started in the next few minutes, and afterwards never quite +forgot the strain and stress of that arduous march. The journey he had +made with Overweg had been difficult enough, but they had then, at +least, traversed rising ground from which most of the melting snow had +drained away. Now, however, as they approached the more level littoral +there were wide tracts of mire and swamp to be painfully floundered +through, while every ravine and hollow was swept by a frothing torrent, +and they had often to search for hours for a place where it was +possible to cross. To make things worse, they were drenched with +bitter rain half the time, and trails of dingy mist obscured their +path, but they toiled on stubbornly through every obstacle, though it +was only by the tensest effort that Wyllard kept pace with his +companion. The gaunt, long-haired Lewson seemed proof against physical +weariness, and there was seldom any change in the expression of his +grim, lined face. Now and then Wyllard felt a curious shrinking as he +glanced at it, for its fixed look suggested what this man had borne in +the awful solitudes of the frozen north. + +Slowly, with infinite toil, they crossed the weary leagues, lying at +night with a single skin between them and the soil, for they travelled +light; and Wyllard was limping painfully with his boots worn off his +feet, when at length one morning they came into sight of a low +promontory which rose against a stretch of grey, lifeless sea. His +heart throbbed fast as he realised that behind it lay the inlet into +which Dampier had arranged to bring the _Selache_. He glanced at +Lewson, who said nothing, and they plodded forward faster than before. + +The misty sun was high in the heavens when at length they reached the +foot of the steep rise, and Wyllard gasped heavily as they crept up the +ascent. He was making a severe muscular effort; but it was the nervous +tension that troubled him most, for he knew that he would look down +upon the inlet from the summit. He blamed himself bitterly for not +sending on a messenger to Dampier when he fell in with Overweg, which, +in his eagerness to follow up the clue the latter had given him, he had +at first omitted to do. There had certainly been difficulties in the +way, for the increase in the scientist's party had made additional +packers necessary, and Wyllard felt that he could not reasonably compel +him to leave the camp comforts he had evidently been accustomed to +behind. In spite of that, he had been at fault in not disregarding +every objection, and he realised it now. + +Somehow he kept pace with Lewson, but he closed one hand tight as he +neared the top. When he reached it he stopped suddenly, and his face +set hard as he looked down, standing very still. Beneath him lay a +strip of dim, green water, with a fringe of soft, white surf at the +foot of the promontory, while beyond the latter there stretched away an +empty expanse of slowly heaving sea. There was nothing else, however; +no schooner in the inlet, no boat upon the beach. + +In another moment or two they went down the slope savagely at a +stumbling run, and then stopped, gasping by the water's edge, and +looked at one another. There were marks in the sand which showed them +where a boat had been drawn up not very long ago. The _Selache_ had +evidently been there, and had sailed away again. + +Then Wyllard sat down limply upon the shingle, for all the strength +seemed to suddenly melt out of him, and it was several minutes before +he looked up. Lewson was still standing, a shapeless, barbaric figure +in his garments of skins, with a dark lined face that had scarcely +changed, gazing out to sea. The hide moccasins he wore had chafed +through, and Wyllard noticed that the blood was trickling from one of +his feet. + +"Well?" he said, harshly. + +Wyllard laid a stern restraint upon himself. Their case looked +desperate, but it must, at least, be grappled with. + +"We must go back and meet the rest," he said. "That first--what is to +come afterwards I don't quite know." Then a faint gleam of resolution +crept into his eyes. "The schooner the Russians seized lies in an +inlet down the coast." + +Lewson made a sign of comprehension. "There are four of us. There +will be birds by and bye. I can trap things." + +Then he flung himself down near his comrade, and for an hour neither of +them said anything. Wyllard, at least, was worn-out physically, and +limp from the last few hours' mental strain, while Lewson very seldom +said more than was absolutely necessary. Then they made a very frugal +meal, and long afterwards Wyllard was haunted by the memory of that +dreary afternoon during which he lay upon the shingle watching the slow +pulsations of the dim, lifeless sea. + +They set out again early next morning, and, as it happened, found a +little depôt of provisions that Dampier had made, but it was several +days before they met Charly and the Indian, and another week had passed +before Overweg reached the place appointed. He listened to Wyllard's +story gravely, and then appeared to consider. + +"You have some plans?" he asked. + +Wyllard admitted that this was the case, and Overweg smiled behind his +spectacles. + +"It is, perhaps, better that you do not tell me what they are," he +said. "There is, however, one thing I can do. You say you left some +stores you could not carry at the depôt, which I will take, for +provisions are now not plentiful with me, but there are still a few +things you have not which are almost necessary at my base camp, +and"--he spread his hands out--"after all, if I have to go south a +little earlier than I intended it is not a great matter." + +He wrote on a strip of paper which he handed to Wyllard. "You will +take these, and nothing else. I may add that Smirnoff is stationed at +the inlet where the schooner lies." + +Wyllard thanked him, and then looked him in the eyes. "There is a long +journey before us, and you have only my word that I will take nothing +but these things." + +Overweg nodded quietly. "Yes," he said, "it is, however, perhaps +permissible to assure you that it is sufficient for me." + +Very little more was said, and in another half-hour Wyllard and his +companions were ready to set out. He and the little spectacled +scientist grasped each other's hands, and then Wyllard abruptly turned +away. A few minutes later he turned again, and looking back saw +Overweg standing upon the ridge where he had left him silhouetted +against a low, grey sky. He raised his cap once, and Wyllard, who +answered him, swung round once more, and strode on faster towards the +south. He knew that his regard for this stranger who had fallen across +his path would remain unchanged while his life should last. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE LAST EFFORT. + +It was after a long and arduous journey which had left its mark on all +of them that Wyllard and his companions lay among the boulders beside a +sheltered inlet waiting for the dusk to fall one lowering evening. +They were cramped and aching, for they had scarcely moved during the +last hour; their garments were badly tattered, and their half-covered +feet were bleeding. They were, as they recognised, a pitiful company +to seize a vessel, with three knives and one rifle between them, but +there was resolution in their haggard faces. + +Close in front of them the green water lapped softly among the stones. +The breeze was light off shore, and the tide, which was just running +ebb, rippled against the bows of a little schooner lying some thirty +yards from the bank. She had been seized for illegal sealing some +years earlier, and it was evident that she had been very little used +since then. The paint was peeling from her cracked and weathered side, +her gear was frayed and bleached with frost and rain, and only very +hard-pressed men would have faced the thought of going to sea in her. +Wyllard and his companions were, however, very hard-pressed indeed, and +they preferred the hazards of a voyage in the crazy vessel to falling +into the Russians' hands. It was also clear that they had no choice. +It must be either one thing or the other. + +Some little distance up-stream a low rise cut against the dingy sky. +It shut off all view of the upper part of the inlet, which wound in +behind it, but Wyllard and his companions had cautiously climbed the +slope earlier in the afternoon, and lying flat upon the summit had +looked down upon the little wooden houses that clustered above the +beach. He had then decided that this part of the inlet would dry out +at about half-ebb, and as the schooner's boat, which he meant to seize, +lay upon the shingle it was evident that he must carry out his plans +within the next three hours. + +These were very simple. There was nobody on board the schooner, which +lay in deeper water, and he fancied that it would be possible to swim +off to her and slip the cable; but they must have provisions, and there +was, so far as he could see, only one way of obtaining them. A +building which stood by itself close beside the beach was evidently a +store, for he had seen two men carrying bags and cases out of it under +the superintendence of a third in some kind of uniform, and it appeared +to be unguarded. Wyllard, who had reasons for surmising that the few +settlements on the coast were under strict official control, fancied +that the store contained Government supplies, and had arranged that +Charly and Lewson should break into it as soon as darkness fell, and +pull off to the schooner with anything they could find inside. Whether +they would succeed in doing this he did not know, and he admitted to +himself that it scarcely seemed probable, but he could think of no +other plan, and the attempt must be made. + +In the meanwhile a thin haze drove across the crest of the rise, the +breeze freshened slightly, and the little ripples lapped more noisily +along the shingle. There was evidently a good deal of fresh water +coming down the inlet, and it was in a fever of impatience he watched +the schooner strain at her cable. That evening had already seemed the +longest he had ever spent in his life. By and bye it commenced to +rain, and little streams of chilly water trickled about the weary men, +but they lay still, with lips tight set, in tense suspense. What +Lewson had had to face in the awful icy wastes to the north of them +Wyllard could scarcely imagine, and Lewson could not tell, but he and +his two other comrades had borne things almost beyond endurance since +he commenced his search, and now there was far too much at stake for +him to increase the odds against them by any undue precipitancy. He +was then in a dangerous mood, but he had laid his plans with grim, +cold-blooded caution, and he meant to adhere to them. + +At length, and very slowly, the light faded, until the beach grew +shadowy, and the schooner's spars and rigging showed dim and blurred +against a dusky background. The rise that shut off the settlement was +lost in drifting haze, and the dull rumble of the surf on the outer +beach came up more sharply through the gathering darkness. The +measured beat of its deep pulsations almost maddened Wyllard as he lay +and listened, for if all went right he would be sliding out over the +long heave with every sail piled on to the crazy schooner in another +hour or two. + +At length, when there was only a faint gleam of water sliding by below, +he rose stiffly to his feet, and Lewson stretched out a hand for the +rifle that lay among the stones. There was a sharp click as he jerked +the lever, and then he laughed, a little jarring laugh, as the magazine +snapped back. + +"They'll treat us as pirates if they get hands on us--and I've been +lashed in the face--with a sled-dog-whip," he said. + +Charly said nothing as he loosened the long seaman's knife in his belt, +and Wyllard made no remonstrance, for there is, as he recognised, a +point beyond which prudence does not count. After what Overweg had +once or twice told him, it was unthinkable that they should fall into +Smirnoff's hands. + +Then Lewson and Charly melted away into the darkness, and Wyllard and +the Siwash walked quietly down to the water's edge, a little up-stream +of the schooner, as the stream was running strong. They, however, +stripped off nothing, for it was evident that none of the rags they +left behind could be replaced, and they knew from experience that when +the first shock is over a man swimming in icy water is kept a little +warmer by his clothing. For all that, the cold struck through Wyllard +like a knife when he flung himself forward and swung his left hand out, +and it was perhaps a minute before he was clearly conscious of anything +beyond the physical agony and the mental effort to retain control of +his faculties. Then he made out the schooner, a vague, blurred shape a +little down-stream of him, and he swam furiously, his face dipping +under each time his left hand came out. + +He drew level with her, clutched at her cable, a foot short, and was +driven against her bows. Then the stream swept him onward, gasping, +and clawing savagely at her slippery side, until his fingers found a +hold. It was merely the rounded top of a bolt, but with a desperate +effort he clutched the bent iron that led up from it to one of the +dead-eyes of the mainmast-shrouds. He could not, however, draw himself +up any further, and he hung on, wondering when his strength would fail +him, until the Siwash, who had already crawled up the cable, leaned +down from above and seized his shoulder. In another moment or two he +reached the rail, and went staggering across the deck, dripping, and +half dazed. + +Action was, however, imperatively necessary, and he braced himself for +the effort. The schooner was lying with her anchor up-stream, but he +did not think it would be possible to heave her over it and break it +out unless he waited until the others arrived, and it would then be a +lengthy and, what was more to the purpose, a noisy operation. The +anchor must be sacrificed, but there was the difficulty that he could +hardly expect to find a shackle on the cable in the dark. Running +forward with the Siwash, he pulled a chain stopper out, and then +shipping the windlass levers found with vast relief that it would work. +It would make a horribly distinct clanking, he knew, but that could not +be helped, and the next thing was to discover if the end of the chain +was made fast below, for it is very seldom that a skipper finds it +necessary to pay all his cable out. + +Dropping into the darkness of the locker beneath the forecastle, he was +more fortunate than he could reasonably have expected to be, for as he +crawled over the rusty links he felt a shackle. It appeared to be of +the usual harp-pattern with a cottered pin, and he called out sharply +to the Siwash, who presently flung him an iron bar and a big spike. +Then he struck one of the two or three sulphur matches he had carefully +treasured, and when the sputtering blue flame went out set to work to +back the pin out in the dark. He smashed his knuckles and badly +bruised his hands, but he succeeded, and knew that he had shortened the +chain by two-thirds now. + +Then he scrambled up on deck again and hurried aft, for the vessel's +kedge had been laid out astern to prevent her swinging. There was a +heavy hemp warp attached to it, and it cost them some time to heave +most of it over, after which they proceeded to get the mainsail on to +her. It was covered with a coat, and Wyllard cut himself as he slashed +through the tiers in savage impatience. Then he and the Siwash toiled +at the halliards desperately, for the task of raising the heavy gaff +was almost beyond their powers. + +There was no grease on the mast-hoops, the blocks had evidently not +been used for months, and several times they desisted a moment or two, +gasping, breathless, and utterly exhausted. Still, foot by foot they +got the black canvas up, and then, leaving the peak hanging, ran +forward to the boom-foresail, which was smaller and lighter. They set +that, cast two jibs and the staysail loose, and let them lie, and +Wyllard sat down feeling that the thing they had done would, if +attempted in cold blood, have appeared almost impossible. + +It was done, however, and now he must wait until the boat appeared. +There was no sign of her, and as he gazed up the inlet, seeing only the +dim glimmer of the water and the sliding mist, the suspense became +almost intolerable. Minute slipped by after minute, and still nothing +loomed out of the haze. The canvas rustled and banged above him, there +was a growing splashing beneath the bows, and the schooner strained +more heavily at her cable. Everything was ready, only his comrades did +not appear. He clenched his hands and set his lips as he waited, and +wondered at the Siwash who sat upon the rail, a dim, shapeless figure, +impassively still. + +At length his heart throbbed furiously, for a faint splash of oars came +out of the darkness, and they both ran forward to the windlass. The +sharp clanking it made drowned the splash of oars, but in another +minute or two there was a crash as the boat drove alongside, and Charly +scrambled up with a rope while Lewson hurled sundry bags and cases +after him. Then he climbed on deck in turn, and Charly commenced a +breathless explanation. + +"It's all we could get. There's nobody on our trail," he said. + +The last fact was most important, and Wyllard cut him short. "Get the +jibs and staysail on to her." + +The new arrivals did it while the cable clanked and rattled as the +schooner drove astern, but at the first heave the rotten staysail tore +off the hanks, and one jib burst as they ran it up its stay. Then for +an anxious moment or two the cable jammed, and the anchor brought the +schooner up. All four flung themselves upon the windlass levers, and +after a furious effort the chain came up again and ran out faster, +fathom by fathom, rattling horribly, until the end of it shot suddenly +over the windlass. Then there was another check as the schooner +brought up by the kedge swung suddenly across the stream. + +Her banging canvas filled, she listed over, and it was evident to all +of them that if the kedge started she would forthwith drive ashore. +Its warp ripped out of the water tense with strain, and she was +swinging on it heading for the beach when; Wyllard flung himself upon +the wheel. + +"Hang on to every inch or break it!" he roared. "Out main-boom; box +your jib and staysail up to weather!" + +They did it, amidst a great clatter of blocks and thrashing of canvas, +in desperate haste, while Wyllard wrenched up his helm, and the +schooner, straining on the warp, fell away with her bows down-stream. +He was quivering all through, and the sweat of effort dripped from him +when he swung up an arm to Lewson, who was standing at the bollard the +warp was made fast to. + +"Now," he cried hoarsely, "let her go!" + +The rope fell with a splash, the schooner lurched forward and drove +away down the inlet with the stream running seaward under her, while +Wyllard felt a trifle dazed from sheer revulsion of feeling. The +rumble of the surf was growing louder, the deck slanted slightly +beneath him, and if they could keep her off the beach for the next few +minutes there was freedom before them. He hazarded a glance astern, +but could see no sign of a boat up the inlet. They had done a thing +which even then appeared almost incredible. + +The breeze came down fresher, the gurgle at the bows grew louder, and +the deck commenced to heave with a slow and regular rise and fall. +Then a long, shadowy point girt about with spectral surf slipped by, +and they were out in open water. They ran her out for an hour or two +and then, though the peak of the mainsail burst to tatters as they +hauled her on a wind, let her stretch away northwards following the +trend of coast. + +"We'll stand on as she's lying until we find a creek or river mouth. +We must have water," Wyllard said. + +An hour later he called Charly to the wheel, and sitting down in the +shelter of the rail soon afterwards went to sleep, though this was +about the last thing he had contemplated doing. It was grey dawn when +he opened his eyes again, and stood up, aching all over and very cold, +to see that the schooner was tumbling over a little spiteful sea with +the hazy loom of land not far away from her. Then he glanced at the +gear and canvas, and was almost appalled, while Charly, who was busy +close by, saw his face and grinned. + +"You don't want to look at her too much," he said. "We took a swig on +the peak-halliards a little while ago, and had to let up before we +pulled the gaff off her. Boom-foresail's worse, and the jibs are +dropping off her, while the water just pours in through her topsides +when she puts another lee plank down." + +Wyllard made a little expressive gesture, and leaned upon the rail. He +realised then something of the nature of the task he had undertaken. +They had no anchor, no fresh water, no fuel for cooking, and, so far as +he was aware, very few provisions, while it seemed to him that the +weathered, worn-out gear would not hold the masts in the vessel in any +weight of breeze. Still, the thing must be attempted, and there was +one want, at least, that could be supplied. + +"Anyway," he said, "we'll beat her in. When we come abreast of the +first creek you and Tom and the Siwash will go ashore." + +It was afternoon when they sighted one, and they took most of the +canvas off the vessel before three of them pulled away in the boat, +leaving Wyllard at the helm. It was blowing moderately fresh off +shore, and it was with feverish impatience he watched them toiling at +the oars, two of them pulling while the third man sculled. Then they +disappeared behind a point, and an anxious hour went by before the +boat, which now showed a very scanty strip of side above the tumbling +foam, crept out from the beach again. Having no breakers, they had +brought the water off in bulk, sitting in it as they pulled, and it was +fortunate that the boat lurched off shore easily before the little +splashing seas. They lost some of the water before they hove it into +the big and very rusty tank, and then they held a consultation when +they had swung the boat in and the schooner was running off to the east +again. + +"We've about stores enough to last two weeks--that is, if you don't +expect too much," Lewson pointed out. "There's an American stove in +the deck-house, and while we can't find anything meant to burn in it +there's an axe down forward, and we could cut out cabin floorings, or a +beam or two, without taking too much stiffening out of her." + +Wyllard, who had inspected the stores, fancied that a fortnight was the +very longest that could be counted on, though they ate no more than +would keep a modicum of strength in them. From their kind and quality +he surmised that they had been intended for the officials in charge of +the settlement. + +"How did you get them, Tom?" he asked. + +"The thing," said Lewson quietly, "was simple. It was dark and hazy, +and raining quite hard, and the first thing we did was to run the boat +down and leave her nearly afloat. Then we crawled back, and lay by +listening outside that store. We were figuring how we were to break it +in when two men came along. They went in and came out with a bag or +two, and as they left the door open we figured they were coming back +for more. We humped out a moderate load, and had just got it down to +the boat when we saw those men, or two others, in the haze. I was for +lying by, but Charly would get out then." + +Charly laughed drily. "He wanted to take the rifle and go back to look +for Smirnoff. I'd no use for any trouble of that kind, and I shoved +the boat off while he was seeing how many ca'tridges there were in the +magazine. He waded in and grabbed the boat when he saw I was sure +going, but I shoved her away from him. Then it kind of struck him he +had to get in or swim." + +Lewson's expression grew very grim. "That's the thing that hurts the +most--to go away before I got even with that man," he said. "Still, I +may get over it if I try to think of him with his nose smashed hard to +starboard." + +Wyllard made a sign of impatience. He felt that, after all, there was +perhaps something to be said for Smirnoff's point of view. + +"There is just one plan open to us, and that's to drive her across to +the eastward as fast as we can," he said. "We might, perhaps, pick up +an Alaska C.C. factory before the provisions quite run out if this +breeze and the gear hold up. Failing that, we must try for one of the +Western Aleutians." + +The others concurred in this, and very fortunately the breeze kept to +the west and south, for Wyllard had very grave doubts as to whether he +could have thrashed the schooner to windward through a steep head sea. +Indeed, on looking back on that voyage and remembering the state of the +vessel, it seemed to him that he and his companions had only escaped as +by a miracle. In any case, they hove her to one misty evening in a +deep inlet behind a promontory, and Wyllard, who sculled up it alone in +the growing darkness, badly startled the agent of an A.C.C. factory +when he appeared, ragged, haggard, and wet with rain, in the doorway of +a big, stove-warmed room. + +The agent, however, was, as he admitted, out for business, and when +Wyllard produced a wad of paper money stained by wet and perspiration +he appeared quite willing to part with certain provisions. He was also +told that no questions would be answered, and when he had given Wyllard +supper the latter sculled away in the darkness leaving him none the +wiser. Half an hour later the schooner slipped out to sea again. + +The rest was by comparison easy. They had the coast of Alaska and +British Columbia close aboard, and they crept southwards in fine +weather, once running off their course when the smoke of a steamer +crept up above the horizon. Then they ran for the northern tongue of +Vancouver Island in a strong breeze of wind, and Wyllard, who had +already decided that the vessel would scarcely fetch five hundred +dollars and that it would be better if all trace of her disappeared, +pulled his wheel over suddenly as she was scraping by a surf-swept reef. + +In another minute she was on hard and fast, and they had scarcely got +the boat over when the masts went with a crash. A quarter of an hour +later they were thrown up on the beach, and before they set out on a +long march through the bush there was very little to be seen of the +vessel. + +Three or four days afterwards they reached a little wooden town, and +Wyllard, who slipped into it alone in the dusk, bought clothing for +himself and his companions, who put it on in the bush. Then they went +into the town together, and slept that night in a wooden hotel. + +Their troubles were over, and, what was more, Wyllard, who pledged the +rest to secrecy, fancied that what had become of the schooner would +remain a mystery. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +WYLLARD COMES HOME. + +Harvest had commenced at the Range, and the clashing binders were +moving through the grain when Hawtrey sat one afternoon in Wyllard's +room at the Range. It was then about five o'clock, and every man +belonging to the homestead was toiling bare-armed and grimed with dust +among the yellow oats, but Hawtrey sat at a table gazing at the litter +of papers in front of him with a troubled face. He wore a white shirt +and store clothes, which was distinctly unusual in case of a Western +farmer at harvest time, and Edmonds, the mortgage jobber, leaned back +in a big chair quietly watching him. + +The latter had, as it happened, called at a singularly inconvenient +time, and Hawtrey was anxious to get rid of him before the guests he +expected arrived. It was Sally's birthday, and since she took pleasure +in simple festivities of any kind he had arranged to celebrate it at +the Range. He was, however, sufficiently acquainted with his +companion's character to realise that it was most unlikely that he +would take his departure before he had accomplished the purpose which +had brought him there. This was to collect several thousand dollars. + +It was quite clear to Hawtrey that he was in an unpleasantly tight +place. Edmonds held a bond upon his homestead, teams, and implements +as security for a short date loan, repayment of which was due, and he +was to be married to Sally in a month or so. + +"Can't you wait a little?" he asked at length. + +"I'm afraid not," was the uncompromising reply. "Money's tight this +fall, and things have gone against me. Besides, you could pay me off +if you wanted to." + +Edmonds turned towards an open window, and glanced at the great stretch +of yellow grain that ran back across the prairie. Dusty teams and +binders with flashing wooden arms moved half-hidden along the edge of +it, and the still, clear air was filled with a clash and clatter and +the rustle of flung-out sheaves. + +There was no doubt that money could be raised upon that harvest field. +Indeed, Hawtrey fancied that his companion would be quite content to +take a bond for the delivery of so many thousand bushels in repayment +of the loan, but while he had already gone further than he had at one +time contemplated doing, this was a course he shrank from suggesting. +After all, the grain was Wyllard's, and there was the difficulty that +Wyllard might still come back, while if he failed to do this an absence +of another few months would entitle his executors to presume him dead. +In either case, Hawtrey would be required to account for his property. + +"No," he said, "I can't take--that way." + +There was a trace of contempt in the mortgage jobber's smile. "You of +course understand just how you're fixed, but it seemed to me from that +draft of the arrangement with Wyllard that you have the power to do +pretty much what you like. Anyway, if you gave me a bond on as much of +that grain as would wipe out the loan at present figure, it would only +mean that you would have Wyllard's trustees for creditors instead of +me, and it's probable that they wouldn't be as hard upon you as I'm +compelled to be. As things stand, you have got to square up or I throw +your place on the market." + +Hawtrey's face betrayed his dismay, and his companion fancied that he +would yield to a little further pressure. He had not said anything +about the mortgage to Sally, and it would be singularly unpleasant to +be turned out upon the prairie within a month or two of his marriage, +for he could not count upon being left in possession of the Range much +longer. + +"I'm only entitled to handle Wyllard's money on--his--account," he +objected. + +Edmonds appeared to reflect. "So far as I can remember there was +nothing of that kind stated in the draft of the arrangement. It +empowered you to do anything you thought fit with the money, but it's +altogether your own affair. I can, of course, get my dollars back by +selling your homestead up, and I have to decide if that must be done or +not before I leave." + +He had very little doubt as to what the decision would be. Hawtrey +would yield, and afterwards it would not be difficult to draw him into +some unwise speculation with the object of getting the money back, +which he imagined that Hawtrey would be desperately anxious to do. As +the result of this, he expected to get such a hold upon the Range that +he would be master of the situation when the property fell into the +hands of Wyllard's trustees. That Hawtrey would be disgraced as well +as ruined naturally did not count with him. + +The latter took up one of the papers, and read it through with +vacillation in his eyes. Then he rose, and stood leaning on the table +while he gazed at the teams toiling amidst the grain. There was wealth +enough yonder to release him from his torturing anxieties, and after +all, he felt, something must turn up before the reckoning was due. It +was not in his nature to face a crisis, and with him a trouble seemed +less formidable if it could only be put off a little. Edmonds, who +knew with what kind of man he had to deal, said nothing further, and +quietly reached out for another cigar. + +In the meanwhile, though neither of the men were aware of this, Sally +had just got down from her waggon on the other side of the house, and +another couple of teams were already growing larger upon the sweep of +whitened prairie. As she entered the homestead she met Mrs. Nansen, +and the latter informed her that Hawtrey was busy with Edmonds in +Wyllard's room. Sally's eyes sparkled when she heard it, and her face +grew hard. + +"That man!" she said. "Well, I guess I'll go right in to them." + +In another minute she opened the door, and answered the mortgage +jobber's somewhat embarrassed greeting with a frigid stare. Having +some experience of Sally's uncompromising directness, he was inclined +to fancy that the game was up, but he said nothing further, and she +fixed her eyes on Hawtrey. + +"What's this man doing here again?" she asked. "You promised me you +would never make another deal with him." + +Hawtrey flushed. Had he fancied it would have been the least use he +would have made some attempt to get Sally out of the room, but he was +unpleasantly sure that unless she was fully satisfied first it would +only result in failure. Besides, driven to desperation, as he was, he +had a half-conscious feeling that she might provide him with some means +of escape. Sally had certainly saved him once already, and, +humiliating as it was, he fancied that she did not expect too much from +him. She might be very angry, but Sally's anger was, after all, less +difficult to face than Agatha's quiet scorn. + +"I haven't made another deal. It's--a previous one," he said lamely. + +Sally swung round on Edmonds. "You have come here for money? You may +as well tell me. I won't leave you with Gregory until you do." + +It was quite evident that she would make her promise good, and Edmonds +nodded. + +"Yes," he said; "about 3,000 dollars." + +"And Gregory can't pay you?" + +Edmonds reflected rapidly, and decided to take a bold course. He was +acquainted with Hawtrey's habit of putting things off, and fancied that +the latter would seize upon the first loophole of escape from an +embarrassing situation. That was why he gave him a lead. + +"Well," he said, "there is a way in which he could do it if he wished. +He has only to fill in a paper and hand it me." + +He had, however, not sufficiently counted on Sally's knowledge of his +victim's affairs, or her quickness of wit, for she turned to Hawtrey +with a commanding gesture. + +"Where are you going to get 3,000 dollars from?" she asked. + +The blood crept into Hawtrey's face, for this was a thing he could not +tell her; but a swift suspicion flashed into her mind as she looked at +him. + +"Perhaps it could be--raised," he said. + +"To pay his mortgage off?" and Sally swung round on Edmonds now. + +"Yes," the latter admitted; "he can easily do it." + +Then the girl turned to Hawtrey. "Gregory," she said with harsh +incisiveness, "there's only one way you could get that money--and it +isn't yours." + +Hawtrey said nothing, but he could not meet her gaze, and when he +turned from her she looked back at the mortgage jobber. + +"If you're gone before I come back there'll sure be trouble," she +informed him, and sped swiftly out of the room. + +Then Hawtrey sat down limply in his chair, and Edmonds laughed in a +jarring manner. The game was up, but, after all, if he got his 3,000 +dollars he could be satisfied, for he had already extracted a good many +from Hawtrey one way or another. + +"If I were you I'd marry that girl right away," he said. "You'd be +safer if you had her to look after you." + +Hawtrey let the jibe pass. For one thing, he felt that it was +warranted, and just then his anxiety was too strong for anger. + +In the meanwhile, Sally ran out of the house to meet Hastings, who had +just handed his wife down from their waggon, and drew him a pace or two +aside. + +"I'm worried about Gregory," she said; "he's in trouble--big trouble. +Somehow we have got to raise 3,000 dollars. Edmonds is inside with +him." + +Hastings did not seem greatly astonished. "Ah!" he said, "I guess it's +over that mortgage of his. It would be awkward for you and Gregory if +Edmonds took the homestead and turned him out." + +Sally's face grew rather white, but she met his gaze steadily. + +"Oh," she said, "that's not what I would mind the most." + +Hastings reflected a moment or two. He fancied that this was a very +difficult admission for the girl to make, and that she had made it +suggested that Hawtrey might become involved in more serious +difficulties. He had also a strong suspicion of what they were likely +to be. + +"Sally," he said quietly, "you are afraid of Edmonds making him do +something you would not like?" + +Though she did not answer directly he saw the shame in the girl's face, +and remembered that he was one of Wyllard's trustees. + +"I must raise those dollars--now--and I don't know where to get more +than five hundred from. I might manage that," she said. + +"Well," said Hastings, "you want me to lend you them, and I'm not sure +that I can. Still, if you'll wait a few minutes I'll see what I can +do." + +Sally left him, and he turned to his wife, whose expression suggested +that she had overheard part of what was said and had guessed the rest. + +"You mean to raise that money? After all, we are friends of his, and +it may save him from letting Edmonds get his grip upon the Range," she +said. + +Hastings made a sign of reluctant assent. "I don't quite know how I +can do it personally, in view of the figure wheat is standing at, and I +don't think much of any security that Gregory could offer me. Still, +there is, perhaps, a way in which it could be arranged, and it's one +that, considering everything, is more or less admissible. I think I'll +wait here for Agatha." + +Agatha was in the waggon driven by Sproatly close behind them, and when +he had handed her and Winifred down Hastings, who walked to the house +with them, drew her into an unoccupied room, while Mrs. Nansen took the +rest into the big general one. + +"I'm afraid that Gregory's in rather serious trouble. Sally seems very +anxious about him," he said. "It's rather a delicate subject, but I +understand that in a general way you are on good terms with both of +them?" + +Agatha met his somewhat embarrassed gaze with a smile. She fancied +that what he really wished to discover was whether she still felt any +bitterness against Gregory and blamed him for pledging himself to Sally. + +"Yes," she said, "Sally and I are good friends, and I am very sorry to +hear that Gregory is in any difficulty." + +Hastings still seemed embarrassed, and she was becoming puzzled by his +manner. + +"Once upon a time you would have done anything possible to make things +easier for him," he said. "I wonder if I might ask if to some extent +you have that feeling still?" + +"Of course. If he is in serious trouble I should be glad to do +anything within my power to help him." + +"Even if it cost, we will say, about six hundred English pounds?" + +Agatha gazed at him in bewildered astonishment. "There are some twenty +dollars in my possession which your wife handed me not long ago." + +"Still, if you had the money, you would be glad to help him--and would +not regret it afterwards?" + +"No," said Agatha decisively; "if I had the means, and the need was +urgent, I should be glad to do what I could." Then she laughed. "I +can't understand in the least how this is to the purpose." + +"If you will wait for the next two or three months I may be able to +explain it to you," said Hastings. "In the meanwhile, there are one or +two things I have to do." + +Agatha sat still when he left her, wondering what he could have meant, +but feeling that she would be willing to do what she had assured him. +His suggestion that it was possible that she still cherished any sense +of grievance against Gregory because he was going to marry Sally, +however, brought a little scornful smile into her eyes. It was +singularly easy to forgive Gregory that, for she now saw him as he +was--shallow, careless, shiftless, a man without depth of character. +He had a few surface graces, and on occasion a certain half-insolent +forcefulness of manner which in a curious fashion was almost becoming. +There was, however, nothing beneath the surface. When he had to face a +crisis he collapsed like a pricked bladder, which was the first simile +she could think of, though she admitted that it was not a particularly +elegant one. He was, it seemed, quite willing that a woman should help +him out of the trouble he had involved himself in, for she had no doubt +that Sally had sent Hastings on his somewhat incomprehensible errand. + +Then a clear voice came in through the window, and turning towards it +she saw that a young lad clad in blue duck was singing as he drove his +binder through the grain. The song was a very simple one which had +some vogue just then upon the prairie, but her eyes grew suddenly hazy +as odd snatches of it reached her through the beat of hoofs, the clash +of the binder's arms, and the rustle of the flung-out sheaves. + + "My Bonny lies over the ocean, + My Bonny lies far over the sea." + + +Then he called to his horses, and it was a few moments before she heard +again-- + + "Bring back my Bonny to me." + + +A quiver ran through her as she leaned upon the window frame. There +was a certain pathos in the simple strain, and she could fancy that the +lad, who was clearly English, as an exile felt it, too. Once more as +the jaded horses and clashing machine grew smaller down the edge of the +great sweep of yellow grain, his voice came faintly up to her with its +haunting thrill of longing and regret-- + + "Bring back my Bonny to me." + + +This in her case was more than anyone could do, and as she stood +listening a tear splashed upon her closed hands. The man, by +comparison with whom Gregory appeared a mere lay figure, was in all +probability lying still far up in the solitudes of the frozen North, +with his last grim journey done. This time, however, he had not +carried her picture with him. Gregory was to blame for that, and it +was the one thing she could not forgive him. + +She leaned against the window for another minute, struggling with an +almost uncontrollable longing, and looking out upon the sweep of golden +wheat and whitened grass with brimming eyes, until there was a rattle +of wheels, and she saw Edmonds drive away. In another minute she heard +voices in the corridor, and it became evident that Hastings was +speaking to his wife. + +"I've got rid of the man, and it's reasonable to expect that Gregory +will keep clear of him after this," he said. + +"Don't you mean that Agatha did it?" + +It was Mrs. Hastings who asked the question, and Agatha became intent +as she heard her name. She did not, however, hear the answer, and Mrs. +Hastings spoke again. + +"Allen," she said, "you don't keep a secret badly, though Harry pledged +you not to tell. Still, all that caution was a little unnecessary. It +was, of course, just the kind of thing he would do." + +"What did he do?" Hastings asked, and Agatha heard his wife's soft +laugh, for they were just outside the door now. + +"Left the Range, or most of it, to Agatha in case he didn't come back +again." + +They went on, and Agatha, turning from the window, sat down limply with +the blood in her face and her heart beating horribly fast. Wyllard's +last care, it seemed, had been to provide for her, and that fact +brought her a curious sense of solace. In an unexplainable fashion it +took the bitterest sting out of her grief, though how far he had +succeeded in his intentions did not seem to matter in the least. It +was sufficient to know that amidst all the haste of his preparation he +had not forgotten her. + +Then, becoming a little calmer, she understood what had been in +Hastings's mind during the interview that had puzzled her, and was glad +that she assured him of her willingness to sacrifice anything that +might be hers if it was needed to set Gregory free. It was, she felt, +what Wyllard would have done with the money. He had said that Gregory +was a friend of his, and that, she knew, meant a good deal to him. + +It was, however, evident that she must join the others if she did not +wish her absence to excite undesirable comment, and going out she came +face to face with Sally in the corridor. The girl stopped, and saw the +sympathy in her eyes. + +"Yes," she said impulsively, "I've saved him. Edmonds has gone. +Hastings bought him off, and, though I don't quite know how, you helped +him. He stayed behind to wait for you." + +Agatha smiled. The vibrant relief in her companion's voice stirred +her, and she realised once more that in choosing this half-taught girl, +at least, Gregory had acted with wholly unusual wisdom. It was with a +sense of half-contemptuous amusement at her folly she remembered how +she had once fancied that Gregory was marrying beneath him. Sally was +far from perfect, but when it was a matter of essentials the man was +not fit to brush her shoes. + +"My dear," she said, "I really don't know exactly what I--have--done, +but if it amounts to anything it is a pleasure to me." + +Then they went together into the big general room where Gregory was +talking to Winifred somewhat volubly. Agatha, however, fancied from +his manner that he had, at least, the grace to feel ashamed of himself. +Supper, she heard Mrs. Nansen say, would be ready very shortly, and +feeling in no mood for general conversation she sat near a window +looking out across the harvest field until she heard a distant shout, +and saw a waggon appear on the crest of the rise. Then, to her +astonishment, two of the binders stopped, and she saw a couple of men +who sprang down from them run to meet the waggon. In another moment or +two more of the teams stopped, and a faint clamour of cries went up, +while here and there little running figures straggled up the slope. +Then her companions clustered about her at the window, wondering, and +Winifred turned to Hastings. + +"What are they shouting for?" she asked. "They are all crowding about +the waggon now." + +Agatha felt suddenly dazed and dizzy, for she knew what the answer to +that question must be even before Mrs. Hastings spoke. + +"It's Harry coming back," she said, and gasped. + +In another moment they streamed out of the house, and Agatha found it +scarcely possible to follow them, for the sudden revulsion of feeling +had almost overpowered her. Still, she reached the door, and saw the +waggon drawn up amidst a cluster of struggling men, and by and bye +Wyllard, whom they surrounded, break out as if by force from the midst +of them. She stood on the threshold waiting him, and in the midst of +her exultation a pang smote her as she saw how gaunt and worn he was. +He came straight towards her, apparently regardless of the others, and +clasping the hands she held out drew her into the house. + +"So you have not married Gregory yet?" he said, and laughed +triumphantly when he saw the answer in her shining eyes. + +"No," she said softly, "it is certain that I will never marry him." + +Wyllard drew her back still further with a compelling grasp. + +"Why?" he asked. + +Agatha looked up at him, and then turned her eyes away. + +"I was waiting for you," she said simply. + +[Illustration: "'I was waiting for you,' she said simply."] + +Then he took her in his arms and kissed her before he turned, still +with her hand in his, to face the others who were now flocking back to +the house, and in another moment or two they went in together amidst a +confused clamour of good wishes. + + + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hawtrey's Deputy, by Harold Bindloss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAWTREY'S DEPUTY *** + +***** This file should be named 27601-8.txt or 27601-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/6/0/27601/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hawtrey's Deputy + +Author: Harold Bindloss + +Illustrator: Cyrus Cuneo + +Release Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #27601] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAWTREY'S DEPUTY *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT=""In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he sprang forward with a gasp." (CHAPTER XXVIII.)" BORDER="2" WIDTH="315" HEIGHT="496"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 315px"> +"In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he sprang forward with a gasp." (CHAPTER XXVIII.) +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +HAWTREY'S DEPUTY +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +HAROLD BINDLOSS +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<I>Author of "The Impostor," "The Liberationist," etc.</I> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +Illustrated by +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Cyrus Cuneo +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED +<BR> +LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO +<BR> +1910 +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS. +</H2> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">SALLY CREIGHTON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">SALLY TAKES CHARGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">WYLLARD ASSENTS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">A CRISIS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">THE OLD COUNTRY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">HER PICTURE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">THE TRAVELLING COMPANION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">THE FOG</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">DISILLUSION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">AGATHA'S DECISION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">WANDERERS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">THE SUMMONS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">THE BEACH</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">THE FIRST ICE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">DEFEAT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">A DELICATE ERRAND</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">THE PRIOR CLAIM</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">THE FIRST STAKE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">A PAINFUL REVELATION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">THROUGH THE SNOW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">THE LANDING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">NEWS OF DISASTER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap26">THE RESCUE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap27">IN THE WILDERNESS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap28">THE UNEXPECTED</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap29">CAST AWAY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap30">THE LAST EFFORT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap31">WYLLARD COMES HOME</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ILLUSTRATIONS +</H2> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +"In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he sprang forward +with a gasp." . . . . . . <I>Frontispiece</I> +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-022"> +"She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when his injured +leg trailed in the snow." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-026"> +"Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those dishes on the +table.'" +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-041"> +"At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, +came in." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-052"> +"'Now,' he said, 'I won't let you fall.'" +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-071"> +"'You!' was all she said." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-106"> +"In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his +arms about her." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-115"> +"Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble +and plunge." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-121"> +"'Do you think—that—would have mattered?'" +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-132"> +"'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we promised!'" +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-146"> +"Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down, and the next +moment she was strongly lifted." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-150"> +"'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said, and pointed to +the parallel of latitude that ran across." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-209"> +"It seemed that he did not immediately notice her." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-221"> +"'Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?'" +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-258"> +"It shambled forward in a curious manner." +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-290"> +"'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'" +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-352"> +"'I was waiting for you,' she said simply." +</A> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +HAWTREY'S DEPUTY. +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SALLY CREIGHTON. +</H3> + +<P> +The frost outside was bitter, and the prairie, which rolled back from +Lander's in long undulations to the far horizon, gleamed white beneath +the moon, but there was warmth and brightness in Stukely's wooden barn. +It stood at one end of the little, desolate settlement, where the trail +that came up from the railroad thirty miles away forked off into two +wavy ribands that melted into a waste of snow. Lander's consisted then +of five or six frame houses and stores, a hotel of the same material, +several sod stables, and a few birch-log barns; and its inhabitants +considered it one of the most promising places in Western Canada. +That, however, is the land of promise, a promise that is in due time +usually fulfilled, and the men of Lander's were, for the most part, +shrewdly practical optimists. They made the most of a somewhat grim +and frugal present, and staked all they had to give—the few dollars +they had brought in with them, and their powers of enduring toil—upon +the roseate future. +</P> + +<P> +Stukely had given them, and their scattered neighbours, who had driven +there across several leagues of prairie, a supper in his barn, and a +big rusty stove, which had been brought in for the occasion, stood in +the midst of it. Its pipe glowed in places a dull red, and Stukely now +and then wondered uneasily whether it was charring a larger hole +through the shingles of the roof. On one side of the stove the floor +had been cleared; on the other benches, empty barrels, and tables were +huddled together, and such of the guests as were not at the moment +dancing sat upon them indiscriminately. A keg of hard Ontario cider +had been provided for their refreshment, and it was open to anybody to +ladle up what he wanted with a tin dipper, while a haze of tobacco +smoke drifted in thin blue wisps beneath the big nickelled lamps. In +addition to the reek of it, the place was filled with the smell of hot +iron which an over-driven stove gives out, and the subtle odours of old +skin coats. +</P> + +<P> +The guests, however, were accustomed to an atmosphere of that kind, and +it did not trouble them. For the most part, they were lean and spare, +bronzed by frost and snow-blink, and straight of limb, for, though +scarcely half of them were Canadian born, the prairie, as a rule, +swiftly sets its stamp upon the newcomer. There was also something in +the way they held themselves and put their feet down that suggested +health and vigour, and, in the case of most of them, a certain +alertness and decision of character. Some hailed from English cities, +a few from those of Canada, and some from the bush of Ontario; but +there was a similarity between them which the cut and tightness of +their store clothing did not altogether account for. They lived well +if plainly, and toiled out in the open unusually hard. Their eyes were +steady, their bronzed skin was clear, and their laughter had a +wholesome ring. +</P> + +<P> +A fiery-haired Scot, a Highlander of the Isles, sat upon a barrel-head +sawing at a fiddle, and the shrill scream of it filled the barn. Tone +he did not aspire to, but he played with Caledonian verve and swing, +and kept the snapping time. It was mad, harsh music of the kind that +sets the blood tingling and the feet to move in rhythm, though the +exhilarating effect of it was rather spoiled by the efforts of the +little French Canadian who had another fiddle and threw in clanging +chords upon the lower strings. +</P> + +<P> +They were dancing in the cleared space what was presumably a quadrille, +though it bore almost as great a resemblance to a Scottish country +dance, or indeed to one of the measures of Bretonne France, which was, +however, characteristic of the country. The Englishman has set no +distinguishable impress upon the prairie. It has absorbed him with his +reserve and sturdy industry, and the Canadian from the cities is +apparently lost in it, too, for theirs is the leaven that works through +the mass slowly and unobtrusively, and it is the Scot and the habitant +of French extraction who have given the life of it colour and +individuality. Extremes meet and fuse on the wide white levels of the +West. +</P> + +<P> +It was, however, an Englishman who was the life of that dance, and he +was physically a bigger man than most of the rest, for as a rule, at +least, the Colonial born run to wiry hardness rather than solidity of +frame. Gregory Hawtrey was tall and thick of shoulder, though the rest +of him was in fine modelling, and he had a pleasant face of the English +blue-eyed type. Just then it was suffused with almost boyish +merriment, and indeed an irresponsible gaiety was a salient +characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though +his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his +manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one +likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten +neighbours would have chosen to stand by them through the strain of +drought and frost in adverse seasons. +</P> + +<P> +As it happened, the grim, hard-faced Sager, who had come there from +Michigan, was just then talking to Stukely about him. +</P> + +<P> +"Kind of tone about that man—guess he once had the gold-leaf on him +quite thick, and it hasn't all worn off yet," he said. "Seen more +Englishmen like him, and some folks from Noo York, too, when I took +parties bass fishing way back yonder." +</P> + +<P> +He waved his hand vaguely, as though to indicate the American Republic, +and Stukely agreed with him. They were also right as far as they went, +for Hawtrey undoubtedly possessed a grace of manner which, however, +somehow failed to reach distinction. It was, perhaps, just a little +too apparent, and lacked the strengthening feature of restraint. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," said Stukely reflectively, "what those kind of fellows done +before they came out here." +</P> + +<P> +He had expressed a curiosity which is now and then to be met with on +the prairie, but Sager, the charitable, grinned. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," he said, "I guess quite a few done no more than make their folks +on the other side tired of them, and that's why they sent them out to +you. Some of them get paid so much on condition that they don't come +back again. Say"—and he glanced towards the dancers—"Dick +Creighton's Sally seems quite stuck on Hawtrey by the way she's looking +at him." +</P> + +<P> +Stukely assented. He was a somewhat primitive person, as was Sally +Creighton, for that matter, and he did not suppose she would have been +greatly offended had she overheard his observations. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "I've thought that, too. If she wants him she'll get +him. She's a smart girl—Sally." +</P> + +<P> +There were not many women present—perhaps one to every two of the men, +which was, however, rather a large proportion in that country, and none +of their garments were particularly elegant. The fabric was, for the +most part, the cheapest obtainable, and they had fashioned it with +their own fingers in the scanty interludes between washing, and baking, +and mending their husbands' or fathers' clothes. Their faces were a +trifle sallow and had lost their freshness in the dry heat of the +stove. Their hands were hard and reddened, and in figure most of them +were thin and spare. One could have fancied that in a land where +everybody toiled strenuously their burden was the heavier. One or two +of them had clearly been accustomed to a smoother life, but there was +nothing to suggest that they looked back to it with regret. As a +matter of fact, they looked forward, working for the future, and there +was patient courage in their smiling eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Creighton's Sally, who was then tripping through the measure on +Hawtrey's arm, was native born. She was young and straight—straighter +in outline than the women of the cities—with a suppleness which was +less suggestive of the willow than a rather highly-tempered spring. +She moved with a large vigour which only just fell short of grace, her +eyes snapped when she smiled at Hawtrey, and her hair, which was of a +ruddy brown, had fiery gleams in it. Anyone would have called her +comely, and there was, indeed, no women in Stukely's barn to compare +with her in that respect, which was a fact she recognised, while every +line and pose of her figure seemed expressive of an effervescent +vitality. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes," said Sager reflectively; "she'll get him sure if she sets her +mind on it, and there's no denying that they make a handsome pair. +I've nothing against Hawtrey either: a straight man, a hustler, and +smart at handling a team. Still, it's kind of curious that while the +man's never been stuck for the stamps like the rest of us, he's made +nothing very much of his homestead yet. Now there's Bob, and Jake, and +Jasper came in after he did with half the dollars, and they thrash out +four bushels of hard wheat for Hawtrey's three." +</P> + +<P> +Stukely made a little gesture of concurrence, for he dimly realised the +significance of his companion's speech. It is results which count in +that country, where the one thing demanded is practical efficiency, and +the man of simple, steadfast purpose usually goes the farthest. +Hawtrey had graces which won him friends, boldness of conception, and +the power of application; but he had somehow failed to accomplish as +much as his neighbours did. After all, there must be a good deal to be +said for the man who raises four bushels of good wheat where his +comrade with equal facilities raises three. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile Hawtrey was talking to Sally, and it was not +astonishing that they talked of farming, which is the standard topic on +that strip of prairie. +</P> + +<P> +"So you're not going to break that new piece this spring?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Hawtrey; "I'd want another team, anyway, and I can't raise +the dollars; they're hard to get out here." +</P> + +<P> +"Plenty under the sod," said Sally, who was essentially practical. +"That's where we get ours, but you have to put the breaker in and turn +it over. You"—and she flashed a swift glance at him—"got most of +yours from England. Won't they send you any more?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey's eyes twinkled as he shook his head. "I'm afraid they won't," +he said. "You see, I've put the screw on them rather hard the last few +years." +</P> + +<P> +"How did you do that?" said Sally. "Told them you were thinking of +coming home again?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a certain wryness in her companion's smile, for though +Hawtrey had cast no particular slur upon the family's credit he had +signally failed to enhance it, and he was quite aware that his English +relatives did not greatly desire his presence in the Old Country. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," he said, "you really shouldn't hit a fellow in the eye that +way." +</P> + +<P> +As it happened, he did not see the girl's face just then, or he might +have noticed a momentary change in its expression. Gregory Hawtrey was +a little casual in speech, but so far most of the young women he +bestowed an epithet of that kind upon had attached no significance to +it. They had wisely decided that he did not mean anything. In another +moment or two the Scottish fiddler's voice broke in. +</P> + +<P> +"Can ye no' watch the music? Noo it's paddybash!" he cried. +</P> + +<P> +His French Canadian comrade waved his fiddle-bow protestingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Paddybashy! <I>V'la la belle chose!</I>" he said with ineffable contempt, +and broke in upon the ranting melody with a succession of harsh, +crashing chords. +</P> + +<P> +Then it apparently became a contest as to which could drown the other's +instrument, and the snapping time grew faster, until the dancers +gasped, and men with long boots encouraged them with cries and stamped +a staccato accompaniment upon the benches or on the floor. It was +savage, rasping music, but one player infused into it the ebullient +verve of France, and the other was from the misty land where the +fiddler learns the witchery of the clanging reel and the swing of the +Strathspey. It is doubtless not high art, but there is probably no +music in the world that fires the blood like this and turns the sober +dance to rhythmic riot. Perhaps, too, it gains something that gives it +a closer compelling grip amidst the prairie snow. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey, at least, was breathless when it ceased, and Sally's eyes +flashed with the effulgence of the Northern night when her partner +found her a resting-place upon an upturned barrel. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, "I won't have any cider." She turned and glanced at +him imperiously. "You're not going for any more either." +</P> + +<P> +It was, no doubt, not the speech a well-trained English maiden would +have made, but, though Hawtrey smiled rather curiously, it fell +inoffensively from Sally's lips. Though it is not always set down to +their credit, the brown-faced, hard-handed men as a rule live very +abstemiously in that country, and, as it happened, Hawtrey, who, +however, certainly showed no sign of it, had already consumed rather +more cider than anybody else. He made a little sign of submission, and +Sally resumed their conversation where it had broken off. +</P> + +<P> +"We could let you have our ox-team to do that breaking with," she said. +"You've had Sproatly living with you all winter. Why don't you make +him stay and work out his keep?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey laughed. "Sally," he said, "do you think anybody could make +Sproatly work?" +</P> + +<P> +"It would be hard," the girl admitted, and then looked up at him with a +little glint in her eyes. "Still, I'd put a move on him if you sent +him along to me." +</P> + +<P> +She was a rather capable young woman, but Hawtrey was very dubious of +her ability to accomplish as much as this. Sproatly was an Englishman +of good education, though his appearance seldom suggested it, who drove +about the prairie in a waggon vending cheap oleographs and patent +medicines most of the summer, and contrived to obtain free quarters +from his bachelor acquaintances during the winter. It is a hospitable +country, but there were men round Lander's who when they went away to +work in far-off lumber camps, as they sometimes did, nailed up their +doors and windows to prevent Sproatly getting in. +</P> + +<P> +"Does he never do anything?" Sally added. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Hawtrey; "at least, never when he can help it. He had, +however, started something shortly before I left him. You see, the +house has wanted cleaning the last month or two, and we tossed up for +who should do it. It fell to Sproatly, who didn't seem quite pleased, +but he got as far as firing the chairs and tables out into the snow. +Then he sat down for a smoke, and he was looking at them through the +window when I drove away." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said his companion, "you want somebody to keep the house straight +and look after you. Didn't you know any nice girls back there in the +Old Country?" +</P> + +<P> +It was spoken naturally, and there was nothing to show that the girl's +heart beat a little more rapidly than usual as she watched her +companion. His face, however, grew a trifle graver, for she had +touched upon a rather momentous question to such men as him. There are +a good many of them living in Spartan simplicity upon the prairie, +well-trained, well-connected young Englishmen, and others like them +from Canadian cities. They naturally look for some grace of culture or +refinement in the woman they would marry, and there are few women of +the station they once belonged to who could face the loneliness and +unassisted drudgery that must be borne by the small wheat-grower's +wife. There were also reasons why this question had been troubling +Hawtrey in particular of late. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, one or two," he said. "I'm not quite sure, however, that +girls of that kind would find things even moderately comfortable here." +</P> + +<P> +There was a certain reflectiveness in his tone, which, since it seemed +to indicate that he had already given the point some consideration, +jarred upon his companion. She had also an ample share of the Western +farmer's pride, which firmly declines to believe that there is any land +to compare with the one the plough is slowly wresting from the wide +white levels of the prairie. +</P> + +<P> +"We make out well enough," she said with a snap in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey made a little whimsical gesture. "Oh, yes," he admitted; "it's +in you. All you want to beat the wilderness and turn it into a garden +is an axe, a span of oxen, and a breaker plough. You ought to be proud +of it. Still, you see, our folks back yonder aren't quite the same as +you." +</P> + +<P> +Sally partly understood him. "Ah," she said, "they want more, and, +perhaps, they're used to having more than we have; but isn't that in +one way their misfortune? Is it what folks want, or what they can do, +that makes them of use to anybody else?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a hard truth in her suggestion, but Hawtrey, who seldom +occupied himself with matters of that kind, smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," he said, "I don't know; but, after all, it wouldn't be worth +while our raising wheat here unless there were folks back East to eat +it, and if some of them only eat it in the shape of dainty cakes that +doesn't affect the question. Anyway, there's only another dance or +two, and I was wondering whether I could drive you home; I've got +Wyllard's Ontario sleigh." +</P> + +<P> +Sally glanced at him rather sharply. She had half-expected this offer, +and it is possible would have judiciously led him up to it if he had +not made it. Now, as she saw that he really wished to drive her home, +she was glad that she had not done so. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said softly, "I think you could." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Hawtrey, "if you'll wait ten minutes I'll be back with the +team." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SALLY TAKES CHARGE. +</H3> + +<P> +The night was clear and bitterly cold when Hawtrey and Sally Creighton +drove away from Stukely's barn. Winter had lingered unusually long +that year, and the prairie gleamed dimly white, with the sledge trail +cutting athwart it, a smear of blue-grey, in the foreground. It +was—for Lander's lay behind them with the snow among the stubble belts +that engirdled it—an empty wilderness the mettlesome team swung +across, and during the first few minutes the cold struck through them +with a sting like the thrust of steel. A half-moon hung low above it, +coppery red with frost, and there was no sound but the crunch beneath +the runners, and the beat of hoofs that rang dully through the silence +like a roll of muffled drums. +</P> + +<P> +Sleighs like the one that Hawtrey drove are not common on the prairie, +where the farmer generally uses the humble bob-sled when the snow lies +unusually long. The one in question had, however, been made for use in +Montreal, and bought back East by a friend of Hawtrey's, who was, as it +happened, possessed of some means, which is a somewhat unusual thing in +the case of a Western wheat-grower. He had also bought the team—the +fastest he could obtain—and when the warmth came back to them Hawtrey +and the girl became conscious of the exhilaration of the swift and easy +motion. The sleigh was light and narrow, and Hawtrey, who drew the +thick driving robe higher about his companion, did not immediately draw +the mittened hand he had used back again. The girl did not resent the +fact that it still rested behind her shoulder, nor did Hawtrey attach +any particular significance to the matter. He was a man who usually +acted on impulse, with singularly easy manners. How far Sally +understood him did not appear, but she came of folk who had waged a +very stubborn battle with the wilderness, and there was a vein of +somewhat grim tenacity in her. +</P> + +<P> +She was, however, conscious that there was something beneath her feet +which forced her, if she was to sit comfortably, rather close against +her companion; and it seemed expedient to point it out. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you move a little? I can't get my feet fixed right," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey looked down at her with a smile. "I'm afraid I can't unless I +get right outside. Aren't you happy there?" +</P> + +<P> +It was the kind of speech he was in the habit of making, but there was +rather more colour in the girl's face than the stinging night air +brought there, and she glanced at the bottom of the sleigh. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a sack of some kind, isn't it?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Hawtrey; "it's a couple of three-bushel bags. Some special +seed wheat Lorton sent to Winnipeg for. Ormond brought them out from +the railroad. I promised I'd take them along to him." +</P> + +<P> +"You should have told me. It's most a league round by Lorton's place," +said Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"That won't take long with this team. Have you any great objections to +another fifteen minutes' drive with me?" +</P> + +<P> +Sally looked up at him, and the moonlight was on her face, which was a +very comely one. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she admitted, "I haven't any." +</P> + +<P> +She said it demurely, but there was a just perceptible something in her +voice which might have warned the man had he been addicted to taking +warning from anything, which was, however, not the case. It was, in +fact, his trouble that he seldom thought about what he did until he was +compelled to face the consequences; and it was, perhaps, to his credit +that he had after all done very little harm, for there was hot blood in +him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "I'm not going to grumble about those extra three +miles, but you were asking what land I meant to break this spring. +What put that into your mind?" +</P> + +<P> +"Our folks," said Sally candidly. "They were talking about you." +</P> + +<P> +This again was significant, but Hawtrey did not notice it. +</P> + +<P> +"I've no doubt they said I ought to tackle the new quarter section?" he +suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," assented Sally. "Why don't you do it? Last fall you thrashed +out quite a big harvest." +</P> + +<P> +"I certainly did. There, however, didn't seem to be many dollars left +over when I'd faced the bills." +</P> + +<P> +The girl made a little gesture of impatience. "Oh," she said, "Bob and +Jake and Jasper sowed on less backsetting, and they're buying new teams +and ploughs. Can't you do what they do, though I guess they don't go +off for weeks to Winnipeg?" +</P> + +<P> +The man was silent. He had an incentive to work hard which she was not +acquainted with, and he had certainly done so, but the long, iron +winter, when there was nothing that could be done, had proved too much +for him. It was very dreary sitting alone evening after evening beside +the stove, and the company of the somnolent Sproatly was not much more +cheerful. Now and then his pleasure-loving nature had revolted from +the barrenness of his lot when he drove home from an odd visit to a +neighbour, stiff with cold, through the stinging frost, and, arriving +in the dark, found the stove had burned out and water frozen hard +inside the house. These were things his neighbours patiently endured, +but Hawtrey had fled for life and brightness to Winnipeg. +</P> + +<P> +Sally glanced up at him with a little nod. "You take hold with a good +grip. Everybody allows that," she said. "The trouble is you let +things go afterwards. You don't stay with it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," assented Hawtrey. "I believe you have hit it, Sally. That's +very much what's the matter with me." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said the girl with quiet insistence, "won't you try?" +</P> + +<P> +A faint flush crept into Hawtrey's face. The girl was less than +half-taught, and unacquainted with anything beyond the simple, +strenuous life of the prairie. Her greatest accomplishments consisted +of some skill in bakery and the handling of half-broken teams; but she +had once or twice given him what he recognised as excellent advice. +There was something incongruous in the situation, but, as usual, he +preferred to regard it whimsically. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose I'll have to, if you insist. If ever I'm the grasping owner +of the biggest farm in this district I'll blame you," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Sally said nothing further on that subject, and some time later the +sleigh went skimming down among the birches in a shallow ravine. +Hawtrey pulled the horses up when they reached the bottom of it, and +glanced up at a shapeless cluster of buildings that showed black amidst +the trees. +</P> + +<P> +"Lorton won't be back until to-morrow, but I promised to pitch the bags +into his granary," he said. "If I hump them up the trail here it will +save us driving round through the bluff." +</P> + +<P> +He got down, and though the bags were heavy he managed to hoist the +first of them on to his shoulders, with Sally's assistance, and then +staggered up the steep foot-trail that climbed the slope with it. He +was more or less accustomed to carrying bags of grain between store and +waggon, but his mittened hands were numbed, and his joints were stiff +with frost just then, and Sally noticed that he floundered rather +wildly. In another moment or two, however, he vanished into the gloom +among the trees, and she sat listening to the uneven crunch of his +footsteps in the snow, until there was a sudden crash of broken +branches, and a sound as of something falling heavily down a declivity. +Then there was another crash, and stillness again. +</P> + +<P> +Sally gasped, and clenched her mittened hands hard upon the reins as +she remembered that Lorton's bye trail skirted the edge of a very steep +bank, but she lost neither her collectedness nor her nerve. Presence +of mind in the face of an emergency is probably as much a question of +experience as of temperament, and, as it happened, she had, like other +women in that country, seen men struck down by half-trained horses, +crushed by collapsing strawpiles, and once or twice gashed by a mower +blade. This was no doubt why she remembered that the impatient team +would probably move on if she left the sleigh, and she drove them to +the first of the birches before she got down. Then she knotted the +reins about a branch, and called out sharply. +</P> + +<P> +No answer came out of the shadows, and her heart beat unpleasantly fast +as she plunged in among the trees, keeping below the narrow trail that +went slanting up the side of the declivity, until she stopped, with +another gasp, when she reached a spot where a ray of moonlight came +filtering down. A limp figure in an old skin coat lay almost at her +feet, and she dropped on her knees beside it in the snow. Hawtrey's +face showed an unpleasant greyish-white in the faint silvery light. +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory!" she cried hoarsely. +</P> + +<P> +The man opened his eyes, and blinked at her in a half-dazed manner. +"Fell down," he said. "Think I felt my leg go—and my side's stabbing +me. Go for somebody." +</P> + +<P> +Sally glanced round, and noticed that the grain bag lay burst open not +far away. She fancied that he had clung to it after he lost his +footing, which explained why he had fallen so heavily, but that was not +a point of any consequence now. There was nobody who could help her +within two leagues of the spot, and it was evident that she could not +leave him there to freeze. Then she noticed that the trees grew rather +farther apart just there, and rising swiftly she ran back to bring the +team. The ascent was steep, and she had to urge them up it with sharp +cries and blows with her mittened hand amidst the shadowy trunks and +through snapping undergrowth before she reached the spot where Hawtrey +lay. He looked up at her when at last they stood snorting close beside +him. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't turn them here," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Sally was never sure how she managed it, for the sleigh drove against +the slender trunks, and the fiery beasts, terrified by the snapping of +the undergrowth, were almost unmanageable; but at last they were facing +the descent again, and she stooped and twined her arms about the +shoulders of her companion, who now lay almost against the sleigh. +</P> + +<P> +"It's going to hurt, Gregory, but I have got to get you in," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Then she gasped, for Hawtrey was a man of full stature, and it was a +heavy lift. She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when +his injured leg trailed in the snow. Still, with the most strenuous +effort she had ever made she moved him a yard or so, and then +staggering fell with her side against the sleigh. She felt faint with +the pain of it, but with another desperate lift she drew him into the +sleigh, and let him sink down gently upon the bag that still lay there. +His eyes had shut again, and he said nothing now. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-022"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-022.jpg" ALT=""She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when his injured leg trailed in the snow."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="307" HEIGHT="446"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 307px"> +"She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when his injured leg trailed in the snow." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +It took only another moment or two to wrap the thick driving robe about +him, and after that she glanced down, with one hand still beneath his +neck. It was clear that he was quite unconscious of her presence, and +stooping swiftly she kissed his grey face. Then she settled herself in +the driving seat with only a blanket coat to shelter her from the +stinging frost, and the horses went cautiously down the slope. She did +not urge them until they reached the level, for the trail that wound up +out of the ravine was difficult, but when the wide white expanse once +more stretched away before them she laid the biting whip across their +backs. +</P> + +<P> +That was quite sufficient. They were fiery beasts, and when they broke +into a furious gallop the rush of night wind that screamed by struck +her tingling cheeks like a lash of wires. Then all power of feeling +went out of her hands, her arms grew stiff and heavy, and she was glad +that the trail led smooth and straight to the horizon. Hawtrey, who +had moved a little, lay, a shapeless figure, across her feet, but he +answered nothing when she spoke to him. +</P> + +<P> +The team went far at the gallop, and the beat of hoofs rose up, dulled +a little, in a wild staccato drumming. There was an insistent +crunching beneath the runners, and a fine mist of snow beat against the +sleigh, but the girl leaning forward, a tense figure, with nerveless +hands clenched upon the reins, saw nothing but the blue-grey riband of +trail that steadily unrolled itself before her. At length, however, a +blurred mass, which she knew to be a birch bluff, grew out of the white +waste, and presently a cluster of darker smudges shot up into the shape +of a log-house, sod stables, and strawpile granary. A minute or two +later, she pulled the team up with an effort, and a man, who flung the +door of the house open, came out into the moonlight. He stopped, and +apparently gazed at her in astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Creighton!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't stand there," said Sally. "Take the near horse's head, and lead +them right up to the door." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" the man asked stupidly. +</P> + +<P> +"Lead the team up," said Sally. "Jump, if you can." +</P> + +<P> +It was supposed on that part of the prairie that Sproatly had never +moved with much expedition in his life, but that night he sprang +towards the horses at a commanding wave of the girl's hand. He started +when he saw his comrade lying in the bottom of the sleigh, but Sally +disregarded his hurried questions. +</P> + +<P> +"Help me to get him out," she said, when he stopped the team. "Keep +his right leg as straight as you can. I don't want to lift him. We +must slide him in." +</P> + +<P> +They did it somehow, though the girl was breathless before their task, +which the snow made a little easier, was finished, and the perspiration +started from the man. Then Sally turned to the latter. +</P> + +<P> +"Get into the sleigh, and don't spare the team," she said. "Drive over +to Watson's, and bring him along. You can tell him your partner's +broke his leg, and some of his ribs. Start right now!" +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly did her bidding, and when the door closed behind him she flung +off her blanket coat and thrust fresh billets into the stove. Then she +looked for some coffee in the store cupboard, and set on a kettle; +after which she sat down on the floor by Hawtrey's side. He lay still, +with the thick driving robe beneath him, and though the colour was +creeping back into his face, his eyes were shut, and he was apparently +quite insensible of her presence. For the first time she was conscious +of a distressful faintness, which, as she had come suddenly out of the +stinging frost into the little overheated room, which reeked with +tobacco smoke and a stale smell of cooking, was not astonishing. She +mastered it, however, and presently, seeing that Hawtrey did not move; +glanced about her with some curiosity, for this was the first time she +had entered his house. +</P> + +<P> +The room was scantily furnished, and, though very few of the bachelor +farmers in that country live luxuriously, she fancied that Sproatly, +who had evidently very rudimentary ideas on the subject of +house-cleaning, had not brought back all the sundries he had thrown out +into the snow. It then contained a table, a carpenter's bench, and a +couple of chairs, and there were still smears of dust upon the +uncovered floor. The birch-log walls had been rudely panelled with +match-boarding half-way up, which was a somewhat unusual luxury, but +the half-seasoned boards had rent with the heat, and exuded streaks of +resin to which the grime and dust had clung. A pail, which apparently +contained potato peelings, stood amidst a litter of old long boots and +broken harness against one wall, and the floor was black and thick with +grease all round the rusty stove. A pile of unwashed dishes and +cooking utensils stood upon the table, and the lamp above her head had +blackened the boarded ceiling, and diffused a subtle odour of kerosene. +</P> + +<P> +Sally noticed it all with disgust, and then, seeing that Hawtrey had +opened his eyes, she made a cup of coffee and got him to drink it. +After that he smiled at her. +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks," he said feebly. "Where's Sproatly? My side stabs me." +</P> + +<P> +Sally raised one hand. "You're not to say a word. Sproatly's gone for +Watson, and he'll soon fix you up. Now lie quite still, and shut your +eyes again." +</P> + +<P> +The man obeyed her, in so far as that he lay still, but his eyes were +not more than half-closed, and she could not resist the temptation to +see what he would do if she went away. She had half risen, when he +stretched a hand out and felt for her dress, and she sank down again +with a curious softness in her face. Then he let his eyes close +altogether, as if satisfied, and by and bye she gently laid her hand on +his. +</P> + +<P> +He did not appear to notice it, and, though she did not know whether he +was asleep or unconscious, she sat beside him, with compassion in her +eyes. There was no sound but the snapping of the birch billets in the +rusty stove. She was anxious, but not unduly so, for she knew that men +who live as the prairie farmers do, usually recover from such injuries +as had befallen him more or less readily. It would also not be very +long before assistance arrived, for it was understood that the man she +had sent Sproatly for had almost gone through a medical course in an +Eastern city before he set up as a prairie farmer. Why he had suddenly +changed his profession was a point he did not explain, and, as he had +always shown himself willing to do what he could when any of his +neighbours met with an accident, nobody troubled him about the matter. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye Sproatly brought him to the homestead, and he was busy with +Hawtrey for some time. Then they got him to bed, and Watson came back +to the room where Sally was anxiously waiting. +</P> + +<P> +"His idea about his injuries is more or less correct, but we'll have no +great trouble in pulling him round," he said. "The one point that's +worrying me is the looking after him. One couldn't expect him to +thrive upon slabs of burnt salt pork, and Sproatly's bread." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll do what I can," said Sproatly indignantly. +</P> + +<P> +"You!" said the other. "It would be criminal to leave you in charge of +a sick man." +</P> + +<P> +Sally quietly put on her blanket coat. "If you can stay that long, +I'll be back soon after it's light," she said. Then she turned to +Sproatly. "You can wash up those dishes on the table, and get a brush +and sweep this room out. If it's not quite smart to-morrow you'll do +it again." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-026"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-026.jpg" ALT=""Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those dishes on the table.'"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="321" HEIGHT="464"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 321px"> +"Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those dishes on the table.'" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Then, while Sproatly grinned, she went out and drove away through the +bitter frost. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WYLLARD ASSENTS. +</H3> + +<P> +Sally, who brought her mother with her, spent a couple of weeks at +Hawtrey's homestead before Watson decided that his patient could be +entrusted to Sproatly's care; but she came back afterwards twice a week +or so with odd baskets of dainties to make sure that the latter, in +whom she had no confidence, was discharging his duties satisfactorily. +She had driven over again one afternoon, when Hawtrey, whose bones were +knitting well, lay talking to another man in his little sleeping room. +</P> + +<P> +There was no furniture in it whatever, beyond the wooden bunk he lay +in, and a deerhide lounge chair he had made during the winter; but the +stovepipe from the kitchen led across part of it, and then up again +into the room beneath the roof above. It had been one of Sproatly's +duties during the past two weeks to rise and renew the fire when the +cold awakened his comrade soon after midnight. At present he was +outside the house, whipsawing birch-logs and splitting them into +billets, which was an occupation he cherished a profound dislike for. +</P> + +<P> +Spring had, however, come suddenly, as it usually does on the prairie, +a few days earlier, and the snow was melting fast under a brilliant +sun. The bright rays that streamed in through the window struck +athwart the glimmering dust motes in the little bare room, and fell, +pleasantly warm, upon the man who lay in the deerhide chair. He was a +year or two older than Hawtrey, though he had scarcely reached thirty, +a man of tranquil manner, with a rather lean and deeply bronzed face, +of average height, and somewhat spare of figure. He held a pipe in his +hand, and was then looking at Hawtrey with quiet, contemplative eyes. +They were, indeed, his most noticeable feature, though it was difficult +to say whether their colour was grey or hazel-brown, for they were +singularly clear, and there was something which suggested steadfastness +in their unwavering gaze. He wore long boots, trousers of old blue +duck, and a jacket of soft deerskin such as the Blackfeet dress; and +there was nothing about him to suggest that he was a man of varied +experience, and of some importance in that country. +</P> + +<P> +Harry Wyllard was native-born, and had in his young days assisted his +father in the working of a little Manitoban farm, when that great grain +province was still, for the most part, a wilderness. Then a more +prosperous relative on the Pacific slope had sent him to Toronto +University, where after a session or two he had become involved in a +difference of opinion with the authorities. Though the matter was +never made quite clear, it was generally believed that Wyllard had +quietly borne the blame of a comrade's action, for there was a vein of +eccentric generosity in the lad. In any case, he left Toronto, and the +relative, who was largely interested in the fur business, next sent him +north to the Behring Sea, in one of his schooners. The business was +then a remarkably hazardous one, for the skin buyers and pelagic +sealers had trouble all round with the Alaskan representatives of +American trading companies, whose preserves they poached upon, as well +as with the commanders of the gunboats sent up there to protect the +seals. +</P> + +<P> +Men's lives were staked against the value of a fur, edicts were lightly +contravened, and now and then a schooner barely escaped into the +smothering fog with skins looted close aboard forbidden beaches. It +was a perilous life, and a strenuous one, for they had every white +man's hand against them, as well as fog and gale, and the reefs that +lay in the tideways of almost uncharted waters; but Wyllard made the +most of it. He kept the peace with jealous skippers who resented the +presence of a man they might command as mate, but whose views they were +forced to listen to when he spoke as supercargo; won the good-will of +sea-bred Indians, and drove a good trade with them; and not +infrequently brought his boat back first to the plunging schooner +loaded with reeking skins. +</P> + +<P> +Then he fell into trouble again when they were hanging off the Eastern +Isles under double reefs, watching for the Russians' seals. A boat's +crew from another schooner had been cast ashore, and, as they were in +peril of falling into the Russians' hands, Wyllard led a reckless boat +expedition to bring them off again. He succeeded, in so far that the +wrecked men were taken off the roaring beach through a tumult of +breaking surf, but as they pulled seaward the fog shut down on them, +and one boat, manned by three men, never reached the schooners. They +blew horns all night, standing off and on, and crept along the smoking +beach next day, though the surf made landing impossible. Then a sudden +gale drove them off the shore, and, as it was evident that their +comrades must have perished, they reluctantly sailed for other fishing +grounds. As one result of this, Wyllard broke with his prosperous +relative when he came back to Vancouver. +</P> + +<P> +After that he helped to strengthen railroad bridges among the mountains +of British Columbia, worked in logging camps, and shovelled in the +mines, and, as it happened, met Hawtrey, who, tempted by high wages, +had spent a winter in the Mountain Province after a disastrous harvest. +In the meanwhile, his father had sold out, and taken up virgin soil in +Assiniboia. He died soon after Wyllard went back to him, and a few +months later the relative in Vancouver also died. Somewhat to +Wyllard's astonishment, he bequeathed him a considerable property, +which the latter realised and sunk most of the proceeds in further +acres of virgin prairie. Willow Range was already one of the largest +farms between Winnipeg and the Rockies. +</P> + +<P> +"The leg's getting along satisfactorily?" he said at length. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey, who appeared unusually thoughtful, admitted that it was. +</P> + +<P> +"Any way, it's singularly unfortunate that I'm broken up just now," he +added. "There's the ploughing to commence in a week or two, and, +besides that, I was thinking of getting married." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard was somewhat astonished at this announcement. For one thing, +he was more or less acquainted with the state of his friend's finances. +During the next moment or two he glanced meditatively through the open +door into the adjoining room, where Sally Creighton was busy beside the +stove. The sleeves of her light bodice were rolled up well above the +elbow, and she had pretty, round arms, which were just then partly +immersed in dough. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think there's a nicer or more capable girl in this part of +Assiniboia," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," said Hawtrey. "Anybody would admit that. Still, since you +seem so sure of it, why don't you marry her yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard looked at his comrade rather curiously. "Well," he said, +"there are one or two reasons that don't affect Miss Sally and only +concern myself. Besides, it's highly improbable that she'd have me." +</P> + +<P> +He paused to light his pipe, which had gone out, before he looked up +again. "Since it evidently isn't Sally, have I met the lady?" +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't. She's in England." +</P> + +<P> +"It's four years, isn't it, since you were over there?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey lay silent a minute, and then made a little confidential +gesture. "I'd better tell you all about the thing," he said. "Our +folks were people of some little standing in the county. In fact, as +they were far from rich, they had just standing enough to embarrass +them. In most respects they were ultra-conventional with old-fashioned +ideas, and, though there was no open break, I'm afraid I didn't get on +with them quite as well as I should have done, which is why I came out +to Canada. They started me on the land decently, and twice when we'd +harvest frost and horse-sickness, they sent the draft I asked them for +along. That is one reason why I'm not going to worry them, though I'd +very much like another now. You see, there are two girls, as well as +Reggie, who's reading for the Bar." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think you have mentioned the lady yet." +</P> + +<P> +"She's a connection of some friends of ours. Her mother, so far as I +understand it, married beneath her—a man her folks didn't like. He +died, and, when by and bye his wife died, Agatha, who was brought up by +his relations, was often at the Grange. It's a little, old-fashioned, +half-ruinous place, a mile or two from where we live in the North of +England. It belongs to her mother's folks, but I think there was still +a feud between them and her father's people, who brought her up to earn +her living. We saw a good deal of each other, and fell in love as boy +and girl. Well, when I went back, one winter, after I'd been here two +years, Agatha was at the Grange again, and we decided then that I was +to bring her out as soon as I had a home she could live in to offer +her." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off for a moment, and there was a trace of embarrassment in +his manner when he went on again. "Perhaps I ought to have managed it +sooner," he added. "Still, things never seem to go quite as one would +like with me, and you can understand that a dainty, delicate girl +brought up in comfort in England would find it rough out here." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard glanced round the bare room in which he sat, and into the +other, which was also furnished in a remarkably primitive manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he assented, "I can quite realise that." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said his companion, "it's a thing that has been worrying me a +good deal of late, because, as a matter of fact, I'm not much farther +forward than I was four years ago. In the meanwhile, Agatha, who has +some talent for music, was in a first-class master's hands. Afterwards +she gave lessons, and got odd singing engagements. A week ago, I had a +letter from her in which she said that her throat was giving out." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped again for a moment, with trouble in his face, and then +fumbling under his pillow produced a letter, which he carefully folded. +</P> + +<P> +"We're rather good friends," he said. "You can read that part of it." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard took the letter, and a suggestion of quickening interest crept +into his eyes as he read. Then he looked up at Hawtrey. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a brave letter—the kind a brave girl would write," he said. +"Still, it's evident that she's anxious." +</P> + +<P> +There was silence for a moment or two, which was only broken by Sally +clattering about the stove. Dissimilar in character, as they were, the +two were firm friends, and there had been a day when, as they worked +upon a dizzy railroad trestle, Hawtrey had held his comrade fast when a +plank slipped away. He had, it was characteristic, thought nothing of +the matter, but Wyllard was one who remembered things of that kind. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," said Hawtrey, "you see my trouble. This place isn't fit for +her, and I couldn't even go across for some time yet, but her father's +folks have died off, and there's nothing to be expected from her +mother's relatives. Any way, she can't be left to face the blow alone. +It's unthinkable. Well, there's only one course open to me, and that's +to raise as many dollars on a mortgage as I can, fit the place out with +fixings brought from Winnipeg, and sow a double acreage with borrowed +capital. I'll send for her as soon as I can get the house made a +little more comfortable." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard sat silent a moment or two, and then leaned forward in his +chair. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, "there are two other and wiser courses. Tell the girl +what things are like here, and just how you stand. She'd face it +bravely. There's no doubt of that." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey looked at him sharply. "I believe she would, but considering +that you have never seen her, I don't quite know why you should be sure +of it." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "The girl who wrote that letter wouldn't flinch." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Hawtrey, "you can mention the second course." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll let you have $1,000 at bank interest—which is less than any +land-broker would charge you—without a mortgage." +</P> + +<P> +Again Hawtrey showed a certain embarrassment. "No," he said, "I'm +afraid it can't be done. I'd a kind of claim upon my people, though it +must be admitted that I've worked it off, but I can't quite bring +myself to borrow money from my friends." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who saw that he meant it, made a gesture of resignation. +"Then you must let the girl make the most of it, but keep out of the +hands of the mortgage man. By the way, I haven't told you that I've +decided to make a trip to the Old Country. We'd a bonanza crop last +season, and Martial could run the range for a month or two. After all, +my father was born yonder, and I can't help feeling now and then that I +should have made an effort to trace up that young Englishman's +relatives, and tell them what became of him." +</P> + +<P> +"The one you struck in British Columbia? You have mentioned him, but, +so far as I remember, you never gave me any particulars about the +thing." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard seemed to hesitate, which was not a habit of his. "There is," +he said, "not much to tell. I struck the lad sitting down, played out, +upon a trail that led over a big divide. It was clear that he couldn't +get any further, and there wasn't a settlement within a good many +leagues of the spot. We were up in the ranges prospecting then. Well, +we made camp and gave him supper—he couldn't eat very much—and he +told me what brought him there afterwards. It seemed to me he'd always +been weedy in the chest, but he'd been working waist-deep in an icy +creek, building a dam at a mine, until his lungs had given out. The +mining boss was a hard case and had no mercy on him, but the lad, who +seemed to have had a rough time in the Mountain Province, stayed with +it until he played out altogether." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's face hardened a little as he mentioned the mining boss, and a +rather curious little sparkle crept into his eyes, but after a pause he +proceeded quietly: +</P> + +<P> +"We did what we could for him. In fact, it rather broke up the +prospecting trip, but he was too far through," he added. "He hung on +for a week or two, and one of us brought a doctor out from the +settlements, but the day before we broke camp Jake and I buried him." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey made a sign of comprehension. He was reasonably well +acquainted with his comrade's character, and fancied he knew who had +brought the doctor out. He also knew that Wyllard had been earning his +living as a railroad navvy or chopper then, and, in view of the cost of +provisions brought by pack-horse into the remoter bush, the reason why +he had abandoned his prospecting trip after spending a week or two +taking care of the sick lad was clear enough. +</P> + +<P> +"You never learned his name?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't," said Wyllard. "I went back to the mine, but several things +suggested that the name upon their pay-roll wasn't his real one. He +commenced a broken message the night he died, but the hemorrhage cut +him off in the middle of it. The wish that I should tell his people +somehow was in his eyes." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off for a moment with a deprecatory gesture, which in +connection with the story was very expressive. +</P> + +<P> +"I have never done it, but how could I? All I know is that he was a +delicately brought up young Englishman, and the only clue I have is a +watch with a London maker's name on it and a girl's photograph. I've a +very curious notion that I shall meet that girl some day." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey, who made no comment, lay still for a minute or two after this, +but his face suggested that he was considering something. +</P> + +<P> +"Harry," he said presently, "I shall not be fit for a journey for quite +a while yet, and if I went over to England I couldn't get the ploughing +done and the crop in; which, if I'm going to be married, is absolutely +necessary." +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt about the latter point, for the small Western farmer +has very seldom a balance in hand, and, for that matter, is not +infrequently in debt to the nearest storekeeper. He must, as a rule, +secure a harvest or abandon his holding, since, as soon as the crop is +thrashed, the bills pour in. Wyllard made a sign of assent. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Hawtrey, "if you're going to England you could go as my +deputy. You could make Agatha understand what things are like here, +and bring her out to me. I'll arrange for the wedding to be soon as +she arrives." +</P> + +<P> +His comrade was not a conventional person, but he pointed out several +objections. Hawtrey over-ruled them, however, and eventually Wyllard +reluctantly assented. +</P> + +<P> +"As it happens, Mrs. Hastings is going over, too, and if she comes back +about the same time the thing might be managed," he said. "I believe +she's in Winnipeg just now, but I'll write her. By the way, have you a +photograph of Agatha?" +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't," said Hawtrey. "She gave me one, but somehow it got +mislaid one house-cleaning. That's rather an admission, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +It certainly occurred to Wyllard that it was. In fact, it struck him +as a very curious thing that Hawtrey should have lost the picture which +the girl he was in love with had given him. He sat silent for a moment +or two, and then stood up. +</P> + +<P> +"When I hear from Mrs. Hastings I'll drive round again. Candidly, the +thing has somewhat astonished me. I always had a fancy it would be +Sally." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey laughed. "Sally?" he said. "We're first-rate friends, but I +never had the faintest notion of marrying her." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard went out to harness his team, and, as it happened, did not +notice that Sally, who had approached the door with a tray in her hands +a moment or two earlier, drew back before him softly. When he had +crossed the room she set down the tray and leaned upon the table, with +her cheeks burning. Then, feeling that she could not stay in the +stove-heated room, she went out, and stood in the slushy snow. One of +her hands was tightly closed, and all the colour had vanished from her +cheeks now. She, however, contrived to give Hawtrey his supper by and +bye, and soon afterwards drove away. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A CRISIS. +</H3> + +<P> +While Wyllard made arrangements for his journey, and Sally Creighton +went very quietly about her work on the lonely prairie farm, it +happened one evening that Miss Winifred Rawlinson sat uneasily +expectant far back under the gallery of a concert hall in an English +manufacturing town. She could not hear very well there, but it was the +cheapest place she could obtain, and economy was of some importance to +her. Besides, by craning her neck a little to avoid the hat of the +rather strikingly dressed young woman in front of her, she could, at +least, see the stage. The programme which she held in one hand +announced that Miss Agatha Ismay would sing a certain aria from a great +composer's oratorio, and she leaned further forward in her chair when a +girl of about her own age, which was twenty-four, slowly advanced to +the centre of the stage. +</P> + +<P> +She was a tall, well-made, brown-haired girl, with a quiet grace of +movement and a comely face, attired in a long trailing dress of a +shimmering corn-straw tint, but when she stood looking at the audience +Miss Rawlinson noticed a hint of tension in her expression. Agatha +Ismay had sung at unimportant concerts with marked success, but that +evening there was something very like shrinking in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Then a crash of chords from the piano melted into a rippling prelude, +and Winifred breathed easier when her friend began to sing. Her voice +was sweet and excellently trained, and there was a deep stillness of +appreciation when the clear notes thrilled through the close-packed +hall. No one could doubt that the first part of the aria was a +success, for half-subdued applause broke out when the voice sank into +silence, and for a few moments the piano rippled on alone; but it +seemed to Winifred that the look of tension was still in the singer's +face, and once more she grew uneasy, for she understood the cause for +it. +</P> + +<P> +"The last bit of the second part's rather trying," said a young man +behind her. "There's an awkward jump of two full tones that was too +much for our soprano when we tried it at the choral union. Miss +Ismay's very true in intonation, but I don't suppose most of the rest +would notice it if she shirked a little and left that high sharp out." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred had little knowledge of music, but she was sufficiently +acquainted with her friend's character to be certain that Agatha would +not attempt to leave the sharp in question out. This was one reason +why she sat rigidly still when the clear voice rang out again. It rose +from note to note, full and even, but she could see the singer's face, +and there was no doubt whatever that she was making a strenuous effort. +Nobody else, however, seemed to notice it, for Winifred flung a swift +glance round, and then fixed her eyes upon the dominant figure in the +corn-straw dress that the glare of light fell shimmering on. The sweet +voice was still rising, and she longed that the accompanist would force +the tone to cover it a little, and put the loud pedal on. He, however, +was gazing at his music, and played on quietly until, with startling +suddenness, the climax came. +</P> + +<P> +The voice sank a full tone, jarring horribly on the theme, rose, and +hoarsely trailed off into silence again. Then the accompanist glanced +over his shoulder, and struck a ringing chord while he waited for a +sign, and there was a curious stirring among the audience. The girl in +the shimmering dress stood quite still for a moment with a spot of +crimson in her cheek and a half-dazed look in her eyes, and then, +turning swiftly, moved off the stage. +</P> + +<P> +Then Winifred rose with a gasp, and turned upon the young man next her, +who looked up inquiringly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said sharply; "can't you let me pass? I'm going out." +</P> + +<P> +It was about half-past nine when she reached the wet and miry street. +A fine rain drove into her face, and she had rather more than a mile to +walk without an escort, but that was a matter which caused her no +concern. She was a self-reliant young woman, and accustomed to going +about unattended, while she was also quite aware that the scene she had +just witnessed would bring about a crisis in her and her friend's +affairs. For all that, she was unpleasantly conscious of the leak in +one rather shabby boot when she stepped down from the sidewalk to cross +the street, and when she opened her umbrella beneath a gas lamp she +pursed up her mouth. There were a couple of holes in it near where the +ribs ran into the ferrule, which she had not noticed before. She, +however, plodded on resolutely through the drizzle, until three +striplings who came with linked arms down the pavement of a quieter +street barred her way. One wore his hat on one side, the one nearest +the kerb flourished a little cane, and the third of them smiled at her +fatuously. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh my!" he said. "Where's dear Jemima off in such a hurry?" +</P> + +<P> +Winifred drew herself up. She was little and determined, and, it must +be admitted, not quite unaccustomed to that kind of thing. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you let me pass?" she said. "There's a policeman at the next +turning." +</P> + +<P> +"There really is," said one of them. "The Dook has another engagement. +Dream of me, Olivia!" +</P> + +<P> +A beat of heavy feet drew nearer, and the three roysterers disappeared +in the direction of a flaming music-hall, where the second "house" was +probably commencing, while Winifred, who had stepped into the gutter to +avoid the one with the cane, turned as a stalwart, blue-coated figure +moved towards her. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, officer," she said; "they've gone." +</P> + +<P> +The man merely raised a hand as if in comprehension, and plodded back +to his post. Perhaps he felt sorry for young women who have to earn +their living, for he had, at least, appeared promptly when he was +needed; and perhaps he attached no great importance to the matter. +There is a good deal that the policeman knows and accepts with +undisturbed equanimity, which if plainly expressed would, no doubt, +form a somewhat grim commentary on our complex civilisation. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile Winifred went on until she let herself into a house in +a quiet street, and ascending to the second floor entered a simply +furnished room. It, however, contained a piano; and a little table on +which a typewriter stood amidst a litter of papers occupied the +opposite side of it. The girl sloughed off her waterproof, and rather +flung than hung it on a peg behind the door, after which she sat down +in a low chair beside the little fire. She was not a handsome girl, +and it was evident that she did not trouble herself greatly about her +attire. Her face was too thin, her figure too slight and spare, but +there was usually, even when she was anxious, as she certainly was that +night, a shrewdly whimsical twinkle in her eyes, and though her lips +were set her expression was compassionate. +</P> + +<P> +She was, however, not the person to sit still very long, and in a +minute or two she rose and placed a little kettle on the fire, after +which she took a few scones, a coffee-pot, and a tin of condensed milk +from a cupboard. When she had spread them out upon a table she +discovered that there was some of the condensed milk upon her fingers, +and it must be admitted that she sucked them. They were little, stubby +fingers, which somehow looked capable. +</P> + +<P> +"It must have been four o'clock when I had that bun and a cup of tea," +she said. +</P> + +<P> +She glanced at the table longingly: for she occasionally found it +necessary to place a certain check upon a healthy appetite. She was, +however, not singular in this respect, since the practice of such +self-denial is, unfortunately, not a very unusual thing in the case of +a good many young women in our cities who work remarkably hard. Then +she resolutely shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"I must wait for Agatha," she said, and crossing the room towards the +typewriter table stopped to glance at a little framed photograph that +stood upon the mantel. It was a portrait of Gregory Hawtrey taken some +years ago, and she apostrophied it with quiet scorn. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you're wanted you're naturally away out yonder," she said. +"You're like the rest of them—despicable!" +</P> + +<P> +This seemed to relieve her feelings, and she sat down before the +machine, which clicked and rattled for several minutes under her stubby +fingers. Then the clicking ceased with sudden abruptness, and she +prodded the mechanism viciously with a hairpin. As this appeared +unavailing she used her forefinger, and when at length the carriage +slid along the rod with a clash there was a smear of grimy oil upon her +cheek and her somewhat tilted nose. The machine, however, gave no +further trouble, and she endeavoured to make up some, at least, of the +time she had spent at the concert. It was necessary that it should be +made up, but she was also conscious that she was putting off an evil +moment. +</P> + +<P> +At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, +came in. She permitted Winifred to take it from her, and then sank +down into a chair. There was a strained look in her eyes, and her face +was very weary. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-041"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-041.jpg" ALT=""At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, came in."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="318" HEIGHT="480"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 318px"> +"At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, came in." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"You're working late again?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Winifred nodded. "It's the men who loaf, my dear," she said. "When +you undertake the transcription of an author's scrawl at ninepence the +thousand words you have to work unusually hard, especially when, as it +is in this case, the thing's practically unreadable. Besides, the +woman in it makes me lose my temper. If I'd had a man of the kind +described to deal with I'd have thrashed him." +</P> + +<P> +She was throwing words about, partly to conceal her anxiety, and partly +with the charitable purpose of giving her companion time to approach +the subject that must be mentioned as she thought best; but she rather +over-did it, and Agatha looked at her sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Winny," she said, "you know. You've been there." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred turned towards her quietly, for she could face a crisis. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "I have, but you're not going to talk about it until +you have had supper. Don't move until I make the coffee." +</P> + +<P> +She was genuinely hungry, but while she satisfied her own appetite she +took care that her companion, who did not seem inclined to eat, made a +simple meal. Then she bundled the plates into a cupboard, and sat down +facing her. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said, "you have broken down exactly as that throat +specialist said you would. The first question is, How long it will be +before you can go on again?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha laughed, a little harsh laugh. "I didn't tell you everything at +the time: I've broken down for good." +</P> + +<P> +There was a moment or two's tense silence after that, and then Agatha +made a dejected gesture. "He warned me that this might happen if I +went on singing, but what could I do? I couldn't cancel my engagements +without telling people why. He said I must go to Norway and give my +throat and chest a rest." +</P> + +<P> +They looked at one another, and there was in their eyes the +half-bitter, half-weary smile of those to whom the cure prescribed is +ludicrously impossible. It was Winifred who spoke first. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," she said, "we have to face the situation, and it's not an +encouraging one. Our joint earnings just keep us here in decency—we +won't say comfort—and they're evidently to be subject to a big +reduction. It strikes me as a rather curious coincidence that a letter +from that man in Canada and one from your prosperous friends in the +country arrived just before you went out." +</P> + +<P> +She saw the look in Agatha's eyes, and spread her hands out. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she admitted; "I hid them. It seemed to me that you had quite +enough upon your mind this evening. I don't know if they're likely to +throw any fresh light upon the question what we're going to do." +</P> + +<P> +She produced the letters from a drawer in her table, and Agatha +straightened herself suddenly in her chair when she had opened the +first of them. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she cried, "he wants me to go out to him!" +</P> + +<P> +Winifred's face set hard for a moment, but it relaxed again, and she +contrived to hide her dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," she suggested with a trace of dryness, "I suppose you'll +certainly go. After all, he's probably not worse to live with than +most of them." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Rawlinson was occasionally a little bitter, but she had, like +others of her kind, been compelled to compete in an overcrowded market +with hard-driven men. She was, however, sincerely attached to her +friend, and she smiled when she saw the flash in Agatha's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she added, "you needn't try to wither me with your indignation. +No doubt he's precisely what he ought to be, and I dare say it will +ease your feelings if you talk about him again; at least, it will help +you to formulate your reasons for going out to him. I'll listen +patiently, and try not to be uncharitable." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha fell in with the suggestion. It was a relief to talk, and she +had also a certain respect, which she would not always admit, for her +companion's shrewdness. She meant to go, but she desired to ascertain +how a less interested person would regard the course she had decided on. +</P> + +<P> +"I have known Gregory since I was a girl," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Winifred pursed her lips up. "I understood you met him at the Grange, +and you were only there for a few weeks once a year. After all, that +isn't a very great deal. It seems he fell in love with you, which is, +perhaps, comprehensible. What I don't quite know the reason for is why +you fell in love with him." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said Agatha, "you have never seen Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't," said Winifred sourly; "I have, however, seen his picture, +and one must admit that he's reasonably good-looking. In fact, I've +seen quite an assortment of them, but it's, perhaps, significant that +the last was taken some years ago." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha smiled. "Can a photograph show the clean, sanguine temperament +of a man, his impulsive generosity, and cheerful optimism?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Rawlinson rose, and critically surveyed the photograph on the +mantel. "I don't want to be discouraging, but after studying that one +I'm compelled to admit that it can't. No doubt it's the artist's +fault, but I'm willing to admit that a young girl would be rather apt +to credit a man with a face like that with qualities he didn't +possess." Then she sat down again with a thoughtful expression. "The +fact is, you set him up on a pedestal and burned incense to him when +you were not old enough to know any better, and when he came home for a +few weeks four years ago you promised to marry him. Now it seems he's +ready at last, and wants you to go out. Perhaps it doesn't affect the +question, but if I'd promised to marry a man in Canada he'd certainly +have to come for me. Isn't there a certain risk in the thing?" +</P> + +<P> +"A risk?" +</P> + +<P> +Winifred nodded. "Yes," she said, "rather a serious one. Four years +is a long time, and the man may have changed. In a new country where +everything's different it must be a thing they're rather apt to do." +</P> + +<P> +A faint, half-compassionate, half-tolerant smile crept into Agatha's +eyes. The mere idea that the sunny-tempered, brilliant young man whom +she had given her heart to could have changed or degenerated in any way +seemed absurd to her. Winifred, however, went on again. +</P> + +<P> +"There's another point," she said. "If he's still the same, which +isn't likely, there has certainly been a change in you. You have +learned to see things more clearly, and acquired a different standard +from the one you had then. One can't help growing, and as one grows +one looks for more. One is no longer pleased with the same things; +it's inevitable." +</P> + +<P> +She broke off for a moment, and her voice grew gentler. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she added, "I've done my duty in trying to point this out to +you, and now there's only another thing to say: since you're clearly +bent on going, I'm going out with you." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha looked astonished, but there was a suggestion of relief in her +expression, for the two had been firm friends and had faced a good deal +together. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "that gets over the one difficulty." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred made a little whimsical gesture. "I'm not quite sure that it +does. The difficulty will probably begin when I arrive in Canada, but +I'm a rather capable person, and I believe they don't pay one ninepence +a thousand words in Winnipeg. Besides, I could keep the books at a +store or hotel, and at the very worst Gregory could, perhaps, find a +husband for me. Women, one understands, are after all held in some +estimation in that country. Perhaps there's a man out there who would +treat even a little, plain, vixenish-tempered person with a turned-up +nose decently." +</P> + +<P> +Crossing the room again she banged the cover down on the typewriter, +and then turned to Agatha with a wide gesture and a suggestion of +haziness in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway, I'm very tired of this one. It would all be intolerable when +you went away." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha stretched out a hand and drew her down beside her. She, at +least, no longer feared adverse fortune and loneliness, and she was +filled with a gentle compassion, for she knew how hard a fight this +girl had made, and part at least of what she had borne. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," she said, "we will go together." +</P> + +<P> +Then she opened the second letter, which she had forgotten in the +meanwhile. +</P> + +<P> +"They want me to stay at the Grange for a few weeks," she said, and +smiled. "An hour ago I felt crushed and beaten—and now, though my +voice has probably gone for good, I don't seem to mind. Isn't it +almost bewilderingly curious that both these letters should have come +to sweep my troubles away to-night?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said her companion; "it's distinctly natural—just what one would +have expected. You wrote the man in Canada soon after you'd seen the +specialist, and his answer was bound to arrive in the next few days." +</P> + +<P> +"But I certainly didn't write the folks at the Grange." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred's eyes twinkled. "As it happens, I did, two days ago. I +ventured to point out their duty to them, and they were rather nice +about it in another letter." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha stretched herself out in the low chair with a little sigh of +content. "Well," she said, "it probably wouldn't have the least effect +if I scolded you. I believe I'm horribly worn out, Winny, and it will +be a relief unspeakable to get away. If I can arrange to give up those +pupils I'll go to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred made no answer, and kneeling with one elbow resting on the arm +of her companion's chair gazed straight in front of her. They were +both of them very weary of the long grim struggle, and now a change was +close at hand. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE OLD COUNTRY. +</H3> + +<P> +It was a still, clear evening of spring when Wyllard, unstrapping the +ruchsack from his shoulders, sat down beside a frothing stream in a +dale of Northern England. On arriving in London a week or two earlier +he had found a letter from Mrs. Hastings, who was then in Paris, +awaiting him, in which she stated that she could not at the moment say +when she would go home again, but that she expected to advise him +shortly. After answering it he started North, and, obtaining Agatha's +address from Miss Rawlinson, went on again to a certain little town +which stands encircled by towering fells beside a lake in the North +Country. +</P> + +<P> +He had, however, already recognised that his mission was rather a +delicate one, and he decided that it would be advisable to wait until +he heard from Mrs. Hastings before calling upon Miss Ismay. There then +remained the question, what to do with the next few days. A +conversation with some pedestrian tourists whom he met at his hotel, +and a glance at a map of the hill-tracks decided him, and remembering +that he had on several occasions kept the trail in Canada for close on +forty miles on end, he bought a Swiss pattern ruchsack, and set out on +foot through the fells. +</P> + +<P> +Incidentally, he saw such scenery as gave him a new conception of the +Old Country, and nearly broke the hearts of his new friends the +tourists, who volunteered to show him the way over what they evidently +considered to be a rather difficult pass. To their great astonishment +the brown-faced stranger, who wore ordinary tight-fitting American +attire and rather pointed American shoes, went up it apparently without +an effort, and for the credit of the clubs they belonged to, it seemed +incumbent on them to keep pace with him. They naturally did not know +that he had carried bags of flour and mining tools over very much +higher passes close up to the limit of eternal snow, but after two +days' climbing they were, on the whole, relieved to part company with +him. +</P> + +<P> +A professional guide who overtook them, however, recognised the +capabilities of the man when he noticed the way he lifted his feet and +how he set them down. This, he decided, was one accustomed to walking +among the heather, but he was wrong; for it was the trick the bushman +learns when he plods through leagues of undergrowth and fallen +branches, or the tall grass of the swamps; and it is a memorable +experience to make a day's journey with such a man. For the first hour +the thing seems easy, for the pace is never forced, but it also never +slackens down; and as the hours go by the novice, who flounders and +stumbles, grows horribly weary of trying to keep up with that steady, +persistent swing. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard had travelled since morning along a ridge of fells when he sat +down beside the water and contentedly filled his pipe. On the one +hand, a wall of crags high above was growing black against the evening +light, and the stream came boiling down clear as crystal among great +boulder stones; but he had wandered through many a grander and more +savage scene of rocky desolation, and it impressed him less than the +green valley in front of him. He had, at least, never seen anything +like that either on the Pacific slope or in Western Canada. +</P> + +<P> +Early as it was in the season, the meadows between rock and water were +green as emerald, and the hedge-rows, just flushed with verdure, were +clipped and trimmed as though their owner loved them. There was not a +dead tree in the larch copse which dipped to the stream, and all its +feathery tassels were sprinkled with tiny flecks of crimson and +wondrous green. Great oaks dotted the meadows, each one perfect in +symmetry. It seemed that the men who held this land cared for single +trees. The sleek, tame cattle that rubbed their necks on the level +hedge-top and gazed at him ruminatively were very different from the +wild, long-horned creatures whose furious stampede he had now and then +headed off, riding hard while the roar of hoofs rang through the +dust-cloud that floated like a sea fog across the sun-scorched prairie. +Here, it seemed, all went smoothly; the whole vale was steeped in peace +and tranquillity. +</P> + +<P> +Then he noticed the pale primroses that pushed their yellow flowers up +among the withered leaves, and the faint blue sheen beneath the beech +trunks not far away. There was a vein of artistic daintiness in this +man, and the elusive beauty of these things curiously appealed to him. +He had seen the riotous, sensuous blaze of flowers kissed by Pacific +breezes, and the burnished gold of wheat that rolled in mile-long +waves; but it seemed to him that the wild things of the English North +were, after all, more wonderful. They matched its deep peacefulness; +their beauty was chaste, fairy-like, and ethereal. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye a wood pigeon cooed softly somewhere in the shadows, and a +brown thrush perched on a bare oak bough began to sing. The broken, +repeated melody went curiously well with the rippling murmur of sliding +water, and Wyllard leaned back with a smile to listen, though he could +not remember ever having done anything of that kind before. His life +had been a strenuous one, spent for the most part in the driving-seat +of great ploughs that rent their ample furrows through virgin prairie, +guiding the clinking binders through the wheat under a blazing sun, or +driving the plunging dories through the clammy fog over short, slopping +seas. Now, however, the tranquillity of the English valley stole in on +him, and he began to understand how the love of that well-trimmed land +clung to the men out West, who spoke of it tenderly as the Old Country. +</P> + +<P> +Then, for he was in an unusually susceptible mood, he took a little +deerhide case, artistically made by a Blackfoot Indian, from his +pocket, and extracted from it the somewhat faded photograph of an +English girl. He had got it from the lad he had buried among the +ranges of the Pacific slope, and it had been his companion in many a +desolate camp and on many a weary journey. The face was delicately +modelled, and there was a freshness in it which is, perhaps, seldom +seen outside the Old Country; but what pleased him more was the +serenity in the clear, innocent eyes. +</P> + +<P> +He was not in love with the picture—he would probably have smiled at +the notion—but he had a curious feeling that he would meet the girl +some day, and that it would then be a privilege only to speak to her. +This was, after all, not so extravagant a fancy as it might appear, for +romance, the mother of chivalry and many graces, still finds shelter in +the hearts of such men as him from the wide spaces of the newer lands. +Shrewd as they are, and practical, they see visions now and then, and, +what is more, prove them to be realities with bleeding hands and toil +incredible. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye he put the photograph back in his pocket, and filled his +pipe again, while it was almost dark before he had smoked it out. The +thrush had gone, and only the ripple of the water broke the silence, +until he heard footsteps on the stones behind him. Then, looking +round, he saw a young woman moving towards the river, and he watched +her with a quiet interest, for his perceptions were a little sharper +than usual then, and it seemed to him that she was very much in harmony +with what he thought of as the key-tone of the place. She was tall and +shapely, and she moved with a quiet grace. When she stopped a moment, +poised upon a shelf of rock as though considering the easiest way to +the water, her figure fell into reposeful lines, but that was after all +only what he had expected, for he now remembered that he had +half-consciously studied the Englishwomen he had met in the West. +</P> + +<P> +The Western women usually moved, and certainly spoke, with an almost +superfluous vivacity and alertness. There was in them a feverish +activity, which contrasted with the English deliberation. The latter +had sometimes exasperated him, but it was becoming comprehensible, and +taking on a more favourable aspect now. It was, he felt, born of the +tranquillity of this well-trimmed land, a steadfastness that progressed +slowly by system and rule, and he recognised that it would have +troubled his sense of fitness if this girl had clattered down across +the stones hurriedly and noisily. +</P> + +<P> +As yet he could not see her face, but when she went on a little further +it became evident that she desired to cross the river, and was +regarding the row of stepping stones that stretched across it somewhat +dubiously. One or two had apparently fallen over, or been washed away +by a flood, for there were several rather wide gaps between them, +through which the stream frothed whitely. As soon as Wyllard noticed +that, he rose and moved towards her. +</P> + +<P> +"You want to get across?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +She was still glancing at the water, but although he did not think she +had seen him or heard his approach, she turned towards him quietly. +Then a momentary sense of astonishment held him almost embarrassed, for +it was her picture he had gazed at scarcely half an hour ago, and he +would have recognised her anywhere. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said. "It is rather a long way round by the bridge, but +some of the stones seem to have disappeared since I last came this way." +</P> + +<P> +She spoke, as Wyllard had expected, softly and quietly, but he was +first of all a man of action, and, somewhat to her astonishment, he +forthwith waded into the river. Then he turned and held out his hand +to her. +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't a very long step. You ought to manage it," he said. +</P> + +<P> +The girl favoured him with a swift glance of scrutiny. At first she +had supposed him to be one of the walking tourists or climbers who +invaded those valleys at Easter; but they were, for the most part, +young men from the cities, and this stranger's face was darkened by the +sun. There was also an indefinite suggestion of strength in the pose +of his lean, symmetrical figure, which, though she did not recognise +that fact, could only have come from strenuous labour in the open air. +She, however, noticed that while the average Englishman would have +asked permission to help her, or have deprecated the offer, this +stranger did nothing of the kind. He stood with the water frothing +about his ankles, holding out his hand. +</P> + +<P> +She had no hesitation about taking it, and while he waded through the +river she stepped lightly from stone to stone until she came to a +rather wider gap, where the stream was deeper. Then she stopped a +moment, gazing at the sliding froth, until the man's grasp tightened on +her fingers, and she felt his other hand rest upon her waist. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he said, "I won't let you fall." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-052"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-052.jpg" ALT=""'Now,' he said, 'I won't let you fall.'"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="319" HEIGHT="447"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 319px"> +"'Now,' he said, 'I won't let you fall.'" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +She was across the gap in another moment, wondering somewhat uneasily +why she had obeyed the compelling pressure, but glad to see that his +face was perfectly unmoved, and that he was evidently quite unconscious +of having done anything unusual. She crossed without mishap, and when +they stood on the shingle he dropped her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," she said. "I'm afraid you got rather wet." +</P> + +<P> +The man laughed, and he had a pleasant laugh. "Oh," he said, "I'm used +to it. Isn't there a village with a hotel in it, a mile or two from +here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said the girl, "this is the way. The path goes up to the high +road through the larch wood." +</P> + +<P> +She turned into it, and, though she had not expected this, the man +walked beside her. Still, she did not resent it. His manner was +deferential, and she liked his face, while there was, after all, no +reason why he should stay behind when he was going the same way. He +accompanied her silently for several minutes as they went on through +the gloom of the larches, where a sweet, resinous odour crept into the +still, evening air, and then he looked up as they came to a towering +pine. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you got many of those trees over here?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Then a light dawned upon the girl, for, though he had spoken without +perceptible accent, she had been slightly puzzled by something in his +speech and appearance. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe they're not uncommon. You are an American?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard laughed. "No," he said. "I was born in Western Canada, but I +think I'm as English as you are, in some respects, though I never quite +realised it until to-night. It isn't exactly because my father came +from this country, either." +</P> + +<P> +The girl was a trifle astonished at this answer, and still more at the +indefinite something in his manner which seemed to indicate that he +expected her to understand, as, indeed, she did. Her only dowry had +been an expensive education, and she remembered that the influence of +the isle she lived in had in turn fastened on Saxons, Norsemen, +Normans, and made them Englishmen. What was more, so far as she had +read, those who had gone out South or Westwards had carried that +influence with them and, under all their surface changes, and sometimes +their grievances against the Motherland, were, in the great essentials, +wholly English still. +</P> + +<P> +"But," she said at random, "how can you be sure that I'm English?" +</P> + +<P> +It was quite dark in among the trees, but she fancied there was a smile +in her companion's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," he answered simply, "you couldn't be anything else!" +</P> + +<P> +She accepted this as a compliment, though she fancied that it had not +been his direct intention to pay her one. His general attitude since +she had met him scarcely suggested such a lack of sense. She was +becoming mildly interested in this stranger, but she possessed several +essentially English characteristics, and it did not appear advisable to +encourage him too much. She said nothing further, and it was he who +spoke first. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," he said, "if you knew a young lad who went out to Canada +some few years ago. His name was Pattinson—Henry Pattinson." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said his companion, "I certainly did not. Besides, the name is +not an uncommon one. There are a good many Pattinsons in the North." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard was not astonished at this answer. He had reasons for +believing that the name the lad he had befriended had enrolled himself +under was not his correct one. It would, of course, have been easy to +describe him, but Wyllard was shrewd, and noticing that there was now a +restraint in his companion's manner he was not prepared to do that yet. +He was aware that most of the English are characterised by a certain +reserve, and apt to retire into their shells if pressed too hard. He +did not, however, mean to let this girl elude him altogether. +</P> + +<P> +"It really doesn't matter," he said, "I shall no doubt get upon his +trail in due time." +</P> + +<P> +They reached the high road a minute or two later, and the girl turned +to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you again," she said. "If you go straight on you will come to +the village in about a quarter of an hour." +</P> + +<P> +Then she turned away and left him standing with his soft hat in his +hand, and, as it happened, he stood quite still for almost a minute +after she had gone. In due time, however, he reached the inn he had +inquired about, and its old-world simplicity delighted him. It was +built, feet thick, of slate stone, against the foot of the fell, and +roofed, as he noticed, with ponderous flags. In Canada, where the +frost was Arctic, they used thin cedar shingles. The room his meal was +brought him in was panelled with oak that had turned black with age. +Great rough-hewn beams of four times the size that anybody would have +used for the purpose in the West supported the low ceiling, and—for +there was a fire on the wide hearth—the ruddy gleam of burnished +copper utensils pierced the shadows. The room was large, and there was +only a single candle upon the table, but he felt that a garish light +would somehow be out of harmony with the atmosphere of that interior. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye his hostess appeared to clear the things away, and she was a +little, withered old woman, immaculately neat, with shrewd, kindly +eyes, and a russet tinge in her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a good light, and company in the sitting-room," she said. +"We've three young men staying with us. They've been up the Pike." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd sooner stay here, if I may," said Wyllard. "I don't quite know +yet if I'll go on to-morrow. One can get through to Langley Dale by +the Hause, as I think you call it?" +</P> + +<P> +The wrinkled dame said that pedestrians often went that way, and +Wyllard asked a question casually. +</P> + +<P> +"There are some prosperous folks—people of station living round here? +</P> + +<P> +"There's the vicar. I don't know that he's what you'd call prosperous. +Then there's Mr. Martindale, of Rushyholme, and Little, of the Ghyll." +</P> + +<P> +"Has any of them a daughter of about twenty-four years of age?" and +Wyllard described the girl he had met to the best of his ability. +</P> + +<P> +It was evident that the landlady did not recognise the description, but +she seemed to consider. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, "there's nobody like that; but I did hear that they'd a +young lady staying at the vicarage." +</P> + +<P> +Then she changed the subject abruptly, and Wyllard once more decided +that the English did not like questions. +</P> + +<P> +"You're a stranger, sir?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I am," said Wyllard. "I've some business to attend to further on, but +I came along on foot, to see the fells, and I'm glad I did. It's a +great and wonderful country you're living in. That is," he added +gravely, "when you get outside the towns. There are things in some of +them that most make one ill." +</P> + +<P> +Then he stood up. "That tray's too heavy for you. Won't you let me +carry it?" +</P> + +<P> +The landlady seemed astonished, but she made it clear that she desired +no assistance, and when she went out Wyllard, who sat down again, took +out the photograph. He gazed at it steadfastly, and then put it back +into his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"There's rather more than mere prettiness there, but I don't know that +I want to keep it now," he said. "It's way behind the original. She +has grown in the meanwhile—just as one would expect that girl to grow." +</P> + +<P> +Then he lighted his pipe, and smoked thoughtfully until he appeared to +arrive at a decision. +</P> + +<P> +"One can't force the running in this country. They don't like it," he +said. "I'll lie by a day or two, and keep an eye on that vicarage." +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile his hostess was discussing him with a niece. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I don't know what that man is," she informed the younger +woman. "He has got the manners of a gentleman, but he walks like a +fell shepherd, and his hands are like a navvy's. A man's hands now and +then tell you a good deal about him. Besides, of all things, he wanted +to carry his tray away. Said it was too heavy for me." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said her niece, "he's an American. There's no accounting for +them." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +HER PICTURE. +</H3> + +<P> +Wyllard stayed at the inn three days without seeing anything more of +the girl he had met beside the stream, though he diligently watched for +her. For one thing, he had long felt it was his duty to communicate +with the relatives of the lad he had befriended, and the fact that he +had found her photograph in the young Englishman's possession made it +appear highly probable that she could assist him in tracing them. +Apart from this, he could not quite analyse his motives for desiring to +see more of her, though he was conscious of the desire. Her picture +had, however, been a companion to him in his wanderings, and he had, +indeed, now and then found a certain solace in gazing at it, while now +he had seen her in the flesh he was willing to admit that he had never +met any woman who had made the same impression on him. What he meant +by that he was not quite certain; but it was in the meanwhile as far as +he would go. +</P> + +<P> +It was, of course, open to him to call at the vicarage, but though he +meant to adopt that course as a last resort, there were certain +objections to it. He did not even know the girl's name, and there was +nobody to say a word for him; while, so far as his experience went, the +English were rather apt to be reticent and reserved to an unknown +stranger. It seemed to him that, although she might give him the +information he required, their acquaintance would probably terminate +then and there, which was not what he desired. She would, he decided, +be less likely to stand upon her guard if he could contrive to meet her +casually without pre-arrangement. +</P> + +<P> +On the fourth day fortune favoured him, for he came upon her +endeavouring to open a tottering gate where a stony hill track led off +from the smooth white road. As it happened, he had received a letter +from Mrs. Hastings that morning, fixing the date of her departure, +which rendered it necessary for him to discharge the duty Hawtrey had +saddled him with as soon as possible. The Grange, where he understood +Miss Ismay was then staying, lay thirty miles away across the fells, +and he had already decided to start early on the morrow. That being +the case, it was clear that he must make the most of this opportunity; +but he also realised that it would be advisable to proceed +circumspectly. Saying nothing, he set his shoulder to the gate, and +lifting it on its decrepit hinges swung it open. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said the girl, and then, remembering that this was the +last thing she had said to him, she smiled, as she added, "It is the +second time you have turned up when I was in difficulties." +</P> + +<P> +In spite of his resolution to proceed cautiously, a twinkle crept into +Wyllard's eyes, and suggested that the fact she had mentioned was not +so much of a coincidence as it probably appeared. She saw it, and was +about to pass on, when he stopped her with a gesture. He was, after +all, usually a candid person. +</P> + +<P> +"The fact is, I have been looking out for you the last three days," he +said. +</P> + +<P> +He fancied the girl had taken alarm at this, and spread his hands out +deprecatingly. "Won't you hear me out?" he added. "There's a matter I +must put before you, but I won't keep you long." +</P> + +<P> +His companion was a little puzzled, and naturally curious. It struck +her as somewhat strange that his rather startling admission should have +roused in her very little indignation; but she felt that it would be +unreasonable to suspect this man of anything that savoured of +impertinence. His manner was reassuring, and she liked his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" she said inquiringly. +</P> + +<P> +The man indicated a big oak trunk that lay just inside the gate. +</P> + +<P> +"If you'll sit down, I'll get through as quick as I can," he said. "In +the first place, I am, as I told you, a Canadian, come over partly to +see the country, and partly to carry out one or two duties. In regard +to one of them, I believe you can help me." +</P> + +<P> +His companion's face was expressive of a very natural astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +"I could help you?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard nodded. "I'll explain my reasons for believing it later on," +he said. "In the meanwhile, I asked you a question the other night, +which I'll now try to make more explicit. Were you ever acquainted +with a young Englishman who went to Canada from this country several +years ago? He would be about twenty then, and had dark hair and eyes. +That, of course, isn't an unusual thing, but there was a rather curious +white mark on his left temple. If he was ever a friend of yours, that +scar ought to fix it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said the girl, "that must have been Lance Radcliffe. I was with +him when the scar was made—ever so long ago. But you said his name +was Pattinson—and we heard that he was dead." +</P> + +<P> +"I did," said Wyllard gravely. "Still, I wasn't quite sure of it, and +he's certainly dead. I buried him." +</P> + +<P> +His companion made a little abrupt movement, and he saw the sudden +softening of her eyes. There was, however, only a gentle pity in them, +and nothing in her manner suggested the deeper feeling he had +half-expected. That was also a relief to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," she said, "I am sure that his father would like to meet you. +There was some trouble between them—I don't know which was wrong—and +Lance went out to Canada, and never wrote. By and bye, Major Radcliffe +tried to trace him through a Vancouver banker, and only found that he +had died in the hands of a stranger who had done all that was possible +for him." She turned to Wyllard with a look which set his heart +beating rather faster than usual. "You are that man?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "I did what I could for him. It didn't +amount to very much. He was too far gone." +</P> + +<P> +Then at her request he told her the story he had told to Hawtrey, and +when he had finished her face was soft again, for it had stirred her +curiously. +</P> + +<P> +"But," she said, "he had no claim on you." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard lifted one hand as if in expostulation. "He was dying in the +bush. Wasn't that enough?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl made no answer for a moment or two. She had earned her living +for several years, and was, because of it, to some extent acquainted +with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are +certainly hard men in Canada, the small farmers and ranchers of the +West—and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build +railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific +slope—are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them +the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still, +watching her companion covertly, she understood that this man whom she +had seen for the first time three days ago had done exactly what she +would have expected of him. Then she proceeded to give him the +information she supposed he desired. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw a good deal of Lance Radcliffe—when I was younger," she said. +"His people still live at Garside Scar, close by Dufton Holme. I +presume you will call on them?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard said that he proposed doing so as he had a watch and one or two +other mementoes that they might like to have, and when she told him how +to reach Dufton Holme by a very round-about railway journey he supposed +it lay somewhere in the dale to which he already purposed going. Then +she turned to him again. +</P> + +<P> +"There is one point that rather puzzles me," she said. "How did you +know that I could tell you anything about him?" +</P> + +<P> +The man thrust his hand into his pocket, and took out a little leather +case. +</P> + +<P> +"You are by no means a stranger to me," he said, and quietly handed her +the photograph. "This is your picture; I found it among the dead lad's +things." +</P> + +<P> +The girl, who started visibly, flashed a very keen glance at him. +There was, however, no doubt that he had not intended to produce any +dramatic effect. Then she flushed a little. +</P> + +<P> +"I never knew he had it," she said. "Perhaps he got it from his +sister." She paused, and then, as though impelled to make the fact +quite clear, added, "I certainly never gave it him." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled gravely, for he recognised that while she was clearly +grieved to hear of his death, she could have had no particular +tenderness for the unfortunate lad. He was, however, a little off his +guard just then. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "perhaps he took it in the first place for the mere +beauty of it, and it afterwards became a companion—something that +connected him with the Old Country. It appealed in one of those ways +to me." +</P> + +<P> +Again she flashed a sharp glance at him, but he went on unheeding: +</P> + +<P> +"When I found it I meant to keep it merely as a clue, and so that it +could be given up to his relatives some day," he added. "Then I fell +into the habit of looking at it in my lonely camp in the bush at night, +and when I sat beside the stove while the snow lay deep upon the +prairie. There was something in your eyes that seemed to encourage me." +</P> + +<P> +"To encourage you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Wyllard assented gravely; "I think that expresses it. When I +camped in the bush of the Pacific slope we were either out on the gold +trail—and we generally came back ragged and unsuccessful after +spending several months' wages which we could badly spare—or I was +going from one wooden town to another without a dollar in my pocket and +wondering, how I was to obtain one when I got there. For a time it +wasn't much more cheerful on the prairie: twice in succession the +harvest failed. Perhaps Lance Radcliffe felt as I did." +</P> + +<P> +The girl cut him short. "Why didn't you mention the photograph at +once?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled at her. "Oh," he said, "I didn't want to be +precipitate—your folks don't seem to like that; I've met them out +West. I think"—and he seemed to consider—"I wanted to make sure you +wouldn't be repelled by what might look like Colonial <I>brusquerie</I>. +You see, you have been over snow-barred divides and through great +shadowy forests with me. We've camped among the boulders by lonely +lakes, and gone down frothing rapids. I felt—I can't tell you +why—that I was bound to meet you some day." +</P> + +<P> +It was, perhaps, a trifle startling, but the girl now showed neither +astonishment nor resentment. She felt curiously certain that this +stranger was not posing or speaking for effect. It did not occur to +him that he might have gone too far, and for a space he leaned against +the gate, saying nothing, while she looked at him with what he thought +of as her gracious English calm. +</P> + +<P> +Pale sunshine fell upon them, though the larches beside the road were +rustling beneath a little cold wind, and the song of the river came up +brokenly out of the valley. An odour of fresh grass floated about +them, and the dry, cold smell of the English spring was in the air. +Across the valley dim ghosts of hills lighted by evanescent gleams rose +out of the east wind greyness with shadowy grandeur. +</P> + +<P> +Then Wyllard seemed to rouse himself. "I wonder if I ought to write +Major Radcliffe and tell him what my object is before I call?" he said. +"It would make the thing a little easier." +</P> + +<P> +The girl rose. "Yes," she assented, "that would, perhaps, be wiser." +Then she glanced at the photograph which was still in her hand. "It +has served its purpose. I scarcely think it would be of any great +interest to Major Radcliffe." +</P> + +<P> +She saw his face change as she made it evident that she did not mean to +give the portrait back to him; but there was, at least, one excellent +reason why she would not have her picture in a strange man's hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," she said, "for the story. I am glad we have met; but I'm +afraid I have already kept my friends waiting for me." +</P> + +<P> +Then she turned away, and it occurred to Wyllard that he had made a +very indifferent use of the opportunity, since she had neither asked +his name nor told him hers. It was, however, evident that he could not +well run after her and demand it, and he decided that he could in all +probability obtain it from Major Radcliffe when he called upon him. +Still, he regretted his lack of adroitness as he walked back to the +inn, where he wrote two letters when he had consulted a map and his +landlady. Dufton Holme, he discovered, was a small village within a +mile or two of the Grange where, as Miss Rawlinson had informed him, +Agatha Ismay was then staying. One letter was addressed to her, and he +formally asked permission to call upon her with a message from Gregory +Hawtrey. The other was to Major Radcliffe, and in both he said that an +answer would reach him at the inn which his landlady had informed him +was to be found not far from either of the houses he proposed to visit. +</P> + +<P> +He set out on foot next morning, and after climbing a steep pass +followed a winding track across a waste of empty moor until he struck a +smooth white road, which led past a rock-girt lake and into a deep +valley. It was six o'clock when he started, and three when he reached +the inn, where he found an answer to one of his letters awaiting him. +It was from Major Radcliffe, who desired an interview with him as soon +as possible. +</P> + +<P> +Within an hour he was on his way to the Major's house, where a +grey-haired man, whose yellow skin suggested long exposure to a +tropical sun, and a little withered lady were waiting for him. They +received him graciously, but there was an indefinite something in their +manner and bearing which Wyllard, who had read a good deal, recognised, +though he had never been brought into actual contact with it until +then. He felt that he could not have expected to come across such +people anywhere but in England, unless it was at the headquarters of a +British battalion in India. +</P> + +<P> +He told his story tersely, softening unpleasant details, and making +little of what he had done, and the grey-haired man listened gravely +with an unmoved face, though a trace of moisture crept into the little +lady's eyes. There was silence for a moment or two when he had +finished, and then Major Radcliffe, whose manner was very quiet, turned +to him. +</P> + +<P> +"You have laid me under an obligation which I could never wipe out, +even if I wished it," he said. "It was my only son you buried out +there in Canada." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off for a moment, and his quietness was more marked than ever +when he went on again. +</P> + +<P> +"As you have no doubt surmised, we quarrelled," he said. "He was +extravagant and careless—at least I thought that then—but now it +seems to me that I was unduly hard on him. His mother"—and he turned +to the little lady with an inclination that pleased Wyllard +curiously—"was sure of it at the time. In any case, I took the wrong +way, and he went out to Canada. I made that, at least, easy for +him—and I have been sorry ever since." +</P> + +<P> +He paused again with a little expressive gesture. "It seems due to +him, and you, that I should tell you this. When no word reached us I +had inquiries made, through a banker he called upon, who, discovering +that he had registered at a hotel as Pattinson, at length traced him to +a British Columbian silver mine. He had, however, left it shortly +before my correspondent learned that he had been employed there, and +all the latter could tell me was that an unknown prospector had nursed +him until he died." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who said nothing, took out a watch and the clasp of a +workman's belt from his pocket, and laid them gently on Mrs. +Radcliffe's knee. He saw her eyes fill, and turned his head away. +</P> + +<P> +"I feel that you may blame me for not writing sooner, but it was only a +very little while ago that I was able to trace you, and then it was +only by a very curious—coincidence," he said presently. +</P> + +<P> +This was the most apposite word that occurred to him, for he did not +consider it advisable to mention the photograph. It seemed to him that +the girl would not like it. Nor, though he was greatly tempted, did he +care to make inquiries concerning her just then. In another moment or +two the Major spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"If I can make your stay here pleasanter in any way I should be +delighted," he said. "If you will take up your quarters with us I will +send down to the inn for your things." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard excused himself, but when the lady urged him at least to dine +with them on the following evening he appeared to consider. +</P> + +<P> +"The one difficulty is that I don't know yet whether I shall be engaged +then," he explained. "As it happens, I've a message for Miss Ismay, +and I wrote offering to call upon her at any convenient hour. So far I +have heard nothing from her." +</P> + +<P> +"She's away," Mrs. Radcliffe informed him. "They have probably sent +your letter on to her. I had a note from her yesterday, however, and +expect her here to-morrow. You have met some friends of hers in +Canada?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory Hawtrey," said Wyllard. "I have promised to call upon his +people, too." +</P> + +<P> +He saw Major Radcliffe glance at his wife, and the faint gleam in the +latter's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said, "if you will promise to come I will send word over to +Agatha." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard agreed to this, and went away a few minutes later. He noticed +the tact and consideration with which his new friends had refrained +from expressing any sign of the curiosity he fancied they naturally +felt, for Mrs. Radcliffe's face had suggested that she understood the +situation. The latter was, however, commencing to appear a little more +difficult to him. It was, it seemed, his task to explain to a girl +brought up among such people delicately what she must be prepared to +face as a farmer's wife in Western Canada. He was not sure that this +would be easy in itself, but it was rendered much more difficult by the +fact that Hawtrey would expect him to accomplish it without unduly +daunting her. Her letter had certainly suggested courage, but, after +all, it was as he reflected the courage of ignorance, and he had now +some notion of the life of ease and refinement her English friends led. +He was commencing to feel sorry for Agatha Ismay. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH. +</H3> + +<P> +Next evening Wyllard sat with Mrs. Radcliffe in a big low-ceilinged +room at Garside Scar, looking about him with quiet interest. He had +now and then spent a day or two in huge Western hotels, but he had +never seen anything quite like that room. The sheer physical comfort +of its arrangements appealed to him, but after all he was not one who +had ever studied his bodily ease very much, and what he regarded as the +chaste refinement of its adornment had a deeper effect. Though he had +lived for the most part in the bush and on the prairie, he had been +endued with or had somehow acquired an artistic susceptibility. +</P> + +<P> +The furniture was old, and perhaps a trifle shabby, but it was, as he +noticed, of beautiful design. Curtains, carpets, tinted walls, formed, +it seemed to him, a harmony of soft colouring, and there were scattered +here and there dainty works of art, little statuettes from Italy, and +wonderful Indian ivory and silver work. Then a row of low, +stone-ribbed windows pierced the front of the room, and looking out he +saw the trim garden lying in the warm evening light. Immediately +beneath the windows ran a broad gravelled terrace, which was apparently +raked smooth every day, with a row of urns in which hyacinths bloomed +upon its pillared wall. From the middle of it a wide stairway led down +to the wonderful velvet lawn, which was dotted with clumps of cupressus +with golden gleams in it, and beyond that clipped yews rose smooth and +solid as a rampart of stone. +</P> + +<P> +It all impressed him curiously—the order and beauty of it, the signs +of loving care. It gave him a key, he fancied, to the lives the +cultured English led, for there was no sign of strain and fret and +stress and hurry here. Everything, it seemed, went smoothly with +rhythmic regularity, and though it is possible that a good many +Englishmen would have regarded Garside Scar as a very second-rate +country house, and seen in Major Radcliffe and his wife nothing more +than a somewhat prosy old soldier and a withered lady, old-fashioned in +her dress and views, this Westerner had what was, perhaps, a clearer +vision. He could imagine the Major standing fast at any cost upon some +minute point of honour, and it seemed to him that his lady might have +stepped down from some old picture with all the graces of an earlier +age and the smell of the English lavender upon her garments. Then he +remembered that, after all, Englishwomen lived somewhat coarsely in the +Georgian days, and that he had met hard-handed men grimed with dust and +sweat who could also stand fast by a point of honour in Western Canada. +Though the latter fact did not occur to him, he had, for that matter, +done it more than once himself. +</P> + +<P> +Then he recalled his wandering thoughts as his hostess smiled at him. +</P> + +<P> +"You are interested in all you see?" she asked frankly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, madam," said Wyllard—and the word rose instinctively to his +lips, for it seemed to him the only fitting way to address her. "In +fact, I'd like to spend some hours here and look at everything. I'd +begin at the pictures and work right round." +</P> + +<P> +His companion's smile suggested that she was not displeased. +</P> + +<P> +"But you have been in London?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have," said Wyllard. "I had one or two letters to folks there from +big flour shippers, and they did all they could to entertain me. +Still, their places were different; they hadn't the—charm—of yours. +It's something which I think could only exist in these still valleys +and in cathedral closes. It strikes me more because it is something +I've never been accustomed to." +</P> + +<P> +The lady was interested, and fancied that she partly understood his +attitude. +</P> + +<P> +"Your life is necessarily different from ours," she suggested. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "It's so different that you couldn't realise it. It's +all strain and effort from early sunrise until after dusk at night. +Bodily strain of aching muscles, and mental stress in adverse seasons. +We scarcely think of comfort, and never dream of artistic luxury. The +dollars we raise are sunk again in seed and extra teams and ploughs." +</P> + +<P> +"After all, a good many people are driven rather hard by the love of +money here." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Wyllard gravely, "that's not it exactly. At least, not with +most of us. It's rather the pride of wresting another quarter-section +from the prairie, taking—our own—by labour, breaking the wilderness. +You"—and he added this as though to explain that he could hardly +expect her to quite grasp his views—"have never been out West?" +</P> + +<P> +His hostess laughed. "I have stayed down in the plains through the hot +season in stifling cantonments, and I have once or twice been in Indian +cholera camps. Besides, I have seen my husband sitting, haggard and +worn with fever, in his saddle holding back a clamorous crowd that +surged about him half-mad with religious fury. There were Hindus and +Moslems to be kept from flying at each others' throats, and at a +tactless word or sign of wavering either party would have pulled him +down." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll have to forgive me, madam"—and Wyllard's gesture was +deprecatory, though his eyes twinkled. "The notion that we're the only +ones who really work, or, at least, do anything worth while, is rather +a favourite one out West. No doubt it's a delusion. I should have +known that all of us are born like that." +</P> + +<P> +His hostess forgave him readily, if only for the "all of us," which +struck her as especially fortunate. A few minutes later there were +voices in the hall, and then the door opened, and the girl he had met +at the stepping stones came in. She was dressed differently, in +trailing garments which, it seemed to him, became her wonderfully, and +he noticed now the shapely delicacy of her hands and the fine, ivory +pallor of her skin. Then his hostess turned to him. +</P> + +<P> +"I had better present you formally to Miss Ismay," she said. "Agatha, +this is Mr. Wyllard, who I understand has brought you a message from +Canada." +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt that Wyllard was blankly astonished, and for a +moment the girl was clearly startled, too. +</P> + +<P> +"You!" was all she said. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-071"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-071.jpg" ALT=""'You!' was all she said." BORDER="2" WIDTH="316" HEIGHT="468"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 316px"> +"'You!' was all she said. +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +She, however, held her hand out before she turned to speak to Mrs. +Radcliffe, but it was a slight relief to both when somebody announced +that dinner was ready. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard sat next to his hostess, and was not sorry that he was only +called upon to take part in casual general conversation, though he +fancied once or twice that Miss Ismay was unobtrusively studying him. +It was also nearly an hour after the meal was over when Mrs. Radcliffe +left them alone in her little drawing-room. +</P> + +<P> +"You have, no doubt, a good deal to talk about, and you needn't join us +until you're ready," she said. "The Major always reads the London +papers after dinner." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sat down in a low chair near the hearth, and it first of all +occurred to Wyllard, who took a place opposite her, that she was, +although of full stature, too delicate and dainty, too over-cultivated, +in fact, to marry Hawtrey. This was rather curious, since he had +hitherto regarded his comrade as a typical, well-educated Englishman; +but it now seemed to him that there was a certain streak of coarseness +in Gregory. The man, it suddenly flashed upon him, was self-indulgent, +and his careless ease of manner, which he had once liked, was rather +too much in evidence. In a few moments, however, Agatha turned to him. +</P> + +<P> +"I understand that Gregory is recovering rapidly?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard assured her that this was the case, and Agatha said quietly, +"He wants me to go out to him." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard felt that if a girl of this kind had promised to marry him he +would not have sent for her but have come in person, if he had been +compelled to pledge his last possessions, or crawl to the tideway on +his hands and knees. For all that, he was ready to defend his friend. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid it's necessary," he said. "Gregory was quite unfit for +such a journey when I left, and he must be ready to commence the +season's campaign with the first of the spring. Our summer is short, +you see, and with our one-crop farming it's indispensable to get the +seed in early: in fact, he will be badly behind as it is." +</P> + +<P> +This was not particularly tactful since, without intending it, he made +it evident that he felt his comrade had been to some extent remiss; but +Agatha smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "I understand! You needn't labour the excuse. But +doesn't the same thing apply to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"It certainly did. Now, however, things have become a little easier. +My holding's larger than Gregory's, and I have a foreman who can look +after it for me." +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory said that you were a great friend of his." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard seized this opportunity. "He is a great friend of mine, and I +like to think it means the same thing. In fact, it's reasonably +certain that he saved my life for me." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" said Agatha; "that is a thing he didn't mention. How did it come +about?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard was glad to tell the story: he was anxious to say all he +honestly could in Hawtrey's favour. +</P> + +<P> +"We were at work on a railroad trestle—a towering wooden bridge, in +British Columbia. It stretched across a deep ravine with great +boulders and a stream in the bottom of it, and we stood high up on a +staging close beneath the metals. A fast freight, a huge general +produce train, came down the track, with one of the new big locomotives +hauling it, and when the cars went banging by above us we could hardly +hold on to the bridge. Still, the construction foreman was a hustler, +and we had to get the spikes in. I was swinging the hammer when I felt +the plank beneath me slip. The train, it seems, had jarred the bolt we +had our lashings round loose. For a moment I felt that I was going +down into the gorge, and then Gregory leaned out and grabbed me. He +had only one free hand to do it with, and when he felt my weight one +foot swung out from the stringer he had sprung to. It seemed certain +that I would pull him with me, too. We hung like that for a space—I +don't quite know how long." +</P> + +<P> +He paused for a moment, apparently feeling the stress of it again, and +there was a faint thrill in his voice when he went on. +</P> + +<P> +"It was then," he said, "I knew just what kind of man Gregory Hawtrey +was. Anybody else would have let me go; but he held on. Then I got my +hand on some of the framing, and he swung me on to the stringer." +</P> + +<P> +He saw the gleam in Agatha's eyes. "Oh!" she said, "that is just what +he must have done. He was like that always—impulsive, splendidly +generous." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard felt that he had succeeded, though he knew that there were men +on the prairie who called his comrade slackly careless, instead of +impulsive. Agatha, however, spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"But Gregory wasn't a carpenter," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"In those days when dollars were scanty we had to be whatever we could. +There wasn't much specialisation of handicrafts out there then. The +farmer whose crop was ruined took up the railroad shovel, or borrowed a +saw from somebody and set about building houses, or anything else that +was wanted." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course!" said Agatha. "Besides, he was always wonderfully quick. +He could learn any game by just watching it awhile. He did all he +undertook brilliantly." +</P> + +<P> +It occurred to Wyllard that Gregory had, at least, made no great +success of farming; but that occupation, as practised on the prairie, +demands a good deal more than quickness and what some call brilliancy +from the man who undertakes it. He must, as they say out there, +possess the capacity for staying with it; the grim courage to hold fast +the tighter under each crushing blow, when his teams die, or the grain +shrivels under the harvest frost, or ragged ice hurtling before a +roaring blast does the reaping. It was, however, evident that this +girl had an unquestioning faith in Gregory Hawtrey, and once more +Wyllard felt compassionate towards her. He wondered if she would have +retained it had the man spent those four years in England instead of +Canada: for it was clear from the contrast between her and her picture +that she had grown in many ways since she had given her promise to her +lover. He had said what he could in Hawtrey's favour, but now he felt +that something was due to the girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory told me to explain what things are like out there," he said. +"I think it is because they are so different from what you are +accustomed to that he has waited as long as he has done. He wanted to +make them as easy as possible for you, and now he would like you to +realise what is before you." +</P> + +<P> +He was almost astonished at the girl's comprehension, for she glanced +round the luxurious room with a faint smile. +</P> + +<P> +"You look on me as part of—this? I mean it seems to you that I fit in +with my surroundings, and would only be in harmony with them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Wyllard gravely, "I think you fit in with them excellently." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha laughed. "Well," she said, "I was once, to a certain extent, +accustomed to something similar; though, after all, one could hardly +compare the Grange with Garside Scar. Still, that was some time ago, +and I have earned my living for several years now. That counts for +something, doesn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +She glanced down at her dress. "For instance, this is the result of a +good deal of self-denial, though the cost of it was partly worked off +in music lessons, and the stuff was almost the cheapest I could get. I +sang at concerts—and it was part of my stock-in-trade. After all, why +should you think me only capable of living in luxury?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't quite go that far." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed again. "Then is Canada such a very dreadful place? I have +heard of other Englishwomen going out there as farmers' wives. Do they +all live unhappily?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Wyllard; "at least, they show no sign of it, and some of +them and the city-born Canadians are, I think, the salt of this earth. +Probably it's easy to be calm and gracious in such a place as +this—though I naturally don't know since I've never tried it—but when +a woman who toils from sunrise to sunset most of the year keeps her +sweetness and serenity, it's a very different and much finer thing. +But I'll try to answer the other question. The prairie isn't dreadful; +it's a land of sunshine and clear skies. Heat and cold—and we have +them both—don't worry one there. There's optimism in the crystal air. +It's not beautiful like these valleys, but it has its beauty. It's +vast and silent, and, though our homesteads are crude and new, once you +pass the breaking it's primevally old. That gets hold of one somehow. +It's wonderful after sunset in the early spring, when the little cold +wind's like wine, and it runs white to the horizon with the smoky red +on the rim of it melting into transcendental green. When the wheat +rolls across the foreground in ochre and burnished copper waves, it's +more wonderful still. One sees the fulfilment of the promise, and +takes courage." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Agatha, who had scarcely suspected him of a capacity for +such flights as this, "what is there to shrink from?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the case of a small farmer's wife, the constant, never-slackening +strain. There's no hired assistance; she must clean the house, and +wash, and cook—though it's not unusual for the men to wash the plates." +</P> + +<P> +The girl was evidently not much impressed, for she laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Does Gregory wash the plates?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's eyes twinkled. "When Sproatly won't," he said. "Still, in a +general way they only do it once a week." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said Agatha, "I can imagine Gregory hating it. As a matter of +fact, I like him for it." +</P> + +<P> +"Then she must bake, and mend her husband's clothes. Indeed, it's not +unusual for her to mend for the hired man too. Besides that, there are +always odds and ends of tasks, but the time when you feel the strain +most is in the winter. Then you sit at night, shivering, as a rule, +beside the stove in an almost empty log-walled room, reading a book you +have probably read three or four times before. Outside, the frost is +Arctic; you can hear the roofing shingles crackle now and then; and you +wake up when the fire burns low. There's no life, no company, rarely a +new face, and if you go to a dance or supper somewhere, perhaps once a +month, you ride back on a bob-sled frozen almost stiff beneath the +robes." +</P> + +<P> +"Still," said Agatha, "that does not last." +</P> + +<P> +The man understood her. "Oh!" he said, "one makes progress—that is, +if one can stand the strain—but, as the one way of doing it is to sow +for a larger harvest and break fresh sod every year, there can be no +slackening down in the meanwhile. Every dollar must be guarded and +ploughed into the soil again." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off, feeling that he had done all that could reasonably be +expected of him, and Agatha asked one question. +</P> + +<P> +"A woman who didn't slacken could make the struggle easier for the man?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "in every way. Still, she would have a +great deal to bear." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha's face softened. "Ah," she said, "she would not grudge the +effort in the case of one she loved." +</P> + +<P> +Then she looked up again with a smile. "I wonder," she added, "if you +really thought I should flinch." +</P> + +<P> +"When I first heard of it, I thought it quite likely. Then when I read +your letter my doubts vanished." +</P> + +<P> +He saw he had not been judicious, for there was, for the first time, a +trace of hardness in the girl's expression. +</P> + +<P> +"He showed you that?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"One small part of it," said Wyllard. "I want to say that when I saw +this house, and how you seemed fitted to it, my misgivings about +Gregory's decision troubled me once more. Now"—and he made a little +impressive gesture—"they have vanished altogether, and they'll never +come back again." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke as he felt. This girl, he fancied, would feel the strain; but +it seemed to him that she had strength enough to bear it cheerfully. +In spite of her daintiness, she was one who, in time of stress, could +be depended on. He often remembered afterwards how they had sat +together in the little, luxuriously furnished room, she leaning back, +with the soft light on her delicately tinted face, in her big, low +chair. In the meanwhile she said nothing, and by and bye he looked up +at her. +</P> + +<P> +"It's curious that I had your photograph ever so long, and never +thought of showing it Gregory," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha smiled. "I suppose it is," she admitted. "After all, except +that it might have been a relief to Major Radcliffe if he had met you +sooner, the fact that you didn't show it Gregory doesn't seem of any +particular consequence." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard was not quite sure of this. He had thought about this girl +often, and had certainly been conscious of a curious thrill of +satisfaction when he had met her at the stepping-stones a few days +earlier. That feeling had also suddenly disappeared when he had +learned that she was his comrade's promised wife. He had, however, +during the last hour or two made up his mind to think no more of her. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "the next thing is to arrange for Mrs. Hastings to +meet you in London, or, perhaps, at the Grange. Her husband is a +Canadian, a man of education, who has quite a large homestead not far +from Gregory's. Her folks are people of station in Montreal, and I +feel sure that you'll like her." +</P> + +<P> +They decided that he was to ask Mrs. Hastings to stay a few days at the +Grange, and then he looked at the girl somewhat diffidently. +</P> + +<P> +"She suggests going in a fortnight," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha smiled at him. "Then," she said, "I must not keep her waiting." +</P> + +<P> +She rose, and they went back together to join their hostess. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE TRAVELLING COMPANION. +</H3> + +<P> +A grey haze, thickened by the smoke of the city, drove out across the +water when the <I>Scarrowmania</I> lay in the Mersey, with her cable hove +short, and the last of the flood tide gurgling against her bows. A +trumpeting blast of steam swept high aloft from beside her squat +funnel, and the splash of the slowly turning paddles of the couple of +steam tugs that lay alongside mingled with the din it made. A gangway +from one of them led to the <I>Scarrowmania's</I> forward deck, and a stream +of frowsy humanity that had just been released from overpacked emigrant +boarding-houses poured up it. There were apparently representatives of +all peoples and languages among that unkempt horde—Britons, +Scandinavians, Teutons, Italians, Russians, Poles—and they moved on in +forlorn apathy, like cattle driven to the slaughter. One wondered, +from the look of them, how they had raised their passage money, and how +many years' bitter self-denial it had cost them to provide for their +transit to the land of promise. +</P> + +<P> +At the head of the gangway stood the steamboat doctors, for the +<I>Scarrowmania</I> was taking out an unusual number of passengers, and +there were two of them. They were immaculate in blue uniform, and +looked very clean and English by contrast with the mass of frowsy +aliens. Beside them stood another official, presumably acting on +behalf of the Dominion Government, though there were few restrictions +imposed upon Canadian immigration then, nor for that matter did anybody +trouble much about the comfort of the steerage passengers. Though they +have altered all that latterly, each steamer, in a general way, carried +as many as she could hold. +</P> + +<P> +As the stream poured out of the gangway, the doctor glanced at each new +comer's face, and then seizing him by the wrist uncovered it. Since +this took him two or three seconds, one could have fancied that he +either possessed peculiar powers, or that the test was a somewhat +inefficient one. Then he looked at the official, who made a sign, and +the man moved on. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile a group of first-class passengers leaning on the +thwart-ship rails close by looked on, with complacent satisfaction with +the fact that they were born in a different station, or +half-contemptuous pity, as their temperament varied. Among them stood +Mrs. Hastings, Miss Winifred Rawlinson, and Agatha. The latter noticed +that Wyllard sat on a hatch forward near the head of the gangway, with +a pipe in his hand. She drew Mrs. Hastings's attention to it. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever is Mr. Wyllard doing there?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Her companion, who was wrapped in furs, for there was a sting in the +east wind, smiled at her. +</P> + +<P> +"That," she said, "is more than I can tell you; but Harry Wyllard seems +to find an interest in what other folks would consider most unpromising +things, and, what's more to the purpose, he's rather addicted to taking +a hand in. It's a habit that costs him something now and then." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha asked nothing further. She was interested in Wyllard, but she +was at the moment more interested in the faces of those who swarmed on +board. She wondered what they had endured in the lands that had cast +them out, and what they might still have to bear. It seemed to her +that the murmur of their harsh voices went up in a great protest, an +inarticulate cry of sorrow. While she looked on the doctor held back a +long-haired man who was following a haggard woman shuffling in broken +boots. He drew him aside, and when, after he had apparently consulted +with the other official, two seamen hustled the man towards a second +gangway that led to the tug, the woman raised a wild, despairing cry. +It, however, seemed that she blocked the passage, and a quartermaster +drove her, expostulating in an agony of terror, forward among the rest. +Nobody appeared concerned about this alien's tragedy, except one man, +but Agatha was not astonished when Wyllard rose and quietly laid his +hand upon the official's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +A parley appeared to follow, somebody gave an order, and when the alien +was led back again the woman's cries subsided. Agatha looked at her +companion, and once more a smile crept into Mrs. Hastings's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "I guessed he would feel he had to stand in. That's a +man who can't see any one in trouble." Then she added, with a little +whimsical sigh, "He had a bonanza harvest last fall, any way." +</P> + +<P> +They moved aft soon afterwards, and the <I>Scarrowmania</I> was smoothly +sliding seawards with the first of the ebb when Agatha met Wyllard. He +glanced at the Lancashire sandhills, which were fading into a pale +ochre gleam amidst the haze over the starboard hand, and then at the +long row of painted buoys that moved back to them ahead. +</P> + +<P> +"You're off at last! The sad grey weather is dropping fast astern," he +said. "Out yonder, the skies are clear." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said Agatha, "I'm to apply that as I like? As a matter of +fact, however, our days weren't always grey. But what was the trouble +when those steerage people came on board?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's manner, as she noticed, was free alike from the complacent +self-satisfaction which occasionally characterises the philanthropist, +and any affectation of diffidence. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "there was something wrong with that woman's husband. +Nothing infectious, I believe, but they didn't seem to consider him a +desirable citizen. They make a warning example of somebody with a +physical infirmity now and then. The man, they decided, must be put +ashore again. In the meanwhile, somebody else had hustled the woman +forward, and it almost looked as if they'd have taken her on without +him. The tug was almost ready to cast off." +</P> + +<P> +"How dreadful!" said Agatha. "But what did you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Merely promised to guarantee the cost of his passage back if they'd +refer his case to the immigration people at the other end. It's +scarcely likely that they'll make trouble. As a rule, they only throw +folks who're certain to become a charge on the community." +</P> + +<P> +"But if he really had any infirmity, mightn't it lead to that?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Wyllard drily. "I would engage to give him a fair start if +it was necessary. You wouldn't have had that woman landed in Montreal, +helpless and alone, while the man was sent back again to starve in +Poland?" +</P> + +<P> +He saw a curious liquid gleam in Agatha's eyes, and added in a +deprecating manner, "You see, I've now and then limped without a dollar +into a British Columbian mining town." +</P> + +<P> +The girl was a little stirred; but there was another matter that must +be mentioned, though she felt that the time was somewhat inopportune. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Rawlinson, who had only a second-class ticket, insists upon being +told how it is that she has been transferred to the saloon." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's eyes twinkled, but she noticed that he was wholly free from +embarrassment, which was not quite the case with her. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "that's a matter I must leave you to handle. Anyway, +she can't go second-class now. One or two of the steerage exchanged +when they saw their quarters, for which I don't blame them, and they've +filled every room right up." +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't answered the question." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard waved his hand. "Miss Rawlinson is your bridesmaid, and I'm +Gregory's best man. It seems to me it's my business to do everything +just as he'd like it done." +</P> + +<P> +He left her a moment later, and, though she did not know how she was to +explain the matter to Miss Rawlinson, who was of an independent +disposition, it occurred to her that he, at least, had found a rather +graceful way out of the difficulty. The more she saw of this Western +farmer, the more she liked him. +</P> + +<P> +It was after dinner when she next met him, and, for the wind had +changed, the <I>Scarrowmania</I> was steaming head-on into a glorious +north-west breeze. The shrouds sang; chain-guy, and stanchion, and +whatever caught the wind, set up a deep-toned throbbing; and ranks of +little, white-topped seas rolled out of the night ahead. A half-moon +hung low above them, blurred now and then by wisps of flying cloud, and +odd spouts of spray that gleamed in the silvery light leapt up about +the dipping bows. Wyllard was leaning on the rails, with a cigar in +his hand, when she stopped beside him, and she glanced towards the +lighted windows of the smoke-room not far away. +</P> + +<P> +"How is it you are not in there?" she asked, for something to say. +</P> + +<P> +"I was," said Wyllard. "It's rather full up, and it seemed they didn't +want me. They're busy playing cards, and the stakes are rather high. +In a general way, a steamboat's smoke-room is less of a men's lounge +than a gambling club." +</P> + +<P> +"And you object to cards?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no!" said Wyllard. "They merely make me tired, and when I feel I +want some excitement for my dollars I get it another way. That one +seems tame to me." +</P> + +<P> +"Which is the one you like?" +</P> + +<P> +The man laughed. "There are a good many that appeal to me. Once it +was collecting sealskins off other people's beaches, and there was zest +enough in that, in view of the probability of the dory turning over, or +a gunboat dropping on to you. Then there was a good deal of very +genuine excitement to be got out of placer-mining in British Columbia, +especially when there was frost in the ranges, and you had to thaw out +your giant-powder. Shallow alluvial workings have a way of caving in +when you least expect it of them. After all, however, I think I like +the prairie farming best." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that exciting?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Wyllard, "if you do it in one way. The gold's there—that +you're sure of—piled up by nature during I don't know how many +thousand years, but you have to stake high if you want to get much of +it out. One needs costly labour, teams—no end of them—breakers, and +big gang-plough. The farmer who has nerve enough drills his last +dollar into the soil in spring, but if he means to succeed it costs him +more than that. He must give the sweat of his tensest effort, the +uttermost toil of his body—all, in fact, that has been given him. +Then he must shut his eyes tight to the hazards against him, or, and we +can't all do that, look at them without wavering—the drought, the +hail, the harvest frost. If his teams fall sick, or the season goes +against him, he must work double tides. Still, it now and then happens +that things go right, and the red wheat rolls ripe right back across +the prairie. I don't know that any man could want a keener thrill than +the one you feel when you drive the binders in!" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha had imagination, and she could realise something of the toil, +the hazard, and the clean thrill of that victory. +</P> + +<P> +"You have felt it often?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Twice we helped to fill a big elevator up," said Wyllard quietly. +"Still, I've been very near defeat." +</P> + +<P> +The girl looked at him thoughtfully. It seemed that he possessed the +power of acquisition, as well as a wide generosity that came into play +when by strenuous effort success had been attained, which, so far as +her experience went, were things that did not invariably accompany each +other. +</P> + +<P> +"And when the harvest comes up to your expectations, you give your +dollars away," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard laughed. "You shouldn't deduce too much from a single +instance. Besides, that Pole's case hasn't cost me anything yet." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings joined them soon afterwards, and when Wyllard strolled +away they spent some time leaning on the rails, and looking at the +groups of shadowy figures on the forward deck. Their attitude was +dejected and melancholy, but one cluster had gathered round a man who +stood upon the hatch. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said, "you'll have no trouble. Canada's a great country for +a poor man. He can sleep beneath a bush all summer, if he can't strike +anything he likes." +</P> + +<P> +This did not appear particularly encouraging, but the orator went on. +"Been over for a trip to the Old Country, and I'm glad I'm going back +again. Went out with nothing except a good discharge, and they made me +sergeant of Canadian militia: After that armourer to a rifle club. +There's places a blame long way behind the Dominion, and I struck one +of them when we went with Roberts to Afghanistan. It was on that trip +I and a Pathan rolled all down a hill, him trying to get his knife arm +loose, and me jabbing his breastbone with my bayonet before I got it +into him. I drove it through to the socket. You want to make quite +sure of a Pathan." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Rawlinson winced at this. "Oh," she said, "what a horrible man!" +</P> + +<P> +"It was 'most as tough as when you went after Kiel, and stole the +Scotchman's furs," suggested a Canadian. +</P> + +<P> +The sergeant let the jibe go by. "Oh," he said, "Louis's bucks could +shoot! We had them corralled in a pit, and every time one of the boys +from Montreal broke cover he got a bullet into him. Did any of you +ever hear a dropped man squeal?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha had heard sufficient, and she and her companions turned away, +but as they moved across the deck the sergeant's voice followed her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," he said, "a grand country for a poolman. In the summer he +can sleep beneath a bush." +</P> + +<P> +For some reason this eulogy haunted Agatha when she retired to her room +that night, and she wondered what awaited all those aliens in the new +land, until it occurred to her that in some respects she was situated +very much as they were. Then, for the first time, vague misgivings +crept into her mind as she realised that she had cut herself adrift +from all that she had been accustomed to. She felt suddenly depressed +and lonely. +</P> + +<P> +The depression had, however, almost vanished when, awakening rather +early next morning, she went up on deck. A red sun hung over the +tumbling seas that ran into the hazy east astern, and they rolled up in +crested phalanxes that gleamed green and incandescent white ahead. The +<I>Scarrowmania</I> plunged through them with a spray cloud flying about her +dipping bows. She was a small, old-fashioned boat, and—for she had +some 3,000 tons of railway iron in the bottom of her—she rolled +distressfully. Her tall spars swayed athwart the vivid blueness of the +morning sky, with the rhythmic regularity of a pendulum. The girl, +however, was troubled by no sense of sickness; the keen north-wester +that sang amidst the shrouds was wonderfully fresh; and when she met +Wyllard crossing the saloon deck her cheeks were glowing from the sting +of the spray, and her eyes were bright. +</P> + +<P> +"Where have you been?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Down there," said Wyllard, pointing to the black opening in the +fore-hatch that led to the steerage quarters. "An acquaintance of mine +who's travelling forward asked me to take a look round, and I'm rather +glad I did. When I've had a word with the chief steward I'm going back +again." +</P> + +<P> +"You have a friend down there?" +</P> + +<P> +"I met the man for the first time yesterday, and rather took to him. +One of your naval petty officers, forcibly retired, who can't live upon +his pension, which is why he's going out to Canada. Now you'll excuse +me." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," said Agatha, "if you would let me go back with you?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard looked at her rather curiously. "Well," he said, with an air +of reflection, "you'll probably have to face a good deal that you don't +like out yonder, and in one way you won't suffer from a little +preparatory training. This, however, is not a case where sentimental +pity is likely to relieve anybody. It's the real thing." +</P> + +<P> +"I think I told you at Garside Scar that I haven't lived altogether in +luxury!" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who made no comment, disappeared, and merely signed to her +when he came back. They reached the ladder that led down into the +gloom beneath the hatch, and Agatha hesitated when a sour and musty +odour floated up to her, apparently out of the depths of the ship. She +went down, however, and a few moments later stood, half-nauseated, +gazing at the wildest scene of confusion her eyes had ever rested on. +A little light came down the hatchway, and a smoky lamp or two swung +above her head, but half the steerage deck was wrapped in shadow, and +out of it there rose a many-voiced complaining. Flimsy, unplaned +fittings had wrenched away, and men lay inert amidst the wreckage, with +the remains of their last meal scattered about them. There were +unwashed tin plates and pannikins, knives, and spoons, sliding up and +down everywhere, and the deck was foul with slops of tea, and trodden +bread, and marmalade. Now and then, in a wilder roll than usual, a +frowsy, huddled object slid groaning down the slant of slimy planking, +but in every case the helpless passenger was fully dressed. Steerage +passengers, in fact, seldom take off their clothes. For one thing, all +their worldly possessions are, as a rule, secreted among their attire, +and for another, most of those hailing from beyond the Danube have +never been accustomed to disrobing. In the midst of the confusion, two +half-sick steward lads were making wholly ineffective efforts to +straighten up the mess. +</P> + +<P> +Then Agatha made out that a swarm of urchins were huddled together in a +helpless mass, along one side of the horrible place. The sergeant was +haranguing them, while another man, whom she supposed to be the petty +officer, pulled them to their feet one by one. A good deal of his +labour was wasted, for the <I>Scarrowmania</I> was rolling viciously, and as +soon as he had got a few upright half of them collapsed again. Wyllard +glanced towards them compassionately. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe most of them have had nothing to eat since they came on +board, though it isn't the company's fault," he said. "There's food +enough served out, but before we picked the breeze up the men laid +hands upon it first and half of it was wasted in the scramble. Then it +seems they pitched these youngsters out of their berths." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't they belong to anybody?" Agatha asked. "Is there no one to look +after them?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled drily. "I believe one of your charitable institutions +is sending them out, and there seems to be a clergyman, who has a +curate and a lay assistant to help him, in charge. The assistant won't +be available while this rolling lasts, and the other two very naturally +prefer the saloon. In a way, that's comprehensible." +</P> + +<P> +He left her, and proceeded to help the man who was dragging the urchins +to their feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Get up!" said the sergeant. "Get up, and fall in. Dress from the +left, and number off, the ones who can stand." +</P> + +<P> +It appeared that the lads had been drilled, for they scrambled into a +line that bent and wavered each time the <I>Scarrowmania's</I> bows went +down. After that, every other lad stepped forward at the word; the +order was, "Left turn! March, and fall in on deck," and when they +feebly clambered up the ladder Wyllard, who turned to Agatha, pointed +to a door in a bulkhead of rough white wood. +</P> + +<P> +"It should have been locked, but I fancy you can get in that way, and +up through another hatch," he said. "The single women, and women with +children are in yonder, and if you want to be useful there's a field +for you. Get as many as possible up on deck." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha left him, and her face was rather white when at last she came up +into the open air, with about a dozen forlorn, draggled women trailing +helplessly after her. The lads were now sitting down in a double line +on deck, each with a tin plate and a steaming pannikin in front of him. +There were, she fancied, at least a hundred of them, and a man with a +bronzed face and the stamp of command upon him was giving them the +order of the voyage. He was the one she had already noticed. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll turn out at the whistle at half-past six," he said. "Shake +mattresses, roll up blankets, and prepare for berth inspection. Then, +at the next whistle, you'll fall in on deck stripped to the waist for +washing parade. Fourth files numbering even are orderlies in charge of +the plates and pannikins." +</P> + +<P> +"And," said the sergeant, "any insubordination will be sharply dealt +with. Now, when I was with Roberts in Afghanistan——" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who was standing close by, turned to Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think we'll be wanted. You have probably earned your +breakfast." +</P> + +<P> +They went back to the saloon deck, and the girl smiled when he looked +at her inquiringly. +</P> + +<P> +"It was a little horrible, but I hadn't so many to deal with," she +said. "Do you, and those others expect to bring any order out of that +chaos?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Wyllard, "with a little encouragement they'll do it +themselves—that is, the English, Danes, and Germans. One can trust +them to evolve a workable system. It's in their nature. You can trace +most things that tend to wholesome efficiency back to the old Teutonic +leaven. By and bye, they'll proceed to put some pressure on the +Latins, Slavs, and Jews." +</P> + +<P> +"But is it your business to offer them that encouragement?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard laughed. "Strictly speaking, it isn't in the least, but +unnecessary chaos is rather hateful, and, any way, I'm not the only one +who doesn't seem to like it. There's the petty officer, and our +friend, the sergeant, who was with Roberts in Afghanistan." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha said nothing further. She was a little surprised to feel that +she was anxious to keep this man's good opinion, though that was not +exactly why she had nerved herself for the venture into the single +women's quarters. Leaving him out altogether, it seemed to her that +there was something rather fine in the way the petty officer who was +going out almost penniless to Canada, and the sergeant, had saddled +themselves with the task of looking after those helpless lads. It was +wholly unpaid labour, for which the men who preferred to remain within +the safe limits of the saloon deck would presumably get the credit. +After all, she decided there were, no doubt, men in every station who +helped to keep the world sweet and clean, and she fancied that her +companion was to be counted among them. He certainly differed in many +ways from Gregory, but then Gregory was unapproachable. She did not +remember that it was four years since she had seen the latter, and that +her ideas had been a little unformed then. +</P> + +<P> +During the evening, Mrs. Hastings, with whom he was evidently a +favourite, happened to speak of Wyllard, and the efforts he was making +in the steerage, and Agatha asked a question. +</P> + +<P> +"Does he often undertake this kind of thing?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Mrs. Hastings with a smile. "Any way, not on so large a +scale. He's very far from setting up as a professional philanthropist, +my dear. I don't ever remember him offering to point out their duty to +other folks, and I don't think he goes about in search of an +opportunity of benefiting humanity. Still, as I suggested, when an +individual case thrusts itself beneath his nose, he generally—does +what he can." +</P> + +<P> +"I've heard people say that the individual method only perpetuates the +trouble," said Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +Her companion laughed. "That," she said, "is a subject I'm not well +posted on, but it seems to me that if other folks only adopted Harry +Wyllard's simple plan, there would be considerably less need for +organised charity." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FOG. +</H3> + +<P> +During the next two days the <I>Scarrowmania</I> shouldered her way +westwards through the big, white-topped combers that rolled down upon +her under a lowering sky before a moderate gale. There were no +luxurious, steam-propelled hotels in the Canadian trade just then, and, +loaded deep with railway metal as she was, she slopped the green seas +in everywhere, and rolled her streaming sides out almost to her bilge. +She also shivered and rattled horribly when her single screw swung +clear and the tri-compound engines ran away. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard went down to the steerage every now and then, and Agatha, who +contrived to keep on her feet, not infrequently accompanied him. She +was glad of his society, for Mrs. Hastings was seldom in evidence, and +no efforts could get Miss Rawlinson out of her berth. The gale, +however, blew itself out at length, and the evening after it moderated +Agatha was sitting near the head of one fiddle-guarded table in the +saloon waiting for dinner, which the stewards had still some difficulty +in bringing in. Wyllard's place was next to hers, but he had not +appeared yet, nor, as it happened, had the skipper, who, however, did +not invariably dine with the passengers. One of the two doors which +led from the foot of the branching companion stairway into either side +of the saloon stood open, and presently she saw Wyllard standing just +outside it. +</P> + +<P> +He beckoned to the doctor, who sat at the foot of her table, and the +latter merely raised his brows a trifle. He was a rather consequential +person, and it was evident to the girl that he resented being summoned +by a gesture. She did not think anybody else had noticed Wyllard, and +she waited with some curiosity to see what he would do. He made a sign +with a lifted hand, and she felt that the other would obey it, as, in +fact, he did, though his manner was very far from conciliatory. By +dint of listening closely, she could hear their conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry," said Wyllard, "to trouble you just now, and I didn't come +in because that would have set everybody wondering what you were wanted +for; but one of those boys forward has been thrown down the ladder, and +has cut his head." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" said the doctor. "I'll see to him—after dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a nasty cut," said Wyllard. "He's losing a good deal of blood." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I would suggest that you apply to my assistant." +</P> + +<P> +"As I don't know where he is, I have come to you." +</P> + +<P> +The doctor made a sign of impatience. "Well," he said, "you have told +me, which I think is as far as your concern in the matter goes. I may +add that I'm not accustomed to dictation on behalf of a steerage +passenger." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha saw Wyllard quietly slip between him and the entrance to the +saloon, but she also saw, as neither of the others apparently did, the +skipper appear a few paces behind them, and glance at them sharply. He +was usually a silent man, at home in the ice and the clammy fog, but +not a great acquisition in the saloon. +</P> + +<P> +"Something wrong down forward, Mr. Wyllard? They were making a great +row a little while ago," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing very serious," said Wyllard. "One of the boys, however, has +cut his head." +</P> + +<P> +The skipper turned towards the doctor quietly; but Agatha fancied he +had overheard part of the conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think you had better go—at once?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor evidently did, for he disappeared, and Wyllard, who entered +the saloon with the skipper, sat down at Agatha's side. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do it?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" asked Wyllard, attacking his dinner. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll say persuade other folks to see things as you do." +</P> + +<P> +"You evidently mean the skipper, and I suppose you heard something of +what was going on. In this case, as it happens, I'm indebted to his +prejudices. He's one of the old type—a seaman first of all—and what +we call bluff, and you call bounce, has only one effect upon men of his +kind. It gets their backs up." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha fancied that he did not like it, either, but she changed the +subject. +</P> + +<P> +"There really was a row forward," she said. "What was the trouble +over? You were, no doubt, somewhere near the scene of it." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard laughed. "I sat upon the steerage ladder, and am afraid I +cheered the combatants on. It was really a glorious row. They +hammered each other with tin plates, and some of them tried to use +hoop-iron knives, which fortunately doubled up. They broke quite a few +of the benches, and wrecked the mess table, but so far as I noticed the +only one seriously hurt was a little chap who was quietly looking on." +</P> + +<P> +"And you encouraged them?" +</P> + +<P> +"I certainly did. It was a protest against dirt, disorder, and the +slothfulness that's a plague to the community. Isn't physical force +warranted when there's no other remedy?" +</P> + +<P> +A grey-haired Canadian looked up. "Yes," he said, "I guess it is. The +first man who pulled his gun in British Columbia was hanged right away, +and they've scarcely had to make an example of another ever since, +though it's quite a while ago." +</P> + +<P> +He paused, and smiled approvingly. "A mess of any kind worries us, and +we don't take long to straighten it out. Same feelings in the Germans +and Scandinavians. I'll say that for them, any way. Your friends +swept up the steerage?" +</P> + +<P> +"They took the Slavs and Jews, and pitched them down the second hatch +on to the orlop deck. Things will go smoothly now our crowd are on +top." +</P> + +<P> +"Your crowd?" said Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +The Canadian nodded. "That's what he meant," he said. "There are two +kinds of folks you and the rest of them are dumping into Canada. One's +the kind that will get up and hustle, break land, and build new +homes—log at first, frame and stone afterwards. They go on from a +quarter-section and a team of oxen to the biggest farm they can handle, +and every fresh furrow they cut enriches all of us. The other kind +want to sit down in the dirt and take life easily, as they've always +done. The dirt worries everybody else, and we've no use for them. By +and bye our Legislature will have to wake up and stop them getting in." +</P> + +<P> +He went on with his dinner after this, but his observations left Agatha +thoughtful. She was, for one thing, beginning to understand one side +of her companion's character. He, it seemed, stood for practical +efficiency. There was a driving force in him that made for progress +and order. It was apparently his mission to straighten things out. +Some folks of his kind, she reflected, now and then made a good deal of +avoidable trouble; but there was in this man, at least, a +half-whimsical toleration, which rendered that an unlikely thing in his +particular case. Besides, she had already recognised that she was in +some respects fortunate in having such a man for her companion. +</P> + +<P> +Her deck chair was always set out in the most sheltered and comfortable +place. If there was anything to be seen, a cargo boat plunging along +forecastle under, or a great iron sailing ship thrashing out to the +westwards, with the spray clouds flying about her hove up weather side, +he almost invariably appeared with a pair of powerful glasses. She was +watched over, her wishes anticipated, and the man was seldom +obtrusively present when she felt disposed to talk to somebody else. +It struck her that she had thought a good deal about him during the +last few days, and rather less than usual about Gregory, which was +partly why she did not walk up and down the deck with him, as usual, +after dinner that evening. +</P> + +<P> +Three or four days later the <I>Scarrowmania</I> ran into the Bank fog, and +burrowed through it with whistle hooting dolefully at regular +intervals. Now and then an answering ringing of bells came out of the +clammy vapour, and the half-seen shape of an anchored schooner loomed +up, rolling wildly on grey slopes of sea. Once, too, a tiny dory, half +filled with lines and buoys, slid by plunging on the wash flung off by +the <I>Scarrowmania's</I> bows, and Agatha understood that the men in her +had escaped death by a hairsbreadth. They were cod fishers, Wyllard +told her, and he added that there was a host of them at work somewhere +in the sliding haze. She, however, fancied, now and then, that the fog +had a depressing effect on him, and that when the dory lay beneath the +rail there had been a somewhat unusual look in his face. +</P> + +<P> +Then a breeze came out of the north-west, with the sting of the ice in +it, but the fog did not lift, and the <I>Scarrowmania</I> plunged on through +it with spray-wet decks and the grey seas smashing about her bows. It +was bitterly cold and clammy, the raw wind pierced to the bone, but the +voyage was, at least, rapidly shortening, and one evening Agatha paced +the deck with Wyllard in a somewhat curious mood. Perhaps it was +merely the gloom re-acting upon her, for she was looking forward to the +landing with a certain half-conscious shrinking. +</P> + +<P> +They stopped by the rails presently, looking out upon the tumbling seas +that rolled out of the sliding haze tipped with livid froth, and the +dreariness of the surroundings intensified the girl's depression. +There was something unpleasantly suggestive in the sight of the fog +that hid everything, for she had of late been troubled with a +half-apprehensive longing to see what lay before her. In the +meanwhile, she noticed the look-out standing, a lonely, shapeless +figure, amidst the spray that whirled about the plunging bows. By and +bye she saw him turn and wave an arm apparently towards the bridge +behind her, and she heard a hoarse, wind-out cry. What it meant she +could not tell, but in another moment the <I>Scarrowmania's</I> whistle +shrieked again. +</P> + +<P> +Then a grey shape burst out of the vapour, and grew with astonishing +swiftness into dim tiers of slanted sailcloth swaying above a strip of +hull that moved amidst a broad white smear of foam. It was a brig +under fore-course and topsails, and as Agatha watched her she sank to +her tilted bowsprit, and a big grey and white sea foamed about her bows. +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't we dreadfully near?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard did not answer. He was gazing up at the bridge, and once more +the whistle hurled out a great warning blast. It hardly seemed to her +that the two vessels could pass clear of each other. Then Wyllard laid +a hand upon her shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"The skipper's starboarding. We'll go round her stern," he said. +</P> + +<P> +His grasp was reassuring, and she watched the straining curves of +canvas and line of half-submerged hull. It rose with streaming bows, +swung high above the sea, sank again, and vanished with bewildering +suddenness into a belt of driving fog. She was not sure that there had +been any peril, but it was certainly over now, and she was rather +puzzled by her sensations when Wyllard had held her shoulder. For one +thing, she had felt instinctively that she was safe with him. She, +however, decided not to trouble herself about the reason for this, and +by and bye she looked up at him. The expression she had already +noticed was once more in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think you like the fog any more than I do," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Wyllard, with a quiet forcefulness that almost startled her. +"I hate it." +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you go as far as that?" +</P> + +<P> +"It recalls something that still gives me a very bad few minutes every +now and then. It has been worrying me again to-night." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," said Agatha simply, "if you would care to tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +The man looked down on her with a little wry smile. "I haven't told it +often, but you shall hear," he said. "It's a tale of a black failure." +He stretched out a hand and pointed to the sliding fog and ranks of +tumbling seas. "It was very much this kind of night, and we were +lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians' beaches, when I asked for +volunteers. I got them—two boats' crews of the finest seamen that +ever handled oar or sealing rifle." +</P> + +<P> +"But what did you want them for?" +</P> + +<P> +"A boat from another schooner had been cast ashore. It was blowing +tolerably hard, as it usually does where the Polar ice comes down into +the Behring Sea. They'd been shooting seals from her. We meant to +bring the men off if we could manage it." +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't one boat have been enough?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Wyllard drily, "we had three, and I think that was one cause +of the trouble. There was one from the other schooner. You see, those +seals belonged to the Russians, and we free-lances could only shoot +them clear off shore. I'm not sure that the men in the wrecked boat +had been fishing outside the limit." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha did not press for further particulars, and he went on: +</P> + +<P> +"We managed to make a landing, though one boat went up bottom +uppermost," he said. "I fancy they must have broken or lost an oar +then. We also got the wrecked men, but we had trouble while we were +getting the boats off again. The surf was running in savagely, and the +fog shut down solid as a wall. Any way, we pulled off, and went out +with a foot of water in us, while one of the rescued men took my oar +when I let it go." +</P> + +<P> +"Why had you to let it go?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard laughed in a rather grim fashion. +</P> + +<P> +"I got my head laid open with a sealing club," he said. "Some of the +rest had their scratches, but they managed to row. For one thing, they +knew they had to. They had reasons for not wanting to fall into the +Russians' hands. Well, we cleared the beach, and once or twice as I +tried to bale there was a shout somewhere near us, and the loom of a +vanishing boat. It was all we could make out, for the sea was slopping +into her, and the spray was flying everywhere. If there had only been +two boats we'd probably have found out our misfortune, and perhaps have +set it straight. As it was, we couldn't tell it was the same boat that +had hailed us." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off for a moment, and then added quietly, "Two boats reached +the schooners. There was a nasty sea running then, and it blew +viciously hard next day. There were three men in the other." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said Agatha, "they were drowned?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard made a little forceful gesture. "I'm not quite sure. That's +the trouble. At least, the boat was nowhere on the beach next day, and +it's difficult to see how they could have faced the sea that piled up +when the gale came down. In all probability, they had an oar short, +and she rolled them out when a comber broke upon her in the darkness." +The girl saw him close one hand tight as he added, "If one only knew!" +</P> + +<P> +"What would have befallen them if they'd got ashore?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's difficult to say. In a general way, they'd have been handed over +to the Russian authorities. Still, sealers poaching up there have +simply disappeared." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped again, and glanced out at the gathering darkness. "Now," he +added, "you see why I hate the fog." +</P> + +<P> +"But you couldn't help it," said Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Wyllard, "I asked for volunteers, and the money that's now +mine came out of those schooners. It's just possible those men are +living still—somewhere in Northern Asia. I only know they +disappeared." +</P> + +<P> +Then he abruptly commenced to talk of something else, and by and bye +Agatha went down to the saloon, where Miss Rawlinson, who had not been +much in evidence during the voyage, presently made her appearance. +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't you going into the music-room to play for Mr. Wyllard—as +usual?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was almost disconcerted. She had fallen into the habit of +spending half an hour or longer in the little music-room every evening, +with Wyllard standing near the piano; but now her companion's question +seemed to place a significance upon the fact. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, "I don't think I am." +</P> + +<P> +"Then the rest of them will wonder it you have fallen out with him." +</P> + +<P> +"Fallen out with him?" +</P> + +<P> +Winifred laughed. "They've naturally been watching both of you, and, +in a general way, there's only one decision they could have arrived at." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha flushed a little, but her companion went on: +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mind admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love +with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with +a whimsically rueful gesture, "Still, it's most unlikely." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha looked at her with a little glint in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"He is merely Gregory's deputy," she said, with a sub-conscious feeling +that the epithet was not a remarkably fortunate one. "In that +connection, I should like to point out that you can estimate a man's +character by that of his friends." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Winifred, "then if Mr. Wyllard's strong points are merely to +heighten Gregory's credit, I've nothing more to say. Anyway, I'll +reserve my homage until I've seen him. Perfection among men is scarce +nowadays." +</P> + +<P> +She turned away, and left Agatha thoughtful. In the meanwhile, Mrs. +Hastings came upon Wyllard in the music-room. There was just then +nobody else in it. +</P> + +<P> +"You look quite serious," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been thinking about Miss Ismay and Gregory," said Wyllard. "In +fact, I feel a little anxious about them." +</P> + +<P> +"In which way?" +</P> + +<P> +"Without making any reflections upon Gregory, I somehow feel sorry for +the girl." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings nodded. "As a matter of fact, that's very much what I +felt from the first," she said. "Still, you see, there's the important +fact that she's fond of him, and it should smooth out a good many +difficulties. Anyway, what we can call the material ones won't count. +She's evidently rather a courageous person." +</P> + +<P> +The man sat silent a moment or two. "I wasn't troubling about them," +he said. "I was wondering if she really could be fond of him. It's +some years since she was much in his company." +</P> + +<P> +"Hawtrey is not a man to change." +</P> + +<P> +"That," said Wyllard, "is just the trouble. I've no doubt he's much +the same, but one could fancy that Miss Ismay has changed a good deal +since she last saw him. She'll look for considerably more than she was +probably content with then." +</P> + +<P> +"In any case, it isn't your affair." +</P> + +<P> +"In one sense it certainly isn't; but I can't help feeling a little +troubled about the thing. You see, Gregory is quite an old friend." +</P> + +<P> +"And the girl is going out to marry him," said Mrs. Hastings. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard rose. "That," he said, "is quite uncalled for. I would like +to assure you of it." +</P> + +<P> +He went out, and the lady sat still in a reflective mood. +</P> + +<P> +"If she begins to compare him with Hawtrey, there can be only one +result," she said. +</P> + +<P> +The fog had almost gone next morning, and pale sunshine streamed down +upon a froth-flecked sea. A bitter wind, however, still came out of +the hazy north, and the <I>Scarrowmania's</I> plates were crusted with ice +where the highest crests of the tumbling seas reached them. The spray +also froze, and the decks grew slippery, until when darkness came +nobody but the seamen faced the stinging cold. Agatha felt the engines +stop late that night, and when she went out next morning the decks were +white, and she could see dim ghosts of sliding pines through a haze of +falling snow. It grew bewilderingly thick at times, but the steamer +slid on through it with whistle hooting, and when at last towards +sunset the snow cleared away Agatha stood shivering under a deck-house, +looking about her with a curiously heavy heart. +</P> + +<P> +A grey haze stretched across the great river, which was also dim and +grey, and odd wisps of pines rose raggedly beneath the white hills that +cut against a gloomy, lowering sky. Deck-house, boat, and stanchion +dripped, and every now and then the silence was broken by a doleful +blast of the whistle. Nothing moved on the still, grey water; there +was no sign of life ashore; and they seemed to be steaming into a great +desolation. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye, Wyllard appeared from somewhere, and after a glance at her +face slipped his hand beneath her arm, and led her down to the lighted +saloon. Then her heart grew a little lighter. Once more she was +conscious of an unreasoning feeling that she was safe with him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DISILLUSION. +</H3> + +<P> +The long train was speeding smoothly across the vast white levels of +Assiniboia, when Agatha, who sat by a window, looked up as the +conductor strode through the car. Mrs. Hastings asked him a question, +and he stopped a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said, "we'll be in Clermont inside half an hour." +</P> + +<P> +Then he went on, and Mrs. Hastings smiled at Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +"We're a little late, and Gregory will be waiting for us in the depôt +now," she said. "No doubt he's got the waggon fixed up right, but I'd +like to feel sure of it. There's a long drive before us, and I want to +reach the homestead before it's dark." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha said nothing, but a faint tinge of colour crept into her cheeks, +and her companion was glad to see it, for she had noticed that the girl +was looking rather pale and haggard. This was partly due to the fact +that the strain of the last few months she had spent in England was +commencing to tell on her. She had borne it courageously, but a +reaction had afterwards set in, and, as it happened, the <I>Scarrowmania</I> +had plunged along bows under against fresh north-westerly gales most of +the way across the Atlantic. There is very little comfort on board a +small, deeply-loaded steamer when she rolls her rails in, and lurches +with thudding screw swung clear over big, steep-sided combers. In +addition to this, Agatha had scarcely slept during the few days and +nights she had spent in the train. It takes some time to become +accustomed to the atmosphere of a stove-heated sleeper car, and since +she had landed she had been in a state of not altogether unnatural +nervous tension. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, she had found it a little difficult to preserve an outward +serenity the previous day, and when at length the great train ran into +the depôt at Winnipeg, where Gregory had arranged to meet them, it was +with a thrill of expectancy and relief that she stood upon the car +platform. There was, however, no sign of him, and though Wyllard +handed her a telegram from him a few minutes later the fact that he had +not arrived had a depressing effect on her. Quiet as she usually was, +the girl was highly strung. It appeared that something had gone wrong +with Hawtrey's waggon while he was driving in to the railroad, and as +the result of it he had missed the Atlantic train. She could not blame +him for this, but for all that his absence had been an unpleasant shock. +</P> + +<P> +Feeling that her companion's eyes were upon her, she turned, and +looking out of the window found no encouragement in what she saw. The +snow had gone, and a vast expanse of grass ran back to the horizon; but +it was a dingy, greyish-white, and not green as it had been in England. +The sky was low and grey, too, and the only thing that broke the dreary +monotony of lifeless colour was when the formless, darker smear of a +birch bluff rose out of the empty levels. Her heart throbbed +unpleasantly fast as the few remaining minutes slipped away, and at +length she started when a dingy mass of something that looked like +buildings lifted itself above the prairie. +</P> + +<P> +"The Clermont elevators," said Mrs. Hastings. "We'll be in directly." +</P> + +<P> +The mass separated itself into two or three tall component blocks. A +huddle of little wooden houses grew into shape beneath them, and a +shrill whistle came ringing back above the slowing cars. Then a willow +bluff, half filled with old cans and garbage, flitted by, a big bell +commenced tolling, and Agatha rose when Mrs. Hastings took up her furs +from a seat close by. After that, she found herself standing on the +platform of the car, though she did not quite know how she got there, +for she was sensible only of the fact that in another moment or two she +would greet the lover she had last seen four years ago. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, though she paid them no great attention, the +surroundings had a depressing effect on her. There was, however, very +little to see; the mass of the great elevators that cut against a +lowering sky, the little cluster of houses, and the sea of churned-up +mire between them and the track. There also appeared to be no station +except a big water tank and a rather unsightly shed, about which stood +a group of blurred and shapeless figures. It seemed very cold, and +Agatha shivered as she felt the raw wind strike through her. +</P> + +<P> +Then one of the figures detached itself from the rest and grew clearer. +The man wore an old skin coat spattered with flakes of mire, and his +long boots were covered with clots of the same material. His fur cap +looked greasy, and the fur had been rubbed off it in patches; but while +she noticed these things it was his face that struck her most, and she +became conscious of an astonishment which was mixed with vague +misgivings as she gazed at it, for it had subtly changed since she had +last seen it. The joyous sparkle she remembered had gone out of the +eyes. They were harder, bolder, than they used to be. The mouth was +slack—it almost looked sensual—and the man's whole personality seemed +to have grown coarser. Then as she thrust the disconcerting fancies +from her the car stopped. +</P> + +<P> +In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his +arms about her. That brought the blood to her face, but she felt none +of the thrill she had expected. Indeed, she was subconsciously +sensible of a certain shrinking from his embrace. Then, and she +fancied he must have lifted her bodily down, she stood beside the track +with Mrs. Hastings, a man whom she supposed to be the latter's husband, +Winifred, and Wyllard about her. Another man was also standing close +by, apparently waiting until they noticed him. He was flecked with +mire all over, his skin coat was very dilapidated, and Agatha fancied +that his boots had never been cleaned. His hair, which had evidently +been very badly cut, straggled out from under his old fur cap. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-106"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-106.jpg" ALT=""In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his arms about her."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="314" HEIGHT="462"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 314px"> +"In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his arms about her." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, Gregory was apparently explaining something to Mrs. +Hastings. "No," he said, "I'm sorry it can't be for another week. +Horribly unfortunate. It seems they've sent the Methodist on down the +line, and we'll have to wait for the Episcopalian. He'll be at +Lander's for a few days." +</P> + +<P> +Then Agatha's cheeks flamed, for she recognised that it was her wedding +they were speaking of; but it brought her a curious relief to hear that +it had been deferred. A moment or two later Gregory turned to her with +questions about her throat, and his people in England, and Winifred +separated herself from the group. She was standing near her baggage, +which had been flung out beside the track, a little, lonely figure, +while the train went on, when Wyllard strode up to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Feeling rather out of it? I do, any way," he said. "Since we appear +superfluous, we may as well make the most of the opportunity, +especially as it will probably save you a long drive. There's a man +here who wants to see you." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred had felt very forlorn a few moments earlier, but the +announcement Wyllard had just made was reassuring, and she pulled +herself together as he signed to a man standing a little further along +the track. The latter wore rather neat store clothes, and his manner +was brisk and wholly business-like. It was a certain relief to the +girl to see that he evidently regarded her less as a personality than +as a piece of commercial machinery, which he had apparently been asked +to make use of. She had found it easier to get on with men who +confined themselves to that point of view. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Hamilton, in charge of the elevator yonder," said Wyllard, +pointing to one of the huge buildings. "This is Miss Rawlinson." +</P> + +<P> +The elevator man made her the curtest of inclinations, and proceeded to +arrange matters with a rapidity which almost took her breath away. +</P> + +<P> +"Typist and stenographer?" he said. "Know anything about +account-keeping?" +</P> + +<P> +Winifred admitted that she possessed these abilities, and Hamilton +appeared to reflect for a moment or two. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "in a fortnight we'll give you a show. You can start +at—" and he mentioned terms which rather astonished Winifred. "If you +can keep things straight we may raise you later." +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you want to see any testimonials?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Hamilton. "I've seen a good many, and I'm inclined to fancy +some of the folks who showed them me must have bought them." He waved +his hand. "Mr. Wyllard assures me that you'll do, and in the meanwhile +that's quite enough for me." +</P> + +<P> +It struck Winifred as curious that, while Agatha had written to Hawtrey +on her behalf, it was Wyllard who had secured her the opportunity she +had longed for; but she thanked the elevator man before she turned to +him. +</P> + +<P> +"There's another matter," she said hesitatingly. "I'll have to live +here?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "I've seen to that, though if you don't like my +arrangements you can alter them afterwards. Mrs. Sandberg will take +you in, and even if she isn't particularly amiable you'll be in safe +hands." +</P> + +<P> +Hamilton laughed. "Oh, yes," he said. "She's Scotch—old type +Calvinist at that. No frivolity about that woman. Married a +Scandinavian, and was just breaking him in when he was killed back East +along the track." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll consider it as fixed, but in the meanwhile you're to stay with +Mrs. Hastings for the fortnight," said Wyllard. "Sproatly"—and he +signed to the man in the skin coat—"will you get Miss Rawlinson's +baggage into your waggon?" +</P> + +<P> +The man took off his fur cap. "If Miss Rawlinson would like to see +Mrs. Sandberg, I'll drive her round," he suggested. "We'll catch you +up in a league or so. Gregory has a bit of patching to do on his +off-side trace." +</P> + +<P> +"He might have had things straight for once," said Wyllard half-aloud. +</P> + +<P> +Winifred permitted Sproatly to help her into his waggon—a high, +narrow-bodied vehicle, mounted on tall, spidery wheels, but she had to +hold fast to it while they jolted across the track and through a sea of +mire into the unpaved street of the little town. She liked her +companion's voice and manner, though she was far from prepossessed by +his appearance. Two or three minutes later he drew up before a little +wooden house, where they were received by a tall, hard-faced woman, who +frowned at Sproatly. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye'll tak' your patent medicines somewhere else. I'm wanting none," +she said. +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly grinned. "You needn't be afraid of them. They couldn't hurt +you. I was talking to a Winnipeg doctor who'd a notion of coming out a +day or two ago. I told him if he did he'd have to bring an axe along." +</P> + +<P> +Then he explained that Wyllard had sent Winifred there, and the woman +favoured her with a glance of careful scrutiny. +</P> + +<P> +"Weel," she said, "ye look quiet, anyway." Then she added, as though +further satisfied, "I'll make ye a cup of tea if ye can wait." +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly assured her that this was not the case, and in a few more +minutes the girl, who went into the house, got into the waggon again, +with relief in her face. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I owe Mr. Wyllard a good deal," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly laughed. "You're not exactly singular in that respect, but +you had better hold tight. These beasts are rather less than half +broken." +</P> + +<P> +He flicked them with the whip, and they went across the track at a +gallop, hurling great clods of mud left and right, while the group of +loungers who still stood about the station raised a shout. +</P> + +<P> +"Got any little pictures with nice motters on them?" asked one, and +another flung a piece of information after the jolting waggon. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a Swede down at Branker's wants a bottle that will supple up a +wooden leg," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly grinned, and waved his hand to them before he turned to his +companion. +</P> + +<P> +"We have to get through before dark, if possible, or I'd stop and sell +them something sure," he said. "Parts of the trail further on are +simply horrible." +</P> + +<P> +It occurred to Winifred that it was far from excellent as it was, for +spouts of mud flew up beneath the sinking hoofs and wheels, and she was +already getting unpleasantly spattered. +</P> + +<P> +"You think you would have succeeded?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," said Sproatly. "If I couldn't plant something on to them +when they'd given me a lead like that, I'd be no use in this business. +At present, my command of Western phraseology is my fortune." +</P> + +<P> +"You sell things, then?" +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly pointed to a couple of big boxes in the bottom of the waggon. +"Anything from cough cure to hair restorer, besides a general purpose +elixir that's specially prepared for me. It's adaptable to any +complaint and season. All you have to do"—and he lowered his voice +confidentially—"is to put on a different label." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred, who had not felt like it a little earlier, laughed when she +met his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"What happens to the people who buy it?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Most of them are bachelors, and tough. They've stood their own +cooking so long that they ought to be, and if anybody's really sick I +hold off and tell him to wait until he can get a doctor. A sensitive +conscience," he added reflectively, "is quite a handicap in this +business." +</P> + +<P> +"You have always been in it?" asked Winifred, who was amused at him. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Sproatly, "although you mightn't believe it, I was raised +with the idea that I should have my choice between the Church and the +Bar. The idea, however, proved—impracticable—which, in some +respects, is rather a pity. It has seemed to me that a man who can +work off cough cures and cosmetics on to healthy folks with a hide like +leather, and talk a scoffer off the field, ought to have made his mark +in either calling." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her as if for confirmation of this view, but Winifred, who +laughed again, glanced at the two waggons that moved on, perhaps, two +miles away across the grey-white sweep of prairie. +</P> + +<P> +"Will we overtake them?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll probably come up with Gregory. I'm not sure about Wyllard." +</P> + +<P> +"He drives faster horses?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's not quite the reason. Gregory has patched up one trace with a +bit of string, and odd bolts are rather addicted to coming out of his +waggon. Sometimes it makes trouble. I've known the team leave him +sitting on the prairie, thinking of endearing names for them, and come +home with the pole." +</P> + +<P> +"Does he generally let things fall into that state?" +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly, however, was evidently on his guard. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "it's certainly that kind of waggon." +</P> + +<P> +Then he flicked the team again, and the jolting rendered it difficult +for Winifred to ask any more questions. The prairie sod was soft with +the thaw, and big lumps of it stuck to the wheels, which every now and +then plunged into ruts other vehicles had made. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, Agatha and Hawtrey found it almost as impossible to +sustain a conversation, which was, on the whole, a relief to the girl. +The string-patched trace still held, and the waggon pole was a new one, +but where they were just then the white grass was tussocky and long, +and the trail they occasionally plunged into to avoid it had been +churned into a quagmire. Hawtrey had packed the thick driving robe +high about his companion, and slipped one arm about her waist beneath +it; but she was conscious that she rather suffered this than derived +any satisfaction from it. She strove to assure herself that she was +jaded with the journey, which was, in fact, the case, and that the +lowering sky, and the cheerless waste they were crossing, had +occasioned the dejection she felt, which was also possible. There was +not a tree upon the vast sweep of bleached grass which ran all round +her to the horizon. It was inexpressibly lonely, a lifeless +desolation, with only the ploughed-up trail to show that man had ever +traversed it; and the raw wind which swept it set her shivering. +</P> + +<P> +She was, however, forced to admit that her weariness and the dreary +surroundings did not quite explain everything. Even her lover's first +embrace had brought her no thrill, and now the close pressure of his +arm left her quite unmoved. This was almost disconcertingly curious; +but while she would admit no definite reason for it, there was creeping +upon her a vague consciousness that the man was not the one she had so +often thought of in England. He seemed different—almost, in fact, a +stranger—though she could not exactly tell where the change in him +began. His laughter jarred upon her. Some of the things he said +appeared almost inane, and others were tinged with a self-confidence +that did not become him. It almost seemed to her that he was shallow, +lacking in comprehension, and once she found herself comparing him with +another man. She, however, broke off that train of thought abruptly, +and once more endeavoured to find the explanation in herself. +Weariness had induced this captious, hypercritical fit, and by and bye +she would become used to him, she said. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey was, at least, not effusive, for which she was thankful, but +when they reached a somewhat smoother surface he commenced to talk of +England. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you saw a good deal of my folks when you were at the +Grange?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Agatha, "I saw them once or twice." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" said the man, with a trace of sharpness, "then they were not +particularly agreeable?" +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to Agatha that he was tactless in suggesting anything of the +kind, but she answered candidly. +</P> + +<P> +"One could hardly go quite so far as that," she said. "Still, I +couldn't help a feeling that it was rather an effort for them to be +gracious to me." +</P> + +<P> +"They did what they could to make things pleasant when they were first +told of our engagement." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was too worn-out to be altogether on her guard, which was partly +why she had admitted as much as she had done, though his relatives' +attitude had wounded her, and she answered without reflection. +</P> + +<P> +"I have fancied that was because they never quite believed it would +lead to anything." +</P> + +<P> +She knew this was the truth now, though it was the first time the +explanation had occurred to her. Gregory's folks, who were naturally +acquainted with his character, had, it seemed, not expected him to +carry his promise out. She, however, felt that she had been +injudicious when she heard his little harsh laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid they never had a very great opinion of me," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Agatha, looking up at him, "it will be our business to +prove them wrong; but I can't help feeling that you have undertaken a +big responsibility, Gregory. There must be so much that I ought to do, +and I know so little about your work in this country." She turned, and +glanced with a shiver at the dim, white prairie. "It looks so +forbidding and unyielding. It must be very hard to turn it into wheat +fields—to break it in." +</P> + +<P> +It was merely a hint of what she felt, and it was rather a pity that +Hawtrey, who lacked imagination, usually contented himself with the +most obvious meaning of the spoken word. Things might have gone +differently had he responded with comprehending sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," he said, with a laugh that changed her mood, "you'll learn, and I +don't suppose it will matter a great deal if you don't do it quickly. +Somehow or other one worries through." +</P> + +<P> +She felt that this was insufficient, though she remembered that his +haphazard carelessness had once appealed to her. Now, however, she +realised that to undertake a thing light-heartedly was a very different +matter from carrying it out successfully. Then it once more occurred +to her that she was becoming absurdly hypercritical, and she strove to +talk of other things. +</P> + +<P> +She did not find it easy, nor, though he made the effort, did Hawtrey. +There was a restraint that he chafed at upon him, for he had when he +first saw her been struck by the change in the girl. She was graver +than he remembered her, and, it seemed, very much more reserved. He +had tried and failed, as he thought of it, to strike a spark out of +her. She did not respond, and he became uneasily conscious that he +could not talk to her as he could, for instance, to Sally Creighton. +There was something wanting in him or her, but he could not at the +moment tell what it was. Still, he said, things would be different +next day, for the girl was evidently very weary. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, the creeping dusk settled down upon the wilderness. +The horizon narrowed in, and the stretch of grass before them grew dim. +The trail they now drove into seemed to grow rapidly rougher, and it +was quite dark when they came to the brink of a declivity still at +least a league from the Hastings's homestead. It was one of the steep +ravines that seam the prairie every here and there, with a birch bluff +on the sides of it, and a little creek flowing through the hollow. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey swung the whip when they reached the top, and the team plunged +furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with +both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the +light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Then +something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and +plunge. The other beast flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, +and there was a great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen +branches as they drove in among the birches. Then the team stopped, +and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily among the undergrowth, +while another thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels grew louder behind +them up the trail. In a minute or two he came back and lifted Agatha +down. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-115"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-115.jpg" ALT=""Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and plunge."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="317" HEIGHT="512"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 317px"> +"Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and plunge." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"It's the trace broken. I had to make the holes with my knife, and the +string's torn through," he said. "Voltigeur got it round his feet, +and, as usual, tried to bolt. Anyway, we'll make the others pull up +and take you in." +</P> + +<P> +They went back to the trail together, and reached it just as Hastings +reined in his team. He got down and walked back with Hawtrey to the +latter's waggon. It was a minute or two before they reappeared again, +and Mrs. Hastings, who had got down in the meanwhile, drew Hawtrey +aside. +</P> + +<P> +"I almost think it would be better if you didn't come any further +to-night," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" the man asked sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't help thinking that Agatha would prefer it. For one thing, +she's rather jaded, and wants quietness." +</P> + +<P> +"You feel sure of that?" +</P> + +<P> +There was something in the man's voice which suggested that he was not +quite satisfied, and his companion was silent a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"It's good advice, Gregory," she said. "She'll be better able to face +the situation after a night's rest." +</P> + +<P> +"Does it require much facing?" Hawtrey asked drily. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings turned from him with a sign of impatience. "Of course it +does. Anyway, if you're wise you'll do what I suggest, and ask no more +questions." +</P> + +<P> +Then she got into the waggon, and Hawtrey stood still beside the trail, +feeling unusually thoughtful when they drove away. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AGATHA'S DECISION. +</H3> + +<P> +It was with an expectancy which was slightly toned down by misgivings +that Hawtrey drove over to the homestead where Agatha was staying the +next afternoon. The misgivings were, perhaps, not unnatural, for he +had been chilled by the girl's reception of him on the previous day, +and her manner afterwards had, he felt, left something to be desired. +Indeed, when she drove away with Mrs. Hastings he had felt himself a +somewhat injured man. +</P> + +<P> +His efforts to mend the harness, and extricate the waggon in the dark, +which occupied him for an hour, had, however, partly helped to drive +the matter from his mind, and when he reached his homestead rather late +that night he went to sleep, and slept soundly until sunrise, which was +significant. Hawtrey was, at least, a man who never brooded over his +troubles beforehand, and this was, perhaps, one reason why he did not +always cope with them successfully when they could no longer be avoided. +</P> + +<P> +When he had made his breakfast he, however, became sensible of a +certain pique against both Mrs. Hastings and the girl, which led him to +remember that he had no hired man, and that there was a good deal to be +done. He decided that it might be well to wait until the afternoon +before he called on them, and for several hours he drove his team +through the crackling stubble. His doubts and irritation grew weaker +as he did so, and when at length he drove into sight of Hastings's +homestead, his buoyant temperament was commencing to reassert itself. +Clear sunshine streamed down upon the prairie out of a vault of +cloudless blue, and he felt that after all any faint shadow that might +have arisen between him and the girl could be readily swept away. +</P> + +<P> +He was, however, a little less sure of this when he saw her. Agatha +sat near an open window, in a scantily furnished match-boarded room, +and she, at least, as it happened, had not slept at all. Her eyes were +heavy, but there was a look of resolution in them which seemed out of +place just then, and it struck him that she had lost the freshness +which had characterised her in England. +</P> + +<P> +She rose when he came in, and then, to his astonishment, drew back a +pace or two when he moved impulsively towards her. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, with a hand raised restrainingly, "you must hear what I +have to say, and try to bear with me. It is a little difficult, +Gregory, but it must be said at once." +</P> + +<P> +The man stood still, almost awkwardly, looking at her with +consternation in his face, and for a moment she looked steadily at him. +It was a painful moment, for she was just then gifted with a clearness +of vision which she almost longed to be delivered from. She saw that +the impression which had brought her a vague sense of dismay on the +previous afternoon was wrong. The trouble was that he had not changed +at all. He was what he had always been, and she had merely deceived +herself when she had permitted her girlish fancy to endue him with +qualities and graces which he had, it seemed, never possessed. There +was, however, no doubt that she had still a duty towards him. +</P> + +<P> +He spoke first with a trace of hardness in his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," he said, "won't you sit down. This is naturally a +little—embarrassing—but I'll try to listen." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sank into a seat by the open window, for she felt physically +worn-out, and there was a task she shrank from before her. +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory," she said, "I feel that we have come near making what might +prove to be a horrible mistake." +</P> + +<P> +"We?" said Hawtrey, while the blood rose into his weather-darkened +face. "That means both of us." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Agatha, with a quietness that cost her an effort. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey spread his hands out forcibly. "Do you want me to admit that +I've made one?" +</P> + +<P> +"Are you quite sure you haven't?" +</P> + +<P> +She flung the question at him sharply in tense apprehension, for, after +all, if the man was sure of himself, there was only one course open to +her. He leaned upon the table, gazing at her, and as he did so his +indignation melted, and doubts commenced to creep into his mind. +</P> + +<P> +She looked weary, and grave, and almost haggard, and it was a fresh, +light-hearted girl he had fallen in love with in England. The mark of +the last two years of struggle was just then plain on her, though, +while he did not recognise this, it would pass away again. He tried to +realise what he had looked for when he had asked her to marry him, and +could not do so clearly; but there was in the back of his mind a +half-formulated notion that it had been a cheerful companion, somebody +to amuse him. She scarcely seemed likely to do the latter now. He +was, however, not one of the men who can face a crisis collectedly, and +his thoughts became confused, until one idea emerged from them. He had +pledged himself to her, and the fact laid a certain obligation upon +him. It was his part to over-rule any fancies she might be disposed to +indulge in. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said stoutly, "I'm not going to admit anything of that kind. +The journey has been too much for you. You haven't got over it yet." +He lowered his voice, and his face softened. "Aggy, dear, I've waited +four years for you." +</P> + +<P> +That stirred her, for it was certainly true, and his gentleness had +also its effect. The situation was becoming more and more difficult, +for it seemed impossible to make him understand that he would in all +probability speedily tire of her. She now recognised that, but to make +it clear that she could never be satisfied with him was a thing she +shrank from. +</P> + +<P> +"How have you passed those four years?" she asked, to gain time. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment his conscience smote him. He remembered the trips to +Winnipeg, and the dances to which he had attended Sally Creighton. It +was, however, evident that Agatha could have heard nothing of Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"I spent them in hard work. I wanted to make the place more +comfortable for you," he said. "It is true"—and he added this with a +twinge of uneasiness, as he remembered that his neighbours had done +much more with less incentive—"that it's still very far from what I +would like, but things have been against me." +</P> + +<P> +The speech had a far stronger effect than he could have expected, for +Agatha remembered Wyllard's description of what the prairie farmer had +to face. Those four years of determined effort and patient endurance, +which was how she pictured them, counted heavily against her in the +man's favour. It flashed upon her that, after all, there might have +been some warrant for the view she had held of Gregory's character when +he had fallen in love with her. He was younger then, there must have +been latent possibilities in him, but the years of toil had killed them +and hardened him. It was for her sake he had made the struggle, and +now it seemed unthinkable that she should renounce him because he came +to her with the dust and stain of it upon him. For all that, she was +possessed with a curious, sub-conscious feeling that she would involve +them both in disaster if she yielded. Something warned her that she +must stand fast. +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory," she said, "I seem to know that we should both be sorry +afterwards if I kept my promise." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey straightened himself with a smile she recognised. She had +liked him for it once, for it had then suggested the joyous courage of +untainted youth. Now, however, it struck her as only hinting at empty, +complacent assurance. She hated herself for the fancy, but it would +not be driven away. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "I'm quite willing to face that hazard. I suppose +this diffidence is only natural, Aggy, but it's a little hard on me." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said the girl sharply, with a strained look in her eyes, "it's +horribly unnatural, and that's why I'm afraid. I should have come to +you gladly, without a misgiving, feeling that nothing could hurt me if +I was with you. I wanted to do that, Gregory—I meant to—but I +can't." Then her voice fell to a tone that had vibrant regret in it. +"You should have made sure—married me when you last came home." +</P> + +<P> +"But I'd nowhere to take you. The farm was only half-broken prairie, +the homestead almost unhabitable." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha winced at this. It was, no doubt, true, but it seemed horribly +petty and commonplace. His comprehension stopped at such details as +these, and he had given her no credit for the courage which would have +made light of bodily discomfort. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think—that—would have mattered? We were both very young +then, and we could have faced our troubles and grown up together. Now +we're not the same. You let me grow up alone." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-121"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-121.jpg" ALT=""'Do you think--that--would have mattered?'"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="316" HEIGHT="440"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 316px"> +"'Do you think—that—would have mattered?'" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Hawtrey spread his hands out. "I haven't changed." +</P> + +<P> +He contented himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There +was no spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the +passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away +in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, +and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a +crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the +surface. There was no depth in him. +</P> + +<P> +"Aggy," he added humbly, when he should have been dominantly forceful, +"it is only a question of a little time. You will get used to me." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," and the girl clutched at the chance of respite, "give me six +months from to-day. It isn't very much to ask, Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +The man wrinkled his brows. "It's a great deal," he answered slowly. +"I seem to feel that we shall drift further and further apart if once I +let you go." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you feel that we have drifted a little already?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what has come over you, Aggy, but there has been a +change. I'm what I was, and I want to keep you." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha rose and turned towards him rather white in face. "Then if you +are wise you will not urge me now." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey met her gaze for a moment, and then made a sign of acquiescence +as he turned his eyes away. He recognised that this was a new Agatha, +one whose will was stronger than his. Yet he was half-astonished that +he had yielded so readily. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "if it must be, I can only give way to you, but I must +be free to come over here whenever I wish." Then a thought seemed to +strike him. "But you may have to go away," he added, with sudden +concern. "If I am to wait six months, what are you to do in the +meanwhile?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl smiled wearily. Now the respite had been granted her, the +question he had raised was not one that caused her any great concern. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "we can think of that later, I have borne enough +to-day. This has been a little hard upon me, Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think it has been particularly easy for either of us," said +Hawtrey, with a trace of grimness. "Anyway, it seems that I'm only +distressing you." He smiled wryly. "It's naturally not what I had +expected to do. I'll come back when I feel I've quite grasped the +situation." +</P> + +<P> +He moved a pace or two nearer, and taking one of her hands swiftly +stooped and kissed her cheek. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," he said, "I only want to make it as easy as I can. You'll +try to think of me, favourably." +</P> + +<P> +Then he went out and left her sitting with a troubled face beside the +open window. A little warm breeze swept into the almost empty room, +and outside a blaze of sunshine rested on the prairie. It was torn up +with wheel ruts about the house, for the wooden building rose abruptly +without fence or garden from the waste of whitened grass. Close to it +there stood a birch-log barn or stables, its sides curiously ridged and +furrowed where the trunks were laid on one another, roofed with wooden +shingles that had warped into hollows here and there. Further away +there rose another long building, apparently of sod, and a great +shapeless yellow mound with a domed top towered behind the latter. It +was most unlike a trim English rick, besides being bigger, and Agatha +wondered what it could be. As a matter of fact, it was a not uncommon +form of granary, the straw from the last thrashing flung over a +birch-pole framing. +</P> + +<P> +Behind that there ran a great breadth of knee-high stubble, blazing +ochre and cadmium in the sunlight. It had evidently extended further +than it did, for a blackened space showed where a fire had been lighted +to destroy it. Here Hastings, clad in blue duck, with long boots, was +ploughing, plodding behind his horses, which stopped now and then when +the share jarred against a patch of still frozen soil. Further on two +other men silhouetted in blue against the whitened grass drove spans of +slowly moving oxen that hauled big breaker ploughs, and the lines of +clods that lengthened behind them gleamed in the sunlight a rich +chocolate-brown. Beyond them the wilderness ran unbroken to the +horizon. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha gazed at it all vacantly, but the newness and strangeness of it +reacted upon her. She felt very desolate and lonely, and by and bye +remembered that she had still to grapple with a practical difficulty. +She could not stay with Mrs. Hastings indefinitely, and she had not the +least notion where to go or what she was to do. She was leaning back +in her chair wearily with half-closed eyes when her hostess came in and +looked at her with a smile that suggested comprehension. Mrs. Hastings +was thin, and seemed a trifle worn, but she had shrewd, kindly eyes. +Just then she wore a plain print dress which was dusted here and there +with flour. +</P> + +<P> +"So you have sent him away?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +It was borne in upon Agatha that she could be candid with this woman +who she fancied had already guessed the truth. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "for six months. That is, we are not to decide on +anything until they have expired. I felt we must get used to each +other. It seemed best." +</P> + +<P> +"To you. Did it seem best to Gregory?" +</P> + +<P> +A flush crept into Agatha's face. Though his acquiescence had been a +relief to her, she felt that after all he might have made a more +vigorous protest. +</P> + +<P> +"He gave in to me," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Well," she said, "I believe you were +wise, but that opens up another question. What are you going to do in +the meanwhile?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said Agatha wearily. "I suppose I shall have to go +away—to Winnipeg, most probably. I could teach, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"How are you and Gregory to get used to each other if you go away?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha made a little helpless gesture. "I hadn't looked at it in that +light." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you very anxious to get used to him?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha shrank from the question; but there was a constraining +kindliness in her companion's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I daren't quite think about it yet. I mean to try. I must try. I +seem to be playing an utterly contemptible, selfish part, but I could +not marry him—now!" +</P> + +<P> +Her hostess quietly crossed the room, and sat down by her side. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," she said, "as I told you, I think you are doing right, and +in some respects I believe I know how you feel. Everybody prophesied +disaster when I came out to join Allen from a sheltered home in +Montreal, and at the beginning my life here was not easy to me. It was +all so different, and there were times when I was afraid, and my heart +was horribly heavy. If it hadn't been for Allen I think I should have +given in and broken down. He understood, however. He never failed me." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha's eyes grew misty, and she turned her head away. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "that would make it wonderfully easier." +</P> + +<P> +"You must forgive me," said her companion. "It was tactless, but I +didn't mean to hurt you. Well, one difficulty shouldn't give us very +much trouble. Why shouldn't you stay here with me?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha turned towards her abruptly with a relief in her face from which +it, however, faded again. She liked this woman, and she liked her +husband, but she remembered that she had no claim on them. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "it is out of the question." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait a little. I'm proposing to give you quite as much as you will +probably care to do. There are my two little girls to teach, and I +think they have rather taken to you. I can scarcely find a minute to +do it myself, and, as you have seen, there is a piano which has after +all only a few of the notes broken. Besides, we have only one +Scandinavian maid who smashes everything that isn't made of indurated +fibre, and I'm afraid she'll marry one of the boys in a month or two. +It was only by sending the kiddies to Brandon and getting Mrs. +Creighton, a neighbour of ours, to look after Allen, who insisted on me +going, that I was able to get to Paris with some Montreal friends. In +any case, you'd have no end of duties." +</P> + +<P> +"You are doing this out of—charity?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Allen wrote some friends of his in Winnipeg to +send me anybody out a week or two ago." +</P> + +<P> +The girl's eyes shone mistily. "Oh," she said, "you have lifted one +weight off my mind." +</P> + +<P> +"I think," said Mrs. Hastings, "the others will also be removed in due +time." +</P> + +<P> +Then she talked cheerfully of other matters, and Agatha listened to her +with a vague wonder, which was, however, not altogether justified, at +her good fortune in falling in with such a friend, for there are in +that country a good many men and women who resemble this farmer's wife +in one respect. Unfettered by conventions they stretch out an open +hand to the stranger and the outcast. Toil has brought them charity in +place of hardness, and still retaining, as some of them do, the culture +of the cities, they have outgrown all the petty bonds of caste. The +wheat-grower and the hired man eat together, his wife or daughter mends +the latter's clothes, and he, as the natural result of it, not +infrequently makes the farmer's cause his own. Rights are +good-humouredly conceded in place of being fought for, and the sense of +grievance and half-veiled suspicion are exchanged for an efficient +co-operation. It must, however, be admitted that there are also +farmers of another kind, from whom the hired man has occasionally some +difficulty in extracting his covenanted wages by personal violence. +That, too, fails now and then. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye a team and a jolting waggon swept into sight, and Mrs. +Hastings rose when the man who drove it pulled his horses up. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Sproatly; I wonder what has brought him here," she said, and as +the man who sprang down walked towards the house she gazed at him +almost incredulously. +</P> + +<P> +"He's quite smart," she added. "I don't see a single patch on that +jacket, and he has positively got his hair cut." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that an unusual thing in Mr. Sproatly's case?" Agatha asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings. "It's very unusual indeed. What is +stranger still, he has taken the old grease-spotted band off his hat, +after clinging to it affectionately for the last twelve months." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha fancied that the soft hat, which fell shapelessly over part of +Sproatly's face, needed something to replace the discarded band; but in +another moment or two he entered the room. He shook hands with them +both, and then sat down and smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"You are looking remarkably fresh, but appearances are not invariably +to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par," he +said. "I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't," said Mrs. Hastings resolutely; "Allen doesn't, either. +Besides, didn't you get into some trouble over that tonic?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was the cough cure," said Sproatly with a grin. "I sold a man at +Lander's one of the large-sized bottles and when he had taken some he +felt a good deal better. Then he seems to have argued the thing out +like this: if one dose had relieved the cough, a dozen should drive it +out of him altogether, and he took the lot. He slept for forty-eight +hours afterwards, and when I came across him at the settlement he +attacked me with a club. The fault, I may point out, was in his logic. +Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph +of the Deutcher Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects +recognised it. One hung it up in his shanty. The other asked me to +hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it. +He, however, produced his dollar; said he felt so much better after +what he'd done that he didn't grudge it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid we're not worth powder and shot," said Mrs. Hastings. "Do +you ever remember our buying any tonics or pictures from you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't, though I have felt that you ought to have done it," and +Sproatly, who paused a moment, turned towards Agatha with a little +whimsical inclination. "The professional badinage of an unlicensed +dealer in patent medicines may now and then mercifully cover a good +deal of embarrassment. Miss Ismay has brought something pleasantly +characteristic of the Old Country along with her." +</P> + +<P> +His hostess disregarded the last remark. "Then if you didn't expect to +sell us anything, what did you come for?" +</P> + +<P> +"For supper," said Sproatly cheerfully. "Besides that, to take Miss +Rawlinson a drive. I told her last night it would afford me +considerable pleasure to show her the prairie. We could go round by +Lander's and back." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you will probably come across her somewhere about the straw-pile +with the kiddies." +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly took the hint, and when he went out Mrs. Hastings laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"You would hardly suppose that was a young man of excellent education?" +she said. "So it's on Winifred's account he has driven over; at first +I fancied it was on yours." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was astonished, but she smiled. "If Winifred favours him with +her views about young men he will probably be rather sorry for himself. +He lives near you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Mrs. Hastings; "in the summer he lives in his waggon, or +under it, I don't know which. Of course, if he's really taken with +Winifred he will have to alter that." +</P> + +<P> +"But he has only seen her once—you can't mean that he is serious." +</P> + +<P> +"I really can't speak for Sproatly, but it would be quite in keeping +with the customs of the country if he was." +</P> + +<P> +A minute or two later Agatha saw Winifred in the waggon when it +reappeared from behind the strawpile, and Mrs. Hastings turned towards +the window. +</P> + +<P> +"She has gone with him," she said significantly. "Unfortunately, he +has taken my kiddies too. If he brings them back with no bones broken +it will be a relief to me." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WANDERERS. +</H3> + +<P> +Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings when the latter, who was +driving over to Wyllard's homestead with her one afternoon, pulled up +her team while they were still some little distance away from it, and +looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast +breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now +faintly flecked with green. On the other, ploughing teams were +scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of +clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out +behind them. The great sweep of grasses that rustled joyously before a +glorious warm wind, gleamed almost luminous, and overhead hung a vault +of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, skeins and +wisps of birds moved up from the south. +</P> + +<P> +"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall +back-set," she said. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind +of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly." Then she glanced +towards where the teams were hauling unusually heavy ploughs through +the grassy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll +probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich +man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against +him. Some of his neighbours, including my husband, would have sown a +little less and held a reserve in hand." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha remembered what Wyllard had told her one night on board the +<I>Scarrowmania</I>, and smiled, for she fancied that she understood the +man. He was not one to hedge, as she had heard it called, or +cautiously hold his hand. He staked boldly, but she felt that this was +not only for the sake of the dollars that he might stand to gain. It +was part of his nature—the result of an optimistic faith or courage +that appealed to her, and sheer love of effort. She also fancied that +his was no spasmodic, impulsive activity. She could imagine him +holding on as steadfastly with everything against him, exacting all +that men and teams and machines could do. It struck her as curious +that she should feel so sure of this; but she admitted that it was the +case. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile he was approaching them, sitting in the driving-seat +of a big machine that ripped broad furrows through the crackling sod. +Four horses plodded wearily in front of it until he thrust one hand +over, and there was a rattle and clanking as he swung them and the +machine round beside the waggon. Then he got down, and stood smiling +up at Agatha with his soft hat in his hand and the sunlight falling +full upon his weather-darkened face. It was not a particularly +striking face, but there was something in it, a hint of restrained +force and steadfastness, she thought, which Gregory's did not possess, +and for a moment or two she watched him unobtrusively. She felt she +could not help it. +</P> + +<P> +He wore an old blue shirt, open at the throat and belted into trousers +of blue duck at the waist, and she noticed the fine symmetry of his +somewhat spare figure. The absence of any superfluous fleshiness +struck her as in keeping with her view of his character. The man was +well-endued physically; but apart from the strong vitality that was +expressed in every line of his pose he looked clean, as she vaguely +described it to herself. There was, at least, an indefinable something +about him that was apparently born of a simple, healthful life spent in +determined labour in the open air. It became plainer as she remembered +other men she had met upon whom the mark of the beast was unmistakably +set. Then Mrs. Hastings broke the silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said, "we have driven over as we promised. I've no doubt +you will give us supper, but we'll go on and sit down with Mrs. Nansen +in the meanwhile. I expect you're too busy to talk to us." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-132"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-132.jpg" ALT=""'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we promised!'"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="313" HEIGHT="410"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 313px"> +"'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we promised!'" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Wyllard laughed, and it occurred to Agatha that his laugh was wholesome +as well as pleasant. +</P> + +<P> +"I generally am busy," he admitted. "These beasts have, however, been +at it since sun-up, and they're rather played out now. I'll talk to +you as long as you like after supper, which will soon be ready. It's +bad economy to ask too much from them." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha noticed that though the near horse's coat was foul with dust and +sweat he laid his brown hand upon it, and she supposed she must be +fanciful, for it seemed to her that the gentleness with which he did it +was very suggestive. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if that's the only reason that influences you," she said. +</P> + +<P> +A twinkle crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It seems to me a good one as far +as it goes; anyway, I've been driven rather hard myself now and then, +and I didn't like it." +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't that usually result in making one drive somebody else harder +to make up for it, when one has the opportunity?" +</P> + +<P> +"If it does it certainly isn't logical. Logic's rather a fine thing +when it's sound." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," Mrs. Hastings broke in, "I'll suggest a proposition: what's to +be the result of all this ploughing if we have harvest frost or the +market goes against you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Quite a big deficit," said Wyllard cheerfully. +</P> + +<P> +"And that doesn't cause you any anxiety?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll have had some amusement for my money." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until +it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amusement!" Then she looked +back at Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your +back as straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks +as if it wanted to lie down." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two +more rows of furrows still to do." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose that is a hint," and Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when +the waggon jolted on. +</P> + +<P> +"That man," she said, "is a great favourite of mine. For one thing, +he's fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some +respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then runs away with +him." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean by fastidious?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a little difficult to define, but I certainly don't mean +pernicketty. Of course, there is a fastidiousness which makes one +shrink from unpleasant things, but Harry's is the other kind. It +impels him to do them every now and then." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha made no answer. She was uneasily conscious that it might not be +advisable to think too much about this man, and in another minute or +two they reached the homestead. The house was a plain frame building +that had apparently grown out of an older and smaller one of logs, part +of which remained. It was much the same with the barns and stables, +for while they were stoutly built of framed timber or logs one end of +most of them was lower than the rest, and in some cases consisted of +poles and sods. Even to her untrained eyes all she saw suggested +order, neatness, and efficiency. The whole was flanked and sheltered +by a big birch bluff, in which trunks and branches showed up through a +thin green haze of tiny opening leaves, though here and there uncovered +twigs still cut in lace-like tracery against the blue of the sky. +</P> + +<P> +A man whom Wyllard had sent after them took the horses, and when she +got down Agatha commented on what she called the added-to look of the +buildings. +</P> + +<P> +"The Range," said Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took +hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's +efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of +some capital since a relative of his died, but I never thought that +explained everything." +</P> + +<P> +Then they entered the house, and a grey-haired Swedish woman led them +through several match-boarded rooms into a big, cool hall. She left +them there for awhile, and Agatha was busy for a minute or two with her +impressions of the house. It was singularly empty by comparison with +the few English homesteads she had seen. There were neither curtains +nor carpets nor hangings of any kind, but it was commodious and +comfortable. +</P> + +<P> +"What can a bachelor want with a place like this?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," said Mrs. Hastings; "perhaps it's Harry's idea of +having every thing proportionate. The Range is quite a big, and +generally a prosperous, farm. Besides, it's likely that he doesn't +contemplate remaining a bachelor for ever. Indeed, Allen and I +sometimes wonder how he has escaped so long." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that the right word?" Agatha asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It is," said her companion with a laugh. "You see, he's highly +eligible from our point of view, but at the same time he's apparently +invulnerable. I believe," she added drily, "that's the right word, +too." +</P> + +<P> +Then the Swedish housekeeper appeared again, and they talked with her +until she retired to bring the six o'clock supper. Soon after it was +laid out Wyllard and the men came in. He was attired as when Agatha +had last seen him, except that he had evidently brushed himself and put +on a store jacket. He led his guests to the head of the long table, +but the men—and there were a number of them—sat below, and had +evidently no diffidence about addressing question or comment to their +employer. +</P> + +<P> +They ate with a somewhat voracious haste, but that appeared to be the +custom of the country, and Agatha could find no great fault with their +manners or conversation. The latter was, for the most part, quaintly +witty, and some of them used what struck her as remarkably fitting and +original similes. Indeed, as the meal proceeded she became curiously +interested in the men and their surroundings. +</P> + +<P> +The windows were open wide, and a sweet, warm air swept into the barely +furnished room. The spaciousness of the latter impressed her, and she +was pleased with the evident unity between these brown-faced, +strong-armed toilers and their leader. He sat, self-contained, but +courteous and responsive to all alike, at the head of his table, and +though that is, as she had discovered, in most respects an essentially +democratic country, she felt that there was something almost feudal in +the relations between him and his men. She could not imagine them +being confined to the mere exaction of so much labour and the +expectation of payment of wages due. She was also pleased that he had +not changed his dress, which would, she felt, have been a singularly +unfitting action. In fact, so strong was her interest that she was +almost astonished when the meal was over, though it must be admitted +that most of the men rose and went out in fifteen minutes. Afterwards +she and Mrs. Hastings talked with the housekeeper for awhile, and an +hour had slipped away when Wyllard suggested that he should show her +the sloo beyond the bluff. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the nearest approach to a lake we have until you get to the +alkali tract," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha went with him through the shadow of the wood, and when at length +they came out of it he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house +and ploughing were hidden now, and they were alone on the slope to a +slight hollow, in which half a mile of gleaming water lay. Its surface +was broken here and there, by tussocks of grass and reeds, and beyond +it the prairie ran back unbroken, a dim grey waste, to the horizon. +The sun had dipped behind the bluff, and the sky had become a vast +green transparency. There was no wind now, but a wonderful +exhilarating freshness crept into the cooling air, and the stillness +was only broken by the clamour of startled wildfowl which presently +sank again. Agatha could see them paddling in clusters about the +gleaming sloo. +</P> + +<P> +"Those are ducks—wild ones?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Wyllard; "duck of various kinds. Most of them the same as +your English ones." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you shoot them?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was not greatly interested, but he seemed disposed to silence, +and she felt, for no very clear reason, that it was advisable to talk +of something. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, "not often, anyway. If Mrs. Nansen wants a couple I +crawl down to the long grass with the rifle and get them for her." +</P> + +<P> +"The rifle? Doesn't the big bullet destroy them?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Wyllard. "You have to shoot their head off or cut their +neck in two." +</P> + +<P> +"You can do that—when they're right out in the sloo?" asked Agatha, +who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle +than a shot-gun, which spreads its charge. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "Generally; that is, if I haven't been doing much just +before. It depends upon one's hands. We have our game laws, but as a +rule nobody worries about them, and, anyway, those birds won't nest +until they reach the tundra by the Polar Sea. Still, as I said, we +never shoot them unless Mrs. Nansen wants one or two for the pot." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't quite know. For one thing, they're worn out; they just stop +here to rest." +</P> + +<P> +His answer appealed to the girl. It did not seem strange to her that +the love of the lower creation should be strong in this man, who had no +hesitation in admitting that the game laws were no restraint to him. +For the most part, at least, when these Lesser Brethren sailed down out +of the blue heavens worn with their journey he gave them right of +sanctuary. +</P> + +<P> +"They have come a long way?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard pointed towards the South. "From Florida, Cuba, Yucatan; +further than that, perhaps. In a day or two they'll push on again +towards the Pole, and others will take their places. There's a further +detachment arriving now." +</P> + +<P> +Looking up, Agatha saw a straggling wedge of birds dotted in dusky +specks against the vault, of transcendental green. It coalesced, drew +out again, and dropped swiftly, and the air was filled with the rush of +wings; then there was a harsh crying and splashing, and she heard the +troubled water lap among the reeds until deep silence closed in upon +the sloo again. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," she said, "why they do it?" +</P> + +<P> +A rather curious smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It's their destiny: +they're wanderers and strangers without a habitation: there's unrest in +them. After a few months on the tundra mosses to gather strength and +teach the young to fly, they'll unfold their wings to beat another +passage before the icy gales. Some of us, I think, are like them!" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha could not avoid the personal application. It would have +appeared less admissible among her friends at The Grange, but she felt +that the constraints of English reticence were out of place in the +wilderness. +</P> + +<P> +"You surely don't apply that to yourself," she said. "You certainly +have a habitation—the finest, isn't it, on this part of the prairie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Wyllard slowly; "I suppose it is. I've now had a little +rest and quietness, too." +</P> + +<P> +This did not appear to call for an answer, and Agatha sat silent. +</P> + +<P> +"Still," he said, "I have a feeling that some day the call will come, +and I shall have to take the trail again." He paused, and looked at +her before he added, "It would be easier if one hadn't to go alone, or, +since that would be necessary, if one had at least something to come +back to when the journey was done." +</P> + +<P> +"It would be necessary?" said Agatha, who was rather puzzled by his +steady gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said with a somewhat impressive gravity, "the call will come +from the icy North if it ever comes at all." +</P> + +<P> +There was another brief silence, and Agatha wondered what he was +thinking of until he went on again. +</P> + +<P> +"I remember how I last came back from there. We were rather late that +season, and out of our usual beat when the gale broke upon us between +Alaska and Asia in the gateway of the Pole. We ran before it with a +strip of the boom-foresail on her and a jib that blew to ribands every +now and then. She was a little schooner of ninety tons or so, and for +most of a week she scudded with the grey seas tumbling after her, +white-topped, out of the snow and spume. They ranged high above her +taffrail curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The +one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching her +screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let +her fall off or claw up, the next one would have made an end of her. +He was knee deep half the time in icy brine, and his hands had split +and opened with the frost, but the sweat dripped from him as he clung +to the jarring wheel. One of those helmsmen—perhaps two—had another +trouble which preyed on them. They were thinking of the three men they +had left behind. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he added, "we ran out of the gale, and I had bitter words to +face when we reached Vancouver. As one result of it I walked out of +the city with four or five dollars in my pocket—though there was a +share due to me. Then I rode up into the ranges in an open car to mend +railroad bridges in the frost and snow. It was not the kind of +home-coming one would care to look forward to." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said Agatha, "it must have been horribly dreary?" +</P> + +<P> +The man met her eyes. "Yes," he said, "you—know. You came here from +far away, I think a little weary, too, and something failed you. Then +you felt yourself adrift. There were—it seemed—only strangers round +you, but you were wrong in one respect; you were by no means a stranger +to me." +</P> + +<P> +He had been leaning against a birch trunk, but now he moved a little +nearer, and stood gravely looking down on her. +</P> + +<P> +"You have sent Gregory away?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Agatha, and, startled as she was, it did not strike her +that the mere admission was misleading. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard stretched his hands out. "Then won't you come to me?" +</P> + +<P> +The blood swept into the girl's face. For the moment she forgot +Gregory, and was only conscious of an unreasoning impulse which +prompted her to take the hands held out to her. Then she rose and +faced the man, with burning cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"You know nothing of me," she said. "Can you think that I would let +you take me—out of charity?" +</P> + +<P> +"Again you're wrong—on both points. As I once told you, I have sat +for hours beside the fire beneath the pines or among the boulders with +your picture for company. When I was worn-out and despondent you +encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the +ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all, however, +though it's difficult to speak of such things to you. There were times +when as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide, +all one's physical nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labour. +The pay-days came round, and opportunities were made for us—to forget +what we had borne, and had still to bear, in the snow and the icy +water. Then you laid a restraining hand on me. I could not take your +picture where you could not go. Is all that to count for nothing?" +</P> + +<P> +Then he spread his hands out forcibly. "As to the other question: +can't you get beyond the narrow point of view? We're in a big, new +country where the old barriers are down. We're merely flesh and +blood—red blood—and we speak as we feel. Admitting that I was sorry +for you—I am—how does that tell against me—or you? There's one +thing only that counts at all: I want you." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was stirred, and almost dismayed at the effect his words had on +her. He had spoken with a force and passion that had nearly swept her +away with it. The vigour of the new land throbbed in his voice, and, +flinging aside all cramping restraints and conventions, he had, as he +had said, claimed her as flesh and blood. There was no doubt that her +nature responded, and it was significant that Gregory had faded +altogether out of her mind; but there was, after all, pride in her, and +she could not quite bring herself to look at things from his +standpoint. All her prejudices and her sense of fitness were opposed +to it. For one thing, he had taken the wrong way when he had admitted +that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she +shrank from the shadow of the thought that she would marry him—for +shelter. It brought her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered +the haste with which marriages were, it seemed, arranged on the +prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost +compelled her to yield to him passed away, she remembered that it was +scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was +intolerable that he should think she would be willing to fall into his +arms merely because he had held them out to her. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a little difficult to get beyond one's sense of what is fit," she +said. "You—I must say it again—can't know anything about me. You +have woven fancies about that photograph, but you must recognise that +I'm not the girl you have, it seems, created out of them. In all +probability she's wholly unreal, unnatural, visionary." She contrived +to smile, for she was recovering her composure. "Perhaps it's easy +when one has imagination to endow a person with qualities and graces +that could never belong to them. It must be easy"—and though she was +unconscious of it, there was a trace of bitterness in her +voice—"because I know I could do it myself." +</P> + +<P> +Again the man held his hands out. "Then," he said simply, "won't you +try? If you can only feel sure that the person has them it's possible +that he could acquire one or two." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha drew back, disregarding this. "Then I've changed ever so much +since that photograph was taken." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I recognised that; you were a +little immature then. I know that now—but all the graciousness and +sweetness in you has grown and ripened. What is more, it has grown +just as I seemed to know it would do. I saw that clearly the day we +met beside the stepping-stones. I would have asked you to marry me in +England only Gregory stood in the way." +</P> + +<P> +Then the colour ebbed suddenly out of the girl's face as she remembered. +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory," she said in a strained voice, "stands in the way still. I +didn't send him away altogether. I'm not sure I made that clear." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard started, but he stood very still again for a moment or two. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," he said, "if there's anything significant in the fact that +you gave me that reason last? He failed you in some way?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not sure that I haven't failed him; but I can't go into that." +</P> + +<P> +Again Wyllard stood silent awhile. Then he turned to her with the +signs of a strong restraint in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory," he said, "is a friend of mine; there is, at least, one very +good reason why I should remember it, but it seems that somehow he +hadn't the wit to keep you. Well, I can only wait in the meanwhile, +but when the time seems ripe I shall ask you again. Until then you +have my promise that I will not say another word that could distress +you. Perhaps I had better take you back to Mrs. Hastings now." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha turned away, and they walked back together silently through the +bluff. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE SUMMONS. +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings was standing beside her waggon in the gathering dusk when +Agatha and Wyllard joined her, and when the latter had helped them up +she looked down at him severely as she gathered up the reins. +</P> + +<P> +"By this time Allen will have had to put the kiddies to bed," she said. +"Christina, as you might have borne in mind, goes over to Branstock's +every evening. Anyway, you'll drive across and see him about that team +as soon as you can; come to supper." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll try," said Wyllard with a certain hesitation; and Mrs. Hastings +turned to her companion as they drove away. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did he look at you before he answered me?" she asked, and laughed, +for there was just light enough left to show the colour in Agatha's +cheek. "Well," she added, "I told Allen he was sure to be the first." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha looked at her in evident bewilderment, but she nodded. "Yes," +she said, "of course, I knew it would come. Everybody knows by now +that you have fallen out with Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +"But, as I told you, I haven't fallen out with him." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you certainly haven't married him, and if you have said 'No' to +Harry Wyllard because you would sooner take Gregory after all, you're a +singularly unwise young woman. Anyway, you'll have to meet him when he +comes to supper. Allen's fond of a talk with Harry; I can't have him +kept away." +</P> + +<P> +"I was a little afraid of that," said Agatha quietly. "What makes the +situation more difficult is that he told me he would ask me again." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings appeared thoughtful. "In that case he will in all +probability do it; but I don't think you need feel diffident about +meeting him, especially as you can't help it. He'll wait and say +nothing until he considers it advisable." +</P> + +<P> +She changed the subject, and talked about other matters until they +reached the homestead; but as the weeks went by Agatha found that what +she had told her was warranted. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard drove over every now and then, but she was reassured by his +attitude. He greeted her with the quiet cordiality which had hitherto +characterised him, and it went a long way towards allaying the +embarrassment she was conscious of at first. By and bye, however, she +felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the disturbing possibility +that he might at some future time once more adopt the rôle of lover. +In the meanwhile, she realised that in face of the efforts she made to +think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory; and +she had, as it happened, two further offers of marriage before the +wheat had shot up a hand's breadth above the rich black loam. This was +a matter of regret to her, and, though Mrs. Hastings assured her that +the "boys" would get over it, she was rather shocked to hear that one +of them had shortly afterwards involved himself in difficulties by +creating a disturbance in Winnipeg. +</P> + +<P> +The wheat, however, was growing tall when, at Mrs. Hastings's request, +she drove over with her again to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when +they reached it, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together +she wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff +and towards the sloo, which had almost dried up now, and it was with a +curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard +had said to her there. Through them all there ran a regret that she +had not met him four years earlier. +</P> + +<P> +That, however, was a train of thought she did not care to indulge in, +and in order to get rid of it she walked more briskly up a low rise +where the grass was already turning white again, over the crest of it, +and down the side of another hollow. The prairie rolled just there in +wide undulations as the sea does when the swell of a distant gale +under-runs a glassy calm. She had grown fond of the prairie, and its +clear skies and fresh breezes had brought the colour to her cheeks and +given her composure, though there were times when the knowledge that +she was no nearer a decision in regard to Gregory weighed upon her like +a chill depressing shadow. She had seen very little of him, and he had +not been effusive then. What he felt she could not tell, but it had +been a relief to her when he had ridden away again. Then for a while +he faded to an unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind. +</P> + +<P> +That afternoon the prairie stretched away before her gleaming in the +sunlight tinder a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down +the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and for the first +time she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow at the foot +of it, where there had been another sloo. It had, however, evidently +dried up weeks ago, and as there were men and horses moving amidst the +dust she supposed that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows +longer in such places than it does upon the levels. She went on +another half-mile, and then sat down some distance off, for she had +already walked further than she had intended. She could now see the +men more clearly, and though it was fiercely hot they were evidently +working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing and bare brown arms +appeared among the white and ochre tinting of the grass that seemed +charged with brightness, and the sounds of their activity came up to +her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of the mowers, the +crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of waggon wheels. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye a great mound of gleaming grass overhanging two half-seen +horses moved out of the sloo, and she watched it draw nearer until she +made out Wyllard sitting in a depression in the front of it. She sat +still until he pulled the team up close beside her and looked down with +a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"It's 'most two miles to the homestead. If you could manage to climb +up I could make you a comfortable place," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha held her hands up with one foot upon a spoke of the wheel as the +man leaned down, and next moment she was strongly lifted and felt his +supporting hand upon her waist. Then she found herself standing upon a +narrow ledge clutching at the hay while he tore out several big armfuls +of it and flung it back upon the rest. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-146"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-146.jpg" ALT=""Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down, and the next moment she was strongly lifted."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="313" HEIGHT="506"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 313px"> +"Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down, and the next moment she was strongly lifted." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"Now," he said, "I guess you'll find that a snug enough nest." +</P> + +<P> +She sank into it with at least a certain sense of physical +satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm, scented with the aromatic +odours of wild peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath +her limbs. Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she +fancied she had seen a sudden sign of tension in the man's face when he +had for a moment held her on the edge of the waggon. Unobtrusively she +flashed a glance at him, and was reassured. He was looking straight +before him with unwavering eyes, and his face was as quiet as it +usually was again. Neither of them said anything until the team moved +on. Then he turned to her. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't get jolted much," he said. "They've been at it since four +o'clock this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"That," said Agatha, "must have meant that you rose at three." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "As a matter of fact, it was half-past two. There was +no dew last night, and we started early. I've several extra teams this +year, and there's a good deal of hay to cut. Of course, we have to get +it in the sloos or any damp place where it's long. We don't sow grass, +and we have no meadows like those there are in England." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha understood that he meant to talk about matters of no particular +consequence, as he usually did. There was, as she had noticed, a vein +of almost poetic imagination in this man, and his idea that she had +been with him through the snow of the lonely ranges and the gloom of +the great forests of the Pacific slope appealed to her, merely as a +pretty fancy, in particular. He had, however, of late very seldom +given it rein, and sitting close beside him among the yielding hay she +decided that it was wiser to let him talk about his farm. +</P> + +<P> +"But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven't +you?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I had, but he left me three or four days ago. It's a pity in several +ways, since I've taken up rather more than I can handle this year." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why didn't you keep him?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a certain grimness in Wyllard's laugh. "Martial was a little +muleish, and I'm afraid I'm troubled with a shortness of temper now and +then. We had a difference of opinion as to the best way to drive the +mower into the sloo, and he didn't seem to recognise that he should +have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys were standing by, I +had to insist upon him getting out of the saddle." +</P> + +<P> +He had turned a little further towards her, and Agatha noticed that +there was a bruise upon one side of his face. After what he had just +told her the sight of it jarred upon her, though she would not admit +that there was any reason why it should do so. She could not deny that +on the prairie a resort to physical force might be warranted by the +lack of any other remedy, but it hurt her to think of him descending to +an open brawl with one of his men. +</P> + +<P> +Then it occurred to her that the other man had in all probability +suffered more, and this brought her a certain sense of satisfaction +which she admitted was more or less barbarous. She had made it clear +that Wyllard was nothing to her, but she could not help watching him as +he lay among the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face, which, +though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring—she felt that +was the best word—to look at. The dusty shirt and old blue trousers, +as she had already noticed, accentuated the long, clean lines of his +figure, and she realised with a faint sense of anger that his mere +physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, appealed to her. +This was, she recognised, an almost repugnant thing, a feeling to be +judiciously checked, but it would obtrude itself. After all, in spite +of her fastidiousness, she was endued with most of the characteristics +of flesh and blood. +</P> + +<P> +"You must have a good deal to look after alone," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes," said Wyllard; "I'm making my biggest effort this year. We've +sown at least a third more than I've ever done before, and I've bought +a big bunch of horses, too. If all goes satisfactorily we should reap +a record harvest, but in the meanwhile the thing's rather a pull. One +can't let up a minute; there's always something to be done, and a +constant need for supervision." +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose you neglected the latter?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "Then I'm 'most afraid there'd be the biggest kind of +smash." +</P> + +<P> +After that they talked of other matters of no great consequence, for +both of them were conscious of the necessity for a certain reticence; +and when they reached the homestead Agatha joined Mrs. Hastings, while +Wyllard pitched the hay off the waggon. He, however, came in to supper +presently with about half of the others, and they all sat down together +in the long, barely furnished room. Wyllard seemed unusually animated, +and drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout of whimsical badinage, but he looked +up sharply when, by and bye, a beat of hoofs rose from the prairie. +</P> + +<P> +"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants?" he said. "I certainly +don't expect anybody." +</P> + +<P> +The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for +the sod was hard and dry. Then it broke off, and Agatha saw Wyllard +start as a man came into the room. He was a little, thick-set man with +a weather-darkened face, dressed in rather old blue serge, and he +looked and walked like a seaman. In another moment or two he stood +still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A little +thrill of disconcertion ran through Agatha, for she felt she knew what +this stranger's errand must be. +</P> + +<P> +Then Wyllard rose, and walked towards the man with outstretched hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit right down and get some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden +in from the railroad," he said. "We'll talk afterwards." +</P> + +<P> +The stranger nodded. "I'm from Vancouver," he said; "had quite a lot +of trouble tracing you." +</P> + +<P> +He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take his horse, went +back to his seat, but he was rather silent during the rest of the meal. +When it was over he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the +stranger into a smaller room pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar box +on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you can get ahead," he said. +</P> + +<P> +The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed +it to his companion. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I came to bring you," he said quietly. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's eyes grew very grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip +of willow which will grow close up to the limits of the eternal ice, +and it bore a rude representation of the British ensign union down, +which signifies "In distress." Besides this there were one or two +indecipherable words scratched on it, and three common names rather +more clearly cut. Wyllard recognised every one of them. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you get it?" he asked, in tense suspense. +</P> + +<P> +The sailorman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of +paper cut from a chart. He flattened it out on the table, and it +showed, as Wyllard had expected, a strip of the Kamtchatkan coast. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess I needn't tell you where that is," he said, and pointed to the +parallel of latitude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it me. He was +up there late last season well over on the western side. A +north-easterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of +her. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury +mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that +being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail. +Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept +heading them from the east she sidled away down south through the +Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which +explains why Dunton only fetched Vancouver a week ago." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-150"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-150.jpg" ALT=""'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said, and pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="310" HEIGHT="408"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 310px"> +"'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said, and pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"But the message?" +</P> + +<P> +"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove her to not far +off the beach with ice about, and a Husky came down on them in some +kind of boat." +</P> + +<P> +"A Husky?" said Wyllard, who knew he meant an Esquimaux. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a +Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and +he had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They +couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message +from three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out +how long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Dunton tried for them?" +</P> + +<P> +"How could he? She'd hardly look at the wind, and the ice was piling +up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two with the +floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and blew him +out." +</P> + +<P> +He had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose, stood leaning on his +chair-back very grim in face. +</P> + +<P> +"That," he said, "must have been eight or nine months ago." +</P> + +<P> +"It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the +boat." +</P> + +<P> +"It's unthinkable," said Wyllard. "The thing can't be true." +</P> + +<P> +His companion gravely produced a little common metal watch made in +Connecticut, and worth some five or six dollars. Opening it he pointed +to a name scratched inside it. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't get over that," he said simply. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard strode up and down the room, and when he sat down again with a +clenched hand laid upon the table he and the sailorman looked at each +other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a little +gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going for them." +</P> + +<P> +The sailorman smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start +right away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner." +</P> + +<P> +He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. +"Well," he said, "I'm coming with you, but you'll have to buy my ticket +to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty with a +blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me. Sealing's not +what it used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later. I won't +keep you from your friends." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard went out and left him, and though he did not see Mrs. Hastings +just then he came upon Agatha sitting outside the house. She glanced +at his face when he sat down beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," she said, "you have had the summons." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard nodded. "Yes," he said, "that man was the skipper of a +schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three +men are." +</P> + +<P> +Then he told her quietly what he had heard, and the girl was conscious +of a very curious thrill. +</P> + +<P> +"You are going up there to search for them?" she said. "Won't it cost +you a great deal?" +</P> + +<P> +She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his +expression was very resolute. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my dollars are +locked up in this crop, and there's need of constant watchfulness and +effort until the last bushel's hauled in to the elevators. It probably +sounds egotistical, but now I've got rid of Martial I can't put my hand +on any one as fit to see the thing through as I am. Still, I have to +go for them. What else could I do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia, or your +authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's smile was somewhat grim. "It wouldn't be wise to give them +an opportunity. For one thing, they've had enough of sealing cases, +and that isn't astonishing. We'll say they applied for the persons of +three British subjects who are supposed to be living somewhere in +Russian Asia—and for that matter I couldn't be sure that two of them +aren't Americans—the Russians naturally enquire what the men were +doing there. The answer is that they were poaching the Russians' +seals. Then the affair on the beach comes up, and there's a big claim +for compensation and trouble all round. It seems to me the last thing +those men—they're practically outlaws—would desire would be to have a +Russian expedition sent up on their trail. They would want to lie +hidden until they could somehow get off again." +</P> + +<P> +"But how have they lived up there? The whole land's frozen, isn't it, +most of the year?" +</P> + +<P> +"They'd sealing rifles, and the Koriaks make out farther north in their +roofed-in pits. One can live on seal and walrus meat and blubber." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha shivered. "But they'd no tents, or furs, or blankets. It's +horrible to imagine it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Wyllard, gravely, "that's why I'm going for them." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sat still a moment. She could realise the magnitude of the +sacrifice he was making, and in some degree the hazards that he must +face. It appealed to her with an overwhelming force, but she was also +conscious of a strange dismay. Then she turned to him with a flush of +colour in her cheeks and her eyes shining. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "it's splendid!" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them." +</P> + +<P> +Then somewhat to Agatha's relief Mrs. Hastings came out of the house, +and Wyllard moved away towards the stable to bring out her team. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE. +</H3> + +<P> +It was two days later when Agatha, coming back from a stroll across the +prairie with the two little girls, found Mrs. Hastings awaiting her at +the homestead door. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll take the kiddies. Harry Wyllard's here, and he seems quite +anxious to see you, though I don't know what he wants," she said. +</P> + +<P> +She flashed a searching glance at the girl, whose face, however, +remained expressionless. It was, at least, not often that Agatha's +composure broke down. +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway," she added, "you had better go in. Allen has been arguing +with him the last half-hour, and can't get any sense into him. It +seems to me the man's crazy; but he might, perhaps, listen to you." +</P> + +<P> +"I think that's scarcely likely," said Agatha quietly. +</P> + +<P> +Her companion made a sign of impatience. "Then," she said, "it's a +pity. Anyway, if he speaks to you about his project you can tell him +that it's altogether unreasonable." +</P> + +<P> +She drew aside, and Agatha walked into the room in which she had had +one painful interview with Gregory. Wyllard, who was sitting there, +rose as she came in, and half-consciously she contrasted him with her +lover. Then what Mrs. Hastings had once predicted came about, for +Gregory did not bear that comparison favourably. Indeed, it seemed to +her that he grew coarser and meaner in person and character. Then she +turned to Wyllard, who stood quietly watching her. +</P> + +<P> +"Nellie Hastings or her husband has been telling you what they think of +my idea?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha admitted it. "Yes," she said. "Their opinion evidently hasn't +much weight with you." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't go quite so far as that, but you might have gone a little +further than you did. Haven't you a message for me?" Then he smiled +before he added, "You were sent to denounce my folly—and you can't do +it. If you trusted your own impulses you would give me your +benediction instead." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha, who was troubled with a sense of regret, noticed that there was +a suggestive wistfulness in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said slowly, "I can't denounce it. For one reason, I have no +right of any kind to force my views on you." +</P> + +<P> +"You told Nellie Hastings that?" +</P> + +<P> +It seemed an unwarranted question, but the girl admitted it candidly. +</P> + +<P> +"In one sense I did. I suggested that there was no reason why you +should listen to me." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled again. "Nellie and her husband are good friends of +mine, but sometimes our friends are a little too officious. Anyway, it +doesn't count. If you had had that right, you would have told me to +go." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha felt the warm blood rise to her cheeks. It seemed to her that +he had paid her a great and sincere compliment in taking it for granted +that if she had loved him she would still have bidden him undertake his +perilous duty. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps I should not have been brave +enough." +</P> + +<P> +It was not a judicious answer. She quite realised that, but she felt +that she must speak with unhesitating candour. +</P> + +<P> +"After all," she added, "can you be quite sure that this thing is your +duty?" +</P> + +<P> +The man laughed in a rather grim fashion. "No," he said, "I can't. In +fact, when I sit down to think I can see at least a dozen reasons why +it doesn't concern me. In a case of this kind that's always easy. +It's just borne in upon me—I don't know how—that I have to go." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha crossed to the window and sat down. She knew there was more to +follow, and it seemed advisable to secure whatever there might be in +her favour in a pose of physical ease. Besides, where she stood the +glare of light flung back by the white and dusty grass outside struck +full upon her face, and she did not want the man to read every varying +expression. He leaned upon a chair-back looking at her gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "we'll go on a little further. It seems better that I +should make what's in my mind quite clear to you. You see, I and +Captain Dampier start in a week." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was certainly conscious of a thrill of dismay, but the man +proceeded quietly. "We may be back before the winter, but it's also +quite likely that we may be ice-nipped before our work is through, and +in that case it would be a year at least before we reach Vancouver. In +fact, there's a certain probability that all of us may leave our bones +up there. Now, there's a thing I must ask you. Is it only a passing +trouble that stands between you and Gregory? Are you still fond of +him?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl felt her heart beating unpleasantly fast. It would have been +a relief to assure herself that she was as fond of Gregory as she had +been, but she could not do it. +</P> + +<P> +"That," she said, "is a point on which I cannot answer you." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll let it go at that. The fact that Gregory sent me over for you +implied a certain obligation. How far events have cleared me of it I +don't know—and you don't seem willing to tell me. But I fancy there +is now less cause than there was for me to thrust my own wishes into +the background, and, as I start in another week, the situation has +forced my hand. I can't wait as I had meant to do, and it would be a +vast relief to know that I had made your future safer than it is before +I go. Will you marry me at the settlement the morning I start?" +</P> + +<P> +Half-conscious, as she was, of the unselfishness which had prompted +this suggestion, Agatha turned and faced him in hot anger. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you suppose for a moment that I would agree to that?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait," said the man gravely. "Try to look at it quietly. First of +all, I want you. You know that—though you have never shown me any +tenderness, you can't doubt it—but I can't stay to win your liking. I +must go away. Then, as things stand, your future is uncertain; and as +my wife it would, at least, be safer. However badly the man I leave in +charge of the Range may manage there would be something saved out of +the wreck, and I would like to make that something yours. As I said, I +may be away a year, perhaps eighteen months, and I may never come back. +If I don't, the fact that you would bear my name could cause you no +great trouble. It would lay no restraint on you in any way." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha looked him steadily in the eyes, and spoke as she felt. "We +can't contemplate your not coming back. It's unthinkable." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said Wyllard, still with the grave quietness she wondered +at. "Then I'm not sure that my turning up again would greatly +complicate the thing. There would, at least, be one way out of the +difficulty. You wouldn't find the situation intolerable if I could +make you fond of me." +</P> + +<P> +The girl broke into a little, high-strung laugh that had a tinge of +bitterness in it. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "aren't you taking too much for granted? Am I really +to believe you are making this fantastic offer seriously? Do you +suppose I would marry you—for your possessions?" +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds bloodless? Perhaps it is in one way, but you wouldn't +always find me that. Just now, because my hand is forced, I am only +anticipating things. If I live, you will some day have to choose +between me and Gregory. In this case he must hold his own if he can." +</P> + +<P> +"Against what you have offered me?" She flung the question at him. +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her with his face set and the signs of restraint very +plain on it. +</P> + +<P> +"I expect I deserved that. I wanted to make you safe. It's the most +pressing difficulty." +</P> + +<P> +The bitterness was still in the girl's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only one." +Then her anger seemed to carry her away. "Oh," she said, "do you +imagine that an offer of the kind you have made me, made as you have +made it, would lead anyone to love you?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "When I first saw your picture, and when I saw you +afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem to have got +rid of it, I love you better as you are. There is, however, one thing +I must ask again, and it's your clear duty to tell me. Are you fonder +of Gregory than you feel you ever could be of me?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha's eyes fell. She felt she could not look at him just then, nor +could she answer his question honestly as she almost wished to. +</P> + +<P> +"At least, I am bound to him until he releases me." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said Wyllard, "that is what I was most afraid of. All along it +hampered me, and in it you have the reason for my bloodlessness. It is +another reason why I should go away." +</P> + +<P> +"For fear that you should tempt me from my duty?" +</P> + +<P> +The man's expression changed, and there crept into his eyes a gleam of +the passion that she knew he was capable of. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," he said, "I seem to know that I could make you break faith +with that man. You belong to me. For three years you have been +everywhere with me, but we will let that go. I must go away, and +Gregory will have a clear field, but the probability is in favour of me +coming back again, and then, if he has failed to make the most of it, +I'll enforce my claim." +</P> + +<P> +He turned and seized one of her hands, holding it strongly against her +will. +</P> + +<P> +"That is my last word. At least, you will let me think that when I go +up yonder into the mists and snow I shall take your good wishes for my +success away with me." +</P> + +<P> +She lifted her face, which was flushed, and once more looked him +steadily in the eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"They are yours, most fervently," she said. "It would be intolerable +that you should fail." +</P> + +<P> +He smiled very gravely, and let her hand fall. "After all," he said, +"one can only do what one can." +</P> + +<P> +Then he went out without another glance at her, and not long afterwards +Mrs. Hastings, who was endued with a reasonable measure of curiosity, +found occasion to enter the room. +</P> + +<P> +"You have said something to trouble Harry?" she began. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha contrived to smile. "I'm not sure he's greatly troubled. In +any case, I told him I would not marry him—for the second time." +</P> + +<P> +"He has given up his crazy notion, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"He never suggested doing that." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings made a little sign of compassionate astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "he's mad." +</P> + +<P> +"I believe I told him he was bloodless. At least, that was how he +interpreted what I said." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Harry Wyllard bloodless! My dear, can't you +see that the restraint he now and then practises is the sign of a +tremendous vitality? Still, the man's mad. Did he tell you that he +means to leave Gregory in charge of Willow Range?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was certainly astonished at this, but Mrs. Hastings nodded. +"It's a fact," she said. "He asked him to meet him here to save time, +and"—she turned towards the window—"there's his waggon now." +</P> + +<P> +She moved towards the door, and then turned again. "Is there any +blood—red blood we will call it—or even common-sense in you? You +could have kept that man here if you had wanted." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Agatha, "I don't think I could. I'm not even sure that if +I'd had the right I would have done it. He recognised that." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings looked at her very curiously. "Then," she said, "you +have either a somewhat extraordinary character, or are in love with him +in a way that is beyond most of us. In any case, I can't help feeling +that you will be sorry for what you have done some day." +</P> + +<P> +Next moment the door closed with a bang, and Agatha was left alone +endeavouring to analyse her sensations during her interview with +Wyllard, which was difficult, for they had been confused and +fragmentary. She had certainly been angry with him, but the cause for +this was much less apparent, though there were one or two +half-sufficient explanations. For one thing, it was almost intolerable +to feel that he had evidently taken it for granted that the greater +security she would enjoy as his wife would appeal to her, though there +was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her +dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, +his reserve had been at least perplexing, and it was borne in upon her +that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him +had he spoken with fire and passion. The restraint, however, had been +evident, and he could not have practised it unless there had been +something to hold in check; and then it became apparent that it was +more important to ascertain his motives than her own. +</P> + +<P> +If the man had been fervently in love with her, why had he not insisted +on that fact, she asked. Could it have been because he had with the +fantastic generosity, which he was evidently capable of, been willing +to leave his comrade unhandicapped with an open field? That, however, +seemed too much to expect from any man. Then there was the other +explanation that he preferred to leave the choice wholly to her lest he +should tempt her too strongly to break faith with Gregory, which +brought the blood to her face as it had done already, since it +suggested that he fancied he had only to urge her sufficiently and she +would yield. There was, it seemed, no satisfactory explanation at all. +Only the fact remained that he had made her a somewhat dispassionate +offer of marriage, and had left her to decide, which she had done. +</P> + +<P> +As it happened, Wyllard could not just then, at least, have made the +matter very much clearer. Shrewdly practical, as he was, in some +respects, there were times when he acted blindly, merely doing without +reasoning what he sub-consciously felt was right. This had more than +once involved him in disaster, but it is, perhaps, fortunate that there +are others like him, for, after all, in the long run the failures of +such men now and then prove better than the dictates of calculating +wisdom. +</P> + +<P> +In any case, Agatha found a momentary relief from her thoughts as she +watched Hawtrey get down from his waggon and approach the house. The +change in him was plainer than it had ever been, which may have been +because she had now a standard of comparison. He was tall and +well-favoured, and he moved with a jaunty and yet not ungraceful swing; +but it almost seemed to her that this was merely the result of an empty +self-sufficiency. There was, she felt, no force behind it which when +the strain came would prove that jaunty bearing warranted. He was +smiling, and for some reason his smile appeared a trifle inane, while +there was certainly a hint of sensuousness in his face. It suggested +that the man might sink into self-indulgent coarseness. She, however, +remembered that she was still pledged to him, and determinedly brushed +these thoughts aside, until she heard his footsteps inside the house, +when she became possessed of a burning curiosity as to what Wyllard had +to say to him, which, however, remained unsatisfied. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, Hawtrey entered a room where Wyllard sat awaiting him +with a paper in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I asked you to drive over here because it would save time," he said. +"I have to go in to the railroad at once. Here's a draft of the scheme +I suggested. You had better tell me if there's anything you're not +quite satisfied with." +</P> + +<P> +He threw the paper on the table, and Hawtrey, who took it up, perused +it. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm to farm and generally manage the Range on your behalf," he said. +"My percentage to be deducted after harvest. I'm empowered to sell out +grain or horses as appears advisable, and to have the use of teams and +implements for my own place when occasion requires it." +</P> + +<P> +He looked up. "I've no fault to find with the thing, Harry. It's +generous." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you had better sign it, and we'll get Hastings to witness it in a +minute or two. In the meanwhile there's a thing I have to ask you. +How do you stand in regard to Miss Ismay?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey pushed his chair back noisily. "That," he said, "is a subject +on which I'm naturally not disposed to give you any information. How +does it concern you? +</P> + +<P> +"In this way. Believing that your engagement must be broken off I +asked Miss Ismay to marry me." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey was clearly startled, but in a moment or two he smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," he said, "she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, our +engagement isn't broken off. It's merely extended." +</P> + +<P> +They looked at each other in silence for a moment or two, and there was +a curious hardness in Wyllard's eyes. Then Hawtrey spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"In view of what you have just told me why did you want to put me of +all people in charge of the Range?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be candid," said Wyllard. "For one thing, you held on when I was +slipping off the trestle that day in British Columbia. For another, +you'll make nothing of your own holding, and if you run the Range as it +ought to be run it will put a good many dollars into your pocket, +besides relieving me of a big anxiety. If you're to marry Miss Ismay, +I'd sooner she was made reasonably comfortable." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey looked up with a flush in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Harry," he said, "this is extravagantly generous." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait," said Wyllard; "there's a little more to be said. I can't be +back before the frost, and I may be away eighteen months. While I am +away you will have a clear field—and you must make the most of it. If +you are not married when I come back I shall ask Miss Ismay again. +Now"—and he glanced at his comrade steadily—"does this stand in the +way of your going on with the arrangement we have arrived at?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a rather tense silence for a moment or two, and then Hawtrey +broke it. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said; "after all, there is no reason why it should do so. It +has no practical bearing upon the other question." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard rose. "Well," he said, "if you will call Allen Hastings in +we'll get this thing fixed up." +</P> + +<P> +The document was duly signed, and a few minutes later Wyllard drove +away; but Mrs. Hastings contrived to have a few words with Hawtrey +before he did the same. +</P> + +<P> +"I've no doubt that Harry took you into his confidence on a certain +point," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," admitted Hawtrey; "he did. I was a little astonished, besides +feeling rather sorry for him. There is, however, reason to believe +that he'll soon get over it." +</P> + +<P> +"You feel sure of that?" and Mrs. Hastings smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it evident? If he had cared much about her he certainly +wouldn't have gone away." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean you wouldn't?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Hawtrey, "there's no doubt of that." +</P> + +<P> +His companion smiled again. "Well," she said drily, "I would like to +think you were right about Harry; it would be a relief to me." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey, who said nothing further, presently drove away, and soon after +he did so Agatha approached Mrs. Hastings. +</P> + +<P> +"There's something I must ask you," she said. "Has Gregory consented +to take charge of Wyllard's farm?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has," said her companion in her dryest tone. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha's face flushed, and there was a flash in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "it's almost insufferable!" +</P> + +<P> +Then she turned and left Mrs. Hastings without another word. +</P> + +<P> +She only saw Wyllard once again, and that was when he called at the +homestead early one morning. He got down from the waggon where Dampier +sat, and shook hands with her and Allen and Mrs. Hastings. Very few +words were spoken, and she could not remember what she said, but when +he swung himself up again and the waggon jolted away into the white +prairie she went back to the house with her heart beating unpleasantly +fast and a very curious feeling of depression. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BEACH. +</H3> + +<P> +For a fortnight after they reached Vancouver Wyllard and Dampier were +very busy. They had various difficulties to contend with, for while +they would have preferred to slip away to sea as quietly as possible a +British vessel's movements are fenced about with many formalities, and +they did not wish to ship a white man who could be dispensed with. +Wyllard fancied there were sailormen and sealers in Vancouver and down +Puget Sound who would have gone with him, but there was a certain +probability of their discussing their exploits afterwards in the +saloons ashore, which was about the last thing that he desired. It +appeared essential that he should avoid notoriety as much as possible. +</P> + +<P> +He had further trouble about obtaining provisions and general +necessaries, for considerably more attention than the free-lance +sealers cared about was being bestowed upon the North just then, and he +did not desire to rouse the curiosity of the dealers as to why he was +filling his lazaret up with Arctic stores. He obviated that difficulty +by dividing his orders among the whole of them, and buying as little as +possible. Dampier, however, proved an adept at the difficult business, +and eventually the schooner <I>Selache</I> crept out from the Narrows at +dusk one evening under all plain sail, painted a pale green, with her +big main-boom raking at least a fathom beyond her taffrail. There were +then Wyllard, Dampier, and two other white men on board her. A week +later she sailed into a deep, rock-walled inlet on the western coast of +Vancouver Island with a settlement at the top of it, where the +storekeeper made no difficulty about selling Wyllard all his flour and +canned goods at higher figures than there was any probability of his +obtaining from the local ranchers. +</P> + +<P> +Then the <I>Selache</I> slid down the inlet again, and lay for several days +in a forest-shrouded arm near the mouth of it, while, when she once +more dropped her anchor off a Siwash rancherie far up on the wild West +coast, she was painted a dingy grey, and her sawn-off boom just topped +her stern. One does not want a great main-boom in the northern seas, +and a big mainsail needs men to handle it. Wyllard, however, shipped +several sea-bred Indians who had made wonderful perilous voyages on the +trail of the seal and halibut in open canoes. All of them had, as it +happened, also sailed in sealing schooners. Their comrades sold him +furs, and filled part of the hold up with redwood billets and bark for +the stove, for he had not considered it advisable to load too much +Wellington coal. Then he pushed out into the waste Pacific, and when +once a beautiful big white mail boat reeled by him, driving with +streaming bows into an easterly gale, he sent back a message to his +friends upon the prairie. It duly reached them, for some three weeks +afterwards Allen Hastings, opening <I>The Colonist</I>, which he had ordered +from Victoria as soon as Wyllard sailed, read out to his wife and +Agatha a paragraph in the shipping news: +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Empress of India</I>, from Yokohama, reports having passed small grey +British schooner, flying——" There followed several code letters, the +latitude and longitude, and a line apparently by the water-front +reporter: "No schooner belonging to this city allotted the signal in +question." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings smiled as he laid down the paper. "No," he said, "that +signal's Wyllard's private code. Agatha, won't you reach me down my +map of the Pacific? It's just behind you." +</P> + +<P> +Then he looked round, and noticed the significant smile in his wife's +eyes, for the girl had already turned towards the shelf where he kept +the lately purchased map. +</P> + +<P> +The easterly gale, however, did not last, for the wind came out of the +west and north, and sank to foggy calms when it did not blow wickedly +hard. This meant that the <I>Selache's</I> course was all to windward, and +though they drove her at it unmercifully under reefed boom-foresail, +main trysail, and a streaming jib or two, with the brine going over her +solid forward, she had made little when each arduous day was done. +They were drenched to the skin continuously, and lashed by stinging +spray. Cooking except of the crudest kind was out of the question, and +sleep would have been impossible to any but worn-out sailormen. Even +then, they were often roused in the blackness of the night, when she +lay with her lee rail under, and would not lift it out, to get another +reef in, or crawl out on plunging bowsprit washed by icy seas to haul a +burst jib down. It was even more trying, glad as they were of the +respite in some respects, to lie rolling wildly on the big smooth +undulations that hove out of the windless calm, while everything in her +banged to and fro, and when the breeze came screaming through the fog +or rain they sprang to make sail again. +</P> + +<P> +Fate seemed dead against them, as it was certain that, if their purpose +was suspected, the hand of every white man they might come across would +be; but they held on over leagues of empty ocean while the season wore +away, until once more the wind freshened easterly, and they ran for a +week under boom-foresail and a jib, with the big grey combers curling +as they foamed by high above her rail. Then the wind fell, and +Dampier, who got an observation, armed his deep-sea lead, and finding +shells and shoal water came aft to talk to Wyllard with the strip of +Dunton's chart. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who was clad in oilskins, stood, a shapeless figure, by the +wheel, with his face darkened and roughened by cold and stinging brine. +There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were +raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the +windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-grey sea +opened up beyond them beneath the dripping jibs. Then the bows would +go down again, and all that was visible was the fore-shortened slope of +deck and the breast of the big undulation that hove itself up ahead. +The <I>Selache</I> was carrying everything and lurching over the steep swell +at some four knots an hour. +</P> + +<P> +Dampier stopped near the wheel, and glanced at Wyllard's oilskins. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll have to take them off. It's stuffed boots and those Indian +seal-gut things or furs from now on," he said. "That leather cuff's +chewing up your hand." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll cut that out," said Wyllard; "it's not to the point. Can't you +get on?" +</P> + +<P> +Dampier grinned. "We're on soundings, and they and Dunton's longitude +most agree. With this wind we should pick the beach up in the next two +days. Next question is, where those men were?" +</P> + +<P> +"Where they are," said Wyllard. +</P> + +<P> +"If they've pushed on it's probably a different thing, though if they'd +food yonder I don't quite see why they'd want to push on anywhere. It +wouldn't be south, anyway. They'd run up against the Russians there." +</P> + +<P> +"We've decided that already." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm admitting it," said the skipper. "There's the other choice that +they've gone up north. It's narrower across to Alaska there, and it's +quite likely they might have a notion of looking out for one of the +steam whalers. The Koriaks up yonder will have boats of some kind. If +they're skin ones like those the Huskies have they might sledge them on +the ice." +</P> + +<P> +It was a suggestion that had been made several times already, but both +the men realised that there was in all probability very little to +warrant it. Wyllard had wasted no time endeavouring to learn what was +known about the desolation on the western shore of the Behring Sea. He +had bought a schooner and set out at once. It, however, appeared +almost impossible to him that any three men could haul the skin boats +and supplies they would need far over hummocky ice. +</P> + +<P> +"The point is that we'll have to fix on some course in the next few +days," added his companion. "Say we run in to make inquiries"—and a +gleam of grim amusement crept into his eyes—"what are we going to +find? A beach with a roaring surf on it, and if we get a boat through, +a desolate, half-frozen swamp behind it. It's quite likely there are +people in the country, Koriaks or Kamtchadales, but if there are +they'll probably move up and down after what they get to eat like the +Huskies do, and we can't hang on and wait for them. Most any time next +month we'll have the ice closing in." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard said nothing for another minute, and as he stood with hands +clenched on the wheel a little puff of bitter spray splashed upon his +oilskins. They had been over it all often before, weighing conjecture +after conjecture, and had found nothing in any that might serve to +guide them. Now, when winter was close at hand, they had leagues of +surf-swept beach to search for three men who might have perished twelve +months earlier. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll stand in until we pick up the beach," he said at length; "then +if there's no sign of them we'll push north as long as we can find open +water. Now if you'll call Charly I'll let up at the wheel." +</P> + +<P> +Another white man walked aft, and Wyllard, entering the little stern +cabin, the top of which rose some feet above the deck, sloughed off his +wet oilskins and crawled, dressed as he was, into his bunk. Evening +was closing in, and for awhile he lay blinking at the swinging lamp, +and wondering what the end of that search would be. The <I>Selache</I> was +a little fore and aft schooner of some ninety-odd tons, wholly +unprotected against ice-chafe or nip, and he knew that prudence +dictated their driving her south under every rag of canvas now. There +was, however, the possibility of finding some sheltered inlet where she +could lie out the winter, frozen in, and he had, at least, blind +confidence in his men. The white men were sealers who had already +borne the lash of snow-laden gales, the wash of icy seas, and +tremendous labour at the oar, while the Indians had been born to an +unending struggle with the waters. All of them had times and times +again looked the King of Terrors squarely in the face. What was as +much to the purpose, they had been promised a tempting bonus if the +<I>Selache</I> came home successful. +</P> + +<P> +While Wyllard pondered upon these things he went to sleep, and slept +soundly, as he did the next night, though Dampier expected to raise the +beach some time next morning. His expectation also proved warranted, +and when Wyllard turned out it lay before them, a dingy smear on a +slate-green sea that was cut off from it by a wavy line of livid +whiteness, which he knew to be a fringe of spouting surf. It had cost +him in several ways more than he cared to contemplate to reach that +beach, and now there was nothing that could excite any feeling except +shrinking in the dreary spectacle. There was little light in the heavy +sky or on the sullen heave of sea; the air was raw, the schooner's +decks were sloppy, and she rolled viciously as she crept shorewards +with her mainsail peak eased down. What wind there was blew dead +on-shore, which was not as he would have had it. +</P> + +<P> +He heard the splash of the lead as he and the white man Charly made +their breakfast in the little stern cabin. Then there was a clatter of +blocks, and on coming out again he found the others swinging a boat +over. Charly and he and two of the Indians dropped into her, and +Dampier, who had hove the schooner to, looked down on them over her +rail. +</P> + +<P> +"If you knock the bottom out of her put a jacket on an oar, and I'll +try to bring you off," he said. "If you don't signal I'll stand off +and on with a thimble-header topsail over the mainsail. You'll start +back right away if you see us haul it down. When she won't stand that +there'll be more surf than you'll have any use for with the wind dead +on the beach." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard made a sign of comprehension, and they slid away on the back of +a long sea. Others rolled up behind them, cutting off the schooner's +hull so that only her grey canvas showed above dim slopes of water, but +there was no curl on any and the beach rose fast. It looked very +forbidding with the spray-haze drifting over it, and the long wash of +the Pacific weltering among its hammered stones, and when they drew a +little nearer Wyllard stood up with the big sculling oar in his hand. +There was no point to offer shelter, and in only one place could he see +a strip of surf-lapped sand. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a little softer than the boulders, anyway; we'll try it there," +he said. +</P> + +<P> +The oars dipped again, and in another minute or two the sea that came +up behind them hove them high and broke into a little spout of foam. +The next had a hissing crest, part of which splashed on board, and they +went shorewards like a toboggan down an icy slide on the shoulders of +the third. To keep her straight while it seethed about them was all +that they could do, but it was also essentially necessary, and for a +moment their hearts were in their mouths when it left them to sink with +a dizzy swing into the hollow. Then they pulled desperately as another +white-topped ridge came on astern, and went up with it amidst a chaotic +frothing and splashing and a haze of spray. After that there was a +shock and a crash, and they sprang out knee-deep and held fast to the +boat while the foam boiled into her, floundering and stumbling over +sliding sand. Still, before the next sea came in they had run her up +beyond its reach, and there did not seem to be much the matter with her +when they hove her over. Wyllard, however, looked back at the tumbling +surf. +</P> + +<P> +"Dampier was right about that topsail; it won't be quite as easy +getting off," he said. "You'll stand by, Charly, and watch the +schooner. If the surf gets steeper you can make some sign. I'll leave +one of the Siwash on the rise yonder." +</P> + +<P> +Then he walked up the beach, and stopped awhile on the crest of the low +rise a mile or two behind it, gazing out at what seemed to be an empty +desolation. There were willows in the hollow beneath him, and upon the +slope a few little stunted trees, which he fancied resembled the +juniper he had seen among the ranges of British Columbia, but he could +see no sign of any kind of life. What was more portentous, the mossy +sod he stood upon was frozen, and there were smears of snow among the +straggling firs upon a rather higher ridge. Inland, the little breeze +seemed to have fallen dead away, and there was an oppressive silence +which the rumble of the surf accentuated. +</P> + +<P> +He left an Indian on the rise, and going on with the other scrambled +through a half-frozen swamp in the hollow; but when they came back +hours afterwards as the narrow horizon was drawing further in they had +found nothing to show that any man had ever entered that grim, silent +land. The surf seemed a little smoother, and they reeled out through +it with no more than a few inches of very cold water splashing about +their boots, and pulled across a long stretch of darkening sea towards +the rolling schooner. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard was a little weary, and more depressed, but it was not until he +sat in the stern cabin with its cheerful twinkling stove and swinging +lamp that he understood how he had shrunk from that forbidding +wilderness. His consultation with Dampier, who came in by and bye, was +very brief. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll head north for a couple of days, and try again," he said. +</P> + +<P> +He crawled into his berth early, and it was some time after midnight +when he was awakened by being rudely flung out of it. That fact, and +the slant of deck and sounds above, suggested that the schooner had +been hove down by a sudden gale. He had, however, grown more or less +accustomed to occurrences of this kind and to sleeping fully dressed, +and in another moment or two he was out of the deck-house. Then a wind +that seemed sharp as steel drove stinging flakes of snow into his face. +It was very dark, but he fancied that the schooner's rail was in the +sea, which was washing over her to weather, and that some of the others +were struggling to get the mainsail off her. Then a man whom he +supposed to be Charly ran into him. +</P> + +<P> +"Better come for'ard. Got to haul outer jib down before it blows +away," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard staggered after him up to his knees in water, and made out by +the mad banging that some of them had already cast the peak of the +boom-foresail loose. Then he reached the windlass, and clutched it as +a sea that took him to the waist frothed in over the weather rail. The +bows lurched out of it viciously, hurling another icy flood back on +him, and he could see a dim white chaos about and beneath them. Over +it rose the black wedge of the jibs. +</P> + +<P> +He did not want to get out along the bowsprit to stop one of them down. +Indeed his whole physical nature shrank from it, but there are many +things flesh and blood shrink from which must be faced at sea. Then he +made out that a Siwash was fumbling at the down-haul made fast near his +side, and when his companion's shadowy figure rose up against the +whiteness of the foam he made a jump forward. Then he was on the +bowsprit, lying upon it while he felt for the foot-rope slung beneath. +He found it, and was cautiously lowering himself when the man in front +of him called out harshly, and he saw a white sea range up ahead. It +broke short over with a rush and roar, and he clung with hands and feet +for his life as the schooner's dipping bows rammed the seething mass. +</P> + +<P> +She went into it to the windlass. He was smothered in an icy flood +that seemed bent on wrenching him from his hold, but that was only for +a moment or two, and then he was swung, gasping and streaming with +water, high above the sea again. It was bad enough merely to hold on, +but that was a very small share of his task, for the big black sail +that cut the higher darkness came rattling down its stay and fell upon +him and his companion bodily. As it dropped the wind took hold of the +folds of it and buffeted them cruelly. This was a thing he had once +been accustomed to, but as he clutched at the canvas it seemed to him +incredible that he had not already been flung off headlong from the +reeling spar. Still, that banging, thrashing canvas must be mastered +somehow, though it was snow-soaked and almost unyielding, and he clawed +at it furiously with bleeding hands while twice the bowsprit raked a +sea and dipped him waist-deep in. At length the other man flung him +the end of the gasket, and they worked back carefully, leaving the sail +lashed down, and scrambled aft to help the others who were making the +big main-boom fast. When this was done Wyllard fell against Dampier +and clutched at him. +</P> + +<P> +"How's the wind?" he roared. +</P> + +<P> +"North-east," said the skipper. +</P> + +<P> +They could scarcely hear each other, though the schooner was lurching +over it more easily now with shortened canvas, and Wyllard only made +Dampier understand that he wished to speak to him by thrusting him +towards the deck-house door. They went in together, and stood +clutching at the table with the lamplight on their tense, wet faces and +the brine that ran from them making pools upon the deck. +</P> + +<P> +"It's hauled round," said the skipper, "the wrong way." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard made a savage gesture. "We've had it from the last quarter we +wanted ever since we sailed, and we sailed nearly three months too +late. We're too close in to the beach for you to heave her to?" +</P> + +<P> +"A sure thing," said the other. "I was driving her to work off it with +the sea getting up when the breeze burst on us. She put her rail right +under, and we had to let go most everything before she'd pick it up. +She's pointing somewhere north, jammed right up on the starboard tack +just now, but I can't stand on." +</P> + +<P> +This was evident to Wyllard, and he closed one hand tight. He wanted +to stand on as long as possible before the ice closed in, but he +realised that to do so would put the schooner ashore. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" he said sharply. +</P> + +<P> +Dampier made a grimace. "I'm going out to heave her round. If we'd +any sense in us we'd square off the boom then, and leg it away across +the Pacific for Vancouver." +</P> + +<P> +"In that case," said Wyllard, "somebody would lose his bonus." +</P> + +<P> +Dampier swung round on him with a flash in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"The bonus!" he said. "Who was it came for you with two dollars in his +pocket after he'd bought his ticket from Vancouver?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled at him. "If you took that up the wrong way I'm sorry. +She ought to work off on the port tack, and when we've open water to +leeward you can heave her to. When it moderates we can pick up the +beach again." +</P> + +<P> +"That's just what I mean to do." +</P> + +<P> +Then Dampier went out on deck, while Wyllard, flinging off his dripping +clothing, crawled into his bunk and went quietly to sleep. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FIRST ICE. +</H3> + +<P> +Daylight broke on a frothing sea, across which there scudded wisps of +smoke-like drift and thin showers of snow, before they hove her to. +Then, with two little wet rags of canvas set she lay almost head on to +the big combers, and met their onslaught with a hove-up weather bow. +Having little way upon her, she lurched over instead of ramming them, +and though now and then one curled on board across her rail it was not +often that there was much heavy water upon her slanted deck. +</P> + +<P> +All round the narrow circle a leaden sky met the sea. To weather the +combers were bitten into it in cleancut serrations, but to leeward the +dim horizon was blurred by flying spray, save when the snow whirled +down in thicker wisps and blotted it out altogether. It was bitterly +cold, and the spray stung the skin like half-spent pellets from a gun. +There was, however, only one man exposed to it in turn, and he had +little to do but brace himself against the savage buffeting of the wind +as he clutched the wheel. The <I>Selache</I>, for the most part, steered +herself, lifting buoyantly while the froth came sluicing aft from her +tilted bows, falling off a little with a vicious leeward roll when a +comber bigger than usual smote her to weather, and coming up again +streaming to meet the next. Sometimes she forged ahead in what is +called at sea, by courtesy, a "smooth," and all the time shroud and +stay to weather gave out tumultuous harmonies, and the slack of every +rope to leeward blew out in unyielding curves. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, three of the white men lay sleeping or smoking in the +little cabin, which was partly raised above and partly sunk beneath the +after-deck. It was a reasonably strong structure, but it worked, and +sweated, as they say at sea, and the heat of the stove had further +opened up the seams of it. Moisture dripped from the beams overhead, +moisture trickled up and down the slanting deck, there were great +globules of it on the bulk-heading, and everything, including the men's +clothes and blankets, was wet. They lay in their bunks from necessity, +because it was a somewhat laborious matter to sit, and said very little +since it was difficult to hear anything amidst the cataclysm of +elemental sound. Indeed, it became at length almost a relief to turn +out into inky darkness or misty daylight dimmed by flying spray to take +a trick at the jarring wheel. +</P> + +<P> +For three days this continued, and then, when the gale broke and a +little pale sunshine streamed down on the tumbling sea, changing the +grey combers to flashing white and green, they gave her a double-reefed +mainsail, part of the boom-foresail, and a jib or two, and thrashed her +slowly back to the northwards on the starboard tack. Still, more than +one of them glanced over the taffrail longingly as she gathered way. +She was fast, and with a little driving and that breeze over her +quarter she would bear them south towards warmth and ease at some two +hundred miles a day, while the way they were going it would be a fight +for every fathom with bitter, charging seas, and there lay ahead of +them only cold and peril and toil incredible. +</P> + +<P> +There are times at sea when human nature revolts from the strain the +over-taxed body must bear, the leaden weariness of worn-out limbs, and +the sub-conscious effort to retain warmth and vitality in spite of the +ceaseless lashing of the icy gale. Then, as aching muscles grow lax, +the nervous tension becomes more insupportable, unless, indeed, utter +weariness breeds indifference to the personal peril each time the decks +are swept by a frothing flood, or a slippery spar must be clung to with +frost-numbed and often bleeding hands. That is, at least, on board the +sailing ships where man must still, with almost brutal valour, pit all +the feeble powers of flesh and blood against the forces of the elements. +</P> + +<P> +They knew this, and it was to their credit that they obeyed when +Dampier gave the word to put the helm up and trim the sheets over. +Their leader, however, stood a little apart with a hard-set face, and +he looked forward over the plunging bows, for he was troubled by a +sense of responsibility such as he had not felt since he had, one night +several years ago, asked for volunteers. He realised that an account +of these men's lives might be demanded from him. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fortnight later, and they had twice made a perilous landing +without finding any sign of life on or behind the hammered beach, when +they ran into the first of the ice. The grey day was almost over, and +the long heave ran sluggishly after them faintly wrinkled here and +there, when creeping through a belt of haze they came into sight of +several blurrs of greyish white that swung with the dim, green swell. +The <I>Selache</I> was slowly lurching over it with everything aloft to the +topsails then. Dampier glanced at the ice disgustedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Earlier than I expected," he said. "Anyway, it's a sure thing there's +plenty more where that came from." +</P> + +<P> +"Big patch away to starboard!" cried a man in the foremast shrouds. +</P> + +<P> +Dampier turned to Wyllard. "What are you going to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"What's most advisable?" +</P> + +<P> +The skipper laughed grimly. "Well," he said, "that's quite simple. +Get out of this, and head her south just as soon as we can, but I guess +that's not quite what you mean." +</P> + +<P> +"No," admitted Wyllard. "I meant for the next few hours or so. In a +general way, we're still pushing on." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'm not worrying much about pushing her through. That ice is +light and scattered, and as she's going it won't hurt her much if she +plugs some in the dark. It's what we're going to do the next two weeks +I'm not sure about. If there's ice we mayn't fetch the creek the chart +shows where we'd figured on laying her up in. It's still most a +hundred miles to the north of us. The other inlet I'd fixed on is way +further south." +</P> + +<P> +This brought them back to the difficulty they had grappled with at many +a council. The men they were in search of might have gone either north +or south; or they might, though this seemed less likely, have gone +inland, if, indeed, any of them survived. +</P> + +<P> +"If we only knew how they'd headed," said Wyllard quietly. "Still, +right or not, I'm for pushing on." +</P> + +<P> +Then Charly, who held the wheel, broke in. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess it's north," he said. "They'd have no use for fetching up +among the Russians, and there's nobody else until you get to Japan. No +white men, any way. Besides, from the Behring Sea to the Kuriles is +quite a long way." +</P> + +<P> +"If you were dumped down ashore there, which way would you go?" Dampier +asked. +</P> + +<P> +"If I'd a wallet full of papers certifying me as a harmless traveller, +it would be south just as hard as I could hit the trail. Guess I'd +strike somebody out prospecting, or surveying, and they'd set me along +to the Kuriles. Still, if I'd been sealing, I wouldn't head that way. +No, sir. That's dead sure." +</P> + +<P> +There was a reason for this certainty, right or wrong, in the minds of +the sealermen. How many of the skins they brought home were obtained +in open water where they could fish without molestation they alone +knew; but they were regarded in certain quarters as poachers and +outlaws, who deserved no mercy. They had their differences with the +Americans who owned the Prbyloffs, but the latter, it was admitted, had +bought the islands, and might reasonably be considered to have some +claim upon the seals which frequented them. The free-lances bore their +execrations and reprisals more or less resignedly, though that did not +prevent them occasionally exchanging compliments with oar butts or +sealing clubs, but the Muscovite was a grim, mysterious figure they +feared and hated. +</P> + +<P> +"Then you'd have tried up north?" Wyllard suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure," said the helmsman. "If I'd a boat and a rifle, and it was +summer, I'd have pushed across for Alaska. You can eat birds and +walrus, and a man might eat a fur-seal if he'd had nothing else for a +week, though I've struck nothing that has more smell than the +holluschack blubber. If it was winter, I'd have tried the ice. The +Huskies make out on it for weeks together, and quite a few of the steam +whaler men have trailed an odd hundred or two miles over it one time or +another. They hadn't tents and dog-teams either." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's face grew grave. He had naturally considered both courses, +and had decided that they were out of the question. Seas do not freeze +up solid, and that three men should transport a boat, supposing that +they had one, over leagues of ice appeared impossible. An attempt to +cross the narrow sea, which is either wrapped in mist or swept by +sudden gales, in any open craft would clearly only result in disaster, +but admitting that he felt that had he been in those men's place he +would have headed north. There was one question which had all along +remained unanswered, and that was how they had reached the coast from +which they had sent their message. +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway," he said, "we'll stand on, and run into the creek we've fixed +on, if it's necessary." +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, dusk had closed down on them, and it had grown +perceptibly colder. The haze crystallised on the rigging, the rail was +white with rime, and the deck grew slippery, but they left everything +on her to the topsails, and she crept on erratically through the +darkness, avoiding the faint spectral glimmer of the scattered ice. +The breeze abeam propelled her with gently leaning canvas at some four +knots to the hour, and now and then Wyllard, who hung about the deck +that night, fancied he could hear a thin, sharp crackle beneath the +slowly lifting bows. +</P> + +<P> +Next day the haze thickened, and there seemed to be more ice about, but +the breeze was fresher, and there was, at least, no skin upon the +ruffled sea. They took the topsails off her, and proceeded cautiously, +with two men with logger's pikepoles forward, and another in the eyes +of the foremast rigging. As it happened, they struck nothing, and when +night came the <I>Selache</I> lay rolling in a heavy, portentous calm. +Dampier and one or two of the others declared their certainty that +there was ice near them, but, at least, they could not see it, though +there was now no doubt about the crackling beneath the schooner's side. +It was a somewhat anxious night for most of them, but a breeze that +drove the haze aside got up with the sun, and Dampier expected to reach +the creek before darkness fell. +</P> + +<P> +He might have done it but for the glistening streak on the horizon, +which presently crept in on them, and resolved itself into detached +grey-white masses, with openings of various sizes in and out between +them. The breeze was freshening, and the <I>Selache</I> going through it at +some six knots, when Dampier came aft to Wyllard, who was standing +rather grim in face at the wheel. There was a moderately wide opening +in the floating barrier close ahead of him. The rest of the crew stood +silent watching the skipper, for they were by this time more or less +acquainted with Wyllard's temperament. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't get through that," said Dampier, pointing to the ice. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard looked at him sourly, and the white men, at least, understood +what he was feeling. So far, he had had everything against him—calm, +and fog, and sudden gale—and now, when he was almost within sight of +the end of the first stage of his journey, they had met the ice. +</P> + +<P> +"You're sure of that?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +Dampier smiled. "It would cost too much, or I'd let you try." He +called to the man perched high in the foremast shrouds, and the answer +came down: +</P> + +<P> +"Packed right solid a couple of miles ahead." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard lifted one hand, and let it suddenly fall again. +</P> + +<P> +"Lee, oh! We'll have her round," he said, and spun the wheel. +</P> + +<P> +The rest of them breathed more easily as they jumped for the sheets, +and with a great banging and thrashing of sailcloth she shot up to +windward, and turned as on a pivot. Then, as she gathered way on the +other tack, they glanced at their leader, for her bows were pointing to +the south-east again. They felt that was not the way he was going. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, Wyllard turned to. Dampier with a little wry smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Baulked again!" he said. "It would have been a relief to have rammed +her in. With this breeze we'd have picked that creek up in the next +six hours." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure!" said Dampier, who glanced at the swirling wake. +</P> + +<P> +"Then, if we can't get through it we can work her round. Stand by to +flatten all sheets in, boys." +</P> + +<P> +They did it cheerfully, though they knew it meant a thrash to windward +along the perilous edge of the ice, and, for the sea was getting up, +she flung the spray all over her forward half as she smashed the +growing combers with her bows. Soon the windlass was caked with +glistening ice, and long spikes of it hung from her rail, while the +slippery crystals gathered thick on deck. Then lumps and floes of ice +detached themselves from the parent mass, and sailed out to meet her, +crashing on one another, while it seemed to the men who watched him +that Wyllard tried how closely he could shave them before he ran the +schooner off with a vicious drag at the wheel. None of them, however, +cared to say a word to him. +</P> + +<P> +They brought her round when she had stretched out on the one tack a +couple of miles, and standing in again close-hauled found the ice +thicker than ever. Then she came round once more, and until the early +dusk fell Wyllard stood at the jarring helm or high up in the forward +shrouds. Then he called Dampier aside. +</P> + +<P> +"We can't work along the edge in the dark?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Dampier drily, "it wouldn't be wise. We could stand on as +she's lying until half through the night, and then come round and pick +up the ice again a little before sun-up." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard made a sign of acquiescence. "Then," he said, "don't call me +until you're in sight of it. A day of this kind takes it out of one." +</P> + +<P> +He moved aft heavily towards the deck-house, and Dampier watched him +with a smile of comprehension, for he was a man who had also in his +time made many fruitless efforts, and quietly faced defeat. After all, +it is possible that when the final reckoning comes some failures will +count. +</P> + +<P> +For several hours the <I>Selache</I> stretched out close-hauled into what +they supposed to be open water, and they certainly saw no ice. Then +they hove her to, and when the wind fell light brought her round and +crept back slowly upon the opposite tack. Wyllard had gone to sleep in +the meanwhile, and daylight was just breaking when he next went out on +deck. There was scarcely an air of wind, and the heavy calm seemed +portentous and unnatural. The schooner lay lurching on a sluggish +swell, with the frost wool thick on her rigging, and a belt of haze +ahead of her. On the edge of it, the ice glimmered in the growing +light, but in one or two places stretches of blue-grey water seemed to +penetrate it, and Dampier, who strode aft when he saw Wyllard, said he +fancied there must be an opening somewhere. +</P> + +<P> +"By the thickness of it, that ice has formed some time, and as we've +seen nothing but a skin it must have come from further north," he +added. "It gathered up under a point or in a bay most likely, until a +shift of wind broke it out, and the stream or breeze set it down this +way. That seems to indicate that there can't be a great deal of it, +but a few days' calm and frost would freeze it solid." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" said Wyllard impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"It lies between us and the inlet, and it's quite clear that we can't +stay where we are. Once we got nipped, there'd probably be an end of +her. We have got to get into that inlet at once or make for the other +further south." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled. "It all leads back to the same point. We must get +through the ice. The one question is—how's it to be done?" +</P> + +<P> +"With a working breeze I'd stand into the biggest opening, but as +there's none we'll wait until it clears a little, and then send a boat +in. The sun may bring the wind." +</P> + +<P> +They made breakfast in the meanwhile, but the wind did not come, and it +was some hours later when a pale coppery disc became visible and the +haze grew thinner. Then they swung a boat out hastily, for it would +not be very long before the light died away again, and two white men +and an Indian dropped into her. They pulled across half a mile of +sluggishly heaving water, crept up an opening, and presently vanished +among the ice. Soon afterwards the low sun went out, and wisps of +ragged cloud crept up from the westwards, while smears of vapour +blurred the horizon, and the swell grew steeper. There was no wind at +all, but blocks and canvas banged and thrashed furiously at every roll, +until they lowered the mainsail and lashed its heavy boom to the big +iron crutch astern. The boat remained invisible, but its crew had been +given instructions to push on as far as possible if they found clear +water, and Dampier, who did not seem uneasy about her, paced up and +down the deck while the afternoon wore away. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DEFEAT. +</H3> + +<P> +A grey dimness was creeping in upon the schooner when a little bitter +breeze sprang up from westwards, and Dampier bade them get the mainsail +on to her. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't like the look of the weather, and I'm beginning to feel that +I'd like to see that boat," he said. "Anyhow, we'll get way on her." +</P> + +<P> +It was a relief to hoist the mainsail. The work put a little warmth +into them, and the white men, at least, had been conscious of a growing +uneasiness about their comrades in the boat. The breeze had, however, +freshened before they set it, and there were white caps on the water +when the <I>Selache</I> headed for the ice. It had somewhat changed its +formation when they approached it, for big masses had become detached +from it and were moving out into the open water, while the opening had +become perceptibly narrower. The light was now fading rapidly, and +Wyllard took the wheel when Dampier sent the man there forward. +</P> + +<P> +"Get the cover off the second boat, and see everything clear for +hoisting out," he said to him, and then called to Wyllard. "We're +close enough. You'd better heave her round." +</P> + +<P> +She came round with a thrashing of canvas, stretched out seawards, and +came back again with her deck sharply slanted and little puffs of +bitter spray blowing over her weather rail, for there was no doubt that +the breeze was freshening fast. Then Dampier sent a man up into the +foremast shrouds, and looked at Wyllard afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd heave a couple of reefs down if I wasn't so anxious about that +blamed boat," he said. "As it is, I want to be ready to pick her up +just as soon as we see her, and it's quite likely she'd turn up when +we'd got way off the schooner, and the peak eased down." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard fancied that he was right as he glanced over the rail at the +dimness that was creeping in on them. It was blowing almost fresh now, +and the <I>Selache</I> was driving very fast through the swell, which +commenced to froth here and there. It is, as he knew from experience, +always hard work, and often impossible, to pull a boat to windward in +any weight of breeze, which rendered it advisable to keep the schooner +under way. If the boat drove by them while they were reefing it might +be difficult to pick her up afterwards in the dark. He was now +distinctly anxious about her. At length, just as the light was dying +out, the man in the shrouds sent down a cry. +</P> + +<P> +"I see them, sir," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Dampier turned to Wyllard with a gesture of relief. "That's a weight +off my mind. I wish we had a reef in, but"—and he glanced up at the +canvas—"she'll have to stand it. Anyway, I'll leave you there. We +want to get that second boat lashed down again." +</P> + +<P> +This, as Wyllard recognised, was necessary, though he would sooner have +had somebody by him, and the rest of them ready to let the mainsheet +run, for he was a little to windward of the opening, and surmised that +he would have to run the schooner down upon the boat. It was a few +moments later when he saw her emerge from among the ice, and the men in +her appeared to be pulling strenuously. They were, perhaps, half a +mile off, and the schooner was sailing very fast and heading for the +ice. Then he lost sight of her again, for a thin shower of whirling +snow suddenly obscured the light. Dampier called to him. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll have to run her off," he said. "Boys, slack out your sheets." +</P> + +<P> +There was a clatter of blocks, and when Wyllard pulled his helm up it +taxed all his strength. The <I>Selache</I> swung round, and he gasped with +the effort to control her as she drove away furiously into the +thickening snow. She was carrying far too much canvas, but they could +not heave her to and take it off her now. The boat must be picked up +first, and the veins rose swollen to Wyllard's forehead as he struggled +with the wheel. There is always a certain possibility of bringing a +fore-and-aft rigged vessel's mainboom over when she is running hard, +and this is rather apt to result in disaster to her spars. So fast was +she travelling that the sea piled up in a big white wave beneath her +quarter, and, cold as it was, the sweat of tense effort dripped from +Wyllard as he forecasted what he had to do. First of all, he must hold +her straight before the wind without letting her fall off to leeward, +which would bring the booms crashing over; then he must run past the +boat, which he could no longer see, and round the schooner up with +fore-staysail aback to leeward of her, to wait until she drove down on +them. +</P> + +<P> +This would not have been difficult in a moderate breeze, but the wind +was freshening furiously and the schooner was horribly pressed with +sail. He thought of calling the others to lower the mainsail peak, but +with the weight of wind there was in the canvas he was not sure that +they could haul the gaff down. Besides, they were busy securing the +boat, which must be made fast again before they hove the other in, and +it was almost dark now. In view of what had happened in the same +waters one night four years ago, the desire to pick the boat up while +there was a little light left became an obsession. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, the swell was rapidly whitening and getting steeper. +The <I>Selache</I> hove herself out of it forward as she swung up with +streaming bows. It almost seemed to Wyllard that he must overrun the +boat before he noticed her, but at length he saw Dampier swing himself +on to the rail. He stood there clutching at a shroud, and presently +turned towards Wyllard, swinging up an arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Right ahead!" he shouted. "Let her come up a few points before you +run over them." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard put his helm down a spoke or two, which was easy, and then as +the bows swung high again there was a harsh cry from the man who stood +above Dampier in the shrouds. +</P> + +<P> +"Ice!" he roared. "Big pack of it right under your weather bow." +</P> + +<P> +Dampier shouted something, but Wyllard did not hear what he said. He +was only conscious that he had to decide what he must do in the next +few seconds. If he let the <I>Selache</I> come up to avoid the boat, there +was the ice ahead, and at the speed she was travelling it would +infallibly crush her bows in, while if he held her straight there was +the boat close in front of her. To swing her clear of both by going to +leeward he must bring the mainsail and boom-foresail over with a +tremendous shock, but that seemed preferable, and with his heart in his +mouth he pulled his helm up. +</P> + +<P> +He fancied he cried out in warning, but was never sure of it, though +three men came running to seize the mainsheet. The schooner fell off a +little, swinging until the boom-foresail came over with a thunderous +bang and crash. She rolled down, heaving a wide strip of wet planking +out of the sea, and now for a moment or two there were great breadths +of canvas swung out on either hand. Then the ponderous mainboom went +up high above his head, and he saw three shadowy figures dragged aft as +they tried in vain to steady it. The big mainsail was bunched up, a +vast, portentous shape above him, and then he set his lips, and pulled +up the helm another spoke as it swung. He never quite knew what +happened after that. There was a horrible crash, and the schooner +appeared to be rolling over bodily. The spokes he clung to desperately +reft themselves from his grasp, the deck slanted until one could not +stand upon it, and something heavy struck him on the head. He dropped, +and Dampier flung himself upon the wheel above his senseless body. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was mad confusion, and a frantic banging of canvas as the +schooner came up beam to the wind, with her rent mainsail flogging +itself to tatters. Its ponderous boom was broken, and the +mainmast-head had gone, but it was not the first time the sealermen had +grappled with somewhat similar difficulties, and Dampier kept his head. +He had the boat to think of, and she was somewhere to windward, hidden +in the sudden darkness and the turmoil of the quickly rising sea, but +in the meanwhile the schooner counted most of all. His crew could +scarcely hear him through the uproar the thundering canvas made, and +the screaming of the wind, but the orders were given, and from habit +and the custom of their calling they knew what they must be. +</P> + +<P> +They hauled a jib down, backed the fore-staysail, and got the +boom-foresail sheeted in, but they let the rent mainsail bang, for it +could do no more damage than it had already done. Then a man sprang up +on the rail with a blue light in his hand, and as the weird radiance +flared in a long streak to leeward a cry rose from the water. In +another few moments a blurred object, half hidden in flying spray, +drove down upon the schooner furiously on the top of a sea, and then +there was sudden darkness as the man flung down the flare. +</P> + +<P> +Another harsh and half-heard cry rose out of the obscurity. An +indistinguishable object plunged past the schooner's stern, there was a +crash to leeward as she rolled, and a man standing up in the boat +clutched her rail. He was swung out of it as she rolled back again, +but he crawled on to the rail with a rope in one hand, and after +jamming it fast round something sprang down with the hooks of the +lifting tackles which one of the rest had given him. Then, while two +more men scrambled up, there was a clatter of blocks, but a shattered +sea struck the boat as they hove her dear, and when she swung in the +brine poured out through the rents in her. Dampier waved an arm as +they dropped her on the deck, and they heard him faintly. +</P> + +<P> +"Boys," he said, "you have got to cut that mainsail down." +</P> + +<P> +They did it somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, buffeted and now and +then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas, floundering below amidst a +raffle of fallen gear, while the bitter spray lashed them, and the +broken boom held up by the clew ring banged savagely to and fro. After +that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a +curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung +off before the sea. Then somebody lighted a lantern, and Charly +stooped over Wyllard, who lay limp and still beside the wheel. His +face showed grey in the feeble light, save where a broad red stain had +spread across it. Dampier cast a glance at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Get him below, and into his bunk, two of you," he said. +</P> + +<P> +They did it with difficulty, for the <I>Selache</I> lurched viciously each +time a white-topped sea came up upon her quarter, and as soon as it +seemed advisable to leave the deck Dampier went down. Wyllard lay in +his bunk, with his eyes half-open, but there was no expression in them, +and his face was almost colourless except for the broad smear of blood. +It was oozing fast from a laceration in his scalp, but Dampier, who +noticed his chilliness, did not in the meanwhile trouble about that. +He stripped off the senseless man's long boots, and unshipping a hot +fender iron from the stove laid it against his feet. Afterwards he +contrived to get some whisky down his throat, and then set to work to +wash the scalp wound, dropping into the water a little of the +permanganate of potash, which is freely used at sea. When that was +done he applied a rag dipped in the same fluid, and seeing no result of +his efforts went back on deck. He was anxious about his patient, but +not unduly so, for he had discovered long ago that men of his +description are apt to recover from more serious injuries. By and bye, +he said, Wyllard's brain, which had evidently been rudely jarred by the +shock, would resume its functions. +</P> + +<P> +It was blowing very hard when he stood near the wheel. A steep sea was +already tumbling after the schooner, but she was, at least, heading out +from where they supposed the ice to be, and he let her go, keeping her +away before it, and heading a little south of east. When morning came +the sea was very high, and the faint light further dimmed by snow, but +it seemed to him just safe, and no more, to run, and they held on while +the big combers came up astern and forged by, ridged with foam, high +above her rail. +</P> + +<P> +She was travelling very fast, to the eastwards, under boom-foresail and +one little jib, with her mainmast broken short off where the bolts of +the halliard blocks had traversed it, and Dampier realised that because +of that every knot she made then could not by any means be recovered +that season. He wondered, with a little uneasiness, what Wyllard would +say when he came to himself again. In the meanwhile he said nothing, +but lay like a log in his bunk, only that there was now a little warmth +in him. +</P> + +<P> +Next day the breeze moderated somewhat, and they let her come up a +little, heading further south; while on the morning after that Wyllard +showed signs of returning consciousness. Dampier, however, kept away +from him, partly to allow his senses to readjust themselves, and partly +because he rather shrank from the coming interview. At length, when +dusk was falling, Charly came up to say that Wyllard, who seemed quite +sensible, insisted on seeing him, and Dampier went down with some +misgivings into the little cabin. The lamp was lighted, and when he +sat down Wyllard, who raised himself feebly on his pillow, turned a +pallid face to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Charly tells me you picked the boat up," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"We did," said Dampier. "She had three or four planks on one side +ripped out of her." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's faint grimace implied that this did not matter, and Dampier +braced himself for the question he dreaded. He had to face it in +another moment. +</P> + +<P> +"How's she heading?" +</P> + +<P> +"A little south of east." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's face hardened. It was still blowing moderately fresh, and by +the heave of the vessel and the wash of water outside he could guess +how fast she was travelling. Except for the latter sound, however, +there was for a moment or two an almost oppressive silence in the +little cabin. Then Wyllard spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been running to the eastwards since I was struck down?" he +said. +</P> + +<P> +Dampier nodded. "Three days," he said. "Just now the breeze is on her +quarter." +</P> + +<P> +He winced under Wyllard's gaze, and spread his hands out deprecatingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he added, "what else was there I could do? She wrung her +masthead off when you jibed her and there's not stick enough left to +set any canvas that would shove her to windward, I might have hove her +to, but the first time the breeze hauled easterly she'd have gone up on +the beach or among the ice with us. I had to run!" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard closed a feeble hand. "Dunton was crippled, too. It's almost +incredible." +</P> + +<P> +"In one way, it looks like that, but, after all, a jibe's quite a +common thing with a fore-and-after. If you run her off to lee when +she's going before it her mainboom's bound to come over. Of course, +nobody would run her off in a wicked breeze unless he had to, but you'd +no choice with the ice in front of you." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard lay very still for almost a minute. It was clear to him that +his project must be abandoned for that season, which meant that at +least six months must elapse before he could even approach the +Kamtchatkan coast again. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said at length, "what do you mean to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"If the breeze holds we could pick up one of the Aleutians in a few +days, but I'm keeping south of them. There'll probably be ugly ice +along the beaches, and I've no fancy for being cast ashore by a strong +tide when the fog lies on the land. With westerly winds I'd sooner +hold on for Alaska. We could lie snug in an inlet there, and, it's +quite likely, get a cedar that would make a spar. I can't head right +away for Vancouver with no mainsail." +</P> + +<P> +This was clear to Wyllard, who made a feeble gesture. "If the wind +comes easterly?" +</P> + +<P> +Dampier pursed his face up. "Then unless I could fetch one of the +Kuriles we'd sure be jammed. She won't beat to windward, and there'd +be all Kamtchatka to lee of us. The ice is packing up along the north +of it now, and the Russians have two or three settlements to the south. +We don't want to run in and tell them what we're after." +</P> + +<P> +A faint smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "No," he said, "not after +that little affair on the beach. Since it's very probable that the +vessel they send up to the seal islands would deliver stores along the +coast, the folks in authority would have a record of it. They'd call +the thing piracy—and, in a sense, they'd be justified." +</P> + +<P> +He said nothing more for a little, and then looked up again wearily. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," he said, "how that boat's crew ever got across to +Kamtchatka. It was north of the islands where the man brought Dunton +the message." +</P> + +<P> +Dampier understood that he desired to change the subject, for this was +a question they had often discussed already. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "I still hold by my first notion. They were blown +ashore on the beach we'd just left, and made prisoners. Then a supply +schooner or perhaps a steamer came along, and they sent them off in her +to be handed over to the authorities. The vessel put in somewhere. +We'll say she was lying in an inlet with a boat astern, and somehow +they cut that boat loose in the dark, and got away in her." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off for a moment, and then looked at his companion +significantly. +</P> + +<P> +"You can find quite a few points where that idea seems to fail," he +added. "They were in Kamtchatka, but I'm beginning to feel that we +shall never know any more than that." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard made a little weary gesture of concurrence, but before he +closed them Dampier saw no sign that he meant to abandon his project in +his eyes. In another few minutes he seemed to sink into sleep, and +Dampier, who went up on deck, paced to and fro awhile before he stopped +by the wheel and turned to the helmsman. +</P> + +<P> +"You can let her come up a couple of points. We may as well make a +little southing while we can," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Charly, who was steering, looked up with suggestive eagerness. "Then +he's not going for the Aleutians?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Dampier drily. "I was kind of afraid of that, but I choked +him off. Anyway, this year won't see us back in Vancouver." He +paused, with a little jarring laugh. "We're going to stay up here +until we find out where those men left their bones. The man who has +this thing in hand isn't the kind that lets up." +</P> + +<P> +Charly made no answer, but his face hardened as he put his helm down a +spoke or two. +</P> + +<P> +Next day the wind fell lighter, but for a week it still held westerly, +and after that it blew moderately fresh from the south. Crippled as +she was, the <I>Selache</I> would lie a point or two south of east when they +had set an old cut down fore-staysail on what was left of her mainmast, +and the hearts of her crew grew a little lighter as she crawled on +across the Pacific. They had no wish to be blown back to the frozen +North. The days were, however, growing shorter rapidly, and the sun +hung low in the southern sky when at length she crept into one of the +many inlets that indent the coast of Southern Alaska. There was just +wind enough to carry her in round a long, foam-lapped point, and soon +afterwards they let the anchor go in four fathoms in a sheltered arm, +with a river mouth not far away. There was no sign of life anywhere +about it, and the ragged cedars that crept close down to the beach +stood out in sombre spires against the gleaming snow. +</P> + +<P> +The cold was not particularly severe when she crept in, but when +Dampier went ashore next morning to pick a log that they could hew a +mast out of the temperature suddenly fell, and that night the drift ice +from the river mouth closed in on them. When the late daylight broke +she was frozen fast, and they knew it would be several months before +she moved again. It was then before the gold rush, and in winter +Alaska was practically cut off from all communication with the south. +No man would have attempted to traverse the tremendous snow-wrapped +desolation of almost impassable hills and trackless forests that lay +between them and the nearest of the commercial factories on the north, +or the canneries on the other hand. Besides, the canneries were shut +up in winter time. They were prisoners, and could only wait with what +patience they could muster until the thaw set them free again. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVIII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A DELICATE ERRAND. +</H3> + +<P> +There was sharp frost outside, and the prairie was white with a thin +sprinkle of snow, when a little party sat down to supper in the +Hastings homestead one Saturday evening. Hastings sat at the head of +the table, his wife at the foot with her little daughters, Agatha, +Sproatly, and Winifred between them. The latter two had just driven +over from the railroad settlement, as they did now and then, which +explained why the meal, which is usually served early in the evening, +had been delayed an hour or so. The two hired men, whom Mrs. Hastings +had not kept waiting, had gone out to some task in the barn or stables. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye Sproatly took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and laid +them on the table. There had been a remarkable change in his +appearance of late, for he now wore store clothes, and the skin coat he +had taken off when he came in was, as his hostess had noticed, a new +one. It occurred to her that there was a certain significance in this, +though Sproatly had changed his occupation some little time ago, and +now drove about the prairie on behalf of certain makers of agricultural +implements. +</P> + +<P> +"I called for your mail and Gregory's before we left," he said. "I had +to go round to see him, which is partly what made us so late, though +Winifred couldn't get away as soon as she expected. They've floods of +wheat coming in to the elevators, and I understand that the milling +people can't take another bushel in." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha, who understood what she meant, for +Sproatly had hitherto spoken of Winifred circumspectly as Miss +Rawlinson. Hastings, however, took the papers which Agatha handed him, +and laid them aside. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll let them wait until supper's over. I don't expect any news +that's particularly good," he said. "The bottom's apparently dropping +out of the wheat market." +</P> + +<P> +"Hamilton can't get cars enough, and we'll have to shut down in another +day or two unless they turn up," said Winifred. "It's much the same +all along the line. The Winnipeg traffic people wired us they haven't +an empty car in the yards. Why do you rush the grain in that way? +It's bound to break the market." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings smiled rather drily. "Well," he said, "a good many of us have +bills to meet. For another thing, they've had a heavy crop in +Manitoba, Dakota, and Minnesota, and I suppose some folks have an idea +they'll get in first before the other people swamp the Eastern markets. +I think they're foolish. It's a temporary scare. Prices will stiffen +by and bye." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what Hamilton says, but I suppose the thing is natural. Men +are very like sheep, aren't they?" +</P> + +<P> +Hastings laughed. "Well," he admitted, "we are, in some respects. +When prices break a little we generally rush to sell. One or two of my +neighbours are, however, holding on, and it's hardly likely that very +much of my wheat will be flung on to a falling market." +</P> + +<P> +"We have been getting a good deal from the Range." +</P> + +<P> +There was displeasure in Hastings's face. "Gregory's selling largely +on Harry's account?" +</P> + +<P> +"They've been hauling wheat in to us for the last few weeks," said +Winifred. +</P> + +<P> +Hastings, as Agatha noticed, glanced at his wife significantly, but she +interposed and forbade any further conversation of the kind until +supper was over, while when the table had been cleared Hastings opened +his papers. The rest sat expectantly silent, while he turned them over +one after another. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, "there's no news of Harry, and I'm afraid it's scarcely +possible that we'll hear anything of him this winter." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was conscious that Mrs. Hastings's eyes were upon her, and she +sat very still, though her heart was beating a little faster than +usual. Hastings, however, went on again. +</P> + +<P> +"The <I>Colonist</I> has a line or two about a barque from Alaska, which put +into Victoria short of stores," he said. "She was sent up to an A.C.C. +factory, and had to clear out before she was ready. The ice, it seems, +was closing in unusually early. A steam whaler at Portland reports the +same thing, and from the news brought by a steamer from Japan all +communication with North-Eastern Asia is already cut off." +</P> + +<P> +None of the others said anything for a moment or two, and Agatha, +leaning back in her chair, glanced round the room. There was not much +furniture in it, but, though this was unusual on the prairie, door and +double casements were guarded by heavy hangings. The big brass lamp +overhead shed down a cheerful light, the birch billets in the stove +snapped and crackled noisily, and its pipe, which was far too hot to +touch, diffused a drowsy heat. One could lounge beside it contentedly, +knowing that the stinging frost was drying the snow to dusty powder +outside. That heightened the contrast, for Agatha pictured the little +schooner bound fast in the Northern ice, and then two or three +travel-worn men crouching in a tiny tent buffeted by an Arctic gale. +She could see the poles bend, and the tricings strain. +</P> + +<P> +After that, with a sudden transition, her thoughts went back to the +early morning when Wyllard had driven away, and every detail of the +scene rose up clearly in her mind. She saw him and the stolid Dampier +sitting in the waggon, with nothing in their manner to suggest that +they were setting out upon a very perilous venture, and she felt his +hand close tight upon her fingers, as it had done just before the +waggon jolted away from the homestead. She could once more see it +growing smaller and smaller on the white prairie, until it dipped +behind the crest of a low rise, and the sinking beat of hoofs died +away. Then, at least, she had realised that he had started on the +first stage of a journey which might lead him through the ice-bound +gates of the North to the rest that awaits the souls of the sailormen. +She could not, however, imagine him shrinking. Gripping helm, or +hauling in the sled traces, he would gaze with quiet eyes steadfastly +ahead, even if they saw only the passage from this world to the next. +Once more, as it had done that morning, a curious thrill ran through +her, and there was pride as well as regret in it. Then she became +conscious that Hastings was speaking. +</P> + +<P> +"What took you round by the Range, Jim?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Collecting," said Sproatly. "I sold Gregory a couple of binders +earlier in the season, but, as it happened, I couldn't get a dollar out +of him." He laughed. "Of course, if it had been anybody else I'd have +stayed until he handed over, but I couldn't press Gregory too hard +after quartering myself upon him as I did last winter, though I'm +rather afraid my employers wouldn't appreciate that kind of delicacy." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Gregory should have been able to +pay. He thrashed out a moderately good crop." +</P> + +<P> +"About two-thirds of what it should have been, and I've reason for +believing that he has been putting up a mortgage. Interest's heavy. +There's another matter. I wonder if you've heard that he's getting rid +of two of Harry's hands? I mean Pat and Tom Moran." +</P> + +<P> +"You're sure of that?" Hastings asked somewhat sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Tom told me." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings leaned forward suddenly in her chair. "Then," she said, +"I'm going to drive across on Monday, and have a few words with +Gregory. Did Moran tell you that Harry had decided to keep the two of +them on throughout the year?" +</P> + +<P> +"He wasn't very explicit, but he seemed to feel he had a grievance +against Gregory. Of course, in a way, you can't blame Gregory. He's +in charge, and it isn't in him to carry out Harry's policy. This fall +in wheat is getting on his nerves, and in any case he'd probably have +held his hand and cut down the crop next year." +</P> + +<P> +"I do blame him," and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "You will +understand that in a general way there's not much that can be done when +the snow's upon the ground, and as one result of it the hired man +prefers to engage himself for the year. To secure himself from being +turned adrift when harvest's over he will frequently make a concession +in wages. Now I know Harry intended to keep those two men on, and Tom +Moran, who has a little half-cleared ranch back somewhere in the bush +of Ontario, came out here tempted by higher wages. I understand he had +to raise a few dollars or give the place up, and he left his wife +behind. A good many of the little men can't live upon their holdings +all the while. Well, I'm going over on Monday to tell Gregory he has +got to keep them, and you're coming with me." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha said nothing. In the first place, she knew that if Mrs. +Hastings had made her mind up she would gain nothing by objecting, and +in addition to this she was conscious of a certain desire to go. It +appeared in some respects an unreasonable wish, but she felt deep down +in her that if Wyllard had let the men understand that he would not +dismiss them the promise, implied or explicit, must be redeemed. He +would not have attempted to release himself from it—she was sure of +that—and it appeared intolerable to her that another should be +permitted to do anything that would unfavourably reflect on him. Then, +somewhat to her relief, Hastings started another topic. +</P> + +<P> +"You have sold quite a few binders and harrows one way or another, +haven't you, Jim?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly laughed. "I have," he said. "As I told the Company's Western +representative some time ago, a man who could sell patent medicine to +the folks round here could do a good trade in anything. He admitted +that my contention sounded reasonable, but I didn't wear store clothes +then, and he seemed very far from sure of me. Anyway, he gave me a +show, and now I've got two or three quite complimentary letters from +the Company. They've added a few dollars to my salary, and hint that +it's possible they may put me in charge of an implement store." +</P> + +<P> +"And you're satisfied?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Sproatly, with an air of reflection, "in some respects, I +suppose I am. In others, the thing's galling. You have to report who +you've called upon, and, if you couldn't do business, why they bought +somebody else's machines. If you can't get a farmer to take you in you +have to put up at a hotel. There's no more camping in a birch bluff +under your waggon. Besides, you have to wear store clothes." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings glanced at Winifred, and Agatha fancied she understood what +was in his mind. +</P> + +<P> +"Some folks would sooner sleep in a hotel," he said, with a twinkle in +his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Sproatly, decisively, "they don't know very much. They're +the kind of men who'd spend an hour every morning putting their clothes +on, and they haven't found out that there's no comfort in any garment +until you've had to sew two or three flour bag patches on to it. Then +think of the splendid freeness of the other thing. You make your +supper when you want, and just how you like it, when you put up in a +bluff, and no tea tastes as good as the kind you drink with the wood +smoke in it out of a blackened can. You can hear the little birch +leaves and the grasses whispering about you when you lie down at night, +and you drive on in the glorious freshness—just when it pleases +you—when morning comes. Now the Company have the whole route and +programme plotted out for me. They write me letters demanding most +indelicately why I haven't done this and that." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred looked at him sharply. "Civilisation," she said, "implies +responsibility. You can't live just how you like without it being +detrimental to the community." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes," said Sproatly with a rueful gesture, "it implies no end of +giving up. You have to fall into line, and that's why I kept outside +it just as long as I could. I don't like standing in a rank, and," he +glanced down at his clothing, "I've an inborn objection to wearing +uniform." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha laughed as she caught Hastings's eye. She fancied that Sproatly +would be sorry for his candour afterwards, but she understood what he +was feeling to some extent. It was a revolt against cramping customs +and conventionalities, and she partly sympathised with it, though she +knew that such revolts are dangerous. Even in the West, those who +cannot lead must march in column with the rank and file or bear the +consequences of their futile mutiny. It is a hard truth that no man +can live as he pleases. +</P> + +<P> +"Restraint," said Winifred, "is a wholesome thing, but it's one most of +the men I have met are singularly deficient in. That's why they can't +be left alone but must be driven, as they are, in companies. It's +their own fault if they now and then find it a little humiliating." +</P> + +<P> +There was a faint gleam in her eyes at which Sproatly apparently took +warning, for he said no more upon that subject, and they talked about +other matters until he took his departure an hour or two later. It was +next afternoon when he appeared again, and Mrs. Hastings smiled at +Agatha as he and Winifred drove away together. +</P> + +<P> +"Thirty miles is a long way to drive in the frost. I suppose you have +noticed that she calls him Jim?" she said. "Anyway, there's a good +deal of very genuine ability in that young man. He isn't altogether +wild." +</P> + +<P> +"His appearance rather suggested it when I first met him," said Agatha +with a laugh. "Was it a pose?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said her companion reflectively. "I think one could call it a +reaction, and it's probable that some very worthy people in the Old +Country are to blame for it. Sproatly is not the only young man who +has suffered from having too many rules and conventions crammed down +his throat. In fact, they're rather plentiful." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha said nothing further, for the little girls appeared just then, +and it was not until the next afternoon that she and Mrs. Hastings were +alone together again. Then as they drove across the prairie wrapped in +the heavy waggon robes her companion spoke of the business they had in +hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory must keep those men," she said. "There's no doubt that Harry +meant to do it, and it would be horribly unfair to turn them loose now +when there's absolutely nothing going on. Besides, Tom Moran is a man +I'm specially sorry for. As I told you, he left a young wife and a +very little child behind him when he came out here." +</P> + +<P> +"One would wonder why he did it," said Agatha. "He had to. There +seems to be a notion in the Old Country that we earn our dollars +easily, but it's very wrong. We'll take that man's case as an example. +He has a little, desolate holding up in the bush of Ontario, a hole +chopped out of the forest studded all over with sawn-off fir-stumps, +with a little, two-roomed log shack on it. In all probability there +isn't a settlement within two or three leagues of the spot. Now, as a +rule, a place of that kind won't produce enough to keep a man for +several years after he has partially cleared it, and unless he can earn +something in the meanwhile he must give it up. Moran, it seems, got +heavily into debt with the nearest storekeeper, and had to choose +between selling the place up or coming out here where wages are higher. +Well, you can probably imagine what it must be to the woman who stayed +behind in the desolate bush, seeing nobody for weeks together, though +I've no doubt that she'd bear it uncomplainingly believing that her +husband would come back with enough to clear the debt." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha could imagine it, and a certain indignation against Gregory +crept into her heart. She had once liked to think of him as pitiful +and chivalrous, and now, it seemed, he was quite willing that this +woman should make her sacrifice in vain. +</P> + +<P> +"But why have you taken the trouble to impress this on—me?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Her companion smiled. "I want you to plead that woman's cause. +Gregory may do what you ask him gracefully. That would be much the +nicest way out of it." +</P> + +<P> +"The nicest way?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings, with a trace of dryness, "there is another +one. Gregory is going to keep Tom Moran, anyway. Harry has one or two +friends in this neighbourhood who feel it more or less of an obligation +on them to maintain his credit." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha felt the blood rise to her face, but it was not her companion +she was angry with. It was an unpleasant thing to admit, but she +fancied that Gregory might yield to judicious pressure when he would +not be influenced by either compassion or a sense of equity. It also +flashed upon her that had Mrs. Hastings believed that she still +retained any tenderness for the man she would not have spoken as she +had done. The whole situation was horribly embarrassing, but there was +courage in her. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said simply, "I will speak to him." +</P> + +<P> +They said nothing more until they approached the Range, and as they +drove by the outbuildings Agatha glanced about her curiously. It +occurred to her that the homestead did not look quite the same as it +had done when Wyllard had been there. A waggon stood near the +strawpile without one wheel. A door of the barn hung awkwardly open in +a manner which suggested that it needed mending, and the snow had blown +inside the building. There was a gap in the side of one sod and pole +structure which should evidently have been repaired, and all this and +several other things she noticed jarred upon her. They suggested +slackness and indifference. Then she saw Mrs. Hastings purse her lips +up. +</P> + +<P> +"There is a change in the place already," she said. +</P> + +<P> +They got down in another minute or two, and when they entered the house +the grey-haired Swedish woman greeted them moodily. She seemed to +notice the glance Mrs. Hastings cast around her, and her manner became +deprecatory. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't keep things straight now. It is not the same," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings asked if Hawtrey was in, and hearing that he was turned +to Agatha. "Go along and talk to him. I've something to say to Mrs. +Nansen," she said. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIX. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE PRIOR CLAIM. +</H3> + +<P> +It was with confused feelings among which a sense of repugnance +predominated that Agatha walked towards Hawtrey's room. She was not +one of the women who take pleasure in pointing out another person's +duty, for while she had discovered that this task is apparently an easy +one to some people she was quite aware that a duty usually looks much +more burdensome when it is laid upon one's self. Indeed, she was +conscious just then that one might be shortly thrust upon her which she +would find it very hard to bear, and she became troubled with a certain +compunction as she remembered how she had of late persistently driven +all thought of it out of her mind. +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt that she was still pledged to Gregory, and that she +had loved him once. Both facts must be admitted, and it seemed to her +that if he insisted she must marry him. Deep down in her there was an +innate sense of right and honesty, and she realised that the fact that +he was not the man she had once imagined him to be did not release her. +In the meanwhile, it was clear that if he was about to commit a cruel +and unjustifiable action she was the one person of all others whose +part it was to restrain him. +</P> + +<P> +The colour was a little plainer in her face than usual when she quietly +entered the room where he lay, pipe in hand, in a lounge chair, and, +for it seemed that he did not immediately notice her, his attitude of +languid ease irritated her. There were, as she had seen, several +things which should evidently have had some claim on his attention +outside. A litter of letters and papers lay upon a little table at his +side, but the fact that he could not reach them as he lay was +suggestive. Then he rose, and came forward with outstretched hand. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-209"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-209.jpg" ALT=""It seemed that he did not immediately notice her."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="314" HEIGHT="497"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 314px"> +"It seemed that he did not immediately notice her." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"I didn't hear you," he said. "This is a pleasure I scarcely +anticipated." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sat down in the chair he drew out for her near the stove, and he +seemed to notice that she glanced at the papers on the table, for he +laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Bills, and things of that kind. They've been worrying me for a week +or two," he said. Then he seized the litter, and bundling it together +flung it into an open drawer, which he shut with a snap. "Anyway, +that's the last of them for to-day. I'm awfully glad you drove over." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha smiled. The action was so characteristic of the man. She had +once found no fault with Gregory's careless habits, and his way of +thrusting a difficulty into the background and making light of it had +appealed to her. It had suggested his ability to straighten out the +trouble when it appeared advisable. Now, she said, she would not be +absurdly hypercritical, and he had, as it happened, given her the lead +that she desired. +</P> + +<P> +"I should have fancied that you would have had to give them more +attention as wheat is going down," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey looked at her with an air of reproach. "It must be nearly +three weeks since I have seen you, and now you expect me to talk of +farming." He made a whimsically rueful gesture. "If you quite +realised the situation it would be about the last thing you would ask +me to do." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was a little astonished to remember that three weeks had +actually elapsed since she had last met him, and they had only +exchanged a word or two then. He had certainly not obtruded himself +upon her, for which she was grateful. +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody is talking about anything except the fall in prices just now," +she persisted. "I suppose it affects you, too?" +</P> + +<P> +The man, who seemed to accept this as a rebuff, looked at her rather +curiously, and then laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be admitted that it does. In fact, I've been acquiring +parsimonious habits and worrying myself about expenses lately. They +have to be kept down somehow, and that's a kind of thing I never took +kindly to." +</P> + +<P> +"You feel it a greater responsibility when you're managing somebody +else's affairs?" suggested Agatha, who was still waiting her +opportunity. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Hawtrey, in whom there was, after all, a certain honesty, +"that's not quite the only thing that has some weight with me. You +see, I'm not altogether disinterested. I get a certain percentage—on +the margin—after everything is paid, and I want it to be a big one. +Things are rather tight just now, and the wretched mortgage on my place +is crippling me." +</P> + +<P> +It had slipped out before he quite realised what he was saying, and he +saw the girl's look of astonishment and concern. She now realised what +Sproatly had meant. +</P> + +<P> +"You are in debt, Gregory? I thought you had, at least, kept clear of +that," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"So I did—for a while. In any case, if Wyllard stays away, and I can +run this place on the right lines, I shall, no doubt, get out of it +again." +</P> + +<P> +She was vexed that he had said this, for it was clear to her that if +Wyllard did not return until another crop was gathered in it would be +because he was held fast among the Northern ice in peril of his life. +Then another thought struck her. She had never quite understood why +Gregory had been willing to undertake the management of the Range, in +view of the probability of Wyllard having plainly told him what he had +said to her, but he had made that point clear by admitting that he had +been burdened with a load of debt, which suggested the question why he +had incurred the latter. The answer appeared in another moment or two, +as she remembered having heard Mrs. Hastings or somebody else say that +he had spent a good many dollars upon his house and furnishings for it. +It brought her a sudden sense of confusion, for as one result of that +expenditure he had been forced into doing what she fancied must have +been a very repugnant thing, and she had never even crossed his +threshold. +</P> + +<P> +"When did you borrow that money?" she asked sharply. +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt that the man was embarrassed, and her heart softened +towards him for his hesitation. It was to further her comfort he had +laid that load upon himself, and he was clearly unwilling that she +should recognise it. That counted for a good deal in his favour. +</P> + +<P> +"Was it just before I came out?" she asked again. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey made a little sign of expostulation. "You really mustn't worry +me about these matters, Aggy. A good many of us are in the +storekeepers' or mortgage-jobbers' hands, and there's no doubt that if +I have another good year at the Range I shall clear off the debt." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha turned her face away from him for a moment or two. The thing +the man had done laid a heavy obligation on her, and she remembered +that she had only found fault with him. Even then, however, stirred as +she was, she was conscious that all the tenderness she had once felt +for him had gone. The duty, however, remained, and with a little +effort she turned to him again. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she said, "I'm so sorry." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey smiled. "I really don't think I deserve a very great deal of +pity. As I have said, I'll probably come out all right next year if I +can only keep expenses down." +</P> + +<P> +Then Agatha remembered the task she had in hand. It was a very +inauspicious moment to set about it, but that could not be helped, and +even for the man's own sake she felt that she must win him over. +</P> + +<P> +"There is one way, Gregory, in which I don't think it ought to be +done," she said. "You took over Wyllard's obligations when you took +the farm, and I think you should keep the two Morans on." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey started. "Ah!" he said, "Mrs. Hastings has been setting you +on; I partly expected it." +</P> + +<P> +"She told me," Agatha admitted. "Unless you will look at the thing as +I do, I could almost wish she hadn't. The thought of that woman shut +up in the woods all winter only to find that what she must have to bear +has all been thrown away troubles me. Wyllard promised to keep those +men on, didn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"There was no regular engagement so far as I can make out." +</P> + +<P> +"Still, Moran seems to have understood that he was to be kept on." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," admitted Hawtrey, "he evidently does. If the market had gone +with us I'd have fallen in with his views. As it hasn't, every man's +wages count." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was conscious of a little thrill of repugnance. Of late +Gregory's ideas had rather frequently jarred on hers. +</P> + +<P> +"Does that release you?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey did not answer this. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll keep those men on if you want me to," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha winced at this. She had discovered that she must not look for +too much from Gregory, but to realise that he had practically no sense +of moral obligation, and could only be influenced to do justice by the +expectation of obtaining her favour positively hurt her. +</P> + +<P> +"I want them kept on, but I don't want you to do it for that reason," +she said. "Can't you grasp the distinction, Gregory?" +</P> + +<P> +A trace of darker colour crept into Hawtrey's face, but while she was a +little astonished at this he looked at her steadily. He had not +thought much about her during the last month, but now the faint scorn +in her voice had stirred him. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he said, "there are just three reasons, Aggy, why you should +have troubled yourself about this thing. You are, perhaps, a little +sorry for Moran's wife, but as you haven't even seen her that can +hardly count for much. The next is, that you don't care to see me +doing what you regard as a shabby thing; perhaps it is a shabby thing +in some respects, but I feel it's justifiable. Of course, if that's +your reason there's a sense in which, while not exactly +complimentary—it's consoling." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off, and looked at her with a question in his eyes, and it +cost Agatha an effort to meet them. She was not prudish or over +conscious of her own righteousness, but once or twice after the shock +of her disillusionment in regard to him had lessened she had dreamed of +the possibility of enduing him little by little with some of the +qualities she had once fancied he possessed, and, as she vaguely +thought of it, rehabilitating him. Now, however, the thing seemed +impossible, and, what was more, the desire to bring it about had gone. +Hateful as the situation was becoming, she was honest, and she could +not let him credit her with a motive that had not influenced her. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, her very coldness and aloofness stirred desire in the +man, and she shrank as she saw a spark of passion kindling in his eyes. +It was merely passion, she felt, for she recognised that there was a +strain of grossness in him. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, "that reason was not one which had any weight with me." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey's face hardened. "Then," he said grimly, "we'll get on to the +third. Wyllard's credit is a precious thing to you; sooner than +anything should cast a stain on it you would beg a favour from—me. +You have set him up on a pedestal, and it would hurt you if he came +down. Considering everything, it's a remarkably curious situation." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha grew a trifle pale. Gregory was horribly right, for she had no +doubt now that he had merely thrust upon her a somewhat distressing +truth. It was to save Wyllard's credit, and for that alone she had +undertaken this most unpalatable task. She did not answer, and Hawtrey +stood up. +</P> + +<P> +"Wyllard has his faults, but there's this in his favour—he keeps a +promise," he said. "One has a certain respect for a person who never +goes back upon his word. Well, because I really think he would like +it, I'll keep those men." +</P> + +<P> +He paused for a moment, as if to let her grasp the drift of this, and +then turned to her with something that startled her in his voice and +manner. "The question is—are you willing to emulate his example?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha shrank from the glow in his eyes. "Oh!" she broke out, "you +cannot urge me now—after what you said." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey laughed harshly. "Well," he said, "I'll come for my answer +very shortly. It seems that you and Wyllard attach a good deal of +importance to a moral obligation—and I must remind you that the time +agreed upon is almost up." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sat very still for perhaps half a minute, while a sense of +dismay crept over her. There was no doubt that Gregory's retort was +fully warranted. She had, as she admitted, insisted upon him carrying +out an obligation which would cost him something, not because she took +pleasure in seeing him do what was honourable, but to preserve the +credit of another man, and now it was with intense repugnance she +recognised that there was apparently no escaping from the one she had +incurred. The man's attitude was perfectly natural and logical. She +had promised to marry him, and he had saddled himself with a load of +debt on her account, but the slight pity and tenderness she had felt +for him a few minutes earlier had utterly gone. Indeed, she felt she +almost hated him. His face had grown hard and almost brutal, and there +was a look she shrank from in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Then she rose. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you wish to speak to Mrs. Hastings?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey smiled rather grimly. "No," he said, "if she'll excuse me, I +don't think I do. If you tell her you have been successful, she'll +probably be quite content." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha went out without another word, and Hawtrey lighted his pipe and +stretched himself out in his chair, when he heard the waggon drive away +a few minutes later. He did not like Mrs. Hastings, and had a +suspicion that she had no great regard for him, but he was conscious of +a somewhat grim satisfaction. There was, though it seldom came to the +surface, a taint of crude brutality in his nature, and it was active +now. When Agatha had first come out the change in her had been a shock +to him, and it would not have cost him very much to let her go. Since +then, however, her coldness and half-perceived disdain had angered him, +and the interview which was just over had left him in an unpleasant +mood. Though this was, perhaps, the last thing he would have expected, +it had stirred him to desire. It was consoling to feel that he could +exact the fulfilment of her promise from the girl. His face grew +coarser as he assured himself of it, but he had, as it happened, never +realised the shiftiness and instability of his own character. It was +his misfortune that the impulses which swayed him one day had generally +changed the next. +</P> + +<P> +This became apparent when, having occasion to drive in to the elevators +on the railroad a week later, he called at a store to make one or two +purchases. The man who kept it laid a package on the counter. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if you'd take this along to Miss Creighton as a favour," he +said. "She wrote for the things, and Elliot was to take them out, but +I guess he forgot; anyway, he didn't call." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey told the clerk to put the package in his waggon. He had +scarcely seen Sally since his recovery, and he suddenly remembered +that, after all, he owed her a good deal, and that she was very pretty. +Besides, one could talk to Sally without feeling the restraint that +Agatha's manner usually laid on him. Then the storekeeper laid an open +box upon the counter. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you're going to be married by and bye," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey was thinking of Sally then, and the question irritated him. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know that it concerns you, but in a general way it's +probable," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said the storekeeper good-humouredly, "a pair of these mittens +would make quite a nice present for a lady. Smartest thing of the kind +I've ever seen here; choicest Alaska fur." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey bought a pair, and the storekeeper took a fur cap out of +another box. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he said, "this is just the thing she'd like to go with the +mittens. There's style about that cap; feel the gloss of it." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey bought the cap, and smiled as he swung himself up into his +waggon. Gloves are not much use in the prairie frost, and mittens, +which are not divided into finger-stalls, will within limits fit almost +anybody. This, he felt, was fortunate, for he was not quite sure that +he meant to give them to Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +It was bitterly cold, and the pace the team made was slow, for the snow +was loose and too thin for a sled of any kind, which, after all, is not +very generally used upon the prairie. As the result of this, night had +closed down and Hawtrey was frozen almost stiff when at last a birch +bluff rose out of the waste in front of him. It cut black against the +cold blueness of the sky and the spectral gleam of snow, but when he +had driven a little further a stream of ruddy orange light appeared in +the midst of it. A few minutes later he pulled his team up in front of +a little log-built house, and getting down with difficulty saw the door +open as he approached it. Sally stood in the entrance silhouetted +against a blaze of cheerful light. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she said. "Gregory!" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey recognised the thrill in her voice, and took both her hands, as +he had once been in the habit of doing. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you let me in?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +The girl laughed in a rather strained fashion. She had been a little +startled, and was not quite sure yet as to how she should receive him; +but in the meanwhile Hawtrey drew her in. +</P> + +<P> +"The old folks are out," she said. "They've gone over to Elliot's for +supper. He's bringing us a package." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey, who explained that he had got it, let her hands go, and sat +down somewhat limply. He had come suddenly out of the bitter frost +into the little, brightly-lighted, stove-warmed room. In another few +moments, however, the comfort and cheeriness of it appealed to him. +</P> + +<P> +"This looks very cosy after my desolate room at the Range," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Then if you'll stay I'll make you supper. I suppose there's nothing +to take you home?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Hawtrey, with a significant glance at her, "there certainly +isn't, Sally. As a matter of fact, I often wish there was." +</P> + +<P> +He saw her sudden uncertainty, which was, however, not tinged with +embarrassment, and feeling that he had gone far enough in the meanwhile +he went out to put up his team. When he came back there was a cloth on +the table, and Sally was busy about the stove. He sat down and watched +her attentively. In some respects, he thought, she compared favourably +with Agatha. She had a nicely moulded figure, and a curious lithe +gracefulness of carriage which was suggestive of a strong vitality, +while Agatha's bearing was usually characterised by a certain rather +frigid repose. This and the latter's general manner had a somewhat +inciting effect on him when he was in her presence, but he now and then +remembered it afterwards with resentment. Then Sally's face was at +least as comely in a different way, and there was no reserve in it. +She was what he thought of as human, frankly flesh and blood. Her +quick smile was, as a rule, provocative, and never chilled one as +Agatha's quiet glances sometimes did. +</P> + +<P> +"Sally," he said, "you've grown prettier than ever." +</P> + +<P> +The girl turned partly round towards him with a slow, sinuous movement +that he found seductively graceful. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she said, "you oughtn't to say those things to me." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey laughed; he was usually sure of his ground with Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"Why shouldn't I, when it's just what you are?" +</P> + +<P> +"For one thing, Miss Ismay wouldn't like it." +</P> + +<P> +The man's face hardened. "I'm not sure she'd mind. Anyway, Miss Ismay +doesn't like a good many things I'm in the habit of doing." +</P> + +<P> +Sally, who had watched him closely, turned away again, but a little +thrill of exultation ran through her. It had been with dismay she had +first heard him speak of his marriage, which was, perhaps, not +altogether astonishing, and she had fled home in an agony of anger and +humiliation. That state of mind had, however, not lasted long, and +when it became evident that the wedding was, at least, postponed +indefinitely, she commenced to wonder whether it was quite impossible +that Hawtrey should come back to her. She felt that he belonged to her +although he had never given her any very definite claim in him. She +was a trifle primitive and passionate, but she was determined, and now +he had done what she had almost expected him to do, she meant to keep +him. +</P> + +<P> +"You have fallen out?" she said, and contrived to keep the anxiety she +was conscious of out of her voice. +</P> + +<P> +The question, and more particularly the form of it, rather jarred upon +Hawtrey, but he answered it. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no," he said. "As a matter of fact, Sally, you can't fall out +nicely with everybody. Now when we fell out you got delightfully +angry—I don't know if you were more delightful then or when you +graciously agreed to make it up again." He laughed. "I almost wish I +could make you a little angry now." +</P> + +<P> +Sally had moved a little nearer to take a kettle off the stove, and she +looked down on him with her eyes shining in the lamplight. She +realised that she would have to fight Miss Ismay for this man; but +there was this in her favour, that she appealed directly to one side of +his nature, as Agatha, even if she had loved him, would not have done. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you?" she said. "Dare you try?" +</P> + +<P> +"I might if I was tempted sufficiently." +</P> + +<P> +She leaned upon the table still looking at him mockingly, and she was +probably aware that her pose and expression were wholly provocative. +Indeed, she could not have failed to recognise the meaning of the +sudden tightening of his lips, though she did not in the least shrink +from it. She had not the faintest doubt of her ability to keep him at +a due distance if it appeared necessary. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "you only say things." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey laughed, and stooping down picked up a package he had brought +from the store. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "after all, I think I'd rather try if I can please +you." He opened the package. "Are these things very much too big for +you, Sally?" +</P> + +<A NAME="img-221"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-221.jpg" ALT=""'Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?'"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="314" HEIGHT="430"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 314px"> +"'Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?'" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The girl's eyes glistened at the sight of the mittens he held out. +They were very different from the kind she had hitherto been in the +habit of wearing, and when he carelessly took out the fur cap she broke +into a little cry of delight. In the meanwhile Hawtrey watched her +with a rather curious expression. He was not quite sure he had meant +Sally to have the things when he had purchased them, but he was quite +contented now. The one gift he had somewhat diffidently offered Agatha +since her arrival in Canada had been almost coldly laid aside. +</P> + +<P> +In another few minutes Sally laid out supper, and as she waited upon +him daintily or filled his cup Hawtrey thrust the misgivings he had +felt further behind him. Sally, he thought with a little dry smile, +could certainly cook. When the meal was over he sat talking about +nothing in particular for almost an hour, and then stood up. It +occurred to him that Sally's mother would be back before very long, and +she was a person he had no great liking for. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "I must be getting home. Won't you let me see you +with that cap on?" +</P> + +<P> +Sally, who betrayed no diffidence, put on the cap, and stood before a +little dingy mirror with both hands raised while she pressed it down +upon her gleaming hair. Then she flashed a smiling glance at him. It +was quite sufficient, and as she turned again Hawtrey slipped forward +as softly as he could. She swung round, however, with a flush in her +face and a forceful, restraining gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't spoil it all, Gregory," she said sharply. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey, who saw that she meant it—which was a cause of some +astonishment to him—dropped his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," he said, "if you look at it in that way I'm sorry. Good-night, +Sally!" +</P> + +<P> +She let him go, but she smiled when he drove away; and half an hour +later she showed the cap and mittens to her mother with significant +candour. Mrs. Creighton, who was a severely practical person, nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said, "he only wants a little managing if he bought you +these, and nobody could say you ran after him. I wouldn't, anyway; +some of them don't like it." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XX. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FIRST STAKE. +</H3> + +<P> +A fortnight had slipped by since the evening Hawtrey had spent with +Sally, when Winifred and Sproatly once more arrived at the Hastings +homestead. The girl was looking a trifle jaded, and it appeared that +the manager of the elevator, who had all along treated her with a good +deal of consideration, had insisted upon her going away for a few days +now the pressure of business which had followed the harvest had +slackened. Sproatly, as usual, had driven her in from the settlement. +</P> + +<P> +When the evening meal was over they drew their chairs close up about +the stove, and Hastings thrust fresh birch billets into it, for there +was a bitter frost. Mrs. Hastings installed Winifred in a canvas +lounge and wrapped a shawl about her. +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't got warm yet, and you're looking quite worn out," she +said. "I suppose Hamilton has still been keeping you at work until +late at night?" +</P> + +<P> +"We have been very busy since I was last here," Winifred admitted, and +then turned to Hastings. "Until the last week or so there has been no +slackening in the rush to sell. Everybody seems to have been throwing +wheat on to the market." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings looked thoughtful. "A good many of the smaller men have been +doing so, but I think they're foolish. They're only helping to break +down prices, and I shouldn't wonder if one or two of the big, +long-headed buyers saw their opportunity in the temporary panic. In +fact, if I'd a pile of dollars lying in the bank I'm not sure that I +wouldn't send along a buying order and operate for a rise." +</P> + +<P> +His wife shook her head at him. "No," she said; "you certainly +wouldn't while I had any say in the matter. You're rather a good +farmer, but I haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. +Some of our friends have tried it—and you know where it landed them. +I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice +fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear +him." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings laughed. "I should like to point out that most of the farmers +in this country are decidedly thin, and have uncommonly little wool on +them." Then he turned to the rest. "I feel inclined to tell you how +Mrs. Hastings made the expenses of her Paris trip; it's an example of +feminine consistency. She went round the neighbourhood and bought all +the wheat anybody had left on hand up, or, at least, she made me do it." +</P> + +<P> +His wife, who had, as it happened, means of her own, nodded. "That was +different," she said; "anyway, I had the wheat, and I—knew—it would +go up." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why shouldn't other folks sell forward, for instance, when they +know it will go down? That's not what I suggested doing, but the +point's the same." +</P> + +<P> +"They haven't got the wheat." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course; they wouldn't operate for a fall if they had. On the other +hand, if their anticipations proved correct, they could buy it for less +than they sold at before they had to deliver." +</P> + +<P> +"That," said Mrs. Hastings severely, "is pure gambling. It's sure to +land one in the hands of the mortgage jobber." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings smiled at the others. "As a matter of fact, it not +infrequently does, but I want you to note the subtle distinction. The +thing's quite legitimate if you've only got the wheat in a bag. In +such a case you must naturally operate for a rise." +</P> + +<P> +"There's a good deal to be said for that point of view," observed +Sproatly. "You can keep the wheat if you're not satisfied, but when +you try the other plan the margin that may vanish at any moment is the +danger. I suppose Gregory has still been selling the Range wheat, +Winifred?" +</P> + +<P> +"I believe we have sent on every bushel." +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly exchanged a significant glance with Hastings, whose face once +more grew thoughtful. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said the latter drily, "if he's wise he'll stop at that." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings changed the subject, and drew her chair closer in to the +stove, which snapped and crackled cheerfully. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be a good deal colder where Harry is," she said with a shiver. +</P> + +<P> +She flashed a swift glance at Agatha, and saw her expression change, +but Sproatly broke in again. +</P> + +<P> +"It was bad enough driving in from the railroad this afternoon," he +said. "Winifred was almost frozen, which is why I didn't go round by +Creighton's for the pattern mat—I think that's what he said it +was—Mrs. Creighton borrowed from you. I met him at the settlement a +day or two ago." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings said that he could bring it another time, and while the +rest talked of something else Winifred turned to Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +"It really was horribly cold, and I almost fancied one of my hands was +frost-nipped," she said. "As it happens, I can't buy mittens like your +new ones." +</P> + +<P> +"My new ones?" said Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +"The ones Gregory bought you." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha laughed. "My dear, he never gave me any." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred pursed her face up. "Well," she persisted, "he certainly +bought them and a fur cap, too. I was in the store when he did it, +though I don't think he noticed me. They were lovely mittens—such a +pretty brown fur." +</P> + +<P> +Just then Mrs. Hastings, unobserved by either of them, looked up and +caught Sproatly's eye. His face became suddenly expressionless, and he +looked away. +</P> + +<P> +"When was that?" asked Agatha. +</P> + +<P> +"A fortnight ago, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sat silent, and was rather glad when Mrs. Hastings asked +Winifred a question. She desired no gifts from Gregory, but since he +had bought the cap and mittens she wondered what he could have done +with them. It was rather disconcerting to feel that, while he +evidently meant to hold her to her promise, he must have given them to +somebody else. She had, as it happened, never heard of his +acquaintance with Sally Creighton, but it struck her as curious that +although the six months' delay he had granted her had lately expired, +he had neither sent her any word nor called at the homestead. +</P> + +<P> +A few minutes later Mrs. Hastings took up a basket of sewing she had +been engaged in, and moved towards the door. Sproatly, who rose as she +approached him, drew aside his chair, and she handed the basket to him. +</P> + +<P> +"You can carry it if you like," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly took the basket, and followed her into another room, where he +sat it down. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" he said, with a twinkle in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings regarded him thoughtfully. "I wonder if you know what +Gregory did with those mittens?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm rather pleased that I can assure that I don't." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you imagine that he kept them?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid I haven't an opinion on that point." +</P> + +<P> +"Still, if I said that I felt certain he had given them to somebody you +would have some idea as to who it would probably be?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Sproatly reluctantly, "If you insist upon it, I must admit +that I could make a guess." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings smiled in a manner which suggested comprehension. "So +could I," she said. "I shouldn't wonder if we both guessed right. Now +you may as well go back to the others." +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly, who made no answer, turned away, and he was talking to Agatha +when, half an hour later, a waggon drew up outside the door. In +another minute or two he leaned forward in amused expectation as Sally +walked into the room. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going on to Lander's, and just called to bring back the mat you +lent us," she said to Mrs. Hastings. "Sproatly was to have come for +it, but he didn't." +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly, who said he was sorry, fixed his eyes on her. It was clear +to him that Agatha did not understand the situation, but he rather +fancied from her expression that Sally was filled with an almost +belligerent satisfaction. She was then wearing a very smart fur cap, +and she carried a pair of new fur mittens which she had just stripped +off in one hand. Sproatly, who glanced at them, noticed that Winifred +did the same. Then Mrs. Hastings spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think you have met Miss Ismay, Sally," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Sally merely said that she had not, and Sproatly became more sure that +the situation was an interesting one, when Mrs. Hastings formally +presented her. It was clear to him that Agatha was somewhat puzzled by +Sally's attitude. +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, Agatha, who said that she must have had a cold +drive, was regarding the new arrival with a curiosity she had not +expected to feel when she first came in. Miss Creighton, she admitted, +was comely, though she was clearly somewhat primitive and crude. The +long skin coat she wore hid her figure, but her pose was too virile, +and there was a look which puzzled Agatha in her eyes. It was almost +openly hostile, and there was a suggestion of triumph in it. Agatha, +who could find no possible reason for this, resented it. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile Sally remained standing, and, as she said nothing +further, there was a somewhat awkward silence. She was the dominant +figure in the room, and the others became sensible of a certain slight +constraint and embarrassment as she gazed at Agatha with unwavering +eyes. In fact, it was rather a relief to them when at length she +turned to Mrs. Hastings. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't stop. It wouldn't do to leave the team in this frost," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +This was so evident that they let her go, and Mrs. Hastings, who went +with her to the door, afterwards sat down beside Sproatly a little +apart from the rest. +</P> + +<P> +"I've no doubt you noticed those mittens," she said softly. +</P> + +<P> +"I did," Sproatly admitted. "I think you can rely upon my discretion. +If you hadn't wanted this assurance I don't suppose you'd have said +anything upon the subject. It, however, seems very probable that +Winifred noticed them, too." +</P> + +<P> +"Does that mean you're not sure that Winifred's discretion is equal to +your own?" +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly's eyes twinkled. "In this particular case the trouble is that +she's animated by a sincere attachment to Miss Ismay, and has, I +understand, a rather poor opinion of Gregory. Of course, I don't know +how far your views on that point coincide with hers." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you expect me to explain them to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Sproatly, "I'm only anxious to keep out of the thing. +Gregory, as it happens, is a friend of mine, and, after all, he has his +strong points. I should, however, like to mention that Winifred's +expression suggests that she's thinking of something." +</P> + +<P> +His companion smiled. "Then I must endeavour to have a word or two +with her." +</P> + +<P> +She left him with this, and not long afterwards she and Winifred went +out together, while when the others were retiring she detained Agatha +for a minute or two in the empty room. +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't the six months Gregory gave you run out yet?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha said they had, but it was evident that she had attached no +particular significance to the fact that Sally had worn a new fur cap. +</P> + +<P> +"He hasn't been over to see you since." +</P> + +<P> +The girl, who admitted it, looked troubled, and Mrs. Hastings laid a +hand upon her shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," she said, "if he does come you must put him off." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" Agatha asked, in a low, strained voice. +</P> + +<P> +"For one thing, because we want to keep you," and Mrs. Hastings looked +at her with a very friendly smile. "Are you very anxious to make it up +with Gregory?" +</P> + +<P> +A little shiver ran through the girl. "Oh," she said, "I can't answer +you that. I must do what is right." +</P> + +<P> +Then, somewhat to her astonishment, her companion drew her a little +nearer, stooped and kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +"Most of us, I believe, have that wish, but the thing is often horribly +complex," she said. "Anyway, you must put Gregory off again if it's +only for another month or two. I fancy you will not find it remarkably +difficult." +</P> + +<P> +She turned away with that, but her manner had been so significant that +Agatha, who did not sleep very well that night, decided that if it was +possible she would act on her advice. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, it happened that a little very dapper gentleman who +was largely interested in the land-agency and general mortgage business +was spending the evening with Hawtrey in Wyllard's room at the Range. +He had driven round by Hawtrey's homestead earlier in the afternoon, +and had deduced a good deal from the state of it, though this was a +point he kept to himself. Now he lay in a lounge chair beside the +stove smoking one of Wyllard's cigars and unobtrusively watching his +companion. There was a roll of bills in his pocket which the latter +had very reluctantly parted with. +</P> + +<P> +"In view of the fall in wheat it must have been rather a pull for you +to pay me that interest," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"It certainly was," Hawtrey admitted with a somewhat rueful smile. +"I'm sorry it had to be done." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't quite see how you made it," persisted the other man. "What +you got for your wheat couldn't have done much more than cover working +expenses." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey laughed. He was quite aware that his companion's profession +was not one that was regarded with any great favour by the prairie +farmers, but he was never particularly cautious, and he rather liked +the man. +</P> + +<P> +"As a matter of fact, it didn't, Edmonds," he said. "You see, I +practically paid you out of what I get for running this place. The red +wheat Wyllard raises generally commands a cent or two a bushel more +from the big milling people than anything put on the market round here." +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds made a sign of agreement. He had without directly requesting +him to do so led Hawtrey into showing him round the Range that +afternoon, and having of necessity a practical knowledge of farming he +had been impressed by all that he had noticed. The farm, which was a +big one, had evidently been ably managed until a little while ago, and +he felt the strongest desire to get his hands on it. This, as he +admitted, would have been out of the question had Wyllard been at home, +but with Hawtrey, upon whom he had a certain hold, in charge, the thing +appeared by no means impossible. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," he said. "I suppose he was reasonably liberal over your +salary." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't get one. I take a share of the margin after everything is +paid." +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds carefully noted this. He was not sure that such an arrangement +would warrant one in regarding Hawtrey as Wyllard's partner, but he +meant to gather a little more information upon that point by and bye. +</P> + +<P> +"If wheat keeps on dropping there won't be any margin at all next year, +and that's what I'm inclined to figure on," he said. "There are, +however, ways a man with nerve could turn it to account." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean by selling wheat down." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Edmonds, "that's just what I mean. Of course, there is a +certain hazard in the thing. You can never be quite sure how the +market will go, but the signs everywhere point to still cheaper wheat +next year." +</P> + +<P> +"That's your view?" +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds smiled, and took out of his pocket a little bundle of market +reports. +</P> + +<P> +"Other folks seem to share it in Winnipeg, Chicago, New York, and +Liverpool. You can't get behind these stock statistics, though, of +course, dead low prices are apt to cut the output." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey read the reports with evident interest, and, as it happened, +they were all in the same pessimistic strain, though he was not aware +that his companion had carefully selected them with a view to the +effect he fancied they would produce. Edmonds, who saw the interest in +his eyes, leaned towards him confidentially when he spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mind admitting that I'm taking a hand in a big bear +operation," he said. "It's rather outside my usual business, but the +thing looks almost certain." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey glanced at him with a gleam in his eyes. There was no doubt +that the prospect of acquiring dollars by an easier method than toiling +in the rain and wind appealed to him. +</P> + +<P> +"If it's good enough for you it should be safe," he said. "The trouble +is that I've nothing to put in." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you're not empowered to lay out Wyllard's money. If that was the +case it shouldn't be difficult to pile up a bigger margin than you're +likely to do by farming." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey started, for the idea had already crept into his mind. +</P> + +<P> +"In a way, I am, but I'm not sure that I'm warranted in operating on +the market with it." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you the arrangement you made with him in writing?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey opened a drawer, and Edmonds betrayed no sign of the +satisfaction he felt when he was handed a somewhat informally worded +document. He perused it carefully, and it seemed to him that it +constituted his companion a partner in the Range, which was +satisfactory. Then he looked up thoughtfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he said, "while I naturally can't tell what Wyllard +contemplated, this paper certainly gives you power to do anything you +think advisable with his money. In any case, I understand that he +can't be back until well on in next year." +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't expect him until late in the summer, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +There was silence for a moment or two, and during it Hawtrey's face +grew a trifle hard. It was unpleasant to look forward to the time when +he would be required to relinquish the charge of the Range, and of late +he had been wondering how he could make the most of the situation in +the meanwhile. Then his companion spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"It's almost certain that the operation I suggested can only result one +way, and it appears most unlikely that Wyllard would raise any trouble +if you handed him several thousand dollars over and above what you had +made by farming. I can't imagine a man objecting to that kind of +thing." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey sat still with indecision in his eyes for half a minute, and +Edmonds, who was too wise to say anything, leaned back in his chair. +Then Hawtrey turned to the drawer again with an air of sudden +resolution. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll give you a cheque for a couple of thousand dollars, which is as +far as I care to go just now," he said. +</P> + +<P> +He took a pen, and Edmonds watched him with quiet amusement as he +wrote. As a matter of fact, Hawtrey was in one respect, at least, +perfectly safe in entrusting the money to him. Edmonds had deprived a +good many prairie farmers of their possessions in his time, but he +never stooped to any crude trickery. He left that to the smaller fry. +Just then he was playing a deep and cleverly thought-out game. +</P> + +<P> +He pocketed the cheque Hawtrey gave him, and then discussed other +subjects for half an hour or so until he rose. +</P> + +<P> +"You might ask them to get my team out. I've some business at Lander's +and have ordered a room there," he said. "I'll send you a line when +there's any change in the market." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND +</H3> + +<P> +Wheat was still being flung on to a lifeless market when Hawtrey walked +out of the mortgage jobber's place of business in the railroad +settlement one bitter afternoon. He had a big roll of paper money in +his pocket, and was feeling particularly pleased with himself, for +prices had steadily fallen since he had joined in the bear operation +Edmonds had suggested, and the result of it had proved eminently +satisfactory. This was why he had just given the latter a further +draft on Wyllard's bank, with instructions to sell wheat down on a +considerably more extensive scale. He meant to operate in earnest now, +which was exactly what the broker had anticipated, but in this case he +had decided to let Hawtrey operate alone. Indeed, being an astute and +far-seeing man he had gone so far as to hint that caution might be +advisable, though he had at the same time been careful to show Hawtrey +only those market reports which had a distinctly pessimistic tone. +Edmonds was rather disposed to agree with the men who looked forward to +a reaction before very long. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey glanced about him as he strode down the street. It was wholly +unpaved, and rutted deep, but the drifted snow had partly filled the +hollows up, and it did not look very much rougher than it would have +done if somebody had recently driven a plough through it. A rude plank +sidewalk ran along both sides of it, raised a foot or two above the +ground that foot-passengers might escape the mire of the thaw in +spring, and immediately behind the sidewalk squat, weatherbeaten, frame +houses, all of much the same pattern, rose abruptly. In some of them, +however, the fronts were carried up as high as the ridge of the +shingled roof, giving them an unpleasantly square appearance. Here and +there a dilapidated waggon stood with lowered pole before a store, but +it was a particularly bitter afternoon, and there was nobody in the +street. The place looked desolate and forlorn, with a leaden sky +hanging over it and an icy wind sweeping through the streets. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey, however, was used to that, and strode along briskly until he +reached the open space which divided the little wooden town from the +unfenced railroad track. It was strewn with fine dusty snow, and the +huge bulk of the grain elevators towered high above it against the +lowering sky. As it happened, a freight locomotive was just hauling a +long string of wheat cars out of a side-track amidst a discordant +tolling of its bell. It stopped presently, and though Hawtrey could +not see anything beyond the big cars he fancied by the shouts which +broke out that something unusual was going on. He was expecting Sally, +who was going East to Brandon by a train due in an hour or two. +</P> + +<P> +When the shouts grew a little louder he walked round in front of the +locomotive which stood still with the steam blowing noisily from a +valve, and as soon as he had done so he saw the cause of the commotion. +A pair of vicious, half-broken bronchos were backing a light waggon +away from the locomotive on the other side of the track, and a +fur-wrapped figure sat stiffly on the driving seat. Hawtrey called out +and ran suddenly forward as he saw that it was Sally. +</P> + +<P> +Just then one of the horses lifted its fore hoofs off the ground, and +being jerked back by the pole plunged and kicked furiously, until its +companion flung up its head and the waggon went backwards with a run. +Then they stopped, and there was a further series of resounding crashes +against the front of the vehicle. Hawtrey was within a pace or two of +it when Sally recognised him. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep off," she said, "you can't lead them. They don't want to cross +the track, but they've got to if I pull the jaws off them." +</P> + +<P> +This was more forcible than elegant, and the shrill harshness of the +girl's voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to +Sally's phraseology. He, however, recognised that she would not have +his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful, +and he reluctantly moved back towards the group of loungers who were +watching her. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you've no call to worry about her," said one of them. "She's +holding them on the lowest notch, and it's a mighty powerful bit +fixing. Besides, that girl could drive anything that goes on four +legs." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure," said one of the others. "She's a daisy." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey was a little annoyed to notice that in place of being +embarrassed by it Sally evidently rather enjoyed the situation, though +several of the freight train and station hands had now joined the group +of loungers and were cheering her on. He had already satisfied himself +that she had not a trace of fear. In another moment or two, however, +he forgot his slight sense of disconcertion, for Sally, sitting tense +and strung up on the driving seat with a glow in her cheeks and a snap +in her eyes, was wholly admirable. There was lithe grace, virility, +and resolution in every line of her fur-wrapped figure. It is possible +that her appearance would have been less effective in a drawing room, +but in the waggon she was in her place and in harmony with her +surroundings. Lowering sky, gleaming snow, fur-clad men, and even the +big, dingy locomotive, all fitted curiously into the scene, and she +made an imposing central figure as she contended with the half-tamed +team. Hawtrey was conscious of a stirring of his physical nature as he +watched her. +</P> + +<P> +The struggle lasted for several minutes during which the horses plunged +and kicked again, until Sally stood boldly erect a moment while the +waggon rocked to and fro, a tall, straight figure with a tress of +loosened hair streaming out beneath her fur cap, as she swung the +stinging whip. Then it seemed that the team had had enough, for as she +dropped lightly back into the seat they broke into a gallop, and in +another moment the waggon, jolting horribly as it bounced across the +track, vanished behind the locomotive. Gregory heard a shout of +acclamation as he turned and hurried after it. +</P> + +<P> +Sally, however, drove right through the settlement and back outside it +before she could check the horses, and she had just pulled them up in +front of the wooden hotel when Hawtrey reached it. He stood beside the +waggon holding up his hand to her, and Sally, who laughed, dropped +bodily into his arms, which was, as he recognised, a thing that Agatha +certainly would not have done. He set her down upon the sidewalk, and +when a man came out to take the team they went into the hotel together. +</P> + +<P> +"It was the locomotive that did it," she explained. "They were most +too scared for anything, but I hate to be beaten by a team. Ours know +too much to try, but I got Haslem to drive me in. I dropped him at +Norton's, who'll bring him on." +</P> + +<P> +"He oughtn't to have left you with them," said Hawtrey severely. +</P> + +<P> +Sally laughed. "Well," she said, "I'd quit driving if I couldn't +handle any team you or Haslem could put the harness on." +</P> + +<P> +In a general way, the hotels in the smaller prairie settlements offer +one very little comfort or privacy. As a rule they contain two general +rooms, in one of which the three daily meals are served with a +punctuality which is as unvarying as the menu. The traveller who +arrives a few minutes too late for one must wait until the next is +ready. The second room usually contains a rusty stove, and a few +uncomfortable benches; and there are not infrequently a couple of rows +of very small match-boarded cubicles on the floor overhead. The +Occident was, however, a notable exception. For one thing, the +building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to +study the requirements of his guests, who came for the most part from +the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general +lounge, one of which was reserved for the wives or daughters of the +farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing. In +the other, dry-goods travellers were permitted to display their wares, +and, though this was very unusual in that country, any privileged +customer who wished to leave by a train, the departure of which did not +synchronize with the hotel arrangements, was occasionally supplied with +a meal. +</P> + +<P> +It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two +rooms, where the proprietor's wife was just lighting the big lamp. She +smiled at the man, who was, as it happened, a favourite of hers. +</P> + +<P> +"Go right along, and I'll bring your supper up in a minute or two," she +said. "I guess you'll want it after your drive." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey strode on down a short corridor towards the second room, but +Sally stopped behind him a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Hastings in town?" she asked. "I thought I saw his new waggon +outside." +</P> + +<P> +"His wife is," said the other woman. "She and Miss Ismay drove in to +buy some things." +</P> + +<P> +Sally asked no further questions. It was evident that Mrs. Hastings +would not start home until after supper, and as the regular hotel meal +would be ready in about half an hour it seemed certain that she would +come back to the hotel very shortly. That left Sally very little time, +for she had no desire that Hawtrey should meet either Mrs. Hastings or +Agatha until she had carried out the purpose she had in hand. It was +at Gregory's special request she had permitted him to drive in to see +her off, and she meant to make the most of the opportunity. She had +long ago regretted her folly in running away from his homestead when he +lay helpless, but things had changed considerably since then. +</P> + +<P> +She said nothing about what she had heard to Hawtrey when she entered +the second room. It was cosily warm and brightly lighted, and the +little table was laid out for two with a daintiness very uncommon on +the prairie. It was a change for Sally to be waited on and have a meal +set before her which she had not made with her own fingers, and she +sank into a chair with a smile of appreciation. +</P> + +<P> +"It's real nice, Gregory," she said. "Supper's never quite the same +when you've had to stand over the stove ever so long getting it ready." +She sighed whimsically. "When I have to do that after working hard all +day I don't want to eat it." +</P> + +<P> +The man felt compassionate. Sally, as he was aware, had to work +unusually hard at the little desolate homestead where she and her +mother perforce undertook a good many duties that do not generally fall +to a woman's share. Creighton, who was getting an old man, was of +grasping nature, and only hired assistance when it was indispensibly +necessary. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "I'm not particularly fond of cooking either." +</P> + +<P> +Sally glanced at him with a provocative smile, for he had given her a +lead. "Then," she said, "why don't you get somebody else to do it for +you?" +</P> + +<P> +This was, as the man recognised, almost painfully direct, but there was +no doubt that Sally looked very pretty with the faint flush of colour +in her cheeks and the tantalising light in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"As a matter of fact, that's a thing I've been thinking over rather +often the last few months," he said, and laughed. "It's rather a pity +you don't seem to like cooking, Sally." +</P> + +<P> +Sally appeared to consider this. "Oh," she said, "it depends a good +deal on who it's for." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey became suddenly serious for a moment or two. There was no +doubt that he would at one time have considered it impossible that he +should marry a girl of Sally's description, and even now he had +misgivings. He had, however, almost made up his mind, and he was not +exactly pleased that the proprietor's wife came in with the meal just +then, and stayed to talk awhile. +</P> + +<P> +When she went out he watched Sally with close and what he fancied was +unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was sensible of the +indelicacy of this, he was once more relieved to find that she did +nothing that was actually repugnant to him. After all, there was a +certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation of the +good things set before her only amused him. She was certainly much +more amusing than Agatha had been since she came out to Canada, and her +cheerful laughter had a pleasant ring. When at length the meal was +over she bade him draw her chair up to the stove. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she said, and pointed to another chair across the room, "you can +sit yonder and smoke. I know you want to." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey remembered that Agatha did not like tobacco smoke, and had +always been inclined to exact a certain conventional deference which he +had grown to regard as rather out of place upon the prairie. +</P> + +<P> +"That's a very long way off," he objected. +</P> + +<P> +Sally showed no sign of conceding the point as he had expected, and he +took out his pipe. He wanted to think, for once more instincts deep +down in him stirred in faint protest against what he almost meant to +do. There were also several points that required practical +consideration, and among them were his financial difficulties, though +these did not trouble him so much as they had done a few months +earlier. For a minute or two neither of them said anything, and then +Sally spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"You're worrying about something, Gregory?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I am. My place is a poor one, +and when Wyllard comes home I shall have to go back to it again. +Things would be so much easier for me just now if I had the Range." +</P> + +<P> +The girl looked at him steadily with reproach in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "your place is quite big enough if you'd only take hold +and run it as it ought to be run. You could surely do it, Gregory, if +you tried." +</P> + +<P> +The man's resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence +was at variance with his desires. Sally's words were in this case +wholly guileless, as he recognised, and they stirred him. He said +nothing, however, and she spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it worth while, though there are things you would have to give +up?" she said. "You couldn't go away and waste your dollars in +Winnipeg every now and then." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey laughed. "No," he admitted; "I suppose if I meant to make +anything of the place that couldn't be done. Still, you see, it's +horribly lonely sitting by oneself beside the stove in the long winter +nights. I wouldn't want to go to Winnipeg if I had only somebody to +keep me company." +</P> + +<P> +He turned towards her suddenly with decision in his face, and Sally +lowered her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think you could get anybody if you tried?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"The trouble," said Hawtrey gravely, "is that I have so little to offer +them. It's a poor place, and I'm almost afraid, Sally, that I'm rather +a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don't stay +with things. Still, it might be different if there was any particular +reason why I should." +</P> + +<P> +He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. "Sally," +he added, "would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make +of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would +probably be very hard work, my dear." +</P> + +<P> +The blood surged into the girl's face, and she looked up at him with +open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened, +was not afraid of anything. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she said; "you really want me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Hawtrey quietly; "I think I have wanted you for ever so +long, though I did not know it until lately." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," she said, "I'll do what I can, Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference he had not +expected to feel, for there was something in the girl's simplicity and +the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed +astonishing, laid a restraint on him. Then, as he sat down on the arm +of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished +still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from +him. For one thing, he realised that she meant him to take and keep a +foremost place among his neighbours, and, though Sally had not the gift +of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was +less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude +forcefulness, trying to rouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to +incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he +remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of +confusion crept upon him. +</P> + +<P> +She seemed to recognise it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey smiled in a rather curious fashion. Hitherto she had made her +appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no +doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he +had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was +becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession +of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the +thing seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," he said, "I can't quite tell you—but you have made me +rather badly ashamed. In some respects, I'm afraid it's a very rash +thing you are going to do." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him with candid perplexity, and then appeared to dismiss +the subject with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"There is so much I want to say, and it mayn't be so easy—afterwards," +she said. "It's a pity the train starts so soon." +</P> + +<P> +"We can get over that difficulty, anyway," said Hawtrey. "I'll come on +as far as I can with you, and get back from one of the way stations by +the Pacific express." +</P> + +<P> +Sally made no objections, and drawing a little closer to him she talked +on in a low voice earnestly. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A PAINFUL REVELATION. +</H3> + +<P> +A sprinkle of snow was driving down the unpaved street before the +bitter wind, when Mrs. Hastings came out of a store in the settlement +and handed Sproatly, who was waiting close by, several big packages. +</P> + +<P> +"You can put them into the waggon, and tell Jake we'll want the team as +soon as supper's over," she said. "We're going to stay with Mrs. +Ormond to-night, and I don't want to get there too late." +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly took the parcels, and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha, who +stood a pace or two behind her with Winifred. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she said, "if there's nothing else you want to buy we'll go +across to the hotel." +</P> + +<P> +They reached it a few minutes later, and were standing in a big and +rather comfortless room when Sproatly rejoined them. +</P> + +<P> +"This place is quite shivery," said Mrs. Hastings. "They generally +have the stove lighted in the little room along the corridor. Go and +see, Jim." +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly went out, and, as it happened, he was wearing gum-boots, which +make very little noise. He proceeded along a dark corridor, and then +stopped abruptly when he had almost reached a partly-open door, for he +could see into a lighted room. Hawtrey was sitting near the stove +inside it on the arm of Sally's chair. +</P> + +<P> +Then, though he was not greatly astonished, Sproatly drew back a pace +or two into the shadow, for it became evident that there were only two +courses open to him. He could judiciously announce his presence by +making the door rattle, and then go in and mention as casually as +possible that Mrs. Hastings and Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that +he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn +Hawtrey without embarrassing Sally. Sproatly pursed his face up in +honest perplexity as it became evident that the situation was a +delicate one, and then decided on the alternative. He would go back +quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you would be just as comfortable where you are," he informed +her when he joined the others. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm rather doubtful," said Mrs. Hastings. "Wasn't the stove lighted?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Sproatly, "I fancy it was." +</P> + +<P> +"But I sent you to make sure." +</P> + +<P> +"The fact is I didn't go in," said Sproatly, uneasily. "There's +somebody in the room already." +</P> + +<P> +"Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes," said Sproatly. "Still, you see, it's only a small room, and +one of them has been smoking." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner +he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections +in the meanwhile she had by no means abandoned the subject. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said, "what shall we do until supper? This stove won't +draw properly, and I don't feel inclined to sit shivering here." +</P> + +<P> +Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate +inspiration. +</P> + +<P> +"It's really not snowing much, and we'll go down to the depôt and watch +the Atlantic express come in," he suggested. "It's one of the things +everybody does." +</P> + +<P> +This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are not many amusements +open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad +track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of +unflagging interest to most of them. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the +suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy +when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "I've only brought one of my mittens." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go back for the other," said Sproatly promptly. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't know where I left it." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on," the man +persisted. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings +was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out +into the street. Agatha in the meanwhile ran back to the room they had +left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway +when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognised them, +and turned in sudden astonishment, standing, as it happened, in the +shadow, though not far away a stream of light from the door of the room +shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached +the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into +Agatha's face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly's +manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her going back for +the mitten. Then Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt +whatever that he called her "My dear." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha stood still a moment filled with burning indignation, and they +were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the +stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could +not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had, however, +at least recovered her outward composure, and they went on together +towards the track. As yet she was only sensible of anger at the man's +treachery. It possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of +anything else. +</P> + +<P> +Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and +Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the +little shed they hung about, and walked briskly up and down beside the +track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. +It grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke +behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a +bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their +faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station. +</P> + +<P> +It stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the +groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object +that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, +however, no sign of any passengers for the train until at the last +moment two figures appeared hurrying along beneath the cars. They drew +nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognised them, for the +light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey's face as he half lifted +Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the +bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with +its lights flashing upon the snow. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. +The thing, she felt, only admitted of one explanation, and she did not +wish her companions to see her face for the next minute or two. +Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was +sensible of an almost intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with +Gregory, at least, as far as it was possible to her, and he had utterly +humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling +distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she said, "I understand. You, of course, anticipated this." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't," said Sproatly with a decision which carried conviction with +it. "I certainly saw them at the hotel, but how could I imagine that +they had anything of the kind in view?" +</P> + +<P> +He broke off for a moment, and waved his hand. "After all," he added, +"what right have you to think it now?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings laughed somewhat harshly. "Unfortunately, I have my +eyes, but I'll admit that there's a certain obligation on me to make +quite certain before going any further. That's why I want you to +ascertain where he checked his baggage to." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid that's more than I'm willing to undertake. Do you consider +it advisable to set the station agent wondering about the thing? +Besides, once or twice in my career appearances have been rather badly +against me, and I'm not altogether convinced yet." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings let the matter drop, and they went back rather silently +to the hotel, while as soon as supper was over she bade Sproatly get +their waggon out and drove away with Agatha. She said very little to +the girl during the long, cold journey, and they had no opportunity of +private conversation when they reached the homestead where they were to +spend the night, which was, as it happened, a relief to Agatha. She +hated herself for the thought in her mind, but everything seemed to +warrant it, and it would not be driven out. She had heard what Gregory +had called Sally at the hotel, and the fact that he must have bought +his ticket and checked his baggage earlier in the afternoon when there +was nobody about, and then had run down with Sally at the last moment, +evidently in order to escape observation, was very significant. +</P> + +<P> +She drove home next day, and on the following morning a man who was +driving in to Lander's brought Mrs. Hastings a note from Sproatly. It +was very brief, and ran: +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory arrived same night by Pacific train. It is evident he must +have got off at the next station down the line." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings showed it to her husband. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid we have been too hasty. What am I to do with this?" she +said. +</P> + +<P> +Hastings smiled. "Since you ask my advice, I'd put it into the stove." +</P> + +<P> +"But it clears the man. Isn't it my duty to show it to Agatha?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Hastings reflectively, "I'm not sure that it is your duty +to put ideas into her mind when you can't be quite certain that she has +entertained them." +</P> + +<P> +"I should be greatly astonished if she hadn't," said the lady drily. +</P> + +<P> +Hastings made a little whimsical gesture. "Oh," he said, "you'll no +doubt do what you think wisest. In a general way, when you come to me +for advice you have made your mind up, and only expect me to tell you +that you're right." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings thought over the matter for another hour or two. For one +thing, Agatha's quiet manner puzzled her, and she did not know that the +girl had spent one night in an agony of anger and humiliation, and had +then become sensible of a relief that she was ashamed of. There was, +however, no doubt that while she blamed herself for it, and in some +degree for what had happened, she did feel relief. She was sitting +alone for the time being beside the stove in a shadowy room while the +light died off the snowy prairie outside, when Mrs. Hastings came +softly in and sat down beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," she said, "it's rather difficult to speak of, but that +little scene at the station must have hurt you." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha looked at her quietly and searchingly, but there was only +sympathy in her face, and she leaned forward impulsively. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "it hurt me horribly, because I feel it was my fault. +I was the cause of it." +</P> + +<P> +"How could that be?" +</P> + +<P> +"If I had only been kinder to him he would, perhaps, never have thought +of her. I must have made it clear that he jarred upon me. I drove +him"—and Agatha turned her face away, while her voice grew a trifle +strained—"into that woman's arms. No doubt she was ready to make the +most of the opportunity." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings decided that the girl's scorn and disgust which had +prompted the last outbreak were perfectly natural, but they were, as it +happened, not quite warranted. +</P> + +<P> +"In the first place," she said, "I think you had better read this note." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha took it from her, and there was light enough left to show that +the blood had crept into her face when she laid it down again. For +almost a minute she sat very still. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a great relief to know that I was wrong—in one respect, but you +must not think I hated this girl because Gregory had preferred her to +me," she said at length. "When the first shock had passed, there was +an almost horrible satisfaction in feeling that he had released me—at +any cost. I suppose I shall always be ashamed of that." +</P> + +<P> +She broke off a moment, and her voice was very quiet when she went on +again. +</P> + +<P> +"Still," she added, "what Sproatly says does not alter the case so very +much after all. It can't free me of my responsibility. If I hadn't +driven him, Gregory would not have gone to her." +</P> + +<P> +"You consider that in itself a very dreadful thing?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha looked at her with suddenly lifted head. "Of course," she said. +"Can you doubt it?" +</P> + +<P> +Her companion laughed, though there was a little gleam in her eyes, for +this was an opportunity she had been waiting for. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," she said, "you spoke like an Englishwoman—of station—just out +from the Old Country—but I'm going to try to disabuse you of one +impression. Sally, to put it crudely, is quite good enough for +Gregory. In fact, if she had been my daughter I'd have kept him away +from her. To begin with, once you strip Gregory of his little surface +graces, and his clean English intonation, how does he compare with the +men you meet out here? What does his superiority consist of? Is he +truer or kinder than you have found most of them to be? Has he a finer +courage, or a more resolute endurance—a greater capacity for labour, +or a clearer knowledge of the calling by which he makes his living?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha did not answer. She could not protest that Gregory possessed +any of these qualities, and her companion went on again. +</P> + +<P> +"Has he even a more handsome person? I could point to a dozen men +between here and the railroad, whose clean, self-denying life has set a +stamp on them that Gregory will never wear. To descend to perhaps the +lowest point of all, has he more money? We know he wasted what he +had—probably in indulgence—and there is a mortgage on his farm. Has +he any sense of honour? He let Sally believe he was in love with her +before you even came out here, and of late, while he still claimed you, +he has gone back to her. Can't you get away from your point of view, +and realise what kind of man he is?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha turned her head away. "Ah!" she said, "I realised him—several +months ago. They were rather painful months to me. But you are quite +sure he was in love with Sally before I came out?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Mrs. Hastings, "his conduct suggested it." Then she laid +a caressing hand on the girl's shoulder. "You tried to keep faith with +him. Tried desperately, I think. Did you succeed?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha contrived to meet her companion's eyes. "At least, I would have +married him." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Mrs. Hastings, "I can forgive Gregory even his treachery, +and you have no cause to pity him. Sally's simple—primitive, you +would call her—but she's clever and capable in all practical things, +She will bear with Gregory when you would turn from him in dismay, and +when it's necessary she will not shrink from putting a little judicious +pressure on him in a way you could not have done. It may sound +incomprehensible, but that girl will lead or drive Gregory very much +further than he could have gone with you. She doesn't regard him as +perfection, but she loves him." +</P> + +<P> +She broke off, and there was for several minutes a tense silence in the +little shadowy room. It had grown almost dark, and the square of the +window glimmered faintly with the dim light flung up by the snow. +</P> + +<P> +Then Agatha turned slowly in her chair. "Thank you," she said in a low +voice. "You have taken a heavy weight off my mind." +</P> + +<P> +She paused a moment, and then added, "You have been a good friend all +along. It was supreme good fortune that placed me in your hands." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings patted her shoulder, and then went out quietly, and +Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. It snapped and +crackled cheerfully, but save for that there was a restful quietness, +and the room was cosily warm, though she could hear a little icy wind +wail about the building. It swept her thoughts away to the frozen +North, and she realised what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory +as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the +floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the +ridged and furrowed ice. The man who had gone up into that great +desolation had been endued with an almost fantastic sense of honour, +and now he might never even know that she loved him. She admitted that +she had loved him several months ago. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THROUGH THE SNOW. +</H3> + +<P> +Next morning, the mail-carrier, who drove up to the homestead +half-frozen and white all over out of a haze of falling snow, brought +Agatha a note from Gregory. It was brief, and she read it with a smile +of half-amused contempt, though she admitted that, considering +everything, he had handled the somewhat embarrassing situation +gracefully. This, however, was only what she had expected of him, and +she recognised that it was equally characteristic of the man that he +had written releasing her from her engagement instead of coming +himself. Gregory, as she realised now, had always taken the easiest +way, and it was evident that he had not even the courage to face her. +She quietly dropped his note—it did not seem worth while to fling +it—into the stove. +</P> + +<P> +She could forgive him for choosing Sally. Though she was very human in +most respects, that scarcely troubled her, but she could not forgive +him for persisting in his claim to her while he was philandering—and +this seemed the most fitting term—with her rival. Had he only been +honest, she would not have let Wyllard go away without some assurance +of her regard which would have cheered him on his perilous journey, and +it was clear to her that he might never come back again. Her face grew +hard when she thought of it, and she had thought of it of late very +frequently. For that, at least, she felt she almost hated Gregory. +</P> + +<P> +A month passed drearily, with Arctic frost outside on the prairie, and +little to do inside the homestead except to cook and gorge the stove, +and endeavour to keep warmth in one. Water froze solid inside the +building, stinging draughts crept in through the double windows, and +there were evenings when Mrs. Hastings and Agatha, shivering close +beside the stove, waited anxiously for the first sign of Hastings and +the hired man, who were bringing back a sled loaded with birch logs +from a neighbouring bluff. It was only a couple of miles away, but men +sent out to cut fuel in the awful cold snaps in that country have now +and then sunk down in the snow with the life frozen out of them. There +were other days when the wooden building seemed to rock beneath the +buffeting of the icy hurricane, and it was a perilous matter to cross +the narrow open space between it and the stables through the haze of +shirling snow. +</P> + +<P> +The weather, however, moderated a little by and bye, and one afternoon +soon after it did so Mrs. Hastings drove off to Lander's with the one +hired man they kept through the winter. Her husband, who insisted upon +her taking him, had set out earlier for the bluff, and as the +Scandinavian maid had recently been married, Agatha was left in the +house with the little girls. +</P> + +<P> +It was bitterly cold, even inside the dwelling, but Agatha was busy +baking, and she failed to notice that the frost had once more become +almost Arctic, until she stood beside a window as evening was closing +in. A low, dingy sky hung over the narrowing sweep of prairie which +stretched back, gleaming lividly, into the creeping dusk, but a few +minutes later a haze of snow whirled across it and cut the dreary scene +in half. Then the light died out suddenly, and she and the little +girls drew their chairs close up to the stove. The house was very +quiet, but she could hear the mournful wailing of the wind about it, +and now and then the soft swish of driven snow upon the walls and +roofing shingles. +</P> + +<P> +The table was laid for supper, and a kettle was singing cheerfully upon +the stove, but there was no sign of the others, and by and bye Agatha +commenced to feel a little anxious. Mrs. Hastings, she fancied, would +stay the night at Lander's if there was any unfavourable change in the +weather, which seemed to be the case, but she wondered what could be +detaining Hastings. It was not very far to the bluff, and as he could +not have continued chopping in the darkness it seemed to her that he +should have reached the homestead already. +</P> + +<P> +He did not come, however, and she grew more uneasy as the time slipped +by, while the wail of the wind grew louder and the stove crackled more +noisily, until at last one of the little girls rose with a cry, and she +fancied she heard a dull beat of hoofs. It grew plainer until she was +sure of it, but soon after that the sound ceased abruptly, and she +could not hear the rattle of flung down logs which she had expected. +This struck her as curious, since she knew that Hastings generally +unloaded the sled before he led the team to the stable. She waited a +moment or two, but except for the doleful wind nothing broke the +silence now, and when it became oppressive she moved towards the door. +</P> + +<P> +The wind tore it from her grasp when she opened it, and flung it +against the wall with a jarring crash, while a fine powder that stung +the skin unbearably drove into her face. For a few moments she could +see nothing but a filmy, whirling haze, and then, as her eyes became +accustomed to the change of light, she dimly made out the blurred white +figures of the horses standing still, with the load of birch logs +rising a shapeless mass behind them. There seemed to be nobody with +them, and though she twice called sharply no answer came out of the +sliding snow. Then she recognised the significant fact that the team +had come home alone. +</P> + +<P> +It was difficult to close the door, and before she accomplished it her +hands had stiffened and grown almost useless, and the hall was strewn +with snow, but it was very evident that there was something for her to +do. It cost her three or four minutes to slip on a blanket skirt, and +soft hide moccasins, with gum boots over them, and then, muffled +shapeless in her furs, she reassured the little girls, and opened the +door again. When she had contrived to close it, the cold struck +through her to the bone as she floundered towards the team. There was +nobody she could look to for assistance, but that could not be helped, +and it was evident to her that some misfortune had befallen Hastings. +</P> + +<P> +The first thing necessary was to unload the sled, and, though the +birches seldom grow to any size in a prairie bluff, some of the logs +were heavy. She was gasping with the effort when she had flung a few +of them down, after which she discovered that the rest were held up by +one or two stout poles let into sockets. Try as she would, she could +not get them out, and then she remembered that Hastings kept a whipsaw +in a shed close by. She contrived to find it, and attacked the poles +in breathless haste, working clumsily with mittened hands, until there +was a crash and rattle as she sprang clear. Then she started the team, +and the rest of the logs rolled off into the snow. +</P> + +<P> +That was one difficulty overcome, but the next appeared more serious. +She must find the bluff as soon as possible, and in the snow-filled +darkness she could not tell where it lay. Even if she could have seen +anything of the kind, there was no landmark on the desolate level waste +between it and the homestead. She, however, remembered that she had +one guide. Hastings and his hired man had of late hauled a good many +loads of birch logs in, and as this had made a worn-out trail it seemed +to her just possible that she might trace it back to the bluff. No +great weight of snow had fallen as yet. +</P> + +<P> +Before she set out she had a struggle with the team, for the beasts had +evidently no intention of making another journey if they could help it, +but at length she swung them into the narrow riband of trail, and +plodded away into the darkness at their heads. It was then she first +clearly realised what she had undertaken. Very little of her face was +left bare between her fur-cap and collar, but every inch of uncovered +skin tingled as though it had been lashed with thorns or stabbed with +innumerable needles. The air was thick with a fine powder that filled +her eyes and nostrils, the wind buffeted her, and there was an awful +cold—the cold that taxes the utmost strength of mind and body of those +who are forced to face it on the shelterless prairie. +</P> + +<P> +Still she struggled on, feeling with half-frozen feet for the +depression of the trail, and grappling with a horrible dismay when she +failed to find it for moments together. Indeed, she was never sure to +what extent she guided the team, and how far they headed for the bluff +from mere force of habit, but as the time went by, and there was +nothing before her but the whirling snow, she grew feverishly +apprehensive. The trail was becoming fainter and fainter, and now and +then she could find no trace of it for several minutes. +</P> + +<P> +The horses, however, floundered on, blurred shapes as white as the haze +they crept through, and at length she felt that they were dipping into +a hollow. Then a faint sense of comfort crept into her heart as she +remembered that a shallow ravine which seamed the prairie ran through +the bluff. She called out, and started at the faintness of her voice. +It seemed such a pitifully feeble thing. There was no answer, nothing +but the soft fall of the horses' hoofs and the wail of the wind, but +the latter was reassuring, for the volume of sound suggested that it +was driving through a bluff close by. +</P> + +<P> +A few minutes later she cried out again, and this time she felt the +throbbing of her heart, for a faint sound came out of the whirling +haze. She pulled the horses up, and as she stood still listening, a +blurred object appeared almost in front of them. It shambled forward +in a curious manner, stopped, and moved again, and in another moment or +two Hastings lurched by her with a stagger and sank down into a huddled +white heap on the sled. She turned back towards him, and he seemed to +look up at her. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-258"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-258.jpg" ALT=""It shambled forward in a curious manner."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="315" HEIGHT="485"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 315px"> +"It shambled forward in a curious manner." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"Turn the team," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha did it, and sat down beside him when the horses moved on again. +</P> + +<P> +"A small birch I was chopping fell on me," he said. "I don't know if +it smashed my ankle, or if I twisted it wriggling clear—the thing +pinned me down. It's badly nipped, any way." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke disconnectedly and hoarsely, as if in pain, and Agatha, who +noticed that one of his gum boots was almost ripped to pieces, realised +part of what he must have felt. She knew that nobody held fast +helpless could have withstood that cold for more than a very little +while. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "it must have been dreadful!" +</P> + +<P> +"I found a branch," Hastings added. "It helped me, but I fell over +every now and then. Headed for the homestead. Don't think I could +have made it if you hadn't come for me." He broke off abruptly, and +turned to her. "You mustn't sit down. Walk—keep warm—but don't try +to lead the team." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha struggled forward as far as the near horse's shoulder. The +beasts slightly sheltered her, and it was a little easier walking with +a hand upon a trace. It was a relief to cling to something, for the +wind that flung the snow into her face drove her garments against her +limbs, so that now and then she could scarcely move. Indeed, when her +strength commenced to flag, every yard of that journey was made with +infinite pain and difficulty. At times she could scarcely see the +horses, and again she stumbled along beside them for minutes, blinded, +breathless, and half-dazed. She did not know how Hastings was faring, +but she half-consciously recognised that if once she let the trace go +the sled would slip away from her and she would sink down to freeze. +</P> + +<P> +At length, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a +moment later a man laid hold of her. He told her that Mrs. Hastings +was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned +afterwards that they had reached it a little earlier, and had +immediately set out in search of her and Hastings. In the meanwhile +she floundered on beside the horses with another team dimly visible in +front of her until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. +Then the teams stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of +staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a +chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but by and bye +his wife who went with her to her room kissed her before she went out +again. +</P> + +<P> +Nobody could have faced the snow next morning, and it was some days +later when Watson, who had attended Hawtrey after his accident, was +brought over. He did what he could, but it was several weeks before +Hastings could use his injured foot again. Before he recovered news +was sent him of some difficulty in the affairs of a small creamery at a +settlement further along the line, in which he and his wife held an +interest, and Mrs. Hastings went East to make inquiries respecting it. +She took Agatha with her, and one evening after she had finished the +business she had in hand they left a little way station by the Pacific +train. +</P> + +<P> +The car they entered was empty except for two people who sat close +together near the middle of it. A big lamp overhead shed down a +brilliant light, and Agatha started when one of the two looked round as +she approached them. In another moment she stood face to face with +Hawtrey, who had risen, while Sally gazed up at her with a rather +curious expression in her eyes. Agatha, however, was perfectly +composed now, and felt no sympathy with Hawtrey, who was visibly +confused. She was not astonished that he found the situation a +somewhat difficult one. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been to Winnipeg?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Hawtrey, with evident relief that she had chosen a safe +topic, "only to Brandon. Sally has some friends there, and she spends +a day or two with them once or twice each winter. Brandon's quite a +lively place after the prairie. I went in last night to bring her +back." He turned to his companion. "I think you have met Miss Ismay?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was conscious that Sally's eyes were fixed upon her, and that +Mrs. Hastings was watching them all with quiet amusement, but she was a +little astonished when the girl suggestively moved some wraps from the +seat opposite her. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "I have. If Miss Ismay doesn't mind, I should like to +talk to her." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey's relief was evident, and Agatha glanced at him with a smile +that was half-contemptuous. He had carefully kept out of her way since +he had written her the note, and now it seemed only natural that if +there was anything to be said he should leave it to Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I'll go along for a smoke," he said, and retired precipitately. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings looked after him, and laughed in a manner at which Sally +seemed to wince. +</P> + +<P> +"He doesn't seem anxious to talk to me," she said. "You can come along +to the next car by and bye, Agatha." +</P> + +<P> +Then she moved away, and Agatha who sat down opposite Sally looked at +her quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Sally made a little deprecatory gesture, "I've something to say, but +it's hard. To begin with, are you very angry with me?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Agatha. "I think I really am a little angry with Gregory, +but not altogether because he chose you." +</P> + +<P> +Sally seemed to consider this for a moment or two before she looked up +again. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said, "not long ago, I wanted to hate you, and I guess I +most succeeded. It made things easier. Still, I want to say that I +don't hate you now." She hesitated a moment. "I'd like you to forgive +me." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha smiled. "In most respects I can do that willingly." +</P> + +<P> +Sally seemed disconcerted by her quiet ease of manner and perfect +candour. It was evidently not quite what she had looked for. +</P> + +<P> +"Then you were never very fond of him?" she suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Agatha reflectively, "since you have compelled me to say it, +I don't think now that I ever was really fond of him, though I don't +know how I can make that quite clear to you. It was only when I came +out here I—realised—Gregory. It was not the actual man I fell in +love with in England." +</P> + +<P> +Sally turned her face away, for Agatha had, as it happened, made her +meaning perfectly plain. Somewhat to the latter's astonishment, she +showed no sign of resentment when she looked round again. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," she said, "it is way better that you didn't marry him." She +paused, and seemed to search for words to express herself with. "I +knew all along all there was to know about Gregory—except that he was +going to marry you, and it was some time before I heard that—and I was +ready to take him. I was fond of him." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha's heart went out to her. "Yes," she said simply, "it is a very +good thing that I let him go." Then she smiled. "That, however, +doesn't quite describe it, Sally." +</P> + +<P> +Her companion flushed. "I couldn't have said that, but you don't quite +understand yet. I said I knew all there was to know about him—and you +never did. You made too much of him in England, and when you came out +here you only saw the things you didn't like in him. Still, they +weren't the only ones." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha started at this, for she realised that part of it was certainly +true, and she could admit the possibility of the rest being equally +correct. After all, Gregory might possess a few good qualities that +she had never discovered. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I did," she admitted. "I don't think it matters now." +</P> + +<P> +"They're all of them mixed," persisted Sally. "One can't expect too +much, but you can bear with a good deal when you're fond of any one." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sat silent awhile, for she was troubled by a certain sense of +probably wholesome confusion. It seemed to her that Sally had the +clearer vision. Love had given her discernment as well as charity, +and, not expecting perfection, it was the man's strong points she fixed +her eyes upon. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said at length, "I am glad you look at it that way, Sally." +</P> + +<P> +The girl laughed. "Oh!" she said, "I've only seen one man on the +prairie who was quite white all through, and I had a kind of notion +that he was fond of you." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sat very still, but it cost her an effort. +</P> + +<P> +"You mean?" she said at length. +</P> + +<P> +"Harry Wyllard." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha made no answer, and Sally changed the subject, "Well," she said, +"after all, I want you to be friends with me." +</P> + +<P> +"I think you can count on that," said Agatha with a smile, and in +another minute or two she rose to rejoin Mrs. Hastings. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIV. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LANDING. +</H3> + +<P> +The ice among the inlets on the American side of the North Pacific +broke up unusually early when spring came round again, and several +weeks before Wyllard had expected it the <I>Selache</I> floated clear. Her +crew had suffered little during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept +them busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted her +with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of them had been +trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small +vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used axe and +saw to some purpose in their time. In any case, Wyllard was satisfied +when they thrashed the <I>Selache</I> out of the inlet under whole mainsail +in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel +in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights +dropped back astern. +</P> + +<P> +He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether +Agatha had married Gregory yet. It seemed to him that this was, at +least, possible, for she was one to keep a promise, and it was +difficult to believe that Gregory would fail to press his claim. His +face grew grim as he thought of it, though this was a thing he had done +more or less constantly during the winter. He fancied that he might +have ousted Gregory if he had remained at the Range, for Agatha had, +perhaps unconsciously, shown him that she was, at least, not quite +indifferent to him, but that would have been to involve her in a breach +of faith which she would probably have always looked back on with +regret, and in any case he could not have stayed. He knew he would +never forget her, but it was, he admitted, not impossible that she +might forget him. He also realised, though this was not by comparison +a matter of great consequence, that the Range was scarcely likely to +prosper under Gregory's management, but that could not be helped, and +after all he owed Gregory something. It never occurred to him that he +was doing an extravagant thing in setting out upon the search he had +undertaken. He only felt that the obligation was laid upon him, and, +being what he was, he could not shrink from it. +</P> + +<P> +A puff of spray that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and +when by and bye a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, +he rose and helped the others to haul a reef in the mainsail down. +That accomplished, he went below and lugged out a well-worn chart, +while the <I>Selache</I> drove away to the westwards over a white-flecked +sea. This time she carried fresh southerly breezes with her most of +the way across the Pacific, and plunged along hove down under the last +rag they dare set upon her with the big combers surging up abeam, until +at length they ran into the clammy fog close in with the Kamtchatkan +beaches. Then the wind dropped, and they were baffled by light and +fitful airs, while it became evident that there was ice about. +</P> + +<P> +The day they saw the first big mass of it gleaming broad across their +course on a raw green sea, Dampier got an observation, and they held a +brief council in the little cabin that evening. The schooner was hove +to then, and lay rolling with banging blocks and thrashing canvas on a +sluggish heave of sea. +</P> + +<P> +"Thirty miles off shore," said Dampier. "If it had been clear enough +we'd have seen the top of the big range quite a way further out to sea. +Now, it's drift ice ahead of us, but it's quite likely there's a solid +block along the beach. Winter holds on a long while in this country. +I guess you're for pushing on as fast as you can?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard nodded. "Of course," he said, "you'll look for an opening, and +work her in as far as possible. Then, if it's necessary, Charly and I +and another man will take the sled and head for the beach across the +ice. If there's a lane anywhere I would, however, probably take the +smallest boat. We might haul her a league or two, anyway, on the sled +if the ice wasn't very rough." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at Charly, who made a little sign. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said simply, "I guess I'll have to see you through. Now +we've made a sled for her I'd take the boat, anyway. We're quite +likely to strike a big streak of water when the ice is breaking up." +</P> + +<P> +"There's one other course," said Dampier; "the sensible one, and that's +to wait until it has gone altogether. Seems to me I ought to mention +it, though it's not likely to appeal to you." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard laughed. "From all appearances we might wait a month. I don't +want to stay up here any longer than is strictly necessary." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll head north?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's my intention." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Dampier, pointing to the chart before them, "as you should +make the beach in the next day or two I'll head for the inlet here. As +it's not very far you won't have to pack so many provisions along, and +I'll give you, say, three weeks to turn up in. If you don't, I'll +figure that there's something wrong, and do what seems advisable." +</P> + +<P> +They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of +the creeping haze, they sailed her slowly shorewards among the drifting +ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretched +gleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard retired soon afterwards, and +slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter, +and when at length morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on +deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a +tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible +that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, +and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile the schooner lay to with backed forestaysail, tumbling +wildly on a dim, grey sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a +dingy haze, and there was a low, grey sky to weather. Now and then a +fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. +As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode up to him. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you'd better put it off," he said. "I don't like the weather; +we'll have wind before long." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard only smiled, and Dampier made a little gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," he said, "I'd get on to the ice just as soon as you can. +You're still quite a way off the beach." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard shook hands with him. "We should make the inlet in about nine +days, and if I don't turn up in three weeks you'll know there's +something wrong. If there's no sign of me in another week you can take +her home again." +</P> + +<P> +Then Dampier, who said nothing further, bade them swing the boat over, +and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one +Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were +about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing +they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had +supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner. +</P> + +<P> +They gazed at her with somewhat grim faces as they pulled away, and +Wyllard, who loosed his oar a moment to wave his fur cap when Dampier +stood upon her rail, was glad when a fresher rush of the bitter breeze +forced him to fix his attention on his task. The boat was heavily +loaded, and the tops of the grey seas splashed unpleasantly close about +her gunwale. She was running before them, rising sharply, and dropping +down out of sight of all but the schooner's canvas into the hollows, +and though this made rowing easier he was apprehensive of difficulties +when he reached the ice. +</P> + +<P> +His misgivings proved warranted as they closed with it, for it +presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea +spouted and fell in frothy wisps. There was no doubt as to what would +happen if the frail craft was hurled upon that frozen mass, and +Wyllard, who was sculling, fancied that before she could even reach it +there was a probability of her being swamped in the upheaval where the +backwash met the oncoming sea. Charly looked at him dubiously. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a sure thing we can't get out there," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard nodded. "Then," he said, "we'll pull along the edge of it +until we find an opening or something to make a lee. The sea's higher +than it seemed to be from the schooner." +</P> + +<P> +"We've got to do it soon," said Charly. "There's more wind not far +away." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard dipped his oar again, and they pulled along the edge of the ice +for an hour cautiously, for there were now little frothing white tops +on the seas. +</P> + +<P> +It was evident that the wind was freshening, and at times a deluge of +icy water slopped in over the gunwale. The men were further hampered +by their furs, and the stores among their feet, and the perspiration +dripped from Wyllard when they approached a ragged, jutting point. It +did not seem advisable to attempt a landing on that side of it, and +when a little snow commenced to fall he looked at his companions. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess we've got to pull her out," said Charly. "Dampier's heaving a +reef down; he sees what's working up to windward." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard could just make out the schooner, which had apparently followed +them, a blurr of dusky canvas against a bank of haze, and then, as the +boat slid down into a hollow, there was nothing but the low-hung, +lowering sky. It was evident to him that if they were to make a +landing it must be done promptly. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll pull round the point first, anyway," he said. +</P> + +<P> +A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them as +they did it, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward +now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and +handle her circumspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray all +over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice she +nearly rolled over with them, while the icy water grew steadily deeper +inside her. Then it became apparent by degrees that, as they could not +have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for +their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an +opening of some kind round the point. Its ragged tongue was horribly +close to lee of them lapped in a foaming wash when the snow cleared for +a minute or two, and they saw that Dampier had driven the <I>Selache</I> +further off the ice. She was hove to now, and there was a black figure +high up in her shrouds. +</P> + +<P> +Just then, however, a bitter rush of wind hurled the spray about them, +and the boat fell off almost beam on to the sea, in spite of all that +they could do. The icy brine washed into her, and it seemed almost +certain that she would swamp or roll over before they could get way on +her. Still, pulling desperately, they drove her round the point. +Then, as gasping and dripping they made their last effort, a sea rolled +up ahead, and Wyllard had a momentary glimpse of an opening not far +away as she swung up with it. He shouted to his companions, but could +not tell whether they heard and understood him, for after that he was +only conscious of sculling savagely until another sea broke into her +and she struck. There was a crash, and she swung clear with the +backwash, with all one side smashed in. Then she swung in again just +beyond a tongue of ice over which the froth was pouring tumultuously, +and the Indian jumped from the bow. He had the painter with him, and +for half a minute he held her somehow, standing in the foam, while they +hurled a few of the carefully made-up packages in her as far on to the +ice as possible. Then, as Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, +she rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another +moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, +who drove towards them amidst a long wash of foam. +</P> + +<P> +They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a +sudden haze of snow whirled about them. There was no sign of the +schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards +away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their +stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across +the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her, +which it scarcely seemed worth while to attempt. The sea rumbled along +the edge of the ice, and they could not tell if the latter extended as +far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"We have got the hand-sled, and some, at least, of the things," he +said. "The sooner we start for the beach the sooner we'll get there." +</P> + +<P> +It was a relief to load the sled, and when that was done they set off +in the hide traces across the ice with the snow whirling about them. +It was arduous work apart from the hauling of the load, for the ice was +rough and broken, and covered for the most part with softening snow. +They had only gum-boots with soft hide moccasins under them, for +snow-shoes are only used in Eastern Canada, and it takes one a long +while to learn to walk on them. Sometimes they sank almost knee-deep, +sometimes they slipped and scrambled on uncovered ledges, but they +pushed on with the sled bouncing and sliding unevenly behind them until +the afternoon had almost gone. +</P> + +<P> +Then they set up the saturated tent behind a hummock, and crouched +inside it upon a ground sheet while Charly boiled a kettle on the +little oil blast stove, and the wind that screamed about it hurled the +snow upon the straining canvas. It, however, stood the buffeting, and +when they had eaten a very simple meal Charly put the stove out and the +darkness was only broken down when one of them struck a match to light +his pipe. They had only a strip of rubber sheeting between them and +the snow, for the water had got into the sleeping bags, and their +clothes dried upon them with the heat of their bodies. They said +nothing for awhile, and Wyllard was half-asleep when Charly spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been thinking about that boat," he said. "Though I don't know +that we could have done it, we ought to have tried to pull her out." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" asked Wyllard. "She'd have been all to pieces, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm figuring it out like this. If Dampier wasn't up in the shrouds +when we made the landing he'd sent somebody. We could see him up +against the sky, but we'd be much less clear to him low down with the +ice and the surf about us. Besides, it was snowing quite fast then. +Well, I don't know what Dampier saw, but I guess he'd have made out +that we hadn't hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with +the wind freshening and it getting thick he'd have to thrash the +schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it's +quite likely that he'll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me +that's going to worry him considerable." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, drowsy as he was getting, agreed with this view of the matter. +He realised that it would have been quite impossible for Dampier to +have sent them any assistance, and it was merely a question whether +they should retrace their steps to the edge of the ice next morning and +make him some signal. Against this there was the strong probability +that he would not run in if the gale and snow continued, and the fact +that it was desirable to make the beach as soon as possible in case the +ice broke up before they reached it. What was rather more to the +purpose, he was quietly determined on pushing on. +</P> + +<P> +"It can't be helped," he said simply. "We'll start for the beach as +soon as it's daylight." +</P> + +<P> +Charly made no answer, and the brawny, dark-skinned Siwash, who spoke +English reasonably well, only grunted. Unless it seemed necessary, he +seldom said anything at all. Bred to the sea, and living on the seal +and salmon, as he had done, an additional hazard or two or an extra +strain on his tough body did not count for much with him. He had been +accustomed to sleep wet through with icy water, and crouch for hours +with numbed hands clenched on the steering-paddle while the long sea +canoe scudded furiously over the big combers before bitter gale or +driving snow. Wyllard, who rolled over, pulled a wet sleeping-bag +across him, and after that there was silence in the little rocking tent. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, Charly's deductions had been proved correct, for when +the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed +the ominous blackness to windward, and knew what it meant, which was +why he had hauled a reef in the schooner's mainsail down, and now kept +her out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very +difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that +recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he +decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her round +the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, +though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm +to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in; +there was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the +<I>Selache</I> sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to +Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. Then a blinding haze +of snow shut out everything, and he came down with a run. +</P> + +<P> +He stood for several minutes gazing forward grim in face beside the +wheel, but he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops +of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was +driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident to him that to +send Wyllard any assistance was utterly beyond his power. He could +have hove the schooner to while he got the bigger boat over, and two +men might have pulled her towards the ice with the breeze astern of +them, but it was perfectly clear that they could neither have made a +landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also, though this +appeared of less consequence, uncertain whether he and the other man +could have brought the schooner round or have got more sail off her, +which would, as he recognised, very soon have to be done. Still, he +stood on while the snow grew thicker until they heard the wash of the +sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched +hand he raised in sign to the helmsman. +</P> + +<P> +"On the wind. Haul lee sheets!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +She came round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away +with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray +whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a curious tense look +in the white men's faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze +to lee of her. +</P> + +<P> +They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient +water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off +her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on +her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather +clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed +its shape. Then they got a boat over, and the two men who went off in +her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly's cap +washing up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what +that meant. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXV. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NEWS OF DISASTER. +</H3> + +<P> +When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the +men, and contrived to make a landing on the ice with difficulty only to +find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though he +floundered shorewards a mile or two there was nothing except the +shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions, +but the skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, had little +doubt in his mind. After that he waited two days, until a strong +breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and then +stood out for open water, where he hove the <I>Selache</I> to for a week or +so. Then he proceeded northwards to the inlet fixed upon. +</P> + +<P> +He was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost +clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two +scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still +partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock +rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days' march +from the schooner, he made a depôt of provisions, and raised a beacon +of piled-up stones beside them. At times when it was clear he could +see the top of a great range high up against the Western sky, but those +times were rare. For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain +or wrapped in clammy fog. +</P> + +<P> +There was, however, no sign of Wyllard, and at length Dampier, coming +back jaded and dejected from another fruitless search, after the time +agreed upon had expired, shut himself up alone for a couple of hours in +the little cabin. He was certain now that Wyllard and his companions +had been drowned while attempting to make a landing on the ice, since +they would have joined him at the inlet as arranged had this not been +the case. The distance was by no means great, and there were no +Russian settlements on that part of the coast. He sat very still, with +a clenched hand upon the little table, and a set face, balancing +conjecture against conjecture, and then regretfully decided that there +was only one course open to him. It was dark when he went up on deck +again, but the men were sitting smoking about the windlass forward. +</P> + +<P> +"You can heave some of that cable in, boys," he said. "We'll clear out +for Vancouver at sun-up." +</P> + +<P> +They said nothing, but they shipped the levers, and Dampier went back +to the cabin, for the clank of the windlass and the ringing of the +cable jarred upon him. +</P> + +<P> +Early next morning the <I>Selache</I> stood out to sea, and once they had +left the fog and rain which hung about the coast behind, she carried +fine weather with her across the Pacific. On reaching Vancouver, +Dampier had some trouble with the authorities, to whom it was necessary +to report the drowning of three of his crew, but he was more fortunate +than he expected, and after placing the schooner in the hands of a +broker for sale, he left the city one evening on the Atlantic train. +Three days later, he was driving across the prairie towards the +Hastings homestead, and, as it happened, its inmates were sitting +together in the big general room after supper, when the waggon he had +hired swung into sight over the crest of a rise. +</P> + +<P> +It was a still, hot evening, and as the windows were open wide a faint +beat of hoofs came up across the tall wheat and dusty prairie before +the waggon topped the rise. Hastings, who lay in a cane chair near the +window, with his pipe in his hand, looked up as he heard it. +</P> + +<P> +"Somebody driving in," he said. "I shouldn't be astonished if it's +Gregory. He talked about coming over the last time I saw him." +</P> + +<P> +"If he wants to talk about a deal in wheat, he can stay away," said +Mrs. Hastings with a certain dryness. "If all one hears is true, he +has lost quite a few of Harry's dollars on the market lately." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings looked somewhat troubled at this. "I'd sooner think it was +his own dollars he'd thrown away." +</P> + +<P> +"That's quite out of the question. He hasn't any." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Hastings, with an air of reflection, "I'll get Sproatly to +make inquiries. He'll probably be along with Winifred this evening, +and if he finds that Gregory is getting in rather deep I'll have a word +or two with him. Anyway, I can't have him wasting Harry's money, and I +have some right to protest as one of the executors." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha started at the last word. It had an ominous ring, and she +fancied that Hastings had noticed the effect it had on her, for he +seemed to glance at her curiously. Turning from him, she rose and +walked quietly towards the window. +</P> + +<P> +The wheat stretched across the foreground, tall and darkly green, and +beyond it the white grass ran back to the rise, which cut sharp against +a red and smoky glow. The sun had dipped some little time ago, and +already there was a wonderful exhilarating coolness in the air. +Somehow the sight reminded her of another evening, when she had looked +out across the prairie from a seat at Wyllard's table, almost a year +ago. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, a waggon was drawing nearer down the long slope of +the rise, and the beat of hoofs which grew steadily louder in a sharp +staccato made the memories clearer. She had heard Dampier riding in +the night Wyllard had received his summons, and now she wondered who +the approaching stranger was, and what his business could be. She did +not know why, but she scarcely thought it was Gregory. +</P> + +<P> +Presently Hastings looked round again. "It's the team Bramfield hires +out at the settlement," he said. "None of our friends would get him to +drive them in. There seems to be two men in the waggon. Bramfield +will be one. I can't make out the other." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings, who was evidently becoming curious about the unexpected +guest, walked forward in turn, and they stood watching the waggon until +Agatha made a little abrupt movement. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Captain Dampier," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Then she stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained +look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the waggon for another moment +or two. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said, and his voice was harsh, "it's Dampier. The other +man's surely Bramfield. Harry's not with him." +</P> + +<P> +Once more he glanced at Agatha, who turned away, and sat down in the +nearest chair. She said nothing, and there was an oppressive silence, +through which the beat of hoofs and rattle of wheels rang more +distinctly. +</P> + +<P> +In another few minutes Dampier came in, while his companion drove off +to the stables. He shook hands with Agatha and Mrs. Hastings +diffidently. +</P> + +<P> +"You remember me?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," said Mrs. Hastings, with a trace of sharpness. "Where's +Harry?" +</P> + +<P> +The skipper spread a hard hand out, and sat down heavily. +</P> + +<P> +"That," he said, "is what I have to tell you. He asked me to." +</P> + +<P> +"He asked you to?" said Agatha, and though her voice was strained there +was relief in it. +</P> + +<P> +The skipper made a little gesture, which seemed to beseech her patience. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said, "if—anything went wrong—he told me I was to come here +to Mrs. Hastings." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha turned her head away, but Mrs. Hastings saw the laces which hung +beneath her neck sharply rise and fall. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," she said, "something has gone wrong?" +</P> + +<P> +"About as wrong as it could," and Dampier quietly met her gaze. +"Wyllard and two other men are drowned." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off abruptly, and Mrs. Hastings fancied she saw Agatha shiver, +but in another moment or two the girl turned slowly round with a drawn +white face. It was, however, Hastings who spoke, almost sternly. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm to tell you all?" +</P> + +<P> +This time it was Agatha who broke in. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said with a curious quietness that struck the rest as being +strained and unnatural, "you must tell us all." +</P> + +<P> +Dampier, who appeared to shrink from his task, commenced awkwardly, but +he gained coherence and force of expression as he proceeded. At least, +he made them understand something of the grim resolution which had +animated Wyllard. He pictured, in terse seaman's words, the little +schooner plunging to windward over long phalanxes of icy seas, or +crawling white with snow through the blinding fog. His companions saw +the big combers tumbling ready to break short upon the dipping bows out +of the dark, and half-frozen men struggling for dear life with folds of +madly thrashing sail. The pictures were, however, necessarily somewhat +blurred and hazy, for after all only an epic poet could fittingly +describe the things that must be done and borne at sea, and epic +poets—it is, perhaps, a pity—are not bred in the forecastle. When he +reached the last scene he gained almost dramatic power, and Agatha's +face grew strangely white and tense. She saw the dim figures pulling +in the flying spray beneath the wall of ice. +</P> + +<P> +"We ran her in," he added, "with the snow blinding us. It was working +up for a heavy blow, and as we'd have to beat her out we couldn't take +sail off her. We stood on until we heard the sea along the edge of the +ice, and then there was nothing to do but jam her on the wind and +thrash her clear. There was only a plank or two of the boat, an oar, +and Charly's cap, when we came back again!" +</P> + +<P> +"After all, though the boat was smashed, they might have got out," +Hastings suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Dampier simply, "it didn't seem likely. The ice was sharp +and ragged, and there was a long wash of sea. A man's not tough enough +to stand much of that kind of hammering." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha's face grew a little whiter, but Dampier, who had paused, went +on again. +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway," he said, "they didn't turn up at the inlet as we'd fixed, and +that decided the thing. If Wyllard had been alive, he surely would +have done." +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it just possible that he might have fallen into the hands of the +Russians?" asked Hastings. +</P> + +<P> +"I naturally thought of that, but so far as the chart shows there isn't +a settlement within leagues of the spot. Besides, supposing the +Russians had got him, how could I have helped him? They'd have sent +him off in the first place to one of the bigger settlements in the +South, and if the authorities couldn't have connected him with any +illegal sealing they'd no doubt have managed to send him across to +Japan by and bye. In that case, he'd have got home without any +trouble." +</P> + +<P> +He paused, and it was significant that he turned to Agatha with a +little deprecatory gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he added, "there was nothing I could do." +</P> + +<P> +It was evident that Agatha acquitted him, but she asked a question. +</P> + +<P> +"Captain Dampier," she said, "had you any expectation of finding those +three men when you sailed the second time?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said the bronzed sailorman, with an impressive quietness, "I +hadn't any, and I don't think Wyllard had either. Still, he meant to +make quite certain." He spread a hard hand out forcibly. "He felt he +had to." +</P> + +<P> +He gazed at Agatha, and saw comprehension in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "and when you have said that, as you have done, you +could have said very little more of any man." +</P> + +<P> +Then she turned her head away from them, and once more there was for a +few moments a heavy silence in the room. It cost the girl a painful +effort to sit still, apparently unmoved, but there was strength in her, +and she would not betray her distress. She felt that the latter must +be quietly grappled with. It was almost overwhelming, horribly acute, +but there was mingled with it a faint consolatory thrill of pride, for +it was clear that the man who had loved her had done a splendid thing. +He had given all that had been given him—and she knew she would never +forget that phrase of his—willingly, and it seemed to her that the +gifts he had been entrusted with were rare and precious +ones—steadfast, unflinching courage, compassion, and the fine sense of +honour which had sent him out on that forlorn hope. He had gone down, +unyielding and undismayed—she felt curiously sure of that—amidst the +blinding snow, but this was his vindication which had crowned him with +immortal laurels. +</P> + +<P> +Then Mrs. Hastings rose, and set food before Dampier, while by and bye +Sproatly and Winifred arrived and were told the story. After that +Dampier, who seemed to be a man of tact, stood up. He had already, +when asked by Mrs. Hastings, promised to stay with them a day or two. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "it seems to me you'll naturally want to talk over +things. If you'll excuse me, I'll take a stroll across the prairie." +</P> + +<P> +He went out, and Hastings who lighted his pipe lay back in his chair +and looked at the rest. +</P> + +<P> +"Harry's friends are numerous, but we're, perhaps, the nearest, and, as +Dampier said, we have to consider things," he said. "To begin with, +there's a certain possibility that he has escaped, after all." +</P> + +<P> +He saw the little abrupt movement that Agatha made, and went on rather +more quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Gregory, of course, has control at the Range until we have proof of +Harry's death, though the latter made a proviso that if there was no +word of the party within eighteen months after he had sailed, or within +six months of the time Dampier had landed him, we could assume it, +after which the will he handed me would take effect," he added. "This, +it is evident, leaves Gregory in charge for some months yet, but it +seems to me it's our duty to see he doesn't fling away Harry's +property. I've reasons for believing that he has been doing it lately." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at Sproatly, who sat silent a moment or two. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm rather awkwardly placed," the latter said at length. "You see, +there's no doubt that I'm indebted to Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred turned to him with impatience in her eyes. "Then," she said +severely, "you certainly shouldn't have been, and it ought to be quite +clear that nobody wishes you to do anything that would hurt him." She +looked at Hastings. "In case the will takes effect, who does the +property go to?" +</P> + +<P> +Hastings appeared embarrassed. "That," he objected, "is a thing I'm +not warranted in telling you in the meanwhile." +</P> + +<P> +A suggestive gleam crept into Winifred's eyes, but it vanished and her +manner became authoritative when she turned back to Sproatly. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim," she said, "you will tell Mr. Hastings all you know." +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly made a gesture of resignation. "After all," he admitted, "I +think it's necessary. Gregory, as I've told you already, put up a big +mortgage on his place, and in view of the price of wheat and the state +of his crop, it's evident that he must have had some difficulty in +meeting the interest, unless—and one or two things suggest this—he +paid it with Harry's money. Of course, as Harry gave him a share, +there's no reason why he shouldn't do this so long as he does not +overdraw that share. There's no doubt, however, that he has lost a +good deal of money on the wheat market." +</P> + +<P> +"Has he lost any of Harry's?" Mrs. Hastings asked. +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly hesitated. "I'm afraid it's practically certain." +</P> + +<P> +Then Winifred broke in. "Yes," she said, "he has lost a great deal. +Hamilton knows almost everything that's going on, and I got it out of +him. He's a friend of Wyllard's, and seems very vexed with Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +The others said nothing for a moment or two, and then Mrs. Hastings +spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"In a general way," she said, "most of us don't keep much in the bank, +and that expedition must have cost Harry a good deal. How would +Gregory get hold of the money before harvest?" +</P> + +<P> +"Edmonds, who holds his mortgage, would let him have it," said Sproatly. +</P> + +<P> +"But wouldn't he be afraid of Gregory not being able to pay if the +market went against him?" +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly looked very thoughtful. "The arrangement Wyllard made with +Gregory would, perhaps, give Edmonds a claim upon the Range if Gregory +borrowed any money in his name. I almost think that's what he's +scheming for. The man's cunning enough for anything. I don't like +him." +</P> + +<P> +Then Hastings stood up with an air of resolution. "Yes," he said, "I'm +most afraid you're quite correct. Anyway, I'll drive over in a day or +two and have a talk with Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +After that they separated, for Hastings strolled away to join Dampier, +and Sproatly and Winifred walked out on to the prairie. When they had +left the house the man turned to his companion. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you insist upon me telling them what I did?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said Winifred, "I had several reasons. For one thing, when I +first came out feeling very forlorn and friendless, it was Wyllard who +sent me to the elevator, and they really treat me very decently." +</P> + +<P> +"They?" said Sproatly with resentment in his face. "If you mean +Hamilton, it seems to me that he treats you with an excess of decency +that there's no occasion for." +</P> + +<P> +Winifred laughed. "In any case, he doesn't drive me out here every two +or three weeks, though"—and she glanced at her companion +provocatively—"he once or twice suggested that he would like to." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you pointed out his presumption?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Winifred with an air of reflection, "I didn't go quite so +far as that. After all, the man is my employer; I had to handle him +tactfully." +</P> + +<P> +"He won't be your employer a week after the implement people open their +new depôt," said Sproatly resolutely. "Anyway, we're getting away from +the subject. Have you any more reasons for concerning yourself about +what Gregory does with Wyllard's property?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've one; I suppose you don't know who he has left at least a part of +it to?" +</P> + +<P> +Sproatly started as an idea crept into his mind. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if you're right?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I feel reasonably sure of it," and Winifred smiled. "In fact, that's +partly why I don't want Gregory to throw any more of Wyllard's money +away. In the meanwhile, you have done all I expect from you." +</P> + +<P> +"Then Hastings is to go on with the thing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hastings," Winifred assured him, "will fail—just as you would. This +is a matter which requires to be handled delicately—and effectively." +</P> + +<P> +"Then who is going to undertake it?" +</P> + +<P> +Winifred laughed. "Oh," she said, "a woman, naturally. I'm going back +by and bye to have a word or two with Mrs. Hastings." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE RESCUE. +</H3> + +<P> +Winifred's views were shortly proved correct, for Hastings, who drove +over to the Range a day or two after her visit, came back rather +disturbed in temper after what he described as a very unsatisfactory +interview with Hawtrey. +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't make the man hear reason," he informed his wife. "In fact, +he practically told me that the thing was no concern of mine. I +assured him that it concerned me directly as one of the executors of +Harry's will, and I'm afraid I afterwards indulged in a few +personalities. I expect that blamed mortgage broker has got a very +strong hold on him." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings looked reflective. "You have never told me anything +about the will." +</P> + +<P> +"If I haven't, it wasn't for want of prompting," said Hastings drily. +"Still, the will was sealed, and handed me by Harry on the express +understanding that it was not to be opened until we had proof that he +was dead or the six months mentioned had expired. If he turned up it +would, of course, be handed back to him. He made me promise solemnly +that I would not offer the least hint as to its provisions to anybody." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings made a gesture of resignation. "In that case I suppose I +must be content, but he might have made an exception of—me. Anyway, I +think I see how we can put what appears to be a little necessary +pressure upon Gregory." Then she turned again to her husband rather +abruptly. "After all, is it worth while for me to trouble about the +thing?" +</P> + +<P> +Hastings was taken off his guard. "Yes," he said decidedly, "if you +can put any pressure on Gregory I guess it would be very desirable to +do it as soon as possible." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you think that Harry may turn up, after all?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do," said Hastings gravely; "I don't know why. In any case it's +highly desirable—for several reasons—that Gregory shouldn't fling his +property away." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings smiled. "Well," she said, "I'll think over it. I'll +probably get Agatha to see what she can do in the first place." +</P> + +<P> +She saw a trace of uncertainty in her husband's face, which was, +however, what she had expected. +</P> + +<P> +"As you like," he said. "Something must be done, but on the whole I'd +rather you didn't trouble Agatha about the matter; it would be wiser." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings asked no more questions. She fancied she understood the +situation, and she had Agatha's interests at heart, for she had grown +very fond of the girl. There was certainly one slight difficulty in +the way of what she meant to do, but she determined to disregard it, +though she admitted that it might cause Agatha some embarrassment +afterwards. During the afternoon she found the latter alone, and sat +down beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," she said, "I wonder if I may ask whether you are quite +convinced that Harry's dead?" +</P> + +<P> +She felt that the question was necessary, though it seemed rather a +cruel one, and she saw signs of tension in the girl's expression. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said the latter very quietly; "I can't quite bring myself to +believe it." +</P> + +<P> +"Then, since you heard what Sproatly said, you would be willing to do +anything that appeared possible to prevent Gregory throwing Harry's +dollars away?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Agatha, "I have been thinking about it." A little sparkle +of disdainful anger crept into her eyes. "Gregory seems to have been +acting shamefully." +</P> + +<P> +"Then as he won't listen to Allen, we must get Sally to impress that +fact on him." +</P> + +<P> +"Sally?" said Agatha in evident astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings smiled. "I don't think you understand Sally as well as I +do. Of course, like the rest of us, she falls a long way short of +perfection, and—though it's a difficult subject—there's no doubt that +her conduct in leading Gregory on while he was still engaged to you was +hardly quite correct. After all, however, you owe her something for +that." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't very hard to forgive her for it," said Agatha quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I want you to realise Sally. Right or wrong, she's fond of the +man. Of course, I've told you this already, but I must try to make it +clear how that fact bears upon the business in hand. Sally certainly +fought for him, and there's no doubt that one could find fault with +several things she did; but the point is that she's evidently +determined on making the most of him now she has got him. In some +respects, at least, she's absolutely straight—one hundred cents to the +dollar is what Allen says of her—and although you might perhaps not +have expected this, I believe it would hurt her horribly to feel that +Gregory was squandering money that didn't strictly belong to him." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you mean to make her understand what he is doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Mrs. Hastings; "I want you to do it. I've reasons for +believing that your influence would go further with her than mine. For +one thing, I fancy she is feeling rather ashamed of herself." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha looked thoughtful. She had certainly not credited Sally with +possessing any fine sense of honour, but she was willing to accept her +companion's assurance. +</P> + +<P> +"The situation," she pointed out, "is rather a delicate one. You wish +to expose Gregory's conduct to the girl he is going to marry, though, +as you admit, the explanation will probably be painful to her. Can't +you understand that the course suggested is a particularly difficult +and repugnant one—to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've no doubt of it," said Mrs. Hastings. "Still, I think it must be +adopted—for several reasons. In the first place, I fancy that if we +can pull Gregory up now we will save him from involving himself +irretrievably. After all, perhaps, you owe him the effort. Then I +think that we all owe something to Harry, and we can, at least, +endeavour to carry his wishes out. He laid down what was to be done +with his possessions in a will, and he never could have anticipated +Gregory dissipating them as he is doing." +</P> + +<P> +The last reason, as she had foreseen, proved irresistible to Agatha, +and she made a sign of concurrence. +</P> + +<P> +"If you will drive me over I will do what I can," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Now she had succeeded Mrs. Hastings lost no time, and they set out for +the Creightons' homestead next day, while soon after they reached it +she tactfully contrived that Sally should be left alone with Agatha. +They stood outside the house together when the latter turned to her +companion. +</P> + +<P> +"Sally," she said, "there is something that I must tell you." +</P> + +<P> +Sally glanced at her face, and then walked quietly forward until the +log barn hid them from the house. Then she sat down upon a pile of +straw in its shadow and signed to Agatha that she should take a place +beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she said sharply, "you can go on; it's about Gregory?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha, who found it very difficult to begin, though she had been well +primed by Hastings on the previous evening, sat down amidst the straw, +and looked about her for a moment or two. It was a hot afternoon, +dazzlingly bright, and almost breathlessly still. In front of her the +dark green wheat rolled waist-high, and beyond it the vast sweep of +whitened grass rolled back to the sky-line flooded with light. Far +away a team and a waggon slowly moved across it, but that was the only +sign of life, and no sound from the house reached them to break the +heavy stillness. +</P> + +<P> +Then she nerved herself to the effort, and spoke quietly for several +minutes before she glanced at her companion. It was very evident that +the latter had understood all that she had said, for she sat very still +with a hard, set face. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she said, "if I'd thought you'd come to tell me this because you +were vexed with me, I'd know what to do." +</P> + +<P> +This was what Agatha had dreaded. It certainly looked as if she had +come to triumph over her rival's humiliation, but Sally made it clear +that she acquitted her of that intention. +</P> + +<P> +"Still," she said, "I know that wasn't the reason, and I'm not mad +with—you. It hurts"—and she made a little abrupt movement—"but I +know it's true." Then she turned to Agatha suddenly. "Why did you do +it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-290"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-290.jpg" ALT=""'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="316" HEIGHT="418"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 316px"> +"'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"That was all?" and Sally looked at her with incredulous eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Agatha simply, "that was only part. It did not seem right +that Gregory should go against Wyllard's wishes, and gamble the Range +away on the wheat market." +</P> + +<P> +She admitted it without hesitation, for she realised now exactly what +had animated her to seek this painful interview. She was fighting +Wyllard's battle, and that fact sustained her. +</P> + +<P> +Sally winced. "Yes," she said, "I guess you had to tell me. He was +fond of you. One could be proud of that. Harry Wyllard never did +anything low down and mean." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha did not resent her candour. Although this was a thing she would +scarcely have credited a little while ago, she saw that the girl felt +the contrast between her lover's character and that of the man whose +place he had taken, and regretted it. Then Agatha's eyes grew a trifle +hazy. +</P> + +<P> +"Wyllard, they think, is dead," she said, in a low, strained voice. +"You have Gregory still." +</P> + +<P> +Sally looked at her with unveiled compassion, and Agatha did not shrink +from it. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, with a simplicity that became her, "and Gregory must +have someone to—take care of him. I must do it if I can." +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt that Agatha was stirred. This half-taught girl's +quiet acceptance of the burden that many women must carry once more +made her almost ashamed. +</P> + +<P> +"We will leave it to you," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Then it became evident that there was another side to Sally's +character, for her manner changed, and the suggestive hardness crept +back into her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said, "I'd most been expecting something of this kind when +I heard that man Edmonds was going to the Range. He has got a pull on +Gregory, but he's surely not going to feel quite happy when I get hold +of him." +</P> + +<P> +She rose in another moment, and, saying nothing further, walked back +towards the house, in front of which they came upon Mrs. Hastings. +Sally looked at the latter significantly. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going over to the Range after supper," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings drove away with Agatha, and said very little to her +during the journey, but an hour after they had reached the homestead +she slipped quietly into the girl's room, and found her lying in a big +chair, sobbing bitterly. She sat down close beside her, and laid a +hand upon her shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think Sally could have said anything to trouble you like +this," she said. +</P> + +<P> +It was a moment or two before Agatha turned a wet, white face towards +her, and saw gentle sympathy in her eyes. There was, she felt, no +cause for reticence. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said, "it was the contrast between us. She has Gregory." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hastings made a sign of comprehension. "And you have lost +Harry—but I think you have not lost him altogether. We do not know +that he is dead—but even if it is so, it was all that was finest in +him he offered you. It is yours still." +</P> + +<P> +She broke off, and sat silent a moment or two before she went on again. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, it is, perhaps, cold comfort, and I am not sure that I can +make what I feel quite clear. Still, Harry was only human, and it is +almost inevitable that, had it all turned out differently, he would +have said and done things that would have offended you. Now he has +left you a purged and stainless memory—one I think which must come +very near to the reality. The man who went up there—for an idea, a +fantastic point of honour—sloughed off every taint of the baseness +that hampers most of us in doing it. It was a man changed and uplifted +above all petty things by a high chivalrous purpose, who made that last +grim journey." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha realised the truth of this. Already Wyllard's memory had become +etherealised, and she treasured it as a very fine and precious thing. +Still, though he now wore immortal laurels, that would not content her +when all her human nature cried out for his bodily presence. She +wanted him, as she had grown to love him, in the warm, erring flesh, +and the vague, splendid vision was cold and far remote. There was a +barrier greater than that of crashing ice and bitter water between them. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she said. "I have felt that. I try to feel it always—but just +now it's not enough." +</P> + +<P> +Then she turned her face away with a bitter sob, and Mrs. Hastings who +stooped and kissed her went out quietly. She knew what had come about, +and that the girl had broken down at last, after months of strain. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, it happened that Edmonds, the mortgage broker, drove +over to the Range, and found Hawtrey waiting him in Wyllard's room. It +was early in the evening, and he could see the hired men busy outside +tossing prairie hay from the waggons into the great barn. They were +half-naked and grimed with dust, but Hawtrey, who was dressed in store +clothes, had evidently taken no share in their labours. When Edmonds +came in he turned to him with anxiety in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" he said sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Market's a little stiffer," said Edmonds. +</P> + +<P> +He sat down and stretched out his hand towards the cigar-box on the +table, while Hawtrey waited until he had picked one out with very +evident impatience. +</P> + +<P> +"Still moving up?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds nodded. "It's the other folks' last stand," he said. "With +the wheat ripening as it's doing, the flood that will pour in before +the next two months are out will sweep them off the market. I was half +afraid from your note that this little rally had some weight with you, +and that as one result of it you meant to cover now." +</P> + +<P> +"That," admitted Hawtrey, "was in my mind." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said his companion, "it's a pity." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey leaned upon the table with hesitation in his face and attitude. +He had neither the courage nor the steadfastness to make a gambler, and +every fluctuation of the market swayed him to and fro. He had a good +deal of wheat to deliver by and bye, and, for prices had fallen +steadily until a week or two ago, he could still secure a very +desirable margin if he bought in against his sales now. Unfortunately, +however, he had once or twice lost heavily in an unexpected rally, and +he greatly desired to recoup himself. Then, he had decided, nothing +would tempt him to take part in another deal. +</P> + +<P> +"If I hold on and the market stiffens further I'll be awkwardly fixed," +he said. "Wyllard made a will, and in a few months I'll have to hand +everything over to his executors. There would naturally be +unpleasantness over a serious shortage." +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds smiled. He had handled his man cleverly, and had now a +reasonably secure hold upon him and the Range, but he was far from +satisfied. If Hawtrey made a further loss he would in all probability +become irretrievably involved. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," he pointed out, "there's every reason why you should try to get +straight." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey admitted it. "Of course," he said. "You feel sure I could do +it by holding on?" +</P> + +<P> +His companion seldom answered a question of this kind. It was apt to +lead to unpleasantness afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "Beeman, and Oliphant, and Barstow are operating for a +fall. One would fancy that you were safe in doing what they do. When +men of their weight sell forward figures go down." +</P> + +<P> +This was correct, as far as it went, but Edmonds was quite aware that +the gentlemen alluded to usually played a very deep and obscure game. +He had also reasons for believing that they were doing it now. It was, +however, evident that his companion's hesitation was vanishing. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a big hazard, but I feel greatly tempted to hang on," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds, who disregarded this, sat smoking quietly. Since he was +tolerably certain as to what the result would be, he felt it was now +desirable to let Hawtrey decide for himself, in which case it would be +impossible for the latter to reproach him afterwards. Wheat, it seemed +very probable, would fall still further when the harvest commenced, but +he had reasons for believing that the market would rally first. In +that case Hawtrey, who had sold forward largely, would fall altogether +into his hands, and he looked forward with very pleasurable +anticipation to enforcing his claim upon the Range. In the meanwhile +he was unobtrusively watching his companion's face, and it had become +evident that in another moment or two Hawtrey would adopt the course +suggested, when there was a rattle of wheels outside. Edmonds, who saw +a broncho team and a waggon appear from behind the barn, realised that +he must decide the matter now. +</P> + +<P> +"As I want to reach Lander's before it's dark I'll have to get on," he +said carelessly. "If you'll give me a letter to the broker, I'll send +it on to him." +</P> + +<P> +Next moment a clear voice rose up somewhere outside. "I guess you +needn't worry," it said, "I'll go right in." +</P> + +<P> +Then, while Gregory started, Sally walked into the room. +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds was disconcerted, but he made her a little inclination, and +then sat down again, quietly determined to wait, for he fancied there +was hostility in the swift glance she flashed at him. +</P> + +<P> +"That's quite a smart team you were driving, Miss Creighton," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Sally, who disregarded this, turned to Hawtrey. +</P> + +<P> +"What's he doing here?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"He came over on a little matter of business," said Hawtrey. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been selling wheat again?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey looked embarrassed, for her manner was not conciliatory. +"Well," he admitted, "I have sold some." +</P> + +<P> +"Wheat you haven't got?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey did not answer, and Sally sat down. Her manner suggested that +she meant to thoroughly investigate the matter, and Edmonds, who would +have greatly preferred to get rid of her, decided that as this appeared +impossible he would appeal to her cupidity. The Creightons were +somewhat grasping folks, and he had heard of her engagement to Hawtrey. +</P> + +<P> +"If you will permit me I'll try to explain," he said. "We'll say that +you have reason for believing that wheat will go down and you tell a +broker to sell it forward at a price a little below the actual one. If +other people do the same it drops faster, and before you have to +deliver you can buy it in at less than you sold it at. A good many +dollars can be picked up that way." +</P> + +<P> +"It looks easy," Sally admitted, with something in her manner which led +him to fancy he might win her over. "Of course, prices have been +falling. Gregory has been selling down?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has. In fact, there's already a big margin to his credit," said +Edmonds unsuspectingly. +</P> + +<P> +"That is, if he bought in now he'd have cleared—several thousand +dollars?" +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds told her exactly how much, and then started in sudden +consternation with rage in his heart, for she turned to Hawtrey +imperiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Then you'll write your broker to buy in right away," she said. +</P> + +<P> +There was an awkward silence, during which the two men looked at one +another until Edmonds spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you wise in suggesting this, Miss Creighton?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Sally laughed harshly. "Oh yes," she said, "it's a sure thing. And I +don't suggest. I tell him to get it done." +</P> + +<P> +She turned again to Hawtrey, who sat very still looking at her with a +flush in his face. "Take your pen and give him that letter to the +broker now." +</P> + +<P> +There was this in her favour that Hawtrey was to some extent relieved +by her persistence. He had not the nerve to make a successful +speculator, and he had already felt uneasy about the hazard he would +incur by waiting. Besides, although prices had slightly advanced, he +could still secure a reasonable margin if he covered his sales. In any +case, he did as she bade him, and in another minute or two he handed +Edmonds an envelope. +</P> + +<P> +The latter, who rose, took it from him quietly, for he was one who +could face defeat. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, with a gesture of resignation, "I'll send the thing +on. If Miss Creighton will excuse me, I'll tell your man to get out my +waggon." +</P> + +<P> +Then he went out, and Sally turned to Hawtrey with the colour in her +cheeks and a flash in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Harry Wyllard's money," she said. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap27"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN THE WILDERNESS. +</H3> + +<P> +A bitter wind was blowing when Wyllard stood outside the little tent +the morning after he had made a landing on the ice, watching the grey +daylight break amidst a haze of sliding snow. He was to leeward of the +straining canvas which partly sheltered him, but the raw cold struck +through him to the bone, and he was stiff and sore from his exertions +during the previous day. Most of his joints ached unpleasantly, and +his clothing had not quite dried upon him with the warmth of his body. +He was also conscious of a strong desire to crawl back into the tent +and go to sleep again, but that was one it would clearly not be wise to +indulge in, since they were, he fancied, still some distance off the +beach, and the ice might commence to break up at any moment. It +stretched away before him, seamed by fissures and serrated ridges here +and there, for a few hundred yards, and then was lost in the sliding +snow, and as he gazed at it all his physical nature shrank from the +prospect of the journey through the frozen desolation. +</P> + +<P> +Then with a little shiver he crawled back into the tent where his two +companions were crouching beside the cooking lamp. The feeble light of +its sputtering blue flame touched their faces which were graver than +usual, but Charly turned and looked up as he came in. +</P> + +<P> +"Wind's dropping," said Wyllard curtly. "We'll start as soon as you +have made breakfast. We must try to reach the beach to-night." +</P> + +<P> +Charly made no answer, though the dusky-skinned Siwash grunted, and in +a few more minutes they silently commenced their meal. It was promptly +finished, and they struck the tent, and packed it with their sleeping +bags and provisions upon the sled, and then, taking up the traces, set +out across the ice. The light had grown a little clearer now, and the +snow was thinning, but it still whirled about them, and lay piled in +drawn-out wreaths to lee of every hummock or ragged ridge. They +floundered through them knee-deep, and in the softer places the weight +upon the traces grew unpleasantly heavy. That, however, was not a +thing any of them felt the least desire to complain of, and it was +indeed a matter of regret to them that they were not harnessed to a +heavier burden. There was a snow-wrapped desolation in front of them, +and they had lost a number of small comforts and part of their +provisions in making a landing. Whether the latter could by any means +be replaced they did not know, and in the meanwhile it certainly did +not seem very probable. +</P> + +<P> +This was, however, an excellent reason for pushing on as fast as +possible, and they stumbled and floundered forward until late in the +afternoon, while the ice became more rugged and broken as they +proceeded. The snow had ceased, but the drifts which stretched across +their path were plentiful, and they were in the midst of one when it +seemed to Wyllard who was leading that they were sinking much deeper +than usual. The snow was over the top of his long boots, the sled +seemed very heavy, and he could hear his comrades floundering savagely. +Then there was a cry behind him, and he was jerked suddenly backwards +for a pace or two until he flung himself down at full length clawing at +the snow. After that he was drawn back no further, but the strain upon +the trace became almost insupportable, and there was still a furious +scuffling behind him. +</P> + +<P> +In a moment or two, however, the strain slackened, and looking round he +saw Charly waist-deep in the snow. The latter struggled out with +difficulty holding on by the trace, but the sled had vanished, and it +was with grave misgivings that Wyllard scrambled to his feet. Then, +saying nothing, they hauled with all their might, and after a tense +effort that left them gasping dragged the sled back into sight. Part +of its load, however, had been left behind in the yawning hole. +</P> + +<P> +Charly went back a pace or two cautiously until he once more sank to +the waist, and they had some trouble in dragging him clear. Then he +sat down on the sled, and Wyllard stood still looking at the holes in +the snow. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you feel anything under you?" he asked at length in a jarring +voice. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't," said Charly simply. "It was only the trace saved me from +dropping through altogether, but if I'd gone a little further I'd have +been in the water. Kind of snow bridge over a crevice. We broke it +up, and the sled fell through." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard turned and flung the tent, their sleeping bags, and the few +packages which had not fallen out off the sled, after which he hastily +opened one or two of them. His companions looked at them with +apprehension in their eyes until he spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"The provisions may last a week or so, if we cut down rations," he said. +</P> + +<P> +He could not remember afterwards if anybody suggested it, and he +fancied that the same idea occurred to all of them at once, but in +another moment or two they set about undoing the traces from the sled, +and making them secure about their bodies. Then for half an hour they +made perilous attempt after attempt to recover the lost provisions, and +signally failed. The snow broke through continuously beneath the +foremost man, but it did not break away altogether, and they could not +tell what lay beneath it when they had drawn him out of the hole. When +it became evident that the attempt was useless they held a brief +council sitting on the sled. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess we don't want to go back," said Charly. "It's quite likely +we've crossed a good many of these crevices, and the snow's getting +soft. Besides, Dampier will have hauled off and headed for the inlet +by now." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke quietly, though his face was grim, and then pausing a moment +waved his hand. "It seems to me," he added, "we have got to fetch the +inlet while the provisions last." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly," said Wyllard. "Since the chart shows a river between us and +it, the sooner we start the better. If the thaw holds, the stream will +break up the ice on it." +</P> + +<P> +The Indian, who made no suggestion, grunted what appeared to be +concurrence, and they silently set to work to reload the sled. That +done, they took up the traces and floundered on again into the +gathering dimness and a thin haze of driving snow. Darkness had fallen +when they made camp again, and sat, worn-out and aching in every limb, +about the sputtering lamp inside the little, straining tent. The meal +they made was a very frugal one, and they lay down in the darkness +after it, for half their store of oil had been left behind in the +crevice. They said very little, for the second disaster had almost +crushed the courage out of them, and it was very clear to all that it +would only be by a strenuous effort they could reach the inlet before +their provisions quite ran out. They slept, however, and rising in a +stinging frost next morning set out again on the weary march, but it +was slow travelling, and at noon they left the tent and poles behind. +</P> + +<P> +"In another few days," said Wyllard, "we'll leave the sled." +</P> + +<P> +They made the beach that afternoon, though the only sign of it was the +fringe of more ragged ice and the white slope beyond the latter. A +thin haze hung about them heavy with frosty rime, and they could not +see more than a quarter of a mile ahead. When darkness fell they +scraped out a hollow beneath what seemed to be a snow-covered rock, and +sat upon their sleeping bags about the cooking lamp. Then, having +eaten, they huddled close together with part of their aching bodies +upon the sled in a bitter frost, but none of them slept much that night. +</P> + +<P> +The morning broke clear and warmer, and Wyllard, climbing to the summit +of the rock, had a brief glimpse of the serrated summits of a great +white range that rose out of a dingy greyness to the west and south. +It, however, faded like a vision while he watched it, and turning he +looked out across the rolling wilderness that stretched away to the +north. Nothing broke its gleaming monotony, and there was no sign of +life anywhere in the vast expanse. By and bye it narrowed, and when he +clambered down the haze was creeping in again. +</P> + +<P> +They set out after breakfast, breaking through a thin crust of snow, +which rendered the march almost insuperably difficult, and they had +painfully made a league or two by the approach of night. The snow had +grown softer, and the thawing surface would not bear the sled, which +sunk in the slush beneath. Still, they floundered on for a while after +darkness fell, and then lay down in a hollow, packed close together, +while a fine rain poured down on them. +</P> + +<P> +Somehow they slept, and, though this was more difficult, got upon their +feet again when morning came, for of all the hard things the wanderer +in rain-swept bush or frozen wilderness must bear there is none that +tests his powers more than the bracing himself for another day of +effort in the early dawn. Comfortless as the night's lair has been, +the jaded body craves for such faint warmth as it afforded, and further +rest, the brain is dull and heavy, and the aching limbs appear +incapable of supporting the weight on them. Difficulties loom +appallingly large in the faint creeping light, courage fails, and the +will grows feeble. Wyllard and his companions felt all this, but it +was clear to them that they could not dally, with their provisions +running out, and staggering out of camp after a very scanty meal they +hauled the sled through the slush they churned up for an hour or so. +Then they stopped, gasping, the Indian slipped out of the traces, and +Charly, who nodded, cast them loose from him. +</P> + +<P> +"We've hauled that thing about far enough," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard stood looking at them for a moment or two with a furrowed face +and a hand that the frost had split tightly clenched. It was evident +that they could haul the hampering load no further, and he was troubled +by an almost insupportable weariness. Then he made a little unwilling +sign of concurrence. +</P> + +<P> +"In that case," he said, "you have to decide what you'll leave behind." +</P> + +<P> +They discussed it for some minutes, partly because it furnished an +excuse for sitting upon the sled, though none of them had much doubt as +to the result of the council. It was unthinkable that they should +sacrifice a scrap of the provisions. Then, when each man had lashed a +light load upon his shoulders with a portion of the cut-up traces, they +set out again, and it rained upon them heavily all that day. +</P> + +<P> +During the four following days they were buffeted by a furious wind, +but the temperature had risen, and the snow was melting fast, and +splashing knee-deep through slush and water they made progress. While +he stumbled along with the pack-straps galling his shoulders, Wyllard +was conscious of little beyond the unceasing pain in his joints and the +leaden heaviness of his limbs; but the recollection of that march +haunted him like a horrible nightmare long afterwards, when each +sensation and incident emerged from the haze of numbing misery. He +remembered that he stormed at and almost fought with Charly, who lagged +behind now and then in a fit of languid dejection, and that once he +fell heavily, and was sensible of a certain half-conscious regret that +he was still capable of going on when the Indian dragged him to his +feet again. They rarely spoke to one another, and noticed nothing +beyond the strip of white waste, through which uncovered brown patches +commenced to break, immediately in front of them, except when they +crossed some low elevation and looked down upon the stretch of dull +grey water not far away on one hand. The breeze, at least, had swept +the ice away, and that was reassuring, because it meant that Dampier +would be at the inlet when they reached it, though now and then a +horrible fear that their strength would fail them or their provisions +run out first crept in. +</P> + +<P> +Their faces had already grown gaunt and haggard, and each scanty meal +had been further cut down to the smallest portion which would keep life +and power of movement within them. Still, though the weight of it +hampered him almost intolerably, Wyllard clung to the one rifle that +they had saved from the disaster at the landing and a dozen cartridges. +This was a folly which he and Charly had once virulent words about. +</P> + +<P> +At length they came one evening to a river which flowed across their +path, and lay down beside it, feeling that the end was not far away. +Except in the eddies and shallows, the ice had broken up, and the +stream swirled by between in raging flood, thick with heavy masses +which it had brought down from its higher reaches. They crashed upon +the gleaming spurs that here and there projected from the half-thawn +fringe, and smashed with a harsh crackling among the boulders, and +there was no doubt as to what would befall the stoutest swimmer who +might attempt the passage. So far as Wyllard afterwards remembered, +none of them said anything when they lay down among the wet stones, but +with the first of the daylight they started up stream. The river was +not a large one, and it seemed just possible that they might find a +means of crossing higher up, though they afterwards admitted that this +was a good deal more than they expected. +</P> + +<P> +During the afternoon the ground rose sharply, and the stream flowed out +of a deep ravine which they followed. The rocks, as far as Wyllard +could remember, were of volcanic origin, and some of them had crumbled +into heaps of ragged debris. The slope of the ravine became a talus it +was almost impossible to scramble along, and they were forced back upon +the boulders and the half-thawn ice in the slacker pools. +</P> + +<P> +Still, they made some progress, and when evening drew near found a +little clearer space between rock and river. The Indian had in the +meanwhile wrenched his foot or knee, and when at length they stopped to +make camp among the rocks it was some little time before he overtook +them. Then he said that he had found the slot of some animal which he +fancied had gone up the ravine. What the beast was he did not seem to +know, but he assured them that it was, at least, large enough to eat, +and that appeared to be of the most importance then. He would not, +however, take the rifle. Nothing would compel him to drag himself +another rod that night, he said, and the others, who had noticed how he +limped, accepted his statement. He sat down among the stones with an +expressionless face, and Charly decided that it was Wyllard's part to +try to pick up the trail. +</P> + +<P> +"You could beat me every time at trailing or shooting when we went +ashore on the American side, and I'm not sorry to let it go at that +now," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard smiled very grimly, "And I've carried this rifle a week on top +of my other load. You can't shoot when you're dead played out." +</P> + +<P> +Then they called in the Indian and left it to him, and saying nothing +he gravely pointed to Wyllard. +</P> + +<P> +Charly grinned for the first time in several days. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "in this case I guess I've no objections to let it be +as he suggests." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who said nothing further, took up the rifle and strode very +wearily out of camp. There was, he fancied, scarcely an hour's +daylight left, and already the dimness seemed a little more marked down +in the hollow. He, however, found the slot again, and as there was a +wall of rock on one side of him up which he did not think a beast of +any kind could scramble he pushed on up stream beside the ice. There +was nothing except this to guide him, but he was a little surprised to +feel that his perceptions which had been dull and dazed the last few +days were growing clearer. He noticed the different sounds the river +made, and picked out the sharp crackle of ice among the stones, though +he had hitherto only been conscious of a hoarse, pulsating roar. The +rocks also took distinctive shapes instead of looming in blurred masses +before his heavy eyes, and he found himself gazing with strained +attention into each strip of deeper shadow. Still, though he walked +cautiously, there was no sign of any life in the ravine. He was +horribly weary, and now and then he set his lips as he stumbled noisily +among the stones, but he pushed on beside the water while the deep +hollow grew dimmer and more shadowy. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap28"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVIII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE UNEXPECTED. +</H3> + +<P> +By and bye Wyllard felt a troublesome dizziness creeping over him, and +he sat down upon a boulder with the rifle across his knees. He had +eaten very little during the last few days, which had been spent in +arduous exertion, and now the leaden weariness which he had fought +against since morning threatened to overcome him. In addition to this, +he was oppressed by a black dejection, which, though his mind had never +been clearer, reacted upon his failing physical powers, for it was now +unpleasantly evident that he and his companions could not reach the +inlet while their provisions held out. There was no longer any doubt +that he had involved them in disaster, and the knowledge that he had +done so was very bitter. +</P> + +<P> +He sat still awhile with haggard face and set lips, gazing up the +ravine, for, although he scarcely fancied that either of the others had +expected anything else, he shrank from going back as empty-handed as +when he had left them. The light was getting very dim, but he could +still see the ice fringe upon the pool in front of him, and a mass of +rock that rose black against the creeping dusk not very far away. +Beyond it on the one side there seemed to be a waste of stones amidst +which a few wreaths of snow still gleamed lividly. Then a wall of rock +scarcely distinguishable in the shadow shut in the hollow. +</P> + +<P> +The latter was filled with the hoarse roar of the river and the sharp +crash and crackle of stream-driven ice, but by and bye the worn-out man +started as he caught another faint sound which suggested the clink of a +displaced stone. His hands closed hard upon the rifle, but he sat very +still, listening with strained attention until he heard the sound +again. Then a thrill ran through him, for he was quite certain of its +meaning. A stone had rolled over higher up the gorge, and he rose and +moved forward cautiously, keeping the detached rock between him and the +upper portion of the ravine. Once or twice a stone clattered noisily +beneath his feet, and he stopped for a moment or two, wondering with +tense anxiety whether the sound could be heard at any distance through +the roar of the river. This was a very much grimmer business than +crawling through the long grass for a shot at the prairie antelope, +when in case of success it had scarcely seemed worth while to pack the +tough and stringy venison back to the homestead. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye he heard the clatter of a displaced stone again, and this +time it was so distinct and near that it puzzled him. The wild +creatures of the waste were, he knew, always alert, and their +perception of an approaching danger was wonderful. It seemed strange, +since he had heard it, that the beast he was creeping in upon could +apparently not hear him, but he realised that he must face the hazard +of its doing so, for in another few minutes it would be too dark to +shoot. He had almost reached the rock by this time, and he shifted his +grasp on the rifle, holding it thrust forward in front of him while +crouching low he looked down for a spot on which to set his foot each +time he moved. It would, he knew, be useless to go any further if a +stone turned over now. None did, however, and he crept, strung up to +highest tension, into the deeper gloom behind the rock. +</P> + +<P> +A little pool ran in close beneath the latter from the river, but it +was covered with ice and slushy snow, and treading very cautiously he +crept across it, and held his breath as he moved out from behind the +stone. Then he stopped suddenly, for a man stood face to face with him +scarcely a stone's throw away. His fur-clad figure cut sharply against +a gleaming bank of snow, and he held a gun in his hand. Though the +light had almost gone, it was evident to Wyllard that he was a white +man. +</P> + +<P> +They stood very still for several seconds gazing at one another, and +then the stranger dropped the butt of his weapon and called out +sharply. Wyllard, who failed to understand him, did not move, and he +spoke again. What he said was still unintelligible, but Wyllard, who +had fallen in with a few Germans from Minnesota on the prairie, fancied +that he recognised the language. He made a sign that it was still +beyond his comprehension, and the stranger tried again. This time it +was French he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"You can come forward, comrade," he said. +</P> + +<P> +He did not seem to be hostile, and Wyllard, who tossed his rifle into +the hollow of his left arm, moved out to meet him a pace or two. +</P> + +<P> +"You are Russian?" he said, in the language the other had used, for +French of a kind is freely spoken in parts of Canada. +</P> + +<P> +The man laughed. "That afterwards," he answered. "It is said so. My +name is Overweg—Albrecht Overweg. As to you, it appears you do not +understand Russian." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard drew a little nearer, and sat down upon a boulder. Now the +tension had somewhat slackened his weariness had once more become +almost insupportable, and he felt that he might need his strength and +senses. In the meanwhile he was somewhat bewildered by the encounter, +for it was certainly astonishing to fall in with a man who spoke three +civilised languages and wore spectacles in that desolate wilderness. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, "it is almost the first time I have heard it." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said the other, "there is a certain significance in that +admission, my friend. It is permissible to inquire where you have come +from, and what you are doing here?" +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who had no desire to give him any information upon the latter +point, pointed towards the east. +</P> + +<P> +"That is where I come from. As to my business, at the moment you will +excuse me. It is perhaps not a rudeness to ask what is yours?" +</P> + +<P> +The stranger laughed. "Caution, it seems, is necessary; and to the +east, where you have pointed, there is only the sea. I will, however, +tell you my business. It is the science, and not"—he seemed to add +this with a certain significance—"in any way connected with the +administration of the country." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard was conscious of a vast relief on hearing this, but as he was +not quite sure that he could believe it, he felt that prudence was +still advisable. In any case, he could not let the stranger go away +until he had learned whether there were any more white men with him. +He sat still, thinking rather hard for a moment or two. +</P> + +<P> +"You have a camp somewhere near?" he asked at length. +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," said the other. "You will come back with me, or shall I +come to yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"There are several of you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Besides myself, two Kamtchadales." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Wyllard, "I will come with you. I have left two comrades +a little further down the ravine. Will you wait until I bring them?" +</P> + +<P> +The stranger made a sign of assent, and sitting down upon a ledge of +rock took out a cigar. Wyllard now felt more sure of him, since it was +evident that had he meditated any treachery he would naturally have +preferred him to make the visit unattended. In any case, it seemed +likely that he would have something to eat in his camp. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard plodded back down the ravine, and when he reappeared with the +others Overweg was still sitting there in the gathering darkness. He +greeted them with a wave of his hand, and rising, silently led the way +up the hollow until they came into sight of a little tent that +glimmered beneath a rock. There was a light inside it, and two dusky +figures were silhouetted against the canvas. When the party reached +it, Overweg drew the flap back, and the light shone upon his face as he +signed them to enter. Wyllard standing still a moment looked at him +steadily, and then seeing the little smile in his eyes quietly went in. +</P> + +<P> +After that Overweg called to one of the Kamtchadales, who came in and +busied himself about the cooking lamp, while his guests sat down with a +sense of luxurious content among the skins that were spread upon the +ground sheet. After the raw cold outside the tent was very snug and +warm. They said little, however, and Overweg made no attempt at +conversation until the Kamtchadale laid out a meal, when he watched +them with a smile while they ate voraciously. He had stripped his furs +off, and sat with his knees drawn up on one of the skins, a little, +plump, round-faced man, with tow-coloured hair, and eyes that gleamed +shrewdly behind his spectacles. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I open another can?" he asked at length. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Wyllard. "We owe you thanks enough already. Provisions are +evidently plentiful with you." +</P> + +<P> +Overweg nodded. "I have a base camp two or three days' journey back," +he said. "It is possible that I shall make a depôt. We brought our +stores up from the south with dog sleds before the snow grew soft, but +it is necessary for me to push on further. My business, you +understand, is the scientific survey; to report upon the natural +resources of the country." +</P> + +<P> +He paused, and his manner changed a little when he went on again. "I +have," he added, "to this extent taken you into my confidence, and I +invite an equal candour. Two things are evident. You have made a long +journey, and your French is not that one hears in Paris." +</P> + +<P> +"First of all," said Wyllard, "I must ask again are you a Russian?" +</P> + +<P> +Overweg spread his hands out with a little whimsical gesture. "My +name, which I have told you, is not Sclavonic, and it may be admitted +that I was born in Bavaria. In the meanwhile, it is true that I have +been sent on a mission by the Russian Government." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," said Wyllard reflectively, "how far you consider your duty +towards your employers goes." +</P> + +<P> +Overweg's eyes twinkled. "It covers all that can be ascertained about +the geological structure and the fauna of the country, especially the +fauna that produce marketable furs. At present I am not convinced that +it goes very much further." +</P> + +<P> +It was clear to Wyllard that he was to a large extent in this man's +hands already, since he could not reach the inlet without provisions, +and Overweg could, if he thought fit, send back a messenger to the +Russian authorities. He was one who could think quickly and make a +momentous decision, and he realised that if he could not win the man's +sympathy there must be open hostility between them. It seemed possible +that he might obviate any necessity for the latter. +</P> + +<P> +"In that case I think I may tell you what has brought me here," he +said. "If you have travelled much in Kamchatka you can, perhaps, help +me. To begin with, I sailed from Vancouver, in Canada, going on for a +year ago." +</P> + +<P> +It took him some time to make his errand clear, and then Overweg looked +at him in a rather curious fashion. +</P> + +<P> +"It is," he said, "a tale that in these days one finds some little +difficulty in believing. Still, it must be admitted that I am +acquainted with one fact which appears to substantiate it." +</P> + +<P> +Then as he saw the blood rise to Wyllard's forehead he broke off with a +little soft laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"My friend," he added, "is it permitted to offer you my felicitations? +The men who would attempt a thing of this kind are, I think, singularly +rare." +</P> + +<P> +"The fact?" said Wyllard, impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"There is a Kamtchadale in my base camp who told me of a place where a +white man was buried some distance to the west of us. He spoke of a +second white man, but nobody, I understand, knows what became of him." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard straightened himself suddenly. "You will send for that +Kamtchadale?" +</P> + +<P> +"Assuredly. The tale you have told me has stirred my curiosity. As my +path lies west up the river valley, we can, if it pleases you, go on +for a while together." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who thanked him, turned to Charly with a faint sigh of relief. +</P> + +<P> +"It seems that we shall not bring those men back, but I think we may +find out where they lie," he said. Charly made no comment, for this +was the most he had expected, and a few minutes later there was silence +in the little tent when the men lay down to sleep among the skins. +</P> + +<P> +They started at sunrise next morning, and followed the river slowly by +easy stages until the man sent back to Overweg's base camp overtook +them with another Kamtchadale. Then they pushed on still further +inland, and it was a week later when one evening their guide led them +up to a little pile of stones upon a lonely ridge of rock. There were +two letters very rudely cut on one of them, and Wyllard, who stooped +down beside it, took off his cap when he rose. +</P> + +<P> +"There's no doubt that Jake Leslie lies here," he said, and looked at +Overweg. "Your man is sure it was only one white man who buried him?" +</P> + +<P> +Overweg spoke to the Kamtchadale, who answered him. +</P> + +<P> +"There was only one white man," he said. "It seems he went inland +afterwards—at least a year ago." +</P> + +<P> +Then Wyllard turned to Charly, and his face was very grave. "That +makes it certain that two of them have died. There was one left, and +he may be dead by this time." He spread his hands out with a forceful +gesture. "If one only knew!" +</P> + +<P> +Charly made no answer. He was not a man of education or much +imagination, but like others of his kind he had alternately borne many +privations in the wilderness, logging, prospecting, trail-cutting about +the remoter mines, and at sea. As one result of this there crept into +his mind some recognition of what the outcast who lay at rest beside +their feet had had to face—the infinite toil of the march, the black +despair, the blinding snow, and Arctic frost. He met his leader's gaze +with a look of comprehending sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +By what grim efforts and primitive devices their comrade, had clung to +life so long as he had done it seemed very probable that they would +never know, but they clearly realised that though some might call it an +illegal raid, or even piracy, it was a work of mercy this outlaw who +had borne so much had undertaken when he was cast away. In the word to +swing the boats over and face the roaring surf in the darkness of the +night he had heard the clear call of duty, and had fearlessly obeyed. +His obedience had cost him much, but as the man who had come so far to +search for him looked down upon the little pile of stones that had been +raised above his bones in the desolate wilderness, there awoke within +him a sure recognition of the fact that this was not the end. That, at +least, was unthinkable. His comrade, sloughing off the half-frozen, +suffering flesh, had gone on to join the immortals—with his duty done. +</P> + +<P> +It was with a warmth at his heart and a slight haziness in his eyes +that Wyllard turned away at length, but when he put on his fur cap +again he was more determined than ever to carry out the search. There +were many perils and difficulties to be faced, but he felt that he must +not flinch. +</P> + +<P> +"One man went inland," he said to Overweg. "I must go that way, too." +</P> + +<P> +The little spectacled scientist looked at him curiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," he said, "the road your comrade travelled is a hard one. You +have seen what it leads to." +</P> + +<P> +Then Wyllard did what is in the case of such men as he was a somewhat +unusual thing, for he gave another a glimpse of the feelings he +generally kept hidden deep in him. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, quietly, "the hard road leads further—where we do not +know—but one feels that the full knowledge will not bring sorrow when +it is some day given to those who have the courage to follow." +</P> + +<P> +Overweg spread his hands out. "It is not the view of the materialists, +but it is conceivable that the materialists may be wrong. In this +case, however, it is the concrete and practical we have to grapple +with, my friend. You say you are going inland to search for that man, +and for awhile I go that way, but though I have my base camp there is +the question of provisions if you come with me." +</P> + +<P> +They discussed the matter until Wyllard suggested that he could replace +any provisions his companion supplied him with from the schooner, to +which Overweg agreed, and they afterwards decided to send the Siwash +and one of the Kamtchadales on to the inlet with a letter to Dampier. +The two started next day when they found a place where the river was +with difficulty fordable, and the rest pushed on slowly into a broken +and rising country seamed with belts of thin forest here and there. +They held westwards for another week, and then one evening made their +camp among a few stunted and straggling firs. The temperature had +risen in the day-time, but the nights were cold, and when they had +eaten their evening meal they were glad of the shelter of the tent. A +small fire of resinous branches was sinking into a faintly glowing mass +close outside of it. +</P> + +<P> +The flap was, however, drawn back, and Wyllard, who lay facing the +opening, could see a triangular patch of dim blue sky with a sharp +sickle moon hanging low above a black fir branch. The night was clear +and still, but now and then there was a faint elfin sighing among the +stunted trees that died away again. He was then, while still +determined, moodily discouraged, for they had seen no sign of human +life during the journey, and his reason told him that he might search +for years before he found the bones of the last survivor of the party. +Still, he meant to search while Overweg was willing to supply him with +provisions. +</P> + +<P> +By and bye he saw Charly sharply raise his head and gaze towards the +opening. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you hear anything outside?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It would be the Kamtchadales," said Wyllard. +</P> + +<P> +"They went back a mile or two to lay some traps." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Wyllard, decisively, "it couldn't have been anything." +</P> + +<P> +Charly did not appear satisfied, and it seemed to Wyllard that Overweg +was also listening, but there was deep stillness outside now, and he +dismissed the matter from his mind. A few minutes later it, however, +seemed to him that a shadowy form appeared out of the gloom among the +firs and faded into it again. This struck him as very curious, since +if it had been one of the Kamtchadales he would have walked straight +into camp, but he said nothing to his companions, and there was silence +for a while until Charly rose softly to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Get out as quietly as you can," he said, as he slipped by Wyllard, who +crept after him to the entrance. +</P> + +<P> +When he reached it his companion's voice rang out with a startling +vehemence. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop right now!" he cried, and after a pause, "Nobody's going to hurt +you. Walk right ahead." +</P> + +<P> +Then Wyllard felt his heart beat furiously, for a dusky, half-seen +figure materialised out of the gloom, and grew into sharper form as it +drew nearer to the sinking fire. The thing was wholly unexpected, +almost incredible, but it was clear that the man could understand +English, and his face was white. In another moment Wyllard's last +doubt vanished, and he sprang forward with a gasp. +</P> + +<P> +"Lewson—Tom Lewson," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Then Charly thrust the man inside the tent, and when somebody lighted a +lamp he sat down stupidly and looked at them. His face was gaunt and +furrowed, and almost blackened by exposure to the frost, his hair was +long, and tattered garments of greasy skins hung about him. There was +also something that suggested bewildered incredulity in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"It's real?" he said, slowly and haltingly. "You have come at last?" +</P> + +<P> +They assured him that this was the case, and for a moment or two the +man's face worked and he made a hoarse sound in his throat. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord," he said, "if I'm dreaming I don't want to wake." +</P> + +<P> +Charly leaned forward and smote him on the shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I hit you like I did that afternoon in the Thompson House on the +Vancouver water front?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Then the certainty of the thing seemed to dawn upon the man, for he +quivered, and his eyes half closed. After that he straightened himself +with an effort. +</P> + +<P> +"I should have known, and I think I did," he said. "Something seemed +to tell me that you would come for us when you could." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard's face flushed, but he said nothing, and it was Charly who +asked the next question. +</P> + +<P> +"The others are dead?" +</P> + +<P> +Lewson made a little expressive gesture. "Hopkins was drowned in a +crevice of the ice. I buried Leslie back yonder." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off abruptly, as though speech cost him an effort, and Wyllard +turned to Overweg. +</P> + +<P> +"This is the last of the men I was looking for," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Overweg quietly nodded. "Then you have my felicitations—but it might +be advisable if you did not tell me too much," he said. "Afterwards I +may be questioned by those in authority." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap29"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIX. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CAST AWAY. +</H3> + +<P> +Tom Lewson had been an hour in camp before he commenced the story of +his wanderings, and at first he spoke slowly and falteringly, lying +propped up on one elbow, with the lamplight on his worn face. +</P> + +<P> +"We broke an oar coming off the beach that night, and it kind of +crippled us," he said. "Twice she nearly went back again in the surf, +and I don't quite know how we pulled her off. Anyway, one of us was +busy heaving out the water that broke into her. It was Jake, I think, +and he seemed kind of silly. Once we saw a boat hove up on a sea, but +we lost her in the spray, and a long while after we saw the schooner. +Just then a comber that broke on board most hove us over, and when we +had dodged the next two there wasn't a sign of her. After that we knew +that we were done, and we just tried to keep her head-to and ease her +to the seas." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped a moment, and looked round at the others with troubled eyes, +as though trying to marshal uncertain memories, for this was a simple +sailorman, who contented himself with the baldest narrative. Still, +two of those who heard him could fill in the things he had not +mentioned—the mad lurching of the half-swamped boat, the tense +struggle with the oars each time a big frothing comber forged out of +the darkness, and the savage desperation of the drenched and +half-frozen men cast away with the roaring surf to lee of them and +their enemies watching upon the hammered beach. +</P> + +<P> +"It blew hard that night," he added. "Somehow she lived through it, +but there wasn't a sign of the island when morning came. Nothing but +the combers and the flying haze. Guess the wind must have shifted a +few points and drove us by the end of it. Then we found Jake had his +head laid open by a sealing club. The sea was getting longer, and as +we were too played out to hold her to it we got her away before it, and +somehow she didn't roll over. I think it was next day, though it might +have been longer, when we fetched another island. She just washed up +on it, and one of the others pulled me out. There wasn't a sign of +anybody on the beach, but there were plenty of skinned holluschackie +seals on the slope behind it, and that was fortunate for us." +</P> + +<P> +"You struck nobody on the island?" enquired Wyllard. +</P> + +<P> +"We didn't," said Lewson simply. "The Russians must have sent a vessel +to take off the killers after the last drive of the season a day or two +before, for the holluschackie were quite fresh, and perhaps it was +blowing hard and the surf getting steep, for they'd left quite a few of +their things behind them. Anyway, that was how we figured it. We +found the shacks the killers lived in, and we made out that winter in +one of them." +</P> + +<P> +It occurred to Wyllard that this was a thing very few men except +sealers could have done had they been cast ashore without stores or +tools to face the awful winter of the north. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you get through?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Lewson, "we had a rifle, and the ca'tridges weren't +spoilt. The killers hadn't taken their cooking outfit, and by and bye +we got a walrus in an open lane among the ice. They'd left some gear +behind them, but we were most of two days cutting and heaving the beast +out with a parbuckle under him. There was no trouble about things +keeping in that frost. Besides, we'd the holluschackie blubber to +burn, and there was a half-empty bag or two of stores in one of the +shacks. No, we hadn't any great trouble in making out." +</P> + +<P> +"You had to stay there until the ice broke up?" said Charly. +</P> + +<P> +"And after. The boat was gone, and we couldn't get away. She broke up +in the surf, and we burned what we saved of her. At last a schooner +came along, and we hid out across the island until she'd gone away. It +was blowing fresh, and hazy, and she just shoved a new gang of killers +ashore. There was an Okotsk Russian with them, but he made no trouble +for us. He was white, anyway, and it kind of seemed to me he didn't +like one of the other men who got hurt that night on the beach." +</P> + +<P> +"Then some of them did get badly hurt?" Wyllard broke in. +</P> + +<P> +Lewson laughed, a little, almost silent laugh, which nevertheless +sounded strangely grim. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "from what that Russian told us—and we got to +understand each other by and bye—one of the killers had his ribs +broke, and it seems that another would go lame for life. Besides, +among other things, there was a white man got his face quite smashed. +I saw him after with his nose flattened way out to starboard, and one +eye canted. He was a boss of some kind. They called him Smirnoff." +</P> + +<P> +Overweg looked up sharply. "Ah," he said, "Smirnoff. A man with an +unsavoury name. I have heard of him." +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway," Lewson went on, "we killed seals all the open season with +that Russian, and I've no fault to find with him. In fact, I figure if +he could have fixed it he'd have left us on the island that winter, but +when a schooner came to take the killers off and collect the skins +Smirnoff was on board of her. That"—and an ominous gleam crept into +Lewson's eyes—"was the real beginning of the trouble." +</P> + +<P> +"He had us hauled up before him—guess the other man had to tell him +who we were—and when I wouldn't answer he slashed me with a +sled-dog-whip across the face." +</P> + +<P> +Lewson clenched a lean brown fist. "Yes," he added, hoarsely, "I was +whipped—but they should have tied my hands first. It was not my fault +I didn't have that man's life. It was most a minute before three of +them pulled me off him, and he was considerably worse to look at then." +</P> + +<P> +There was silence for a minute or two, and Wyllard, who felt his own +face grow a trifle warm, saw the suggestive hardness in Charly's eyes. +Lewson was gazing out into the darkness, but the veins were swollen on +his forehead and his whole body had stiffened. Then he spread his +hands out. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll let that go. I can't think of it. They put us on board the +schooner, and by and bye she ran into a creek on the coast. We were to +be sent somewhere to be dealt with, and we knew what that meant, with +what they had against us. Well, they went ashore to collect some skins +from the Kamtchadales, and at night we cut the boat adrift. We got off +in the darkness, and if they followed they never trailed us. Guess +they figured we couldn't make out through the winter that was coming +on." +</P> + +<P> +So far the story had been more or less connected and comprehensible. +It laid no great tax on Wyllard's credulity, and, indeed, all that +Lewson described had come about very much as Dampier had once or twice +suggested; but it seemed an almost impossible thing that the three men +should have survived during the years that followed. Lewson, as it +happened, never made that matter very clear. He sat silent for almost +a minute before he went on again. +</P> + +<P> +"We hauled the boat out, and hid her among the rocks, and after that we +fell in with some Kamtchadales going north," he said. "They took us +along, I don't know how far, but they were trapping for furs, and by +and bye—I think it was months after—we got away from them. Then we +fell in with another crowd, and went on further north with them. They +were Koriaks, and we lived with them a long while—a winter and a +summer anyway. It was more, perhaps—I can't remember." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off with a vague gesture, and sat looking at the others +vacantly with his lean face furrowed. +</P> + +<P> +"We must have been with them two years—but I don't quite know. It was +all the same up yonder—ever so far to the north." +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to Wyllard that he had seldom heard anything more expressive +in its way than this sailorman's brief and fragmentary description of +his life in the wilderness. He had heard from steam whaler skippers a +little about the tundra that fringes the Polar Sea, the vast desolation +frozen hard in summer a few inches below the surface, on which nothing +beyond the mosses ever grew. It was easy to understand the +brain-crushing sameness and monotony of an existence chequered only by +times of dire scarcity on those lonely shores. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you live?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"There were the birds in summer, and fish in the rivers. In winter we +killed things in the lanes in the ice, though there were weeks when we +lay about the blubber lamp in the pits. They made pits and put a roof +on them. I don't know why we stayed there, but Jake had always a +notion that we might get across to Alaska—somehow. We were way out on +the ice one day when Jim fell into a crevice, and we couldn't get him +out." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off, and sat still awhile as one dreaming. "I can't put +things together, but at last we came south, Jake and I, and struck the +Kamtchadales again. We could talk to them, and one of them told us +about a schooner lying in an inlet by a settlement. The Russians had +brought her there from the islands, and she must have been a sealer. +Jake figured it was just possible we might run away with her and push +across for the Aleutians or Alaska." +</P> + +<P> +Charly looked up suddenly. "She—was—a sealer—Hayson's <I>Seminole</I>. +I was in Victoria when we heard that the Russians had seized her." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard turned to Overweg, who nodded when he asked a question in +French. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said, "I believe the vessel lies in the inlet still. They +have used her now and then. It is understood that they were warranted +in seizing her, but I think there was some diplomatic pressure brought +to bear on them, for they sent her crew home." +</P> + +<P> +Then Lewson went on again. "Food was scarce that season, and we got +most nothing in the traps," he said. "Besides, there were Russians out +prospecting, and that headed us off. We figured that some of the +Kamtchadales who traded skins to the settlements would put them on our +trail. When we went to look for the boat she'd gone, but we hadn't +much notion of getting off in her, though another time—I don't +remember when—we gave two Kamtchadales messages we'd cut on slips of +wood. Sometimes the schooners stood in along the coast." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard nodded. "Dunton of the <I>Cypress</I> got your message," he said. +"He was in difficulties then, but he afterwards sent it me." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Lewson, "there isn't much more to it. We hung about the +beach awhile, and then went north before the winter. Jake played out +on the trail. By and bye he had to let up, and in a day or two I +buried him." +</P> + +<P> +He spread his hands out, and his voice grew hoarse. "After that it +didn't seem to matter what became of me, but I kept the trail somehow, +and found I couldn't stay up yonder. That's why I started south with +some of them before the summer came. Now I'm here—talking +English—talking with white men—but it doesn't seem the same as it +should have been—without the others." +</P> + +<P> +He broke off, and said no more that night, but Wyllard translated part +of his story for the benefit of Overweg. The latter made a little +expressive gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"The thing, it seems incredible," he commented. "This man, who has so +little to tell, knows things which would make a trained explorer +famous." +</P> + +<P> +"It generally happens that way," said Wyllard with a dry smile. "The +men who know can't tell." +</P> + +<P> +Overweg made a sign of assent, and then changed the subject. +</P> + +<P> +"What will you do now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Start for the inlet where we expect to find the schooner at sunrise. +I want to say"—and Wyllard hesitated—"that you have laid an +obligation on me which I can never repay; but I can, at least, replace +the provisions you have supplied me with." +</P> + +<P> +"That goes for nothing," said the other with a smile. "I have, +however, drawn upon my base camp rather heavily, and should be glad of +any stores from the schooner that you could let me have. The +difficulty is that I do not wish to go too far towards the beach." +</P> + +<P> +They arranged a rendezvous a day or two's march from the inlet, and in +another half-hour all of them were fast asleep. +</P> + +<P> +When the first of the daylight came Wyllard set off with his two +companions, and since it was evident that Dampier must have now lain in +the inlet awaiting them a considerable time, they marched fast for +several days. Then to their consternation they came upon the Siwash +lying beside a river badly lame. It appeared that in climbing a +slippery ridge of rock the knee he had injured had given way, and he +had fallen some distance heavily, after which the Kamtchadale finding +him helpless had disappeared with most of the provisions. None of the +party ever learned what had become of him, but they realised in the +meanwhile that the situation was now a rather serious one. Charly, who +looked at Wyllard when he had heard the Indian's story, explained it +concisely. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm worrying about the boat we left on the edge of the ice," he said. +"I've had a notion all along it was going to make trouble. Dampier +would see the wreckage when he ran in, and I guess it would only mean +one thing to him. He'd make quite certain he was right when he didn't +find us at the inlet." He paused and pointed towards the distant sea. +"You have got to push right on with Lewson as fast as you can while I +try to bring the Siwash along." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard started in the next few minutes, and afterwards never quite +forgot the strain and stress of that arduous march. The journey he had +made with Overweg had been difficult enough, but they had then, at +least, traversed rising ground from which most of the melting snow had +drained away. Now, however, as they approached the more level littoral +there were wide tracts of mire and swamp to be painfully floundered +through, while every ravine and hollow was swept by a frothing torrent, +and they had often to search for hours for a place where it was +possible to cross. To make things worse, they were drenched with +bitter rain half the time, and trails of dingy mist obscured their +path, but they toiled on stubbornly through every obstacle, though it +was only by the tensest effort that Wyllard kept pace with his +companion. The gaunt, long-haired Lewson seemed proof against physical +weariness, and there was seldom any change in the expression of his +grim, lined face. Now and then Wyllard felt a curious shrinking as he +glanced at it, for its fixed look suggested what this man had borne in +the awful solitudes of the frozen north. +</P> + +<P> +Slowly, with infinite toil, they crossed the weary leagues, lying at +night with a single skin between them and the soil, for they travelled +light; and Wyllard was limping painfully with his boots worn off his +feet, when at length one morning they came into sight of a low +promontory which rose against a stretch of grey, lifeless sea. His +heart throbbed fast as he realised that behind it lay the inlet into +which Dampier had arranged to bring the <I>Selache</I>. He glanced at +Lewson, who said nothing, and they plodded forward faster than before. +</P> + +<P> +The misty sun was high in the heavens when at length they reached the +foot of the steep rise, and Wyllard gasped heavily as they crept up the +ascent. He was making a severe muscular effort; but it was the nervous +tension that troubled him most, for he knew that he would look down +upon the inlet from the summit. He blamed himself bitterly for not +sending on a messenger to Dampier when he fell in with Overweg, which, +in his eagerness to follow up the clue the latter had given him, he had +at first omitted to do. There had certainly been difficulties in the +way, for the increase in the scientist's party had made additional +packers necessary, and Wyllard felt that he could not reasonably compel +him to leave the camp comforts he had evidently been accustomed to +behind. In spite of that, he had been at fault in not disregarding +every objection, and he realised it now. +</P> + +<P> +Somehow he kept pace with Lewson, but he closed one hand tight as he +neared the top. When he reached it he stopped suddenly, and his face +set hard as he looked down, standing very still. Beneath him lay a +strip of dim, green water, with a fringe of soft, white surf at the +foot of the promontory, while beyond the latter there stretched away an +empty expanse of slowly heaving sea. There was nothing else, however; +no schooner in the inlet, no boat upon the beach. +</P> + +<P> +In another moment or two they went down the slope savagely at a +stumbling run, and then stopped, gasping by the water's edge, and +looked at one another. There were marks in the sand which showed them +where a boat had been drawn up not very long ago. The <I>Selache</I> had +evidently been there, and had sailed away again. +</P> + +<P> +Then Wyllard sat down limply upon the shingle, for all the strength +seemed to suddenly melt out of him, and it was several minutes before +he looked up. Lewson was still standing, a shapeless, barbaric figure +in his garments of skins, with a dark lined face that had scarcely +changed, gazing out to sea. The hide moccasins he wore had chafed +through, and Wyllard noticed that the blood was trickling from one of +his feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" he said, harshly. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard laid a stern restraint upon himself. Their case looked +desperate, but it must, at least, be grappled with. +</P> + +<P> +"We must go back and meet the rest," he said. "That first—what is to +come afterwards I don't quite know." Then a faint gleam of resolution +crept into his eyes. "The schooner the Russians seized lies in an +inlet down the coast." +</P> + +<P> +Lewson made a sign of comprehension. "There are four of us. There +will be birds by and bye. I can trap things." +</P> + +<P> +Then he flung himself down near his comrade, and for an hour neither of +them said anything. Wyllard, at least, was worn-out physically, and +limp from the last few hours' mental strain, while Lewson very seldom +said more than was absolutely necessary. Then they made a very frugal +meal, and long afterwards Wyllard was haunted by the memory of that +dreary afternoon during which he lay upon the shingle watching the slow +pulsations of the dim, lifeless sea. +</P> + +<P> +They set out again early next morning, and, as it happened, found a +little depôt of provisions that Dampier had made, but it was several +days before they met Charly and the Indian, and another week had passed +before Overweg reached the place appointed. He listened to Wyllard's +story gravely, and then appeared to consider. +</P> + +<P> +"You have some plans?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard admitted that this was the case, and Overweg smiled behind his +spectacles. +</P> + +<P> +"It is, perhaps, better that you do not tell me what they are," he +said. "There is, however, one thing I can do. You say you left some +stores you could not carry at the depôt, which I will take, for +provisions are now not plentiful with me, but there are still a few +things you have not which are almost necessary at my base camp, +and"—he spread his hands out—"after all, if I have to go south a +little earlier than I intended it is not a great matter." +</P> + +<P> +He wrote on a strip of paper which he handed to Wyllard. "You will +take these, and nothing else. I may add that Smirnoff is stationed at +the inlet where the schooner lies." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard thanked him, and then looked him in the eyes. "There is a long +journey before us, and you have only my word that I will take nothing +but these things." +</P> + +<P> +Overweg nodded quietly. "Yes," he said, "it is, however, perhaps +permissible to assure you that it is sufficient for me." +</P> + +<P> +Very little more was said, and in another half-hour Wyllard and his +companions were ready to set out. He and the little spectacled +scientist grasped each other's hands, and then Wyllard abruptly turned +away. A few minutes later he turned again, and looking back saw +Overweg standing upon the ridge where he had left him silhouetted +against a low, grey sky. He raised his cap once, and Wyllard, who +answered him, swung round once more, and strode on faster towards the +south. He knew that his regard for this stranger who had fallen across +his path would remain unchanged while his life should last. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap30"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXX. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LAST EFFORT. +</H3> + +<P> +It was after a long and arduous journey which had left its mark on all +of them that Wyllard and his companions lay among the boulders beside a +sheltered inlet waiting for the dusk to fall one lowering evening. +They were cramped and aching, for they had scarcely moved during the +last hour; their garments were badly tattered, and their half-covered +feet were bleeding. They were, as they recognised, a pitiful company +to seize a vessel, with three knives and one rifle between them, but +there was resolution in their haggard faces. +</P> + +<P> +Close in front of them the green water lapped softly among the stones. +The breeze was light off shore, and the tide, which was just running +ebb, rippled against the bows of a little schooner lying some thirty +yards from the bank. She had been seized for illegal sealing some +years earlier, and it was evident that she had been very little used +since then. The paint was peeling from her cracked and weathered side, +her gear was frayed and bleached with frost and rain, and only very +hard-pressed men would have faced the thought of going to sea in her. +Wyllard and his companions were, however, very hard-pressed indeed, and +they preferred the hazards of a voyage in the crazy vessel to falling +into the Russians' hands. It was also clear that they had no choice. +It must be either one thing or the other. +</P> + +<P> +Some little distance up-stream a low rise cut against the dingy sky. +It shut off all view of the upper part of the inlet, which wound in +behind it, but Wyllard and his companions had cautiously climbed the +slope earlier in the afternoon, and lying flat upon the summit had +looked down upon the little wooden houses that clustered above the +beach. He had then decided that this part of the inlet would dry out +at about half-ebb, and as the schooner's boat, which he meant to seize, +lay upon the shingle it was evident that he must carry out his plans +within the next three hours. +</P> + +<P> +These were very simple. There was nobody on board the schooner, which +lay in deeper water, and he fancied that it would be possible to swim +off to her and slip the cable; but they must have provisions, and there +was, so far as he could see, only one way of obtaining them. A +building which stood by itself close beside the beach was evidently a +store, for he had seen two men carrying bags and cases out of it under +the superintendence of a third in some kind of uniform, and it appeared +to be unguarded. Wyllard, who had reasons for surmising that the few +settlements on the coast were under strict official control, fancied +that the store contained Government supplies, and had arranged that +Charly and Lewson should break into it as soon as darkness fell, and +pull off to the schooner with anything they could find inside. Whether +they would succeed in doing this he did not know, and he admitted to +himself that it scarcely seemed probable, but he could think of no +other plan, and the attempt must be made. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile a thin haze drove across the crest of the rise, the +breeze freshened slightly, and the little ripples lapped more noisily +along the shingle. There was evidently a good deal of fresh water +coming down the inlet, and it was in a fever of impatience he watched +the schooner strain at her cable. That evening had already seemed the +longest he had ever spent in his life. By and bye it commenced to +rain, and little streams of chilly water trickled about the weary men, +but they lay still, with lips tight set, in tense suspense. What +Lewson had had to face in the awful icy wastes to the north of them +Wyllard could scarcely imagine, and Lewson could not tell, but he and +his two other comrades had borne things almost beyond endurance since +he commenced his search, and now there was far too much at stake for +him to increase the odds against them by any undue precipitancy. He +was then in a dangerous mood, but he had laid his plans with grim, +cold-blooded caution, and he meant to adhere to them. +</P> + +<P> +At length, and very slowly, the light faded, until the beach grew +shadowy, and the schooner's spars and rigging showed dim and blurred +against a dusky background. The rise that shut off the settlement was +lost in drifting haze, and the dull rumble of the surf on the outer +beach came up more sharply through the gathering darkness. The +measured beat of its deep pulsations almost maddened Wyllard as he lay +and listened, for if all went right he would be sliding out over the +long heave with every sail piled on to the crazy schooner in another +hour or two. +</P> + +<P> +At length, when there was only a faint gleam of water sliding by below, +he rose stiffly to his feet, and Lewson stretched out a hand for the +rifle that lay among the stones. There was a sharp click as he jerked +the lever, and then he laughed, a little jarring laugh, as the magazine +snapped back. +</P> + +<P> +"They'll treat us as pirates if they get hands on us—and I've been +lashed in the face—with a sled-dog-whip," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Charly said nothing as he loosened the long seaman's knife in his belt, +and Wyllard made no remonstrance, for there is, as he recognised, a +point beyond which prudence does not count. After what Overweg had +once or twice told him, it was unthinkable that they should fall into +Smirnoff's hands. +</P> + +<P> +Then Lewson and Charly melted away into the darkness, and Wyllard and +the Siwash walked quietly down to the water's edge, a little up-stream +of the schooner, as the stream was running strong. They, however, +stripped off nothing, for it was evident that none of the rags they +left behind could be replaced, and they knew from experience that when +the first shock is over a man swimming in icy water is kept a little +warmer by his clothing. For all that, the cold struck through Wyllard +like a knife when he flung himself forward and swung his left hand out, +and it was perhaps a minute before he was clearly conscious of anything +beyond the physical agony and the mental effort to retain control of +his faculties. Then he made out the schooner, a vague, blurred shape a +little down-stream of him, and he swam furiously, his face dipping +under each time his left hand came out. +</P> + +<P> +He drew level with her, clutched at her cable, a foot short, and was +driven against her bows. Then the stream swept him onward, gasping, +and clawing savagely at her slippery side, until his fingers found a +hold. It was merely the rounded top of a bolt, but with a desperate +effort he clutched the bent iron that led up from it to one of the +dead-eyes of the mainmast-shrouds. He could not, however, draw himself +up any further, and he hung on, wondering when his strength would fail +him, until the Siwash, who had already crawled up the cable, leaned +down from above and seized his shoulder. In another moment or two he +reached the rail, and went staggering across the deck, dripping, and +half dazed. +</P> + +<P> +Action was, however, imperatively necessary, and he braced himself for +the effort. The schooner was lying with her anchor up-stream, but he +did not think it would be possible to heave her over it and break it +out unless he waited until the others arrived, and it would then be a +lengthy and, what was more to the purpose, a noisy operation. The +anchor must be sacrificed, but there was the difficulty that he could +hardly expect to find a shackle on the cable in the dark. Running +forward with the Siwash, he pulled a chain stopper out, and then +shipping the windlass levers found with vast relief that it would work. +It would make a horribly distinct clanking, he knew, but that could not +be helped, and the next thing was to discover if the end of the chain +was made fast below, for it is very seldom that a skipper finds it +necessary to pay all his cable out. +</P> + +<P> +Dropping into the darkness of the locker beneath the forecastle, he was +more fortunate than he could reasonably have expected to be, for as he +crawled over the rusty links he felt a shackle. It appeared to be of +the usual harp-pattern with a cottered pin, and he called out sharply +to the Siwash, who presently flung him an iron bar and a big spike. +Then he struck one of the two or three sulphur matches he had carefully +treasured, and when the sputtering blue flame went out set to work to +back the pin out in the dark. He smashed his knuckles and badly +bruised his hands, but he succeeded, and knew that he had shortened the +chain by two-thirds now. +</P> + +<P> +Then he scrambled up on deck again and hurried aft, for the vessel's +kedge had been laid out astern to prevent her swinging. There was a +heavy hemp warp attached to it, and it cost them some time to heave +most of it over, after which they proceeded to get the mainsail on to +her. It was covered with a coat, and Wyllard cut himself as he slashed +through the tiers in savage impatience. Then he and the Siwash toiled +at the halliards desperately, for the task of raising the heavy gaff +was almost beyond their powers. +</P> + +<P> +There was no grease on the mast-hoops, the blocks had evidently not +been used for months, and several times they desisted a moment or two, +gasping, breathless, and utterly exhausted. Still, foot by foot they +got the black canvas up, and then, leaving the peak hanging, ran +forward to the boom-foresail, which was smaller and lighter. They set +that, cast two jibs and the staysail loose, and let them lie, and +Wyllard sat down feeling that the thing they had done would, if +attempted in cold blood, have appeared almost impossible. +</P> + +<P> +It was done, however, and now he must wait until the boat appeared. +There was no sign of her, and as he gazed up the inlet, seeing only the +dim glimmer of the water and the sliding mist, the suspense became +almost intolerable. Minute slipped by after minute, and still nothing +loomed out of the haze. The canvas rustled and banged above him, there +was a growing splashing beneath the bows, and the schooner strained +more heavily at her cable. Everything was ready, only his comrades did +not appear. He clenched his hands and set his lips as he waited, and +wondered at the Siwash who sat upon the rail, a dim, shapeless figure, +impassively still. +</P> + +<P> +At length his heart throbbed furiously, for a faint splash of oars came +out of the darkness, and they both ran forward to the windlass. The +sharp clanking it made drowned the splash of oars, but in another +minute or two there was a crash as the boat drove alongside, and Charly +scrambled up with a rope while Lewson hurled sundry bags and cases +after him. Then he climbed on deck in turn, and Charly commenced a +breathless explanation. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all we could get. There's nobody on our trail," he said. +</P> + +<P> +The last fact was most important, and Wyllard cut him short. "Get the +jibs and staysail on to her." +</P> + +<P> +The new arrivals did it while the cable clanked and rattled as the +schooner drove astern, but at the first heave the rotten staysail tore +off the hanks, and one jib burst as they ran it up its stay. Then for +an anxious moment or two the cable jammed, and the anchor brought the +schooner up. All four flung themselves upon the windlass levers, and +after a furious effort the chain came up again and ran out faster, +fathom by fathom, rattling horribly, until the end of it shot suddenly +over the windlass. Then there was another check as the schooner +brought up by the kedge swung suddenly across the stream. +</P> + +<P> +Her banging canvas filled, she listed over, and it was evident to all +of them that if the kedge started she would forthwith drive ashore. +Its warp ripped out of the water tense with strain, and she was +swinging on it heading for the beach when; Wyllard flung himself upon +the wheel. +</P> + +<P> +"Hang on to every inch or break it!" he roared. "Out main-boom; box +your jib and staysail up to weather!" +</P> + +<P> +They did it, amidst a great clatter of blocks and thrashing of canvas, +in desperate haste, while Wyllard wrenched up his helm, and the +schooner, straining on the warp, fell away with her bows down-stream. +He was quivering all through, and the sweat of effort dripped from him +when he swung up an arm to Lewson, who was standing at the bollard the +warp was made fast to. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he cried hoarsely, "let her go!" +</P> + +<P> +The rope fell with a splash, the schooner lurched forward and drove +away down the inlet with the stream running seaward under her, while +Wyllard felt a trifle dazed from sheer revulsion of feeling. The +rumble of the surf was growing louder, the deck slanted slightly +beneath him, and if they could keep her off the beach for the next few +minutes there was freedom before them. He hazarded a glance astern, +but could see no sign of a boat up the inlet. They had done a thing +which even then appeared almost incredible. +</P> + +<P> +The breeze came down fresher, the gurgle at the bows grew louder, and +the deck commenced to heave with a slow and regular rise and fall. +Then a long, shadowy point girt about with spectral surf slipped by, +and they were out in open water. They ran her out for an hour or two +and then, though the peak of the mainsail burst to tatters as they +hauled her on a wind, let her stretch away northwards following the +trend of coast. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll stand on as she's lying until we find a creek or river mouth. +We must have water," Wyllard said. +</P> + +<P> +An hour later he called Charly to the wheel, and sitting down in the +shelter of the rail soon afterwards went to sleep, though this was +about the last thing he had contemplated doing. It was grey dawn when +he opened his eyes again, and stood up, aching all over and very cold, +to see that the schooner was tumbling over a little spiteful sea with +the hazy loom of land not far away from her. Then he glanced at the +gear and canvas, and was almost appalled, while Charly, who was busy +close by, saw his face and grinned. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't want to look at her too much," he said. "We took a swig on +the peak-halliards a little while ago, and had to let up before we +pulled the gaff off her. Boom-foresail's worse, and the jibs are +dropping off her, while the water just pours in through her topsides +when she puts another lee plank down." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard made a little expressive gesture, and leaned upon the rail. He +realised then something of the nature of the task he had undertaken. +They had no anchor, no fresh water, no fuel for cooking, and, so far as +he was aware, very few provisions, while it seemed to him that the +weathered, worn-out gear would not hold the masts in the vessel in any +weight of breeze. Still, the thing must be attempted, and there was +one want, at least, that could be supplied. +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway," he said, "we'll beat her in. When we come abreast of the +first creek you and Tom and the Siwash will go ashore." +</P> + +<P> +It was afternoon when they sighted one, and they took most of the +canvas off the vessel before three of them pulled away in the boat, +leaving Wyllard at the helm. It was blowing moderately fresh off +shore, and it was with feverish impatience he watched them toiling at +the oars, two of them pulling while the third man sculled. Then they +disappeared behind a point, and an anxious hour went by before the +boat, which now showed a very scanty strip of side above the tumbling +foam, crept out from the beach again. Having no breakers, they had +brought the water off in bulk, sitting in it as they pulled, and it was +fortunate that the boat lurched off shore easily before the little +splashing seas. They lost some of the water before they hove it into +the big and very rusty tank, and then they held a consultation when +they had swung the boat in and the schooner was running off to the east +again. +</P> + +<P> +"We've about stores enough to last two weeks—that is, if you don't +expect too much," Lewson pointed out. "There's an American stove in +the deck-house, and while we can't find anything meant to burn in it +there's an axe down forward, and we could cut out cabin floorings, or a +beam or two, without taking too much stiffening out of her." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard, who had inspected the stores, fancied that a fortnight was the +very longest that could be counted on, though they ate no more than +would keep a modicum of strength in them. From their kind and quality +he surmised that they had been intended for the officials in charge of +the settlement. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you get them, Tom?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"The thing," said Lewson quietly, "was simple. It was dark and hazy, +and raining quite hard, and the first thing we did was to run the boat +down and leave her nearly afloat. Then we crawled back, and lay by +listening outside that store. We were figuring how we were to break it +in when two men came along. They went in and came out with a bag or +two, and as they left the door open we figured they were coming back +for more. We humped out a moderate load, and had just got it down to +the boat when we saw those men, or two others, in the haze. I was for +lying by, but Charly would get out then." +</P> + +<P> +Charly laughed drily. "He wanted to take the rifle and go back to look +for Smirnoff. I'd no use for any trouble of that kind, and I shoved +the boat off while he was seeing how many ca'tridges there were in the +magazine. He waded in and grabbed the boat when he saw I was sure +going, but I shoved her away from him. Then it kind of struck him he +had to get in or swim." +</P> + +<P> +Lewson's expression grew very grim. "That's the thing that hurts the +most—to go away before I got even with that man," he said. "Still, I +may get over it if I try to think of him with his nose smashed hard to +starboard." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard made a sign of impatience. He felt that, after all, there was +perhaps something to be said for Smirnoff's point of view. +</P> + +<P> +"There is just one plan open to us, and that's to drive her across to +the eastward as fast as we can," he said. "We might, perhaps, pick up +an Alaska C.C. factory before the provisions quite run out if this +breeze and the gear hold up. Failing that, we must try for one of the +Western Aleutians." +</P> + +<P> +The others concurred in this, and very fortunately the breeze kept to +the west and south, for Wyllard had very grave doubts as to whether he +could have thrashed the schooner to windward through a steep head sea. +Indeed, on looking back on that voyage and remembering the state of the +vessel, it seemed to him that he and his companions had only escaped as +by a miracle. In any case, they hove her to one misty evening in a +deep inlet behind a promontory, and Wyllard, who sculled up it alone in +the growing darkness, badly startled the agent of an A.C.C. factory +when he appeared, ragged, haggard, and wet with rain, in the doorway of +a big, stove-warmed room. +</P> + +<P> +The agent, however, was, as he admitted, out for business, and when +Wyllard produced a wad of paper money stained by wet and perspiration +he appeared quite willing to part with certain provisions. He was also +told that no questions would be answered, and when he had given Wyllard +supper the latter sculled away in the darkness leaving him none the +wiser. Half an hour later the schooner slipped out to sea again. +</P> + +<P> +The rest was by comparison easy. They had the coast of Alaska and +British Columbia close aboard, and they crept southwards in fine +weather, once running off their course when the smoke of a steamer +crept up above the horizon. Then they ran for the northern tongue of +Vancouver Island in a strong breeze of wind, and Wyllard, who had +already decided that the vessel would scarcely fetch five hundred +dollars and that it would be better if all trace of her disappeared, +pulled his wheel over suddenly as she was scraping by a surf-swept reef. +</P> + +<P> +In another minute she was on hard and fast, and they had scarcely got +the boat over when the masts went with a crash. A quarter of an hour +later they were thrown up on the beach, and before they set out on a +long march through the bush there was very little to be seen of the +vessel. +</P> + +<P> +Three or four days afterwards they reached a little wooden town, and +Wyllard, who slipped into it alone in the dusk, bought clothing for +himself and his companions, who put it on in the bush. Then they went +into the town together, and slept that night in a wooden hotel. +</P> + +<P> +Their troubles were over, and, what was more, Wyllard, who pledged the +rest to secrecy, fancied that what had become of the schooner would +remain a mystery. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap31"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WYLLARD COMES HOME. +</H3> + +<P> +Harvest had commenced at the Range, and the clashing binders were +moving through the grain when Hawtrey sat one afternoon in Wyllard's +room at the Range. It was then about five o'clock, and every man +belonging to the homestead was toiling bare-armed and grimed with dust +among the yellow oats, but Hawtrey sat at a table gazing at the litter +of papers in front of him with a troubled face. He wore a white shirt +and store clothes, which was distinctly unusual in case of a Western +farmer at harvest time, and Edmonds, the mortgage jobber, leaned back +in a big chair quietly watching him. +</P> + +<P> +The latter had, as it happened, called at a singularly inconvenient +time, and Hawtrey was anxious to get rid of him before the guests he +expected arrived. It was Sally's birthday, and since she took pleasure +in simple festivities of any kind he had arranged to celebrate it at +the Range. He was, however, sufficiently acquainted with his +companion's character to realise that it was most unlikely that he +would take his departure before he had accomplished the purpose which +had brought him there. This was to collect several thousand dollars. +</P> + +<P> +It was quite clear to Hawtrey that he was in an unpleasantly tight +place. Edmonds held a bond upon his homestead, teams, and implements +as security for a short date loan, repayment of which was due, and he +was to be married to Sally in a month or so. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you wait a little?" he asked at length. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid not," was the uncompromising reply. "Money's tight this +fall, and things have gone against me. Besides, you could pay me off +if you wanted to." +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds turned towards an open window, and glanced at the great stretch +of yellow grain that ran back across the prairie. Dusty teams and +binders with flashing wooden arms moved half-hidden along the edge of +it, and the still, clear air was filled with a clash and clatter and +the rustle of flung-out sheaves. +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt that money could be raised upon that harvest field. +Indeed, Hawtrey fancied that his companion would be quite content to +take a bond for the delivery of so many thousand bushels in repayment +of the loan, but while he had already gone further than he had at one +time contemplated doing, this was a course he shrank from suggesting. +After all, the grain was Wyllard's, and there was the difficulty that +Wyllard might still come back, while if he failed to do this an absence +of another few months would entitle his executors to presume him dead. +In either case, Hawtrey would be required to account for his property. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, "I can't take—that way." +</P> + +<P> +There was a trace of contempt in the mortgage jobber's smile. "You of +course understand just how you're fixed, but it seemed to me from that +draft of the arrangement with Wyllard that you have the power to do +pretty much what you like. Anyway, if you gave me a bond on as much of +that grain as would wipe out the loan at present figure, it would only +mean that you would have Wyllard's trustees for creditors instead of +me, and it's probable that they wouldn't be as hard upon you as I'm +compelled to be. As things stand, you have got to square up or I throw +your place on the market." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey's face betrayed his dismay, and his companion fancied that he +would yield to a little further pressure. He had not said anything +about the mortgage to Sally, and it would be singularly unpleasant to +be turned out upon the prairie within a month or two of his marriage, +for he could not count upon being left in possession of the Range much +longer. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm only entitled to handle Wyllard's money on—his—account," he +objected. +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds appeared to reflect. "So far as I can remember there was +nothing of that kind stated in the draft of the arrangement. It +empowered you to do anything you thought fit with the money, but it's +altogether your own affair. I can, of course, get my dollars back by +selling your homestead up, and I have to decide if that must be done or +not before I leave." +</P> + +<P> +He had very little doubt as to what the decision would be. Hawtrey +would yield, and afterwards it would not be difficult to draw him into +some unwise speculation with the object of getting the money back, +which he imagined that Hawtrey would be desperately anxious to do. As +the result of this, he expected to get such a hold upon the Range that +he would be master of the situation when the property fell into the +hands of Wyllard's trustees. That Hawtrey would be disgraced as well +as ruined naturally did not count with him. +</P> + +<P> +The latter took up one of the papers, and read it through with +vacillation in his eyes. Then he rose, and stood leaning on the table +while he gazed at the teams toiling amidst the grain. There was wealth +enough yonder to release him from his torturing anxieties, and after +all, he felt, something must turn up before the reckoning was due. It +was not in his nature to face a crisis, and with him a trouble seemed +less formidable if it could only be put off a little. Edmonds, who +knew with what kind of man he had to deal, said nothing further, and +quietly reached out for another cigar. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, though neither of the men were aware of this, Sally +had just got down from her waggon on the other side of the house, and +another couple of teams were already growing larger upon the sweep of +whitened prairie. As she entered the homestead she met Mrs. Nansen, +and the latter informed her that Hawtrey was busy with Edmonds in +Wyllard's room. Sally's eyes sparkled when she heard it, and her face +grew hard. +</P> + +<P> +"That man!" she said. "Well, I guess I'll go right in to them." +</P> + +<P> +In another minute she opened the door, and answered the mortgage +jobber's somewhat embarrassed greeting with a frigid stare. Having +some experience of Sally's uncompromising directness, he was inclined +to fancy that the game was up, but he said nothing further, and she +fixed her eyes on Hawtrey. +</P> + +<P> +"What's this man doing here again?" she asked. "You promised me you +would never make another deal with him." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey flushed. Had he fancied it would have been the least use he +would have made some attempt to get Sally out of the room, but he was +unpleasantly sure that unless she was fully satisfied first it would +only result in failure. Besides, driven to desperation, as he was, he +had a half-conscious feeling that she might provide him with some means +of escape. Sally had certainly saved him once already, and, +humiliating as it was, he fancied that she did not expect too much from +him. She might be very angry, but Sally's anger was, after all, less +difficult to face than Agatha's quiet scorn. +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't made another deal. It's—a previous one," he said lamely. +</P> + +<P> +Sally swung round on Edmonds. "You have come here for money? You may +as well tell me. I won't leave you with Gregory until you do." +</P> + +<P> +It was quite evident that she would make her promise good, and Edmonds +nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said; "about 3,000 dollars." +</P> + +<P> +"And Gregory can't pay you?" +</P> + +<P> +Edmonds reflected rapidly, and decided to take a bold course. He was +acquainted with Hawtrey's habit of putting things off, and fancied that +the latter would seize upon the first loophole of escape from an +embarrassing situation. That was why he gave him a lead. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "there is a way in which he could do it if he wished. +He has only to fill in a paper and hand it me." +</P> + +<P> +He had, however, not sufficiently counted on Sally's knowledge of his +victim's affairs, or her quickness of wit, for she turned to Hawtrey +with a commanding gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you going to get 3,000 dollars from?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +The blood crept into Hawtrey's face, for this was a thing he could not +tell her; but a swift suspicion flashed into her mind as she looked at +him. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps it could be—raised," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"To pay his mortgage off?" and Sally swung round on Edmonds now. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," the latter admitted; "he can easily do it." +</P> + +<P> +Then the girl turned to Hawtrey. "Gregory," she said with harsh +incisiveness, "there's only one way you could get that money—and it +isn't yours." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey said nothing, but he could not meet her gaze, and when he +turned from her she looked back at the mortgage jobber. +</P> + +<P> +"If you're gone before I come back there'll sure be trouble," she +informed him, and sped swiftly out of the room. +</P> + +<P> +Then Hawtrey sat down limply in his chair, and Edmonds laughed in a +jarring manner. The game was up, but, after all, if he got his 3,000 +dollars he could be satisfied, for he had already extracted a good many +from Hawtrey one way or another. +</P> + +<P> +"If I were you I'd marry that girl right away," he said. "You'd be +safer if you had her to look after you." +</P> + +<P> +Hawtrey let the jibe pass. For one thing, he felt that it was +warranted, and just then his anxiety was too strong for anger. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile, Sally ran out of the house to meet Hastings, who had +just handed his wife down from their waggon, and drew him a pace or two +aside. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm worried about Gregory," she said; "he's in trouble—big trouble. +Somehow we have got to raise 3,000 dollars. Edmonds is inside with +him." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings did not seem greatly astonished. "Ah!" he said, "I guess it's +over that mortgage of his. It would be awkward for you and Gregory if +Edmonds took the homestead and turned him out." +</P> + +<P> +Sally's face grew rather white, but she met his gaze steadily. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she said, "that's not what I would mind the most." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings reflected a moment or two. He fancied that this was a very +difficult admission for the girl to make, and that she had made it +suggested that Hawtrey might become involved in more serious +difficulties. He had also a strong suspicion of what they were likely +to be. +</P> + +<P> +"Sally," he said quietly, "you are afraid of Edmonds making him do +something you would not like?" +</P> + +<P> +Though she did not answer directly he saw the shame in the girl's face, +and remembered that he was one of Wyllard's trustees. +</P> + +<P> +"I must raise those dollars—now—and I don't know where to get more +than five hundred from. I might manage that," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Hastings, "you want me to lend you them, and I'm not sure +that I can. Still, if you'll wait a few minutes I'll see what I can +do." +</P> + +<P> +Sally left him, and he turned to his wife, whose expression suggested +that she had overheard part of what was said and had guessed the rest. +</P> + +<P> +"You mean to raise that money? After all, we are friends of his, and +it may save him from letting Edmonds get his grip upon the Range," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +Hastings made a sign of reluctant assent. "I don't quite know how I +can do it personally, in view of the figure wheat is standing at, and I +don't think much of any security that Gregory could offer me. Still, +there is, perhaps, a way in which it could be arranged, and it's one +that, considering everything, is more or less admissible. I think I'll +wait here for Agatha." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha was in the waggon driven by Sproatly close behind them, and when +he had handed her and Winifred down Hastings, who walked to the house +with them, drew her into an unoccupied room, while Mrs. Nansen took the +rest into the big general one. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid that Gregory's in rather serious trouble. Sally seems very +anxious about him," he said. "It's rather a delicate subject, but I +understand that in a general way you are on good terms with both of +them?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha met his somewhat embarrassed gaze with a smile. She fancied +that what he really wished to discover was whether she still felt any +bitterness against Gregory and blamed him for pledging himself to Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, "Sally and I are good friends, and I am very sorry to +hear that Gregory is in any difficulty." +</P> + +<P> +Hastings still seemed embarrassed, and she was becoming puzzled by his +manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Once upon a time you would have done anything possible to make things +easier for him," he said. "I wonder if I might ask if to some extent +you have that feeling still?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. If he is in serious trouble I should be glad to do +anything within my power to help him." +</P> + +<P> +"Even if it cost, we will say, about six hundred English pounds?" +</P> + +<P> +Agatha gazed at him in bewildered astonishment. "There are some twenty +dollars in my possession which your wife handed me not long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Still, if you had the money, you would be glad to help him—and would +not regret it afterwards?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Agatha decisively; "if I had the means, and the need was +urgent, I should be glad to do what I could." Then she laughed. "I +can't understand in the least how this is to the purpose." +</P> + +<P> +"If you will wait for the next two or three months I may be able to +explain it to you," said Hastings. "In the meanwhile, there are one or +two things I have to do." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha sat still when he left her, wondering what he could have meant, +but feeling that she would be willing to do what she had assured him. +His suggestion that it was possible that she still cherished any sense +of grievance against Gregory because he was going to marry Sally, +however, brought a little scornful smile into her eyes. It was +singularly easy to forgive Gregory that, for she now saw him as he +was—shallow, careless, shiftless, a man without depth of character. +He had a few surface graces, and on occasion a certain half-insolent +forcefulness of manner which in a curious fashion was almost becoming. +There was, however, nothing beneath the surface. When he had to face a +crisis he collapsed like a pricked bladder, which was the first simile +she could think of, though she admitted that it was not a particularly +elegant one. He was, it seemed, quite willing that a woman should help +him out of the trouble he had involved himself in, for she had no doubt +that Sally had sent Hastings on his somewhat incomprehensible errand. +</P> + +<P> +Then a clear voice came in through the window, and turning towards it +she saw that a young lad clad in blue duck was singing as he drove his +binder through the grain. The song was a very simple one which had +some vogue just then upon the prairie, but her eyes grew suddenly hazy +as odd snatches of it reached her through the beat of hoofs, the clash +of the binder's arms, and the rustle of the flung-out sheaves. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"My Bonny lies over the ocean,<BR> +My Bonny lies far over the sea."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Then he called to his horses, and it was a few moments before she heard +again— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Bring back my Bonny to me."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +A quiver ran through her as she leaned upon the window frame. There +was a certain pathos in the simple strain, and she could fancy that the +lad, who was clearly English, as an exile felt it, too. Once more as +the jaded horses and clashing machine grew smaller down the edge of the +great sweep of yellow grain, his voice came faintly up to her with its +haunting thrill of longing and regret— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Bring back my Bonny to me."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +This in her case was more than anyone could do, and as she stood +listening a tear splashed upon her closed hands. The man, by +comparison with whom Gregory appeared a mere lay figure, was in all +probability lying still far up in the solitudes of the frozen North, +with his last grim journey done. This time, however, he had not +carried her picture with him. Gregory was to blame for that, and it +was the one thing she could not forgive him. +</P> + +<P> +She leaned against the window for another minute, struggling with an +almost uncontrollable longing, and looking out upon the sweep of golden +wheat and whitened grass with brimming eyes, until there was a rattle +of wheels, and she saw Edmonds drive away. In another minute she heard +voices in the corridor, and it became evident that Hastings was +speaking to his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got rid of the man, and it's reasonable to expect that Gregory +will keep clear of him after this," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you mean that Agatha did it?" +</P> + +<P> +It was Mrs. Hastings who asked the question, and Agatha became intent +as she heard her name. She did not, however, hear the answer, and Mrs. +Hastings spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"Allen," she said, "you don't keep a secret badly, though Harry pledged +you not to tell. Still, all that caution was a little unnecessary. It +was, of course, just the kind of thing he would do." +</P> + +<P> +"What did he do?" Hastings asked, and Agatha heard his wife's soft +laugh, for they were just outside the door now. +</P> + +<P> +"Left the Range, or most of it, to Agatha in case he didn't come back +again." +</P> + +<P> +They went on, and Agatha, turning from the window, sat down limply with +the blood in her face and her heart beating horribly fast. Wyllard's +last care, it seemed, had been to provide for her, and that fact +brought her a curious sense of solace. In an unexplainable fashion it +took the bitterest sting out of her grief, though how far he had +succeeded in his intentions did not seem to matter in the least. It +was sufficient to know that amidst all the haste of his preparation he +had not forgotten her. +</P> + +<P> +Then, becoming a little calmer, she understood what had been in +Hastings's mind during the interview that had puzzled her, and was glad +that she assured him of her willingness to sacrifice anything that +might be hers if it was needed to set Gregory free. It was, she felt, +what Wyllard would have done with the money. He had said that Gregory +was a friend of his, and that, she knew, meant a good deal to him. +</P> + +<P> +It was, however, evident that she must join the others if she did not +wish her absence to excite undesirable comment, and going out she came +face to face with Sally in the corridor. The girl stopped, and saw the +sympathy in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said impulsively, "I've saved him. Edmonds has gone. +Hastings bought him off, and, though I don't quite know how, you helped +him. He stayed behind to wait for you." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha smiled. The vibrant relief in her companion's voice stirred +her, and she realised once more that in choosing this half-taught girl, +at least, Gregory had acted with wholly unusual wisdom. It was with a +sense of half-contemptuous amusement at her folly she remembered how +she had once fancied that Gregory was marrying beneath him. Sally was +far from perfect, but when it was a matter of essentials the man was +not fit to brush her shoes. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," she said, "I really don't know exactly what I—have—done, +but if it amounts to anything it is a pleasure to me." +</P> + +<P> +Then they went together into the big general room where Gregory was +talking to Winifred somewhat volubly. Agatha, however, fancied from +his manner that he had, at least, the grace to feel ashamed of himself. +Supper, she heard Mrs. Nansen say, would be ready very shortly, and +feeling in no mood for general conversation she sat near a window +looking out across the harvest field until she heard a distant shout, +and saw a waggon appear on the crest of the rise. Then, to her +astonishment, two of the binders stopped, and she saw a couple of men +who sprang down from them run to meet the waggon. In another moment or +two more of the teams stopped, and a faint clamour of cries went up, +while here and there little running figures straggled up the slope. +Then her companions clustered about her at the window, wondering, and +Winifred turned to Hastings. +</P> + +<P> +"What are they shouting for?" she asked. "They are all crowding about +the waggon now." +</P> + +<P> +Agatha felt suddenly dazed and dizzy, for she knew what the answer to +that question must be even before Mrs. Hastings spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Harry coming back," she said, and gasped. +</P> + +<P> +In another moment they streamed out of the house, and Agatha found it +scarcely possible to follow them, for the sudden revulsion of feeling +had almost overpowered her. Still, she reached the door, and saw the +waggon drawn up amidst a cluster of struggling men, and by and bye +Wyllard, whom they surrounded, break out as if by force from the midst +of them. She stood on the threshold waiting him, and in the midst of +her exultation a pang smote her as she saw how gaunt and worn he was. +He came straight towards her, apparently regardless of the others, and +clasping the hands she held out drew her into the house. +</P> + +<P> +"So you have not married Gregory yet?" he said, and laughed +triumphantly when he saw the answer in her shining eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said softly, "it is certain that I will never marry him." +</P> + +<P> +Wyllard drew her back still further with a compelling grasp. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha looked up at him, and then turned her eyes away. +</P> + +<P> +"I was waiting for you," she said simply. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-352"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-352.jpg" ALT=""'I was waiting for you,' she said simply."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="318" HEIGHT="475"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 318px"> +"'I was waiting for you,' she said simply." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Then he took her in his arms and kissed her before he turned, still +with her hand in his, to face the others who were now flocking back to +the house, and in another moment or two they went in together amidst a +confused clamour of good wishes. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hawtrey's Deputy, by Harold Bindloss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAWTREY'S DEPUTY *** + +***** This file should be named 27601-h.htm or 27601-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/6/0/27601/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hawtrey's Deputy + +Author: Harold Bindloss + +Illustrator: Cyrus Cuneo + +Release Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #27601] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAWTREY'S DEPUTY *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he +sprang forward with a gasp." (CHAPTER XXVIII.)] + + + + + + +HAWTREY'S DEPUTY + + +BY + +HAROLD BINDLOSS + + + +_Author of "The Impostor," "The Liberationist," etc._ + + + + +Illustrated by + +Cyrus Cuneo + + + + +WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED + +LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO + +1910 + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER + + I.--SALLY CREIGHTON + II.--SALLY TAKES CHARGE + III.--WYLLARD ASSENTS + IV.--A CRISIS + V.--THE OLD COUNTRY + VI.--HER PICTURE + VII.--AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH + VIII.--THE TRAVELLING COMPANION + IX.--THE FOG + X.--DISILLUSION + XI.--AGATHA'S DECISION + XII.--WANDERERS + XIII.--THE SUMMONS + XIV.--AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE + XV.--THE BEACH + XVI.--THE FIRST ICE + XVII.--DEFEAT + XVIII.--A DELICATE ERRAND + XIX.--THE PRIOR CLAIM + XX.--THE FIRST STAKE + XXI.--GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND + XXII.--A PAINFUL REVELATION + XXIII.--THROUGH THE SNOW + XXIV.--THE LANDING + XXV.--NEWS OF DISASTER + XXVI.--THE RESCUE + XXVII.--IN THE WILDERNESS + XXVIII.--THE UNEXPECTED + XXIX.--CAST AWAY + XXX.--THE LAST EFFORT + XXXI.--WYLLARD COMES HOME + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he sprang forward +with a gasp." . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +"She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when his injured +leg trailed in the snow." + +"Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those dishes on the +table.'" + +"At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, +came in." + +"'Now,' he said, 'I won't let you fall.'" + +"'You!' was all she said." + +"In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his +arms about her." + +"Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble +and plunge." + +"'Do you think--that--would have mattered?'" + +"'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we promised!'" + +"Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down, and the next +moment she was strongly lifted." + +"'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said, and pointed to +the parallel of latitude that ran across." + +"It seemed that he did not immediately notice her." + +"'Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?'" + +"It shambled forward in a curious manner." + +"'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'" + +"'I was waiting for you,' she said simply." + + + + +HAWTREY'S DEPUTY. + + +CHAPTER I. + +SALLY CREIGHTON. + +The frost outside was bitter, and the prairie, which rolled back from +Lander's in long undulations to the far horizon, gleamed white beneath +the moon, but there was warmth and brightness in Stukely's wooden barn. +It stood at one end of the little, desolate settlement, where the trail +that came up from the railroad thirty miles away forked off into two +wavy ribands that melted into a waste of snow. Lander's consisted then +of five or six frame houses and stores, a hotel of the same material, +several sod stables, and a few birch-log barns; and its inhabitants +considered it one of the most promising places in Western Canada. +That, however, is the land of promise, a promise that is in due time +usually fulfilled, and the men of Lander's were, for the most part, +shrewdly practical optimists. They made the most of a somewhat grim +and frugal present, and staked all they had to give--the few dollars +they had brought in with them, and their powers of enduring toil--upon +the roseate future. + +Stukely had given them, and their scattered neighbours, who had driven +there across several leagues of prairie, a supper in his barn, and a +big rusty stove, which had been brought in for the occasion, stood in +the midst of it. Its pipe glowed in places a dull red, and Stukely now +and then wondered uneasily whether it was charring a larger hole +through the shingles of the roof. On one side of the stove the floor +had been cleared; on the other benches, empty barrels, and tables were +huddled together, and such of the guests as were not at the moment +dancing sat upon them indiscriminately. A keg of hard Ontario cider +had been provided for their refreshment, and it was open to anybody to +ladle up what he wanted with a tin dipper, while a haze of tobacco +smoke drifted in thin blue wisps beneath the big nickelled lamps. In +addition to the reek of it, the place was filled with the smell of hot +iron which an over-driven stove gives out, and the subtle odours of old +skin coats. + +The guests, however, were accustomed to an atmosphere of that kind, and +it did not trouble them. For the most part, they were lean and spare, +bronzed by frost and snow-blink, and straight of limb, for, though +scarcely half of them were Canadian born, the prairie, as a rule, +swiftly sets its stamp upon the newcomer. There was also something in +the way they held themselves and put their feet down that suggested +health and vigour, and, in the case of most of them, a certain +alertness and decision of character. Some hailed from English cities, +a few from those of Canada, and some from the bush of Ontario; but +there was a similarity between them which the cut and tightness of +their store clothing did not altogether account for. They lived well +if plainly, and toiled out in the open unusually hard. Their eyes were +steady, their bronzed skin was clear, and their laughter had a +wholesome ring. + +A fiery-haired Scot, a Highlander of the Isles, sat upon a barrel-head +sawing at a fiddle, and the shrill scream of it filled the barn. Tone +he did not aspire to, but he played with Caledonian verve and swing, +and kept the snapping time. It was mad, harsh music of the kind that +sets the blood tingling and the feet to move in rhythm, though the +exhilarating effect of it was rather spoiled by the efforts of the +little French Canadian who had another fiddle and threw in clanging +chords upon the lower strings. + +They were dancing in the cleared space what was presumably a quadrille, +though it bore almost as great a resemblance to a Scottish country +dance, or indeed to one of the measures of Bretonne France, which was, +however, characteristic of the country. The Englishman has set no +distinguishable impress upon the prairie. It has absorbed him with his +reserve and sturdy industry, and the Canadian from the cities is +apparently lost in it, too, for theirs is the leaven that works through +the mass slowly and unobtrusively, and it is the Scot and the habitant +of French extraction who have given the life of it colour and +individuality. Extremes meet and fuse on the wide white levels of the +West. + +It was, however, an Englishman who was the life of that dance, and he +was physically a bigger man than most of the rest, for as a rule, at +least, the Colonial born run to wiry hardness rather than solidity of +frame. Gregory Hawtrey was tall and thick of shoulder, though the rest +of him was in fine modelling, and he had a pleasant face of the English +blue-eyed type. Just then it was suffused with almost boyish +merriment, and indeed an irresponsible gaiety was a salient +characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though +his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his +manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one +likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten +neighbours would have chosen to stand by them through the strain of +drought and frost in adverse seasons. + +As it happened, the grim, hard-faced Sager, who had come there from +Michigan, was just then talking to Stukely about him. + +"Kind of tone about that man--guess he once had the gold-leaf on him +quite thick, and it hasn't all worn off yet," he said. "Seen more +Englishmen like him, and some folks from Noo York, too, when I took +parties bass fishing way back yonder." + +He waved his hand vaguely, as though to indicate the American Republic, +and Stukely agreed with him. They were also right as far as they went, +for Hawtrey undoubtedly possessed a grace of manner which, however, +somehow failed to reach distinction. It was, perhaps, just a little +too apparent, and lacked the strengthening feature of restraint. + +"I wonder," said Stukely reflectively, "what those kind of fellows done +before they came out here." + +He had expressed a curiosity which is now and then to be met with on +the prairie, but Sager, the charitable, grinned. + +"Oh," he said, "I guess quite a few done no more than make their folks +on the other side tired of them, and that's why they sent them out to +you. Some of them get paid so much on condition that they don't come +back again. Say"--and he glanced towards the dancers--"Dick +Creighton's Sally seems quite stuck on Hawtrey by the way she's looking +at him." + +Stukely assented. He was a somewhat primitive person, as was Sally +Creighton, for that matter, and he did not suppose she would have been +greatly offended had she overheard his observations. + +"Well," he said, "I've thought that, too. If she wants him she'll get +him. She's a smart girl--Sally." + +There were not many women present--perhaps one to every two of the men, +which was, however, rather a large proportion in that country, and none +of their garments were particularly elegant. The fabric was, for the +most part, the cheapest obtainable, and they had fashioned it with +their own fingers in the scanty interludes between washing, and baking, +and mending their husbands' or fathers' clothes. Their faces were a +trifle sallow and had lost their freshness in the dry heat of the +stove. Their hands were hard and reddened, and in figure most of them +were thin and spare. One could have fancied that in a land where +everybody toiled strenuously their burden was the heavier. One or two +of them had clearly been accustomed to a smoother life, but there was +nothing to suggest that they looked back to it with regret. As a +matter of fact, they looked forward, working for the future, and there +was patient courage in their smiling eyes. + +Creighton's Sally, who was then tripping through the measure on +Hawtrey's arm, was native born. She was young and straight--straighter +in outline than the women of the cities--with a suppleness which was +less suggestive of the willow than a rather highly-tempered spring. +She moved with a large vigour which only just fell short of grace, her +eyes snapped when she smiled at Hawtrey, and her hair, which was of a +ruddy brown, had fiery gleams in it. Anyone would have called her +comely, and there was, indeed, no women in Stukely's barn to compare +with her in that respect, which was a fact she recognised, while every +line and pose of her figure seemed expressive of an effervescent +vitality. + +"Oh yes," said Sager reflectively; "she'll get him sure if she sets her +mind on it, and there's no denying that they make a handsome pair. +I've nothing against Hawtrey either: a straight man, a hustler, and +smart at handling a team. Still, it's kind of curious that while the +man's never been stuck for the stamps like the rest of us, he's made +nothing very much of his homestead yet. Now there's Bob, and Jake, and +Jasper came in after he did with half the dollars, and they thrash out +four bushels of hard wheat for Hawtrey's three." + +Stukely made a little gesture of concurrence, for he dimly realised the +significance of his companion's speech. It is results which count in +that country, where the one thing demanded is practical efficiency, and +the man of simple, steadfast purpose usually goes the farthest. +Hawtrey had graces which won him friends, boldness of conception, and +the power of application; but he had somehow failed to accomplish as +much as his neighbours did. After all, there must be a good deal to be +said for the man who raises four bushels of good wheat where his +comrade with equal facilities raises three. + +In the meanwhile Hawtrey was talking to Sally, and it was not +astonishing that they talked of farming, which is the standard topic on +that strip of prairie. + +"So you're not going to break that new piece this spring?" she said. + +"No," said Hawtrey; "I'd want another team, anyway, and I can't raise +the dollars; they're hard to get out here." + +"Plenty under the sod," said Sally, who was essentially practical. +"That's where we get ours, but you have to put the breaker in and turn +it over. You"--and she flashed a swift glance at him--"got most of +yours from England. Won't they send you any more?" + +Hawtrey's eyes twinkled as he shook his head. "I'm afraid they won't," +he said. "You see, I've put the screw on them rather hard the last few +years." + +"How did you do that?" said Sally. "Told them you were thinking of +coming home again?" + +There was a certain wryness in her companion's smile, for though +Hawtrey had cast no particular slur upon the family's credit he had +signally failed to enhance it, and he was quite aware that his English +relatives did not greatly desire his presence in the Old Country. + +"My dear," he said, "you really shouldn't hit a fellow in the eye that +way." + +As it happened, he did not see the girl's face just then, or he might +have noticed a momentary change in its expression. Gregory Hawtrey was +a little casual in speech, but so far most of the young women he +bestowed an epithet of that kind upon had attached no significance to +it. They had wisely decided that he did not mean anything. In another +moment or two the Scottish fiddler's voice broke in. + +"Can ye no' watch the music? Noo it's paddybash!" he cried. + +His French Canadian comrade waved his fiddle-bow protestingly. + +"Paddybashy! _V'la la belle chose!_" he said with ineffable contempt, +and broke in upon the ranting melody with a succession of harsh, +crashing chords. + +Then it apparently became a contest as to which could drown the other's +instrument, and the snapping time grew faster, until the dancers +gasped, and men with long boots encouraged them with cries and stamped +a staccato accompaniment upon the benches or on the floor. It was +savage, rasping music, but one player infused into it the ebullient +verve of France, and the other was from the misty land where the +fiddler learns the witchery of the clanging reel and the swing of the +Strathspey. It is doubtless not high art, but there is probably no +music in the world that fires the blood like this and turns the sober +dance to rhythmic riot. Perhaps, too, it gains something that gives it +a closer compelling grip amidst the prairie snow. + +Hawtrey, at least, was breathless when it ceased, and Sally's eyes +flashed with the effulgence of the Northern night when her partner +found her a resting-place upon an upturned barrel. + +"No," she said, "I won't have any cider." She turned and glanced at +him imperiously. "You're not going for any more either." + +It was, no doubt, not the speech a well-trained English maiden would +have made, but, though Hawtrey smiled rather curiously, it fell +inoffensively from Sally's lips. Though it is not always set down to +their credit, the brown-faced, hard-handed men as a rule live very +abstemiously in that country, and, as it happened, Hawtrey, who, +however, certainly showed no sign of it, had already consumed rather +more cider than anybody else. He made a little sign of submission, and +Sally resumed their conversation where it had broken off. + +"We could let you have our ox-team to do that breaking with," she said. +"You've had Sproatly living with you all winter. Why don't you make +him stay and work out his keep?" + +Hawtrey laughed. "Sally," he said, "do you think anybody could make +Sproatly work?" + +"It would be hard," the girl admitted, and then looked up at him with a +little glint in her eyes. "Still, I'd put a move on him if you sent +him along to me." + +She was a rather capable young woman, but Hawtrey was very dubious of +her ability to accomplish as much as this. Sproatly was an Englishman +of good education, though his appearance seldom suggested it, who drove +about the prairie in a waggon vending cheap oleographs and patent +medicines most of the summer, and contrived to obtain free quarters +from his bachelor acquaintances during the winter. It is a hospitable +country, but there were men round Lander's who when they went away to +work in far-off lumber camps, as they sometimes did, nailed up their +doors and windows to prevent Sproatly getting in. + +"Does he never do anything?" Sally added. + +"No," said Hawtrey; "at least, never when he can help it. He had, +however, started something shortly before I left him. You see, the +house has wanted cleaning the last month or two, and we tossed up for +who should do it. It fell to Sproatly, who didn't seem quite pleased, +but he got as far as firing the chairs and tables out into the snow. +Then he sat down for a smoke, and he was looking at them through the +window when I drove away." + +"Ah," said his companion, "you want somebody to keep the house straight +and look after you. Didn't you know any nice girls back there in the +Old Country?" + +It was spoken naturally, and there was nothing to show that the girl's +heart beat a little more rapidly than usual as she watched her +companion. His face, however, grew a trifle graver, for she had +touched upon a rather momentous question to such men as him. There are +a good many of them living in Spartan simplicity upon the prairie, +well-trained, well-connected young Englishmen, and others like them +from Canadian cities. They naturally look for some grace of culture or +refinement in the woman they would marry, and there are few women of +the station they once belonged to who could face the loneliness and +unassisted drudgery that must be borne by the small wheat-grower's +wife. There were also reasons why this question had been troubling +Hawtrey in particular of late. + +"Oh, yes, one or two," he said. "I'm not quite sure, however, that +girls of that kind would find things even moderately comfortable here." + +There was a certain reflectiveness in his tone, which, since it seemed +to indicate that he had already given the point some consideration, +jarred upon his companion. She had also an ample share of the Western +farmer's pride, which firmly declines to believe that there is any land +to compare with the one the plough is slowly wresting from the wide +white levels of the prairie. + +"We make out well enough," she said with a snap in her eyes. + +Hawtrey made a little whimsical gesture. "Oh, yes," he admitted; "it's +in you. All you want to beat the wilderness and turn it into a garden +is an axe, a span of oxen, and a breaker plough. You ought to be proud +of it. Still, you see, our folks back yonder aren't quite the same as +you." + +Sally partly understood him. "Ah," she said, "they want more, and, +perhaps, they're used to having more than we have; but isn't that in +one way their misfortune? Is it what folks want, or what they can do, +that makes them of use to anybody else?" + +There was a hard truth in her suggestion, but Hawtrey, who seldom +occupied himself with matters of that kind, smiled. + +"Oh," he said, "I don't know; but, after all, it wouldn't be worth +while our raising wheat here unless there were folks back East to eat +it, and if some of them only eat it in the shape of dainty cakes that +doesn't affect the question. Anyway, there's only another dance or +two, and I was wondering whether I could drive you home; I've got +Wyllard's Ontario sleigh." + +Sally glanced at him rather sharply. She had half-expected this offer, +and it is possible would have judiciously led him up to it if he had +not made it. Now, as she saw that he really wished to drive her home, +she was glad that she had not done so. + +"Yes," she said softly, "I think you could." + +"Then," said Hawtrey, "if you'll wait ten minutes I'll be back with the +team." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +SALLY TAKES CHARGE. + +The night was clear and bitterly cold when Hawtrey and Sally Creighton +drove away from Stukely's barn. Winter had lingered unusually long +that year, and the prairie gleamed dimly white, with the sledge trail +cutting athwart it, a smear of blue-grey, in the foreground. It +was--for Lander's lay behind them with the snow among the stubble belts +that engirdled it--an empty wilderness the mettlesome team swung +across, and during the first few minutes the cold struck through them +with a sting like the thrust of steel. A half-moon hung low above it, +coppery red with frost, and there was no sound but the crunch beneath +the runners, and the beat of hoofs that rang dully through the silence +like a roll of muffled drums. + +Sleighs like the one that Hawtrey drove are not common on the prairie, +where the farmer generally uses the humble bob-sled when the snow lies +unusually long. The one in question had, however, been made for use in +Montreal, and bought back East by a friend of Hawtrey's, who was, as it +happened, possessed of some means, which is a somewhat unusual thing in +the case of a Western wheat-grower. He had also bought the team--the +fastest he could obtain--and when the warmth came back to them Hawtrey +and the girl became conscious of the exhilaration of the swift and easy +motion. The sleigh was light and narrow, and Hawtrey, who drew the +thick driving robe higher about his companion, did not immediately draw +the mittened hand he had used back again. The girl did not resent the +fact that it still rested behind her shoulder, nor did Hawtrey attach +any particular significance to the matter. He was a man who usually +acted on impulse, with singularly easy manners. How far Sally +understood him did not appear, but she came of folk who had waged a +very stubborn battle with the wilderness, and there was a vein of +somewhat grim tenacity in her. + +She was, however, conscious that there was something beneath her feet +which forced her, if she was to sit comfortably, rather close against +her companion; and it seemed expedient to point it out. + +"Can't you move a little? I can't get my feet fixed right," she said. + +Hawtrey looked down at her with a smile. "I'm afraid I can't unless I +get right outside. Aren't you happy there?" + +It was the kind of speech he was in the habit of making, but there was +rather more colour in the girl's face than the stinging night air +brought there, and she glanced at the bottom of the sleigh. + +"It's a sack of some kind, isn't it?" she said. + +"Yes," said Hawtrey; "it's a couple of three-bushel bags. Some special +seed wheat Lorton sent to Winnipeg for. Ormond brought them out from +the railroad. I promised I'd take them along to him." + +"You should have told me. It's most a league round by Lorton's place," +said Sally. + +"That won't take long with this team. Have you any great objections to +another fifteen minutes' drive with me?" + +Sally looked up at him, and the moonlight was on her face, which was a +very comely one. + +"No," she admitted, "I haven't any." + +She said it demurely, but there was a just perceptible something in her +voice which might have warned the man had he been addicted to taking +warning from anything, which was, however, not the case. It was, in +fact, his trouble that he seldom thought about what he did until he was +compelled to face the consequences; and it was, perhaps, to his credit +that he had after all done very little harm, for there was hot blood in +him. + +"Well," he said, "I'm not going to grumble about those extra three +miles, but you were asking what land I meant to break this spring. +What put that into your mind?" + +"Our folks," said Sally candidly. "They were talking about you." + +This again was significant, but Hawtrey did not notice it. + +"I've no doubt they said I ought to tackle the new quarter section?" he +suggested. + +"Yes," assented Sally. "Why don't you do it? Last fall you thrashed +out quite a big harvest." + +"I certainly did. There, however, didn't seem to be many dollars left +over when I'd faced the bills." + +The girl made a little gesture of impatience. "Oh," she said, "Bob and +Jake and Jasper sowed on less backsetting, and they're buying new teams +and ploughs. Can't you do what they do, though I guess they don't go +off for weeks to Winnipeg?" + +The man was silent. He had an incentive to work hard which she was not +acquainted with, and he had certainly done so, but the long, iron +winter, when there was nothing that could be done, had proved too much +for him. It was very dreary sitting alone evening after evening beside +the stove, and the company of the somnolent Sproatly was not much more +cheerful. Now and then his pleasure-loving nature had revolted from +the barrenness of his lot when he drove home from an odd visit to a +neighbour, stiff with cold, through the stinging frost, and, arriving +in the dark, found the stove had burned out and water frozen hard +inside the house. These were things his neighbours patiently endured, +but Hawtrey had fled for life and brightness to Winnipeg. + +Sally glanced up at him with a little nod. "You take hold with a good +grip. Everybody allows that," she said. "The trouble is you let +things go afterwards. You don't stay with it." + +"Yes," assented Hawtrey. "I believe you have hit it, Sally. That's +very much what's the matter with me." + +"Then," said the girl with quiet insistence, "won't you try?" + +A faint flush crept into Hawtrey's face. The girl was less than +half-taught, and unacquainted with anything beyond the simple, +strenuous life of the prairie. Her greatest accomplishments consisted +of some skill in bakery and the handling of half-broken teams; but she +had once or twice given him what he recognised as excellent advice. +There was something incongruous in the situation, but, as usual, he +preferred to regard it whimsically. + +"I suppose I'll have to, if you insist. If ever I'm the grasping owner +of the biggest farm in this district I'll blame you," he said. + +Sally said nothing further on that subject, and some time later the +sleigh went skimming down among the birches in a shallow ravine. +Hawtrey pulled the horses up when they reached the bottom of it, and +glanced up at a shapeless cluster of buildings that showed black amidst +the trees. + +"Lorton won't be back until to-morrow, but I promised to pitch the bags +into his granary," he said. "If I hump them up the trail here it will +save us driving round through the bluff." + +He got down, and though the bags were heavy he managed to hoist the +first of them on to his shoulders, with Sally's assistance, and then +staggered up the steep foot-trail that climbed the slope with it. He +was more or less accustomed to carrying bags of grain between store and +waggon, but his mittened hands were numbed, and his joints were stiff +with frost just then, and Sally noticed that he floundered rather +wildly. In another moment or two, however, he vanished into the gloom +among the trees, and she sat listening to the uneven crunch of his +footsteps in the snow, until there was a sudden crash of broken +branches, and a sound as of something falling heavily down a declivity. +Then there was another crash, and stillness again. + +Sally gasped, and clenched her mittened hands hard upon the reins as +she remembered that Lorton's bye trail skirted the edge of a very steep +bank, but she lost neither her collectedness nor her nerve. Presence +of mind in the face of an emergency is probably as much a question of +experience as of temperament, and, as it happened, she had, like other +women in that country, seen men struck down by half-trained horses, +crushed by collapsing strawpiles, and once or twice gashed by a mower +blade. This was no doubt why she remembered that the impatient team +would probably move on if she left the sleigh, and she drove them to +the first of the birches before she got down. Then she knotted the +reins about a branch, and called out sharply. + +No answer came out of the shadows, and her heart beat unpleasantly fast +as she plunged in among the trees, keeping below the narrow trail that +went slanting up the side of the declivity, until she stopped, with +another gasp, when she reached a spot where a ray of moonlight came +filtering down. A limp figure in an old skin coat lay almost at her +feet, and she dropped on her knees beside it in the snow. Hawtrey's +face showed an unpleasant greyish-white in the faint silvery light. + +"Gregory!" she cried hoarsely. + +The man opened his eyes, and blinked at her in a half-dazed manner. +"Fell down," he said. "Think I felt my leg go--and my side's stabbing +me. Go for somebody." + +Sally glanced round, and noticed that the grain bag lay burst open not +far away. She fancied that he had clung to it after he lost his +footing, which explained why he had fallen so heavily, but that was not +a point of any consequence now. There was nobody who could help her +within two leagues of the spot, and it was evident that she could not +leave him there to freeze. Then she noticed that the trees grew rather +farther apart just there, and rising swiftly she ran back to bring the +team. The ascent was steep, and she had to urge them up it with sharp +cries and blows with her mittened hand amidst the shadowy trunks and +through snapping undergrowth before she reached the spot where Hawtrey +lay. He looked up at her when at last they stood snorting close beside +him. + +"You can't turn them here," he said. + +Sally was never sure how she managed it, for the sleigh drove against +the slender trunks, and the fiery beasts, terrified by the snapping of +the undergrowth, were almost unmanageable; but at last they were facing +the descent again, and she stooped and twined her arms about the +shoulders of her companion, who now lay almost against the sleigh. + +"It's going to hurt, Gregory, but I have got to get you in," she said. + +Then she gasped, for Hawtrey was a man of full stature, and it was a +heavy lift. She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when +his injured leg trailed in the snow. Still, with the most strenuous +effort she had ever made she moved him a yard or so, and then +staggering fell with her side against the sleigh. She felt faint with +the pain of it, but with another desperate lift she drew him into the +sleigh, and let him sink down gently upon the bag that still lay there. +His eyes had shut again, and he said nothing now. + +[Illustration: "She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once +when his injured leg trailed in the snow."] + +It took only another moment or two to wrap the thick driving robe about +him, and after that she glanced down, with one hand still beneath his +neck. It was clear that he was quite unconscious of her presence, and +stooping swiftly she kissed his grey face. Then she settled herself in +the driving seat with only a blanket coat to shelter her from the +stinging frost, and the horses went cautiously down the slope. She did +not urge them until they reached the level, for the trail that wound up +out of the ravine was difficult, but when the wide white expanse once +more stretched away before them she laid the biting whip across their +backs. + +That was quite sufficient. They were fiery beasts, and when they broke +into a furious gallop the rush of night wind that screamed by struck +her tingling cheeks like a lash of wires. Then all power of feeling +went out of her hands, her arms grew stiff and heavy, and she was glad +that the trail led smooth and straight to the horizon. Hawtrey, who +had moved a little, lay, a shapeless figure, across her feet, but he +answered nothing when she spoke to him. + +The team went far at the gallop, and the beat of hoofs rose up, dulled +a little, in a wild staccato drumming. There was an insistent +crunching beneath the runners, and a fine mist of snow beat against the +sleigh, but the girl leaning forward, a tense figure, with nerveless +hands clenched upon the reins, saw nothing but the blue-grey riband of +trail that steadily unrolled itself before her. At length, however, a +blurred mass, which she knew to be a birch bluff, grew out of the white +waste, and presently a cluster of darker smudges shot up into the shape +of a log-house, sod stables, and strawpile granary. A minute or two +later, she pulled the team up with an effort, and a man, who flung the +door of the house open, came out into the moonlight. He stopped, and +apparently gazed at her in astonishment. + +"Miss Creighton!" he said. + +"Don't stand there," said Sally. "Take the near horse's head, and lead +them right up to the door." + +"What's the matter?" the man asked stupidly. + +"Lead the team up," said Sally. "Jump, if you can." + +It was supposed on that part of the prairie that Sproatly had never +moved with much expedition in his life, but that night he sprang +towards the horses at a commanding wave of the girl's hand. He started +when he saw his comrade lying in the bottom of the sleigh, but Sally +disregarded his hurried questions. + +"Help me to get him out," she said, when he stopped the team. "Keep +his right leg as straight as you can. I don't want to lift him. We +must slide him in." + +They did it somehow, though the girl was breathless before their task, +which the snow made a little easier, was finished, and the perspiration +started from the man. Then Sally turned to the latter. + +"Get into the sleigh, and don't spare the team," she said. "Drive over +to Watson's, and bring him along. You can tell him your partner's +broke his leg, and some of his ribs. Start right now!" + +Sproatly did her bidding, and when the door closed behind him she flung +off her blanket coat and thrust fresh billets into the stove. Then she +looked for some coffee in the store cupboard, and set on a kettle; +after which she sat down on the floor by Hawtrey's side. He lay still, +with the thick driving robe beneath him, and though the colour was +creeping back into his face, his eyes were shut, and he was apparently +quite insensible of her presence. For the first time she was conscious +of a distressful faintness, which, as she had come suddenly out of the +stinging frost into the little overheated room, which reeked with +tobacco smoke and a stale smell of cooking, was not astonishing. She +mastered it, however, and presently, seeing that Hawtrey did not move; +glanced about her with some curiosity, for this was the first time she +had entered his house. + +The room was scantily furnished, and, though very few of the bachelor +farmers in that country live luxuriously, she fancied that Sproatly, +who had evidently very rudimentary ideas on the subject of +house-cleaning, had not brought back all the sundries he had thrown out +into the snow. It then contained a table, a carpenter's bench, and a +couple of chairs, and there were still smears of dust upon the +uncovered floor. The birch-log walls had been rudely panelled with +match-boarding half-way up, which was a somewhat unusual luxury, but +the half-seasoned boards had rent with the heat, and exuded streaks of +resin to which the grime and dust had clung. A pail, which apparently +contained potato peelings, stood amidst a litter of old long boots and +broken harness against one wall, and the floor was black and thick with +grease all round the rusty stove. A pile of unwashed dishes and +cooking utensils stood upon the table, and the lamp above her head had +blackened the boarded ceiling, and diffused a subtle odour of kerosene. + +Sally noticed it all with disgust, and then, seeing that Hawtrey had +opened his eyes, she made a cup of coffee and got him to drink it. +After that he smiled at her. + +"Thanks," he said feebly. "Where's Sproatly? My side stabs me." + +Sally raised one hand. "You're not to say a word. Sproatly's gone for +Watson, and he'll soon fix you up. Now lie quite still, and shut your +eyes again." + +The man obeyed her, in so far as that he lay still, but his eyes were +not more than half-closed, and she could not resist the temptation to +see what he would do if she went away. She had half risen, when he +stretched a hand out and felt for her dress, and she sank down again +with a curious softness in her face. Then he let his eyes close +altogether, as if satisfied, and by and bye she gently laid her hand on +his. + +He did not appear to notice it, and, though she did not know whether he +was asleep or unconscious, she sat beside him, with compassion in her +eyes. There was no sound but the snapping of the birch billets in the +rusty stove. She was anxious, but not unduly so, for she knew that men +who live as the prairie farmers do, usually recover from such injuries +as had befallen him more or less readily. It would also not be very +long before assistance arrived, for it was understood that the man she +had sent Sproatly for had almost gone through a medical course in an +Eastern city before he set up as a prairie farmer. Why he had suddenly +changed his profession was a point he did not explain, and, as he had +always shown himself willing to do what he could when any of his +neighbours met with an accident, nobody troubled him about the matter. + +By and bye Sproatly brought him to the homestead, and he was busy with +Hawtrey for some time. Then they got him to bed, and Watson came back +to the room where Sally was anxiously waiting. + +"His idea about his injuries is more or less correct, but we'll have no +great trouble in pulling him round," he said. "The one point that's +worrying me is the looking after him. One couldn't expect him to +thrive upon slabs of burnt salt pork, and Sproatly's bread." + +"I'll do what I can," said Sproatly indignantly. + +"You!" said the other. "It would be criminal to leave you in charge of +a sick man." + +Sally quietly put on her blanket coat. "If you can stay that long, +I'll be back soon after it's light," she said. Then she turned to +Sproatly. "You can wash up those dishes on the table, and get a brush +and sweep this room out. If it's not quite smart to-morrow you'll do +it again." + +[Illustration: "Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those +dishes on the table.'"] + +Then, while Sproatly grinned, she went out and drove away through the +bitter frost. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +WYLLARD ASSENTS. + +Sally, who brought her mother with her, spent a couple of weeks at +Hawtrey's homestead before Watson decided that his patient could be +entrusted to Sproatly's care; but she came back afterwards twice a week +or so with odd baskets of dainties to make sure that the latter, in +whom she had no confidence, was discharging his duties satisfactorily. +She had driven over again one afternoon, when Hawtrey, whose bones were +knitting well, lay talking to another man in his little sleeping room. + +There was no furniture in it whatever, beyond the wooden bunk he lay +in, and a deerhide lounge chair he had made during the winter; but the +stovepipe from the kitchen led across part of it, and then up again +into the room beneath the roof above. It had been one of Sproatly's +duties during the past two weeks to rise and renew the fire when the +cold awakened his comrade soon after midnight. At present he was +outside the house, whipsawing birch-logs and splitting them into +billets, which was an occupation he cherished a profound dislike for. + +Spring had, however, come suddenly, as it usually does on the prairie, +a few days earlier, and the snow was melting fast under a brilliant +sun. The bright rays that streamed in through the window struck +athwart the glimmering dust motes in the little bare room, and fell, +pleasantly warm, upon the man who lay in the deerhide chair. He was a +year or two older than Hawtrey, though he had scarcely reached thirty, +a man of tranquil manner, with a rather lean and deeply bronzed face, +of average height, and somewhat spare of figure. He held a pipe in his +hand, and was then looking at Hawtrey with quiet, contemplative eyes. +They were, indeed, his most noticeable feature, though it was difficult +to say whether their colour was grey or hazel-brown, for they were +singularly clear, and there was something which suggested steadfastness +in their unwavering gaze. He wore long boots, trousers of old blue +duck, and a jacket of soft deerskin such as the Blackfeet dress; and +there was nothing about him to suggest that he was a man of varied +experience, and of some importance in that country. + +Harry Wyllard was native-born, and had in his young days assisted his +father in the working of a little Manitoban farm, when that great grain +province was still, for the most part, a wilderness. Then a more +prosperous relative on the Pacific slope had sent him to Toronto +University, where after a session or two he had become involved in a +difference of opinion with the authorities. Though the matter was +never made quite clear, it was generally believed that Wyllard had +quietly borne the blame of a comrade's action, for there was a vein of +eccentric generosity in the lad. In any case, he left Toronto, and the +relative, who was largely interested in the fur business, next sent him +north to the Behring Sea, in one of his schooners. The business was +then a remarkably hazardous one, for the skin buyers and pelagic +sealers had trouble all round with the Alaskan representatives of +American trading companies, whose preserves they poached upon, as well +as with the commanders of the gunboats sent up there to protect the +seals. + +Men's lives were staked against the value of a fur, edicts were lightly +contravened, and now and then a schooner barely escaped into the +smothering fog with skins looted close aboard forbidden beaches. It +was a perilous life, and a strenuous one, for they had every white +man's hand against them, as well as fog and gale, and the reefs that +lay in the tideways of almost uncharted waters; but Wyllard made the +most of it. He kept the peace with jealous skippers who resented the +presence of a man they might command as mate, but whose views they were +forced to listen to when he spoke as supercargo; won the good-will of +sea-bred Indians, and drove a good trade with them; and not +infrequently brought his boat back first to the plunging schooner +loaded with reeking skins. + +Then he fell into trouble again when they were hanging off the Eastern +Isles under double reefs, watching for the Russians' seals. A boat's +crew from another schooner had been cast ashore, and, as they were in +peril of falling into the Russians' hands, Wyllard led a reckless boat +expedition to bring them off again. He succeeded, in so far that the +wrecked men were taken off the roaring beach through a tumult of +breaking surf, but as they pulled seaward the fog shut down on them, +and one boat, manned by three men, never reached the schooners. They +blew horns all night, standing off and on, and crept along the smoking +beach next day, though the surf made landing impossible. Then a sudden +gale drove them off the shore, and, as it was evident that their +comrades must have perished, they reluctantly sailed for other fishing +grounds. As one result of this, Wyllard broke with his prosperous +relative when he came back to Vancouver. + +After that he helped to strengthen railroad bridges among the mountains +of British Columbia, worked in logging camps, and shovelled in the +mines, and, as it happened, met Hawtrey, who, tempted by high wages, +had spent a winter in the Mountain Province after a disastrous harvest. +In the meanwhile, his father had sold out, and taken up virgin soil in +Assiniboia. He died soon after Wyllard went back to him, and a few +months later the relative in Vancouver also died. Somewhat to +Wyllard's astonishment, he bequeathed him a considerable property, +which the latter realised and sunk most of the proceeds in further +acres of virgin prairie. Willow Range was already one of the largest +farms between Winnipeg and the Rockies. + +"The leg's getting along satisfactorily?" he said at length. + +Hawtrey, who appeared unusually thoughtful, admitted that it was. + +"Any way, it's singularly unfortunate that I'm broken up just now," he +added. "There's the ploughing to commence in a week or two, and, +besides that, I was thinking of getting married." + +Wyllard was somewhat astonished at this announcement. For one thing, +he was more or less acquainted with the state of his friend's finances. +During the next moment or two he glanced meditatively through the open +door into the adjoining room, where Sally Creighton was busy beside the +stove. The sleeves of her light bodice were rolled up well above the +elbow, and she had pretty, round arms, which were just then partly +immersed in dough. + +"I don't think there's a nicer or more capable girl in this part of +Assiniboia," he said. + +"Oh, yes," said Hawtrey. "Anybody would admit that. Still, since you +seem so sure of it, why don't you marry her yourself?" + +Wyllard looked at his comrade rather curiously. "Well," he said, +"there are one or two reasons that don't affect Miss Sally and only +concern myself. Besides, it's highly improbable that she'd have me." + +He paused to light his pipe, which had gone out, before he looked up +again. "Since it evidently isn't Sally, have I met the lady?" + +"You haven't. She's in England." + +"It's four years, isn't it, since you were over there?" + +Hawtrey lay silent a minute, and then made a little confidential +gesture. "I'd better tell you all about the thing," he said. "Our +folks were people of some little standing in the county. In fact, as +they were far from rich, they had just standing enough to embarrass +them. In most respects they were ultra-conventional with old-fashioned +ideas, and, though there was no open break, I'm afraid I didn't get on +with them quite as well as I should have done, which is why I came out +to Canada. They started me on the land decently, and twice when we'd +harvest frost and horse-sickness, they sent the draft I asked them for +along. That is one reason why I'm not going to worry them, though I'd +very much like another now. You see, there are two girls, as well as +Reggie, who's reading for the Bar." + +"I don't think you have mentioned the lady yet." + +"She's a connection of some friends of ours. Her mother, so far as I +understand it, married beneath her--a man her folks didn't like. He +died, and, when by and bye his wife died, Agatha, who was brought up by +his relations, was often at the Grange. It's a little, old-fashioned, +half-ruinous place, a mile or two from where we live in the North of +England. It belongs to her mother's folks, but I think there was still +a feud between them and her father's people, who brought her up to earn +her living. We saw a good deal of each other, and fell in love as boy +and girl. Well, when I went back, one winter, after I'd been here two +years, Agatha was at the Grange again, and we decided then that I was +to bring her out as soon as I had a home she could live in to offer +her." + +He broke off for a moment, and there was a trace of embarrassment in +his manner when he went on again. "Perhaps I ought to have managed it +sooner," he added. "Still, things never seem to go quite as one would +like with me, and you can understand that a dainty, delicate girl +brought up in comfort in England would find it rough out here." + +Wyllard glanced round the bare room in which he sat, and into the +other, which was also furnished in a remarkably primitive manner. + +"Yes," he assented, "I can quite realise that." + +"Well," said his companion, "it's a thing that has been worrying me a +good deal of late, because, as a matter of fact, I'm not much farther +forward than I was four years ago. In the meanwhile, Agatha, who has +some talent for music, was in a first-class master's hands. Afterwards +she gave lessons, and got odd singing engagements. A week ago, I had a +letter from her in which she said that her throat was giving out." + +He stopped again for a moment, with trouble in his face, and then +fumbling under his pillow produced a letter, which he carefully folded. + +"We're rather good friends," he said. "You can read that part of it." + +Wyllard took the letter, and a suggestion of quickening interest crept +into his eyes as he read. Then he looked up at Hawtrey. + +"It's a brave letter--the kind a brave girl would write," he said. +"Still, it's evident that she's anxious." + +There was silence for a moment or two, which was only broken by Sally +clattering about the stove. Dissimilar in character, as they were, the +two were firm friends, and there had been a day when, as they worked +upon a dizzy railroad trestle, Hawtrey had held his comrade fast when a +plank slipped away. He had, it was characteristic, thought nothing of +the matter, but Wyllard was one who remembered things of that kind. + +"Now," said Hawtrey, "you see my trouble. This place isn't fit for +her, and I couldn't even go across for some time yet, but her father's +folks have died off, and there's nothing to be expected from her +mother's relatives. Any way, she can't be left to face the blow alone. +It's unthinkable. Well, there's only one course open to me, and that's +to raise as many dollars on a mortgage as I can, fit the place out with +fixings brought from Winnipeg, and sow a double acreage with borrowed +capital. I'll send for her as soon as I can get the house made a +little more comfortable." + +Wyllard sat silent a moment or two, and then leaned forward in his +chair. + +"No," he said, "there are two other and wiser courses. Tell the girl +what things are like here, and just how you stand. She'd face it +bravely. There's no doubt of that." + +Hawtrey looked at him sharply. "I believe she would, but considering +that you have never seen her, I don't quite know why you should be sure +of it." + +Wyllard smiled. "The girl who wrote that letter wouldn't flinch." + +"Well," said Hawtrey, "you can mention the second course." + +"I'll let you have $1,000 at bank interest--which is less than any +land-broker would charge you--without a mortgage." + +Again Hawtrey showed a certain embarrassment. "No," he said, "I'm +afraid it can't be done. I'd a kind of claim upon my people, though it +must be admitted that I've worked it off, but I can't quite bring +myself to borrow money from my friends." + +Wyllard, who saw that he meant it, made a gesture of resignation. +"Then you must let the girl make the most of it, but keep out of the +hands of the mortgage man. By the way, I haven't told you that I've +decided to make a trip to the Old Country. We'd a bonanza crop last +season, and Martial could run the range for a month or two. After all, +my father was born yonder, and I can't help feeling now and then that I +should have made an effort to trace up that young Englishman's +relatives, and tell them what became of him." + +"The one you struck in British Columbia? You have mentioned him, but, +so far as I remember, you never gave me any particulars about the +thing." + +Wyllard seemed to hesitate, which was not a habit of his. "There is," +he said, "not much to tell. I struck the lad sitting down, played out, +upon a trail that led over a big divide. It was clear that he couldn't +get any further, and there wasn't a settlement within a good many +leagues of the spot. We were up in the ranges prospecting then. Well, +we made camp and gave him supper--he couldn't eat very much--and he +told me what brought him there afterwards. It seemed to me he'd always +been weedy in the chest, but he'd been working waist-deep in an icy +creek, building a dam at a mine, until his lungs had given out. The +mining boss was a hard case and had no mercy on him, but the lad, who +seemed to have had a rough time in the Mountain Province, stayed with +it until he played out altogether." + +Wyllard's face hardened a little as he mentioned the mining boss, and a +rather curious little sparkle crept into his eyes, but after a pause he +proceeded quietly: + +"We did what we could for him. In fact, it rather broke up the +prospecting trip, but he was too far through," he added. "He hung on +for a week or two, and one of us brought a doctor out from the +settlements, but the day before we broke camp Jake and I buried him." + +Hawtrey made a sign of comprehension. He was reasonably well +acquainted with his comrade's character, and fancied he knew who had +brought the doctor out. He also knew that Wyllard had been earning his +living as a railroad navvy or chopper then, and, in view of the cost of +provisions brought by pack-horse into the remoter bush, the reason why +he had abandoned his prospecting trip after spending a week or two +taking care of the sick lad was clear enough. + +"You never learned his name?" he asked. + +"I didn't," said Wyllard. "I went back to the mine, but several things +suggested that the name upon their pay-roll wasn't his real one. He +commenced a broken message the night he died, but the hemorrhage cut +him off in the middle of it. The wish that I should tell his people +somehow was in his eyes." + +He broke off for a moment with a deprecatory gesture, which in +connection with the story was very expressive. + +"I have never done it, but how could I? All I know is that he was a +delicately brought up young Englishman, and the only clue I have is a +watch with a London maker's name on it and a girl's photograph. I've a +very curious notion that I shall meet that girl some day." + +Hawtrey, who made no comment, lay still for a minute or two after this, +but his face suggested that he was considering something. + +"Harry," he said presently, "I shall not be fit for a journey for quite +a while yet, and if I went over to England I couldn't get the ploughing +done and the crop in; which, if I'm going to be married, is absolutely +necessary." + +There was no doubt about the latter point, for the small Western farmer +has very seldom a balance in hand, and, for that matter, is not +infrequently in debt to the nearest storekeeper. He must, as a rule, +secure a harvest or abandon his holding, since, as soon as the crop is +thrashed, the bills pour in. Wyllard made a sign of assent. + +"Well," said Hawtrey, "if you're going to England you could go as my +deputy. You could make Agatha understand what things are like here, +and bring her out to me. I'll arrange for the wedding to be soon as +she arrives." + +His comrade was not a conventional person, but he pointed out several +objections. Hawtrey over-ruled them, however, and eventually Wyllard +reluctantly assented. + +"As it happens, Mrs. Hastings is going over, too, and if she comes back +about the same time the thing might be managed," he said. "I believe +she's in Winnipeg just now, but I'll write her. By the way, have you a +photograph of Agatha?" + +"I haven't," said Hawtrey. "She gave me one, but somehow it got +mislaid one house-cleaning. That's rather an admission, isn't it?" + +It certainly occurred to Wyllard that it was. In fact, it struck him +as a very curious thing that Hawtrey should have lost the picture which +the girl he was in love with had given him. He sat silent for a moment +or two, and then stood up. + +"When I hear from Mrs. Hastings I'll drive round again. Candidly, the +thing has somewhat astonished me. I always had a fancy it would be +Sally." + +Hawtrey laughed. "Sally?" he said. "We're first-rate friends, but I +never had the faintest notion of marrying her." + +Wyllard went out to harness his team, and, as it happened, did not +notice that Sally, who had approached the door with a tray in her hands +a moment or two earlier, drew back before him softly. When he had +crossed the room she set down the tray and leaned upon the table, with +her cheeks burning. Then, feeling that she could not stay in the +stove-heated room, she went out, and stood in the slushy snow. One of +her hands was tightly closed, and all the colour had vanished from her +cheeks now. She, however, contrived to give Hawtrey his supper by and +bye, and soon afterwards drove away. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A CRISIS. + +While Wyllard made arrangements for his journey, and Sally Creighton +went very quietly about her work on the lonely prairie farm, it +happened one evening that Miss Winifred Rawlinson sat uneasily +expectant far back under the gallery of a concert hall in an English +manufacturing town. She could not hear very well there, but it was the +cheapest place she could obtain, and economy was of some importance to +her. Besides, by craning her neck a little to avoid the hat of the +rather strikingly dressed young woman in front of her, she could, at +least, see the stage. The programme which she held in one hand +announced that Miss Agatha Ismay would sing a certain aria from a great +composer's oratorio, and she leaned further forward in her chair when a +girl of about her own age, which was twenty-four, slowly advanced to +the centre of the stage. + +She was a tall, well-made, brown-haired girl, with a quiet grace of +movement and a comely face, attired in a long trailing dress of a +shimmering corn-straw tint, but when she stood looking at the audience +Miss Rawlinson noticed a hint of tension in her expression. Agatha +Ismay had sung at unimportant concerts with marked success, but that +evening there was something very like shrinking in her eyes. + +Then a crash of chords from the piano melted into a rippling prelude, +and Winifred breathed easier when her friend began to sing. Her voice +was sweet and excellently trained, and there was a deep stillness of +appreciation when the clear notes thrilled through the close-packed +hall. No one could doubt that the first part of the aria was a +success, for half-subdued applause broke out when the voice sank into +silence, and for a few moments the piano rippled on alone; but it +seemed to Winifred that the look of tension was still in the singer's +face, and once more she grew uneasy, for she understood the cause for +it. + +"The last bit of the second part's rather trying," said a young man +behind her. "There's an awkward jump of two full tones that was too +much for our soprano when we tried it at the choral union. Miss +Ismay's very true in intonation, but I don't suppose most of the rest +would notice it if she shirked a little and left that high sharp out." + +Winifred had little knowledge of music, but she was sufficiently +acquainted with her friend's character to be certain that Agatha would +not attempt to leave the sharp in question out. This was one reason +why she sat rigidly still when the clear voice rang out again. It rose +from note to note, full and even, but she could see the singer's face, +and there was no doubt whatever that she was making a strenuous effort. +Nobody else, however, seemed to notice it, for Winifred flung a swift +glance round, and then fixed her eyes upon the dominant figure in the +corn-straw dress that the glare of light fell shimmering on. The sweet +voice was still rising, and she longed that the accompanist would force +the tone to cover it a little, and put the loud pedal on. He, however, +was gazing at his music, and played on quietly until, with startling +suddenness, the climax came. + +The voice sank a full tone, jarring horribly on the theme, rose, and +hoarsely trailed off into silence again. Then the accompanist glanced +over his shoulder, and struck a ringing chord while he waited for a +sign, and there was a curious stirring among the audience. The girl in +the shimmering dress stood quite still for a moment with a spot of +crimson in her cheek and a half-dazed look in her eyes, and then, +turning swiftly, moved off the stage. + +Then Winifred rose with a gasp, and turned upon the young man next her, +who looked up inquiringly. + +"Yes," she said sharply; "can't you let me pass? I'm going out." + +It was about half-past nine when she reached the wet and miry street. +A fine rain drove into her face, and she had rather more than a mile to +walk without an escort, but that was a matter which caused her no +concern. She was a self-reliant young woman, and accustomed to going +about unattended, while she was also quite aware that the scene she had +just witnessed would bring about a crisis in her and her friend's +affairs. For all that, she was unpleasantly conscious of the leak in +one rather shabby boot when she stepped down from the sidewalk to cross +the street, and when she opened her umbrella beneath a gas lamp she +pursed up her mouth. There were a couple of holes in it near where the +ribs ran into the ferrule, which she had not noticed before. She, +however, plodded on resolutely through the drizzle, until three +striplings who came with linked arms down the pavement of a quieter +street barred her way. One wore his hat on one side, the one nearest +the kerb flourished a little cane, and the third of them smiled at her +fatuously. + +"Oh my!" he said. "Where's dear Jemima off in such a hurry?" + +Winifred drew herself up. She was little and determined, and, it must +be admitted, not quite unaccustomed to that kind of thing. + +"Will you let me pass?" she said. "There's a policeman at the next +turning." + +"There really is," said one of them. "The Dook has another engagement. +Dream of me, Olivia!" + +A beat of heavy feet drew nearer, and the three roysterers disappeared +in the direction of a flaming music-hall, where the second "house" was +probably commencing, while Winifred, who had stepped into the gutter to +avoid the one with the cane, turned as a stalwart, blue-coated figure +moved towards her. + +"Thank you, officer," she said; "they've gone." + +The man merely raised a hand as if in comprehension, and plodded back +to his post. Perhaps he felt sorry for young women who have to earn +their living, for he had, at least, appeared promptly when he was +needed; and perhaps he attached no great importance to the matter. +There is a good deal that the policeman knows and accepts with +undisturbed equanimity, which if plainly expressed would, no doubt, +form a somewhat grim commentary on our complex civilisation. + +In the meanwhile Winifred went on until she let herself into a house in +a quiet street, and ascending to the second floor entered a simply +furnished room. It, however, contained a piano; and a little table on +which a typewriter stood amidst a litter of papers occupied the +opposite side of it. The girl sloughed off her waterproof, and rather +flung than hung it on a peg behind the door, after which she sat down +in a low chair beside the little fire. She was not a handsome girl, +and it was evident that she did not trouble herself greatly about her +attire. Her face was too thin, her figure too slight and spare, but +there was usually, even when she was anxious, as she certainly was that +night, a shrewdly whimsical twinkle in her eyes, and though her lips +were set her expression was compassionate. + +She was, however, not the person to sit still very long, and in a +minute or two she rose and placed a little kettle on the fire, after +which she took a few scones, a coffee-pot, and a tin of condensed milk +from a cupboard. When she had spread them out upon a table she +discovered that there was some of the condensed milk upon her fingers, +and it must be admitted that she sucked them. They were little, stubby +fingers, which somehow looked capable. + +"It must have been four o'clock when I had that bun and a cup of tea," +she said. + +She glanced at the table longingly: for she occasionally found it +necessary to place a certain check upon a healthy appetite. She was, +however, not singular in this respect, since the practice of such +self-denial is, unfortunately, not a very unusual thing in the case of +a good many young women in our cities who work remarkably hard. Then +she resolutely shook her head. + +"I must wait for Agatha," she said, and crossing the room towards the +typewriter table stopped to glance at a little framed photograph that +stood upon the mantel. It was a portrait of Gregory Hawtrey taken some +years ago, and she apostrophied it with quiet scorn. + +"Now you're wanted you're naturally away out yonder," she said. +"You're like the rest of them--despicable!" + +This seemed to relieve her feelings, and she sat down before the +machine, which clicked and rattled for several minutes under her stubby +fingers. Then the clicking ceased with sudden abruptness, and she +prodded the mechanism viciously with a hairpin. As this appeared +unavailing she used her forefinger, and when at length the carriage +slid along the rod with a clash there was a smear of grimy oil upon her +cheek and her somewhat tilted nose. The machine, however, gave no +further trouble, and she endeavoured to make up some, at least, of the +time she had spent at the concert. It was necessary that it should be +made up, but she was also conscious that she was putting off an evil +moment. + +At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, +came in. She permitted Winifred to take it from her, and then sank +down into a chair. There was a strained look in her eyes, and her face +was very weary. + +[Illustration: "At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in +a long cloak, came in."] + +"You're working late again?" she said. + +Winifred nodded. "It's the men who loaf, my dear," she said. "When +you undertake the transcription of an author's scrawl at ninepence the +thousand words you have to work unusually hard, especially when, as it +is in this case, the thing's practically unreadable. Besides, the +woman in it makes me lose my temper. If I'd had a man of the kind +described to deal with I'd have thrashed him." + +She was throwing words about, partly to conceal her anxiety, and partly +with the charitable purpose of giving her companion time to approach +the subject that must be mentioned as she thought best; but she rather +over-did it, and Agatha looked at her sharply. + +"Winny," she said, "you know. You've been there." + +Winifred turned towards her quietly, for she could face a crisis. + +"Yes," she said, "I have, but you're not going to talk about it until +you have had supper. Don't move until I make the coffee." + +She was genuinely hungry, but while she satisfied her own appetite she +took care that her companion, who did not seem inclined to eat, made a +simple meal. Then she bundled the plates into a cupboard, and sat down +facing her. + +"Well," she said, "you have broken down exactly as that throat +specialist said you would. The first question is, How long it will be +before you can go on again?" + +Agatha laughed, a little harsh laugh. "I didn't tell you everything at +the time: I've broken down for good." + +There was a moment or two's tense silence after that, and then Agatha +made a dejected gesture. "He warned me that this might happen if I +went on singing, but what could I do? I couldn't cancel my engagements +without telling people why. He said I must go to Norway and give my +throat and chest a rest." + +They looked at one another, and there was in their eyes the +half-bitter, half-weary smile of those to whom the cure prescribed is +ludicrously impossible. It was Winifred who spoke first. + +"Then," she said, "we have to face the situation, and it's not an +encouraging one. Our joint earnings just keep us here in decency--we +won't say comfort--and they're evidently to be subject to a big +reduction. It strikes me as a rather curious coincidence that a letter +from that man in Canada and one from your prosperous friends in the +country arrived just before you went out." + +She saw the look in Agatha's eyes, and spread her hands out. + +"Yes," she admitted; "I hid them. It seemed to me that you had quite +enough upon your mind this evening. I don't know if they're likely to +throw any fresh light upon the question what we're going to do." + +She produced the letters from a drawer in her table, and Agatha +straightened herself suddenly in her chair when she had opened the +first of them. + +"Oh," she cried, "he wants me to go out to him!" + +Winifred's face set hard for a moment, but it relaxed again, and she +contrived to hide her dismay. + +"Then," she suggested with a trace of dryness, "I suppose you'll +certainly go. After all, he's probably not worse to live with than +most of them." + +Miss Rawlinson was occasionally a little bitter, but she had, like +others of her kind, been compelled to compete in an overcrowded market +with hard-driven men. She was, however, sincerely attached to her +friend, and she smiled when she saw the flash in Agatha's eyes. + +"Oh," she added, "you needn't try to wither me with your indignation. +No doubt he's precisely what he ought to be, and I dare say it will +ease your feelings if you talk about him again; at least, it will help +you to formulate your reasons for going out to him. I'll listen +patiently, and try not to be uncharitable." + +Agatha fell in with the suggestion. It was a relief to talk, and she +had also a certain respect, which she would not always admit, for her +companion's shrewdness. She meant to go, but she desired to ascertain +how a less interested person would regard the course she had decided on. + +"I have known Gregory since I was a girl," she said. + +Winifred pursed her lips up. "I understood you met him at the Grange, +and you were only there for a few weeks once a year. After all, that +isn't a very great deal. It seems he fell in love with you, which is, +perhaps, comprehensible. What I don't quite know the reason for is why +you fell in love with him." + +"Ah," said Agatha, "you have never seen Gregory." + +"I haven't," said Winifred sourly; "I have, however, seen his picture, +and one must admit that he's reasonably good-looking. In fact, I've +seen quite an assortment of them, but it's, perhaps, significant that +the last was taken some years ago." + +Agatha smiled. "Can a photograph show the clean, sanguine temperament +of a man, his impulsive generosity, and cheerful optimism?" + +Miss Rawlinson rose, and critically surveyed the photograph on the +mantel. "I don't want to be discouraging, but after studying that one +I'm compelled to admit that it can't. No doubt it's the artist's +fault, but I'm willing to admit that a young girl would be rather apt +to credit a man with a face like that with qualities he didn't +possess." Then she sat down again with a thoughtful expression. "The +fact is, you set him up on a pedestal and burned incense to him when +you were not old enough to know any better, and when he came home for a +few weeks four years ago you promised to marry him. Now it seems he's +ready at last, and wants you to go out. Perhaps it doesn't affect the +question, but if I'd promised to marry a man in Canada he'd certainly +have to come for me. Isn't there a certain risk in the thing?" + +"A risk?" + +Winifred nodded. "Yes," she said, "rather a serious one. Four years +is a long time, and the man may have changed. In a new country where +everything's different it must be a thing they're rather apt to do." + +A faint, half-compassionate, half-tolerant smile crept into Agatha's +eyes. The mere idea that the sunny-tempered, brilliant young man whom +she had given her heart to could have changed or degenerated in any way +seemed absurd to her. Winifred, however, went on again. + +"There's another point," she said. "If he's still the same, which +isn't likely, there has certainly been a change in you. You have +learned to see things more clearly, and acquired a different standard +from the one you had then. One can't help growing, and as one grows +one looks for more. One is no longer pleased with the same things; +it's inevitable." + +She broke off for a moment, and her voice grew gentler. + +"Well," she added, "I've done my duty in trying to point this out to +you, and now there's only another thing to say: since you're clearly +bent on going, I'm going out with you." + +Agatha looked astonished, but there was a suggestion of relief in her +expression, for the two had been firm friends and had faced a good deal +together. + +"Oh," she said, "that gets over the one difficulty." + +Winifred made a little whimsical gesture. "I'm not quite sure that it +does. The difficulty will probably begin when I arrive in Canada, but +I'm a rather capable person, and I believe they don't pay one ninepence +a thousand words in Winnipeg. Besides, I could keep the books at a +store or hotel, and at the very worst Gregory could, perhaps, find a +husband for me. Women, one understands, are after all held in some +estimation in that country. Perhaps there's a man out there who would +treat even a little, plain, vixenish-tempered person with a turned-up +nose decently." + +Crossing the room again she banged the cover down on the typewriter, +and then turned to Agatha with a wide gesture and a suggestion of +haziness in her eyes. + +"Anyway, I'm very tired of this one. It would all be intolerable when +you went away." + +Agatha stretched out a hand and drew her down beside her. She, at +least, no longer feared adverse fortune and loneliness, and she was +filled with a gentle compassion, for she knew how hard a fight this +girl had made, and part at least of what she had borne. + +"My dear," she said, "we will go together." + +Then she opened the second letter, which she had forgotten in the +meanwhile. + +"They want me to stay at the Grange for a few weeks," she said, and +smiled. "An hour ago I felt crushed and beaten--and now, though my +voice has probably gone for good, I don't seem to mind. Isn't it +almost bewilderingly curious that both these letters should have come +to sweep my troubles away to-night?" + +"No," said her companion; "it's distinctly natural--just what one would +have expected. You wrote the man in Canada soon after you'd seen the +specialist, and his answer was bound to arrive in the next few days." + +"But I certainly didn't write the folks at the Grange." + +Winifred's eyes twinkled. "As it happens, I did, two days ago. I +ventured to point out their duty to them, and they were rather nice +about it in another letter." + +Agatha stretched herself out in the low chair with a little sigh of +content. "Well," she said, "it probably wouldn't have the least effect +if I scolded you. I believe I'm horribly worn out, Winny, and it will +be a relief unspeakable to get away. If I can arrange to give up those +pupils I'll go to-morrow." + +Winifred made no answer, and kneeling with one elbow resting on the arm +of her companion's chair gazed straight in front of her. They were +both of them very weary of the long grim struggle, and now a change was +close at hand. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE OLD COUNTRY. + +It was a still, clear evening of spring when Wyllard, unstrapping the +ruchsack from his shoulders, sat down beside a frothing stream in a +dale of Northern England. On arriving in London a week or two earlier +he had found a letter from Mrs. Hastings, who was then in Paris, +awaiting him, in which she stated that she could not at the moment say +when she would go home again, but that she expected to advise him +shortly. After answering it he started North, and, obtaining Agatha's +address from Miss Rawlinson, went on again to a certain little town +which stands encircled by towering fells beside a lake in the North +Country. + +He had, however, already recognised that his mission was rather a +delicate one, and he decided that it would be advisable to wait until +he heard from Mrs. Hastings before calling upon Miss Ismay. There then +remained the question, what to do with the next few days. A +conversation with some pedestrian tourists whom he met at his hotel, +and a glance at a map of the hill-tracks decided him, and remembering +that he had on several occasions kept the trail in Canada for close on +forty miles on end, he bought a Swiss pattern ruchsack, and set out on +foot through the fells. + +Incidentally, he saw such scenery as gave him a new conception of the +Old Country, and nearly broke the hearts of his new friends the +tourists, who volunteered to show him the way over what they evidently +considered to be a rather difficult pass. To their great astonishment +the brown-faced stranger, who wore ordinary tight-fitting American +attire and rather pointed American shoes, went up it apparently without +an effort, and for the credit of the clubs they belonged to, it seemed +incumbent on them to keep pace with him. They naturally did not know +that he had carried bags of flour and mining tools over very much +higher passes close up to the limit of eternal snow, but after two +days' climbing they were, on the whole, relieved to part company with +him. + +A professional guide who overtook them, however, recognised the +capabilities of the man when he noticed the way he lifted his feet and +how he set them down. This, he decided, was one accustomed to walking +among the heather, but he was wrong; for it was the trick the bushman +learns when he plods through leagues of undergrowth and fallen +branches, or the tall grass of the swamps; and it is a memorable +experience to make a day's journey with such a man. For the first hour +the thing seems easy, for the pace is never forced, but it also never +slackens down; and as the hours go by the novice, who flounders and +stumbles, grows horribly weary of trying to keep up with that steady, +persistent swing. + +Wyllard had travelled since morning along a ridge of fells when he sat +down beside the water and contentedly filled his pipe. On the one +hand, a wall of crags high above was growing black against the evening +light, and the stream came boiling down clear as crystal among great +boulder stones; but he had wandered through many a grander and more +savage scene of rocky desolation, and it impressed him less than the +green valley in front of him. He had, at least, never seen anything +like that either on the Pacific slope or in Western Canada. + +Early as it was in the season, the meadows between rock and water were +green as emerald, and the hedge-rows, just flushed with verdure, were +clipped and trimmed as though their owner loved them. There was not a +dead tree in the larch copse which dipped to the stream, and all its +feathery tassels were sprinkled with tiny flecks of crimson and +wondrous green. Great oaks dotted the meadows, each one perfect in +symmetry. It seemed that the men who held this land cared for single +trees. The sleek, tame cattle that rubbed their necks on the level +hedge-top and gazed at him ruminatively were very different from the +wild, long-horned creatures whose furious stampede he had now and then +headed off, riding hard while the roar of hoofs rang through the +dust-cloud that floated like a sea fog across the sun-scorched prairie. +Here, it seemed, all went smoothly; the whole vale was steeped in peace +and tranquillity. + +Then he noticed the pale primroses that pushed their yellow flowers up +among the withered leaves, and the faint blue sheen beneath the beech +trunks not far away. There was a vein of artistic daintiness in this +man, and the elusive beauty of these things curiously appealed to him. +He had seen the riotous, sensuous blaze of flowers kissed by Pacific +breezes, and the burnished gold of wheat that rolled in mile-long +waves; but it seemed to him that the wild things of the English North +were, after all, more wonderful. They matched its deep peacefulness; +their beauty was chaste, fairy-like, and ethereal. + +By and bye a wood pigeon cooed softly somewhere in the shadows, and a +brown thrush perched on a bare oak bough began to sing. The broken, +repeated melody went curiously well with the rippling murmur of sliding +water, and Wyllard leaned back with a smile to listen, though he could +not remember ever having done anything of that kind before. His life +had been a strenuous one, spent for the most part in the driving-seat +of great ploughs that rent their ample furrows through virgin prairie, +guiding the clinking binders through the wheat under a blazing sun, or +driving the plunging dories through the clammy fog over short, slopping +seas. Now, however, the tranquillity of the English valley stole in on +him, and he began to understand how the love of that well-trimmed land +clung to the men out West, who spoke of it tenderly as the Old Country. + +Then, for he was in an unusually susceptible mood, he took a little +deerhide case, artistically made by a Blackfoot Indian, from his +pocket, and extracted from it the somewhat faded photograph of an +English girl. He had got it from the lad he had buried among the +ranges of the Pacific slope, and it had been his companion in many a +desolate camp and on many a weary journey. The face was delicately +modelled, and there was a freshness in it which is, perhaps, seldom +seen outside the Old Country; but what pleased him more was the +serenity in the clear, innocent eyes. + +He was not in love with the picture--he would probably have smiled at +the notion--but he had a curious feeling that he would meet the girl +some day, and that it would then be a privilege only to speak to her. +This was, after all, not so extravagant a fancy as it might appear, for +romance, the mother of chivalry and many graces, still finds shelter in +the hearts of such men as him from the wide spaces of the newer lands. +Shrewd as they are, and practical, they see visions now and then, and, +what is more, prove them to be realities with bleeding hands and toil +incredible. + +By and bye he put the photograph back in his pocket, and filled his +pipe again, while it was almost dark before he had smoked it out. The +thrush had gone, and only the ripple of the water broke the silence, +until he heard footsteps on the stones behind him. Then, looking +round, he saw a young woman moving towards the river, and he watched +her with a quiet interest, for his perceptions were a little sharper +than usual then, and it seemed to him that she was very much in harmony +with what he thought of as the key-tone of the place. She was tall and +shapely, and she moved with a quiet grace. When she stopped a moment, +poised upon a shelf of rock as though considering the easiest way to +the water, her figure fell into reposeful lines, but that was after all +only what he had expected, for he now remembered that he had +half-consciously studied the Englishwomen he had met in the West. + +The Western women usually moved, and certainly spoke, with an almost +superfluous vivacity and alertness. There was in them a feverish +activity, which contrasted with the English deliberation. The latter +had sometimes exasperated him, but it was becoming comprehensible, and +taking on a more favourable aspect now. It was, he felt, born of the +tranquillity of this well-trimmed land, a steadfastness that progressed +slowly by system and rule, and he recognised that it would have +troubled his sense of fitness if this girl had clattered down across +the stones hurriedly and noisily. + +As yet he could not see her face, but when she went on a little further +it became evident that she desired to cross the river, and was +regarding the row of stepping stones that stretched across it somewhat +dubiously. One or two had apparently fallen over, or been washed away +by a flood, for there were several rather wide gaps between them, +through which the stream frothed whitely. As soon as Wyllard noticed +that, he rose and moved towards her. + +"You want to get across?" he said. + +She was still glancing at the water, but although he did not think she +had seen him or heard his approach, she turned towards him quietly. +Then a momentary sense of astonishment held him almost embarrassed, for +it was her picture he had gazed at scarcely half an hour ago, and he +would have recognised her anywhere. + +"Yes," she said. "It is rather a long way round by the bridge, but +some of the stones seem to have disappeared since I last came this way." + +She spoke, as Wyllard had expected, softly and quietly, but he was +first of all a man of action, and, somewhat to her astonishment, he +forthwith waded into the river. Then he turned and held out his hand +to her. + +"It isn't a very long step. You ought to manage it," he said. + +The girl favoured him with a swift glance of scrutiny. At first she +had supposed him to be one of the walking tourists or climbers who +invaded those valleys at Easter; but they were, for the most part, +young men from the cities, and this stranger's face was darkened by the +sun. There was also an indefinite suggestion of strength in the pose +of his lean, symmetrical figure, which, though she did not recognise +that fact, could only have come from strenuous labour in the open air. +She, however, noticed that while the average Englishman would have +asked permission to help her, or have deprecated the offer, this +stranger did nothing of the kind. He stood with the water frothing +about his ankles, holding out his hand. + +She had no hesitation about taking it, and while he waded through the +river she stepped lightly from stone to stone until she came to a +rather wider gap, where the stream was deeper. Then she stopped a +moment, gazing at the sliding froth, until the man's grasp tightened on +her fingers, and she felt his other hand rest upon her waist. + +"Now," he said, "I won't let you fall." + +[Illustration: "'Now,' he said, 'I won't let you fall.'"] + +She was across the gap in another moment, wondering somewhat uneasily +why she had obeyed the compelling pressure, but glad to see that his +face was perfectly unmoved, and that he was evidently quite unconscious +of having done anything unusual. She crossed without mishap, and when +they stood on the shingle he dropped her hand. + +"Thank you," she said. "I'm afraid you got rather wet." + +The man laughed, and he had a pleasant laugh. "Oh," he said, "I'm used +to it. Isn't there a village with a hotel in it, a mile or two from +here?" + +"Yes," said the girl, "this is the way. The path goes up to the high +road through the larch wood." + +She turned into it, and, though she had not expected this, the man +walked beside her. Still, she did not resent it. His manner was +deferential, and she liked his face, while there was, after all, no +reason why he should stay behind when he was going the same way. He +accompanied her silently for several minutes as they went on through +the gloom of the larches, where a sweet, resinous odour crept into the +still, evening air, and then he looked up as they came to a towering +pine. + +"Have you got many of those trees over here?" he asked. + +Then a light dawned upon the girl, for, though he had spoken without +perceptible accent, she had been slightly puzzled by something in his +speech and appearance. + +"I believe they're not uncommon. You are an American?" she said. + +Wyllard laughed. "No," he said. "I was born in Western Canada, but I +think I'm as English as you are, in some respects, though I never quite +realised it until to-night. It isn't exactly because my father came +from this country, either." + +The girl was a trifle astonished at this answer, and still more at the +indefinite something in his manner which seemed to indicate that he +expected her to understand, as, indeed, she did. Her only dowry had +been an expensive education, and she remembered that the influence of +the isle she lived in had in turn fastened on Saxons, Norsemen, +Normans, and made them Englishmen. What was more, so far as she had +read, those who had gone out South or Westwards had carried that +influence with them and, under all their surface changes, and sometimes +their grievances against the Motherland, were, in the great essentials, +wholly English still. + +"But," she said at random, "how can you be sure that I'm English?" + +It was quite dark in among the trees, but she fancied there was a smile +in her companion's eyes. + +"Oh," he answered simply, "you couldn't be anything else!" + +She accepted this as a compliment, though she fancied that it had not +been his direct intention to pay her one. His general attitude since +she had met him scarcely suggested such a lack of sense. She was +becoming mildly interested in this stranger, but she possessed several +essentially English characteristics, and it did not appear advisable to +encourage him too much. She said nothing further, and it was he who +spoke first. + +"I wonder," he said, "if you knew a young lad who went out to Canada +some few years ago. His name was Pattinson--Henry Pattinson." + +"No," said his companion, "I certainly did not. Besides, the name is +not an uncommon one. There are a good many Pattinsons in the North." + +Wyllard was not astonished at this answer. He had reasons for +believing that the name the lad he had befriended had enrolled himself +under was not his correct one. It would, of course, have been easy to +describe him, but Wyllard was shrewd, and noticing that there was now a +restraint in his companion's manner he was not prepared to do that yet. +He was aware that most of the English are characterised by a certain +reserve, and apt to retire into their shells if pressed too hard. He +did not, however, mean to let this girl elude him altogether. + +"It really doesn't matter," he said, "I shall no doubt get upon his +trail in due time." + +They reached the high road a minute or two later, and the girl turned +to him. + +"Thank you again," she said. "If you go straight on you will come to +the village in about a quarter of an hour." + +Then she turned away and left him standing with his soft hat in his +hand, and, as it happened, he stood quite still for almost a minute +after she had gone. In due time, however, he reached the inn he had +inquired about, and its old-world simplicity delighted him. It was +built, feet thick, of slate stone, against the foot of the fell, and +roofed, as he noticed, with ponderous flags. In Canada, where the +frost was Arctic, they used thin cedar shingles. The room his meal was +brought him in was panelled with oak that had turned black with age. +Great rough-hewn beams of four times the size that anybody would have +used for the purpose in the West supported the low ceiling, and--for +there was a fire on the wide hearth--the ruddy gleam of burnished +copper utensils pierced the shadows. The room was large, and there was +only a single candle upon the table, but he felt that a garish light +would somehow be out of harmony with the atmosphere of that interior. + +By and bye his hostess appeared to clear the things away, and she was a +little, withered old woman, immaculately neat, with shrewd, kindly +eyes, and a russet tinge in her cheeks. + +"There's a good light, and company in the sitting-room," she said. +"We've three young men staying with us. They've been up the Pike." + +"I'd sooner stay here, if I may," said Wyllard. "I don't quite know +yet if I'll go on to-morrow. One can get through to Langley Dale by +the Hause, as I think you call it?" + +The wrinkled dame said that pedestrians often went that way, and +Wyllard asked a question casually. + +"There are some prosperous folks--people of station living round here? + +"There's the vicar. I don't know that he's what you'd call prosperous. +Then there's Mr. Martindale, of Rushyholme, and Little, of the Ghyll." + +"Has any of them a daughter of about twenty-four years of age?" and +Wyllard described the girl he had met to the best of his ability. + +It was evident that the landlady did not recognise the description, but +she seemed to consider. + +"No," she said, "there's nobody like that; but I did hear that they'd a +young lady staying at the vicarage." + +Then she changed the subject abruptly, and Wyllard once more decided +that the English did not like questions. + +"You're a stranger, sir?" she said. + +"I am," said Wyllard. "I've some business to attend to further on, but +I came along on foot, to see the fells, and I'm glad I did. It's a +great and wonderful country you're living in. That is," he added +gravely, "when you get outside the towns. There are things in some of +them that most make one ill." + +Then he stood up. "That tray's too heavy for you. Won't you let me +carry it?" + +The landlady seemed astonished, but she made it clear that she desired +no assistance, and when she went out Wyllard, who sat down again, took +out the photograph. He gazed at it steadfastly, and then put it back +into his pocket. + +"There's rather more than mere prettiness there, but I don't know that +I want to keep it now," he said. "It's way behind the original. She +has grown in the meanwhile--just as one would expect that girl to grow." + +Then he lighted his pipe, and smoked thoughtfully until he appeared to +arrive at a decision. + +"One can't force the running in this country. They don't like it," he +said. "I'll lie by a day or two, and keep an eye on that vicarage." + +In the meanwhile his hostess was discussing him with a niece. + +"I'm sure I don't know what that man is," she informed the younger +woman. "He has got the manners of a gentleman, but he walks like a +fell shepherd, and his hands are like a navvy's. A man's hands now and +then tell you a good deal about him. Besides, of all things, he wanted +to carry his tray away. Said it was too heavy for me." + +"Oh," said her niece, "he's an American. There's no accounting for +them." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +HER PICTURE. + +Wyllard stayed at the inn three days without seeing anything more of +the girl he had met beside the stream, though he diligently watched for +her. For one thing, he had long felt it was his duty to communicate +with the relatives of the lad he had befriended, and the fact that he +had found her photograph in the young Englishman's possession made it +appear highly probable that she could assist him in tracing them. +Apart from this, he could not quite analyse his motives for desiring to +see more of her, though he was conscious of the desire. Her picture +had, however, been a companion to him in his wanderings, and he had, +indeed, now and then found a certain solace in gazing at it, while now +he had seen her in the flesh he was willing to admit that he had never +met any woman who had made the same impression on him. What he meant +by that he was not quite certain; but it was in the meanwhile as far as +he would go. + +It was, of course, open to him to call at the vicarage, but though he +meant to adopt that course as a last resort, there were certain +objections to it. He did not even know the girl's name, and there was +nobody to say a word for him; while, so far as his experience went, the +English were rather apt to be reticent and reserved to an unknown +stranger. It seemed to him that, although she might give him the +information he required, their acquaintance would probably terminate +then and there, which was not what he desired. She would, he decided, +be less likely to stand upon her guard if he could contrive to meet her +casually without pre-arrangement. + +On the fourth day fortune favoured him, for he came upon her +endeavouring to open a tottering gate where a stony hill track led off +from the smooth white road. As it happened, he had received a letter +from Mrs. Hastings that morning, fixing the date of her departure, +which rendered it necessary for him to discharge the duty Hawtrey had +saddled him with as soon as possible. The Grange, where he understood +Miss Ismay was then staying, lay thirty miles away across the fells, +and he had already decided to start early on the morrow. That being +the case, it was clear that he must make the most of this opportunity; +but he also realised that it would be advisable to proceed +circumspectly. Saying nothing, he set his shoulder to the gate, and +lifting it on its decrepit hinges swung it open. + +"Thank you," said the girl, and then, remembering that this was the +last thing she had said to him, she smiled, as she added, "It is the +second time you have turned up when I was in difficulties." + +In spite of his resolution to proceed cautiously, a twinkle crept into +Wyllard's eyes, and suggested that the fact she had mentioned was not +so much of a coincidence as it probably appeared. She saw it, and was +about to pass on, when he stopped her with a gesture. He was, after +all, usually a candid person. + +"The fact is, I have been looking out for you the last three days," he +said. + +He fancied the girl had taken alarm at this, and spread his hands out +deprecatingly. "Won't you hear me out?" he added. "There's a matter I +must put before you, but I won't keep you long." + +His companion was a little puzzled, and naturally curious. It struck +her as somewhat strange that his rather startling admission should have +roused in her very little indignation; but she felt that it would be +unreasonable to suspect this man of anything that savoured of +impertinence. His manner was reassuring, and she liked his face. + +"Well?" she said inquiringly. + +The man indicated a big oak trunk that lay just inside the gate. + +"If you'll sit down, I'll get through as quick as I can," he said. "In +the first place, I am, as I told you, a Canadian, come over partly to +see the country, and partly to carry out one or two duties. In regard +to one of them, I believe you can help me." + +His companion's face was expressive of a very natural astonishment. + +"I could help you?" + +Wyllard nodded. "I'll explain my reasons for believing it later on," +he said. "In the meanwhile, I asked you a question the other night, +which I'll now try to make more explicit. Were you ever acquainted +with a young Englishman who went to Canada from this country several +years ago? He would be about twenty then, and had dark hair and eyes. +That, of course, isn't an unusual thing, but there was a rather curious +white mark on his left temple. If he was ever a friend of yours, that +scar ought to fix it." + +"Oh!" said the girl, "that must have been Lance Radcliffe. I was with +him when the scar was made--ever so long ago. But you said his name +was Pattinson--and we heard that he was dead." + +"I did," said Wyllard gravely. "Still, I wasn't quite sure of it, and +he's certainly dead. I buried him." + +His companion made a little abrupt movement, and he saw the sudden +softening of her eyes. There was, however, only a gentle pity in them, +and nothing in her manner suggested the deeper feeling he had +half-expected. That was also a relief to him. + +"Then," she said, "I am sure that his father would like to meet you. +There was some trouble between them--I don't know which was wrong--and +Lance went out to Canada, and never wrote. By and bye, Major Radcliffe +tried to trace him through a Vancouver banker, and only found that he +had died in the hands of a stranger who had done all that was possible +for him." She turned to Wyllard with a look which set his heart +beating rather faster than usual. "You are that man?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "I did what I could for him. It didn't +amount to very much. He was too far gone." + +Then at her request he told her the story he had told to Hawtrey, and +when he had finished her face was soft again, for it had stirred her +curiously. + +"But," she said, "he had no claim on you." + +Wyllard lifted one hand as if in expostulation. "He was dying in the +bush. Wasn't that enough?" + +The girl made no answer for a moment or two. She had earned her living +for several years, and was, because of it, to some extent acquainted +with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are +certainly hard men in Canada, the small farmers and ranchers of the +West--and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build +railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific +slope--are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them +the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still, +watching her companion covertly, she understood that this man whom she +had seen for the first time three days ago had done exactly what she +would have expected of him. Then she proceeded to give him the +information she supposed he desired. + +"I saw a good deal of Lance Radcliffe--when I was younger," she said. +"His people still live at Garside Scar, close by Dufton Holme. I +presume you will call on them?" + +Wyllard said that he proposed doing so as he had a watch and one or two +other mementoes that they might like to have, and when she told him how +to reach Dufton Holme by a very round-about railway journey he supposed +it lay somewhere in the dale to which he already purposed going. Then +she turned to him again. + +"There is one point that rather puzzles me," she said. "How did you +know that I could tell you anything about him?" + +The man thrust his hand into his pocket, and took out a little leather +case. + +"You are by no means a stranger to me," he said, and quietly handed her +the photograph. "This is your picture; I found it among the dead lad's +things." + +The girl, who started visibly, flashed a very keen glance at him. +There was, however, no doubt that he had not intended to produce any +dramatic effect. Then she flushed a little. + +"I never knew he had it," she said. "Perhaps he got it from his +sister." She paused, and then, as though impelled to make the fact +quite clear, added, "I certainly never gave it him." + +Wyllard smiled gravely, for he recognised that while she was clearly +grieved to hear of his death, she could have had no particular +tenderness for the unfortunate lad. He was, however, a little off his +guard just then. + +"Well," he said, "perhaps he took it in the first place for the mere +beauty of it, and it afterwards became a companion--something that +connected him with the Old Country. It appealed in one of those ways +to me." + +Again she flashed a sharp glance at him, but he went on unheeding: + +"When I found it I meant to keep it merely as a clue, and so that it +could be given up to his relatives some day," he added. "Then I fell +into the habit of looking at it in my lonely camp in the bush at night, +and when I sat beside the stove while the snow lay deep upon the +prairie. There was something in your eyes that seemed to encourage me." + +"To encourage you?" + +"Yes," Wyllard assented gravely; "I think that expresses it. When I +camped in the bush of the Pacific slope we were either out on the gold +trail--and we generally came back ragged and unsuccessful after +spending several months' wages which we could badly spare--or I was +going from one wooden town to another without a dollar in my pocket and +wondering, how I was to obtain one when I got there. For a time it +wasn't much more cheerful on the prairie: twice in succession the +harvest failed. Perhaps Lance Radcliffe felt as I did." + +The girl cut him short. "Why didn't you mention the photograph at +once?" + +Wyllard smiled at her. "Oh," he said, "I didn't want to be +precipitate--your folks don't seem to like that; I've met them out +West. I think"--and he seemed to consider--"I wanted to make sure you +wouldn't be repelled by what might look like Colonial _brusquerie_. +You see, you have been over snow-barred divides and through great +shadowy forests with me. We've camped among the boulders by lonely +lakes, and gone down frothing rapids. I felt--I can't tell you +why--that I was bound to meet you some day." + +It was, perhaps, a trifle startling, but the girl now showed neither +astonishment nor resentment. She felt curiously certain that this +stranger was not posing or speaking for effect. It did not occur to +him that he might have gone too far, and for a space he leaned against +the gate, saying nothing, while she looked at him with what he thought +of as her gracious English calm. + +Pale sunshine fell upon them, though the larches beside the road were +rustling beneath a little cold wind, and the song of the river came up +brokenly out of the valley. An odour of fresh grass floated about +them, and the dry, cold smell of the English spring was in the air. +Across the valley dim ghosts of hills lighted by evanescent gleams rose +out of the east wind greyness with shadowy grandeur. + +Then Wyllard seemed to rouse himself. "I wonder if I ought to write +Major Radcliffe and tell him what my object is before I call?" he said. +"It would make the thing a little easier." + +The girl rose. "Yes," she assented, "that would, perhaps, be wiser." +Then she glanced at the photograph which was still in her hand. "It +has served its purpose. I scarcely think it would be of any great +interest to Major Radcliffe." + +She saw his face change as she made it evident that she did not mean to +give the portrait back to him; but there was, at least, one excellent +reason why she would not have her picture in a strange man's hands. + +"Thank you," she said, "for the story. I am glad we have met; but I'm +afraid I have already kept my friends waiting for me." + +Then she turned away, and it occurred to Wyllard that he had made a +very indifferent use of the opportunity, since she had neither asked +his name nor told him hers. It was, however, evident that he could not +well run after her and demand it, and he decided that he could in all +probability obtain it from Major Radcliffe when he called upon him. +Still, he regretted his lack of adroitness as he walked back to the +inn, where he wrote two letters when he had consulted a map and his +landlady. Dufton Holme, he discovered, was a small village within a +mile or two of the Grange where, as Miss Rawlinson had informed him, +Agatha Ismay was then staying. One letter was addressed to her, and he +formally asked permission to call upon her with a message from Gregory +Hawtrey. The other was to Major Radcliffe, and in both he said that an +answer would reach him at the inn which his landlady had informed him +was to be found not far from either of the houses he proposed to visit. + +He set out on foot next morning, and after climbing a steep pass +followed a winding track across a waste of empty moor until he struck a +smooth white road, which led past a rock-girt lake and into a deep +valley. It was six o'clock when he started, and three when he reached +the inn, where he found an answer to one of his letters awaiting him. +It was from Major Radcliffe, who desired an interview with him as soon +as possible. + +Within an hour he was on his way to the Major's house, where a +grey-haired man, whose yellow skin suggested long exposure to a +tropical sun, and a little withered lady were waiting for him. They +received him graciously, but there was an indefinite something in their +manner and bearing which Wyllard, who had read a good deal, recognised, +though he had never been brought into actual contact with it until +then. He felt that he could not have expected to come across such +people anywhere but in England, unless it was at the headquarters of a +British battalion in India. + +He told his story tersely, softening unpleasant details, and making +little of what he had done, and the grey-haired man listened gravely +with an unmoved face, though a trace of moisture crept into the little +lady's eyes. There was silence for a moment or two when he had +finished, and then Major Radcliffe, whose manner was very quiet, turned +to him. + +"You have laid me under an obligation which I could never wipe out, +even if I wished it," he said. "It was my only son you buried out +there in Canada." + +He broke off for a moment, and his quietness was more marked than ever +when he went on again. + +"As you have no doubt surmised, we quarrelled," he said. "He was +extravagant and careless--at least I thought that then--but now it +seems to me that I was unduly hard on him. His mother"--and he turned +to the little lady with an inclination that pleased Wyllard +curiously--"was sure of it at the time. In any case, I took the wrong +way, and he went out to Canada. I made that, at least, easy for +him--and I have been sorry ever since." + +He paused again with a little expressive gesture. "It seems due to +him, and you, that I should tell you this. When no word reached us I +had inquiries made, through a banker he called upon, who, discovering +that he had registered at a hotel as Pattinson, at length traced him to +a British Columbian silver mine. He had, however, left it shortly +before my correspondent learned that he had been employed there, and +all the latter could tell me was that an unknown prospector had nursed +him until he died." + +Wyllard, who said nothing, took out a watch and the clasp of a +workman's belt from his pocket, and laid them gently on Mrs. +Radcliffe's knee. He saw her eyes fill, and turned his head away. + +"I feel that you may blame me for not writing sooner, but it was only a +very little while ago that I was able to trace you, and then it was +only by a very curious--coincidence," he said presently. + +This was the most apposite word that occurred to him, for he did not +consider it advisable to mention the photograph. It seemed to him that +the girl would not like it. Nor, though he was greatly tempted, did he +care to make inquiries concerning her just then. In another moment or +two the Major spoke again. + +"If I can make your stay here pleasanter in any way I should be +delighted," he said. "If you will take up your quarters with us I will +send down to the inn for your things." + +Wyllard excused himself, but when the lady urged him at least to dine +with them on the following evening he appeared to consider. + +"The one difficulty is that I don't know yet whether I shall be engaged +then," he explained. "As it happens, I've a message for Miss Ismay, +and I wrote offering to call upon her at any convenient hour. So far I +have heard nothing from her." + +"She's away," Mrs. Radcliffe informed him. "They have probably sent +your letter on to her. I had a note from her yesterday, however, and +expect her here to-morrow. You have met some friends of hers in +Canada?" + +"Gregory Hawtrey," said Wyllard. "I have promised to call upon his +people, too." + +He saw Major Radcliffe glance at his wife, and the faint gleam in the +latter's eyes. + +"Well," she said, "if you will promise to come I will send word over to +Agatha." + +Wyllard agreed to this, and went away a few minutes later. He noticed +the tact and consideration with which his new friends had refrained +from expressing any sign of the curiosity he fancied they naturally +felt, for Mrs. Radcliffe's face had suggested that she understood the +situation. The latter was, however, commencing to appear a little more +difficult to him. It was, it seemed, his task to explain to a girl +brought up among such people delicately what she must be prepared to +face as a farmer's wife in Western Canada. He was not sure that this +would be easy in itself, but it was rendered much more difficult by the +fact that Hawtrey would expect him to accomplish it without unduly +daunting her. Her letter had certainly suggested courage, but, after +all, it was as he reflected the courage of ignorance, and he had now +some notion of the life of ease and refinement her English friends led. +He was commencing to feel sorry for Agatha Ismay. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH. + +Next evening Wyllard sat with Mrs. Radcliffe in a big low-ceilinged +room at Garside Scar, looking about him with quiet interest. He had +now and then spent a day or two in huge Western hotels, but he had +never seen anything quite like that room. The sheer physical comfort +of its arrangements appealed to him, but after all he was not one who +had ever studied his bodily ease very much, and what he regarded as the +chaste refinement of its adornment had a deeper effect. Though he had +lived for the most part in the bush and on the prairie, he had been +endued with or had somehow acquired an artistic susceptibility. + +The furniture was old, and perhaps a trifle shabby, but it was, as he +noticed, of beautiful design. Curtains, carpets, tinted walls, formed, +it seemed to him, a harmony of soft colouring, and there were scattered +here and there dainty works of art, little statuettes from Italy, and +wonderful Indian ivory and silver work. Then a row of low, +stone-ribbed windows pierced the front of the room, and looking out he +saw the trim garden lying in the warm evening light. Immediately +beneath the windows ran a broad gravelled terrace, which was apparently +raked smooth every day, with a row of urns in which hyacinths bloomed +upon its pillared wall. From the middle of it a wide stairway led down +to the wonderful velvet lawn, which was dotted with clumps of cupressus +with golden gleams in it, and beyond that clipped yews rose smooth and +solid as a rampart of stone. + +It all impressed him curiously--the order and beauty of it, the signs +of loving care. It gave him a key, he fancied, to the lives the +cultured English led, for there was no sign of strain and fret and +stress and hurry here. Everything, it seemed, went smoothly with +rhythmic regularity, and though it is possible that a good many +Englishmen would have regarded Garside Scar as a very second-rate +country house, and seen in Major Radcliffe and his wife nothing more +than a somewhat prosy old soldier and a withered lady, old-fashioned in +her dress and views, this Westerner had what was, perhaps, a clearer +vision. He could imagine the Major standing fast at any cost upon some +minute point of honour, and it seemed to him that his lady might have +stepped down from some old picture with all the graces of an earlier +age and the smell of the English lavender upon her garments. Then he +remembered that, after all, Englishwomen lived somewhat coarsely in the +Georgian days, and that he had met hard-handed men grimed with dust and +sweat who could also stand fast by a point of honour in Western Canada. +Though the latter fact did not occur to him, he had, for that matter, +done it more than once himself. + +Then he recalled his wandering thoughts as his hostess smiled at him. + +"You are interested in all you see?" she asked frankly. + +"Yes, madam," said Wyllard--and the word rose instinctively to his +lips, for it seemed to him the only fitting way to address her. "In +fact, I'd like to spend some hours here and look at everything. I'd +begin at the pictures and work right round." + +His companion's smile suggested that she was not displeased. + +"But you have been in London?" + +"I have," said Wyllard. "I had one or two letters to folks there from +big flour shippers, and they did all they could to entertain me. +Still, their places were different; they hadn't the--charm--of yours. +It's something which I think could only exist in these still valleys +and in cathedral closes. It strikes me more because it is something +I've never been accustomed to." + +The lady was interested, and fancied that she partly understood his +attitude. + +"Your life is necessarily different from ours," she suggested. + +Wyllard smiled. "It's so different that you couldn't realise it. It's +all strain and effort from early sunrise until after dusk at night. +Bodily strain of aching muscles, and mental stress in adverse seasons. +We scarcely think of comfort, and never dream of artistic luxury. The +dollars we raise are sunk again in seed and extra teams and ploughs." + +"After all, a good many people are driven rather hard by the love of +money here." + +"No," said Wyllard gravely, "that's not it exactly. At least, not with +most of us. It's rather the pride of wresting another quarter-section +from the prairie, taking--our own--by labour, breaking the wilderness. +You"--and he added this as though to explain that he could hardly +expect her to quite grasp his views--"have never been out West?" + +His hostess laughed. "I have stayed down in the plains through the hot +season in stifling cantonments, and I have once or twice been in Indian +cholera camps. Besides, I have seen my husband sitting, haggard and +worn with fever, in his saddle holding back a clamorous crowd that +surged about him half-mad with religious fury. There were Hindus and +Moslems to be kept from flying at each others' throats, and at a +tactless word or sign of wavering either party would have pulled him +down." + +"You'll have to forgive me, madam"--and Wyllard's gesture was +deprecatory, though his eyes twinkled. "The notion that we're the only +ones who really work, or, at least, do anything worth while, is rather +a favourite one out West. No doubt it's a delusion. I should have +known that all of us are born like that." + +His hostess forgave him readily, if only for the "all of us," which +struck her as especially fortunate. A few minutes later there were +voices in the hall, and then the door opened, and the girl he had met +at the stepping stones came in. She was dressed differently, in +trailing garments which, it seemed to him, became her wonderfully, and +he noticed now the shapely delicacy of her hands and the fine, ivory +pallor of her skin. Then his hostess turned to him. + +"I had better present you formally to Miss Ismay," she said. "Agatha, +this is Mr. Wyllard, who I understand has brought you a message from +Canada." + +There was no doubt that Wyllard was blankly astonished, and for a +moment the girl was clearly startled, too. + +"You!" was all she said. + +[Illustration: "'You!' was all she said." + +She, however, held her hand out before she turned to speak to Mrs. +Radcliffe, but it was a slight relief to both when somebody announced +that dinner was ready. + +Wyllard sat next to his hostess, and was not sorry that he was only +called upon to take part in casual general conversation, though he +fancied once or twice that Miss Ismay was unobtrusively studying him. +It was also nearly an hour after the meal was over when Mrs. Radcliffe +left them alone in her little drawing-room. + +"You have, no doubt, a good deal to talk about, and you needn't join us +until you're ready," she said. "The Major always reads the London +papers after dinner." + +Agatha sat down in a low chair near the hearth, and it first of all +occurred to Wyllard, who took a place opposite her, that she was, +although of full stature, too delicate and dainty, too over-cultivated, +in fact, to marry Hawtrey. This was rather curious, since he had +hitherto regarded his comrade as a typical, well-educated Englishman; +but it now seemed to him that there was a certain streak of coarseness +in Gregory. The man, it suddenly flashed upon him, was self-indulgent, +and his careless ease of manner, which he had once liked, was rather +too much in evidence. In a few moments, however, Agatha turned to him. + +"I understand that Gregory is recovering rapidly?" she said. + +Wyllard assured her that this was the case, and Agatha said quietly, +"He wants me to go out to him." + +Wyllard felt that if a girl of this kind had promised to marry him he +would not have sent for her but have come in person, if he had been +compelled to pledge his last possessions, or crawl to the tideway on +his hands and knees. For all that, he was ready to defend his friend. + +"I'm afraid it's necessary," he said. "Gregory was quite unfit for +such a journey when I left, and he must be ready to commence the +season's campaign with the first of the spring. Our summer is short, +you see, and with our one-crop farming it's indispensable to get the +seed in early: in fact, he will be badly behind as it is." + +This was not particularly tactful since, without intending it, he made +it evident that he felt his comrade had been to some extent remiss; but +Agatha smiled. + +"Oh," she said, "I understand! You needn't labour the excuse. But +doesn't the same thing apply to you?" + +"It certainly did. Now, however, things have become a little easier. +My holding's larger than Gregory's, and I have a foreman who can look +after it for me." + +"Gregory said that you were a great friend of his." + +Wyllard seized this opportunity. "He is a great friend of mine, and I +like to think it means the same thing. In fact, it's reasonably +certain that he saved my life for me." + +"Ah!" said Agatha; "that is a thing he didn't mention. How did it come +about?" + +Wyllard was glad to tell the story: he was anxious to say all he +honestly could in Hawtrey's favour. + +"We were at work on a railroad trestle--a towering wooden bridge, in +British Columbia. It stretched across a deep ravine with great +boulders and a stream in the bottom of it, and we stood high up on a +staging close beneath the metals. A fast freight, a huge general +produce train, came down the track, with one of the new big locomotives +hauling it, and when the cars went banging by above us we could hardly +hold on to the bridge. Still, the construction foreman was a hustler, +and we had to get the spikes in. I was swinging the hammer when I felt +the plank beneath me slip. The train, it seems, had jarred the bolt we +had our lashings round loose. For a moment I felt that I was going +down into the gorge, and then Gregory leaned out and grabbed me. He +had only one free hand to do it with, and when he felt my weight one +foot swung out from the stringer he had sprung to. It seemed certain +that I would pull him with me, too. We hung like that for a space--I +don't quite know how long." + +He paused for a moment, apparently feeling the stress of it again, and +there was a faint thrill in his voice when he went on. + +"It was then," he said, "I knew just what kind of man Gregory Hawtrey +was. Anybody else would have let me go; but he held on. Then I got my +hand on some of the framing, and he swung me on to the stringer." + +He saw the gleam in Agatha's eyes. "Oh!" she said, "that is just what +he must have done. He was like that always--impulsive, splendidly +generous." + +Wyllard felt that he had succeeded, though he knew that there were men +on the prairie who called his comrade slackly careless, instead of +impulsive. Agatha, however, spoke again. + +"But Gregory wasn't a carpenter," she said. + +"In those days when dollars were scanty we had to be whatever we could. +There wasn't much specialisation of handicrafts out there then. The +farmer whose crop was ruined took up the railroad shovel, or borrowed a +saw from somebody and set about building houses, or anything else that +was wanted." + +"Of course!" said Agatha. "Besides, he was always wonderfully quick. +He could learn any game by just watching it awhile. He did all he +undertook brilliantly." + +It occurred to Wyllard that Gregory had, at least, made no great +success of farming; but that occupation, as practised on the prairie, +demands a good deal more than quickness and what some call brilliancy +from the man who undertakes it. He must, as they say out there, +possess the capacity for staying with it; the grim courage to hold fast +the tighter under each crushing blow, when his teams die, or the grain +shrivels under the harvest frost, or ragged ice hurtling before a +roaring blast does the reaping. It was, however, evident that this +girl had an unquestioning faith in Gregory Hawtrey, and once more +Wyllard felt compassionate towards her. He wondered if she would have +retained it had the man spent those four years in England instead of +Canada: for it was clear from the contrast between her and her picture +that she had grown in many ways since she had given her promise to her +lover. He had said what he could in Hawtrey's favour, but now he felt +that something was due to the girl. + +"Gregory told me to explain what things are like out there," he said. +"I think it is because they are so different from what you are +accustomed to that he has waited as long as he has done. He wanted to +make them as easy as possible for you, and now he would like you to +realise what is before you." + +He was almost astonished at the girl's comprehension, for she glanced +round the luxurious room with a faint smile. + +"You look on me as part of--this? I mean it seems to you that I fit in +with my surroundings, and would only be in harmony with them?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard gravely, "I think you fit in with them excellently." + +Agatha laughed. "Well," she said, "I was once, to a certain extent, +accustomed to something similar; though, after all, one could hardly +compare the Grange with Garside Scar. Still, that was some time ago, +and I have earned my living for several years now. That counts for +something, doesn't it?" + +She glanced down at her dress. "For instance, this is the result of a +good deal of self-denial, though the cost of it was partly worked off +in music lessons, and the stuff was almost the cheapest I could get. I +sang at concerts--and it was part of my stock-in-trade. After all, why +should you think me only capable of living in luxury?" + +"I didn't quite go that far." + +She laughed again. "Then is Canada such a very dreadful place? I have +heard of other Englishwomen going out there as farmers' wives. Do they +all live unhappily?" + +"No," said Wyllard; "at least, they show no sign of it, and some of +them and the city-born Canadians are, I think, the salt of this earth. +Probably it's easy to be calm and gracious in such a place as +this--though I naturally don't know since I've never tried it--but when +a woman who toils from sunrise to sunset most of the year keeps her +sweetness and serenity, it's a very different and much finer thing. +But I'll try to answer the other question. The prairie isn't dreadful; +it's a land of sunshine and clear skies. Heat and cold--and we have +them both--don't worry one there. There's optimism in the crystal air. +It's not beautiful like these valleys, but it has its beauty. It's +vast and silent, and, though our homesteads are crude and new, once you +pass the breaking it's primevally old. That gets hold of one somehow. +It's wonderful after sunset in the early spring, when the little cold +wind's like wine, and it runs white to the horizon with the smoky red +on the rim of it melting into transcendental green. When the wheat +rolls across the foreground in ochre and burnished copper waves, it's +more wonderful still. One sees the fulfilment of the promise, and +takes courage." + +"Then," said Agatha, who had scarcely suspected him of a capacity for +such flights as this, "what is there to shrink from?" + +"In the case of a small farmer's wife, the constant, never-slackening +strain. There's no hired assistance; she must clean the house, and +wash, and cook--though it's not unusual for the men to wash the plates." + +The girl was evidently not much impressed, for she laughed. + +"Does Gregory wash the plates?" she asked. + +Wyllard's eyes twinkled. "When Sproatly won't," he said. "Still, in a +general way they only do it once a week." + +"Ah," said Agatha, "I can imagine Gregory hating it. As a matter of +fact, I like him for it." + +"Then she must bake, and mend her husband's clothes. Indeed, it's not +unusual for her to mend for the hired man too. Besides that, there are +always odds and ends of tasks, but the time when you feel the strain +most is in the winter. Then you sit at night, shivering, as a rule, +beside the stove in an almost empty log-walled room, reading a book you +have probably read three or four times before. Outside, the frost is +Arctic; you can hear the roofing shingles crackle now and then; and you +wake up when the fire burns low. There's no life, no company, rarely a +new face, and if you go to a dance or supper somewhere, perhaps once a +month, you ride back on a bob-sled frozen almost stiff beneath the +robes." + +"Still," said Agatha, "that does not last." + +The man understood her. "Oh!" he said, "one makes progress--that is, +if one can stand the strain--but, as the one way of doing it is to sow +for a larger harvest and break fresh sod every year, there can be no +slackening down in the meanwhile. Every dollar must be guarded and +ploughed into the soil again." + +He broke off, feeling that he had done all that could reasonably be +expected of him, and Agatha asked one question. + +"A woman who didn't slacken could make the struggle easier for the man?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "in every way. Still, she would have a +great deal to bear." + +Agatha's face softened. "Ah," she said, "she would not grudge the +effort in the case of one she loved." + +Then she looked up again with a smile. "I wonder," she added, "if you +really thought I should flinch." + +"When I first heard of it, I thought it quite likely. Then when I read +your letter my doubts vanished." + +He saw he had not been judicious, for there was, for the first time, a +trace of hardness in the girl's expression. + +"He showed you that?" she asked. + +"One small part of it," said Wyllard. "I want to say that when I saw +this house, and how you seemed fitted to it, my misgivings about +Gregory's decision troubled me once more. Now"--and he made a little +impressive gesture--"they have vanished altogether, and they'll never +come back again." + +He spoke as he felt. This girl, he fancied, would feel the strain; but +it seemed to him that she had strength enough to bear it cheerfully. +In spite of her daintiness, she was one who, in time of stress, could +be depended on. He often remembered afterwards how they had sat +together in the little, luxuriously furnished room, she leaning back, +with the soft light on her delicately tinted face, in her big, low +chair. In the meanwhile she said nothing, and by and bye he looked up +at her. + +"It's curious that I had your photograph ever so long, and never +thought of showing it Gregory," he said. + +Agatha smiled. "I suppose it is," she admitted. "After all, except +that it might have been a relief to Major Radcliffe if he had met you +sooner, the fact that you didn't show it Gregory doesn't seem of any +particular consequence." + +Wyllard was not quite sure of this. He had thought about this girl +often, and had certainly been conscious of a curious thrill of +satisfaction when he had met her at the stepping-stones a few days +earlier. That feeling had also suddenly disappeared when he had +learned that she was his comrade's promised wife. He had, however, +during the last hour or two made up his mind to think no more of her. + +"Well," he said, "the next thing is to arrange for Mrs. Hastings to +meet you in London, or, perhaps, at the Grange. Her husband is a +Canadian, a man of education, who has quite a large homestead not far +from Gregory's. Her folks are people of station in Montreal, and I +feel sure that you'll like her." + +They decided that he was to ask Mrs. Hastings to stay a few days at the +Grange, and then he looked at the girl somewhat diffidently. + +"She suggests going in a fortnight," he said. + +Agatha smiled at him. "Then," she said, "I must not keep her waiting." + +She rose, and they went back together to join their hostess. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE TRAVELLING COMPANION. + +A grey haze, thickened by the smoke of the city, drove out across the +water when the _Scarrowmania_ lay in the Mersey, with her cable hove +short, and the last of the flood tide gurgling against her bows. A +trumpeting blast of steam swept high aloft from beside her squat +funnel, and the splash of the slowly turning paddles of the couple of +steam tugs that lay alongside mingled with the din it made. A gangway +from one of them led to the _Scarrowmania's_ forward deck, and a stream +of frowsy humanity that had just been released from overpacked emigrant +boarding-houses poured up it. There were apparently representatives of +all peoples and languages among that unkempt horde--Britons, +Scandinavians, Teutons, Italians, Russians, Poles--and they moved on in +forlorn apathy, like cattle driven to the slaughter. One wondered, +from the look of them, how they had raised their passage money, and how +many years' bitter self-denial it had cost them to provide for their +transit to the land of promise. + +At the head of the gangway stood the steamboat doctors, for the +_Scarrowmania_ was taking out an unusual number of passengers, and +there were two of them. They were immaculate in blue uniform, and +looked very clean and English by contrast with the mass of frowsy +aliens. Beside them stood another official, presumably acting on +behalf of the Dominion Government, though there were few restrictions +imposed upon Canadian immigration then, nor for that matter did anybody +trouble much about the comfort of the steerage passengers. Though they +have altered all that latterly, each steamer, in a general way, carried +as many as she could hold. + +As the stream poured out of the gangway, the doctor glanced at each new +comer's face, and then seizing him by the wrist uncovered it. Since +this took him two or three seconds, one could have fancied that he +either possessed peculiar powers, or that the test was a somewhat +inefficient one. Then he looked at the official, who made a sign, and +the man moved on. + +In the meanwhile a group of first-class passengers leaning on the +thwart-ship rails close by looked on, with complacent satisfaction with +the fact that they were born in a different station, or +half-contemptuous pity, as their temperament varied. Among them stood +Mrs. Hastings, Miss Winifred Rawlinson, and Agatha. The latter noticed +that Wyllard sat on a hatch forward near the head of the gangway, with +a pipe in his hand. She drew Mrs. Hastings's attention to it. + +"Whatever is Mr. Wyllard doing there?" she asked. + +Her companion, who was wrapped in furs, for there was a sting in the +east wind, smiled at her. + +"That," she said, "is more than I can tell you; but Harry Wyllard seems +to find an interest in what other folks would consider most unpromising +things, and, what's more to the purpose, he's rather addicted to taking +a hand in. It's a habit that costs him something now and then." + +Agatha asked nothing further. She was interested in Wyllard, but she +was at the moment more interested in the faces of those who swarmed on +board. She wondered what they had endured in the lands that had cast +them out, and what they might still have to bear. It seemed to her +that the murmur of their harsh voices went up in a great protest, an +inarticulate cry of sorrow. While she looked on the doctor held back a +long-haired man who was following a haggard woman shuffling in broken +boots. He drew him aside, and when, after he had apparently consulted +with the other official, two seamen hustled the man towards a second +gangway that led to the tug, the woman raised a wild, despairing cry. +It, however, seemed that she blocked the passage, and a quartermaster +drove her, expostulating in an agony of terror, forward among the rest. +Nobody appeared concerned about this alien's tragedy, except one man, +but Agatha was not astonished when Wyllard rose and quietly laid his +hand upon the official's shoulder. + +A parley appeared to follow, somebody gave an order, and when the alien +was led back again the woman's cries subsided. Agatha looked at her +companion, and once more a smile crept into Mrs. Hastings's eyes. + +"Yes," she said, "I guessed he would feel he had to stand in. That's a +man who can't see any one in trouble." Then she added, with a little +whimsical sigh, "He had a bonanza harvest last fall, any way." + +They moved aft soon afterwards, and the _Scarrowmania_ was smoothly +sliding seawards with the first of the ebb when Agatha met Wyllard. He +glanced at the Lancashire sandhills, which were fading into a pale +ochre gleam amidst the haze over the starboard hand, and then at the +long row of painted buoys that moved back to them ahead. + +"You're off at last! The sad grey weather is dropping fast astern," he +said. "Out yonder, the skies are clear." + +"Thank you," said Agatha, "I'm to apply that as I like? As a matter of +fact, however, our days weren't always grey. But what was the trouble +when those steerage people came on board?" + +Wyllard's manner, as she noticed, was free alike from the complacent +self-satisfaction which occasionally characterises the philanthropist, +and any affectation of diffidence. + +"Well," he said, "there was something wrong with that woman's husband. +Nothing infectious, I believe, but they didn't seem to consider him a +desirable citizen. They make a warning example of somebody with a +physical infirmity now and then. The man, they decided, must be put +ashore again. In the meanwhile, somebody else had hustled the woman +forward, and it almost looked as if they'd have taken her on without +him. The tug was almost ready to cast off." + +"How dreadful!" said Agatha. "But what did you do?" + +"Merely promised to guarantee the cost of his passage back if they'd +refer his case to the immigration people at the other end. It's +scarcely likely that they'll make trouble. As a rule, they only throw +folks who're certain to become a charge on the community." + +"But if he really had any infirmity, mightn't it lead to that?" + +"No," said Wyllard drily. "I would engage to give him a fair start if +it was necessary. You wouldn't have had that woman landed in Montreal, +helpless and alone, while the man was sent back again to starve in +Poland?" + +He saw a curious liquid gleam in Agatha's eyes, and added in a +deprecating manner, "You see, I've now and then limped without a dollar +into a British Columbian mining town." + +The girl was a little stirred; but there was another matter that must +be mentioned, though she felt that the time was somewhat inopportune. + +"Miss Rawlinson, who had only a second-class ticket, insists upon being +told how it is that she has been transferred to the saloon." + +Wyllard's eyes twinkled, but she noticed that he was wholly free from +embarrassment, which was not quite the case with her. + +"Well," he said, "that's a matter I must leave you to handle. Anyway, +she can't go second-class now. One or two of the steerage exchanged +when they saw their quarters, for which I don't blame them, and they've +filled every room right up." + +"You haven't answered the question." + +Wyllard waved his hand. "Miss Rawlinson is your bridesmaid, and I'm +Gregory's best man. It seems to me it's my business to do everything +just as he'd like it done." + +He left her a moment later, and, though she did not know how she was to +explain the matter to Miss Rawlinson, who was of an independent +disposition, it occurred to her that he, at least, had found a rather +graceful way out of the difficulty. The more she saw of this Western +farmer, the more she liked him. + +It was after dinner when she next met him, and, for the wind had +changed, the _Scarrowmania_ was steaming head-on into a glorious +north-west breeze. The shrouds sang; chain-guy, and stanchion, and +whatever caught the wind, set up a deep-toned throbbing; and ranks of +little, white-topped seas rolled out of the night ahead. A half-moon +hung low above them, blurred now and then by wisps of flying cloud, and +odd spouts of spray that gleamed in the silvery light leapt up about +the dipping bows. Wyllard was leaning on the rails, with a cigar in +his hand, when she stopped beside him, and she glanced towards the +lighted windows of the smoke-room not far away. + +"How is it you are not in there?" she asked, for something to say. + +"I was," said Wyllard. "It's rather full up, and it seemed they didn't +want me. They're busy playing cards, and the stakes are rather high. +In a general way, a steamboat's smoke-room is less of a men's lounge +than a gambling club." + +"And you object to cards?" + +"Oh, no!" said Wyllard. "They merely make me tired, and when I feel I +want some excitement for my dollars I get it another way. That one +seems tame to me." + +"Which is the one you like?" + +The man laughed. "There are a good many that appeal to me. Once it +was collecting sealskins off other people's beaches, and there was zest +enough in that, in view of the probability of the dory turning over, or +a gunboat dropping on to you. Then there was a good deal of very +genuine excitement to be got out of placer-mining in British Columbia, +especially when there was frost in the ranges, and you had to thaw out +your giant-powder. Shallow alluvial workings have a way of caving in +when you least expect it of them. After all, however, I think I like +the prairie farming best." + +"Is that exciting?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard, "if you do it in one way. The gold's there--that +you're sure of--piled up by nature during I don't know how many +thousand years, but you have to stake high if you want to get much of +it out. One needs costly labour, teams--no end of them--breakers, and +big gang-plough. The farmer who has nerve enough drills his last +dollar into the soil in spring, but if he means to succeed it costs him +more than that. He must give the sweat of his tensest effort, the +uttermost toil of his body--all, in fact, that has been given him. +Then he must shut his eyes tight to the hazards against him, or, and we +can't all do that, look at them without wavering--the drought, the +hail, the harvest frost. If his teams fall sick, or the season goes +against him, he must work double tides. Still, it now and then happens +that things go right, and the red wheat rolls ripe right back across +the prairie. I don't know that any man could want a keener thrill than +the one you feel when you drive the binders in!" + +Agatha had imagination, and she could realise something of the toil, +the hazard, and the clean thrill of that victory. + +"You have felt it often?" she said. + +"Twice we helped to fill a big elevator up," said Wyllard quietly. +"Still, I've been very near defeat." + +The girl looked at him thoughtfully. It seemed that he possessed the +power of acquisition, as well as a wide generosity that came into play +when by strenuous effort success had been attained, which, so far as +her experience went, were things that did not invariably accompany each +other. + +"And when the harvest comes up to your expectations, you give your +dollars away," she said. + +Wyllard laughed. "You shouldn't deduce too much from a single +instance. Besides, that Pole's case hasn't cost me anything yet." + +Mrs. Hastings joined them soon afterwards, and when Wyllard strolled +away they spent some time leaning on the rails, and looking at the +groups of shadowy figures on the forward deck. Their attitude was +dejected and melancholy, but one cluster had gathered round a man who +stood upon the hatch. + +"Yes," he said, "you'll have no trouble. Canada's a great country for +a poor man. He can sleep beneath a bush all summer, if he can't strike +anything he likes." + +This did not appear particularly encouraging, but the orator went on. +"Been over for a trip to the Old Country, and I'm glad I'm going back +again. Went out with nothing except a good discharge, and they made me +sergeant of Canadian militia: After that armourer to a rifle club. +There's places a blame long way behind the Dominion, and I struck one +of them when we went with Roberts to Afghanistan. It was on that trip +I and a Pathan rolled all down a hill, him trying to get his knife arm +loose, and me jabbing his breastbone with my bayonet before I got it +into him. I drove it through to the socket. You want to make quite +sure of a Pathan." + +Miss Rawlinson winced at this. "Oh," she said, "what a horrible man!" + +"It was 'most as tough as when you went after Kiel, and stole the +Scotchman's furs," suggested a Canadian. + +The sergeant let the jibe go by. "Oh," he said, "Louis's bucks could +shoot! We had them corralled in a pit, and every time one of the boys +from Montreal broke cover he got a bullet into him. Did any of you +ever hear a dropped man squeal?" + +Agatha had heard sufficient, and she and her companions turned away, +but as they moved across the deck the sergeant's voice followed her. + +"Oh, yes," he said, "a grand country for a poolman. In the summer he +can sleep beneath a bush." + +For some reason this eulogy haunted Agatha when she retired to her room +that night, and she wondered what awaited all those aliens in the new +land, until it occurred to her that in some respects she was situated +very much as they were. Then, for the first time, vague misgivings +crept into her mind as she realised that she had cut herself adrift +from all that she had been accustomed to. She felt suddenly depressed +and lonely. + +The depression had, however, almost vanished when, awakening rather +early next morning, she went up on deck. A red sun hung over the +tumbling seas that ran into the hazy east astern, and they rolled up in +crested phalanxes that gleamed green and incandescent white ahead. The +_Scarrowmania_ plunged through them with a spray cloud flying about her +dipping bows. She was a small, old-fashioned boat, and--for she had +some 3,000 tons of railway iron in the bottom of her--she rolled +distressfully. Her tall spars swayed athwart the vivid blueness of the +morning sky, with the rhythmic regularity of a pendulum. The girl, +however, was troubled by no sense of sickness; the keen north-wester +that sang amidst the shrouds was wonderfully fresh; and when she met +Wyllard crossing the saloon deck her cheeks were glowing from the sting +of the spray, and her eyes were bright. + +"Where have you been?" she asked. + +"Down there," said Wyllard, pointing to the black opening in the +fore-hatch that led to the steerage quarters. "An acquaintance of mine +who's travelling forward asked me to take a look round, and I'm rather +glad I did. When I've had a word with the chief steward I'm going back +again." + +"You have a friend down there?" + +"I met the man for the first time yesterday, and rather took to him. +One of your naval petty officers, forcibly retired, who can't live upon +his pension, which is why he's going out to Canada. Now you'll excuse +me." + +"I wonder," said Agatha, "if you would let me go back with you?" + +Wyllard looked at her rather curiously. "Well," he said, with an air +of reflection, "you'll probably have to face a good deal that you don't +like out yonder, and in one way you won't suffer from a little +preparatory training. This, however, is not a case where sentimental +pity is likely to relieve anybody. It's the real thing." + +"I think I told you at Garside Scar that I haven't lived altogether in +luxury!" + +Wyllard, who made no comment, disappeared, and merely signed to her +when he came back. They reached the ladder that led down into the +gloom beneath the hatch, and Agatha hesitated when a sour and musty +odour floated up to her, apparently out of the depths of the ship. She +went down, however, and a few moments later stood, half-nauseated, +gazing at the wildest scene of confusion her eyes had ever rested on. +A little light came down the hatchway, and a smoky lamp or two swung +above her head, but half the steerage deck was wrapped in shadow, and +out of it there rose a many-voiced complaining. Flimsy, unplaned +fittings had wrenched away, and men lay inert amidst the wreckage, with +the remains of their last meal scattered about them. There were +unwashed tin plates and pannikins, knives, and spoons, sliding up and +down everywhere, and the deck was foul with slops of tea, and trodden +bread, and marmalade. Now and then, in a wilder roll than usual, a +frowsy, huddled object slid groaning down the slant of slimy planking, +but in every case the helpless passenger was fully dressed. Steerage +passengers, in fact, seldom take off their clothes. For one thing, all +their worldly possessions are, as a rule, secreted among their attire, +and for another, most of those hailing from beyond the Danube have +never been accustomed to disrobing. In the midst of the confusion, two +half-sick steward lads were making wholly ineffective efforts to +straighten up the mess. + +Then Agatha made out that a swarm of urchins were huddled together in a +helpless mass, along one side of the horrible place. The sergeant was +haranguing them, while another man, whom she supposed to be the petty +officer, pulled them to their feet one by one. A good deal of his +labour was wasted, for the _Scarrowmania_ was rolling viciously, and as +soon as he had got a few upright half of them collapsed again. Wyllard +glanced towards them compassionately. + +"I believe most of them have had nothing to eat since they came on +board, though it isn't the company's fault," he said. "There's food +enough served out, but before we picked the breeze up the men laid +hands upon it first and half of it was wasted in the scramble. Then it +seems they pitched these youngsters out of their berths." + +"Don't they belong to anybody?" Agatha asked. "Is there no one to look +after them?" + +Wyllard smiled drily. "I believe one of your charitable institutions +is sending them out, and there seems to be a clergyman, who has a +curate and a lay assistant to help him, in charge. The assistant won't +be available while this rolling lasts, and the other two very naturally +prefer the saloon. In a way, that's comprehensible." + +He left her, and proceeded to help the man who was dragging the urchins +to their feet. + +"Get up!" said the sergeant. "Get up, and fall in. Dress from the +left, and number off, the ones who can stand." + +It appeared that the lads had been drilled, for they scrambled into a +line that bent and wavered each time the _Scarrowmania's_ bows went +down. After that, every other lad stepped forward at the word; the +order was, "Left turn! March, and fall in on deck," and when they +feebly clambered up the ladder Wyllard, who turned to Agatha, pointed +to a door in a bulkhead of rough white wood. + +"It should have been locked, but I fancy you can get in that way, and +up through another hatch," he said. "The single women, and women with +children are in yonder, and if you want to be useful there's a field +for you. Get as many as possible up on deck." + +Agatha left him, and her face was rather white when at last she came up +into the open air, with about a dozen forlorn, draggled women trailing +helplessly after her. The lads were now sitting down in a double line +on deck, each with a tin plate and a steaming pannikin in front of him. +There were, she fancied, at least a hundred of them, and a man with a +bronzed face and the stamp of command upon him was giving them the +order of the voyage. He was the one she had already noticed. + +"You'll turn out at the whistle at half-past six," he said. "Shake +mattresses, roll up blankets, and prepare for berth inspection. Then, +at the next whistle, you'll fall in on deck stripped to the waist for +washing parade. Fourth files numbering even are orderlies in charge of +the plates and pannikins." + +"And," said the sergeant, "any insubordination will be sharply dealt +with. Now, when I was with Roberts in Afghanistan----" + +Wyllard, who was standing close by, turned to Agatha. + +"I don't think we'll be wanted. You have probably earned your +breakfast." + +They went back to the saloon deck, and the girl smiled when he looked +at her inquiringly. + +"It was a little horrible, but I hadn't so many to deal with," she +said. "Do you, and those others expect to bring any order out of that +chaos?" + +"No," said Wyllard, "with a little encouragement they'll do it +themselves--that is, the English, Danes, and Germans. One can trust +them to evolve a workable system. It's in their nature. You can trace +most things that tend to wholesome efficiency back to the old Teutonic +leaven. By and bye, they'll proceed to put some pressure on the +Latins, Slavs, and Jews." + +"But is it your business to offer them that encouragement?" + +Wyllard laughed. "Strictly speaking, it isn't in the least, but +unnecessary chaos is rather hateful, and, any way, I'm not the only one +who doesn't seem to like it. There's the petty officer, and our +friend, the sergeant, who was with Roberts in Afghanistan." + +Agatha said nothing further. She was a little surprised to feel that +she was anxious to keep this man's good opinion, though that was not +exactly why she had nerved herself for the venture into the single +women's quarters. Leaving him out altogether, it seemed to her that +there was something rather fine in the way the petty officer who was +going out almost penniless to Canada, and the sergeant, had saddled +themselves with the task of looking after those helpless lads. It was +wholly unpaid labour, for which the men who preferred to remain within +the safe limits of the saloon deck would presumably get the credit. +After all, she decided there were, no doubt, men in every station who +helped to keep the world sweet and clean, and she fancied that her +companion was to be counted among them. He certainly differed in many +ways from Gregory, but then Gregory was unapproachable. She did not +remember that it was four years since she had seen the latter, and that +her ideas had been a little unformed then. + +During the evening, Mrs. Hastings, with whom he was evidently a +favourite, happened to speak of Wyllard, and the efforts he was making +in the steerage, and Agatha asked a question. + +"Does he often undertake this kind of thing?" + +"No," said Mrs. Hastings with a smile. "Any way, not on so large a +scale. He's very far from setting up as a professional philanthropist, +my dear. I don't ever remember him offering to point out their duty to +other folks, and I don't think he goes about in search of an +opportunity of benefiting humanity. Still, as I suggested, when an +individual case thrusts itself beneath his nose, he generally--does +what he can." + +"I've heard people say that the individual method only perpetuates the +trouble," said Agatha. + +Her companion laughed. "That," she said, "is a subject I'm not well +posted on, but it seems to me that if other folks only adopted Harry +Wyllard's simple plan, there would be considerably less need for +organised charity." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE FOG. + +During the next two days the _Scarrowmania_ shouldered her way +westwards through the big, white-topped combers that rolled down upon +her under a lowering sky before a moderate gale. There were no +luxurious, steam-propelled hotels in the Canadian trade just then, and, +loaded deep with railway metal as she was, she slopped the green seas +in everywhere, and rolled her streaming sides out almost to her bilge. +She also shivered and rattled horribly when her single screw swung +clear and the tri-compound engines ran away. + +Wyllard went down to the steerage every now and then, and Agatha, who +contrived to keep on her feet, not infrequently accompanied him. She +was glad of his society, for Mrs. Hastings was seldom in evidence, and +no efforts could get Miss Rawlinson out of her berth. The gale, +however, blew itself out at length, and the evening after it moderated +Agatha was sitting near the head of one fiddle-guarded table in the +saloon waiting for dinner, which the stewards had still some difficulty +in bringing in. Wyllard's place was next to hers, but he had not +appeared yet, nor, as it happened, had the skipper, who, however, did +not invariably dine with the passengers. One of the two doors which +led from the foot of the branching companion stairway into either side +of the saloon stood open, and presently she saw Wyllard standing just +outside it. + +He beckoned to the doctor, who sat at the foot of her table, and the +latter merely raised his brows a trifle. He was a rather consequential +person, and it was evident to the girl that he resented being summoned +by a gesture. She did not think anybody else had noticed Wyllard, and +she waited with some curiosity to see what he would do. He made a sign +with a lifted hand, and she felt that the other would obey it, as, in +fact, he did, though his manner was very far from conciliatory. By +dint of listening closely, she could hear their conversation. + +"I'm sorry," said Wyllard, "to trouble you just now, and I didn't come +in because that would have set everybody wondering what you were wanted +for; but one of those boys forward has been thrown down the ladder, and +has cut his head." + +"Ah!" said the doctor. "I'll see to him--after dinner." + +"It's a nasty cut," said Wyllard. "He's losing a good deal of blood." + +"Then I would suggest that you apply to my assistant." + +"As I don't know where he is, I have come to you." + +The doctor made a sign of impatience. "Well," he said, "you have told +me, which I think is as far as your concern in the matter goes. I may +add that I'm not accustomed to dictation on behalf of a steerage +passenger." + +Agatha saw Wyllard quietly slip between him and the entrance to the +saloon, but she also saw, as neither of the others apparently did, the +skipper appear a few paces behind them, and glance at them sharply. He +was usually a silent man, at home in the ice and the clammy fog, but +not a great acquisition in the saloon. + +"Something wrong down forward, Mr. Wyllard? They were making a great +row a little while ago," he said. + +"Nothing very serious," said Wyllard. "One of the boys, however, has +cut his head." + +The skipper turned towards the doctor quietly; but Agatha fancied he +had overheard part of the conversation. + +"Don't you think you had better go--at once?" he said. + +The doctor evidently did, for he disappeared, and Wyllard, who entered +the saloon with the skipper, sat down at Agatha's side. + +"How do you do it?" she asked. + +"What?" asked Wyllard, attacking his dinner. + +"We'll say persuade other folks to see things as you do." + +"You evidently mean the skipper, and I suppose you heard something of +what was going on. In this case, as it happens, I'm indebted to his +prejudices. He's one of the old type--a seaman first of all--and what +we call bluff, and you call bounce, has only one effect upon men of his +kind. It gets their backs up." + +Agatha fancied that he did not like it, either, but she changed the +subject. + +"There really was a row forward," she said. "What was the trouble +over? You were, no doubt, somewhere near the scene of it." + +Wyllard laughed. "I sat upon the steerage ladder, and am afraid I +cheered the combatants on. It was really a glorious row. They +hammered each other with tin plates, and some of them tried to use +hoop-iron knives, which fortunately doubled up. They broke quite a few +of the benches, and wrecked the mess table, but so far as I noticed the +only one seriously hurt was a little chap who was quietly looking on." + +"And you encouraged them?" + +"I certainly did. It was a protest against dirt, disorder, and the +slothfulness that's a plague to the community. Isn't physical force +warranted when there's no other remedy?" + +A grey-haired Canadian looked up. "Yes," he said, "I guess it is. The +first man who pulled his gun in British Columbia was hanged right away, +and they've scarcely had to make an example of another ever since, +though it's quite a while ago." + +He paused, and smiled approvingly. "A mess of any kind worries us, and +we don't take long to straighten it out. Same feelings in the Germans +and Scandinavians. I'll say that for them, any way. Your friends +swept up the steerage?" + +"They took the Slavs and Jews, and pitched them down the second hatch +on to the orlop deck. Things will go smoothly now our crowd are on +top." + +"Your crowd?" said Agatha. + +The Canadian nodded. "That's what he meant," he said. "There are two +kinds of folks you and the rest of them are dumping into Canada. One's +the kind that will get up and hustle, break land, and build new +homes--log at first, frame and stone afterwards. They go on from a +quarter-section and a team of oxen to the biggest farm they can handle, +and every fresh furrow they cut enriches all of us. The other kind +want to sit down in the dirt and take life easily, as they've always +done. The dirt worries everybody else, and we've no use for them. By +and bye our Legislature will have to wake up and stop them getting in." + +He went on with his dinner after this, but his observations left Agatha +thoughtful. She was, for one thing, beginning to understand one side +of her companion's character. He, it seemed, stood for practical +efficiency. There was a driving force in him that made for progress +and order. It was apparently his mission to straighten things out. +Some folks of his kind, she reflected, now and then made a good deal of +avoidable trouble; but there was in this man, at least, a +half-whimsical toleration, which rendered that an unlikely thing in his +particular case. Besides, she had already recognised that she was in +some respects fortunate in having such a man for her companion. + +Her deck chair was always set out in the most sheltered and comfortable +place. If there was anything to be seen, a cargo boat plunging along +forecastle under, or a great iron sailing ship thrashing out to the +westwards, with the spray clouds flying about her hove up weather side, +he almost invariably appeared with a pair of powerful glasses. She was +watched over, her wishes anticipated, and the man was seldom +obtrusively present when she felt disposed to talk to somebody else. +It struck her that she had thought a good deal about him during the +last few days, and rather less than usual about Gregory, which was +partly why she did not walk up and down the deck with him, as usual, +after dinner that evening. + +Three or four days later the _Scarrowmania_ ran into the Bank fog, and +burrowed through it with whistle hooting dolefully at regular +intervals. Now and then an answering ringing of bells came out of the +clammy vapour, and the half-seen shape of an anchored schooner loomed +up, rolling wildly on grey slopes of sea. Once, too, a tiny dory, half +filled with lines and buoys, slid by plunging on the wash flung off by +the _Scarrowmania's_ bows, and Agatha understood that the men in her +had escaped death by a hairsbreadth. They were cod fishers, Wyllard +told her, and he added that there was a host of them at work somewhere +in the sliding haze. She, however, fancied, now and then, that the fog +had a depressing effect on him, and that when the dory lay beneath the +rail there had been a somewhat unusual look in his face. + +Then a breeze came out of the north-west, with the sting of the ice in +it, but the fog did not lift, and the _Scarrowmania_ plunged on through +it with spray-wet decks and the grey seas smashing about her bows. It +was bitterly cold and clammy, the raw wind pierced to the bone, but the +voyage was, at least, rapidly shortening, and one evening Agatha paced +the deck with Wyllard in a somewhat curious mood. Perhaps it was +merely the gloom re-acting upon her, for she was looking forward to the +landing with a certain half-conscious shrinking. + +They stopped by the rails presently, looking out upon the tumbling seas +that rolled out of the sliding haze tipped with livid froth, and the +dreariness of the surroundings intensified the girl's depression. +There was something unpleasantly suggestive in the sight of the fog +that hid everything, for she had of late been troubled with a +half-apprehensive longing to see what lay before her. In the +meanwhile, she noticed the look-out standing, a lonely, shapeless +figure, amidst the spray that whirled about the plunging bows. By and +bye she saw him turn and wave an arm apparently towards the bridge +behind her, and she heard a hoarse, wind-out cry. What it meant she +could not tell, but in another moment the _Scarrowmania's_ whistle +shrieked again. + +Then a grey shape burst out of the vapour, and grew with astonishing +swiftness into dim tiers of slanted sailcloth swaying above a strip of +hull that moved amidst a broad white smear of foam. It was a brig +under fore-course and topsails, and as Agatha watched her she sank to +her tilted bowsprit, and a big grey and white sea foamed about her bows. + +"Aren't we dreadfully near?" she asked. + +Wyllard did not answer. He was gazing up at the bridge, and once more +the whistle hurled out a great warning blast. It hardly seemed to her +that the two vessels could pass clear of each other. Then Wyllard laid +a hand upon her shoulder. + +"The skipper's starboarding. We'll go round her stern," he said. + +His grasp was reassuring, and she watched the straining curves of +canvas and line of half-submerged hull. It rose with streaming bows, +swung high above the sea, sank again, and vanished with bewildering +suddenness into a belt of driving fog. She was not sure that there had +been any peril, but it was certainly over now, and she was rather +puzzled by her sensations when Wyllard had held her shoulder. For one +thing, she had felt instinctively that she was safe with him. She, +however, decided not to trouble herself about the reason for this, and +by and bye she looked up at him. The expression she had already +noticed was once more in his face. + +"I don't think you like the fog any more than I do," she said. + +"No," said Wyllard, with a quiet forcefulness that almost startled her. +"I hate it." + +"Why do you go as far as that?" + +"It recalls something that still gives me a very bad few minutes every +now and then. It has been worrying me again to-night." + +"I wonder," said Agatha simply, "if you would care to tell me?" + +The man looked down on her with a little wry smile. "I haven't told it +often, but you shall hear," he said. "It's a tale of a black failure." +He stretched out a hand and pointed to the sliding fog and ranks of +tumbling seas. "It was very much this kind of night, and we were +lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians' beaches, when I asked for +volunteers. I got them--two boats' crews of the finest seamen that +ever handled oar or sealing rifle." + +"But what did you want them for?" + +"A boat from another schooner had been cast ashore. It was blowing +tolerably hard, as it usually does where the Polar ice comes down into +the Behring Sea. They'd been shooting seals from her. We meant to +bring the men off if we could manage it." + +"Wouldn't one boat have been enough?" + +"No," said Wyllard drily, "we had three, and I think that was one cause +of the trouble. There was one from the other schooner. You see, those +seals belonged to the Russians, and we free-lances could only shoot +them clear off shore. I'm not sure that the men in the wrecked boat +had been fishing outside the limit." + +Agatha did not press for further particulars, and he went on: + +"We managed to make a landing, though one boat went up bottom +uppermost," he said. "I fancy they must have broken or lost an oar +then. We also got the wrecked men, but we had trouble while we were +getting the boats off again. The surf was running in savagely, and the +fog shut down solid as a wall. Any way, we pulled off, and went out +with a foot of water in us, while one of the rescued men took my oar +when I let it go." + +"Why had you to let it go?" + +Wyllard laughed in a rather grim fashion. + +"I got my head laid open with a sealing club," he said. "Some of the +rest had their scratches, but they managed to row. For one thing, they +knew they had to. They had reasons for not wanting to fall into the +Russians' hands. Well, we cleared the beach, and once or twice as I +tried to bale there was a shout somewhere near us, and the loom of a +vanishing boat. It was all we could make out, for the sea was slopping +into her, and the spray was flying everywhere. If there had only been +two boats we'd probably have found out our misfortune, and perhaps have +set it straight. As it was, we couldn't tell it was the same boat that +had hailed us." + +He broke off for a moment, and then added quietly, "Two boats reached +the schooners. There was a nasty sea running then, and it blew +viciously hard next day. There were three men in the other." + +"Ah," said Agatha, "they were drowned?" + +Wyllard made a little forceful gesture. "I'm not quite sure. That's +the trouble. At least, the boat was nowhere on the beach next day, and +it's difficult to see how they could have faced the sea that piled up +when the gale came down. In all probability, they had an oar short, +and she rolled them out when a comber broke upon her in the darkness." +The girl saw him close one hand tight as he added, "If one only knew!" + +"What would have befallen them if they'd got ashore?" + +"It's difficult to say. In a general way, they'd have been handed over +to the Russian authorities. Still, sealers poaching up there have +simply disappeared." + +He stopped again, and glanced out at the gathering darkness. "Now," he +added, "you see why I hate the fog." + +"But you couldn't help it," said Agatha. + +"Well," said Wyllard, "I asked for volunteers, and the money that's now +mine came out of those schooners. It's just possible those men are +living still--somewhere in Northern Asia. I only know they +disappeared." + +Then he abruptly commenced to talk of something else, and by and bye +Agatha went down to the saloon, where Miss Rawlinson, who had not been +much in evidence during the voyage, presently made her appearance. + +"Aren't you going into the music-room to play for Mr. Wyllard--as +usual?" she said. + +Agatha was almost disconcerted. She had fallen into the habit of +spending half an hour or longer in the little music-room every evening, +with Wyllard standing near the piano; but now her companion's question +seemed to place a significance upon the fact. + +"No," she said, "I don't think I am." + +"Then the rest of them will wonder it you have fallen out with him." + +"Fallen out with him?" + +Winifred laughed. "They've naturally been watching both of you, and, +in a general way, there's only one decision they could have arrived at." + +Agatha flushed a little, but her companion went on: + +"I don't mind admitting that if a man of that kind was to fall in love +with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she added, with +a whimsically rueful gesture, "Still, it's most unlikely." + +Agatha looked at her with a little glint in her eyes. + +"He is merely Gregory's deputy," she said, with a sub-conscious feeling +that the epithet was not a remarkably fortunate one. "In that +connection, I should like to point out that you can estimate a man's +character by that of his friends." + +"Oh," said Winifred, "then if Mr. Wyllard's strong points are merely to +heighten Gregory's credit, I've nothing more to say. Anyway, I'll +reserve my homage until I've seen him. Perfection among men is scarce +nowadays." + +She turned away, and left Agatha thoughtful. In the meanwhile, Mrs. +Hastings came upon Wyllard in the music-room. There was just then +nobody else in it. + +"You look quite serious," she said. + +"I've been thinking about Miss Ismay and Gregory," said Wyllard. "In +fact, I feel a little anxious about them." + +"In which way?" + +"Without making any reflections upon Gregory, I somehow feel sorry for +the girl." + +Mrs. Hastings nodded. "As a matter of fact, that's very much what I +felt from the first," she said. "Still, you see, there's the important +fact that she's fond of him, and it should smooth out a good many +difficulties. Anyway, what we can call the material ones won't count. +She's evidently rather a courageous person." + +The man sat silent a moment or two. "I wasn't troubling about them," +he said. "I was wondering if she really could be fond of him. It's +some years since she was much in his company." + +"Hawtrey is not a man to change." + +"That," said Wyllard, "is just the trouble. I've no doubt he's much +the same, but one could fancy that Miss Ismay has changed a good deal +since she last saw him. She'll look for considerably more than she was +probably content with then." + +"In any case, it isn't your affair." + +"In one sense it certainly isn't; but I can't help feeling a little +troubled about the thing. You see, Gregory is quite an old friend." + +"And the girl is going out to marry him," said Mrs. Hastings. + +Wyllard rose. "That," he said, "is quite uncalled for. I would like +to assure you of it." + +He went out, and the lady sat still in a reflective mood. + +"If she begins to compare him with Hawtrey, there can be only one +result," she said. + +The fog had almost gone next morning, and pale sunshine streamed down +upon a froth-flecked sea. A bitter wind, however, still came out of +the hazy north, and the _Scarrowmania's_ plates were crusted with ice +where the highest crests of the tumbling seas reached them. The spray +also froze, and the decks grew slippery, until when darkness came +nobody but the seamen faced the stinging cold. Agatha felt the engines +stop late that night, and when she went out next morning the decks were +white, and she could see dim ghosts of sliding pines through a haze of +falling snow. It grew bewilderingly thick at times, but the steamer +slid on through it with whistle hooting, and when at last towards +sunset the snow cleared away Agatha stood shivering under a deck-house, +looking about her with a curiously heavy heart. + +A grey haze stretched across the great river, which was also dim and +grey, and odd wisps of pines rose raggedly beneath the white hills that +cut against a gloomy, lowering sky. Deck-house, boat, and stanchion +dripped, and every now and then the silence was broken by a doleful +blast of the whistle. Nothing moved on the still, grey water; there +was no sign of life ashore; and they seemed to be steaming into a great +desolation. + +By and bye, Wyllard appeared from somewhere, and after a glance at her +face slipped his hand beneath her arm, and led her down to the lighted +saloon. Then her heart grew a little lighter. Once more she was +conscious of an unreasoning feeling that she was safe with him. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +DISILLUSION. + +The long train was speeding smoothly across the vast white levels of +Assiniboia, when Agatha, who sat by a window, looked up as the +conductor strode through the car. Mrs. Hastings asked him a question, +and he stopped a moment. + +"Yes," he said, "we'll be in Clermont inside half an hour." + +Then he went on, and Mrs. Hastings smiled at Agatha. + +"We're a little late, and Gregory will be waiting for us in the depot +now," she said. "No doubt he's got the waggon fixed up right, but I'd +like to feel sure of it. There's a long drive before us, and I want to +reach the homestead before it's dark." + +Agatha said nothing, but a faint tinge of colour crept into her cheeks, +and her companion was glad to see it, for she had noticed that the girl +was looking rather pale and haggard. This was partly due to the fact +that the strain of the last few months she had spent in England was +commencing to tell on her. She had borne it courageously, but a +reaction had afterwards set in, and, as it happened, the _Scarrowmania_ +had plunged along bows under against fresh north-westerly gales most of +the way across the Atlantic. There is very little comfort on board a +small, deeply-loaded steamer when she rolls her rails in, and lurches +with thudding screw swung clear over big, steep-sided combers. In +addition to this, Agatha had scarcely slept during the few days and +nights she had spent in the train. It takes some time to become +accustomed to the atmosphere of a stove-heated sleeper car, and since +she had landed she had been in a state of not altogether unnatural +nervous tension. + +Indeed, she had found it a little difficult to preserve an outward +serenity the previous day, and when at length the great train ran into +the depot at Winnipeg, where Gregory had arranged to meet them, it was +with a thrill of expectancy and relief that she stood upon the car +platform. There was, however, no sign of him, and though Wyllard +handed her a telegram from him a few minutes later the fact that he had +not arrived had a depressing effect on her. Quiet as she usually was, +the girl was highly strung. It appeared that something had gone wrong +with Hawtrey's waggon while he was driving in to the railroad, and as +the result of it he had missed the Atlantic train. She could not blame +him for this, but for all that his absence had been an unpleasant shock. + +Feeling that her companion's eyes were upon her, she turned, and +looking out of the window found no encouragement in what she saw. The +snow had gone, and a vast expanse of grass ran back to the horizon; but +it was a dingy, greyish-white, and not green as it had been in England. +The sky was low and grey, too, and the only thing that broke the dreary +monotony of lifeless colour was when the formless, darker smear of a +birch bluff rose out of the empty levels. Her heart throbbed +unpleasantly fast as the few remaining minutes slipped away, and at +length she started when a dingy mass of something that looked like +buildings lifted itself above the prairie. + +"The Clermont elevators," said Mrs. Hastings. "We'll be in directly." + +The mass separated itself into two or three tall component blocks. A +huddle of little wooden houses grew into shape beneath them, and a +shrill whistle came ringing back above the slowing cars. Then a willow +bluff, half filled with old cans and garbage, flitted by, a big bell +commenced tolling, and Agatha rose when Mrs. Hastings took up her furs +from a seat close by. After that, she found herself standing on the +platform of the car, though she did not quite know how she got there, +for she was sensible only of the fact that in another moment or two she +would greet the lover she had last seen four years ago. + +In the meanwhile, though she paid them no great attention, the +surroundings had a depressing effect on her. There was, however, very +little to see; the mass of the great elevators that cut against a +lowering sky, the little cluster of houses, and the sea of churned-up +mire between them and the track. There also appeared to be no station +except a big water tank and a rather unsightly shed, about which stood +a group of blurred and shapeless figures. It seemed very cold, and +Agatha shivered as she felt the raw wind strike through her. + +Then one of the figures detached itself from the rest and grew clearer. +The man wore an old skin coat spattered with flakes of mire, and his +long boots were covered with clots of the same material. His fur cap +looked greasy, and the fur had been rubbed off it in patches; but while +she noticed these things it was his face that struck her most, and she +became conscious of an astonishment which was mixed with vague +misgivings as she gazed at it, for it had subtly changed since she had +last seen it. The joyous sparkle she remembered had gone out of the +eyes. They were harder, bolder, than they used to be. The mouth was +slack--it almost looked sensual--and the man's whole personality seemed +to have grown coarser. Then as she thrust the disconcerting fancies +from her the car stopped. + +In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his +arms about her. That brought the blood to her face, but she felt none +of the thrill she had expected. Indeed, she was subconsciously +sensible of a certain shrinking from his embrace. Then, and she +fancied he must have lifted her bodily down, she stood beside the track +with Mrs. Hastings, a man whom she supposed to be the latter's husband, +Winifred, and Wyllard about her. Another man was also standing close +by, apparently waiting until they noticed him. He was flecked with +mire all over, his skin coat was very dilapidated, and Agatha fancied +that his boots had never been cleaned. His hair, which had evidently +been very badly cut, straggled out from under his old fur cap. + +[Illustration: "In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, +and she felt his arms about her."] + +In the meanwhile, Gregory was apparently explaining something to Mrs. +Hastings. "No," he said, "I'm sorry it can't be for another week. +Horribly unfortunate. It seems they've sent the Methodist on down the +line, and we'll have to wait for the Episcopalian. He'll be at +Lander's for a few days." + +Then Agatha's cheeks flamed, for she recognised that it was her wedding +they were speaking of; but it brought her a curious relief to hear that +it had been deferred. A moment or two later Gregory turned to her with +questions about her throat, and his people in England, and Winifred +separated herself from the group. She was standing near her baggage, +which had been flung out beside the track, a little, lonely figure, +while the train went on, when Wyllard strode up to her. + +"Feeling rather out of it? I do, any way," he said. "Since we appear +superfluous, we may as well make the most of the opportunity, +especially as it will probably save you a long drive. There's a man +here who wants to see you." + +Winifred had felt very forlorn a few moments earlier, but the +announcement Wyllard had just made was reassuring, and she pulled +herself together as he signed to a man standing a little further along +the track. The latter wore rather neat store clothes, and his manner +was brisk and wholly business-like. It was a certain relief to the +girl to see that he evidently regarded her less as a personality than +as a piece of commercial machinery, which he had apparently been asked +to make use of. She had found it easier to get on with men who +confined themselves to that point of view. + +"Mr. Hamilton, in charge of the elevator yonder," said Wyllard, +pointing to one of the huge buildings. "This is Miss Rawlinson." + +The elevator man made her the curtest of inclinations, and proceeded to +arrange matters with a rapidity which almost took her breath away. + +"Typist and stenographer?" he said. "Know anything about +account-keeping?" + +Winifred admitted that she possessed these abilities, and Hamilton +appeared to reflect for a moment or two. + +"Well," he said, "in a fortnight we'll give you a show. You can start +at--" and he mentioned terms which rather astonished Winifred. "If you +can keep things straight we may raise you later." + +"Won't you want to see any testimonials?" she asked. + +"No," said Hamilton. "I've seen a good many, and I'm inclined to fancy +some of the folks who showed them me must have bought them." He waved +his hand. "Mr. Wyllard assures me that you'll do, and in the meanwhile +that's quite enough for me." + +It struck Winifred as curious that, while Agatha had written to Hawtrey +on her behalf, it was Wyllard who had secured her the opportunity she +had longed for; but she thanked the elevator man before she turned to +him. + +"There's another matter," she said hesitatingly. "I'll have to live +here?" + +Wyllard smiled. "I've seen to that, though if you don't like my +arrangements you can alter them afterwards. Mrs. Sandberg will take +you in, and even if she isn't particularly amiable you'll be in safe +hands." + +Hamilton laughed. "Oh, yes," he said. "She's Scotch--old type +Calvinist at that. No frivolity about that woman. Married a +Scandinavian, and was just breaking him in when he was killed back East +along the track." + +"We'll consider it as fixed, but in the meanwhile you're to stay with +Mrs. Hastings for the fortnight," said Wyllard. "Sproatly"--and he +signed to the man in the skin coat--"will you get Miss Rawlinson's +baggage into your waggon?" + +The man took off his fur cap. "If Miss Rawlinson would like to see +Mrs. Sandberg, I'll drive her round," he suggested. "We'll catch you +up in a league or so. Gregory has a bit of patching to do on his +off-side trace." + +"He might have had things straight for once," said Wyllard half-aloud. + +Winifred permitted Sproatly to help her into his waggon--a high, +narrow-bodied vehicle, mounted on tall, spidery wheels, but she had to +hold fast to it while they jolted across the track and through a sea of +mire into the unpaved street of the little town. She liked her +companion's voice and manner, though she was far from prepossessed by +his appearance. Two or three minutes later he drew up before a little +wooden house, where they were received by a tall, hard-faced woman, who +frowned at Sproatly. + +"Ye'll tak' your patent medicines somewhere else. I'm wanting none," +she said. + +Sproatly grinned. "You needn't be afraid of them. They couldn't hurt +you. I was talking to a Winnipeg doctor who'd a notion of coming out a +day or two ago. I told him if he did he'd have to bring an axe along." + +Then he explained that Wyllard had sent Winifred there, and the woman +favoured her with a glance of careful scrutiny. + +"Weel," she said, "ye look quiet, anyway." Then she added, as though +further satisfied, "I'll make ye a cup of tea if ye can wait." + +Sproatly assured her that this was not the case, and in a few more +minutes the girl, who went into the house, got into the waggon again, +with relief in her face. + +"I think I owe Mr. Wyllard a good deal," she said. + +Sproatly laughed. "You're not exactly singular in that respect, but +you had better hold tight. These beasts are rather less than half +broken." + +He flicked them with the whip, and they went across the track at a +gallop, hurling great clods of mud left and right, while the group of +loungers who still stood about the station raised a shout. + +"Got any little pictures with nice motters on them?" asked one, and +another flung a piece of information after the jolting waggon. + +"There's a Swede down at Branker's wants a bottle that will supple up a +wooden leg," he said. + +Sproatly grinned, and waved his hand to them before he turned to his +companion. + +"We have to get through before dark, if possible, or I'd stop and sell +them something sure," he said. "Parts of the trail further on are +simply horrible." + +It occurred to Winifred that it was far from excellent as it was, for +spouts of mud flew up beneath the sinking hoofs and wheels, and she was +already getting unpleasantly spattered. + +"You think you would have succeeded?" she asked. + +"Oh, yes," said Sproatly. "If I couldn't plant something on to them +when they'd given me a lead like that, I'd be no use in this business. +At present, my command of Western phraseology is my fortune." + +"You sell things, then?" + +Sproatly pointed to a couple of big boxes in the bottom of the waggon. +"Anything from cough cure to hair restorer, besides a general purpose +elixir that's specially prepared for me. It's adaptable to any +complaint and season. All you have to do"--and he lowered his voice +confidentially--"is to put on a different label." + +Winifred, who had not felt like it a little earlier, laughed when she +met his eyes. + +"What happens to the people who buy it?" she asked. + +"Most of them are bachelors, and tough. They've stood their own +cooking so long that they ought to be, and if anybody's really sick I +hold off and tell him to wait until he can get a doctor. A sensitive +conscience," he added reflectively, "is quite a handicap in this +business." + +"You have always been in it?" asked Winifred, who was amused at him. + +"No," said Sproatly, "although you mightn't believe it, I was raised +with the idea that I should have my choice between the Church and the +Bar. The idea, however, proved--impracticable--which, in some +respects, is rather a pity. It has seemed to me that a man who can +work off cough cures and cosmetics on to healthy folks with a hide like +leather, and talk a scoffer off the field, ought to have made his mark +in either calling." + +He looked at her as if for confirmation of this view, but Winifred, who +laughed again, glanced at the two waggons that moved on, perhaps, two +miles away across the grey-white sweep of prairie. + +"Will we overtake them?" she asked. + +"We'll probably come up with Gregory. I'm not sure about Wyllard." + +"He drives faster horses?" + +"That's not quite the reason. Gregory has patched up one trace with a +bit of string, and odd bolts are rather addicted to coming out of his +waggon. Sometimes it makes trouble. I've known the team leave him +sitting on the prairie, thinking of endearing names for them, and come +home with the pole." + +"Does he generally let things fall into that state?" + +Sproatly, however, was evidently on his guard. + +"Well," he said, "it's certainly that kind of waggon." + +Then he flicked the team again, and the jolting rendered it difficult +for Winifred to ask any more questions. The prairie sod was soft with +the thaw, and big lumps of it stuck to the wheels, which every now and +then plunged into ruts other vehicles had made. + +In the meanwhile, Agatha and Hawtrey found it almost as impossible to +sustain a conversation, which was, on the whole, a relief to the girl. +The string-patched trace still held, and the waggon pole was a new one, +but where they were just then the white grass was tussocky and long, +and the trail they occasionally plunged into to avoid it had been +churned into a quagmire. Hawtrey had packed the thick driving robe +high about his companion, and slipped one arm about her waist beneath +it; but she was conscious that she rather suffered this than derived +any satisfaction from it. She strove to assure herself that she was +jaded with the journey, which was, in fact, the case, and that the +lowering sky, and the cheerless waste they were crossing, had +occasioned the dejection she felt, which was also possible. There was +not a tree upon the vast sweep of bleached grass which ran all round +her to the horizon. It was inexpressibly lonely, a lifeless +desolation, with only the ploughed-up trail to show that man had ever +traversed it; and the raw wind which swept it set her shivering. + +She was, however, forced to admit that her weariness and the dreary +surroundings did not quite explain everything. Even her lover's first +embrace had brought her no thrill, and now the close pressure of his +arm left her quite unmoved. This was almost disconcertingly curious; +but while she would admit no definite reason for it, there was creeping +upon her a vague consciousness that the man was not the one she had so +often thought of in England. He seemed different--almost, in fact, a +stranger--though she could not exactly tell where the change in him +began. His laughter jarred upon her. Some of the things he said +appeared almost inane, and others were tinged with a self-confidence +that did not become him. It almost seemed to her that he was shallow, +lacking in comprehension, and once she found herself comparing him with +another man. She, however, broke off that train of thought abruptly, +and once more endeavoured to find the explanation in herself. +Weariness had induced this captious, hypercritical fit, and by and bye +she would become used to him, she said. + +Hawtrey was, at least, not effusive, for which she was thankful, but +when they reached a somewhat smoother surface he commenced to talk of +England. + +"I suppose you saw a good deal of my folks when you were at the +Grange?" he said. + +"No," said Agatha, "I saw them once or twice." + +"Ah!" said the man, with a trace of sharpness, "then they were not +particularly agreeable?" + +It seemed to Agatha that he was tactless in suggesting anything of the +kind, but she answered candidly. + +"One could hardly go quite so far as that," she said. "Still, I +couldn't help a feeling that it was rather an effort for them to be +gracious to me." + +"They did what they could to make things pleasant when they were first +told of our engagement." + +Agatha was too worn-out to be altogether on her guard, which was partly +why she had admitted as much as she had done, though his relatives' +attitude had wounded her, and she answered without reflection. + +"I have fancied that was because they never quite believed it would +lead to anything." + +She knew this was the truth now, though it was the first time the +explanation had occurred to her. Gregory's folks, who were naturally +acquainted with his character, had, it seemed, not expected him to +carry his promise out. She, however, felt that she had been +injudicious when she heard his little harsh laugh. + +"I'm afraid they never had a very great opinion of me," he said. + +"Then," said Agatha, looking up at him, "it will be our business to +prove them wrong; but I can't help feeling that you have undertaken a +big responsibility, Gregory. There must be so much that I ought to do, +and I know so little about your work in this country." She turned, and +glanced with a shiver at the dim, white prairie. "It looks so +forbidding and unyielding. It must be very hard to turn it into wheat +fields--to break it in." + +It was merely a hint of what she felt, and it was rather a pity that +Hawtrey, who lacked imagination, usually contented himself with the +most obvious meaning of the spoken word. Things might have gone +differently had he responded with comprehending sympathy. + +"Oh," he said, with a laugh that changed her mood, "you'll learn, and I +don't suppose it will matter a great deal if you don't do it quickly. +Somehow or other one worries through." + +She felt that this was insufficient, though she remembered that his +haphazard carelessness had once appealed to her. Now, however, she +realised that to undertake a thing light-heartedly was a very different +matter from carrying it out successfully. Then it once more occurred +to her that she was becoming absurdly hypercritical, and she strove to +talk of other things. + +She did not find it easy, nor, though he made the effort, did Hawtrey. +There was a restraint that he chafed at upon him, for he had when he +first saw her been struck by the change in the girl. She was graver +than he remembered her, and, it seemed, very much more reserved. He +had tried and failed, as he thought of it, to strike a spark out of +her. She did not respond, and he became uneasily conscious that he +could not talk to her as he could, for instance, to Sally Creighton. +There was something wanting in him or her, but he could not at the +moment tell what it was. Still, he said, things would be different +next day, for the girl was evidently very weary. + +In the meanwhile, the creeping dusk settled down upon the wilderness. +The horizon narrowed in, and the stretch of grass before them grew dim. +The trail they now drove into seemed to grow rapidly rougher, and it +was quite dark when they came to the brink of a declivity still at +least a league from the Hastings's homestead. It was one of the steep +ravines that seam the prairie every here and there, with a birch bluff +on the sides of it, and a little creek flowing through the hollow. + +Hawtrey swung the whip when they reached the top, and the team plunged +furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with +both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the +light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Then +something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and +plunge. The other beast flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, +and there was a great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen +branches as they drove in among the birches. Then the team stopped, +and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily among the undergrowth, +while another thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels grew louder behind +them up the trail. In a minute or two he came back and lifted Agatha +down. + +[Illustration: "Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the +off-side horse stumble and plunge."] + +"It's the trace broken. I had to make the holes with my knife, and the +string's torn through," he said. "Voltigeur got it round his feet, +and, as usual, tried to bolt. Anyway, we'll make the others pull up +and take you in." + +They went back to the trail together, and reached it just as Hastings +reined in his team. He got down and walked back with Hawtrey to the +latter's waggon. It was a minute or two before they reappeared again, +and Mrs. Hastings, who had got down in the meanwhile, drew Hawtrey +aside. + +"I almost think it would be better if you didn't come any further +to-night," she said. + +"Why?" the man asked sharply. + +"I can't help thinking that Agatha would prefer it. For one thing, +she's rather jaded, and wants quietness." + +"You feel sure of that?" + +There was something in the man's voice which suggested that he was not +quite satisfied, and his companion was silent a moment. + +"It's good advice, Gregory," she said. "She'll be better able to face +the situation after a night's rest." + +"Does it require much facing?" Hawtrey asked drily. + +Mrs. Hastings turned from him with a sign of impatience. "Of course it +does. Anyway, if you're wise you'll do what I suggest, and ask no more +questions." + +Then she got into the waggon, and Hawtrey stood still beside the trail, +feeling unusually thoughtful when they drove away. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +AGATHA'S DECISION. + +It was with an expectancy which was slightly toned down by misgivings +that Hawtrey drove over to the homestead where Agatha was staying the +next afternoon. The misgivings were, perhaps, not unnatural, for he +had been chilled by the girl's reception of him on the previous day, +and her manner afterwards had, he felt, left something to be desired. +Indeed, when she drove away with Mrs. Hastings he had felt himself a +somewhat injured man. + +His efforts to mend the harness, and extricate the waggon in the dark, +which occupied him for an hour, had, however, partly helped to drive +the matter from his mind, and when he reached his homestead rather late +that night he went to sleep, and slept soundly until sunrise, which was +significant. Hawtrey was, at least, a man who never brooded over his +troubles beforehand, and this was, perhaps, one reason why he did not +always cope with them successfully when they could no longer be avoided. + +When he had made his breakfast he, however, became sensible of a +certain pique against both Mrs. Hastings and the girl, which led him to +remember that he had no hired man, and that there was a good deal to be +done. He decided that it might be well to wait until the afternoon +before he called on them, and for several hours he drove his team +through the crackling stubble. His doubts and irritation grew weaker +as he did so, and when at length he drove into sight of Hastings's +homestead, his buoyant temperament was commencing to reassert itself. +Clear sunshine streamed down upon the prairie out of a vault of +cloudless blue, and he felt that after all any faint shadow that might +have arisen between him and the girl could be readily swept away. + +He was, however, a little less sure of this when he saw her. Agatha +sat near an open window, in a scantily furnished match-boarded room, +and she, at least, as it happened, had not slept at all. Her eyes were +heavy, but there was a look of resolution in them which seemed out of +place just then, and it struck him that she had lost the freshness +which had characterised her in England. + +She rose when he came in, and then, to his astonishment, drew back a +pace or two when he moved impulsively towards her. + +"No," she said, with a hand raised restrainingly, "you must hear what I +have to say, and try to bear with me. It is a little difficult, +Gregory, but it must be said at once." + +The man stood still, almost awkwardly, looking at her with +consternation in his face, and for a moment she looked steadily at him. +It was a painful moment, for she was just then gifted with a clearness +of vision which she almost longed to be delivered from. She saw that +the impression which had brought her a vague sense of dismay on the +previous afternoon was wrong. The trouble was that he had not changed +at all. He was what he had always been, and she had merely deceived +herself when she had permitted her girlish fancy to endue him with +qualities and graces which he had, it seemed, never possessed. There +was, however, no doubt that she had still a duty towards him. + +He spoke first with a trace of hardness in his voice. + +"Then," he said, "won't you sit down. This is naturally a +little--embarrassing--but I'll try to listen." + +Agatha sank into a seat by the open window, for she felt physically +worn-out, and there was a task she shrank from before her. + +"Gregory," she said, "I feel that we have come near making what might +prove to be a horrible mistake." + +"We?" said Hawtrey, while the blood rose into his weather-darkened +face. "That means both of us." + +"Yes," said Agatha, with a quietness that cost her an effort. + +Hawtrey spread his hands out forcibly. "Do you want me to admit that +I've made one?" + +"Are you quite sure you haven't?" + +She flung the question at him sharply in tense apprehension, for, after +all, if the man was sure of himself, there was only one course open to +her. He leaned upon the table, gazing at her, and as he did so his +indignation melted, and doubts commenced to creep into his mind. + +She looked weary, and grave, and almost haggard, and it was a fresh, +light-hearted girl he had fallen in love with in England. The mark of +the last two years of struggle was just then plain on her, though, +while he did not recognise this, it would pass away again. He tried to +realise what he had looked for when he had asked her to marry him, and +could not do so clearly; but there was in the back of his mind a +half-formulated notion that it had been a cheerful companion, somebody +to amuse him. She scarcely seemed likely to do the latter now. He +was, however, not one of the men who can face a crisis collectedly, and +his thoughts became confused, until one idea emerged from them. He had +pledged himself to her, and the fact laid a certain obligation upon +him. It was his part to over-rule any fancies she might be disposed to +indulge in. + +"Well," he said stoutly, "I'm not going to admit anything of that kind. +The journey has been too much for you. You haven't got over it yet." +He lowered his voice, and his face softened. "Aggy, dear, I've waited +four years for you." + +That stirred her, for it was certainly true, and his gentleness had +also its effect. The situation was becoming more and more difficult, +for it seemed impossible to make him understand that he would in all +probability speedily tire of her. She now recognised that, but to make +it clear that she could never be satisfied with him was a thing she +shrank from. + +"How have you passed those four years?" she asked, to gain time. + +For a moment his conscience smote him. He remembered the trips to +Winnipeg, and the dances to which he had attended Sally Creighton. It +was, however, evident that Agatha could have heard nothing of Sally. + +"I spent them in hard work. I wanted to make the place more +comfortable for you," he said. "It is true"--and he added this with a +twinge of uneasiness, as he remembered that his neighbours had done +much more with less incentive--"that it's still very far from what I +would like, but things have been against me." + +The speech had a far stronger effect than he could have expected, for +Agatha remembered Wyllard's description of what the prairie farmer had +to face. Those four years of determined effort and patient endurance, +which was how she pictured them, counted heavily against her in the +man's favour. It flashed upon her that, after all, there might have +been some warrant for the view she had held of Gregory's character when +he had fallen in love with her. He was younger then, there must have +been latent possibilities in him, but the years of toil had killed them +and hardened him. It was for her sake he had made the struggle, and +now it seemed unthinkable that she should renounce him because he came +to her with the dust and stain of it upon him. For all that, she was +possessed with a curious, sub-conscious feeling that she would involve +them both in disaster if she yielded. Something warned her that she +must stand fast. + +"Gregory," she said, "I seem to know that we should both be sorry +afterwards if I kept my promise." + +Hawtrey straightened himself with a smile she recognised. She had +liked him for it once, for it had then suggested the joyous courage of +untainted youth. Now, however, it struck her as only hinting at empty, +complacent assurance. She hated herself for the fancy, but it would +not be driven away. + +"Well," he said, "I'm quite willing to face that hazard. I suppose +this diffidence is only natural, Aggy, but it's a little hard on me." + +"No," said the girl sharply, with a strained look in her eyes, "it's +horribly unnatural, and that's why I'm afraid. I should have come to +you gladly, without a misgiving, feeling that nothing could hurt me if +I was with you. I wanted to do that, Gregory--I meant to--but I +can't." Then her voice fell to a tone that had vibrant regret in it. +"You should have made sure--married me when you last came home." + +"But I'd nowhere to take you. The farm was only half-broken prairie, +the homestead almost unhabitable." + +Agatha winced at this. It was, no doubt, true, but it seemed horribly +petty and commonplace. His comprehension stopped at such details as +these, and he had given her no credit for the courage which would have +made light of bodily discomfort. + +"Do you think--that--would have mattered? We were both very young +then, and we could have faced our troubles and grown up together. Now +we're not the same. You let me grow up alone." + +[Illustration: "'Do you think--that--would have mattered?'"] + +Hawtrey spread his hands out. "I haven't changed." + +He contented himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There +was no spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the +passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away +in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, +and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a +crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the +surface. There was no depth in him. + +"Aggy," he added humbly, when he should have been dominantly forceful, +"it is only a question of a little time. You will get used to me." + +"Then," and the girl clutched at the chance of respite, "give me six +months from to-day. It isn't very much to ask, Gregory." + +The man wrinkled his brows. "It's a great deal," he answered slowly. +"I seem to feel that we shall drift further and further apart if once I +let you go." + +"Then you feel that we have drifted a little already?" + +"I don't know what has come over you, Aggy, but there has been a +change. I'm what I was, and I want to keep you." + +Agatha rose and turned towards him rather white in face. "Then if you +are wise you will not urge me now." + +Hawtrey met her gaze for a moment, and then made a sign of acquiescence +as he turned his eyes away. He recognised that this was a new Agatha, +one whose will was stronger than his. Yet he was half-astonished that +he had yielded so readily. + +"Well," he said, "if it must be, I can only give way to you, but I must +be free to come over here whenever I wish." Then a thought seemed to +strike him. "But you may have to go away," he added, with sudden +concern. "If I am to wait six months, what are you to do in the +meanwhile?" + +The girl smiled wearily. Now the respite had been granted her, the +question he had raised was not one that caused her any great concern. + +"Oh," she said, "we can think of that later, I have borne enough +to-day. This has been a little hard upon me, Gregory." + +"I don't think it has been particularly easy for either of us," said +Hawtrey, with a trace of grimness. "Anyway, it seems that I'm only +distressing you." He smiled wryly. "It's naturally not what I had +expected to do. I'll come back when I feel I've quite grasped the +situation." + +He moved a pace or two nearer, and taking one of her hands swiftly +stooped and kissed her cheek. + +"My dear," he said, "I only want to make it as easy as I can. You'll +try to think of me, favourably." + +Then he went out and left her sitting with a troubled face beside the +open window. A little warm breeze swept into the almost empty room, +and outside a blaze of sunshine rested on the prairie. It was torn up +with wheel ruts about the house, for the wooden building rose abruptly +without fence or garden from the waste of whitened grass. Close to it +there stood a birch-log barn or stables, its sides curiously ridged and +furrowed where the trunks were laid on one another, roofed with wooden +shingles that had warped into hollows here and there. Further away +there rose another long building, apparently of sod, and a great +shapeless yellow mound with a domed top towered behind the latter. It +was most unlike a trim English rick, besides being bigger, and Agatha +wondered what it could be. As a matter of fact, it was a not uncommon +form of granary, the straw from the last thrashing flung over a +birch-pole framing. + +Behind that there ran a great breadth of knee-high stubble, blazing +ochre and cadmium in the sunlight. It had evidently extended further +than it did, for a blackened space showed where a fire had been lighted +to destroy it. Here Hastings, clad in blue duck, with long boots, was +ploughing, plodding behind his horses, which stopped now and then when +the share jarred against a patch of still frozen soil. Further on two +other men silhouetted in blue against the whitened grass drove spans of +slowly moving oxen that hauled big breaker ploughs, and the lines of +clods that lengthened behind them gleamed in the sunlight a rich +chocolate-brown. Beyond them the wilderness ran unbroken to the +horizon. + +Agatha gazed at it all vacantly, but the newness and strangeness of it +reacted upon her. She felt very desolate and lonely, and by and bye +remembered that she had still to grapple with a practical difficulty. +She could not stay with Mrs. Hastings indefinitely, and she had not the +least notion where to go or what she was to do. She was leaning back +in her chair wearily with half-closed eyes when her hostess came in and +looked at her with a smile that suggested comprehension. Mrs. Hastings +was thin, and seemed a trifle worn, but she had shrewd, kindly eyes. +Just then she wore a plain print dress which was dusted here and there +with flour. + +"So you have sent him away?" she said. + +It was borne in upon Agatha that she could be candid with this woman +who she fancied had already guessed the truth. + +"Yes," she said, "for six months. That is, we are not to decide on +anything until they have expired. I felt we must get used to each +other. It seemed best." + +"To you. Did it seem best to Gregory?" + +A flush crept into Agatha's face. Though his acquiescence had been a +relief to her, she felt that after all he might have made a more +vigorous protest. + +"He gave in to me," she said. + +Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Well," she said, "I believe you were +wise, but that opens up another question. What are you going to do in +the meanwhile?" + +"I don't know," said Agatha wearily. "I suppose I shall have to go +away--to Winnipeg, most probably. I could teach, I think." + +"How are you and Gregory to get used to each other if you go away?" + +Agatha made a little helpless gesture. "I hadn't looked at it in that +light." + +"Are you very anxious to get used to him?" + +Agatha shrank from the question; but there was a constraining +kindliness in her companion's eyes. + +"I daren't quite think about it yet. I mean to try. I must try. I +seem to be playing an utterly contemptible, selfish part, but I could +not marry him--now!" + +Her hostess quietly crossed the room, and sat down by her side. + +"My dear," she said, "as I told you, I think you are doing right, and +in some respects I believe I know how you feel. Everybody prophesied +disaster when I came out to join Allen from a sheltered home in +Montreal, and at the beginning my life here was not easy to me. It was +all so different, and there were times when I was afraid, and my heart +was horribly heavy. If it hadn't been for Allen I think I should have +given in and broken down. He understood, however. He never failed me." + +Agatha's eyes grew misty, and she turned her head away. + +"Yes," she said, "that would make it wonderfully easier." + +"You must forgive me," said her companion. "It was tactless, but I +didn't mean to hurt you. Well, one difficulty shouldn't give us very +much trouble. Why shouldn't you stay here with me?" + +Agatha turned towards her abruptly with a relief in her face from which +it, however, faded again. She liked this woman, and she liked her +husband, but she remembered that she had no claim on them. + +"Oh," she said, "it is out of the question." + +"Wait a little. I'm proposing to give you quite as much as you will +probably care to do. There are my two little girls to teach, and I +think they have rather taken to you. I can scarcely find a minute to +do it myself, and, as you have seen, there is a piano which has after +all only a few of the notes broken. Besides, we have only one +Scandinavian maid who smashes everything that isn't made of indurated +fibre, and I'm afraid she'll marry one of the boys in a month or two. +It was only by sending the kiddies to Brandon and getting Mrs. +Creighton, a neighbour of ours, to look after Allen, who insisted on me +going, that I was able to get to Paris with some Montreal friends. In +any case, you'd have no end of duties." + +"You are doing this out of--charity?" + +Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Allen wrote some friends of his in Winnipeg to +send me anybody out a week or two ago." + +The girl's eyes shone mistily. "Oh," she said, "you have lifted one +weight off my mind." + +"I think," said Mrs. Hastings, "the others will also be removed in due +time." + +Then she talked cheerfully of other matters, and Agatha listened to her +with a vague wonder, which was, however, not altogether justified, at +her good fortune in falling in with such a friend, for there are in +that country a good many men and women who resemble this farmer's wife +in one respect. Unfettered by conventions they stretch out an open +hand to the stranger and the outcast. Toil has brought them charity in +place of hardness, and still retaining, as some of them do, the culture +of the cities, they have outgrown all the petty bonds of caste. The +wheat-grower and the hired man eat together, his wife or daughter mends +the latter's clothes, and he, as the natural result of it, not +infrequently makes the farmer's cause his own. Rights are +good-humouredly conceded in place of being fought for, and the sense of +grievance and half-veiled suspicion are exchanged for an efficient +co-operation. It must, however, be admitted that there are also +farmers of another kind, from whom the hired man has occasionally some +difficulty in extracting his covenanted wages by personal violence. +That, too, fails now and then. + +By and bye a team and a jolting waggon swept into sight, and Mrs. +Hastings rose when the man who drove it pulled his horses up. + +"It's Sproatly; I wonder what has brought him here," she said, and as +the man who sprang down walked towards the house she gazed at him +almost incredulously. + +"He's quite smart," she added. "I don't see a single patch on that +jacket, and he has positively got his hair cut." + +"Is that an unusual thing in Mr. Sproatly's case?" Agatha asked. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings. "It's very unusual indeed. What is +stranger still, he has taken the old grease-spotted band off his hat, +after clinging to it affectionately for the last twelve months." + +Agatha fancied that the soft hat, which fell shapelessly over part of +Sproatly's face, needed something to replace the discarded band; but in +another moment or two he entered the room. He shook hands with them +both, and then sat down and smiled. + +"You are looking remarkably fresh, but appearances are not invariably +to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par," he +said. "I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind." + +"I don't," said Mrs. Hastings resolutely; "Allen doesn't, either. +Besides, didn't you get into some trouble over that tonic?" + +"It was the cough cure," said Sproatly with a grin. "I sold a man at +Lander's one of the large-sized bottles and when he had taken some he +felt a good deal better. Then he seems to have argued the thing out +like this: if one dose had relieved the cough, a dozen should drive it +out of him altogether, and he took the lot. He slept for forty-eight +hours afterwards, and when I came across him at the settlement he +attacked me with a club. The fault, I may point out, was in his logic. +Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph +of the Deutcher Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects +recognised it. One hung it up in his shanty. The other asked me to +hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it. +He, however, produced his dollar; said he felt so much better after +what he'd done that he didn't grudge it." + +"I'm afraid we're not worth powder and shot," said Mrs. Hastings. "Do +you ever remember our buying any tonics or pictures from you?" + +"I don't, though I have felt that you ought to have done it," and +Sproatly, who paused a moment, turned towards Agatha with a little +whimsical inclination. "The professional badinage of an unlicensed +dealer in patent medicines may now and then mercifully cover a good +deal of embarrassment. Miss Ismay has brought something pleasantly +characteristic of the Old Country along with her." + +His hostess disregarded the last remark. "Then if you didn't expect to +sell us anything, what did you come for?" + +"For supper," said Sproatly cheerfully. "Besides that, to take Miss +Rawlinson a drive. I told her last night it would afford me +considerable pleasure to show her the prairie. We could go round by +Lander's and back." + +"Then you will probably come across her somewhere about the straw-pile +with the kiddies." + +Sproatly took the hint, and when he went out Mrs. Hastings laughed. + +"You would hardly suppose that was a young man of excellent education?" +she said. "So it's on Winifred's account he has driven over; at first +I fancied it was on yours." + +Agatha was astonished, but she smiled. "If Winifred favours him with +her views about young men he will probably be rather sorry for himself. +He lives near you?" + +"No," said Mrs. Hastings; "in the summer he lives in his waggon, or +under it, I don't know which. Of course, if he's really taken with +Winifred he will have to alter that." + +"But he has only seen her once--you can't mean that he is serious." + +"I really can't speak for Sproatly, but it would be quite in keeping +with the customs of the country if he was." + +A minute or two later Agatha saw Winifred in the waggon when it +reappeared from behind the strawpile, and Mrs. Hastings turned towards +the window. + +"She has gone with him," she said significantly. "Unfortunately, he +has taken my kiddies too. If he brings them back with no bones broken +it will be a relief to me." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +WANDERERS. + +Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings when the latter, who was +driving over to Wyllard's homestead with her one afternoon, pulled up +her team while they were still some little distance away from it, and +looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast +breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now +faintly flecked with green. On the other, ploughing teams were +scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of +clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out +behind them. The great sweep of grasses that rustled joyously before a +glorious warm wind, gleamed almost luminous, and overhead hung a vault +of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, skeins and +wisps of birds moved up from the south. + +"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall +back-set," she said. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind +of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly." Then she glanced +towards where the teams were hauling unusually heavy ploughs through +the grassy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll +probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich +man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against +him. Some of his neighbours, including my husband, would have sown a +little less and held a reserve in hand." + +Agatha remembered what Wyllard had told her one night on board the +_Scarrowmania_, and smiled, for she fancied that she understood the +man. He was not one to hedge, as she had heard it called, or +cautiously hold his hand. He staked boldly, but she felt that this was +not only for the sake of the dollars that he might stand to gain. It +was part of his nature--the result of an optimistic faith or courage +that appealed to her, and sheer love of effort. She also fancied that +his was no spasmodic, impulsive activity. She could imagine him +holding on as steadfastly with everything against him, exacting all +that men and teams and machines could do. It struck her as curious +that she should feel so sure of this; but she admitted that it was the +case. + +In the meanwhile he was approaching them, sitting in the driving-seat +of a big machine that ripped broad furrows through the crackling sod. +Four horses plodded wearily in front of it until he thrust one hand +over, and there was a rattle and clanking as he swung them and the +machine round beside the waggon. Then he got down, and stood smiling +up at Agatha with his soft hat in his hand and the sunlight falling +full upon his weather-darkened face. It was not a particularly +striking face, but there was something in it, a hint of restrained +force and steadfastness, she thought, which Gregory's did not possess, +and for a moment or two she watched him unobtrusively. She felt she +could not help it. + +He wore an old blue shirt, open at the throat and belted into trousers +of blue duck at the waist, and she noticed the fine symmetry of his +somewhat spare figure. The absence of any superfluous fleshiness +struck her as in keeping with her view of his character. The man was +well-endued physically; but apart from the strong vitality that was +expressed in every line of his pose he looked clean, as she vaguely +described it to herself. There was, at least, an indefinable something +about him that was apparently born of a simple, healthful life spent in +determined labour in the open air. It became plainer as she remembered +other men she had met upon whom the mark of the beast was unmistakably +set. Then Mrs. Hastings broke the silence. + +"Well," she said, "we have driven over as we promised. I've no doubt +you will give us supper, but we'll go on and sit down with Mrs. Nansen +in the meanwhile. I expect you're too busy to talk to us." + +[Illustration: "'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we +promised!'"] + +Wyllard laughed, and it occurred to Agatha that his laugh was wholesome +as well as pleasant. + +"I generally am busy," he admitted. "These beasts have, however, been +at it since sun-up, and they're rather played out now. I'll talk to +you as long as you like after supper, which will soon be ready. It's +bad economy to ask too much from them." + +Agatha noticed that though the near horse's coat was foul with dust and +sweat he laid his brown hand upon it, and she supposed she must be +fanciful, for it seemed to her that the gentleness with which he did it +was very suggestive. + +"I wonder if that's the only reason that influences you," she said. + +A twinkle crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It seems to me a good one as far +as it goes; anyway, I've been driven rather hard myself now and then, +and I didn't like it." + +"Doesn't that usually result in making one drive somebody else harder +to make up for it, when one has the opportunity?" + +"If it does it certainly isn't logical. Logic's rather a fine thing +when it's sound." + +"Then," Mrs. Hastings broke in, "I'll suggest a proposition: what's to +be the result of all this ploughing if we have harvest frost or the +market goes against you?" + +"Quite a big deficit," said Wyllard cheerfully. + +"And that doesn't cause you any anxiety?" + +"I'll have had some amusement for my money." + +Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until +it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amusement!" Then she looked +back at Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your +back as straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks +as if it wanted to lie down." + +Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two +more rows of furrows still to do." + +"I suppose that is a hint," and Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when +the waggon jolted on. + +"That man," she said, "is a great favourite of mine. For one thing, +he's fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some +respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then runs away with +him." + +"What do you mean by fastidious?" + +"It's a little difficult to define, but I certainly don't mean +pernicketty. Of course, there is a fastidiousness which makes one +shrink from unpleasant things, but Harry's is the other kind. It +impels him to do them every now and then." + +Agatha made no answer. She was uneasily conscious that it might not be +advisable to think too much about this man, and in another minute or +two they reached the homestead. The house was a plain frame building +that had apparently grown out of an older and smaller one of logs, part +of which remained. It was much the same with the barns and stables, +for while they were stoutly built of framed timber or logs one end of +most of them was lower than the rest, and in some cases consisted of +poles and sods. Even to her untrained eyes all she saw suggested +order, neatness, and efficiency. The whole was flanked and sheltered +by a big birch bluff, in which trunks and branches showed up through a +thin green haze of tiny opening leaves, though here and there uncovered +twigs still cut in lace-like tracery against the blue of the sky. + +A man whom Wyllard had sent after them took the horses, and when she +got down Agatha commented on what she called the added-to look of the +buildings. + +"The Range," said Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took +hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's +efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of +some capital since a relative of his died, but I never thought that +explained everything." + +Then they entered the house, and a grey-haired Swedish woman led them +through several match-boarded rooms into a big, cool hall. She left +them there for awhile, and Agatha was busy for a minute or two with her +impressions of the house. It was singularly empty by comparison with +the few English homesteads she had seen. There were neither curtains +nor carpets nor hangings of any kind, but it was commodious and +comfortable. + +"What can a bachelor want with a place like this?" she asked. + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Hastings; "perhaps it's Harry's idea of +having every thing proportionate. The Range is quite a big, and +generally a prosperous, farm. Besides, it's likely that he doesn't +contemplate remaining a bachelor for ever. Indeed, Allen and I +sometimes wonder how he has escaped so long." + +"Is that the right word?" Agatha asked. + +"It is," said her companion with a laugh. "You see, he's highly +eligible from our point of view, but at the same time he's apparently +invulnerable. I believe," she added drily, "that's the right word, +too." + +Then the Swedish housekeeper appeared again, and they talked with her +until she retired to bring the six o'clock supper. Soon after it was +laid out Wyllard and the men came in. He was attired as when Agatha +had last seen him, except that he had evidently brushed himself and put +on a store jacket. He led his guests to the head of the long table, +but the men--and there were a number of them--sat below, and had +evidently no diffidence about addressing question or comment to their +employer. + +They ate with a somewhat voracious haste, but that appeared to be the +custom of the country, and Agatha could find no great fault with their +manners or conversation. The latter was, for the most part, quaintly +witty, and some of them used what struck her as remarkably fitting and +original similes. Indeed, as the meal proceeded she became curiously +interested in the men and their surroundings. + +The windows were open wide, and a sweet, warm air swept into the barely +furnished room. The spaciousness of the latter impressed her, and she +was pleased with the evident unity between these brown-faced, +strong-armed toilers and their leader. He sat, self-contained, but +courteous and responsive to all alike, at the head of his table, and +though that is, as she had discovered, in most respects an essentially +democratic country, she felt that there was something almost feudal in +the relations between him and his men. She could not imagine them +being confined to the mere exaction of so much labour and the +expectation of payment of wages due. She was also pleased that he had +not changed his dress, which would, she felt, have been a singularly +unfitting action. In fact, so strong was her interest that she was +almost astonished when the meal was over, though it must be admitted +that most of the men rose and went out in fifteen minutes. Afterwards +she and Mrs. Hastings talked with the housekeeper for awhile, and an +hour had slipped away when Wyllard suggested that he should show her +the sloo beyond the bluff. + +"It's the nearest approach to a lake we have until you get to the +alkali tract," he said. + +Agatha went with him through the shadow of the wood, and when at length +they came out of it he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house +and ploughing were hidden now, and they were alone on the slope to a +slight hollow, in which half a mile of gleaming water lay. Its surface +was broken here and there, by tussocks of grass and reeds, and beyond +it the prairie ran back unbroken, a dim grey waste, to the horizon. +The sun had dipped behind the bluff, and the sky had become a vast +green transparency. There was no wind now, but a wonderful +exhilarating freshness crept into the cooling air, and the stillness +was only broken by the clamour of startled wildfowl which presently +sank again. Agatha could see them paddling in clusters about the +gleaming sloo. + +"Those are ducks--wild ones?" she asked. + +"Yes," said Wyllard; "duck of various kinds. Most of them the same as +your English ones." + +"Do you shoot them?" + +Agatha was not greatly interested, but he seemed disposed to silence, +and she felt, for no very clear reason, that it was advisable to talk +of something. + +"No," he said, "not often, anyway. If Mrs. Nansen wants a couple I +crawl down to the long grass with the rifle and get them for her." + +"The rifle? Doesn't the big bullet destroy them?" + +"No," said Wyllard. "You have to shoot their head off or cut their +neck in two." + +"You can do that--when they're right out in the sloo?" asked Agatha, +who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle +than a shot-gun, which spreads its charge. + +Wyllard smiled. "Generally; that is, if I haven't been doing much just +before. It depends upon one's hands. We have our game laws, but as a +rule nobody worries about them, and, anyway, those birds won't nest +until they reach the tundra by the Polar Sea. Still, as I said, we +never shoot them unless Mrs. Nansen wants one or two for the pot." + +"Why?" + +"I don't quite know. For one thing, they're worn out; they just stop +here to rest." + +His answer appealed to the girl. It did not seem strange to her that +the love of the lower creation should be strong in this man, who had no +hesitation in admitting that the game laws were no restraint to him. +For the most part, at least, when these Lesser Brethren sailed down out +of the blue heavens worn with their journey he gave them right of +sanctuary. + +"They have come a long way?" she asked. + +Wyllard pointed towards the South. "From Florida, Cuba, Yucatan; +further than that, perhaps. In a day or two they'll push on again +towards the Pole, and others will take their places. There's a further +detachment arriving now." + +Looking up, Agatha saw a straggling wedge of birds dotted in dusky +specks against the vault, of transcendental green. It coalesced, drew +out again, and dropped swiftly, and the air was filled with the rush of +wings; then there was a harsh crying and splashing, and she heard the +troubled water lap among the reeds until deep silence closed in upon +the sloo again. + +"I wonder," she said, "why they do it?" + +A rather curious smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It's their destiny: +they're wanderers and strangers without a habitation: there's unrest in +them. After a few months on the tundra mosses to gather strength and +teach the young to fly, they'll unfold their wings to beat another +passage before the icy gales. Some of us, I think, are like them!" + +Agatha could not avoid the personal application. It would have +appeared less admissible among her friends at The Grange, but she felt +that the constraints of English reticence were out of place in the +wilderness. + +"You surely don't apply that to yourself," she said. "You certainly +have a habitation--the finest, isn't it, on this part of the prairie?" + +"Yes," said Wyllard slowly; "I suppose it is. I've now had a little +rest and quietness, too." + +This did not appear to call for an answer, and Agatha sat silent. + +"Still," he said, "I have a feeling that some day the call will come, +and I shall have to take the trail again." He paused, and looked at +her before he added, "It would be easier if one hadn't to go alone, or, +since that would be necessary, if one had at least something to come +back to when the journey was done." + +"It would be necessary?" said Agatha, who was rather puzzled by his +steady gaze. + +"Yes," he said with a somewhat impressive gravity, "the call will come +from the icy North if it ever comes at all." + +There was another brief silence, and Agatha wondered what he was +thinking of until he went on again. + +"I remember how I last came back from there. We were rather late that +season, and out of our usual beat when the gale broke upon us between +Alaska and Asia in the gateway of the Pole. We ran before it with a +strip of the boom-foresail on her and a jib that blew to ribands every +now and then. She was a little schooner of ninety tons or so, and for +most of a week she scudded with the grey seas tumbling after her, +white-topped, out of the snow and spume. They ranged high above her +taffrail curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The +one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching her +screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let +her fall off or claw up, the next one would have made an end of her. +He was knee deep half the time in icy brine, and his hands had split +and opened with the frost, but the sweat dripped from him as he clung +to the jarring wheel. One of those helmsmen--perhaps two--had another +trouble which preyed on them. They were thinking of the three men they +had left behind. + +"Well," he added, "we ran out of the gale, and I had bitter words to +face when we reached Vancouver. As one result of it I walked out of +the city with four or five dollars in my pocket--though there was a +share due to me. Then I rode up into the ranges in an open car to mend +railroad bridges in the frost and snow. It was not the kind of +home-coming one would care to look forward to." + +"Ah," said Agatha, "it must have been horribly dreary?" + +The man met her eyes. "Yes," he said, "you--know. You came here from +far away, I think a little weary, too, and something failed you. Then +you felt yourself adrift. There were--it seemed--only strangers round +you, but you were wrong in one respect; you were by no means a stranger +to me." + +He had been leaning against a birch trunk, but now he moved a little +nearer, and stood gravely looking down on her. + +"You have sent Gregory away?" he said. + +"Yes," said Agatha, and, startled as she was, it did not strike her +that the mere admission was misleading. + +Wyllard stretched his hands out. "Then won't you come to me?" + +The blood swept into the girl's face. For the moment she forgot +Gregory, and was only conscious of an unreasoning impulse which +prompted her to take the hands held out to her. Then she rose and +faced the man, with burning cheeks. + +"You know nothing of me," she said. "Can you think that I would let +you take me--out of charity?" + +"Again you're wrong--on both points. As I once told you, I have sat +for hours beside the fire beneath the pines or among the boulders with +your picture for company. When I was worn-out and despondent you +encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the +ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all, however, +though it's difficult to speak of such things to you. There were times +when as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide, +all one's physical nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labour. +The pay-days came round, and opportunities were made for us--to forget +what we had borne, and had still to bear, in the snow and the icy +water. Then you laid a restraining hand on me. I could not take your +picture where you could not go. Is all that to count for nothing?" + +Then he spread his hands out forcibly. "As to the other question: +can't you get beyond the narrow point of view? We're in a big, new +country where the old barriers are down. We're merely flesh and +blood--red blood--and we speak as we feel. Admitting that I was sorry +for you--I am--how does that tell against me--or you? There's one +thing only that counts at all: I want you." + +Agatha was stirred, and almost dismayed at the effect his words had on +her. He had spoken with a force and passion that had nearly swept her +away with it. The vigour of the new land throbbed in his voice, and, +flinging aside all cramping restraints and conventions, he had, as he +had said, claimed her as flesh and blood. There was no doubt that her +nature responded, and it was significant that Gregory had faded +altogether out of her mind; but there was, after all, pride in her, and +she could not quite bring herself to look at things from his +standpoint. All her prejudices and her sense of fitness were opposed +to it. For one thing, he had taken the wrong way when he had admitted +that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she +shrank from the shadow of the thought that she would marry him--for +shelter. It brought her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered +the haste with which marriages were, it seemed, arranged on the +prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost +compelled her to yield to him passed away, she remembered that it was +scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was +intolerable that he should think she would be willing to fall into his +arms merely because he had held them out to her. + +"It's a little difficult to get beyond one's sense of what is fit," she +said. "You--I must say it again--can't know anything about me. You +have woven fancies about that photograph, but you must recognise that +I'm not the girl you have, it seems, created out of them. In all +probability she's wholly unreal, unnatural, visionary." She contrived +to smile, for she was recovering her composure. "Perhaps it's easy +when one has imagination to endow a person with qualities and graces +that could never belong to them. It must be easy"--and though she was +unconscious of it, there was a trace of bitterness in her +voice--"because I know I could do it myself." + +Again the man held his hands out. "Then," he said simply, "won't you +try? If you can only feel sure that the person has them it's possible +that he could acquire one or two." + +Agatha drew back, disregarding this. "Then I've changed ever so much +since that photograph was taken." + +Wyllard admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I recognised that; you were a +little immature then. I know that now--but all the graciousness and +sweetness in you has grown and ripened. What is more, it has grown +just as I seemed to know it would do. I saw that clearly the day we +met beside the stepping-stones. I would have asked you to marry me in +England only Gregory stood in the way." + +Then the colour ebbed suddenly out of the girl's face as she remembered. + +"Gregory," she said in a strained voice, "stands in the way still. I +didn't send him away altogether. I'm not sure I made that clear." + +Wyllard started, but he stood very still again for a moment or two. + +"I wonder," he said, "if there's anything significant in the fact that +you gave me that reason last? He failed you in some way?" + +"I'm not sure that I haven't failed him; but I can't go into that." + +Again Wyllard stood silent awhile. Then he turned to her with the +signs of a strong restraint in his face. + +"Gregory," he said, "is a friend of mine; there is, at least, one very +good reason why I should remember it, but it seems that somehow he +hadn't the wit to keep you. Well, I can only wait in the meanwhile, +but when the time seems ripe I shall ask you again. Until then you +have my promise that I will not say another word that could distress +you. Perhaps I had better take you back to Mrs. Hastings now." + +Agatha turned away, and they walked back together silently through the +bluff. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE SUMMONS. + +Mrs. Hastings was standing beside her waggon in the gathering dusk when +Agatha and Wyllard joined her, and when the latter had helped them up +she looked down at him severely as she gathered up the reins. + +"By this time Allen will have had to put the kiddies to bed," she said. +"Christina, as you might have borne in mind, goes over to Branstock's +every evening. Anyway, you'll drive across and see him about that team +as soon as you can; come to supper." + +"I'll try," said Wyllard with a certain hesitation; and Mrs. Hastings +turned to her companion as they drove away. + +"Why did he look at you before he answered me?" she asked, and laughed, +for there was just light enough left to show the colour in Agatha's +cheek. "Well," she added, "I told Allen he was sure to be the first." + +Agatha looked at her in evident bewilderment, but she nodded. "Yes," +she said, "of course, I knew it would come. Everybody knows by now +that you have fallen out with Gregory." + +"But, as I told you, I haven't fallen out with him." + +"Then you certainly haven't married him, and if you have said 'No' to +Harry Wyllard because you would sooner take Gregory after all, you're a +singularly unwise young woman. Anyway, you'll have to meet him when he +comes to supper. Allen's fond of a talk with Harry; I can't have him +kept away." + +"I was a little afraid of that," said Agatha quietly. "What makes the +situation more difficult is that he told me he would ask me again." + +Mrs. Hastings appeared thoughtful. "In that case he will in all +probability do it; but I don't think you need feel diffident about +meeting him, especially as you can't help it. He'll wait and say +nothing until he considers it advisable." + +She changed the subject, and talked about other matters until they +reached the homestead; but as the weeks went by Agatha found that what +she had told her was warranted. + +Wyllard drove over every now and then, but she was reassured by his +attitude. He greeted her with the quiet cordiality which had hitherto +characterised him, and it went a long way towards allaying the +embarrassment she was conscious of at first. By and bye, however, she +felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the disturbing possibility +that he might at some future time once more adopt the role of lover. +In the meanwhile, she realised that in face of the efforts she made to +think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory; and +she had, as it happened, two further offers of marriage before the +wheat had shot up a hand's breadth above the rich black loam. This was +a matter of regret to her, and, though Mrs. Hastings assured her that +the "boys" would get over it, she was rather shocked to hear that one +of them had shortly afterwards involved himself in difficulties by +creating a disturbance in Winnipeg. + +The wheat, however, was growing tall when, at Mrs. Hastings's request, +she drove over with her again to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when +they reached it, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together +she wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff +and towards the sloo, which had almost dried up now, and it was with a +curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard +had said to her there. Through them all there ran a regret that she +had not met him four years earlier. + +That, however, was a train of thought she did not care to indulge in, +and in order to get rid of it she walked more briskly up a low rise +where the grass was already turning white again, over the crest of it, +and down the side of another hollow. The prairie rolled just there in +wide undulations as the sea does when the swell of a distant gale +under-runs a glassy calm. She had grown fond of the prairie, and its +clear skies and fresh breezes had brought the colour to her cheeks and +given her composure, though there were times when the knowledge that +she was no nearer a decision in regard to Gregory weighed upon her like +a chill depressing shadow. She had seen very little of him, and he had +not been effusive then. What he felt she could not tell, but it had +been a relief to her when he had ridden away again. Then for a while +he faded to an unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind. + +That afternoon the prairie stretched away before her gleaming in the +sunlight tinder a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down +the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and for the first +time she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow at the foot +of it, where there had been another sloo. It had, however, evidently +dried up weeks ago, and as there were men and horses moving amidst the +dust she supposed that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows +longer in such places than it does upon the levels. She went on +another half-mile, and then sat down some distance off, for she had +already walked further than she had intended. She could now see the +men more clearly, and though it was fiercely hot they were evidently +working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing and bare brown arms +appeared among the white and ochre tinting of the grass that seemed +charged with brightness, and the sounds of their activity came up to +her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of the mowers, the +crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of waggon wheels. + +By and bye a great mound of gleaming grass overhanging two half-seen +horses moved out of the sloo, and she watched it draw nearer until she +made out Wyllard sitting in a depression in the front of it. She sat +still until he pulled the team up close beside her and looked down with +a smile. + +"It's 'most two miles to the homestead. If you could manage to climb +up I could make you a comfortable place," he said. + +Agatha held her hands up with one foot upon a spoke of the wheel as the +man leaned down, and next moment she was strongly lifted and felt his +supporting hand upon her waist. Then she found herself standing upon a +narrow ledge clutching at the hay while he tore out several big armfuls +of it and flung it back upon the rest. + +[Illustration: "Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down, +and the next moment she was strongly lifted."] + +"Now," he said, "I guess you'll find that a snug enough nest." + +She sank into it with at least a certain sense of physical +satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm, scented with the aromatic +odours of wild peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath +her limbs. Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she +fancied she had seen a sudden sign of tension in the man's face when he +had for a moment held her on the edge of the waggon. Unobtrusively she +flashed a glance at him, and was reassured. He was looking straight +before him with unwavering eyes, and his face was as quiet as it +usually was again. Neither of them said anything until the team moved +on. Then he turned to her. + +"You won't get jolted much," he said. "They've been at it since four +o'clock this morning." + +"That," said Agatha, "must have meant that you rose at three." + +Wyllard smiled. "As a matter of fact, it was half-past two. There was +no dew last night, and we started early. I've several extra teams this +year, and there's a good deal of hay to cut. Of course, we have to get +it in the sloos or any damp place where it's long. We don't sow grass, +and we have no meadows like those there are in England." + +Agatha understood that he meant to talk about matters of no particular +consequence, as he usually did. There was, as she had noticed, a vein +of almost poetic imagination in this man, and his idea that she had +been with him through the snow of the lonely ranges and the gloom of +the great forests of the Pacific slope appealed to her, merely as a +pretty fancy, in particular. He had, however, of late very seldom +given it rein, and sitting close beside him among the yielding hay she +decided that it was wiser to let him talk about his farm. + +"But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven't +you?" she said. + +"I had, but he left me three or four days ago. It's a pity in several +ways, since I've taken up rather more than I can handle this year." + +"Then why didn't you keep him?" + +There was a certain grimness in Wyllard's laugh. "Martial was a little +muleish, and I'm afraid I'm troubled with a shortness of temper now and +then. We had a difference of opinion as to the best way to drive the +mower into the sloo, and he didn't seem to recognise that he should +have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys were standing by, I +had to insist upon him getting out of the saddle." + +He had turned a little further towards her, and Agatha noticed that +there was a bruise upon one side of his face. After what he had just +told her the sight of it jarred upon her, though she would not admit +that there was any reason why it should do so. She could not deny that +on the prairie a resort to physical force might be warranted by the +lack of any other remedy, but it hurt her to think of him descending to +an open brawl with one of his men. + +Then it occurred to her that the other man had in all probability +suffered more, and this brought her a certain sense of satisfaction +which she admitted was more or less barbarous. She had made it clear +that Wyllard was nothing to her, but she could not help watching him as +he lay among the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face, which, +though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring--she felt that +was the best word--to look at. The dusty shirt and old blue trousers, +as she had already noticed, accentuated the long, clean lines of his +figure, and she realised with a faint sense of anger that his mere +physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, appealed to her. +This was, she recognised, an almost repugnant thing, a feeling to be +judiciously checked, but it would obtrude itself. After all, in spite +of her fastidiousness, she was endued with most of the characteristics +of flesh and blood. + +"You must have a good deal to look after alone," she said. + +"Oh yes," said Wyllard; "I'm making my biggest effort this year. We've +sown at least a third more than I've ever done before, and I've bought +a big bunch of horses, too. If all goes satisfactorily we should reap +a record harvest, but in the meanwhile the thing's rather a pull. One +can't let up a minute; there's always something to be done, and a +constant need for supervision." + +"Suppose you neglected the latter?" + +Wyllard smiled. "Then I'm 'most afraid there'd be the biggest kind of +smash." + +After that they talked of other matters of no great consequence, for +both of them were conscious of the necessity for a certain reticence; +and when they reached the homestead Agatha joined Mrs. Hastings, while +Wyllard pitched the hay off the waggon. He, however, came in to supper +presently with about half of the others, and they all sat down together +in the long, barely furnished room. Wyllard seemed unusually animated, +and drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout of whimsical badinage, but he looked +up sharply when, by and bye, a beat of hoofs rose from the prairie. + +"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants?" he said. "I certainly +don't expect anybody." + +The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for +the sod was hard and dry. Then it broke off, and Agatha saw Wyllard +start as a man came into the room. He was a little, thick-set man with +a weather-darkened face, dressed in rather old blue serge, and he +looked and walked like a seaman. In another moment or two he stood +still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A little +thrill of disconcertion ran through Agatha, for she felt she knew what +this stranger's errand must be. + +Then Wyllard rose, and walked towards the man with outstretched hand. + +"Sit right down and get some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden +in from the railroad," he said. "We'll talk afterwards." + +The stranger nodded. "I'm from Vancouver," he said; "had quite a lot +of trouble tracing you." + +He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take his horse, went +back to his seat, but he was rather silent during the rest of the meal. +When it was over he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the +stranger into a smaller room pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar box +on the table. + +"Now you can get ahead," he said. + +The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed +it to his companion. + +"That's what I came to bring you," he said quietly. + +Wyllard's eyes grew very grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip +of willow which will grow close up to the limits of the eternal ice, +and it bore a rude representation of the British ensign union down, +which signifies "In distress." Besides this there were one or two +indecipherable words scratched on it, and three common names rather +more clearly cut. Wyllard recognised every one of them. + +"How did you get it?" he asked, in tense suspense. + +The sailorman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of +paper cut from a chart. He flattened it out on the table, and it +showed, as Wyllard had expected, a strip of the Kamtchatkan coast. + +"I guess I needn't tell you where that is," he said, and pointed to the +parallel of latitude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it me. He was +up there late last season well over on the western side. A +north-easterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of +her. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury +mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that +being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail. +Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept +heading them from the east she sidled away down south through the +Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which +explains why Dunton only fetched Vancouver a week ago." + +[Illustration: "'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said, +and pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across."] + +"But the message?" + +"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove her to not far +off the beach with ice about, and a Husky came down on them in some +kind of boat." + +"A Husky?" said Wyllard, who knew he meant an Esquimaux. + +"That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a +Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and +he had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They +couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message +from three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out +how long ago." + +"Dunton tried for them?" + +"How could he? She'd hardly look at the wind, and the ice was piling +up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two with the +floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and blew him +out." + +He had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose, stood leaning on his +chair-back very grim in face. + +"That," he said, "must have been eight or nine months ago." + +"It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the +boat." + +"It's unthinkable," said Wyllard. "The thing can't be true." + +His companion gravely produced a little common metal watch made in +Connecticut, and worth some five or six dollars. Opening it he pointed +to a name scratched inside it. + +"You can't get over that," he said simply. + +Wyllard strode up and down the room, and when he sat down again with a +clenched hand laid upon the table he and the sailorman looked at each +other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a little +gesture. + +"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?" + +"I'm going for them." + +The sailorman smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start +right away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner." + +He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. +"Well," he said, "I'm coming with you, but you'll have to buy my ticket +to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty with a +blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me. Sealing's not +what it used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later. I won't +keep you from your friends." + +Wyllard went out and left him, and though he did not see Mrs. Hastings +just then he came upon Agatha sitting outside the house. She glanced +at his face when he sat down beside her. + +"Ah," she said, "you have had the summons." + +Wyllard nodded. "Yes," he said, "that man was the skipper of a +schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three +men are." + +Then he told her quietly what he had heard, and the girl was conscious +of a very curious thrill. + +"You are going up there to search for them?" she said. "Won't it cost +you a great deal?" + +She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his +expression was very resolute. + +"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my dollars are +locked up in this crop, and there's need of constant watchfulness and +effort until the last bushel's hauled in to the elevators. It probably +sounds egotistical, but now I've got rid of Martial I can't put my hand +on any one as fit to see the thing through as I am. Still, I have to +go for them. What else could I do?" + +"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia, or your +authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?" + +Wyllard's smile was somewhat grim. "It wouldn't be wise to give them +an opportunity. For one thing, they've had enough of sealing cases, +and that isn't astonishing. We'll say they applied for the persons of +three British subjects who are supposed to be living somewhere in +Russian Asia--and for that matter I couldn't be sure that two of them +aren't Americans--the Russians naturally enquire what the men were +doing there. The answer is that they were poaching the Russians' +seals. Then the affair on the beach comes up, and there's a big claim +for compensation and trouble all round. It seems to me the last thing +those men--they're practically outlaws--would desire would be to have a +Russian expedition sent up on their trail. They would want to lie +hidden until they could somehow get off again." + +"But how have they lived up there? The whole land's frozen, isn't it, +most of the year?" + +"They'd sealing rifles, and the Koriaks make out farther north in their +roofed-in pits. One can live on seal and walrus meat and blubber." + +Agatha shivered. "But they'd no tents, or furs, or blankets. It's +horrible to imagine it." + +"Yes," said Wyllard, gravely, "that's why I'm going for them." + +Agatha sat still a moment. She could realise the magnitude of the +sacrifice he was making, and in some degree the hazards that he must +face. It appealed to her with an overwhelming force, but she was also +conscious of a strange dismay. Then she turned to him with a flush of +colour in her cheeks and her eyes shining. + +"Oh," she said, "it's splendid!" + +Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them." + +Then somewhat to Agatha's relief Mrs. Hastings came out of the house, +and Wyllard moved away towards the stable to bring out her team. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE. + +It was two days later when Agatha, coming back from a stroll across the +prairie with the two little girls, found Mrs. Hastings awaiting her at +the homestead door. + +"I'll take the kiddies. Harry Wyllard's here, and he seems quite +anxious to see you, though I don't know what he wants," she said. + +She flashed a searching glance at the girl, whose face, however, +remained expressionless. It was, at least, not often that Agatha's +composure broke down. + +"Anyway," she added, "you had better go in. Allen has been arguing +with him the last half-hour, and can't get any sense into him. It +seems to me the man's crazy; but he might, perhaps, listen to you." + +"I think that's scarcely likely," said Agatha quietly. + +Her companion made a sign of impatience. "Then," she said, "it's a +pity. Anyway, if he speaks to you about his project you can tell him +that it's altogether unreasonable." + +She drew aside, and Agatha walked into the room in which she had had +one painful interview with Gregory. Wyllard, who was sitting there, +rose as she came in, and half-consciously she contrasted him with her +lover. Then what Mrs. Hastings had once predicted came about, for +Gregory did not bear that comparison favourably. Indeed, it seemed to +her that he grew coarser and meaner in person and character. Then she +turned to Wyllard, who stood quietly watching her. + +"Nellie Hastings or her husband has been telling you what they think of +my idea?" he said. + +Agatha admitted it. "Yes," she said. "Their opinion evidently hasn't +much weight with you." + +"I wouldn't go quite so far as that, but you might have gone a little +further than you did. Haven't you a message for me?" Then he smiled +before he added, "You were sent to denounce my folly--and you can't do +it. If you trusted your own impulses you would give me your +benediction instead." + +Agatha, who was troubled with a sense of regret, noticed that there was +a suggestive wistfulness in his face. + +"No," she said slowly, "I can't denounce it. For one reason, I have no +right of any kind to force my views on you." + +"You told Nellie Hastings that?" + +It seemed an unwarranted question, but the girl admitted it candidly. + +"In one sense I did. I suggested that there was no reason why you +should listen to me." + +Wyllard smiled again. "Nellie and her husband are good friends of +mine, but sometimes our friends are a little too officious. Anyway, it +doesn't count. If you had had that right, you would have told me to +go." + +Agatha felt the warm blood rise to her cheeks. It seemed to her that +he had paid her a great and sincere compliment in taking it for granted +that if she had loved him she would still have bidden him undertake his +perilous duty. + +"Ah," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps I should not have been brave +enough." + +It was not a judicious answer. She quite realised that, but she felt +that she must speak with unhesitating candour. + +"After all," she added, "can you be quite sure that this thing is your +duty?" + +The man laughed in a rather grim fashion. "No," he said, "I can't. In +fact, when I sit down to think I can see at least a dozen reasons why +it doesn't concern me. In a case of this kind that's always easy. +It's just borne in upon me--I don't know how--that I have to go." + +Agatha crossed to the window and sat down. She knew there was more to +follow, and it seemed advisable to secure whatever there might be in +her favour in a pose of physical ease. Besides, where she stood the +glare of light flung back by the white and dusty grass outside struck +full upon her face, and she did not want the man to read every varying +expression. He leaned upon a chair-back looking at her gravely. + +"Well," he said, "we'll go on a little further. It seems better that I +should make what's in my mind quite clear to you. You see, I and +Captain Dampier start in a week." + +Agatha was certainly conscious of a thrill of dismay, but the man +proceeded quietly. "We may be back before the winter, but it's also +quite likely that we may be ice-nipped before our work is through, and +in that case it would be a year at least before we reach Vancouver. In +fact, there's a certain probability that all of us may leave our bones +up there. Now, there's a thing I must ask you. Is it only a passing +trouble that stands between you and Gregory? Are you still fond of +him?" + +The girl felt her heart beating unpleasantly fast. It would have been +a relief to assure herself that she was as fond of Gregory as she had +been, but she could not do it. + +"That," she said, "is a point on which I cannot answer you." + +"We'll let it go at that. The fact that Gregory sent me over for you +implied a certain obligation. How far events have cleared me of it I +don't know--and you don't seem willing to tell me. But I fancy there +is now less cause than there was for me to thrust my own wishes into +the background, and, as I start in another week, the situation has +forced my hand. I can't wait as I had meant to do, and it would be a +vast relief to know that I had made your future safer than it is before +I go. Will you marry me at the settlement the morning I start?" + +Half-conscious, as she was, of the unselfishness which had prompted +this suggestion, Agatha turned and faced him in hot anger. + +"Can you suppose for a moment that I would agree to that?" she asked. + +"Wait," said the man gravely. "Try to look at it quietly. First of +all, I want you. You know that--though you have never shown me any +tenderness, you can't doubt it--but I can't stay to win your liking. I +must go away. Then, as things stand, your future is uncertain; and as +my wife it would, at least, be safer. However badly the man I leave in +charge of the Range may manage there would be something saved out of +the wreck, and I would like to make that something yours. As I said, I +may be away a year, perhaps eighteen months, and I may never come back. +If I don't, the fact that you would bear my name could cause you no +great trouble. It would lay no restraint on you in any way." + +Agatha looked him steadily in the eyes, and spoke as she felt. "We +can't contemplate your not coming back. It's unthinkable." + +"Thank you," said Wyllard, still with the grave quietness she wondered +at. "Then I'm not sure that my turning up again would greatly +complicate the thing. There would, at least, be one way out of the +difficulty. You wouldn't find the situation intolerable if I could +make you fond of me." + +The girl broke into a little, high-strung laugh that had a tinge of +bitterness in it. + +"Oh," she said, "aren't you taking too much for granted? Am I really +to believe you are making this fantastic offer seriously? Do you +suppose I would marry you--for your possessions?" + +"It sounds bloodless? Perhaps it is in one way, but you wouldn't +always find me that. Just now, because my hand is forced, I am only +anticipating things. If I live, you will some day have to choose +between me and Gregory. In this case he must hold his own if he can." + +"Against what you have offered me?" She flung the question at him. + +He looked at her with his face set and the signs of restraint very +plain on it. + +"I expect I deserved that. I wanted to make you safe. It's the most +pressing difficulty." + +The bitterness was still in the girl's eyes. + +"So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only one." +Then her anger seemed to carry her away. "Oh," she said, "do you +imagine that an offer of the kind you have made me, made as you have +made it, would lead anyone to love you?" + +Wyllard smiled. "When I first saw your picture, and when I saw you +afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem to have got +rid of it, I love you better as you are. There is, however, one thing +I must ask again, and it's your clear duty to tell me. Are you fonder +of Gregory than you feel you ever could be of me?" + +Agatha's eyes fell. She felt she could not look at him just then, nor +could she answer his question honestly as she almost wished to. + +"At least, I am bound to him until he releases me." + +"Ah," said Wyllard, "that is what I was most afraid of. All along it +hampered me, and in it you have the reason for my bloodlessness. It is +another reason why I should go away." + +"For fear that you should tempt me from my duty?" + +The man's expression changed, and there crept into his eyes a gleam of +the passion that she knew he was capable of. + +"My dear," he said, "I seem to know that I could make you break faith +with that man. You belong to me. For three years you have been +everywhere with me, but we will let that go. I must go away, and +Gregory will have a clear field, but the probability is in favour of me +coming back again, and then, if he has failed to make the most of it, +I'll enforce my claim." + +He turned and seized one of her hands, holding it strongly against her +will. + +"That is my last word. At least, you will let me think that when I go +up yonder into the mists and snow I shall take your good wishes for my +success away with me." + +She lifted her face, which was flushed, and once more looked him +steadily in the eyes. + +"They are yours, most fervently," she said. "It would be intolerable +that you should fail." + +He smiled very gravely, and let her hand fall. "After all," he said, +"one can only do what one can." + +Then he went out without another glance at her, and not long afterwards +Mrs. Hastings, who was endued with a reasonable measure of curiosity, +found occasion to enter the room. + +"You have said something to trouble Harry?" she began. + +Agatha contrived to smile. "I'm not sure he's greatly troubled. In +any case, I told him I would not marry him--for the second time." + +"He has given up his crazy notion, then?" + +"He never suggested doing that." + +Mrs. Hastings made a little sign of compassionate astonishment. + +"Oh," she said, "he's mad." + +"I believe I told him he was bloodless. At least, that was how he +interpreted what I said." + +Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Harry Wyllard bloodless! My dear, can't you +see that the restraint he now and then practises is the sign of a +tremendous vitality? Still, the man's mad. Did he tell you that he +means to leave Gregory in charge of Willow Range?" + +Agatha was certainly astonished at this, but Mrs. Hastings nodded. +"It's a fact," she said. "He asked him to meet him here to save time, +and"--she turned towards the window--"there's his waggon now." + +She moved towards the door, and then turned again. "Is there any +blood--red blood we will call it--or even common-sense in you? You +could have kept that man here if you had wanted." + +"No," said Agatha, "I don't think I could. I'm not even sure that if +I'd had the right I would have done it. He recognised that." + +Mrs. Hastings looked at her very curiously. "Then," she said, "you +have either a somewhat extraordinary character, or are in love with him +in a way that is beyond most of us. In any case, I can't help feeling +that you will be sorry for what you have done some day." + +Next moment the door closed with a bang, and Agatha was left alone +endeavouring to analyse her sensations during her interview with +Wyllard, which was difficult, for they had been confused and +fragmentary. She had certainly been angry with him, but the cause for +this was much less apparent, though there were one or two +half-sufficient explanations. For one thing, it was almost intolerable +to feel that he had evidently taken it for granted that the greater +security she would enjoy as his wife would appeal to her, though there +was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her +dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, +his reserve had been at least perplexing, and it was borne in upon her +that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him +had he spoken with fire and passion. The restraint, however, had been +evident, and he could not have practised it unless there had been +something to hold in check; and then it became apparent that it was +more important to ascertain his motives than her own. + +If the man had been fervently in love with her, why had he not insisted +on that fact, she asked. Could it have been because he had with the +fantastic generosity, which he was evidently capable of, been willing +to leave his comrade unhandicapped with an open field? That, however, +seemed too much to expect from any man. Then there was the other +explanation that he preferred to leave the choice wholly to her lest he +should tempt her too strongly to break faith with Gregory, which +brought the blood to her face as it had done already, since it +suggested that he fancied he had only to urge her sufficiently and she +would yield. There was, it seemed, no satisfactory explanation at all. +Only the fact remained that he had made her a somewhat dispassionate +offer of marriage, and had left her to decide, which she had done. + +As it happened, Wyllard could not just then, at least, have made the +matter very much clearer. Shrewdly practical, as he was, in some +respects, there were times when he acted blindly, merely doing without +reasoning what he sub-consciously felt was right. This had more than +once involved him in disaster, but it is, perhaps, fortunate that there +are others like him, for, after all, in the long run the failures of +such men now and then prove better than the dictates of calculating +wisdom. + +In any case, Agatha found a momentary relief from her thoughts as she +watched Hawtrey get down from his waggon and approach the house. The +change in him was plainer than it had ever been, which may have been +because she had now a standard of comparison. He was tall and +well-favoured, and he moved with a jaunty and yet not ungraceful swing; +but it almost seemed to her that this was merely the result of an empty +self-sufficiency. There was, she felt, no force behind it which when +the strain came would prove that jaunty bearing warranted. He was +smiling, and for some reason his smile appeared a trifle inane, while +there was certainly a hint of sensuousness in his face. It suggested +that the man might sink into self-indulgent coarseness. She, however, +remembered that she was still pledged to him, and determinedly brushed +these thoughts aside, until she heard his footsteps inside the house, +when she became possessed of a burning curiosity as to what Wyllard had +to say to him, which, however, remained unsatisfied. + +In the meanwhile, Hawtrey entered a room where Wyllard sat awaiting him +with a paper in his hand. + +"I asked you to drive over here because it would save time," he said. +"I have to go in to the railroad at once. Here's a draft of the scheme +I suggested. You had better tell me if there's anything you're not +quite satisfied with." + +He threw the paper on the table, and Hawtrey, who took it up, perused +it. + +"I'm to farm and generally manage the Range on your behalf," he said. +"My percentage to be deducted after harvest. I'm empowered to sell out +grain or horses as appears advisable, and to have the use of teams and +implements for my own place when occasion requires it." + +He looked up. "I've no fault to find with the thing, Harry. It's +generous." + +"Then you had better sign it, and we'll get Hastings to witness it in a +minute or two. In the meanwhile there's a thing I have to ask you. +How do you stand in regard to Miss Ismay?" + +Hawtrey pushed his chair back noisily. "That," he said, "is a subject +on which I'm naturally not disposed to give you any information. How +does it concern you? + +"In this way. Believing that your engagement must be broken off I +asked Miss Ismay to marry me." + +Hawtrey was clearly startled, but in a moment or two he smiled. + +"Of course," he said, "she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, our +engagement isn't broken off. It's merely extended." + +They looked at each other in silence for a moment or two, and there was +a curious hardness in Wyllard's eyes. Then Hawtrey spoke again. + +"In view of what you have just told me why did you want to put me of +all people in charge of the Range?" he said. + +"I'll be candid," said Wyllard. "For one thing, you held on when I was +slipping off the trestle that day in British Columbia. For another, +you'll make nothing of your own holding, and if you run the Range as it +ought to be run it will put a good many dollars into your pocket, +besides relieving me of a big anxiety. If you're to marry Miss Ismay, +I'd sooner she was made reasonably comfortable." + +Hawtrey looked up with a flush in his face. + +"Harry," he said, "this is extravagantly generous." + +"Wait," said Wyllard; "there's a little more to be said. I can't be +back before the frost, and I may be away eighteen months. While I am +away you will have a clear field--and you must make the most of it. If +you are not married when I come back I shall ask Miss Ismay again. +Now"--and he glanced at his comrade steadily--"does this stand in the +way of your going on with the arrangement we have arrived at?" + +There was a rather tense silence for a moment or two, and then Hawtrey +broke it. + +"No," he said; "after all, there is no reason why it should do so. It +has no practical bearing upon the other question." + +Wyllard rose. "Well," he said, "if you will call Allen Hastings in +we'll get this thing fixed up." + +The document was duly signed, and a few minutes later Wyllard drove +away; but Mrs. Hastings contrived to have a few words with Hawtrey +before he did the same. + +"I've no doubt that Harry took you into his confidence on a certain +point," she said. + +"Yes," admitted Hawtrey; "he did. I was a little astonished, besides +feeling rather sorry for him. There is, however, reason to believe +that he'll soon get over it." + +"You feel sure of that?" and Mrs. Hastings smiled. + +"Isn't it evident? If he had cared much about her he certainly +wouldn't have gone away." + +"You mean you wouldn't?" + +"No," said Hawtrey, "there's no doubt of that." + +His companion smiled again. "Well," she said drily, "I would like to +think you were right about Harry; it would be a relief to me." + +Hawtrey, who said nothing further, presently drove away, and soon after +he did so Agatha approached Mrs. Hastings. + +"There's something I must ask you," she said. "Has Gregory consented +to take charge of Wyllard's farm?" + +"He has," said her companion in her dryest tone. + +Agatha's face flushed, and there was a flash in her eyes. + +"Oh," she said, "it's almost insufferable!" + +Then she turned and left Mrs. Hastings without another word. + +She only saw Wyllard once again, and that was when he called at the +homestead early one morning. He got down from the waggon where Dampier +sat, and shook hands with her and Allen and Mrs. Hastings. Very few +words were spoken, and she could not remember what she said, but when +he swung himself up again and the waggon jolted away into the white +prairie she went back to the house with her heart beating unpleasantly +fast and a very curious feeling of depression. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE BEACH. + +For a fortnight after they reached Vancouver Wyllard and Dampier were +very busy. They had various difficulties to contend with, for while +they would have preferred to slip away to sea as quietly as possible a +British vessel's movements are fenced about with many formalities, and +they did not wish to ship a white man who could be dispensed with. +Wyllard fancied there were sailormen and sealers in Vancouver and down +Puget Sound who would have gone with him, but there was a certain +probability of their discussing their exploits afterwards in the +saloons ashore, which was about the last thing that he desired. It +appeared essential that he should avoid notoriety as much as possible. + +He had further trouble about obtaining provisions and general +necessaries, for considerably more attention than the free-lance +sealers cared about was being bestowed upon the North just then, and he +did not desire to rouse the curiosity of the dealers as to why he was +filling his lazaret up with Arctic stores. He obviated that difficulty +by dividing his orders among the whole of them, and buying as little as +possible. Dampier, however, proved an adept at the difficult business, +and eventually the schooner _Selache_ crept out from the Narrows at +dusk one evening under all plain sail, painted a pale green, with her +big main-boom raking at least a fathom beyond her taffrail. There were +then Wyllard, Dampier, and two other white men on board her. A week +later she sailed into a deep, rock-walled inlet on the western coast of +Vancouver Island with a settlement at the top of it, where the +storekeeper made no difficulty about selling Wyllard all his flour and +canned goods at higher figures than there was any probability of his +obtaining from the local ranchers. + +Then the _Selache_ slid down the inlet again, and lay for several days +in a forest-shrouded arm near the mouth of it, while, when she once +more dropped her anchor off a Siwash rancherie far up on the wild West +coast, she was painted a dingy grey, and her sawn-off boom just topped +her stern. One does not want a great main-boom in the northern seas, +and a big mainsail needs men to handle it. Wyllard, however, shipped +several sea-bred Indians who had made wonderful perilous voyages on the +trail of the seal and halibut in open canoes. All of them had, as it +happened, also sailed in sealing schooners. Their comrades sold him +furs, and filled part of the hold up with redwood billets and bark for +the stove, for he had not considered it advisable to load too much +Wellington coal. Then he pushed out into the waste Pacific, and when +once a beautiful big white mail boat reeled by him, driving with +streaming bows into an easterly gale, he sent back a message to his +friends upon the prairie. It duly reached them, for some three weeks +afterwards Allen Hastings, opening _The Colonist_, which he had ordered +from Victoria as soon as Wyllard sailed, read out to his wife and +Agatha a paragraph in the shipping news: + +"_Empress of India_, from Yokohama, reports having passed small grey +British schooner, flying----" There followed several code letters, the +latitude and longitude, and a line apparently by the water-front +reporter: "No schooner belonging to this city allotted the signal in +question." + +Hastings smiled as he laid down the paper. "No," he said, "that +signal's Wyllard's private code. Agatha, won't you reach me down my +map of the Pacific? It's just behind you." + +Then he looked round, and noticed the significant smile in his wife's +eyes, for the girl had already turned towards the shelf where he kept +the lately purchased map. + +The easterly gale, however, did not last, for the wind came out of the +west and north, and sank to foggy calms when it did not blow wickedly +hard. This meant that the _Selache's_ course was all to windward, and +though they drove her at it unmercifully under reefed boom-foresail, +main trysail, and a streaming jib or two, with the brine going over her +solid forward, she had made little when each arduous day was done. +They were drenched to the skin continuously, and lashed by stinging +spray. Cooking except of the crudest kind was out of the question, and +sleep would have been impossible to any but worn-out sailormen. Even +then, they were often roused in the blackness of the night, when she +lay with her lee rail under, and would not lift it out, to get another +reef in, or crawl out on plunging bowsprit washed by icy seas to haul a +burst jib down. It was even more trying, glad as they were of the +respite in some respects, to lie rolling wildly on the big smooth +undulations that hove out of the windless calm, while everything in her +banged to and fro, and when the breeze came screaming through the fog +or rain they sprang to make sail again. + +Fate seemed dead against them, as it was certain that, if their purpose +was suspected, the hand of every white man they might come across would +be; but they held on over leagues of empty ocean while the season wore +away, until once more the wind freshened easterly, and they ran for a +week under boom-foresail and a jib, with the big grey combers curling +as they foamed by high above her rail. Then the wind fell, and +Dampier, who got an observation, armed his deep-sea lead, and finding +shells and shoal water came aft to talk to Wyllard with the strip of +Dunton's chart. + +Wyllard, who was clad in oilskins, stood, a shapeless figure, by the +wheel, with his face darkened and roughened by cold and stinging brine. +There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were +raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the +windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-grey sea +opened up beyond them beneath the dripping jibs. Then the bows would +go down again, and all that was visible was the fore-shortened slope of +deck and the breast of the big undulation that hove itself up ahead. +The _Selache_ was carrying everything and lurching over the steep swell +at some four knots an hour. + +Dampier stopped near the wheel, and glanced at Wyllard's oilskins. + +"You'll have to take them off. It's stuffed boots and those Indian +seal-gut things or furs from now on," he said. "That leather cuff's +chewing up your hand." + +"We'll cut that out," said Wyllard; "it's not to the point. Can't you +get on?" + +Dampier grinned. "We're on soundings, and they and Dunton's longitude +most agree. With this wind we should pick the beach up in the next two +days. Next question is, where those men were?" + +"Where they are," said Wyllard. + +"If they've pushed on it's probably a different thing, though if they'd +food yonder I don't quite see why they'd want to push on anywhere. It +wouldn't be south, anyway. They'd run up against the Russians there." + +"We've decided that already." + +"I'm admitting it," said the skipper. "There's the other choice that +they've gone up north. It's narrower across to Alaska there, and it's +quite likely they might have a notion of looking out for one of the +steam whalers. The Koriaks up yonder will have boats of some kind. If +they're skin ones like those the Huskies have they might sledge them on +the ice." + +It was a suggestion that had been made several times already, but both +the men realised that there was in all probability very little to +warrant it. Wyllard had wasted no time endeavouring to learn what was +known about the desolation on the western shore of the Behring Sea. He +had bought a schooner and set out at once. It, however, appeared +almost impossible to him that any three men could haul the skin boats +and supplies they would need far over hummocky ice. + +"The point is that we'll have to fix on some course in the next few +days," added his companion. "Say we run in to make inquiries"--and a +gleam of grim amusement crept into his eyes--"what are we going to +find? A beach with a roaring surf on it, and if we get a boat through, +a desolate, half-frozen swamp behind it. It's quite likely there are +people in the country, Koriaks or Kamtchadales, but if there are +they'll probably move up and down after what they get to eat like the +Huskies do, and we can't hang on and wait for them. Most any time next +month we'll have the ice closing in." + +Wyllard said nothing for another minute, and as he stood with hands +clenched on the wheel a little puff of bitter spray splashed upon his +oilskins. They had been over it all often before, weighing conjecture +after conjecture, and had found nothing in any that might serve to +guide them. Now, when winter was close at hand, they had leagues of +surf-swept beach to search for three men who might have perished twelve +months earlier. + +"We'll stand in until we pick up the beach," he said at length; "then +if there's no sign of them we'll push north as long as we can find open +water. Now if you'll call Charly I'll let up at the wheel." + +Another white man walked aft, and Wyllard, entering the little stern +cabin, the top of which rose some feet above the deck, sloughed off his +wet oilskins and crawled, dressed as he was, into his bunk. Evening +was closing in, and for awhile he lay blinking at the swinging lamp, +and wondering what the end of that search would be. The _Selache_ was +a little fore and aft schooner of some ninety-odd tons, wholly +unprotected against ice-chafe or nip, and he knew that prudence +dictated their driving her south under every rag of canvas now. There +was, however, the possibility of finding some sheltered inlet where she +could lie out the winter, frozen in, and he had, at least, blind +confidence in his men. The white men were sealers who had already +borne the lash of snow-laden gales, the wash of icy seas, and +tremendous labour at the oar, while the Indians had been born to an +unending struggle with the waters. All of them had times and times +again looked the King of Terrors squarely in the face. What was as +much to the purpose, they had been promised a tempting bonus if the +_Selache_ came home successful. + +While Wyllard pondered upon these things he went to sleep, and slept +soundly, as he did the next night, though Dampier expected to raise the +beach some time next morning. His expectation also proved warranted, +and when Wyllard turned out it lay before them, a dingy smear on a +slate-green sea that was cut off from it by a wavy line of livid +whiteness, which he knew to be a fringe of spouting surf. It had cost +him in several ways more than he cared to contemplate to reach that +beach, and now there was nothing that could excite any feeling except +shrinking in the dreary spectacle. There was little light in the heavy +sky or on the sullen heave of sea; the air was raw, the schooner's +decks were sloppy, and she rolled viciously as she crept shorewards +with her mainsail peak eased down. What wind there was blew dead +on-shore, which was not as he would have had it. + +He heard the splash of the lead as he and the white man Charly made +their breakfast in the little stern cabin. Then there was a clatter of +blocks, and on coming out again he found the others swinging a boat +over. Charly and he and two of the Indians dropped into her, and +Dampier, who had hove the schooner to, looked down on them over her +rail. + +"If you knock the bottom out of her put a jacket on an oar, and I'll +try to bring you off," he said. "If you don't signal I'll stand off +and on with a thimble-header topsail over the mainsail. You'll start +back right away if you see us haul it down. When she won't stand that +there'll be more surf than you'll have any use for with the wind dead +on the beach." + +Wyllard made a sign of comprehension, and they slid away on the back of +a long sea. Others rolled up behind them, cutting off the schooner's +hull so that only her grey canvas showed above dim slopes of water, but +there was no curl on any and the beach rose fast. It looked very +forbidding with the spray-haze drifting over it, and the long wash of +the Pacific weltering among its hammered stones, and when they drew a +little nearer Wyllard stood up with the big sculling oar in his hand. +There was no point to offer shelter, and in only one place could he see +a strip of surf-lapped sand. + +"It's a little softer than the boulders, anyway; we'll try it there," +he said. + +The oars dipped again, and in another minute or two the sea that came +up behind them hove them high and broke into a little spout of foam. +The next had a hissing crest, part of which splashed on board, and they +went shorewards like a toboggan down an icy slide on the shoulders of +the third. To keep her straight while it seethed about them was all +that they could do, but it was also essentially necessary, and for a +moment their hearts were in their mouths when it left them to sink with +a dizzy swing into the hollow. Then they pulled desperately as another +white-topped ridge came on astern, and went up with it amidst a chaotic +frothing and splashing and a haze of spray. After that there was a +shock and a crash, and they sprang out knee-deep and held fast to the +boat while the foam boiled into her, floundering and stumbling over +sliding sand. Still, before the next sea came in they had run her up +beyond its reach, and there did not seem to be much the matter with her +when they hove her over. Wyllard, however, looked back at the tumbling +surf. + +"Dampier was right about that topsail; it won't be quite as easy +getting off," he said. "You'll stand by, Charly, and watch the +schooner. If the surf gets steeper you can make some sign. I'll leave +one of the Siwash on the rise yonder." + +Then he walked up the beach, and stopped awhile on the crest of the low +rise a mile or two behind it, gazing out at what seemed to be an empty +desolation. There were willows in the hollow beneath him, and upon the +slope a few little stunted trees, which he fancied resembled the +juniper he had seen among the ranges of British Columbia, but he could +see no sign of any kind of life. What was more portentous, the mossy +sod he stood upon was frozen, and there were smears of snow among the +straggling firs upon a rather higher ridge. Inland, the little breeze +seemed to have fallen dead away, and there was an oppressive silence +which the rumble of the surf accentuated. + +He left an Indian on the rise, and going on with the other scrambled +through a half-frozen swamp in the hollow; but when they came back +hours afterwards as the narrow horizon was drawing further in they had +found nothing to show that any man had ever entered that grim, silent +land. The surf seemed a little smoother, and they reeled out through +it with no more than a few inches of very cold water splashing about +their boots, and pulled across a long stretch of darkening sea towards +the rolling schooner. + +Wyllard was a little weary, and more depressed, but it was not until he +sat in the stern cabin with its cheerful twinkling stove and swinging +lamp that he understood how he had shrunk from that forbidding +wilderness. His consultation with Dampier, who came in by and bye, was +very brief. + +"We'll head north for a couple of days, and try again," he said. + +He crawled into his berth early, and it was some time after midnight +when he was awakened by being rudely flung out of it. That fact, and +the slant of deck and sounds above, suggested that the schooner had +been hove down by a sudden gale. He had, however, grown more or less +accustomed to occurrences of this kind and to sleeping fully dressed, +and in another moment or two he was out of the deck-house. Then a wind +that seemed sharp as steel drove stinging flakes of snow into his face. +It was very dark, but he fancied that the schooner's rail was in the +sea, which was washing over her to weather, and that some of the others +were struggling to get the mainsail off her. Then a man whom he +supposed to be Charly ran into him. + +"Better come for'ard. Got to haul outer jib down before it blows +away," he said. + +Wyllard staggered after him up to his knees in water, and made out by +the mad banging that some of them had already cast the peak of the +boom-foresail loose. Then he reached the windlass, and clutched it as +a sea that took him to the waist frothed in over the weather rail. The +bows lurched out of it viciously, hurling another icy flood back on +him, and he could see a dim white chaos about and beneath them. Over +it rose the black wedge of the jibs. + +He did not want to get out along the bowsprit to stop one of them down. +Indeed his whole physical nature shrank from it, but there are many +things flesh and blood shrink from which must be faced at sea. Then he +made out that a Siwash was fumbling at the down-haul made fast near his +side, and when his companion's shadowy figure rose up against the +whiteness of the foam he made a jump forward. Then he was on the +bowsprit, lying upon it while he felt for the foot-rope slung beneath. +He found it, and was cautiously lowering himself when the man in front +of him called out harshly, and he saw a white sea range up ahead. It +broke short over with a rush and roar, and he clung with hands and feet +for his life as the schooner's dipping bows rammed the seething mass. + +She went into it to the windlass. He was smothered in an icy flood +that seemed bent on wrenching him from his hold, but that was only for +a moment or two, and then he was swung, gasping and streaming with +water, high above the sea again. It was bad enough merely to hold on, +but that was a very small share of his task, for the big black sail +that cut the higher darkness came rattling down its stay and fell upon +him and his companion bodily. As it dropped the wind took hold of the +folds of it and buffeted them cruelly. This was a thing he had once +been accustomed to, but as he clutched at the canvas it seemed to him +incredible that he had not already been flung off headlong from the +reeling spar. Still, that banging, thrashing canvas must be mastered +somehow, though it was snow-soaked and almost unyielding, and he clawed +at it furiously with bleeding hands while twice the bowsprit raked a +sea and dipped him waist-deep in. At length the other man flung him +the end of the gasket, and they worked back carefully, leaving the sail +lashed down, and scrambled aft to help the others who were making the +big main-boom fast. When this was done Wyllard fell against Dampier +and clutched at him. + +"How's the wind?" he roared. + +"North-east," said the skipper. + +They could scarcely hear each other, though the schooner was lurching +over it more easily now with shortened canvas, and Wyllard only made +Dampier understand that he wished to speak to him by thrusting him +towards the deck-house door. They went in together, and stood +clutching at the table with the lamplight on their tense, wet faces and +the brine that ran from them making pools upon the deck. + +"It's hauled round," said the skipper, "the wrong way." + +Wyllard made a savage gesture. "We've had it from the last quarter we +wanted ever since we sailed, and we sailed nearly three months too +late. We're too close in to the beach for you to heave her to?" + +"A sure thing," said the other. "I was driving her to work off it with +the sea getting up when the breeze burst on us. She put her rail right +under, and we had to let go most everything before she'd pick it up. +She's pointing somewhere north, jammed right up on the starboard tack +just now, but I can't stand on." + +This was evident to Wyllard, and he closed one hand tight. He wanted +to stand on as long as possible before the ice closed in, but he +realised that to do so would put the schooner ashore. + +"Well?" he said sharply. + +Dampier made a grimace. "I'm going out to heave her round. If we'd +any sense in us we'd square off the boom then, and leg it away across +the Pacific for Vancouver." + +"In that case," said Wyllard, "somebody would lose his bonus." + +Dampier swung round on him with a flash in his eyes. + +"The bonus!" he said. "Who was it came for you with two dollars in his +pocket after he'd bought his ticket from Vancouver?" + +Wyllard smiled at him. "If you took that up the wrong way I'm sorry. +She ought to work off on the port tack, and when we've open water to +leeward you can heave her to. When it moderates we can pick up the +beach again." + +"That's just what I mean to do." + +Then Dampier went out on deck, while Wyllard, flinging off his dripping +clothing, crawled into his bunk and went quietly to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE FIRST ICE. + +Daylight broke on a frothing sea, across which there scudded wisps of +smoke-like drift and thin showers of snow, before they hove her to. +Then, with two little wet rags of canvas set she lay almost head on to +the big combers, and met their onslaught with a hove-up weather bow. +Having little way upon her, she lurched over instead of ramming them, +and though now and then one curled on board across her rail it was not +often that there was much heavy water upon her slanted deck. + +All round the narrow circle a leaden sky met the sea. To weather the +combers were bitten into it in cleancut serrations, but to leeward the +dim horizon was blurred by flying spray, save when the snow whirled +down in thicker wisps and blotted it out altogether. It was bitterly +cold, and the spray stung the skin like half-spent pellets from a gun. +There was, however, only one man exposed to it in turn, and he had +little to do but brace himself against the savage buffeting of the wind +as he clutched the wheel. The _Selache_, for the most part, steered +herself, lifting buoyantly while the froth came sluicing aft from her +tilted bows, falling off a little with a vicious leeward roll when a +comber bigger than usual smote her to weather, and coming up again +streaming to meet the next. Sometimes she forged ahead in what is +called at sea, by courtesy, a "smooth," and all the time shroud and +stay to weather gave out tumultuous harmonies, and the slack of every +rope to leeward blew out in unyielding curves. + +In the meanwhile, three of the white men lay sleeping or smoking in the +little cabin, which was partly raised above and partly sunk beneath the +after-deck. It was a reasonably strong structure, but it worked, and +sweated, as they say at sea, and the heat of the stove had further +opened up the seams of it. Moisture dripped from the beams overhead, +moisture trickled up and down the slanting deck, there were great +globules of it on the bulk-heading, and everything, including the men's +clothes and blankets, was wet. They lay in their bunks from necessity, +because it was a somewhat laborious matter to sit, and said very little +since it was difficult to hear anything amidst the cataclysm of +elemental sound. Indeed, it became at length almost a relief to turn +out into inky darkness or misty daylight dimmed by flying spray to take +a trick at the jarring wheel. + +For three days this continued, and then, when the gale broke and a +little pale sunshine streamed down on the tumbling sea, changing the +grey combers to flashing white and green, they gave her a double-reefed +mainsail, part of the boom-foresail, and a jib or two, and thrashed her +slowly back to the northwards on the starboard tack. Still, more than +one of them glanced over the taffrail longingly as she gathered way. +She was fast, and with a little driving and that breeze over her +quarter she would bear them south towards warmth and ease at some two +hundred miles a day, while the way they were going it would be a fight +for every fathom with bitter, charging seas, and there lay ahead of +them only cold and peril and toil incredible. + +There are times at sea when human nature revolts from the strain the +over-taxed body must bear, the leaden weariness of worn-out limbs, and +the sub-conscious effort to retain warmth and vitality in spite of the +ceaseless lashing of the icy gale. Then, as aching muscles grow lax, +the nervous tension becomes more insupportable, unless, indeed, utter +weariness breeds indifference to the personal peril each time the decks +are swept by a frothing flood, or a slippery spar must be clung to with +frost-numbed and often bleeding hands. That is, at least, on board the +sailing ships where man must still, with almost brutal valour, pit all +the feeble powers of flesh and blood against the forces of the elements. + +They knew this, and it was to their credit that they obeyed when +Dampier gave the word to put the helm up and trim the sheets over. +Their leader, however, stood a little apart with a hard-set face, and +he looked forward over the plunging bows, for he was troubled by a +sense of responsibility such as he had not felt since he had, one night +several years ago, asked for volunteers. He realised that an account +of these men's lives might be demanded from him. + +It was a fortnight later, and they had twice made a perilous landing +without finding any sign of life on or behind the hammered beach, when +they ran into the first of the ice. The grey day was almost over, and +the long heave ran sluggishly after them faintly wrinkled here and +there, when creeping through a belt of haze they came into sight of +several blurrs of greyish white that swung with the dim, green swell. +The _Selache_ was slowly lurching over it with everything aloft to the +topsails then. Dampier glanced at the ice disgustedly. + +"Earlier than I expected," he said. "Anyway, it's a sure thing there's +plenty more where that came from." + +"Big patch away to starboard!" cried a man in the foremast shrouds. + +Dampier turned to Wyllard. "What are you going to do?" + +"What's most advisable?" + +The skipper laughed grimly. "Well," he said, "that's quite simple. +Get out of this, and head her south just as soon as we can, but I guess +that's not quite what you mean." + +"No," admitted Wyllard. "I meant for the next few hours or so. In a +general way, we're still pushing on." + +"Then I'm not worrying much about pushing her through. That ice is +light and scattered, and as she's going it won't hurt her much if she +plugs some in the dark. It's what we're going to do the next two weeks +I'm not sure about. If there's ice we mayn't fetch the creek the chart +shows where we'd figured on laying her up in. It's still most a +hundred miles to the north of us. The other inlet I'd fixed on is way +further south." + +This brought them back to the difficulty they had grappled with at many +a council. The men they were in search of might have gone either north +or south; or they might, though this seemed less likely, have gone +inland, if, indeed, any of them survived. + +"If we only knew how they'd headed," said Wyllard quietly. "Still, +right or not, I'm for pushing on." + +Then Charly, who held the wheel, broke in. + +"I guess it's north," he said. "They'd have no use for fetching up +among the Russians, and there's nobody else until you get to Japan. No +white men, any way. Besides, from the Behring Sea to the Kuriles is +quite a long way." + +"If you were dumped down ashore there, which way would you go?" Dampier +asked. + +"If I'd a wallet full of papers certifying me as a harmless traveller, +it would be south just as hard as I could hit the trail. Guess I'd +strike somebody out prospecting, or surveying, and they'd set me along +to the Kuriles. Still, if I'd been sealing, I wouldn't head that way. +No, sir. That's dead sure." + +There was a reason for this certainty, right or wrong, in the minds of +the sealermen. How many of the skins they brought home were obtained +in open water where they could fish without molestation they alone +knew; but they were regarded in certain quarters as poachers and +outlaws, who deserved no mercy. They had their differences with the +Americans who owned the Prbyloffs, but the latter, it was admitted, had +bought the islands, and might reasonably be considered to have some +claim upon the seals which frequented them. The free-lances bore their +execrations and reprisals more or less resignedly, though that did not +prevent them occasionally exchanging compliments with oar butts or +sealing clubs, but the Muscovite was a grim, mysterious figure they +feared and hated. + +"Then you'd have tried up north?" Wyllard suggested. + +"Sure," said the helmsman. "If I'd a boat and a rifle, and it was +summer, I'd have pushed across for Alaska. You can eat birds and +walrus, and a man might eat a fur-seal if he'd had nothing else for a +week, though I've struck nothing that has more smell than the +holluschack blubber. If it was winter, I'd have tried the ice. The +Huskies make out on it for weeks together, and quite a few of the steam +whaler men have trailed an odd hundred or two miles over it one time or +another. They hadn't tents and dog-teams either." + +Wyllard's face grew grave. He had naturally considered both courses, +and had decided that they were out of the question. Seas do not freeze +up solid, and that three men should transport a boat, supposing that +they had one, over leagues of ice appeared impossible. An attempt to +cross the narrow sea, which is either wrapped in mist or swept by +sudden gales, in any open craft would clearly only result in disaster, +but admitting that he felt that had he been in those men's place he +would have headed north. There was one question which had all along +remained unanswered, and that was how they had reached the coast from +which they had sent their message. + +"Anyway," he said, "we'll stand on, and run into the creek we've fixed +on, if it's necessary." + +In the meanwhile, dusk had closed down on them, and it had grown +perceptibly colder. The haze crystallised on the rigging, the rail was +white with rime, and the deck grew slippery, but they left everything +on her to the topsails, and she crept on erratically through the +darkness, avoiding the faint spectral glimmer of the scattered ice. +The breeze abeam propelled her with gently leaning canvas at some four +knots to the hour, and now and then Wyllard, who hung about the deck +that night, fancied he could hear a thin, sharp crackle beneath the +slowly lifting bows. + +Next day the haze thickened, and there seemed to be more ice about, but +the breeze was fresher, and there was, at least, no skin upon the +ruffled sea. They took the topsails off her, and proceeded cautiously, +with two men with logger's pikepoles forward, and another in the eyes +of the foremast rigging. As it happened, they struck nothing, and when +night came the _Selache_ lay rolling in a heavy, portentous calm. +Dampier and one or two of the others declared their certainty that +there was ice near them, but, at least, they could not see it, though +there was now no doubt about the crackling beneath the schooner's side. +It was a somewhat anxious night for most of them, but a breeze that +drove the haze aside got up with the sun, and Dampier expected to reach +the creek before darkness fell. + +He might have done it but for the glistening streak on the horizon, +which presently crept in on them, and resolved itself into detached +grey-white masses, with openings of various sizes in and out between +them. The breeze was freshening, and the _Selache_ going through it at +some six knots, when Dampier came aft to Wyllard, who was standing +rather grim in face at the wheel. There was a moderately wide opening +in the floating barrier close ahead of him. The rest of the crew stood +silent watching the skipper, for they were by this time more or less +acquainted with Wyllard's temperament. + +"You can't get through that," said Dampier, pointing to the ice. + +Wyllard looked at him sourly, and the white men, at least, understood +what he was feeling. So far, he had had everything against him--calm, +and fog, and sudden gale--and now, when he was almost within sight of +the end of the first stage of his journey, they had met the ice. + +"You're sure of that?" he said. + +Dampier smiled. "It would cost too much, or I'd let you try." He +called to the man perched high in the foremast shrouds, and the answer +came down: + +"Packed right solid a couple of miles ahead." + +Wyllard lifted one hand, and let it suddenly fall again. + +"Lee, oh! We'll have her round," he said, and spun the wheel. + +The rest of them breathed more easily as they jumped for the sheets, +and with a great banging and thrashing of sailcloth she shot up to +windward, and turned as on a pivot. Then, as she gathered way on the +other tack, they glanced at their leader, for her bows were pointing to +the south-east again. They felt that was not the way he was going. + +In the meanwhile, Wyllard turned to. Dampier with a little wry smile. + +"Baulked again!" he said. "It would have been a relief to have rammed +her in. With this breeze we'd have picked that creek up in the next +six hours." + +"Sure!" said Dampier, who glanced at the swirling wake. + +"Then, if we can't get through it we can work her round. Stand by to +flatten all sheets in, boys." + +They did it cheerfully, though they knew it meant a thrash to windward +along the perilous edge of the ice, and, for the sea was getting up, +she flung the spray all over her forward half as she smashed the +growing combers with her bows. Soon the windlass was caked with +glistening ice, and long spikes of it hung from her rail, while the +slippery crystals gathered thick on deck. Then lumps and floes of ice +detached themselves from the parent mass, and sailed out to meet her, +crashing on one another, while it seemed to the men who watched him +that Wyllard tried how closely he could shave them before he ran the +schooner off with a vicious drag at the wheel. None of them, however, +cared to say a word to him. + +They brought her round when she had stretched out on the one tack a +couple of miles, and standing in again close-hauled found the ice +thicker than ever. Then she came round once more, and until the early +dusk fell Wyllard stood at the jarring helm or high up in the forward +shrouds. Then he called Dampier aside. + +"We can't work along the edge in the dark?" he said. + +"Well," said Dampier drily, "it wouldn't be wise. We could stand on as +she's lying until half through the night, and then come round and pick +up the ice again a little before sun-up." + +Wyllard made a sign of acquiescence. "Then," he said, "don't call me +until you're in sight of it. A day of this kind takes it out of one." + +He moved aft heavily towards the deck-house, and Dampier watched him +with a smile of comprehension, for he was a man who had also in his +time made many fruitless efforts, and quietly faced defeat. After all, +it is possible that when the final reckoning comes some failures will +count. + +For several hours the _Selache_ stretched out close-hauled into what +they supposed to be open water, and they certainly saw no ice. Then +they hove her to, and when the wind fell light brought her round and +crept back slowly upon the opposite tack. Wyllard had gone to sleep in +the meanwhile, and daylight was just breaking when he next went out on +deck. There was scarcely an air of wind, and the heavy calm seemed +portentous and unnatural. The schooner lay lurching on a sluggish +swell, with the frost wool thick on her rigging, and a belt of haze +ahead of her. On the edge of it, the ice glimmered in the growing +light, but in one or two places stretches of blue-grey water seemed to +penetrate it, and Dampier, who strode aft when he saw Wyllard, said he +fancied there must be an opening somewhere. + +"By the thickness of it, that ice has formed some time, and as we've +seen nothing but a skin it must have come from further north," he +added. "It gathered up under a point or in a bay most likely, until a +shift of wind broke it out, and the stream or breeze set it down this +way. That seems to indicate that there can't be a great deal of it, +but a few days' calm and frost would freeze it solid." + +"Well?" said Wyllard impatiently. + +"It lies between us and the inlet, and it's quite clear that we can't +stay where we are. Once we got nipped, there'd probably be an end of +her. We have got to get into that inlet at once or make for the other +further south." + +Wyllard smiled. "It all leads back to the same point. We must get +through the ice. The one question is--how's it to be done?" + +"With a working breeze I'd stand into the biggest opening, but as +there's none we'll wait until it clears a little, and then send a boat +in. The sun may bring the wind." + +They made breakfast in the meanwhile, but the wind did not come, and it +was some hours later when a pale coppery disc became visible and the +haze grew thinner. Then they swung a boat out hastily, for it would +not be very long before the light died away again, and two white men +and an Indian dropped into her. They pulled across half a mile of +sluggishly heaving water, crept up an opening, and presently vanished +among the ice. Soon afterwards the low sun went out, and wisps of +ragged cloud crept up from the westwards, while smears of vapour +blurred the horizon, and the swell grew steeper. There was no wind at +all, but blocks and canvas banged and thrashed furiously at every roll, +until they lowered the mainsail and lashed its heavy boom to the big +iron crutch astern. The boat remained invisible, but its crew had been +given instructions to push on as far as possible if they found clear +water, and Dampier, who did not seem uneasy about her, paced up and +down the deck while the afternoon wore away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +DEFEAT. + +A grey dimness was creeping in upon the schooner when a little bitter +breeze sprang up from westwards, and Dampier bade them get the mainsail +on to her. + +"I don't like the look of the weather, and I'm beginning to feel that +I'd like to see that boat," he said. "Anyhow, we'll get way on her." + +It was a relief to hoist the mainsail. The work put a little warmth +into them, and the white men, at least, had been conscious of a growing +uneasiness about their comrades in the boat. The breeze had, however, +freshened before they set it, and there were white caps on the water +when the _Selache_ headed for the ice. It had somewhat changed its +formation when they approached it, for big masses had become detached +from it and were moving out into the open water, while the opening had +become perceptibly narrower. The light was now fading rapidly, and +Wyllard took the wheel when Dampier sent the man there forward. + +"Get the cover off the second boat, and see everything clear for +hoisting out," he said to him, and then called to Wyllard. "We're +close enough. You'd better heave her round." + +She came round with a thrashing of canvas, stretched out seawards, and +came back again with her deck sharply slanted and little puffs of +bitter spray blowing over her weather rail, for there was no doubt that +the breeze was freshening fast. Then Dampier sent a man up into the +foremast shrouds, and looked at Wyllard afterwards. + +"I'd heave a couple of reefs down if I wasn't so anxious about that +blamed boat," he said. "As it is, I want to be ready to pick her up +just as soon as we see her, and it's quite likely she'd turn up when +we'd got way off the schooner, and the peak eased down." + +Wyllard fancied that he was right as he glanced over the rail at the +dimness that was creeping in on them. It was blowing almost fresh now, +and the _Selache_ was driving very fast through the swell, which +commenced to froth here and there. It is, as he knew from experience, +always hard work, and often impossible, to pull a boat to windward in +any weight of breeze, which rendered it advisable to keep the schooner +under way. If the boat drove by them while they were reefing it might +be difficult to pick her up afterwards in the dark. He was now +distinctly anxious about her. At length, just as the light was dying +out, the man in the shrouds sent down a cry. + +"I see them, sir," he said. + +Dampier turned to Wyllard with a gesture of relief. "That's a weight +off my mind. I wish we had a reef in, but"--and he glanced up at the +canvas--"she'll have to stand it. Anyway, I'll leave you there. We +want to get that second boat lashed down again." + +This, as Wyllard recognised, was necessary, though he would sooner have +had somebody by him, and the rest of them ready to let the mainsheet +run, for he was a little to windward of the opening, and surmised that +he would have to run the schooner down upon the boat. It was a few +moments later when he saw her emerge from among the ice, and the men in +her appeared to be pulling strenuously. They were, perhaps, half a +mile off, and the schooner was sailing very fast and heading for the +ice. Then he lost sight of her again, for a thin shower of whirling +snow suddenly obscured the light. Dampier called to him. + +"You'll have to run her off," he said. "Boys, slack out your sheets." + +There was a clatter of blocks, and when Wyllard pulled his helm up it +taxed all his strength. The _Selache_ swung round, and he gasped with +the effort to control her as she drove away furiously into the +thickening snow. She was carrying far too much canvas, but they could +not heave her to and take it off her now. The boat must be picked up +first, and the veins rose swollen to Wyllard's forehead as he struggled +with the wheel. There is always a certain possibility of bringing a +fore-and-aft rigged vessel's mainboom over when she is running hard, +and this is rather apt to result in disaster to her spars. So fast was +she travelling that the sea piled up in a big white wave beneath her +quarter, and, cold as it was, the sweat of tense effort dripped from +Wyllard as he forecasted what he had to do. First of all, he must hold +her straight before the wind without letting her fall off to leeward, +which would bring the booms crashing over; then he must run past the +boat, which he could no longer see, and round the schooner up with +fore-staysail aback to leeward of her, to wait until she drove down on +them. + +This would not have been difficult in a moderate breeze, but the wind +was freshening furiously and the schooner was horribly pressed with +sail. He thought of calling the others to lower the mainsail peak, but +with the weight of wind there was in the canvas he was not sure that +they could haul the gaff down. Besides, they were busy securing the +boat, which must be made fast again before they hove the other in, and +it was almost dark now. In view of what had happened in the same +waters one night four years ago, the desire to pick the boat up while +there was a little light left became an obsession. + +In the meanwhile, the swell was rapidly whitening and getting steeper. +The _Selache_ hove herself out of it forward as she swung up with +streaming bows. It almost seemed to Wyllard that he must overrun the +boat before he noticed her, but at length he saw Dampier swing himself +on to the rail. He stood there clutching at a shroud, and presently +turned towards Wyllard, swinging up an arm. + +"Right ahead!" he shouted. "Let her come up a few points before you +run over them." + +Wyllard put his helm down a spoke or two, which was easy, and then as +the bows swung high again there was a harsh cry from the man who stood +above Dampier in the shrouds. + +"Ice!" he roared. "Big pack of it right under your weather bow." + +Dampier shouted something, but Wyllard did not hear what he said. He +was only conscious that he had to decide what he must do in the next +few seconds. If he let the _Selache_ come up to avoid the boat, there +was the ice ahead, and at the speed she was travelling it would +infallibly crush her bows in, while if he held her straight there was +the boat close in front of her. To swing her clear of both by going to +leeward he must bring the mainsail and boom-foresail over with a +tremendous shock, but that seemed preferable, and with his heart in his +mouth he pulled his helm up. + +He fancied he cried out in warning, but was never sure of it, though +three men came running to seize the mainsheet. The schooner fell off a +little, swinging until the boom-foresail came over with a thunderous +bang and crash. She rolled down, heaving a wide strip of wet planking +out of the sea, and now for a moment or two there were great breadths +of canvas swung out on either hand. Then the ponderous mainboom went +up high above his head, and he saw three shadowy figures dragged aft as +they tried in vain to steady it. The big mainsail was bunched up, a +vast, portentous shape above him, and then he set his lips, and pulled +up the helm another spoke as it swung. He never quite knew what +happened after that. There was a horrible crash, and the schooner +appeared to be rolling over bodily. The spokes he clung to desperately +reft themselves from his grasp, the deck slanted until one could not +stand upon it, and something heavy struck him on the head. He dropped, +and Dampier flung himself upon the wheel above his senseless body. + +Then there was mad confusion, and a frantic banging of canvas as the +schooner came up beam to the wind, with her rent mainsail flogging +itself to tatters. Its ponderous boom was broken, and the +mainmast-head had gone, but it was not the first time the sealermen had +grappled with somewhat similar difficulties, and Dampier kept his head. +He had the boat to think of, and she was somewhere to windward, hidden +in the sudden darkness and the turmoil of the quickly rising sea, but +in the meanwhile the schooner counted most of all. His crew could +scarcely hear him through the uproar the thundering canvas made, and +the screaming of the wind, but the orders were given, and from habit +and the custom of their calling they knew what they must be. + +They hauled a jib down, backed the fore-staysail, and got the +boom-foresail sheeted in, but they let the rent mainsail bang, for it +could do no more damage than it had already done. Then a man sprang up +on the rail with a blue light in his hand, and as the weird radiance +flared in a long streak to leeward a cry rose from the water. In +another few moments a blurred object, half hidden in flying spray, +drove down upon the schooner furiously on the top of a sea, and then +there was sudden darkness as the man flung down the flare. + +Another harsh and half-heard cry rose out of the obscurity. An +indistinguishable object plunged past the schooner's stern, there was a +crash to leeward as she rolled, and a man standing up in the boat +clutched her rail. He was swung out of it as she rolled back again, +but he crawled on to the rail with a rope in one hand, and after +jamming it fast round something sprang down with the hooks of the +lifting tackles which one of the rest had given him. Then, while two +more men scrambled up, there was a clatter of blocks, but a shattered +sea struck the boat as they hove her dear, and when she swung in the +brine poured out through the rents in her. Dampier waved an arm as +they dropped her on the deck, and they heard him faintly. + +"Boys," he said, "you have got to cut that mainsail down." + +They did it somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, buffeted and now and +then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas, floundering below amidst a +raffle of fallen gear, while the bitter spray lashed them, and the +broken boom held up by the clew ring banged savagely to and fro. After +that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a +curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung +off before the sea. Then somebody lighted a lantern, and Charly +stooped over Wyllard, who lay limp and still beside the wheel. His +face showed grey in the feeble light, save where a broad red stain had +spread across it. Dampier cast a glance at him. + +"Get him below, and into his bunk, two of you," he said. + +They did it with difficulty, for the _Selache_ lurched viciously each +time a white-topped sea came up upon her quarter, and as soon as it +seemed advisable to leave the deck Dampier went down. Wyllard lay in +his bunk, with his eyes half-open, but there was no expression in them, +and his face was almost colourless except for the broad smear of blood. +It was oozing fast from a laceration in his scalp, but Dampier, who +noticed his chilliness, did not in the meanwhile trouble about that. +He stripped off the senseless man's long boots, and unshipping a hot +fender iron from the stove laid it against his feet. Afterwards he +contrived to get some whisky down his throat, and then set to work to +wash the scalp wound, dropping into the water a little of the +permanganate of potash, which is freely used at sea. When that was +done he applied a rag dipped in the same fluid, and seeing no result of +his efforts went back on deck. He was anxious about his patient, but +not unduly so, for he had discovered long ago that men of his +description are apt to recover from more serious injuries. By and bye, +he said, Wyllard's brain, which had evidently been rudely jarred by the +shock, would resume its functions. + +It was blowing very hard when he stood near the wheel. A steep sea was +already tumbling after the schooner, but she was, at least, heading out +from where they supposed the ice to be, and he let her go, keeping her +away before it, and heading a little south of east. When morning came +the sea was very high, and the faint light further dimmed by snow, but +it seemed to him just safe, and no more, to run, and they held on while +the big combers came up astern and forged by, ridged with foam, high +above her rail. + +She was travelling very fast, to the eastwards, under boom-foresail and +one little jib, with her mainmast broken short off where the bolts of +the halliard blocks had traversed it, and Dampier realised that because +of that every knot she made then could not by any means be recovered +that season. He wondered, with a little uneasiness, what Wyllard would +say when he came to himself again. In the meanwhile he said nothing, +but lay like a log in his bunk, only that there was now a little warmth +in him. + +Next day the breeze moderated somewhat, and they let her come up a +little, heading further south; while on the morning after that Wyllard +showed signs of returning consciousness. Dampier, however, kept away +from him, partly to allow his senses to readjust themselves, and partly +because he rather shrank from the coming interview. At length, when +dusk was falling, Charly came up to say that Wyllard, who seemed quite +sensible, insisted on seeing him, and Dampier went down with some +misgivings into the little cabin. The lamp was lighted, and when he +sat down Wyllard, who raised himself feebly on his pillow, turned a +pallid face to him. + +"Charly tells me you picked the boat up," he said. + +"We did," said Dampier. "She had three or four planks on one side +ripped out of her." + +Wyllard's faint grimace implied that this did not matter, and Dampier +braced himself for the question he dreaded. He had to face it in +another moment. + +"How's she heading?" + +"A little south of east." + +Wyllard's face hardened. It was still blowing moderately fresh, and by +the heave of the vessel and the wash of water outside he could guess +how fast she was travelling. Except for the latter sound, however, +there was for a moment or two an almost oppressive silence in the +little cabin. Then Wyllard spoke again. + +"You have been running to the eastwards since I was struck down?" he +said. + +Dampier nodded. "Three days," he said. "Just now the breeze is on her +quarter." + +He winced under Wyllard's gaze, and spread his hands out deprecatingly. + +"Now," he added, "what else was there I could do? She wrung her +masthead off when you jibed her and there's not stick enough left to +set any canvas that would shove her to windward, I might have hove her +to, but the first time the breeze hauled easterly she'd have gone up on +the beach or among the ice with us. I had to run!" + +Wyllard closed a feeble hand. "Dunton was crippled, too. It's almost +incredible." + +"In one way, it looks like that, but, after all, a jibe's quite a +common thing with a fore-and-after. If you run her off to lee when +she's going before it her mainboom's bound to come over. Of course, +nobody would run her off in a wicked breeze unless he had to, but you'd +no choice with the ice in front of you." + +Wyllard lay very still for almost a minute. It was clear to him that +his project must be abandoned for that season, which meant that at +least six months must elapse before he could even approach the +Kamtchatkan coast again. + +"Well," he said at length, "what do you mean to do?" + +"If the breeze holds we could pick up one of the Aleutians in a few +days, but I'm keeping south of them. There'll probably be ugly ice +along the beaches, and I've no fancy for being cast ashore by a strong +tide when the fog lies on the land. With westerly winds I'd sooner +hold on for Alaska. We could lie snug in an inlet there, and, it's +quite likely, get a cedar that would make a spar. I can't head right +away for Vancouver with no mainsail." + +This was clear to Wyllard, who made a feeble gesture. "If the wind +comes easterly?" + +Dampier pursed his face up. "Then unless I could fetch one of the +Kuriles we'd sure be jammed. She won't beat to windward, and there'd +be all Kamtchatka to lee of us. The ice is packing up along the north +of it now, and the Russians have two or three settlements to the south. +We don't want to run in and tell them what we're after." + +A faint smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "No," he said, "not after +that little affair on the beach. Since it's very probable that the +vessel they send up to the seal islands would deliver stores along the +coast, the folks in authority would have a record of it. They'd call +the thing piracy--and, in a sense, they'd be justified." + +He said nothing more for a little, and then looked up again wearily. + +"I wonder," he said, "how that boat's crew ever got across to +Kamtchatka. It was north of the islands where the man brought Dunton +the message." + +Dampier understood that he desired to change the subject, for this was +a question they had often discussed already. + +"Well," he said, "I still hold by my first notion. They were blown +ashore on the beach we'd just left, and made prisoners. Then a supply +schooner or perhaps a steamer came along, and they sent them off in her +to be handed over to the authorities. The vessel put in somewhere. +We'll say she was lying in an inlet with a boat astern, and somehow +they cut that boat loose in the dark, and got away in her." + +He broke off for a moment, and then looked at his companion +significantly. + +"You can find quite a few points where that idea seems to fail," he +added. "They were in Kamtchatka, but I'm beginning to feel that we +shall never know any more than that." + +Wyllard made a little weary gesture of concurrence, but before he +closed them Dampier saw no sign that he meant to abandon his project in +his eyes. In another few minutes he seemed to sink into sleep, and +Dampier, who went up on deck, paced to and fro awhile before he stopped +by the wheel and turned to the helmsman. + +"You can let her come up a couple of points. We may as well make a +little southing while we can," he said. + +Charly, who was steering, looked up with suggestive eagerness. "Then +he's not going for the Aleutians?" + +"No," said Dampier drily. "I was kind of afraid of that, but I choked +him off. Anyway, this year won't see us back in Vancouver." He +paused, with a little jarring laugh. "We're going to stay up here +until we find out where those men left their bones. The man who has +this thing in hand isn't the kind that lets up." + +Charly made no answer, but his face hardened as he put his helm down a +spoke or two. + +Next day the wind fell lighter, but for a week it still held westerly, +and after that it blew moderately fresh from the south. Crippled as +she was, the _Selache_ would lie a point or two south of east when they +had set an old cut down fore-staysail on what was left of her mainmast, +and the hearts of her crew grew a little lighter as she crawled on +across the Pacific. They had no wish to be blown back to the frozen +North. The days were, however, growing shorter rapidly, and the sun +hung low in the southern sky when at length she crept into one of the +many inlets that indent the coast of Southern Alaska. There was just +wind enough to carry her in round a long, foam-lapped point, and soon +afterwards they let the anchor go in four fathoms in a sheltered arm, +with a river mouth not far away. There was no sign of life anywhere +about it, and the ragged cedars that crept close down to the beach +stood out in sombre spires against the gleaming snow. + +The cold was not particularly severe when she crept in, but when +Dampier went ashore next morning to pick a log that they could hew a +mast out of the temperature suddenly fell, and that night the drift ice +from the river mouth closed in on them. When the late daylight broke +she was frozen fast, and they knew it would be several months before +she moved again. It was then before the gold rush, and in winter +Alaska was practically cut off from all communication with the south. +No man would have attempted to traverse the tremendous snow-wrapped +desolation of almost impassable hills and trackless forests that lay +between them and the nearest of the commercial factories on the north, +or the canneries on the other hand. Besides, the canneries were shut +up in winter time. They were prisoners, and could only wait with what +patience they could muster until the thaw set them free again. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +A DELICATE ERRAND. + +There was sharp frost outside, and the prairie was white with a thin +sprinkle of snow, when a little party sat down to supper in the +Hastings homestead one Saturday evening. Hastings sat at the head of +the table, his wife at the foot with her little daughters, Agatha, +Sproatly, and Winifred between them. The latter two had just driven +over from the railroad settlement, as they did now and then, which +explained why the meal, which is usually served early in the evening, +had been delayed an hour or so. The two hired men, whom Mrs. Hastings +had not kept waiting, had gone out to some task in the barn or stables. + +By and bye Sproatly took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and laid +them on the table. There had been a remarkable change in his +appearance of late, for he now wore store clothes, and the skin coat he +had taken off when he came in was, as his hostess had noticed, a new +one. It occurred to her that there was a certain significance in this, +though Sproatly had changed his occupation some little time ago, and +now drove about the prairie on behalf of certain makers of agricultural +implements. + +"I called for your mail and Gregory's before we left," he said. "I had +to go round to see him, which is partly what made us so late, though +Winifred couldn't get away as soon as she expected. They've floods of +wheat coming in to the elevators, and I understand that the milling +people can't take another bushel in." + +Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha, who understood what she meant, for +Sproatly had hitherto spoken of Winifred circumspectly as Miss +Rawlinson. Hastings, however, took the papers which Agatha handed him, +and laid them aside. + +"We'll let them wait until supper's over. I don't expect any news +that's particularly good," he said. "The bottom's apparently dropping +out of the wheat market." + +"Hamilton can't get cars enough, and we'll have to shut down in another +day or two unless they turn up," said Winifred. "It's much the same +all along the line. The Winnipeg traffic people wired us they haven't +an empty car in the yards. Why do you rush the grain in that way? +It's bound to break the market." + +Hastings smiled rather drily. "Well," he said, "a good many of us have +bills to meet. For another thing, they've had a heavy crop in +Manitoba, Dakota, and Minnesota, and I suppose some folks have an idea +they'll get in first before the other people swamp the Eastern markets. +I think they're foolish. It's a temporary scare. Prices will stiffen +by and bye." + +"That's what Hamilton says, but I suppose the thing is natural. Men +are very like sheep, aren't they?" + +Hastings laughed. "Well," he admitted, "we are, in some respects. +When prices break a little we generally rush to sell. One or two of my +neighbours are, however, holding on, and it's hardly likely that very +much of my wheat will be flung on to a falling market." + +"We have been getting a good deal from the Range." + +There was displeasure in Hastings's face. "Gregory's selling largely +on Harry's account?" + +"They've been hauling wheat in to us for the last few weeks," said +Winifred. + +Hastings, as Agatha noticed, glanced at his wife significantly, but she +interposed and forbade any further conversation of the kind until +supper was over, while when the table had been cleared Hastings opened +his papers. The rest sat expectantly silent, while he turned them over +one after another. + +"No," he said, "there's no news of Harry, and I'm afraid it's scarcely +possible that we'll hear anything of him this winter." + +Agatha was conscious that Mrs. Hastings's eyes were upon her, and she +sat very still, though her heart was beating a little faster than +usual. Hastings, however, went on again. + +"The _Colonist_ has a line or two about a barque from Alaska, which put +into Victoria short of stores," he said. "She was sent up to an A.C.C. +factory, and had to clear out before she was ready. The ice, it seems, +was closing in unusually early. A steam whaler at Portland reports the +same thing, and from the news brought by a steamer from Japan all +communication with North-Eastern Asia is already cut off." + +None of the others said anything for a moment or two, and Agatha, +leaning back in her chair, glanced round the room. There was not much +furniture in it, but, though this was unusual on the prairie, door and +double casements were guarded by heavy hangings. The big brass lamp +overhead shed down a cheerful light, the birch billets in the stove +snapped and crackled noisily, and its pipe, which was far too hot to +touch, diffused a drowsy heat. One could lounge beside it contentedly, +knowing that the stinging frost was drying the snow to dusty powder +outside. That heightened the contrast, for Agatha pictured the little +schooner bound fast in the Northern ice, and then two or three +travel-worn men crouching in a tiny tent buffeted by an Arctic gale. +She could see the poles bend, and the tricings strain. + +After that, with a sudden transition, her thoughts went back to the +early morning when Wyllard had driven away, and every detail of the +scene rose up clearly in her mind. She saw him and the stolid Dampier +sitting in the waggon, with nothing in their manner to suggest that +they were setting out upon a very perilous venture, and she felt his +hand close tight upon her fingers, as it had done just before the +waggon jolted away from the homestead. She could once more see it +growing smaller and smaller on the white prairie, until it dipped +behind the crest of a low rise, and the sinking beat of hoofs died +away. Then, at least, she had realised that he had started on the +first stage of a journey which might lead him through the ice-bound +gates of the North to the rest that awaits the souls of the sailormen. +She could not, however, imagine him shrinking. Gripping helm, or +hauling in the sled traces, he would gaze with quiet eyes steadfastly +ahead, even if they saw only the passage from this world to the next. +Once more, as it had done that morning, a curious thrill ran through +her, and there was pride as well as regret in it. Then she became +conscious that Hastings was speaking. + +"What took you round by the Range, Jim?" he asked. + +"Collecting," said Sproatly. "I sold Gregory a couple of binders +earlier in the season, but, as it happened, I couldn't get a dollar out +of him." He laughed. "Of course, if it had been anybody else I'd have +stayed until he handed over, but I couldn't press Gregory too hard +after quartering myself upon him as I did last winter, though I'm +rather afraid my employers wouldn't appreciate that kind of delicacy." + +Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Gregory should have been able to +pay. He thrashed out a moderately good crop." + +"About two-thirds of what it should have been, and I've reason for +believing that he has been putting up a mortgage. Interest's heavy. +There's another matter. I wonder if you've heard that he's getting rid +of two of Harry's hands? I mean Pat and Tom Moran." + +"You're sure of that?" Hastings asked somewhat sharply. + +"Tom told me." + +Mrs. Hastings leaned forward suddenly in her chair. "Then," she said, +"I'm going to drive across on Monday, and have a few words with +Gregory. Did Moran tell you that Harry had decided to keep the two of +them on throughout the year?" + +"He wasn't very explicit, but he seemed to feel he had a grievance +against Gregory. Of course, in a way, you can't blame Gregory. He's +in charge, and it isn't in him to carry out Harry's policy. This fall +in wheat is getting on his nerves, and in any case he'd probably have +held his hand and cut down the crop next year." + +"I do blame him," and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "You will +understand that in a general way there's not much that can be done when +the snow's upon the ground, and as one result of it the hired man +prefers to engage himself for the year. To secure himself from being +turned adrift when harvest's over he will frequently make a concession +in wages. Now I know Harry intended to keep those two men on, and Tom +Moran, who has a little half-cleared ranch back somewhere in the bush +of Ontario, came out here tempted by higher wages. I understand he had +to raise a few dollars or give the place up, and he left his wife +behind. A good many of the little men can't live upon their holdings +all the while. Well, I'm going over on Monday to tell Gregory he has +got to keep them, and you're coming with me." + +Agatha said nothing. In the first place, she knew that if Mrs. +Hastings had made her mind up she would gain nothing by objecting, and +in addition to this she was conscious of a certain desire to go. It +appeared in some respects an unreasonable wish, but she felt deep down +in her that if Wyllard had let the men understand that he would not +dismiss them the promise, implied or explicit, must be redeemed. He +would not have attempted to release himself from it--she was sure of +that--and it appeared intolerable to her that another should be +permitted to do anything that would unfavourably reflect on him. Then, +somewhat to her relief, Hastings started another topic. + +"You have sold quite a few binders and harrows one way or another, +haven't you, Jim?" he said. + +Sproatly laughed. "I have," he said. "As I told the Company's Western +representative some time ago, a man who could sell patent medicine to +the folks round here could do a good trade in anything. He admitted +that my contention sounded reasonable, but I didn't wear store clothes +then, and he seemed very far from sure of me. Anyway, he gave me a +show, and now I've got two or three quite complimentary letters from +the Company. They've added a few dollars to my salary, and hint that +it's possible they may put me in charge of an implement store." + +"And you're satisfied?" + +"Well," said Sproatly, with an air of reflection, "in some respects, I +suppose I am. In others, the thing's galling. You have to report who +you've called upon, and, if you couldn't do business, why they bought +somebody else's machines. If you can't get a farmer to take you in you +have to put up at a hotel. There's no more camping in a birch bluff +under your waggon. Besides, you have to wear store clothes." + +Hastings glanced at Winifred, and Agatha fancied she understood what +was in his mind. + +"Some folks would sooner sleep in a hotel," he said, with a twinkle in +his eyes. + +"Then," said Sproatly, decisively, "they don't know very much. They're +the kind of men who'd spend an hour every morning putting their clothes +on, and they haven't found out that there's no comfort in any garment +until you've had to sew two or three flour bag patches on to it. Then +think of the splendid freeness of the other thing. You make your +supper when you want, and just how you like it, when you put up in a +bluff, and no tea tastes as good as the kind you drink with the wood +smoke in it out of a blackened can. You can hear the little birch +leaves and the grasses whispering about you when you lie down at night, +and you drive on in the glorious freshness--just when it pleases +you--when morning comes. Now the Company have the whole route and +programme plotted out for me. They write me letters demanding most +indelicately why I haven't done this and that." + +Winifred looked at him sharply. "Civilisation," she said, "implies +responsibility. You can't live just how you like without it being +detrimental to the community." + +"Oh yes," said Sproatly with a rueful gesture, "it implies no end of +giving up. You have to fall into line, and that's why I kept outside +it just as long as I could. I don't like standing in a rank, and," he +glanced down at his clothing, "I've an inborn objection to wearing +uniform." + +Agatha laughed as she caught Hastings's eye. She fancied that Sproatly +would be sorry for his candour afterwards, but she understood what he +was feeling to some extent. It was a revolt against cramping customs +and conventionalities, and she partly sympathised with it, though she +knew that such revolts are dangerous. Even in the West, those who +cannot lead must march in column with the rank and file or bear the +consequences of their futile mutiny. It is a hard truth that no man +can live as he pleases. + +"Restraint," said Winifred, "is a wholesome thing, but it's one most of +the men I have met are singularly deficient in. That's why they can't +be left alone but must be driven, as they are, in companies. It's +their own fault if they now and then find it a little humiliating." + +There was a faint gleam in her eyes at which Sproatly apparently took +warning, for he said no more upon that subject, and they talked about +other matters until he took his departure an hour or two later. It was +next afternoon when he appeared again, and Mrs. Hastings smiled at +Agatha as he and Winifred drove away together. + +"Thirty miles is a long way to drive in the frost. I suppose you have +noticed that she calls him Jim?" she said. "Anyway, there's a good +deal of very genuine ability in that young man. He isn't altogether +wild." + +"His appearance rather suggested it when I first met him," said Agatha +with a laugh. "Was it a pose?" + +"No," said her companion reflectively. "I think one could call it a +reaction, and it's probable that some very worthy people in the Old +Country are to blame for it. Sproatly is not the only young man who +has suffered from having too many rules and conventions crammed down +his throat. In fact, they're rather plentiful." + +Agatha said nothing further, for the little girls appeared just then, +and it was not until the next afternoon that she and Mrs. Hastings were +alone together again. Then as they drove across the prairie wrapped in +the heavy waggon robes her companion spoke of the business they had in +hand. + +"Gregory must keep those men," she said. "There's no doubt that Harry +meant to do it, and it would be horribly unfair to turn them loose now +when there's absolutely nothing going on. Besides, Tom Moran is a man +I'm specially sorry for. As I told you, he left a young wife and a +very little child behind him when he came out here." + +"One would wonder why he did it," said Agatha. "He had to. There +seems to be a notion in the Old Country that we earn our dollars +easily, but it's very wrong. We'll take that man's case as an example. +He has a little, desolate holding up in the bush of Ontario, a hole +chopped out of the forest studded all over with sawn-off fir-stumps, +with a little, two-roomed log shack on it. In all probability there +isn't a settlement within two or three leagues of the spot. Now, as a +rule, a place of that kind won't produce enough to keep a man for +several years after he has partially cleared it, and unless he can earn +something in the meanwhile he must give it up. Moran, it seems, got +heavily into debt with the nearest storekeeper, and had to choose +between selling the place up or coming out here where wages are higher. +Well, you can probably imagine what it must be to the woman who stayed +behind in the desolate bush, seeing nobody for weeks together, though +I've no doubt that she'd bear it uncomplainingly believing that her +husband would come back with enough to clear the debt." + +Agatha could imagine it, and a certain indignation against Gregory +crept into her heart. She had once liked to think of him as pitiful +and chivalrous, and now, it seemed, he was quite willing that this +woman should make her sacrifice in vain. + +"But why have you taken the trouble to impress this on--me?" she asked. + +Her companion smiled. "I want you to plead that woman's cause. +Gregory may do what you ask him gracefully. That would be much the +nicest way out of it." + +"The nicest way?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings, with a trace of dryness, "there is another +one. Gregory is going to keep Tom Moran, anyway. Harry has one or two +friends in this neighbourhood who feel it more or less of an obligation +on them to maintain his credit." + +Agatha felt the blood rise to her face, but it was not her companion +she was angry with. It was an unpleasant thing to admit, but she +fancied that Gregory might yield to judicious pressure when he would +not be influenced by either compassion or a sense of equity. It also +flashed upon her that had Mrs. Hastings believed that she still +retained any tenderness for the man she would not have spoken as she +had done. The whole situation was horribly embarrassing, but there was +courage in her. + +"Well," she said simply, "I will speak to him." + +They said nothing more until they approached the Range, and as they +drove by the outbuildings Agatha glanced about her curiously. It +occurred to her that the homestead did not look quite the same as it +had done when Wyllard had been there. A waggon stood near the +strawpile without one wheel. A door of the barn hung awkwardly open in +a manner which suggested that it needed mending, and the snow had blown +inside the building. There was a gap in the side of one sod and pole +structure which should evidently have been repaired, and all this and +several other things she noticed jarred upon her. They suggested +slackness and indifference. Then she saw Mrs. Hastings purse her lips +up. + +"There is a change in the place already," she said. + +They got down in another minute or two, and when they entered the house +the grey-haired Swedish woman greeted them moodily. She seemed to +notice the glance Mrs. Hastings cast around her, and her manner became +deprecatory. + +"I can't keep things straight now. It is not the same," she said. + +Mrs. Hastings asked if Hawtrey was in, and hearing that he was turned +to Agatha. "Go along and talk to him. I've something to say to Mrs. +Nansen," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE PRIOR CLAIM. + +It was with confused feelings among which a sense of repugnance +predominated that Agatha walked towards Hawtrey's room. She was not +one of the women who take pleasure in pointing out another person's +duty, for while she had discovered that this task is apparently an easy +one to some people she was quite aware that a duty usually looks much +more burdensome when it is laid upon one's self. Indeed, she was +conscious just then that one might be shortly thrust upon her which she +would find it very hard to bear, and she became troubled with a certain +compunction as she remembered how she had of late persistently driven +all thought of it out of her mind. + +There was no doubt that she was still pledged to Gregory, and that she +had loved him once. Both facts must be admitted, and it seemed to her +that if he insisted she must marry him. Deep down in her there was an +innate sense of right and honesty, and she realised that the fact that +he was not the man she had once imagined him to be did not release her. +In the meanwhile, it was clear that if he was about to commit a cruel +and unjustifiable action she was the one person of all others whose +part it was to restrain him. + +The colour was a little plainer in her face than usual when she quietly +entered the room where he lay, pipe in hand, in a lounge chair, and, +for it seemed that he did not immediately notice her, his attitude of +languid ease irritated her. There were, as she had seen, several +things which should evidently have had some claim on his attention +outside. A litter of letters and papers lay upon a little table at his +side, but the fact that he could not reach them as he lay was +suggestive. Then he rose, and came forward with outstretched hand. + +[Illustration: "It seemed that he did not immediately notice her."] + +"I didn't hear you," he said. "This is a pleasure I scarcely +anticipated." + +Agatha sat down in the chair he drew out for her near the stove, and he +seemed to notice that she glanced at the papers on the table, for he +laughed. + +"Bills, and things of that kind. They've been worrying me for a week +or two," he said. Then he seized the litter, and bundling it together +flung it into an open drawer, which he shut with a snap. "Anyway, +that's the last of them for to-day. I'm awfully glad you drove over." + +Agatha smiled. The action was so characteristic of the man. She had +once found no fault with Gregory's careless habits, and his way of +thrusting a difficulty into the background and making light of it had +appealed to her. It had suggested his ability to straighten out the +trouble when it appeared advisable. Now, she said, she would not be +absurdly hypercritical, and he had, as it happened, given her the lead +that she desired. + +"I should have fancied that you would have had to give them more +attention as wheat is going down," she said. + +Hawtrey looked at her with an air of reproach. "It must be nearly +three weeks since I have seen you, and now you expect me to talk of +farming." He made a whimsically rueful gesture. "If you quite +realised the situation it would be about the last thing you would ask +me to do." + +Agatha was a little astonished to remember that three weeks had +actually elapsed since she had last met him, and they had only +exchanged a word or two then. He had certainly not obtruded himself +upon her, for which she was grateful. + +"Nobody is talking about anything except the fall in prices just now," +she persisted. "I suppose it affects you, too?" + +The man, who seemed to accept this as a rebuff, looked at her rather +curiously, and then laughed. + +"It must be admitted that it does. In fact, I've been acquiring +parsimonious habits and worrying myself about expenses lately. They +have to be kept down somehow, and that's a kind of thing I never took +kindly to." + +"You feel it a greater responsibility when you're managing somebody +else's affairs?" suggested Agatha, who was still waiting her +opportunity. + +"Well," said Hawtrey, in whom there was, after all, a certain honesty, +"that's not quite the only thing that has some weight with me. You +see, I'm not altogether disinterested. I get a certain percentage--on +the margin--after everything is paid, and I want it to be a big one. +Things are rather tight just now, and the wretched mortgage on my place +is crippling me." + +It had slipped out before he quite realised what he was saying, and he +saw the girl's look of astonishment and concern. She now realised what +Sproatly had meant. + +"You are in debt, Gregory? I thought you had, at least, kept clear of +that," she said. + +"So I did--for a while. In any case, if Wyllard stays away, and I can +run this place on the right lines, I shall, no doubt, get out of it +again." + +She was vexed that he had said this, for it was clear to her that if +Wyllard did not return until another crop was gathered in it would be +because he was held fast among the Northern ice in peril of his life. +Then another thought struck her. She had never quite understood why +Gregory had been willing to undertake the management of the Range, in +view of the probability of Wyllard having plainly told him what he had +said to her, but he had made that point clear by admitting that he had +been burdened with a load of debt, which suggested the question why he +had incurred the latter. The answer appeared in another moment or two, +as she remembered having heard Mrs. Hastings or somebody else say that +he had spent a good many dollars upon his house and furnishings for it. +It brought her a sudden sense of confusion, for as one result of that +expenditure he had been forced into doing what she fancied must have +been a very repugnant thing, and she had never even crossed his +threshold. + +"When did you borrow that money?" she asked sharply. + +There was no doubt that the man was embarrassed, and her heart softened +towards him for his hesitation. It was to further her comfort he had +laid that load upon himself, and he was clearly unwilling that she +should recognise it. That counted for a good deal in his favour. + +"Was it just before I came out?" she asked again. + +Hawtrey made a little sign of expostulation. "You really mustn't worry +me about these matters, Aggy. A good many of us are in the +storekeepers' or mortgage-jobbers' hands, and there's no doubt that if +I have another good year at the Range I shall clear off the debt." + +Agatha turned her face away from him for a moment or two. The thing +the man had done laid a heavy obligation on her, and she remembered +that she had only found fault with him. Even then, however, stirred as +she was, she was conscious that all the tenderness she had once felt +for him had gone. The duty, however, remained, and with a little +effort she turned to him again. + +"Oh!" she said, "I'm so sorry." + +Hawtrey smiled. "I really don't think I deserve a very great deal of +pity. As I have said, I'll probably come out all right next year if I +can only keep expenses down." + +Then Agatha remembered the task she had in hand. It was a very +inauspicious moment to set about it, but that could not be helped, and +even for the man's own sake she felt that she must win him over. + +"There is one way, Gregory, in which I don't think it ought to be +done," she said. "You took over Wyllard's obligations when you took +the farm, and I think you should keep the two Morans on." + +Hawtrey started. "Ah!" he said, "Mrs. Hastings has been setting you +on; I partly expected it." + +"She told me," Agatha admitted. "Unless you will look at the thing as +I do, I could almost wish she hadn't. The thought of that woman shut +up in the woods all winter only to find that what she must have to bear +has all been thrown away troubles me. Wyllard promised to keep those +men on, didn't he?" + +"There was no regular engagement so far as I can make out." + +"Still, Moran seems to have understood that he was to be kept on." + +"Yes," admitted Hawtrey, "he evidently does. If the market had gone +with us I'd have fallen in with his views. As it hasn't, every man's +wages count." + +Agatha was conscious of a little thrill of repugnance. Of late +Gregory's ideas had rather frequently jarred on hers. + +"Does that release you?" + +Hawtrey did not answer this. + +"I'll keep those men on if you want me to," he said. + +Agatha winced at this. She had discovered that she must not look for +too much from Gregory, but to realise that he had practically no sense +of moral obligation, and could only be influenced to do justice by the +expectation of obtaining her favour positively hurt her. + +"I want them kept on, but I don't want you to do it for that reason," +she said. "Can't you grasp the distinction, Gregory?" + +A trace of darker colour crept into Hawtrey's face, but while she was a +little astonished at this he looked at her steadily. He had not +thought much about her during the last month, but now the faint scorn +in her voice had stirred him. + +"Now," he said, "there are just three reasons, Aggy, why you should +have troubled yourself about this thing. You are, perhaps, a little +sorry for Moran's wife, but as you haven't even seen her that can +hardly count for much. The next is, that you don't care to see me +doing what you regard as a shabby thing; perhaps it is a shabby thing +in some respects, but I feel it's justifiable. Of course, if that's +your reason there's a sense in which, while not exactly +complimentary--it's consoling." + +He broke off, and looked at her with a question in his eyes, and it +cost Agatha an effort to meet them. She was not prudish or over +conscious of her own righteousness, but once or twice after the shock +of her disillusionment in regard to him had lessened she had dreamed of +the possibility of enduing him little by little with some of the +qualities she had once fancied he possessed, and, as she vaguely +thought of it, rehabilitating him. Now, however, the thing seemed +impossible, and, what was more, the desire to bring it about had gone. +Hateful as the situation was becoming, she was honest, and she could +not let him credit her with a motive that had not influenced her. + +In the meanwhile, her very coldness and aloofness stirred desire in the +man, and she shrank as she saw a spark of passion kindling in his eyes. +It was merely passion, she felt, for she recognised that there was a +strain of grossness in him. + +"No," she said, "that reason was not one which had any weight with me." + +Hawtrey's face hardened. "Then," he said grimly, "we'll get on to the +third. Wyllard's credit is a precious thing to you; sooner than +anything should cast a stain on it you would beg a favour from--me. +You have set him up on a pedestal, and it would hurt you if he came +down. Considering everything, it's a remarkably curious situation." + +Agatha grew a trifle pale. Gregory was horribly right, for she had no +doubt now that he had merely thrust upon her a somewhat distressing +truth. It was to save Wyllard's credit, and for that alone she had +undertaken this most unpalatable task. She did not answer, and Hawtrey +stood up. + +"Wyllard has his faults, but there's this in his favour--he keeps a +promise," he said. "One has a certain respect for a person who never +goes back upon his word. Well, because I really think he would like +it, I'll keep those men." + +He paused for a moment, as if to let her grasp the drift of this, and +then turned to her with something that startled her in his voice and +manner. "The question is--are you willing to emulate his example?" + +Agatha shrank from the glow in his eyes. "Oh!" she broke out, "you +cannot urge me now--after what you said." + +Hawtrey laughed harshly. "Well," he said, "I'll come for my answer +very shortly. It seems that you and Wyllard attach a good deal of +importance to a moral obligation--and I must remind you that the time +agreed upon is almost up." + +Agatha sat very still for perhaps half a minute, while a sense of +dismay crept over her. There was no doubt that Gregory's retort was +fully warranted. She had, as she admitted, insisted upon him carrying +out an obligation which would cost him something, not because she took +pleasure in seeing him do what was honourable, but to preserve the +credit of another man, and now it was with intense repugnance she +recognised that there was apparently no escaping from the one she had +incurred. The man's attitude was perfectly natural and logical. She +had promised to marry him, and he had saddled himself with a load of +debt on her account, but the slight pity and tenderness she had felt +for him a few minutes earlier had utterly gone. Indeed, she felt she +almost hated him. His face had grown hard and almost brutal, and there +was a look she shrank from in his eyes. + +Then she rose. + +"Do you wish to speak to Mrs. Hastings?" she asked. + +Hawtrey smiled rather grimly. "No," he said, "if she'll excuse me, I +don't think I do. If you tell her you have been successful, she'll +probably be quite content." + +Agatha went out without another word, and Hawtrey lighted his pipe and +stretched himself out in his chair, when he heard the waggon drive away +a few minutes later. He did not like Mrs. Hastings, and had a +suspicion that she had no great regard for him, but he was conscious of +a somewhat grim satisfaction. There was, though it seldom came to the +surface, a taint of crude brutality in his nature, and it was active +now. When Agatha had first come out the change in her had been a shock +to him, and it would not have cost him very much to let her go. Since +then, however, her coldness and half-perceived disdain had angered him, +and the interview which was just over had left him in an unpleasant +mood. Though this was, perhaps, the last thing he would have expected, +it had stirred him to desire. It was consoling to feel that he could +exact the fulfilment of her promise from the girl. His face grew +coarser as he assured himself of it, but he had, as it happened, never +realised the shiftiness and instability of his own character. It was +his misfortune that the impulses which swayed him one day had generally +changed the next. + +This became apparent when, having occasion to drive in to the elevators +on the railroad a week later, he called at a store to make one or two +purchases. The man who kept it laid a package on the counter. + +"I wonder if you'd take this along to Miss Creighton as a favour," he +said. "She wrote for the things, and Elliot was to take them out, but +I guess he forgot; anyway, he didn't call." + +Hawtrey told the clerk to put the package in his waggon. He had +scarcely seen Sally since his recovery, and he suddenly remembered +that, after all, he owed her a good deal, and that she was very pretty. +Besides, one could talk to Sally without feeling the restraint that +Agatha's manner usually laid on him. Then the storekeeper laid an open +box upon the counter. + +"I guess you're going to be married by and bye," he said. + +Hawtrey was thinking of Sally then, and the question irritated him. + +"I don't know that it concerns you, but in a general way it's +probable," he said. + +"Well," said the storekeeper good-humouredly, "a pair of these mittens +would make quite a nice present for a lady. Smartest thing of the kind +I've ever seen here; choicest Alaska fur." + +Hawtrey bought a pair, and the storekeeper took a fur cap out of +another box. + +"Now," he said, "this is just the thing she'd like to go with the +mittens. There's style about that cap; feel the gloss of it." + +Hawtrey bought the cap, and smiled as he swung himself up into his +waggon. Gloves are not much use in the prairie frost, and mittens, +which are not divided into finger-stalls, will within limits fit almost +anybody. This, he felt, was fortunate, for he was not quite sure that +he meant to give them to Agatha. + +It was bitterly cold, and the pace the team made was slow, for the snow +was loose and too thin for a sled of any kind, which, after all, is not +very generally used upon the prairie. As the result of this, night had +closed down and Hawtrey was frozen almost stiff when at last a birch +bluff rose out of the waste in front of him. It cut black against the +cold blueness of the sky and the spectral gleam of snow, but when he +had driven a little further a stream of ruddy orange light appeared in +the midst of it. A few minutes later he pulled his team up in front of +a little log-built house, and getting down with difficulty saw the door +open as he approached it. Sally stood in the entrance silhouetted +against a blaze of cheerful light. + +"Oh!" she said. "Gregory!" + +Hawtrey recognised the thrill in her voice, and took both her hands, as +he had once been in the habit of doing. + +"Will you let me in?" he asked. + +The girl laughed in a rather strained fashion. She had been a little +startled, and was not quite sure yet as to how she should receive him; +but in the meanwhile Hawtrey drew her in. + +"The old folks are out," she said. "They've gone over to Elliot's for +supper. He's bringing us a package." + +Hawtrey, who explained that he had got it, let her hands go, and sat +down somewhat limply. He had come suddenly out of the bitter frost +into the little, brightly-lighted, stove-warmed room. In another few +moments, however, the comfort and cheeriness of it appealed to him. + +"This looks very cosy after my desolate room at the Range," he said. + +"Then if you'll stay I'll make you supper. I suppose there's nothing +to take you home?" + +"No," said Hawtrey, with a significant glance at her, "there certainly +isn't, Sally. As a matter of fact, I often wish there was." + +He saw her sudden uncertainty, which was, however, not tinged with +embarrassment, and feeling that he had gone far enough in the meanwhile +he went out to put up his team. When he came back there was a cloth on +the table, and Sally was busy about the stove. He sat down and watched +her attentively. In some respects, he thought, she compared favourably +with Agatha. She had a nicely moulded figure, and a curious lithe +gracefulness of carriage which was suggestive of a strong vitality, +while Agatha's bearing was usually characterised by a certain rather +frigid repose. This and the latter's general manner had a somewhat +inciting effect on him when he was in her presence, but he now and then +remembered it afterwards with resentment. Then Sally's face was at +least as comely in a different way, and there was no reserve in it. +She was what he thought of as human, frankly flesh and blood. Her +quick smile was, as a rule, provocative, and never chilled one as +Agatha's quiet glances sometimes did. + +"Sally," he said, "you've grown prettier than ever." + +The girl turned partly round towards him with a slow, sinuous movement +that he found seductively graceful. + +"Now," she said, "you oughtn't to say those things to me." + +Hawtrey laughed; he was usually sure of his ground with Sally. + +"Why shouldn't I, when it's just what you are?" + +"For one thing, Miss Ismay wouldn't like it." + +The man's face hardened. "I'm not sure she'd mind. Anyway, Miss Ismay +doesn't like a good many things I'm in the habit of doing." + +Sally, who had watched him closely, turned away again, but a little +thrill of exultation ran through her. It had been with dismay she had +first heard him speak of his marriage, which was, perhaps, not +altogether astonishing, and she had fled home in an agony of anger and +humiliation. That state of mind had, however, not lasted long, and +when it became evident that the wedding was, at least, postponed +indefinitely, she commenced to wonder whether it was quite impossible +that Hawtrey should come back to her. She felt that he belonged to her +although he had never given her any very definite claim in him. She +was a trifle primitive and passionate, but she was determined, and now +he had done what she had almost expected him to do, she meant to keep +him. + +"You have fallen out?" she said, and contrived to keep the anxiety she +was conscious of out of her voice. + +The question, and more particularly the form of it, rather jarred upon +Hawtrey, but he answered it. + +"Oh no," he said. "As a matter of fact, Sally, you can't fall out +nicely with everybody. Now when we fell out you got delightfully +angry--I don't know if you were more delightful then or when you +graciously agreed to make it up again." He laughed. "I almost wish I +could make you a little angry now." + +Sally had moved a little nearer to take a kettle off the stove, and she +looked down on him with her eyes shining in the lamplight. She +realised that she would have to fight Miss Ismay for this man; but +there was this in her favour, that she appealed directly to one side of +his nature, as Agatha, even if she had loved him, would not have done. + +"Would you?" she said. "Dare you try?" + +"I might if I was tempted sufficiently." + +She leaned upon the table still looking at him mockingly, and she was +probably aware that her pose and expression were wholly provocative. +Indeed, she could not have failed to recognise the meaning of the +sudden tightening of his lips, though she did not in the least shrink +from it. She had not the faintest doubt of her ability to keep him at +a due distance if it appeared necessary. + +"Oh," she said, "you only say things." + +Hawtrey laughed, and stooping down picked up a package he had brought +from the store. + +"Well," he said, "after all, I think I'd rather try if I can please +you." He opened the package. "Are these things very much too big for +you, Sally?" + +[Illustration: "'Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?'"] + +The girl's eyes glistened at the sight of the mittens he held out. +They were very different from the kind she had hitherto been in the +habit of wearing, and when he carelessly took out the fur cap she broke +into a little cry of delight. In the meanwhile Hawtrey watched her +with a rather curious expression. He was not quite sure he had meant +Sally to have the things when he had purchased them, but he was quite +contented now. The one gift he had somewhat diffidently offered Agatha +since her arrival in Canada had been almost coldly laid aside. + +In another few minutes Sally laid out supper, and as she waited upon +him daintily or filled his cup Hawtrey thrust the misgivings he had +felt further behind him. Sally, he thought with a little dry smile, +could certainly cook. When the meal was over he sat talking about +nothing in particular for almost an hour, and then stood up. It +occurred to him that Sally's mother would be back before very long, and +she was a person he had no great liking for. + +"Well," he said, "I must be getting home. Won't you let me see you +with that cap on?" + +Sally, who betrayed no diffidence, put on the cap, and stood before a +little dingy mirror with both hands raised while she pressed it down +upon her gleaming hair. Then she flashed a smiling glance at him. It +was quite sufficient, and as she turned again Hawtrey slipped forward +as softly as he could. She swung round, however, with a flush in her +face and a forceful, restraining gesture. + +"Don't spoil it all, Gregory," she said sharply. + +Hawtrey, who saw that she meant it--which was a cause of some +astonishment to him--dropped his hand. + +"Oh," he said, "if you look at it in that way I'm sorry. Good-night, +Sally!" + +She let him go, but she smiled when he drove away; and half an hour +later she showed the cap and mittens to her mother with significant +candour. Mrs. Creighton, who was a severely practical person, nodded. + +"Well," she said, "he only wants a little managing if he bought you +these, and nobody could say you ran after him. I wouldn't, anyway; +some of them don't like it." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE FIRST STAKE. + +A fortnight had slipped by since the evening Hawtrey had spent with +Sally, when Winifred and Sproatly once more arrived at the Hastings +homestead. The girl was looking a trifle jaded, and it appeared that +the manager of the elevator, who had all along treated her with a good +deal of consideration, had insisted upon her going away for a few days +now the pressure of business which had followed the harvest had +slackened. Sproatly, as usual, had driven her in from the settlement. + +When the evening meal was over they drew their chairs close up about +the stove, and Hastings thrust fresh birch billets into it, for there +was a bitter frost. Mrs. Hastings installed Winifred in a canvas +lounge and wrapped a shawl about her. + +"You haven't got warm yet, and you're looking quite worn out," she +said. "I suppose Hamilton has still been keeping you at work until +late at night?" + +"We have been very busy since I was last here," Winifred admitted, and +then turned to Hastings. "Until the last week or so there has been no +slackening in the rush to sell. Everybody seems to have been throwing +wheat on to the market." + +Hastings looked thoughtful. "A good many of the smaller men have been +doing so, but I think they're foolish. They're only helping to break +down prices, and I shouldn't wonder if one or two of the big, +long-headed buyers saw their opportunity in the temporary panic. In +fact, if I'd a pile of dollars lying in the bank I'm not sure that I +wouldn't send along a buying order and operate for a rise." + +His wife shook her head at him. "No," she said; "you certainly +wouldn't while I had any say in the matter. You're rather a good +farmer, but I haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. +Some of our friends have tried it--and you know where it landed them. +I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice +fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear +him." + +Hastings laughed. "I should like to point out that most of the farmers +in this country are decidedly thin, and have uncommonly little wool on +them." Then he turned to the rest. "I feel inclined to tell you how +Mrs. Hastings made the expenses of her Paris trip; it's an example of +feminine consistency. She went round the neighbourhood and bought all +the wheat anybody had left on hand up, or, at least, she made me do it." + +His wife, who had, as it happened, means of her own, nodded. "That was +different," she said; "anyway, I had the wheat, and I--knew--it would +go up." + +"Then why shouldn't other folks sell forward, for instance, when they +know it will go down? That's not what I suggested doing, but the +point's the same." + +"They haven't got the wheat." + +"Of course; they wouldn't operate for a fall if they had. On the other +hand, if their anticipations proved correct, they could buy it for less +than they sold at before they had to deliver." + +"That," said Mrs. Hastings severely, "is pure gambling. It's sure to +land one in the hands of the mortgage jobber." + +Hastings smiled at the others. "As a matter of fact, it not +infrequently does, but I want you to note the subtle distinction. The +thing's quite legitimate if you've only got the wheat in a bag. In +such a case you must naturally operate for a rise." + +"There's a good deal to be said for that point of view," observed +Sproatly. "You can keep the wheat if you're not satisfied, but when +you try the other plan the margin that may vanish at any moment is the +danger. I suppose Gregory has still been selling the Range wheat, +Winifred?" + +"I believe we have sent on every bushel." + +Sproatly exchanged a significant glance with Hastings, whose face once +more grew thoughtful. + +"Then," said the latter drily, "if he's wise he'll stop at that." + +Mrs. Hastings changed the subject, and drew her chair closer in to the +stove, which snapped and crackled cheerfully. + +"It must be a good deal colder where Harry is," she said with a shiver. + +She flashed a swift glance at Agatha, and saw her expression change, +but Sproatly broke in again. + +"It was bad enough driving in from the railroad this afternoon," he +said. "Winifred was almost frozen, which is why I didn't go round by +Creighton's for the pattern mat--I think that's what he said it +was--Mrs. Creighton borrowed from you. I met him at the settlement a +day or two ago." + +Mrs. Hastings said that he could bring it another time, and while the +rest talked of something else Winifred turned to Agatha. + +"It really was horribly cold, and I almost fancied one of my hands was +frost-nipped," she said. "As it happens, I can't buy mittens like your +new ones." + +"My new ones?" said Agatha. + +"The ones Gregory bought you." + +Agatha laughed. "My dear, he never gave me any." + +Winifred pursed her face up. "Well," she persisted, "he certainly +bought them and a fur cap, too. I was in the store when he did it, +though I don't think he noticed me. They were lovely mittens--such a +pretty brown fur." + +Just then Mrs. Hastings, unobserved by either of them, looked up and +caught Sproatly's eye. His face became suddenly expressionless, and he +looked away. + +"When was that?" asked Agatha. + +"A fortnight ago, anyway." + +Agatha sat silent, and was rather glad when Mrs. Hastings asked +Winifred a question. She desired no gifts from Gregory, but since he +had bought the cap and mittens she wondered what he could have done +with them. It was rather disconcerting to feel that, while he +evidently meant to hold her to her promise, he must have given them to +somebody else. She had, as it happened, never heard of his +acquaintance with Sally Creighton, but it struck her as curious that +although the six months' delay he had granted her had lately expired, +he had neither sent her any word nor called at the homestead. + +A few minutes later Mrs. Hastings took up a basket of sewing she had +been engaged in, and moved towards the door. Sproatly, who rose as she +approached him, drew aside his chair, and she handed the basket to him. + +"You can carry it if you like," she said. + +Sproatly took the basket, and followed her into another room, where he +sat it down. + +"Well?" he said, with a twinkle in his eyes. + +Mrs. Hastings regarded him thoughtfully. "I wonder if you know what +Gregory did with those mittens?" + +"I'm rather pleased that I can assure that I don't." + +"Do you imagine that he kept them?" + +"I'm afraid I haven't an opinion on that point." + +"Still, if I said that I felt certain he had given them to somebody you +would have some idea as to who it would probably be?" + +"Well," said Sproatly reluctantly, "If you insist upon it, I must admit +that I could make a guess." + +Mrs. Hastings smiled in a manner which suggested comprehension. "So +could I," she said. "I shouldn't wonder if we both guessed right. Now +you may as well go back to the others." + +Sproatly, who made no answer, turned away, and he was talking to Agatha +when, half an hour later, a waggon drew up outside the door. In +another minute or two he leaned forward in amused expectation as Sally +walked into the room. + +"I'm going on to Lander's, and just called to bring back the mat you +lent us," she said to Mrs. Hastings. "Sproatly was to have come for +it, but he didn't." + +Sproatly, who said he was sorry, fixed his eyes on her. It was clear +to him that Agatha did not understand the situation, but he rather +fancied from her expression that Sally was filled with an almost +belligerent satisfaction. She was then wearing a very smart fur cap, +and she carried a pair of new fur mittens which she had just stripped +off in one hand. Sproatly, who glanced at them, noticed that Winifred +did the same. Then Mrs. Hastings spoke. + +"I don't think you have met Miss Ismay, Sally," she said. + +Sally merely said that she had not, and Sproatly became more sure that +the situation was an interesting one, when Mrs. Hastings formally +presented her. It was clear to him that Agatha was somewhat puzzled by +Sally's attitude. + +As a matter of fact, Agatha, who said that she must have had a cold +drive, was regarding the new arrival with a curiosity she had not +expected to feel when she first came in. Miss Creighton, she admitted, +was comely, though she was clearly somewhat primitive and crude. The +long skin coat she wore hid her figure, but her pose was too virile, +and there was a look which puzzled Agatha in her eyes. It was almost +openly hostile, and there was a suggestion of triumph in it. Agatha, +who could find no possible reason for this, resented it. + +In the meanwhile Sally remained standing, and, as she said nothing +further, there was a somewhat awkward silence. She was the dominant +figure in the room, and the others became sensible of a certain slight +constraint and embarrassment as she gazed at Agatha with unwavering +eyes. In fact, it was rather a relief to them when at length she +turned to Mrs. Hastings. + +"I can't stop. It wouldn't do to leave the team in this frost," she +said. + +This was so evident that they let her go, and Mrs. Hastings, who went +with her to the door, afterwards sat down beside Sproatly a little +apart from the rest. + +"I've no doubt you noticed those mittens," she said softly. + +"I did," Sproatly admitted. "I think you can rely upon my discretion. +If you hadn't wanted this assurance I don't suppose you'd have said +anything upon the subject. It, however, seems very probable that +Winifred noticed them, too." + +"Does that mean you're not sure that Winifred's discretion is equal to +your own?" + +Sproatly's eyes twinkled. "In this particular case the trouble is that +she's animated by a sincere attachment to Miss Ismay, and has, I +understand, a rather poor opinion of Gregory. Of course, I don't know +how far your views on that point coincide with hers." + +"Do you expect me to explain them to you?" + +"No," said Sproatly, "I'm only anxious to keep out of the thing. +Gregory, as it happens, is a friend of mine, and, after all, he has his +strong points. I should, however, like to mention that Winifred's +expression suggests that she's thinking of something." + +His companion smiled. "Then I must endeavour to have a word or two +with her." + +She left him with this, and not long afterwards she and Winifred went +out together, while when the others were retiring she detained Agatha +for a minute or two in the empty room. + +"Haven't the six months Gregory gave you run out yet?" she asked. + +Agatha said they had, but it was evident that she had attached no +particular significance to the fact that Sally had worn a new fur cap. + +"He hasn't been over to see you since." + +The girl, who admitted it, looked troubled, and Mrs. Hastings laid a +hand upon her shoulder. + +"My dear," she said, "if he does come you must put him off." + +"Why?" Agatha asked, in a low, strained voice. + +"For one thing, because we want to keep you," and Mrs. Hastings looked +at her with a very friendly smile. "Are you very anxious to make it up +with Gregory?" + +A little shiver ran through the girl. "Oh," she said, "I can't answer +you that. I must do what is right." + +Then, somewhat to her astonishment, her companion drew her a little +nearer, stooped and kissed her. + +"Most of us, I believe, have that wish, but the thing is often horribly +complex," she said. "Anyway, you must put Gregory off again if it's +only for another month or two. I fancy you will not find it remarkably +difficult." + +She turned away with that, but her manner had been so significant that +Agatha, who did not sleep very well that night, decided that if it was +possible she would act on her advice. + +In the meanwhile, it happened that a little very dapper gentleman who +was largely interested in the land-agency and general mortgage business +was spending the evening with Hawtrey in Wyllard's room at the Range. +He had driven round by Hawtrey's homestead earlier in the afternoon, +and had deduced a good deal from the state of it, though this was a +point he kept to himself. Now he lay in a lounge chair beside the +stove smoking one of Wyllard's cigars and unobtrusively watching his +companion. There was a roll of bills in his pocket which the latter +had very reluctantly parted with. + +"In view of the fall in wheat it must have been rather a pull for you +to pay me that interest," he said. + +"It certainly was," Hawtrey admitted with a somewhat rueful smile. +"I'm sorry it had to be done." + +"I don't quite see how you made it," persisted the other man. "What +you got for your wheat couldn't have done much more than cover working +expenses." + +Hawtrey laughed. He was quite aware that his companion's profession +was not one that was regarded with any great favour by the prairie +farmers, but he was never particularly cautious, and he rather liked +the man. + +"As a matter of fact, it didn't, Edmonds," he said. "You see, I +practically paid you out of what I get for running this place. The red +wheat Wyllard raises generally commands a cent or two a bushel more +from the big milling people than anything put on the market round here." + +Edmonds made a sign of agreement. He had without directly requesting +him to do so led Hawtrey into showing him round the Range that +afternoon, and having of necessity a practical knowledge of farming he +had been impressed by all that he had noticed. The farm, which was a +big one, had evidently been ably managed until a little while ago, and +he felt the strongest desire to get his hands on it. This, as he +admitted, would have been out of the question had Wyllard been at home, +but with Hawtrey, upon whom he had a certain hold, in charge, the thing +appeared by no means impossible. + +"Oh, yes," he said. "I suppose he was reasonably liberal over your +salary." + +"I don't get one. I take a share of the margin after everything is +paid." + +Edmonds carefully noted this. He was not sure that such an arrangement +would warrant one in regarding Hawtrey as Wyllard's partner, but he +meant to gather a little more information upon that point by and bye. + +"If wheat keeps on dropping there won't be any margin at all next year, +and that's what I'm inclined to figure on," he said. "There are, +however, ways a man with nerve could turn it to account." + +"You mean by selling wheat down." + +"Yes," said Edmonds, "that's just what I mean. Of course, there is a +certain hazard in the thing. You can never be quite sure how the +market will go, but the signs everywhere point to still cheaper wheat +next year." + +"That's your view?" + +Edmonds smiled, and took out of his pocket a little bundle of market +reports. + +"Other folks seem to share it in Winnipeg, Chicago, New York, and +Liverpool. You can't get behind these stock statistics, though, of +course, dead low prices are apt to cut the output." + +Hawtrey read the reports with evident interest, and, as it happened, +they were all in the same pessimistic strain, though he was not aware +that his companion had carefully selected them with a view to the +effect he fancied they would produce. Edmonds, who saw the interest in +his eyes, leaned towards him confidentially when he spoke again. + +"I don't mind admitting that I'm taking a hand in a big bear +operation," he said. "It's rather outside my usual business, but the +thing looks almost certain." + +Hawtrey glanced at him with a gleam in his eyes. There was no doubt +that the prospect of acquiring dollars by an easier method than toiling +in the rain and wind appealed to him. + +"If it's good enough for you it should be safe," he said. "The trouble +is that I've nothing to put in." + +"Then you're not empowered to lay out Wyllard's money. If that was the +case it shouldn't be difficult to pile up a bigger margin than you're +likely to do by farming." + +Hawtrey started, for the idea had already crept into his mind. + +"In a way, I am, but I'm not sure that I'm warranted in operating on +the market with it." + +"Have you the arrangement you made with him in writing?" + +Hawtrey opened a drawer, and Edmonds betrayed no sign of the +satisfaction he felt when he was handed a somewhat informally worded +document. He perused it carefully, and it seemed to him that it +constituted his companion a partner in the Range, which was +satisfactory. Then he looked up thoughtfully. + +"Now," he said, "while I naturally can't tell what Wyllard +contemplated, this paper certainly gives you power to do anything you +think advisable with his money. In any case, I understand that he +can't be back until well on in next year." + +"I shouldn't expect him until late in the summer, anyway." + +There was silence for a moment or two, and during it Hawtrey's face +grew a trifle hard. It was unpleasant to look forward to the time when +he would be required to relinquish the charge of the Range, and of late +he had been wondering how he could make the most of the situation in +the meanwhile. Then his companion spoke again. + +"It's almost certain that the operation I suggested can only result one +way, and it appears most unlikely that Wyllard would raise any trouble +if you handed him several thousand dollars over and above what you had +made by farming. I can't imagine a man objecting to that kind of +thing." + +Hawtrey sat still with indecision in his eyes for half a minute, and +Edmonds, who was too wise to say anything, leaned back in his chair. +Then Hawtrey turned to the drawer again with an air of sudden +resolution. + +"I'll give you a cheque for a couple of thousand dollars, which is as +far as I care to go just now," he said. + +He took a pen, and Edmonds watched him with quiet amusement as he +wrote. As a matter of fact, Hawtrey was in one respect, at least, +perfectly safe in entrusting the money to him. Edmonds had deprived a +good many prairie farmers of their possessions in his time, but he +never stooped to any crude trickery. He left that to the smaller fry. +Just then he was playing a deep and cleverly thought-out game. + +He pocketed the cheque Hawtrey gave him, and then discussed other +subjects for half an hour or so until he rose. + +"You might ask them to get my team out. I've some business at Lander's +and have ordered a room there," he said. "I'll send you a line when +there's any change in the market." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND + +Wheat was still being flung on to a lifeless market when Hawtrey walked +out of the mortgage jobber's place of business in the railroad +settlement one bitter afternoon. He had a big roll of paper money in +his pocket, and was feeling particularly pleased with himself, for +prices had steadily fallen since he had joined in the bear operation +Edmonds had suggested, and the result of it had proved eminently +satisfactory. This was why he had just given the latter a further +draft on Wyllard's bank, with instructions to sell wheat down on a +considerably more extensive scale. He meant to operate in earnest now, +which was exactly what the broker had anticipated, but in this case he +had decided to let Hawtrey operate alone. Indeed, being an astute and +far-seeing man he had gone so far as to hint that caution might be +advisable, though he had at the same time been careful to show Hawtrey +only those market reports which had a distinctly pessimistic tone. +Edmonds was rather disposed to agree with the men who looked forward to +a reaction before very long. + +Hawtrey glanced about him as he strode down the street. It was wholly +unpaved, and rutted deep, but the drifted snow had partly filled the +hollows up, and it did not look very much rougher than it would have +done if somebody had recently driven a plough through it. A rude plank +sidewalk ran along both sides of it, raised a foot or two above the +ground that foot-passengers might escape the mire of the thaw in +spring, and immediately behind the sidewalk squat, weatherbeaten, frame +houses, all of much the same pattern, rose abruptly. In some of them, +however, the fronts were carried up as high as the ridge of the +shingled roof, giving them an unpleasantly square appearance. Here and +there a dilapidated waggon stood with lowered pole before a store, but +it was a particularly bitter afternoon, and there was nobody in the +street. The place looked desolate and forlorn, with a leaden sky +hanging over it and an icy wind sweeping through the streets. + +Hawtrey, however, was used to that, and strode along briskly until he +reached the open space which divided the little wooden town from the +unfenced railroad track. It was strewn with fine dusty snow, and the +huge bulk of the grain elevators towered high above it against the +lowering sky. As it happened, a freight locomotive was just hauling a +long string of wheat cars out of a side-track amidst a discordant +tolling of its bell. It stopped presently, and though Hawtrey could +not see anything beyond the big cars he fancied by the shouts which +broke out that something unusual was going on. He was expecting Sally, +who was going East to Brandon by a train due in an hour or two. + +When the shouts grew a little louder he walked round in front of the +locomotive which stood still with the steam blowing noisily from a +valve, and as soon as he had done so he saw the cause of the commotion. +A pair of vicious, half-broken bronchos were backing a light waggon +away from the locomotive on the other side of the track, and a +fur-wrapped figure sat stiffly on the driving seat. Hawtrey called out +and ran suddenly forward as he saw that it was Sally. + +Just then one of the horses lifted its fore hoofs off the ground, and +being jerked back by the pole plunged and kicked furiously, until its +companion flung up its head and the waggon went backwards with a run. +Then they stopped, and there was a further series of resounding crashes +against the front of the vehicle. Hawtrey was within a pace or two of +it when Sally recognised him. + +"Keep off," she said, "you can't lead them. They don't want to cross +the track, but they've got to if I pull the jaws off them." + +This was more forcible than elegant, and the shrill harshness of the +girl's voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to +Sally's phraseology. He, however, recognised that she would not have +his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful, +and he reluctantly moved back towards the group of loungers who were +watching her. + +"I guess you've no call to worry about her," said one of them. "She's +holding them on the lowest notch, and it's a mighty powerful bit +fixing. Besides, that girl could drive anything that goes on four +legs." + +"Sure," said one of the others. "She's a daisy." + +Hawtrey was a little annoyed to notice that in place of being +embarrassed by it Sally evidently rather enjoyed the situation, though +several of the freight train and station hands had now joined the group +of loungers and were cheering her on. He had already satisfied himself +that she had not a trace of fear. In another moment or two, however, +he forgot his slight sense of disconcertion, for Sally, sitting tense +and strung up on the driving seat with a glow in her cheeks and a snap +in her eyes, was wholly admirable. There was lithe grace, virility, +and resolution in every line of her fur-wrapped figure. It is possible +that her appearance would have been less effective in a drawing room, +but in the waggon she was in her place and in harmony with her +surroundings. Lowering sky, gleaming snow, fur-clad men, and even the +big, dingy locomotive, all fitted curiously into the scene, and she +made an imposing central figure as she contended with the half-tamed +team. Hawtrey was conscious of a stirring of his physical nature as he +watched her. + +The struggle lasted for several minutes during which the horses plunged +and kicked again, until Sally stood boldly erect a moment while the +waggon rocked to and fro, a tall, straight figure with a tress of +loosened hair streaming out beneath her fur cap, as she swung the +stinging whip. Then it seemed that the team had had enough, for as she +dropped lightly back into the seat they broke into a gallop, and in +another moment the waggon, jolting horribly as it bounced across the +track, vanished behind the locomotive. Gregory heard a shout of +acclamation as he turned and hurried after it. + +Sally, however, drove right through the settlement and back outside it +before she could check the horses, and she had just pulled them up in +front of the wooden hotel when Hawtrey reached it. He stood beside the +waggon holding up his hand to her, and Sally, who laughed, dropped +bodily into his arms, which was, as he recognised, a thing that Agatha +certainly would not have done. He set her down upon the sidewalk, and +when a man came out to take the team they went into the hotel together. + +"It was the locomotive that did it," she explained. "They were most +too scared for anything, but I hate to be beaten by a team. Ours know +too much to try, but I got Haslem to drive me in. I dropped him at +Norton's, who'll bring him on." + +"He oughtn't to have left you with them," said Hawtrey severely. + +Sally laughed. "Well," she said, "I'd quit driving if I couldn't +handle any team you or Haslem could put the harness on." + +In a general way, the hotels in the smaller prairie settlements offer +one very little comfort or privacy. As a rule they contain two general +rooms, in one of which the three daily meals are served with a +punctuality which is as unvarying as the menu. The traveller who +arrives a few minutes too late for one must wait until the next is +ready. The second room usually contains a rusty stove, and a few +uncomfortable benches; and there are not infrequently a couple of rows +of very small match-boarded cubicles on the floor overhead. The +Occident was, however, a notable exception. For one thing, the +building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to +study the requirements of his guests, who came for the most part from +the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general +lounge, one of which was reserved for the wives or daughters of the +farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing. In +the other, dry-goods travellers were permitted to display their wares, +and, though this was very unusual in that country, any privileged +customer who wished to leave by a train, the departure of which did not +synchronize with the hotel arrangements, was occasionally supplied with +a meal. + +It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two +rooms, where the proprietor's wife was just lighting the big lamp. She +smiled at the man, who was, as it happened, a favourite of hers. + +"Go right along, and I'll bring your supper up in a minute or two," she +said. "I guess you'll want it after your drive." + +Hawtrey strode on down a short corridor towards the second room, but +Sally stopped behind him a moment. + +"Is Hastings in town?" she asked. "I thought I saw his new waggon +outside." + +"His wife is," said the other woman. "She and Miss Ismay drove in to +buy some things." + +Sally asked no further questions. It was evident that Mrs. Hastings +would not start home until after supper, and as the regular hotel meal +would be ready in about half an hour it seemed certain that she would +come back to the hotel very shortly. That left Sally very little time, +for she had no desire that Hawtrey should meet either Mrs. Hastings or +Agatha until she had carried out the purpose she had in hand. It was +at Gregory's special request she had permitted him to drive in to see +her off, and she meant to make the most of the opportunity. She had +long ago regretted her folly in running away from his homestead when he +lay helpless, but things had changed considerably since then. + +She said nothing about what she had heard to Hawtrey when she entered +the second room. It was cosily warm and brightly lighted, and the +little table was laid out for two with a daintiness very uncommon on +the prairie. It was a change for Sally to be waited on and have a meal +set before her which she had not made with her own fingers, and she +sank into a chair with a smile of appreciation. + +"It's real nice, Gregory," she said. "Supper's never quite the same +when you've had to stand over the stove ever so long getting it ready." +She sighed whimsically. "When I have to do that after working hard all +day I don't want to eat it." + +The man felt compassionate. Sally, as he was aware, had to work +unusually hard at the little desolate homestead where she and her +mother perforce undertook a good many duties that do not generally fall +to a woman's share. Creighton, who was getting an old man, was of +grasping nature, and only hired assistance when it was indispensibly +necessary. + +"Well," he said, "I'm not particularly fond of cooking either." + +Sally glanced at him with a provocative smile, for he had given her a +lead. "Then," she said, "why don't you get somebody else to do it for +you?" + +This was, as the man recognised, almost painfully direct, but there was +no doubt that Sally looked very pretty with the faint flush of colour +in her cheeks and the tantalising light in her eyes. + +"As a matter of fact, that's a thing I've been thinking over rather +often the last few months," he said, and laughed. "It's rather a pity +you don't seem to like cooking, Sally." + +Sally appeared to consider this. "Oh," she said, "it depends a good +deal on who it's for." + +Hawtrey became suddenly serious for a moment or two. There was no +doubt that he would at one time have considered it impossible that he +should marry a girl of Sally's description, and even now he had +misgivings. He had, however, almost made up his mind, and he was not +exactly pleased that the proprietor's wife came in with the meal just +then, and stayed to talk awhile. + +When she went out he watched Sally with close and what he fancied was +unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was sensible of the +indelicacy of this, he was once more relieved to find that she did +nothing that was actually repugnant to him. After all, there was a +certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation of the +good things set before her only amused him. She was certainly much +more amusing than Agatha had been since she came out to Canada, and her +cheerful laughter had a pleasant ring. When at length the meal was +over she bade him draw her chair up to the stove. + +"Now," she said, and pointed to another chair across the room, "you can +sit yonder and smoke. I know you want to." + +Hawtrey remembered that Agatha did not like tobacco smoke, and had +always been inclined to exact a certain conventional deference which he +had grown to regard as rather out of place upon the prairie. + +"That's a very long way off," he objected. + +Sally showed no sign of conceding the point as he had expected, and he +took out his pipe. He wanted to think, for once more instincts deep +down in him stirred in faint protest against what he almost meant to +do. There were also several points that required practical +consideration, and among them were his financial difficulties, though +these did not trouble him so much as they had done a few months +earlier. For a minute or two neither of them said anything, and then +Sally spoke again. + +"You're worrying about something, Gregory?" she said. + +Hawtrey admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I am. My place is a poor one, +and when Wyllard comes home I shall have to go back to it again. +Things would be so much easier for me just now if I had the Range." + +The girl looked at him steadily with reproach in her eyes. + +"Oh," she said, "your place is quite big enough if you'd only take hold +and run it as it ought to be run. You could surely do it, Gregory, if +you tried." + +The man's resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence +was at variance with his desires. Sally's words were in this case +wholly guileless, as he recognised, and they stirred him. He said +nothing, however, and she spoke again. + +"Isn't it worth while, though there are things you would have to give +up?" she said. "You couldn't go away and waste your dollars in +Winnipeg every now and then." + +Hawtrey laughed. "No," he admitted; "I suppose if I meant to make +anything of the place that couldn't be done. Still, you see, it's +horribly lonely sitting by oneself beside the stove in the long winter +nights. I wouldn't want to go to Winnipeg if I had only somebody to +keep me company." + +He turned towards her suddenly with decision in his face, and Sally +lowered her eyes. + +"Don't you think you could get anybody if you tried?" she asked. + +"The trouble," said Hawtrey gravely, "is that I have so little to offer +them. It's a poor place, and I'm almost afraid, Sally, that I'm rather +a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don't stay +with things. Still, it might be different if there was any particular +reason why I should." + +He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. "Sally," +he added, "would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make +of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would +probably be very hard work, my dear." + +The blood surged into the girl's face, and she looked up at him with +open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened, +was not afraid of anything. + +"Oh!" she said; "you really want me?" + +"Yes," said Hawtrey quietly; "I think I have wanted you for ever so +long, though I did not know it until lately." + +"Then," she said, "I'll do what I can, Gregory." + +Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference he had not +expected to feel, for there was something in the girl's simplicity and +the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed +astonishing, laid a restraint on him. Then, as he sat down on the arm +of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished +still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from +him. For one thing, he realised that she meant him to take and keep a +foremost place among his neighbours, and, though Sally had not the gift +of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was +less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude +forcefulness, trying to rouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to +incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he +remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of +confusion crept upon him. + +She seemed to recognise it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply. + +"What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?" she asked. + +Hawtrey smiled in a rather curious fashion. Hitherto she had made her +appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no +doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he +had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was +becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession +of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the +thing seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him. + +"My dear," he said, "I can't quite tell you--but you have made me +rather badly ashamed. In some respects, I'm afraid it's a very rash +thing you are going to do." + +She looked at him with candid perplexity, and then appeared to dismiss +the subject with a smile. + +"There is so much I want to say, and it mayn't be so easy--afterwards," +she said. "It's a pity the train starts so soon." + +"We can get over that difficulty, anyway," said Hawtrey. "I'll come on +as far as I can with you, and get back from one of the way stations by +the Pacific express." + +Sally made no objections, and drawing a little closer to him she talked +on in a low voice earnestly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +A PAINFUL REVELATION. + +A sprinkle of snow was driving down the unpaved street before the +bitter wind, when Mrs. Hastings came out of a store in the settlement +and handed Sproatly, who was waiting close by, several big packages. + +"You can put them into the waggon, and tell Jake we'll want the team as +soon as supper's over," she said. "We're going to stay with Mrs. +Ormond to-night, and I don't want to get there too late." + +Sproatly took the parcels, and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha, who +stood a pace or two behind her with Winifred. + +"Now," she said, "if there's nothing else you want to buy we'll go +across to the hotel." + +They reached it a few minutes later, and were standing in a big and +rather comfortless room when Sproatly rejoined them. + +"This place is quite shivery," said Mrs. Hastings. "They generally +have the stove lighted in the little room along the corridor. Go and +see, Jim." + +Sproatly went out, and, as it happened, he was wearing gum-boots, which +make very little noise. He proceeded along a dark corridor, and then +stopped abruptly when he had almost reached a partly-open door, for he +could see into a lighted room. Hawtrey was sitting near the stove +inside it on the arm of Sally's chair. + +Then, though he was not greatly astonished, Sproatly drew back a pace +or two into the shadow, for it became evident that there were only two +courses open to him. He could judiciously announce his presence by +making the door rattle, and then go in and mention as casually as +possible that Mrs. Hastings and Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that +he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn +Hawtrey without embarrassing Sally. Sproatly pursed his face up in +honest perplexity as it became evident that the situation was a +delicate one, and then decided on the alternative. He would go back +quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done. + +"I think you would be just as comfortable where you are," he informed +her when he joined the others. + +"I'm rather doubtful," said Mrs. Hastings. "Wasn't the stove lighted?" + +"Yes," said Sproatly, "I fancy it was." + +"But I sent you to make sure." + +"The fact is I didn't go in," said Sproatly, uneasily. "There's +somebody in the room already." + +"Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it." + +"Oh yes," said Sproatly. "Still, you see, it's only a small room, and +one of them has been smoking." + +Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner +he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections +in the meanwhile she had by no means abandoned the subject. + +"Well," she said, "what shall we do until supper? This stove won't +draw properly, and I don't feel inclined to sit shivering here." + +Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate +inspiration. + +"It's really not snowing much, and we'll go down to the depot and watch +the Atlantic express come in," he suggested. "It's one of the things +everybody does." + +This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are not many amusements +open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad +track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of +unflagging interest to most of them. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the +suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy +when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel. + +"Oh," she said, "I've only brought one of my mittens." + +"I'll go back for the other," said Sproatly promptly. + +"You don't know where I left it." + +"Then I'll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on," the man +persisted. + +Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings +was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out +into the street. Agatha in the meanwhile ran back to the room they had +left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway +when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognised them, +and turned in sudden astonishment, standing, as it happened, in the +shadow, though not far away a stream of light from the door of the room +shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached +the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into +Agatha's face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly's +manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her going back for +the mitten. Then Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt +whatever that he called her "My dear." + +Agatha stood still a moment filled with burning indignation, and they +were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the +stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could +not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had, however, +at least recovered her outward composure, and they went on together +towards the track. As yet she was only sensible of anger at the man's +treachery. It possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of +anything else. + +Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and +Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the +little shed they hung about, and walked briskly up and down beside the +track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. +It grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke +behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a +bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their +faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station. + +It stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the +groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object +that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, +however, no sign of any passengers for the train until at the last +moment two figures appeared hurrying along beneath the cars. They drew +nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognised them, for the +light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey's face as he half lifted +Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the +bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with +its lights flashing upon the snow. + +Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. +The thing, she felt, only admitted of one explanation, and she did not +wish her companions to see her face for the next minute or two. +Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was +sensible of an almost intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with +Gregory, at least, as far as it was possible to her, and he had utterly +humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable. + +In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling +distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow. + +"Now," she said, "I understand. You, of course, anticipated this." + +"I didn't," said Sproatly with a decision which carried conviction with +it. "I certainly saw them at the hotel, but how could I imagine that +they had anything of the kind in view?" + +He broke off for a moment, and waved his hand. "After all," he added, +"what right have you to think it now?" + +Mrs. Hastings laughed somewhat harshly. "Unfortunately, I have my +eyes, but I'll admit that there's a certain obligation on me to make +quite certain before going any further. That's why I want you to +ascertain where he checked his baggage to." + +"I'm afraid that's more than I'm willing to undertake. Do you consider +it advisable to set the station agent wondering about the thing? +Besides, once or twice in my career appearances have been rather badly +against me, and I'm not altogether convinced yet." + +Mrs. Hastings let the matter drop, and they went back rather silently +to the hotel, while as soon as supper was over she bade Sproatly get +their waggon out and drove away with Agatha. She said very little to +the girl during the long, cold journey, and they had no opportunity of +private conversation when they reached the homestead where they were to +spend the night, which was, as it happened, a relief to Agatha. She +hated herself for the thought in her mind, but everything seemed to +warrant it, and it would not be driven out. She had heard what Gregory +had called Sally at the hotel, and the fact that he must have bought +his ticket and checked his baggage earlier in the afternoon when there +was nobody about, and then had run down with Sally at the last moment, +evidently in order to escape observation, was very significant. + +She drove home next day, and on the following morning a man who was +driving in to Lander's brought Mrs. Hastings a note from Sproatly. It +was very brief, and ran: + +"Gregory arrived same night by Pacific train. It is evident he must +have got off at the next station down the line." + +Mrs. Hastings showed it to her husband. + +"I'm afraid we have been too hasty. What am I to do with this?" she +said. + +Hastings smiled. "Since you ask my advice, I'd put it into the stove." + +"But it clears the man. Isn't it my duty to show it to Agatha?" + +"Well," said Hastings reflectively, "I'm not sure that it is your duty +to put ideas into her mind when you can't be quite certain that she has +entertained them." + +"I should be greatly astonished if she hadn't," said the lady drily. + +Hastings made a little whimsical gesture. "Oh," he said, "you'll no +doubt do what you think wisest. In a general way, when you come to me +for advice you have made your mind up, and only expect me to tell you +that you're right." + +Mrs. Hastings thought over the matter for another hour or two. For one +thing, Agatha's quiet manner puzzled her, and she did not know that the +girl had spent one night in an agony of anger and humiliation, and had +then become sensible of a relief that she was ashamed of. There was, +however, no doubt that while she blamed herself for it, and in some +degree for what had happened, she did feel relief. She was sitting +alone for the time being beside the stove in a shadowy room while the +light died off the snowy prairie outside, when Mrs. Hastings came +softly in and sat down beside her. + +"My dear," she said, "it's rather difficult to speak of, but that +little scene at the station must have hurt you." + +Agatha looked at her quietly and searchingly, but there was only +sympathy in her face, and she leaned forward impulsively. + +"Oh," she said, "it hurt me horribly, because I feel it was my fault. +I was the cause of it." + +"How could that be?" + +"If I had only been kinder to him he would, perhaps, never have thought +of her. I must have made it clear that he jarred upon me. I drove +him"--and Agatha turned her face away, while her voice grew a trifle +strained--"into that woman's arms. No doubt she was ready to make the +most of the opportunity." + +Mrs. Hastings decided that the girl's scorn and disgust which had +prompted the last outbreak were perfectly natural, but they were, as it +happened, not quite warranted. + +"In the first place," she said, "I think you had better read this note." + +Agatha took it from her, and there was light enough left to show that +the blood had crept into her face when she laid it down again. For +almost a minute she sat very still. + +"It is a great relief to know that I was wrong--in one respect, but you +must not think I hated this girl because Gregory had preferred her to +me," she said at length. "When the first shock had passed, there was +an almost horrible satisfaction in feeling that he had released me--at +any cost. I suppose I shall always be ashamed of that." + +She broke off a moment, and her voice was very quiet when she went on +again. + +"Still," she added, "what Sproatly says does not alter the case so very +much after all. It can't free me of my responsibility. If I hadn't +driven him, Gregory would not have gone to her." + +"You consider that in itself a very dreadful thing?" + +Agatha looked at her with suddenly lifted head. "Of course," she said. +"Can you doubt it?" + +Her companion laughed, though there was a little gleam in her eyes, for +this was an opportunity she had been waiting for. + +"Then," she said, "you spoke like an Englishwoman--of station--just out +from the Old Country--but I'm going to try to disabuse you of one +impression. Sally, to put it crudely, is quite good enough for +Gregory. In fact, if she had been my daughter I'd have kept him away +from her. To begin with, once you strip Gregory of his little surface +graces, and his clean English intonation, how does he compare with the +men you meet out here? What does his superiority consist of? Is he +truer or kinder than you have found most of them to be? Has he a finer +courage, or a more resolute endurance--a greater capacity for labour, +or a clearer knowledge of the calling by which he makes his living?" + +Agatha did not answer. She could not protest that Gregory possessed +any of these qualities, and her companion went on again. + +"Has he even a more handsome person? I could point to a dozen men +between here and the railroad, whose clean, self-denying life has set a +stamp on them that Gregory will never wear. To descend to perhaps the +lowest point of all, has he more money? We know he wasted what he +had--probably in indulgence--and there is a mortgage on his farm. Has +he any sense of honour? He let Sally believe he was in love with her +before you even came out here, and of late, while he still claimed you, +he has gone back to her. Can't you get away from your point of view, +and realise what kind of man he is?" + +Agatha turned her head away. "Ah!" she said, "I realised him--several +months ago. They were rather painful months to me. But you are quite +sure he was in love with Sally before I came out?" + +"Well," said Mrs. Hastings, "his conduct suggested it." Then she laid +a caressing hand on the girl's shoulder. "You tried to keep faith with +him. Tried desperately, I think. Did you succeed?" + +Agatha contrived to meet her companion's eyes. "At least, I would have +married him." + +"Then," said Mrs. Hastings, "I can forgive Gregory even his treachery, +and you have no cause to pity him. Sally's simple--primitive, you +would call her--but she's clever and capable in all practical things, +She will bear with Gregory when you would turn from him in dismay, and +when it's necessary she will not shrink from putting a little judicious +pressure on him in a way you could not have done. It may sound +incomprehensible, but that girl will lead or drive Gregory very much +further than he could have gone with you. She doesn't regard him as +perfection, but she loves him." + +She broke off, and there was for several minutes a tense silence in the +little shadowy room. It had grown almost dark, and the square of the +window glimmered faintly with the dim light flung up by the snow. + +Then Agatha turned slowly in her chair. "Thank you," she said in a low +voice. "You have taken a heavy weight off my mind." + +She paused a moment, and then added, "You have been a good friend all +along. It was supreme good fortune that placed me in your hands." + +Mrs. Hastings patted her shoulder, and then went out quietly, and +Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. It snapped and +crackled cheerfully, but save for that there was a restful quietness, +and the room was cosily warm, though she could hear a little icy wind +wail about the building. It swept her thoughts away to the frozen +North, and she realised what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory +as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the +floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the +ridged and furrowed ice. The man who had gone up into that great +desolation had been endued with an almost fantastic sense of honour, +and now he might never even know that she loved him. She admitted that +she had loved him several months ago. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THROUGH THE SNOW. + +Next morning, the mail-carrier, who drove up to the homestead +half-frozen and white all over out of a haze of falling snow, brought +Agatha a note from Gregory. It was brief, and she read it with a smile +of half-amused contempt, though she admitted that, considering +everything, he had handled the somewhat embarrassing situation +gracefully. This, however, was only what she had expected of him, and +she recognised that it was equally characteristic of the man that he +had written releasing her from her engagement instead of coming +himself. Gregory, as she realised now, had always taken the easiest +way, and it was evident that he had not even the courage to face her. +She quietly dropped his note--it did not seem worth while to fling +it--into the stove. + +She could forgive him for choosing Sally. Though she was very human in +most respects, that scarcely troubled her, but she could not forgive +him for persisting in his claim to her while he was philandering--and +this seemed the most fitting term--with her rival. Had he only been +honest, she would not have let Wyllard go away without some assurance +of her regard which would have cheered him on his perilous journey, and +it was clear to her that he might never come back again. Her face grew +hard when she thought of it, and she had thought of it of late very +frequently. For that, at least, she felt she almost hated Gregory. + +A month passed drearily, with Arctic frost outside on the prairie, and +little to do inside the homestead except to cook and gorge the stove, +and endeavour to keep warmth in one. Water froze solid inside the +building, stinging draughts crept in through the double windows, and +there were evenings when Mrs. Hastings and Agatha, shivering close +beside the stove, waited anxiously for the first sign of Hastings and +the hired man, who were bringing back a sled loaded with birch logs +from a neighbouring bluff. It was only a couple of miles away, but men +sent out to cut fuel in the awful cold snaps in that country have now +and then sunk down in the snow with the life frozen out of them. There +were other days when the wooden building seemed to rock beneath the +buffeting of the icy hurricane, and it was a perilous matter to cross +the narrow open space between it and the stables through the haze of +shirling snow. + +The weather, however, moderated a little by and bye, and one afternoon +soon after it did so Mrs. Hastings drove off to Lander's with the one +hired man they kept through the winter. Her husband, who insisted upon +her taking him, had set out earlier for the bluff, and as the +Scandinavian maid had recently been married, Agatha was left in the +house with the little girls. + +It was bitterly cold, even inside the dwelling, but Agatha was busy +baking, and she failed to notice that the frost had once more become +almost Arctic, until she stood beside a window as evening was closing +in. A low, dingy sky hung over the narrowing sweep of prairie which +stretched back, gleaming lividly, into the creeping dusk, but a few +minutes later a haze of snow whirled across it and cut the dreary scene +in half. Then the light died out suddenly, and she and the little +girls drew their chairs close up to the stove. The house was very +quiet, but she could hear the mournful wailing of the wind about it, +and now and then the soft swish of driven snow upon the walls and +roofing shingles. + +The table was laid for supper, and a kettle was singing cheerfully upon +the stove, but there was no sign of the others, and by and bye Agatha +commenced to feel a little anxious. Mrs. Hastings, she fancied, would +stay the night at Lander's if there was any unfavourable change in the +weather, which seemed to be the case, but she wondered what could be +detaining Hastings. It was not very far to the bluff, and as he could +not have continued chopping in the darkness it seemed to her that he +should have reached the homestead already. + +He did not come, however, and she grew more uneasy as the time slipped +by, while the wail of the wind grew louder and the stove crackled more +noisily, until at last one of the little girls rose with a cry, and she +fancied she heard a dull beat of hoofs. It grew plainer until she was +sure of it, but soon after that the sound ceased abruptly, and she +could not hear the rattle of flung down logs which she had expected. +This struck her as curious, since she knew that Hastings generally +unloaded the sled before he led the team to the stable. She waited a +moment or two, but except for the doleful wind nothing broke the +silence now, and when it became oppressive she moved towards the door. + +The wind tore it from her grasp when she opened it, and flung it +against the wall with a jarring crash, while a fine powder that stung +the skin unbearably drove into her face. For a few moments she could +see nothing but a filmy, whirling haze, and then, as her eyes became +accustomed to the change of light, she dimly made out the blurred white +figures of the horses standing still, with the load of birch logs +rising a shapeless mass behind them. There seemed to be nobody with +them, and though she twice called sharply no answer came out of the +sliding snow. Then she recognised the significant fact that the team +had come home alone. + +It was difficult to close the door, and before she accomplished it her +hands had stiffened and grown almost useless, and the hall was strewn +with snow, but it was very evident that there was something for her to +do. It cost her three or four minutes to slip on a blanket skirt, and +soft hide moccasins, with gum boots over them, and then, muffled +shapeless in her furs, she reassured the little girls, and opened the +door again. When she had contrived to close it, the cold struck +through her to the bone as she floundered towards the team. There was +nobody she could look to for assistance, but that could not be helped, +and it was evident to her that some misfortune had befallen Hastings. + +The first thing necessary was to unload the sled, and, though the +birches seldom grow to any size in a prairie bluff, some of the logs +were heavy. She was gasping with the effort when she had flung a few +of them down, after which she discovered that the rest were held up by +one or two stout poles let into sockets. Try as she would, she could +not get them out, and then she remembered that Hastings kept a whipsaw +in a shed close by. She contrived to find it, and attacked the poles +in breathless haste, working clumsily with mittened hands, until there +was a crash and rattle as she sprang clear. Then she started the team, +and the rest of the logs rolled off into the snow. + +That was one difficulty overcome, but the next appeared more serious. +She must find the bluff as soon as possible, and in the snow-filled +darkness she could not tell where it lay. Even if she could have seen +anything of the kind, there was no landmark on the desolate level waste +between it and the homestead. She, however, remembered that she had +one guide. Hastings and his hired man had of late hauled a good many +loads of birch logs in, and as this had made a worn-out trail it seemed +to her just possible that she might trace it back to the bluff. No +great weight of snow had fallen as yet. + +Before she set out she had a struggle with the team, for the beasts had +evidently no intention of making another journey if they could help it, +but at length she swung them into the narrow riband of trail, and +plodded away into the darkness at their heads. It was then she first +clearly realised what she had undertaken. Very little of her face was +left bare between her fur-cap and collar, but every inch of uncovered +skin tingled as though it had been lashed with thorns or stabbed with +innumerable needles. The air was thick with a fine powder that filled +her eyes and nostrils, the wind buffeted her, and there was an awful +cold--the cold that taxes the utmost strength of mind and body of those +who are forced to face it on the shelterless prairie. + +Still she struggled on, feeling with half-frozen feet for the +depression of the trail, and grappling with a horrible dismay when she +failed to find it for moments together. Indeed, she was never sure to +what extent she guided the team, and how far they headed for the bluff +from mere force of habit, but as the time went by, and there was +nothing before her but the whirling snow, she grew feverishly +apprehensive. The trail was becoming fainter and fainter, and now and +then she could find no trace of it for several minutes. + +The horses, however, floundered on, blurred shapes as white as the haze +they crept through, and at length she felt that they were dipping into +a hollow. Then a faint sense of comfort crept into her heart as she +remembered that a shallow ravine which seamed the prairie ran through +the bluff. She called out, and started at the faintness of her voice. +It seemed such a pitifully feeble thing. There was no answer, nothing +but the soft fall of the horses' hoofs and the wail of the wind, but +the latter was reassuring, for the volume of sound suggested that it +was driving through a bluff close by. + +A few minutes later she cried out again, and this time she felt the +throbbing of her heart, for a faint sound came out of the whirling +haze. She pulled the horses up, and as she stood still listening, a +blurred object appeared almost in front of them. It shambled forward +in a curious manner, stopped, and moved again, and in another moment or +two Hastings lurched by her with a stagger and sank down into a huddled +white heap on the sled. She turned back towards him, and he seemed to +look up at her. + +[Illustration: "It shambled forward in a curious manner."] + +"Turn the team," he said. + +Agatha did it, and sat down beside him when the horses moved on again. + +"A small birch I was chopping fell on me," he said. "I don't know if +it smashed my ankle, or if I twisted it wriggling clear--the thing +pinned me down. It's badly nipped, any way." + +He spoke disconnectedly and hoarsely, as if in pain, and Agatha, who +noticed that one of his gum boots was almost ripped to pieces, realised +part of what he must have felt. She knew that nobody held fast +helpless could have withstood that cold for more than a very little +while. + +"Oh," she said, "it must have been dreadful!" + +"I found a branch," Hastings added. "It helped me, but I fell over +every now and then. Headed for the homestead. Don't think I could +have made it if you hadn't come for me." He broke off abruptly, and +turned to her. "You mustn't sit down. Walk--keep warm--but don't try +to lead the team." + +Agatha struggled forward as far as the near horse's shoulder. The +beasts slightly sheltered her, and it was a little easier walking with +a hand upon a trace. It was a relief to cling to something, for the +wind that flung the snow into her face drove her garments against her +limbs, so that now and then she could scarcely move. Indeed, when her +strength commenced to flag, every yard of that journey was made with +infinite pain and difficulty. At times she could scarcely see the +horses, and again she stumbled along beside them for minutes, blinded, +breathless, and half-dazed. She did not know how Hastings was faring, +but she half-consciously recognised that if once she let the trace go +the sled would slip away from her and she would sink down to freeze. + +At length, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a +moment later a man laid hold of her. He told her that Mrs. Hastings +was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned +afterwards that they had reached it a little earlier, and had +immediately set out in search of her and Hastings. In the meanwhile +she floundered on beside the horses with another team dimly visible in +front of her until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. +Then the teams stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of +staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a +chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but by and bye +his wife who went with her to her room kissed her before she went out +again. + +Nobody could have faced the snow next morning, and it was some days +later when Watson, who had attended Hawtrey after his accident, was +brought over. He did what he could, but it was several weeks before +Hastings could use his injured foot again. Before he recovered news +was sent him of some difficulty in the affairs of a small creamery at a +settlement further along the line, in which he and his wife held an +interest, and Mrs. Hastings went East to make inquiries respecting it. +She took Agatha with her, and one evening after she had finished the +business she had in hand they left a little way station by the Pacific +train. + +The car they entered was empty except for two people who sat close +together near the middle of it. A big lamp overhead shed down a +brilliant light, and Agatha started when one of the two looked round as +she approached them. In another moment she stood face to face with +Hawtrey, who had risen, while Sally gazed up at her with a rather +curious expression in her eyes. Agatha, however, was perfectly +composed now, and felt no sympathy with Hawtrey, who was visibly +confused. She was not astonished that he found the situation a +somewhat difficult one. + +"You have been to Winnipeg?" she said. + +"No," said Hawtrey, with evident relief that she had chosen a safe +topic, "only to Brandon. Sally has some friends there, and she spends +a day or two with them once or twice each winter. Brandon's quite a +lively place after the prairie. I went in last night to bring her +back." He turned to his companion. "I think you have met Miss Ismay?" + +Agatha was conscious that Sally's eyes were fixed upon her, and that +Mrs. Hastings was watching them all with quiet amusement, but she was a +little astonished when the girl suggestively moved some wraps from the +seat opposite her. + +"Yes," she said, "I have. If Miss Ismay doesn't mind, I should like to +talk to her." + +Hawtrey's relief was evident, and Agatha glanced at him with a smile +that was half-contemptuous. He had carefully kept out of her way since +he had written her the note, and now it seemed only natural that if +there was anything to be said he should leave it to Sally. + +"I think I'll go along for a smoke," he said, and retired precipitately. + +Mrs. Hastings looked after him, and laughed in a manner at which Sally +seemed to wince. + +"He doesn't seem anxious to talk to me," she said. "You can come along +to the next car by and bye, Agatha." + +Then she moved away, and Agatha who sat down opposite Sally looked at +her quietly. + +"Well?" she said. + +Sally made a little deprecatory gesture, "I've something to say, but +it's hard. To begin with, are you very angry with me?" + +"No," said Agatha. "I think I really am a little angry with Gregory, +but not altogether because he chose you." + +Sally seemed to consider this for a moment or two before she looked up +again. + +"Well," she said, "not long ago, I wanted to hate you, and I guess I +most succeeded. It made things easier. Still, I want to say that I +don't hate you now." She hesitated a moment. "I'd like you to forgive +me." + +Agatha smiled. "In most respects I can do that willingly." + +Sally seemed disconcerted by her quiet ease of manner and perfect +candour. It was evidently not quite what she had looked for. + +"Then you were never very fond of him?" she suggested. + +"No," said Agatha reflectively, "since you have compelled me to say it, +I don't think now that I ever was really fond of him, though I don't +know how I can make that quite clear to you. It was only when I came +out here I--realised--Gregory. It was not the actual man I fell in +love with in England." + +Sally turned her face away, for Agatha had, as it happened, made her +meaning perfectly plain. Somewhat to the latter's astonishment, she +showed no sign of resentment when she looked round again. + +"Then," she said, "it is way better that you didn't marry him." She +paused, and seemed to search for words to express herself with. "I +knew all along all there was to know about Gregory--except that he was +going to marry you, and it was some time before I heard that--and I was +ready to take him. I was fond of him." + +Agatha's heart went out to her. "Yes," she said simply, "it is a very +good thing that I let him go." Then she smiled. "That, however, +doesn't quite describe it, Sally." + +Her companion flushed. "I couldn't have said that, but you don't quite +understand yet. I said I knew all there was to know about him--and you +never did. You made too much of him in England, and when you came out +here you only saw the things you didn't like in him. Still, they +weren't the only ones." + +Agatha started at this, for she realised that part of it was certainly +true, and she could admit the possibility of the rest being equally +correct. After all, Gregory might possess a few good qualities that +she had never discovered. + +"Perhaps I did," she admitted. "I don't think it matters now." + +"They're all of them mixed," persisted Sally. "One can't expect too +much, but you can bear with a good deal when you're fond of any one." + +Agatha sat silent awhile, for she was troubled by a certain sense of +probably wholesome confusion. It seemed to her that Sally had the +clearer vision. Love had given her discernment as well as charity, +and, not expecting perfection, it was the man's strong points she fixed +her eyes upon. + +"Yes," she said at length, "I am glad you look at it that way, Sally." + +The girl laughed. "Oh!" she said, "I've only seen one man on the +prairie who was quite white all through, and I had a kind of notion +that he was fond of you." + +Agatha sat very still, but it cost her an effort. + +"You mean?" she said at length. + +"Harry Wyllard." + +Agatha made no answer, and Sally changed the subject, "Well," she said, +"after all, I want you to be friends with me." + +"I think you can count on that," said Agatha with a smile, and in +another minute or two she rose to rejoin Mrs. Hastings. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +THE LANDING. + +The ice among the inlets on the American side of the North Pacific +broke up unusually early when spring came round again, and several +weeks before Wyllard had expected it the _Selache_ floated clear. Her +crew had suffered little during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept +them busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted her +with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of them had been +trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small +vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used axe and +saw to some purpose in their time. In any case, Wyllard was satisfied +when they thrashed the _Selache_ out of the inlet under whole mainsail +in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel +in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights +dropped back astern. + +He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether +Agatha had married Gregory yet. It seemed to him that this was, at +least, possible, for she was one to keep a promise, and it was +difficult to believe that Gregory would fail to press his claim. His +face grew grim as he thought of it, though this was a thing he had done +more or less constantly during the winter. He fancied that he might +have ousted Gregory if he had remained at the Range, for Agatha had, +perhaps unconsciously, shown him that she was, at least, not quite +indifferent to him, but that would have been to involve her in a breach +of faith which she would probably have always looked back on with +regret, and in any case he could not have stayed. He knew he would +never forget her, but it was, he admitted, not impossible that she +might forget him. He also realised, though this was not by comparison +a matter of great consequence, that the Range was scarcely likely to +prosper under Gregory's management, but that could not be helped, and +after all he owed Gregory something. It never occurred to him that he +was doing an extravagant thing in setting out upon the search he had +undertaken. He only felt that the obligation was laid upon him, and, +being what he was, he could not shrink from it. + +A puff of spray that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and +when by and bye a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, +he rose and helped the others to haul a reef in the mainsail down. +That accomplished, he went below and lugged out a well-worn chart, +while the _Selache_ drove away to the westwards over a white-flecked +sea. This time she carried fresh southerly breezes with her most of +the way across the Pacific, and plunged along hove down under the last +rag they dare set upon her with the big combers surging up abeam, until +at length they ran into the clammy fog close in with the Kamtchatkan +beaches. Then the wind dropped, and they were baffled by light and +fitful airs, while it became evident that there was ice about. + +The day they saw the first big mass of it gleaming broad across their +course on a raw green sea, Dampier got an observation, and they held a +brief council in the little cabin that evening. The schooner was hove +to then, and lay rolling with banging blocks and thrashing canvas on a +sluggish heave of sea. + +"Thirty miles off shore," said Dampier. "If it had been clear enough +we'd have seen the top of the big range quite a way further out to sea. +Now, it's drift ice ahead of us, but it's quite likely there's a solid +block along the beach. Winter holds on a long while in this country. +I guess you're for pushing on as fast as you can?" + +Wyllard nodded. "Of course," he said, "you'll look for an opening, and +work her in as far as possible. Then, if it's necessary, Charly and I +and another man will take the sled and head for the beach across the +ice. If there's a lane anywhere I would, however, probably take the +smallest boat. We might haul her a league or two, anyway, on the sled +if the ice wasn't very rough." + +He looked at Charly, who made a little sign. + +"Well," he said simply, "I guess I'll have to see you through. Now +we've made a sled for her I'd take the boat, anyway. We're quite +likely to strike a big streak of water when the ice is breaking up." + +"There's one other course," said Dampier; "the sensible one, and that's +to wait until it has gone altogether. Seems to me I ought to mention +it, though it's not likely to appeal to you." + +Wyllard laughed. "From all appearances we might wait a month. I don't +want to stay up here any longer than is strictly necessary." + +"You'll head north?" + +"That's my intention." + +"Then," said Dampier, pointing to the chart before them, "as you should +make the beach in the next day or two I'll head for the inlet here. As +it's not very far you won't have to pack so many provisions along, and +I'll give you, say, three weeks to turn up in. If you don't, I'll +figure that there's something wrong, and do what seems advisable." + +They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of +the creeping haze, they sailed her slowly shorewards among the drifting +ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretched +gleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard retired soon afterwards, and +slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter, +and when at length morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on +deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a +tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible +that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, +and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view. + +In the meanwhile the schooner lay to with backed forestaysail, tumbling +wildly on a dim, grey sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a +dingy haze, and there was a low, grey sky to weather. Now and then a +fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. +As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode up to him. + +"I guess you'd better put it off," he said. "I don't like the weather; +we'll have wind before long." + +Wyllard only smiled, and Dampier made a little gesture. + +"Then," he said, "I'd get on to the ice just as soon as you can. +You're still quite a way off the beach." + +Wyllard shook hands with him. "We should make the inlet in about nine +days, and if I don't turn up in three weeks you'll know there's +something wrong. If there's no sign of me in another week you can take +her home again." + +Then Dampier, who said nothing further, bade them swing the boat over, +and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one +Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were +about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing +they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had +supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner. + +They gazed at her with somewhat grim faces as they pulled away, and +Wyllard, who loosed his oar a moment to wave his fur cap when Dampier +stood upon her rail, was glad when a fresher rush of the bitter breeze +forced him to fix his attention on his task. The boat was heavily +loaded, and the tops of the grey seas splashed unpleasantly close about +her gunwale. She was running before them, rising sharply, and dropping +down out of sight of all but the schooner's canvas into the hollows, +and though this made rowing easier he was apprehensive of difficulties +when he reached the ice. + +His misgivings proved warranted as they closed with it, for it +presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea +spouted and fell in frothy wisps. There was no doubt as to what would +happen if the frail craft was hurled upon that frozen mass, and +Wyllard, who was sculling, fancied that before she could even reach it +there was a probability of her being swamped in the upheaval where the +backwash met the oncoming sea. Charly looked at him dubiously. + +"It's a sure thing we can't get out there," he said. + +Wyllard nodded. "Then," he said, "we'll pull along the edge of it +until we find an opening or something to make a lee. The sea's higher +than it seemed to be from the schooner." + +"We've got to do it soon," said Charly. "There's more wind not far +away." + +Wyllard dipped his oar again, and they pulled along the edge of the ice +for an hour cautiously, for there were now little frothing white tops +on the seas. + +It was evident that the wind was freshening, and at times a deluge of +icy water slopped in over the gunwale. The men were further hampered +by their furs, and the stores among their feet, and the perspiration +dripped from Wyllard when they approached a ragged, jutting point. It +did not seem advisable to attempt a landing on that side of it, and +when a little snow commenced to fall he looked at his companions. + +"I guess we've got to pull her out," said Charly. "Dampier's heaving a +reef down; he sees what's working up to windward." + +Wyllard could just make out the schooner, which had apparently followed +them, a blurr of dusky canvas against a bank of haze, and then, as the +boat slid down into a hollow, there was nothing but the low-hung, +lowering sky. It was evident to him that if they were to make a +landing it must be done promptly. + +"We'll pull round the point first, anyway," he said. + +A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them as +they did it, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward +now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and +handle her circumspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray all +over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice she +nearly rolled over with them, while the icy water grew steadily deeper +inside her. Then it became apparent by degrees that, as they could not +have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for +their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an +opening of some kind round the point. Its ragged tongue was horribly +close to lee of them lapped in a foaming wash when the snow cleared for +a minute or two, and they saw that Dampier had driven the _Selache_ +further off the ice. She was hove to now, and there was a black figure +high up in her shrouds. + +Just then, however, a bitter rush of wind hurled the spray about them, +and the boat fell off almost beam on to the sea, in spite of all that +they could do. The icy brine washed into her, and it seemed almost +certain that she would swamp or roll over before they could get way on +her. Still, pulling desperately, they drove her round the point. +Then, as gasping and dripping they made their last effort, a sea rolled +up ahead, and Wyllard had a momentary glimpse of an opening not far +away as she swung up with it. He shouted to his companions, but could +not tell whether they heard and understood him, for after that he was +only conscious of sculling savagely until another sea broke into her +and she struck. There was a crash, and she swung clear with the +backwash, with all one side smashed in. Then she swung in again just +beyond a tongue of ice over which the froth was pouring tumultuously, +and the Indian jumped from the bow. He had the painter with him, and +for half a minute he held her somehow, standing in the foam, while they +hurled a few of the carefully made-up packages in her as far on to the +ice as possible. Then, as Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, +she rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another +moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, +who drove towards them amidst a long wash of foam. + +They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a +sudden haze of snow whirled about them. There was no sign of the +schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards +away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their +stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across +the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her, +which it scarcely seemed worth while to attempt. The sea rumbled along +the edge of the ice, and they could not tell if the latter extended as +far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke. + +"We have got the hand-sled, and some, at least, of the things," he +said. "The sooner we start for the beach the sooner we'll get there." + +It was a relief to load the sled, and when that was done they set off +in the hide traces across the ice with the snow whirling about them. +It was arduous work apart from the hauling of the load, for the ice was +rough and broken, and covered for the most part with softening snow. +They had only gum-boots with soft hide moccasins under them, for +snow-shoes are only used in Eastern Canada, and it takes one a long +while to learn to walk on them. Sometimes they sank almost knee-deep, +sometimes they slipped and scrambled on uncovered ledges, but they +pushed on with the sled bouncing and sliding unevenly behind them until +the afternoon had almost gone. + +Then they set up the saturated tent behind a hummock, and crouched +inside it upon a ground sheet while Charly boiled a kettle on the +little oil blast stove, and the wind that screamed about it hurled the +snow upon the straining canvas. It, however, stood the buffeting, and +when they had eaten a very simple meal Charly put the stove out and the +darkness was only broken down when one of them struck a match to light +his pipe. They had only a strip of rubber sheeting between them and +the snow, for the water had got into the sleeping bags, and their +clothes dried upon them with the heat of their bodies. They said +nothing for awhile, and Wyllard was half-asleep when Charly spoke. + +"I've been thinking about that boat," he said. "Though I don't know +that we could have done it, we ought to have tried to pull her out." + +"Why?" asked Wyllard. "She'd have been all to pieces, anyway." + +"I'm figuring it out like this. If Dampier wasn't up in the shrouds +when we made the landing he'd sent somebody. We could see him up +against the sky, but we'd be much less clear to him low down with the +ice and the surf about us. Besides, it was snowing quite fast then. +Well, I don't know what Dampier saw, but I guess he'd have made out +that we hadn't hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with +the wind freshening and it getting thick he'd have to thrash the +schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it's +quite likely that he'll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me +that's going to worry him considerable." + +Wyllard, drowsy as he was getting, agreed with this view of the matter. +He realised that it would have been quite impossible for Dampier to +have sent them any assistance, and it was merely a question whether +they should retrace their steps to the edge of the ice next morning and +make him some signal. Against this there was the strong probability +that he would not run in if the gale and snow continued, and the fact +that it was desirable to make the beach as soon as possible in case the +ice broke up before they reached it. What was rather more to the +purpose, he was quietly determined on pushing on. + +"It can't be helped," he said simply. "We'll start for the beach as +soon as it's daylight." + +Charly made no answer, and the brawny, dark-skinned Siwash, who spoke +English reasonably well, only grunted. Unless it seemed necessary, he +seldom said anything at all. Bred to the sea, and living on the seal +and salmon, as he had done, an additional hazard or two or an extra +strain on his tough body did not count for much with him. He had been +accustomed to sleep wet through with icy water, and crouch for hours +with numbed hands clenched on the steering-paddle while the long sea +canoe scudded furiously over the big combers before bitter gale or +driving snow. Wyllard, who rolled over, pulled a wet sleeping-bag +across him, and after that there was silence in the little rocking tent. + +In the meanwhile, Charly's deductions had been proved correct, for when +the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed +the ominous blackness to windward, and knew what it meant, which was +why he had hauled a reef in the schooner's mainsail down, and now kept +her out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very +difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that +recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he +decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her round +the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, +though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm +to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in; +there was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the +_Selache_ sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to +Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. Then a blinding haze +of snow shut out everything, and he came down with a run. + +He stood for several minutes gazing forward grim in face beside the +wheel, but he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops +of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was +driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident to him that to +send Wyllard any assistance was utterly beyond his power. He could +have hove the schooner to while he got the bigger boat over, and two +men might have pulled her towards the ice with the breeze astern of +them, but it was perfectly clear that they could neither have made a +landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also, though this +appeared of less consequence, uncertain whether he and the other man +could have brought the schooner round or have got more sail off her, +which would, as he recognised, very soon have to be done. Still, he +stood on while the snow grew thicker until they heard the wash of the +sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched +hand he raised in sign to the helmsman. + +"On the wind. Haul lee sheets!" he said. + +She came round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away +with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray +whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a curious tense look +in the white men's faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze +to lee of her. + +They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient +water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off +her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on +her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather +clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed +its shape. Then they got a boat over, and the two men who went off in +her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly's cap +washing up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what +that meant. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +NEWS OF DISASTER. + +When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the +men, and contrived to make a landing on the ice with difficulty only to +find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though he +floundered shorewards a mile or two there was nothing except the +shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions, +but the skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, had little +doubt in his mind. After that he waited two days, until a strong +breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and then +stood out for open water, where he hove the _Selache_ to for a week or +so. Then he proceeded northwards to the inlet fixed upon. + +He was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost +clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two +scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still +partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock +rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days' march +from the schooner, he made a depot of provisions, and raised a beacon +of piled-up stones beside them. At times when it was clear he could +see the top of a great range high up against the Western sky, but those +times were rare. For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain +or wrapped in clammy fog. + +There was, however, no sign of Wyllard, and at length Dampier, coming +back jaded and dejected from another fruitless search, after the time +agreed upon had expired, shut himself up alone for a couple of hours in +the little cabin. He was certain now that Wyllard and his companions +had been drowned while attempting to make a landing on the ice, since +they would have joined him at the inlet as arranged had this not been +the case. The distance was by no means great, and there were no +Russian settlements on that part of the coast. He sat very still, with +a clenched hand upon the little table, and a set face, balancing +conjecture against conjecture, and then regretfully decided that there +was only one course open to him. It was dark when he went up on deck +again, but the men were sitting smoking about the windlass forward. + +"You can heave some of that cable in, boys," he said. "We'll clear out +for Vancouver at sun-up." + +They said nothing, but they shipped the levers, and Dampier went back +to the cabin, for the clank of the windlass and the ringing of the +cable jarred upon him. + +Early next morning the _Selache_ stood out to sea, and once they had +left the fog and rain which hung about the coast behind, she carried +fine weather with her across the Pacific. On reaching Vancouver, +Dampier had some trouble with the authorities, to whom it was necessary +to report the drowning of three of his crew, but he was more fortunate +than he expected, and after placing the schooner in the hands of a +broker for sale, he left the city one evening on the Atlantic train. +Three days later, he was driving across the prairie towards the +Hastings homestead, and, as it happened, its inmates were sitting +together in the big general room after supper, when the waggon he had +hired swung into sight over the crest of a rise. + +It was a still, hot evening, and as the windows were open wide a faint +beat of hoofs came up across the tall wheat and dusty prairie before +the waggon topped the rise. Hastings, who lay in a cane chair near the +window, with his pipe in his hand, looked up as he heard it. + +"Somebody driving in," he said. "I shouldn't be astonished if it's +Gregory. He talked about coming over the last time I saw him." + +"If he wants to talk about a deal in wheat, he can stay away," said +Mrs. Hastings with a certain dryness. "If all one hears is true, he +has lost quite a few of Harry's dollars on the market lately." + +Hastings looked somewhat troubled at this. "I'd sooner think it was +his own dollars he'd thrown away." + +"That's quite out of the question. He hasn't any." + +"Well," said Hastings, with an air of reflection, "I'll get Sproatly to +make inquiries. He'll probably be along with Winifred this evening, +and if he finds that Gregory is getting in rather deep I'll have a word +or two with him. Anyway, I can't have him wasting Harry's money, and I +have some right to protest as one of the executors." + +Agatha started at the last word. It had an ominous ring, and she +fancied that Hastings had noticed the effect it had on her, for he +seemed to glance at her curiously. Turning from him, she rose and +walked quietly towards the window. + +The wheat stretched across the foreground, tall and darkly green, and +beyond it the white grass ran back to the rise, which cut sharp against +a red and smoky glow. The sun had dipped some little time ago, and +already there was a wonderful exhilarating coolness in the air. +Somehow the sight reminded her of another evening, when she had looked +out across the prairie from a seat at Wyllard's table, almost a year +ago. + +In the meanwhile, a waggon was drawing nearer down the long slope of +the rise, and the beat of hoofs which grew steadily louder in a sharp +staccato made the memories clearer. She had heard Dampier riding in +the night Wyllard had received his summons, and now she wondered who +the approaching stranger was, and what his business could be. She did +not know why, but she scarcely thought it was Gregory. + +Presently Hastings looked round again. "It's the team Bramfield hires +out at the settlement," he said. "None of our friends would get him to +drive them in. There seems to be two men in the waggon. Bramfield +will be one. I can't make out the other." + +Mrs. Hastings, who was evidently becoming curious about the unexpected +guest, walked forward in turn, and they stood watching the waggon until +Agatha made a little abrupt movement. + +"It's Captain Dampier," she said. + +Then she stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained +look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the waggon for another moment +or two. + +"Yes," he said, and his voice was harsh, "it's Dampier. The other +man's surely Bramfield. Harry's not with him." + +Once more he glanced at Agatha, who turned away, and sat down in the +nearest chair. She said nothing, and there was an oppressive silence, +through which the beat of hoofs and rattle of wheels rang more +distinctly. + +In another few minutes Dampier came in, while his companion drove off +to the stables. He shook hands with Agatha and Mrs. Hastings +diffidently. + +"You remember me?" he said. + +"Of course," said Mrs. Hastings, with a trace of sharpness. "Where's +Harry?" + +The skipper spread a hard hand out, and sat down heavily. + +"That," he said, "is what I have to tell you. He asked me to." + +"He asked you to?" said Agatha, and though her voice was strained there +was relief in it. + +The skipper made a little gesture, which seemed to beseech her patience. + +"Yes," he said, "if--anything went wrong--he told me I was to come here +to Mrs. Hastings." + +Agatha turned her head away, but Mrs. Hastings saw the laces which hung +beneath her neck sharply rise and fall. + +"Then," she said, "something has gone wrong?" + +"About as wrong as it could," and Dampier quietly met her gaze. +"Wyllard and two other men are drowned." + +He broke off abruptly, and Mrs. Hastings fancied she saw Agatha shiver, +but in another moment or two the girl turned slowly round with a drawn +white face. It was, however, Hastings who spoke, almost sternly. + +"Go on," he said. + +"I'm to tell you all?" + +This time it was Agatha who broke in. + +"Yes," she said with a curious quietness that struck the rest as being +strained and unnatural, "you must tell us all." + +Dampier, who appeared to shrink from his task, commenced awkwardly, but +he gained coherence and force of expression as he proceeded. At least, +he made them understand something of the grim resolution which had +animated Wyllard. He pictured, in terse seaman's words, the little +schooner plunging to windward over long phalanxes of icy seas, or +crawling white with snow through the blinding fog. His companions saw +the big combers tumbling ready to break short upon the dipping bows out +of the dark, and half-frozen men struggling for dear life with folds of +madly thrashing sail. The pictures were, however, necessarily somewhat +blurred and hazy, for after all only an epic poet could fittingly +describe the things that must be done and borne at sea, and epic +poets--it is, perhaps, a pity--are not bred in the forecastle. When he +reached the last scene he gained almost dramatic power, and Agatha's +face grew strangely white and tense. She saw the dim figures pulling +in the flying spray beneath the wall of ice. + +"We ran her in," he added, "with the snow blinding us. It was working +up for a heavy blow, and as we'd have to beat her out we couldn't take +sail off her. We stood on until we heard the sea along the edge of the +ice, and then there was nothing to do but jam her on the wind and +thrash her clear. There was only a plank or two of the boat, an oar, +and Charly's cap, when we came back again!" + +"After all, though the boat was smashed, they might have got out," +Hastings suggested. + +"Well," said Dampier simply, "it didn't seem likely. The ice was sharp +and ragged, and there was a long wash of sea. A man's not tough enough +to stand much of that kind of hammering." + +Agatha's face grew a little whiter, but Dampier, who had paused, went +on again. + +"Anyway," he said, "they didn't turn up at the inlet as we'd fixed, and +that decided the thing. If Wyllard had been alive, he surely would +have done." + +"Isn't it just possible that he might have fallen into the hands of the +Russians?" asked Hastings. + +"I naturally thought of that, but so far as the chart shows there isn't +a settlement within leagues of the spot. Besides, supposing the +Russians had got him, how could I have helped him? They'd have sent +him off in the first place to one of the bigger settlements in the +South, and if the authorities couldn't have connected him with any +illegal sealing they'd no doubt have managed to send him across to +Japan by and bye. In that case, he'd have got home without any +trouble." + +He paused, and it was significant that he turned to Agatha with a +little deprecatory gesture. + +"No," he added, "there was nothing I could do." + +It was evident that Agatha acquitted him, but she asked a question. + +"Captain Dampier," she said, "had you any expectation of finding those +three men when you sailed the second time?" + +"No," said the bronzed sailorman, with an impressive quietness, "I +hadn't any, and I don't think Wyllard had either. Still, he meant to +make quite certain." He spread a hard hand out forcibly. "He felt he +had to." + +He gazed at Agatha, and saw comprehension in her eyes. + +"Yes," she said, "and when you have said that, as you have done, you +could have said very little more of any man." + +Then she turned her head away from them, and once more there was for a +few moments a heavy silence in the room. It cost the girl a painful +effort to sit still, apparently unmoved, but there was strength in her, +and she would not betray her distress. She felt that the latter must +be quietly grappled with. It was almost overwhelming, horribly acute, +but there was mingled with it a faint consolatory thrill of pride, for +it was clear that the man who had loved her had done a splendid thing. +He had given all that had been given him--and she knew she would never +forget that phrase of his--willingly, and it seemed to her that the +gifts he had been entrusted with were rare and precious +ones--steadfast, unflinching courage, compassion, and the fine sense of +honour which had sent him out on that forlorn hope. He had gone down, +unyielding and undismayed--she felt curiously sure of that--amidst the +blinding snow, but this was his vindication which had crowned him with +immortal laurels. + +Then Mrs. Hastings rose, and set food before Dampier, while by and bye +Sproatly and Winifred arrived and were told the story. After that +Dampier, who seemed to be a man of tact, stood up. He had already, +when asked by Mrs. Hastings, promised to stay with them a day or two. + +"Well," he said, "it seems to me you'll naturally want to talk over +things. If you'll excuse me, I'll take a stroll across the prairie." + +He went out, and Hastings who lighted his pipe lay back in his chair +and looked at the rest. + +"Harry's friends are numerous, but we're, perhaps, the nearest, and, as +Dampier said, we have to consider things," he said. "To begin with, +there's a certain possibility that he has escaped, after all." + +He saw the little abrupt movement that Agatha made, and went on rather +more quickly. + +"Gregory, of course, has control at the Range until we have proof of +Harry's death, though the latter made a proviso that if there was no +word of the party within eighteen months after he had sailed, or within +six months of the time Dampier had landed him, we could assume it, +after which the will he handed me would take effect," he added. "This, +it is evident, leaves Gregory in charge for some months yet, but it +seems to me it's our duty to see he doesn't fling away Harry's +property. I've reasons for believing that he has been doing it lately." + +He looked at Sproatly, who sat silent a moment or two. + +"I'm rather awkwardly placed," the latter said at length. "You see, +there's no doubt that I'm indebted to Gregory." + +Winifred turned to him with impatience in her eyes. "Then," she said +severely, "you certainly shouldn't have been, and it ought to be quite +clear that nobody wishes you to do anything that would hurt him." She +looked at Hastings. "In case the will takes effect, who does the +property go to?" + +Hastings appeared embarrassed. "That," he objected, "is a thing I'm +not warranted in telling you in the meanwhile." + +A suggestive gleam crept into Winifred's eyes, but it vanished and her +manner became authoritative when she turned back to Sproatly. + +"Jim," she said, "you will tell Mr. Hastings all you know." + +Sproatly made a gesture of resignation. "After all," he admitted, "I +think it's necessary. Gregory, as I've told you already, put up a big +mortgage on his place, and in view of the price of wheat and the state +of his crop, it's evident that he must have had some difficulty in +meeting the interest, unless--and one or two things suggest this--he +paid it with Harry's money. Of course, as Harry gave him a share, +there's no reason why he shouldn't do this so long as he does not +overdraw that share. There's no doubt, however, that he has lost a +good deal of money on the wheat market." + +"Has he lost any of Harry's?" Mrs. Hastings asked. + +Sproatly hesitated. "I'm afraid it's practically certain." + +Then Winifred broke in. "Yes," she said, "he has lost a great deal. +Hamilton knows almost everything that's going on, and I got it out of +him. He's a friend of Wyllard's, and seems very vexed with Gregory." + +The others said nothing for a moment or two, and then Mrs. Hastings +spoke again. + +"In a general way," she said, "most of us don't keep much in the bank, +and that expedition must have cost Harry a good deal. How would +Gregory get hold of the money before harvest?" + +"Edmonds, who holds his mortgage, would let him have it," said Sproatly. + +"But wouldn't he be afraid of Gregory not being able to pay if the +market went against him?" + +Sproatly looked very thoughtful. "The arrangement Wyllard made with +Gregory would, perhaps, give Edmonds a claim upon the Range if Gregory +borrowed any money in his name. I almost think that's what he's +scheming for. The man's cunning enough for anything. I don't like +him." + +Then Hastings stood up with an air of resolution. "Yes," he said, "I'm +most afraid you're quite correct. Anyway, I'll drive over in a day or +two and have a talk with Gregory." + +After that they separated, for Hastings strolled away to join Dampier, +and Sproatly and Winifred walked out on to the prairie. When they had +left the house the man turned to his companion. + +"Why did you insist upon me telling them what I did?" he asked. + +"Oh!" said Winifred, "I had several reasons. For one thing, when I +first came out feeling very forlorn and friendless, it was Wyllard who +sent me to the elevator, and they really treat me very decently." + +"They?" said Sproatly with resentment in his face. "If you mean +Hamilton, it seems to me that he treats you with an excess of decency +that there's no occasion for." + +Winifred laughed. "In any case, he doesn't drive me out here every two +or three weeks, though"--and she glanced at her companion +provocatively--"he once or twice suggested that he would like to." + +"I suppose you pointed out his presumption?" + +"No," said Winifred with an air of reflection, "I didn't go quite so +far as that. After all, the man is my employer; I had to handle him +tactfully." + +"He won't be your employer a week after the implement people open their +new depot," said Sproatly resolutely. "Anyway, we're getting away from +the subject. Have you any more reasons for concerning yourself about +what Gregory does with Wyllard's property?" + +"I've one; I suppose you don't know who he has left at least a part of +it to?" + +Sproatly started as an idea crept into his mind. + +"I wonder if you're right?" he said. + +"I feel reasonably sure of it," and Winifred smiled. "In fact, that's +partly why I don't want Gregory to throw any more of Wyllard's money +away. In the meanwhile, you have done all I expect from you." + +"Then Hastings is to go on with the thing?" + +"Hastings," Winifred assured him, "will fail--just as you would. This +is a matter which requires to be handled delicately--and effectively." + +"Then who is going to undertake it?" + +Winifred laughed. "Oh," she said, "a woman, naturally. I'm going back +by and bye to have a word or two with Mrs. Hastings." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE RESCUE. + +Winifred's views were shortly proved correct, for Hastings, who drove +over to the Range a day or two after her visit, came back rather +disturbed in temper after what he described as a very unsatisfactory +interview with Hawtrey. + +"I couldn't make the man hear reason," he informed his wife. "In fact, +he practically told me that the thing was no concern of mine. I +assured him that it concerned me directly as one of the executors of +Harry's will, and I'm afraid I afterwards indulged in a few +personalities. I expect that blamed mortgage broker has got a very +strong hold on him." + +Mrs. Hastings looked reflective. "You have never told me anything +about the will." + +"If I haven't, it wasn't for want of prompting," said Hastings drily. +"Still, the will was sealed, and handed me by Harry on the express +understanding that it was not to be opened until we had proof that he +was dead or the six months mentioned had expired. If he turned up it +would, of course, be handed back to him. He made me promise solemnly +that I would not offer the least hint as to its provisions to anybody." + +Mrs. Hastings made a gesture of resignation. "In that case I suppose I +must be content, but he might have made an exception of--me. Anyway, I +think I see how we can put what appears to be a little necessary +pressure upon Gregory." Then she turned again to her husband rather +abruptly. "After all, is it worth while for me to trouble about the +thing?" + +Hastings was taken off his guard. "Yes," he said decidedly, "if you +can put any pressure on Gregory I guess it would be very desirable to +do it as soon as possible." + +"Then you think that Harry may turn up, after all?" + +"I do," said Hastings gravely; "I don't know why. In any case it's +highly desirable--for several reasons--that Gregory shouldn't fling his +property away." + +Mrs. Hastings smiled. "Well," she said, "I'll think over it. I'll +probably get Agatha to see what she can do in the first place." + +She saw a trace of uncertainty in her husband's face, which was, +however, what she had expected. + +"As you like," he said. "Something must be done, but on the whole I'd +rather you didn't trouble Agatha about the matter; it would be wiser." + +Mrs. Hastings asked no more questions. She fancied she understood the +situation, and she had Agatha's interests at heart, for she had grown +very fond of the girl. There was certainly one slight difficulty in +the way of what she meant to do, but she determined to disregard it, +though she admitted that it might cause Agatha some embarrassment +afterwards. During the afternoon she found the latter alone, and sat +down beside her. + +"My dear," she said, "I wonder if I may ask whether you are quite +convinced that Harry's dead?" + +She felt that the question was necessary, though it seemed rather a +cruel one, and she saw signs of tension in the girl's expression. + +"No," said the latter very quietly; "I can't quite bring myself to +believe it." + +"Then, since you heard what Sproatly said, you would be willing to do +anything that appeared possible to prevent Gregory throwing Harry's +dollars away?" + +"Yes," said Agatha, "I have been thinking about it." A little sparkle +of disdainful anger crept into her eyes. "Gregory seems to have been +acting shamefully." + +"Then as he won't listen to Allen, we must get Sally to impress that +fact on him." + +"Sally?" said Agatha in evident astonishment. + +Mrs. Hastings smiled. "I don't think you understand Sally as well as I +do. Of course, like the rest of us, she falls a long way short of +perfection, and--though it's a difficult subject--there's no doubt that +her conduct in leading Gregory on while he was still engaged to you was +hardly quite correct. After all, however, you owe her something for +that." + +"It isn't very hard to forgive her for it," said Agatha quietly. + +"Well, I want you to realise Sally. Right or wrong, she's fond of the +man. Of course, I've told you this already, but I must try to make it +clear how that fact bears upon the business in hand. Sally certainly +fought for him, and there's no doubt that one could find fault with +several things she did; but the point is that she's evidently +determined on making the most of him now she has got him. In some +respects, at least, she's absolutely straight--one hundred cents to the +dollar is what Allen says of her--and although you might perhaps not +have expected this, I believe it would hurt her horribly to feel that +Gregory was squandering money that didn't strictly belong to him." + +"Then you mean to make her understand what he is doing?" + +"No," said Mrs. Hastings; "I want you to do it. I've reasons for +believing that your influence would go further with her than mine. For +one thing, I fancy she is feeling rather ashamed of herself." + +Agatha looked thoughtful. She had certainly not credited Sally with +possessing any fine sense of honour, but she was willing to accept her +companion's assurance. + +"The situation," she pointed out, "is rather a delicate one. You wish +to expose Gregory's conduct to the girl he is going to marry, though, +as you admit, the explanation will probably be painful to her. Can't +you understand that the course suggested is a particularly difficult +and repugnant one--to me?" + +"I've no doubt of it," said Mrs. Hastings. "Still, I think it must be +adopted--for several reasons. In the first place, I fancy that if we +can pull Gregory up now we will save him from involving himself +irretrievably. After all, perhaps, you owe him the effort. Then I +think that we all owe something to Harry, and we can, at least, +endeavour to carry his wishes out. He laid down what was to be done +with his possessions in a will, and he never could have anticipated +Gregory dissipating them as he is doing." + +The last reason, as she had foreseen, proved irresistible to Agatha, +and she made a sign of concurrence. + +"If you will drive me over I will do what I can," she said. + +Now she had succeeded Mrs. Hastings lost no time, and they set out for +the Creightons' homestead next day, while soon after they reached it +she tactfully contrived that Sally should be left alone with Agatha. +They stood outside the house together when the latter turned to her +companion. + +"Sally," she said, "there is something that I must tell you." + +Sally glanced at her face, and then walked quietly forward until the +log barn hid them from the house. Then she sat down upon a pile of +straw in its shadow and signed to Agatha that she should take a place +beside her. + +"Now," she said sharply, "you can go on; it's about Gregory?" + +Agatha, who found it very difficult to begin, though she had been well +primed by Hastings on the previous evening, sat down amidst the straw, +and looked about her for a moment or two. It was a hot afternoon, +dazzlingly bright, and almost breathlessly still. In front of her the +dark green wheat rolled waist-high, and beyond it the vast sweep of +whitened grass rolled back to the sky-line flooded with light. Far +away a team and a waggon slowly moved across it, but that was the only +sign of life, and no sound from the house reached them to break the +heavy stillness. + +Then she nerved herself to the effort, and spoke quietly for several +minutes before she glanced at her companion. It was very evident that +the latter had understood all that she had said, for she sat very still +with a hard, set face. + +"Oh!" she said, "if I'd thought you'd come to tell me this because you +were vexed with me, I'd know what to do." + +This was what Agatha had dreaded. It certainly looked as if she had +come to triumph over her rival's humiliation, but Sally made it clear +that she acquitted her of that intention. + +"Still," she said, "I know that wasn't the reason, and I'm not mad +with--you. It hurts"--and she made a little abrupt movement--"but I +know it's true." Then she turned to Agatha suddenly. "Why did you do +it?" + +"I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you." + +[Illustration: "'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'"] + +"That was all?" and Sally looked at her with incredulous eyes. + +"No," said Agatha simply, "that was only part. It did not seem right +that Gregory should go against Wyllard's wishes, and gamble the Range +away on the wheat market." + +She admitted it without hesitation, for she realised now exactly what +had animated her to seek this painful interview. She was fighting +Wyllard's battle, and that fact sustained her. + +Sally winced. "Yes," she said, "I guess you had to tell me. He was +fond of you. One could be proud of that. Harry Wyllard never did +anything low down and mean." + +Agatha did not resent her candour. Although this was a thing she would +scarcely have credited a little while ago, she saw that the girl felt +the contrast between her lover's character and that of the man whose +place he had taken, and regretted it. Then Agatha's eyes grew a trifle +hazy. + +"Wyllard, they think, is dead," she said, in a low, strained voice. +"You have Gregory still." + +Sally looked at her with unveiled compassion, and Agatha did not shrink +from it. + +"Yes," she said, with a simplicity that became her, "and Gregory must +have someone to--take care of him. I must do it if I can." + +There was no doubt that Agatha was stirred. This half-taught girl's +quiet acceptance of the burden that many women must carry once more +made her almost ashamed. + +"We will leave it to you," she said. + +Then it became evident that there was another side to Sally's +character, for her manner changed, and the suggestive hardness crept +back into her eyes. + +"Well," she said, "I'd most been expecting something of this kind when +I heard that man Edmonds was going to the Range. He has got a pull on +Gregory, but he's surely not going to feel quite happy when I get hold +of him." + +She rose in another moment, and, saying nothing further, walked back +towards the house, in front of which they came upon Mrs. Hastings. +Sally looked at the latter significantly. + +"I'm going over to the Range after supper," she said. + +Mrs. Hastings drove away with Agatha, and said very little to her +during the journey, but an hour after they had reached the homestead +she slipped quietly into the girl's room, and found her lying in a big +chair, sobbing bitterly. She sat down close beside her, and laid a +hand upon her shoulder. + +"I don't think Sally could have said anything to trouble you like +this," she said. + +It was a moment or two before Agatha turned a wet, white face towards +her, and saw gentle sympathy in her eyes. There was, she felt, no +cause for reticence. + +"No," she said, "it was the contrast between us. She has Gregory." + +Mrs. Hastings made a sign of comprehension. "And you have lost +Harry--but I think you have not lost him altogether. We do not know +that he is dead--but even if it is so, it was all that was finest in +him he offered you. It is yours still." + +She broke off, and sat silent a moment or two before she went on again. + +"My dear, it is, perhaps, cold comfort, and I am not sure that I can +make what I feel quite clear. Still, Harry was only human, and it is +almost inevitable that, had it all turned out differently, he would +have said and done things that would have offended you. Now he has +left you a purged and stainless memory--one I think which must come +very near to the reality. The man who went up there--for an idea, a +fantastic point of honour--sloughed off every taint of the baseness +that hampers most of us in doing it. It was a man changed and uplifted +above all petty things by a high chivalrous purpose, who made that last +grim journey." + +Agatha realised the truth of this. Already Wyllard's memory had become +etherealised, and she treasured it as a very fine and precious thing. +Still, though he now wore immortal laurels, that would not content her +when all her human nature cried out for his bodily presence. She +wanted him, as she had grown to love him, in the warm, erring flesh, +and the vague, splendid vision was cold and far remote. There was a +barrier greater than that of crashing ice and bitter water between them. + +"Oh!" she said. "I have felt that. I try to feel it always--but just +now it's not enough." + +Then she turned her face away with a bitter sob, and Mrs. Hastings who +stooped and kissed her went out quietly. She knew what had come about, +and that the girl had broken down at last, after months of strain. + +In the meanwhile, it happened that Edmonds, the mortgage broker, drove +over to the Range, and found Hawtrey waiting him in Wyllard's room. It +was early in the evening, and he could see the hired men busy outside +tossing prairie hay from the waggons into the great barn. They were +half-naked and grimed with dust, but Hawtrey, who was dressed in store +clothes, had evidently taken no share in their labours. When Edmonds +came in he turned to him with anxiety in his face. + +"Well?" he said sharply. + +"Market's a little stiffer," said Edmonds. + +He sat down and stretched out his hand towards the cigar-box on the +table, while Hawtrey waited until he had picked one out with very +evident impatience. + +"Still moving up?" he asked. + +Edmonds nodded. "It's the other folks' last stand," he said. "With +the wheat ripening as it's doing, the flood that will pour in before +the next two months are out will sweep them off the market. I was half +afraid from your note that this little rally had some weight with you, +and that as one result of it you meant to cover now." + +"That," admitted Hawtrey, "was in my mind." + +"Then," said his companion, "it's a pity." + +Hawtrey leaned upon the table with hesitation in his face and attitude. +He had neither the courage nor the steadfastness to make a gambler, and +every fluctuation of the market swayed him to and fro. He had a good +deal of wheat to deliver by and bye, and, for prices had fallen +steadily until a week or two ago, he could still secure a very +desirable margin if he bought in against his sales now. Unfortunately, +however, he had once or twice lost heavily in an unexpected rally, and +he greatly desired to recoup himself. Then, he had decided, nothing +would tempt him to take part in another deal. + +"If I hold on and the market stiffens further I'll be awkwardly fixed," +he said. "Wyllard made a will, and in a few months I'll have to hand +everything over to his executors. There would naturally be +unpleasantness over a serious shortage." + +Edmonds smiled. He had handled his man cleverly, and had now a +reasonably secure hold upon him and the Range, but he was far from +satisfied. If Hawtrey made a further loss he would in all probability +become irretrievably involved. + +"Then," he pointed out, "there's every reason why you should try to get +straight." + +Hawtrey admitted it. "Of course," he said. "You feel sure I could do +it by holding on?" + +His companion seldom answered a question of this kind. It was apt to +lead to unpleasantness afterwards. + +"Well," he said, "Beeman, and Oliphant, and Barstow are operating for a +fall. One would fancy that you were safe in doing what they do. When +men of their weight sell forward figures go down." + +This was correct, as far as it went, but Edmonds was quite aware that +the gentlemen alluded to usually played a very deep and obscure game. +He had also reasons for believing that they were doing it now. It was, +however, evident that his companion's hesitation was vanishing. + +"It's a big hazard, but I feel greatly tempted to hang on," he said. + +Edmonds, who disregarded this, sat smoking quietly. Since he was +tolerably certain as to what the result would be, he felt it was now +desirable to let Hawtrey decide for himself, in which case it would be +impossible for the latter to reproach him afterwards. Wheat, it seemed +very probable, would fall still further when the harvest commenced, but +he had reasons for believing that the market would rally first. In +that case Hawtrey, who had sold forward largely, would fall altogether +into his hands, and he looked forward with very pleasurable +anticipation to enforcing his claim upon the Range. In the meanwhile +he was unobtrusively watching his companion's face, and it had become +evident that in another moment or two Hawtrey would adopt the course +suggested, when there was a rattle of wheels outside. Edmonds, who saw +a broncho team and a waggon appear from behind the barn, realised that +he must decide the matter now. + +"As I want to reach Lander's before it's dark I'll have to get on," he +said carelessly. "If you'll give me a letter to the broker, I'll send +it on to him." + +Next moment a clear voice rose up somewhere outside. "I guess you +needn't worry," it said, "I'll go right in." + +Then, while Gregory started, Sally walked into the room. + +Edmonds was disconcerted, but he made her a little inclination, and +then sat down again, quietly determined to wait, for he fancied there +was hostility in the swift glance she flashed at him. + +"That's quite a smart team you were driving, Miss Creighton," he said. + +Sally, who disregarded this, turned to Hawtrey. + +"What's he doing here?" she asked. + +"He came over on a little matter of business," said Hawtrey. + +"You have been selling wheat again?" + +Hawtrey looked embarrassed, for her manner was not conciliatory. +"Well," he admitted, "I have sold some." + +"Wheat you haven't got?" + +Hawtrey did not answer, and Sally sat down. Her manner suggested that +she meant to thoroughly investigate the matter, and Edmonds, who would +have greatly preferred to get rid of her, decided that as this appeared +impossible he would appeal to her cupidity. The Creightons were +somewhat grasping folks, and he had heard of her engagement to Hawtrey. + +"If you will permit me I'll try to explain," he said. "We'll say that +you have reason for believing that wheat will go down and you tell a +broker to sell it forward at a price a little below the actual one. If +other people do the same it drops faster, and before you have to +deliver you can buy it in at less than you sold it at. A good many +dollars can be picked up that way." + +"It looks easy," Sally admitted, with something in her manner which led +him to fancy he might win her over. "Of course, prices have been +falling. Gregory has been selling down?" + +"He has. In fact, there's already a big margin to his credit," said +Edmonds unsuspectingly. + +"That is, if he bought in now he'd have cleared--several thousand +dollars?" + +Edmonds told her exactly how much, and then started in sudden +consternation with rage in his heart, for she turned to Hawtrey +imperiously. + +"Then you'll write your broker to buy in right away," she said. + +There was an awkward silence, during which the two men looked at one +another until Edmonds spoke. + +"Are you wise in suggesting this, Miss Creighton?" he asked. + +Sally laughed harshly. "Oh yes," she said, "it's a sure thing. And I +don't suggest. I tell him to get it done." + +She turned again to Hawtrey, who sat very still looking at her with a +flush in his face. "Take your pen and give him that letter to the +broker now." + +There was this in her favour that Hawtrey was to some extent relieved +by her persistence. He had not the nerve to make a successful +speculator, and he had already felt uneasy about the hazard he would +incur by waiting. Besides, although prices had slightly advanced, he +could still secure a reasonable margin if he covered his sales. In any +case, he did as she bade him, and in another minute or two he handed +Edmonds an envelope. + +The latter, who rose, took it from him quietly, for he was one who +could face defeat. + +"Well," he said, with a gesture of resignation, "I'll send the thing +on. If Miss Creighton will excuse me, I'll tell your man to get out my +waggon." + +Then he went out, and Sally turned to Hawtrey with the colour in her +cheeks and a flash in her eyes. + +"It's Harry Wyllard's money," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +IN THE WILDERNESS. + +A bitter wind was blowing when Wyllard stood outside the little tent +the morning after he had made a landing on the ice, watching the grey +daylight break amidst a haze of sliding snow. He was to leeward of the +straining canvas which partly sheltered him, but the raw cold struck +through him to the bone, and he was stiff and sore from his exertions +during the previous day. Most of his joints ached unpleasantly, and +his clothing had not quite dried upon him with the warmth of his body. +He was also conscious of a strong desire to crawl back into the tent +and go to sleep again, but that was one it would clearly not be wise to +indulge in, since they were, he fancied, still some distance off the +beach, and the ice might commence to break up at any moment. It +stretched away before him, seamed by fissures and serrated ridges here +and there, for a few hundred yards, and then was lost in the sliding +snow, and as he gazed at it all his physical nature shrank from the +prospect of the journey through the frozen desolation. + +Then with a little shiver he crawled back into the tent where his two +companions were crouching beside the cooking lamp. The feeble light of +its sputtering blue flame touched their faces which were graver than +usual, but Charly turned and looked up as he came in. + +"Wind's dropping," said Wyllard curtly. "We'll start as soon as you +have made breakfast. We must try to reach the beach to-night." + +Charly made no answer, though the dusky-skinned Siwash grunted, and in +a few more minutes they silently commenced their meal. It was promptly +finished, and they struck the tent, and packed it with their sleeping +bags and provisions upon the sled, and then, taking up the traces, set +out across the ice. The light had grown a little clearer now, and the +snow was thinning, but it still whirled about them, and lay piled in +drawn-out wreaths to lee of every hummock or ragged ridge. They +floundered through them knee-deep, and in the softer places the weight +upon the traces grew unpleasantly heavy. That, however, was not a +thing any of them felt the least desire to complain of, and it was +indeed a matter of regret to them that they were not harnessed to a +heavier burden. There was a snow-wrapped desolation in front of them, +and they had lost a number of small comforts and part of their +provisions in making a landing. Whether the latter could by any means +be replaced they did not know, and in the meanwhile it certainly did +not seem very probable. + +This was, however, an excellent reason for pushing on as fast as +possible, and they stumbled and floundered forward until late in the +afternoon, while the ice became more rugged and broken as they +proceeded. The snow had ceased, but the drifts which stretched across +their path were plentiful, and they were in the midst of one when it +seemed to Wyllard who was leading that they were sinking much deeper +than usual. The snow was over the top of his long boots, the sled +seemed very heavy, and he could hear his comrades floundering savagely. +Then there was a cry behind him, and he was jerked suddenly backwards +for a pace or two until he flung himself down at full length clawing at +the snow. After that he was drawn back no further, but the strain upon +the trace became almost insupportable, and there was still a furious +scuffling behind him. + +In a moment or two, however, the strain slackened, and looking round he +saw Charly waist-deep in the snow. The latter struggled out with +difficulty holding on by the trace, but the sled had vanished, and it +was with grave misgivings that Wyllard scrambled to his feet. Then, +saying nothing, they hauled with all their might, and after a tense +effort that left them gasping dragged the sled back into sight. Part +of its load, however, had been left behind in the yawning hole. + +Charly went back a pace or two cautiously until he once more sank to +the waist, and they had some trouble in dragging him clear. Then he +sat down on the sled, and Wyllard stood still looking at the holes in +the snow. + +"Did you feel anything under you?" he asked at length in a jarring +voice. + +"I didn't," said Charly simply. "It was only the trace saved me from +dropping through altogether, but if I'd gone a little further I'd have +been in the water. Kind of snow bridge over a crevice. We broke it +up, and the sled fell through." + +Wyllard turned and flung the tent, their sleeping bags, and the few +packages which had not fallen out off the sled, after which he hastily +opened one or two of them. His companions looked at them with +apprehension in their eyes until he spoke again. + +"The provisions may last a week or so, if we cut down rations," he said. + +He could not remember afterwards if anybody suggested it, and he +fancied that the same idea occurred to all of them at once, but in +another moment or two they set about undoing the traces from the sled, +and making them secure about their bodies. Then for half an hour they +made perilous attempt after attempt to recover the lost provisions, and +signally failed. The snow broke through continuously beneath the +foremost man, but it did not break away altogether, and they could not +tell what lay beneath it when they had drawn him out of the hole. When +it became evident that the attempt was useless they held a brief +council sitting on the sled. + +"I guess we don't want to go back," said Charly. "It's quite likely +we've crossed a good many of these crevices, and the snow's getting +soft. Besides, Dampier will have hauled off and headed for the inlet +by now." + +He spoke quietly, though his face was grim, and then pausing a moment +waved his hand. "It seems to me," he added, "we have got to fetch the +inlet while the provisions last." + +"Exactly," said Wyllard. "Since the chart shows a river between us and +it, the sooner we start the better. If the thaw holds, the stream will +break up the ice on it." + +The Indian, who made no suggestion, grunted what appeared to be +concurrence, and they silently set to work to reload the sled. That +done, they took up the traces and floundered on again into the +gathering dimness and a thin haze of driving snow. Darkness had fallen +when they made camp again, and sat, worn-out and aching in every limb, +about the sputtering lamp inside the little, straining tent. The meal +they made was a very frugal one, and they lay down in the darkness +after it, for half their store of oil had been left behind in the +crevice. They said very little, for the second disaster had almost +crushed the courage out of them, and it was very clear to all that it +would only be by a strenuous effort they could reach the inlet before +their provisions quite ran out. They slept, however, and rising in a +stinging frost next morning set out again on the weary march, but it +was slow travelling, and at noon they left the tent and poles behind. + +"In another few days," said Wyllard, "we'll leave the sled." + +They made the beach that afternoon, though the only sign of it was the +fringe of more ragged ice and the white slope beyond the latter. A +thin haze hung about them heavy with frosty rime, and they could not +see more than a quarter of a mile ahead. When darkness fell they +scraped out a hollow beneath what seemed to be a snow-covered rock, and +sat upon their sleeping bags about the cooking lamp. Then, having +eaten, they huddled close together with part of their aching bodies +upon the sled in a bitter frost, but none of them slept much that night. + +The morning broke clear and warmer, and Wyllard, climbing to the summit +of the rock, had a brief glimpse of the serrated summits of a great +white range that rose out of a dingy greyness to the west and south. +It, however, faded like a vision while he watched it, and turning he +looked out across the rolling wilderness that stretched away to the +north. Nothing broke its gleaming monotony, and there was no sign of +life anywhere in the vast expanse. By and bye it narrowed, and when he +clambered down the haze was creeping in again. + +They set out after breakfast, breaking through a thin crust of snow, +which rendered the march almost insuperably difficult, and they had +painfully made a league or two by the approach of night. The snow had +grown softer, and the thawing surface would not bear the sled, which +sunk in the slush beneath. Still, they floundered on for a while after +darkness fell, and then lay down in a hollow, packed close together, +while a fine rain poured down on them. + +Somehow they slept, and, though this was more difficult, got upon their +feet again when morning came, for of all the hard things the wanderer +in rain-swept bush or frozen wilderness must bear there is none that +tests his powers more than the bracing himself for another day of +effort in the early dawn. Comfortless as the night's lair has been, +the jaded body craves for such faint warmth as it afforded, and further +rest, the brain is dull and heavy, and the aching limbs appear +incapable of supporting the weight on them. Difficulties loom +appallingly large in the faint creeping light, courage fails, and the +will grows feeble. Wyllard and his companions felt all this, but it +was clear to them that they could not dally, with their provisions +running out, and staggering out of camp after a very scanty meal they +hauled the sled through the slush they churned up for an hour or so. +Then they stopped, gasping, the Indian slipped out of the traces, and +Charly, who nodded, cast them loose from him. + +"We've hauled that thing about far enough," he said. + +Wyllard stood looking at them for a moment or two with a furrowed face +and a hand that the frost had split tightly clenched. It was evident +that they could haul the hampering load no further, and he was troubled +by an almost insupportable weariness. Then he made a little unwilling +sign of concurrence. + +"In that case," he said, "you have to decide what you'll leave behind." + +They discussed it for some minutes, partly because it furnished an +excuse for sitting upon the sled, though none of them had much doubt as +to the result of the council. It was unthinkable that they should +sacrifice a scrap of the provisions. Then, when each man had lashed a +light load upon his shoulders with a portion of the cut-up traces, they +set out again, and it rained upon them heavily all that day. + +During the four following days they were buffeted by a furious wind, +but the temperature had risen, and the snow was melting fast, and +splashing knee-deep through slush and water they made progress. While +he stumbled along with the pack-straps galling his shoulders, Wyllard +was conscious of little beyond the unceasing pain in his joints and the +leaden heaviness of his limbs; but the recollection of that march +haunted him like a horrible nightmare long afterwards, when each +sensation and incident emerged from the haze of numbing misery. He +remembered that he stormed at and almost fought with Charly, who lagged +behind now and then in a fit of languid dejection, and that once he +fell heavily, and was sensible of a certain half-conscious regret that +he was still capable of going on when the Indian dragged him to his +feet again. They rarely spoke to one another, and noticed nothing +beyond the strip of white waste, through which uncovered brown patches +commenced to break, immediately in front of them, except when they +crossed some low elevation and looked down upon the stretch of dull +grey water not far away on one hand. The breeze, at least, had swept +the ice away, and that was reassuring, because it meant that Dampier +would be at the inlet when they reached it, though now and then a +horrible fear that their strength would fail them or their provisions +run out first crept in. + +Their faces had already grown gaunt and haggard, and each scanty meal +had been further cut down to the smallest portion which would keep life +and power of movement within them. Still, though the weight of it +hampered him almost intolerably, Wyllard clung to the one rifle that +they had saved from the disaster at the landing and a dozen cartridges. +This was a folly which he and Charly had once virulent words about. + +At length they came one evening to a river which flowed across their +path, and lay down beside it, feeling that the end was not far away. +Except in the eddies and shallows, the ice had broken up, and the +stream swirled by between in raging flood, thick with heavy masses +which it had brought down from its higher reaches. They crashed upon +the gleaming spurs that here and there projected from the half-thawn +fringe, and smashed with a harsh crackling among the boulders, and +there was no doubt as to what would befall the stoutest swimmer who +might attempt the passage. So far as Wyllard afterwards remembered, +none of them said anything when they lay down among the wet stones, but +with the first of the daylight they started up stream. The river was +not a large one, and it seemed just possible that they might find a +means of crossing higher up, though they afterwards admitted that this +was a good deal more than they expected. + +During the afternoon the ground rose sharply, and the stream flowed out +of a deep ravine which they followed. The rocks, as far as Wyllard +could remember, were of volcanic origin, and some of them had crumbled +into heaps of ragged debris. The slope of the ravine became a talus it +was almost impossible to scramble along, and they were forced back upon +the boulders and the half-thawn ice in the slacker pools. + +Still, they made some progress, and when evening drew near found a +little clearer space between rock and river. The Indian had in the +meanwhile wrenched his foot or knee, and when at length they stopped to +make camp among the rocks it was some little time before he overtook +them. Then he said that he had found the slot of some animal which he +fancied had gone up the ravine. What the beast was he did not seem to +know, but he assured them that it was, at least, large enough to eat, +and that appeared to be of the most importance then. He would not, +however, take the rifle. Nothing would compel him to drag himself +another rod that night, he said, and the others, who had noticed how he +limped, accepted his statement. He sat down among the stones with an +expressionless face, and Charly decided that it was Wyllard's part to +try to pick up the trail. + +"You could beat me every time at trailing or shooting when we went +ashore on the American side, and I'm not sorry to let it go at that +now," he said. + +Wyllard smiled very grimly, "And I've carried this rifle a week on top +of my other load. You can't shoot when you're dead played out." + +Then they called in the Indian and left it to him, and saying nothing +he gravely pointed to Wyllard. + +Charly grinned for the first time in several days. + +"Well," he said, "in this case I guess I've no objections to let it be +as he suggests." + +Wyllard, who said nothing further, took up the rifle and strode very +wearily out of camp. There was, he fancied, scarcely an hour's +daylight left, and already the dimness seemed a little more marked down +in the hollow. He, however, found the slot again, and as there was a +wall of rock on one side of him up which he did not think a beast of +any kind could scramble he pushed on up stream beside the ice. There +was nothing except this to guide him, but he was a little surprised to +feel that his perceptions which had been dull and dazed the last few +days were growing clearer. He noticed the different sounds the river +made, and picked out the sharp crackle of ice among the stones, though +he had hitherto only been conscious of a hoarse, pulsating roar. The +rocks also took distinctive shapes instead of looming in blurred masses +before his heavy eyes, and he found himself gazing with strained +attention into each strip of deeper shadow. Still, though he walked +cautiously, there was no sign of any life in the ravine. He was +horribly weary, and now and then he set his lips as he stumbled noisily +among the stones, but he pushed on beside the water while the deep +hollow grew dimmer and more shadowy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE UNEXPECTED. + +By and bye Wyllard felt a troublesome dizziness creeping over him, and +he sat down upon a boulder with the rifle across his knees. He had +eaten very little during the last few days, which had been spent in +arduous exertion, and now the leaden weariness which he had fought +against since morning threatened to overcome him. In addition to this, +he was oppressed by a black dejection, which, though his mind had never +been clearer, reacted upon his failing physical powers, for it was now +unpleasantly evident that he and his companions could not reach the +inlet while their provisions held out. There was no longer any doubt +that he had involved them in disaster, and the knowledge that he had +done so was very bitter. + +He sat still awhile with haggard face and set lips, gazing up the +ravine, for, although he scarcely fancied that either of the others had +expected anything else, he shrank from going back as empty-handed as +when he had left them. The light was getting very dim, but he could +still see the ice fringe upon the pool in front of him, and a mass of +rock that rose black against the creeping dusk not very far away. +Beyond it on the one side there seemed to be a waste of stones amidst +which a few wreaths of snow still gleamed lividly. Then a wall of rock +scarcely distinguishable in the shadow shut in the hollow. + +The latter was filled with the hoarse roar of the river and the sharp +crash and crackle of stream-driven ice, but by and bye the worn-out man +started as he caught another faint sound which suggested the clink of a +displaced stone. His hands closed hard upon the rifle, but he sat very +still, listening with strained attention until he heard the sound +again. Then a thrill ran through him, for he was quite certain of its +meaning. A stone had rolled over higher up the gorge, and he rose and +moved forward cautiously, keeping the detached rock between him and the +upper portion of the ravine. Once or twice a stone clattered noisily +beneath his feet, and he stopped for a moment or two, wondering with +tense anxiety whether the sound could be heard at any distance through +the roar of the river. This was a very much grimmer business than +crawling through the long grass for a shot at the prairie antelope, +when in case of success it had scarcely seemed worth while to pack the +tough and stringy venison back to the homestead. + +By and bye he heard the clatter of a displaced stone again, and this +time it was so distinct and near that it puzzled him. The wild +creatures of the waste were, he knew, always alert, and their +perception of an approaching danger was wonderful. It seemed strange, +since he had heard it, that the beast he was creeping in upon could +apparently not hear him, but he realised that he must face the hazard +of its doing so, for in another few minutes it would be too dark to +shoot. He had almost reached the rock by this time, and he shifted his +grasp on the rifle, holding it thrust forward in front of him while +crouching low he looked down for a spot on which to set his foot each +time he moved. It would, he knew, be useless to go any further if a +stone turned over now. None did, however, and he crept, strung up to +highest tension, into the deeper gloom behind the rock. + +A little pool ran in close beneath the latter from the river, but it +was covered with ice and slushy snow, and treading very cautiously he +crept across it, and held his breath as he moved out from behind the +stone. Then he stopped suddenly, for a man stood face to face with him +scarcely a stone's throw away. His fur-clad figure cut sharply against +a gleaming bank of snow, and he held a gun in his hand. Though the +light had almost gone, it was evident to Wyllard that he was a white +man. + +They stood very still for several seconds gazing at one another, and +then the stranger dropped the butt of his weapon and called out +sharply. Wyllard, who failed to understand him, did not move, and he +spoke again. What he said was still unintelligible, but Wyllard, who +had fallen in with a few Germans from Minnesota on the prairie, fancied +that he recognised the language. He made a sign that it was still +beyond his comprehension, and the stranger tried again. This time it +was French he spoke. + +"You can come forward, comrade," he said. + +He did not seem to be hostile, and Wyllard, who tossed his rifle into +the hollow of his left arm, moved out to meet him a pace or two. + +"You are Russian?" he said, in the language the other had used, for +French of a kind is freely spoken in parts of Canada. + +The man laughed. "That afterwards," he answered. "It is said so. My +name is Overweg--Albrecht Overweg. As to you, it appears you do not +understand Russian." + +Wyllard drew a little nearer, and sat down upon a boulder. Now the +tension had somewhat slackened his weariness had once more become +almost insupportable, and he felt that he might need his strength and +senses. In the meanwhile he was somewhat bewildered by the encounter, +for it was certainly astonishing to fall in with a man who spoke three +civilised languages and wore spectacles in that desolate wilderness. + +"No," he said, "it is almost the first time I have heard it." + +"Ah," said the other, "there is a certain significance in that +admission, my friend. It is permissible to inquire where you have come +from, and what you are doing here?" + +Wyllard, who had no desire to give him any information upon the latter +point, pointed towards the east. + +"That is where I come from. As to my business, at the moment you will +excuse me. It is perhaps not a rudeness to ask what is yours?" + +The stranger laughed. "Caution, it seems, is necessary; and to the +east, where you have pointed, there is only the sea. I will, however, +tell you my business. It is the science, and not"--he seemed to add +this with a certain significance--"in any way connected with the +administration of the country." + +Wyllard was conscious of a vast relief on hearing this, but as he was +not quite sure that he could believe it, he felt that prudence was +still advisable. In any case, he could not let the stranger go away +until he had learned whether there were any more white men with him. +He sat still, thinking rather hard for a moment or two. + +"You have a camp somewhere near?" he asked at length. + +"Certainly," said the other. "You will come back with me, or shall I +come to yours?" + +"There are several of you?" + +"Besides myself, two Kamtchadales." + +"Then," said Wyllard, "I will come with you. I have left two comrades +a little further down the ravine. Will you wait until I bring them?" + +The stranger made a sign of assent, and sitting down upon a ledge of +rock took out a cigar. Wyllard now felt more sure of him, since it was +evident that had he meditated any treachery he would naturally have +preferred him to make the visit unattended. In any case, it seemed +likely that he would have something to eat in his camp. + +Wyllard plodded back down the ravine, and when he reappeared with the +others Overweg was still sitting there in the gathering darkness. He +greeted them with a wave of his hand, and rising, silently led the way +up the hollow until they came into sight of a little tent that +glimmered beneath a rock. There was a light inside it, and two dusky +figures were silhouetted against the canvas. When the party reached +it, Overweg drew the flap back, and the light shone upon his face as he +signed them to enter. Wyllard standing still a moment looked at him +steadily, and then seeing the little smile in his eyes quietly went in. + +After that Overweg called to one of the Kamtchadales, who came in and +busied himself about the cooking lamp, while his guests sat down with a +sense of luxurious content among the skins that were spread upon the +ground sheet. After the raw cold outside the tent was very snug and +warm. They said little, however, and Overweg made no attempt at +conversation until the Kamtchadale laid out a meal, when he watched +them with a smile while they ate voraciously. He had stripped his furs +off, and sat with his knees drawn up on one of the skins, a little, +plump, round-faced man, with tow-coloured hair, and eyes that gleamed +shrewdly behind his spectacles. + +"Shall I open another can?" he asked at length. + +"No," said Wyllard. "We owe you thanks enough already. Provisions are +evidently plentiful with you." + +Overweg nodded. "I have a base camp two or three days' journey back," +he said. "It is possible that I shall make a depot. We brought our +stores up from the south with dog sleds before the snow grew soft, but +it is necessary for me to push on further. My business, you +understand, is the scientific survey; to report upon the natural +resources of the country." + +He paused, and his manner changed a little when he went on again. "I +have," he added, "to this extent taken you into my confidence, and I +invite an equal candour. Two things are evident. You have made a long +journey, and your French is not that one hears in Paris." + +"First of all," said Wyllard, "I must ask again are you a Russian?" + +Overweg spread his hands out with a little whimsical gesture. "My +name, which I have told you, is not Sclavonic, and it may be admitted +that I was born in Bavaria. In the meanwhile, it is true that I have +been sent on a mission by the Russian Government." + +"I wonder," said Wyllard reflectively, "how far you consider your duty +towards your employers goes." + +Overweg's eyes twinkled. "It covers all that can be ascertained about +the geological structure and the fauna of the country, especially the +fauna that produce marketable furs. At present I am not convinced that +it goes very much further." + +It was clear to Wyllard that he was to a large extent in this man's +hands already, since he could not reach the inlet without provisions, +and Overweg could, if he thought fit, send back a messenger to the +Russian authorities. He was one who could think quickly and make a +momentous decision, and he realised that if he could not win the man's +sympathy there must be open hostility between them. It seemed possible +that he might obviate any necessity for the latter. + +"In that case I think I may tell you what has brought me here," he +said. "If you have travelled much in Kamchatka you can, perhaps, help +me. To begin with, I sailed from Vancouver, in Canada, going on for a +year ago." + +It took him some time to make his errand clear, and then Overweg looked +at him in a rather curious fashion. + +"It is," he said, "a tale that in these days one finds some little +difficulty in believing. Still, it must be admitted that I am +acquainted with one fact which appears to substantiate it." + +Then as he saw the blood rise to Wyllard's forehead he broke off with a +little soft laugh. + +"My friend," he added, "is it permitted to offer you my felicitations? +The men who would attempt a thing of this kind are, I think, singularly +rare." + +"The fact?" said Wyllard, impatiently. + +"There is a Kamtchadale in my base camp who told me of a place where a +white man was buried some distance to the west of us. He spoke of a +second white man, but nobody, I understand, knows what became of him." + +Wyllard straightened himself suddenly. "You will send for that +Kamtchadale?" + +"Assuredly. The tale you have told me has stirred my curiosity. As my +path lies west up the river valley, we can, if it pleases you, go on +for a while together." + +Wyllard, who thanked him, turned to Charly with a faint sigh of relief. + +"It seems that we shall not bring those men back, but I think we may +find out where they lie," he said. Charly made no comment, for this +was the most he had expected, and a few minutes later there was silence +in the little tent when the men lay down to sleep among the skins. + +They started at sunrise next morning, and followed the river slowly by +easy stages until the man sent back to Overweg's base camp overtook +them with another Kamtchadale. Then they pushed on still further +inland, and it was a week later when one evening their guide led them +up to a little pile of stones upon a lonely ridge of rock. There were +two letters very rudely cut on one of them, and Wyllard, who stooped +down beside it, took off his cap when he rose. + +"There's no doubt that Jake Leslie lies here," he said, and looked at +Overweg. "Your man is sure it was only one white man who buried him?" + +Overweg spoke to the Kamtchadale, who answered him. + +"There was only one white man," he said. "It seems he went inland +afterwards--at least a year ago." + +Then Wyllard turned to Charly, and his face was very grave. "That +makes it certain that two of them have died. There was one left, and +he may be dead by this time." He spread his hands out with a forceful +gesture. "If one only knew!" + +Charly made no answer. He was not a man of education or much +imagination, but like others of his kind he had alternately borne many +privations in the wilderness, logging, prospecting, trail-cutting about +the remoter mines, and at sea. As one result of this there crept into +his mind some recognition of what the outcast who lay at rest beside +their feet had had to face--the infinite toil of the march, the black +despair, the blinding snow, and Arctic frost. He met his leader's gaze +with a look of comprehending sympathy. + +By what grim efforts and primitive devices their comrade, had clung to +life so long as he had done it seemed very probable that they would +never know, but they clearly realised that though some might call it an +illegal raid, or even piracy, it was a work of mercy this outlaw who +had borne so much had undertaken when he was cast away. In the word to +swing the boats over and face the roaring surf in the darkness of the +night he had heard the clear call of duty, and had fearlessly obeyed. +His obedience had cost him much, but as the man who had come so far to +search for him looked down upon the little pile of stones that had been +raised above his bones in the desolate wilderness, there awoke within +him a sure recognition of the fact that this was not the end. That, at +least, was unthinkable. His comrade, sloughing off the half-frozen, +suffering flesh, had gone on to join the immortals--with his duty done. + +It was with a warmth at his heart and a slight haziness in his eyes +that Wyllard turned away at length, but when he put on his fur cap +again he was more determined than ever to carry out the search. There +were many perils and difficulties to be faced, but he felt that he must +not flinch. + +"One man went inland," he said to Overweg. "I must go that way, too." + +The little spectacled scientist looked at him curiously. + +"Ah," he said, "the road your comrade travelled is a hard one. You +have seen what it leads to." + +Then Wyllard did what is in the case of such men as he was a somewhat +unusual thing, for he gave another a glimpse of the feelings he +generally kept hidden deep in him. + +"No," he said, quietly, "the hard road leads further--where we do not +know--but one feels that the full knowledge will not bring sorrow when +it is some day given to those who have the courage to follow." + +Overweg spread his hands out. "It is not the view of the materialists, +but it is conceivable that the materialists may be wrong. In this +case, however, it is the concrete and practical we have to grapple +with, my friend. You say you are going inland to search for that man, +and for awhile I go that way, but though I have my base camp there is +the question of provisions if you come with me." + +They discussed the matter until Wyllard suggested that he could replace +any provisions his companion supplied him with from the schooner, to +which Overweg agreed, and they afterwards decided to send the Siwash +and one of the Kamtchadales on to the inlet with a letter to Dampier. +The two started next day when they found a place where the river was +with difficulty fordable, and the rest pushed on slowly into a broken +and rising country seamed with belts of thin forest here and there. +They held westwards for another week, and then one evening made their +camp among a few stunted and straggling firs. The temperature had +risen in the day-time, but the nights were cold, and when they had +eaten their evening meal they were glad of the shelter of the tent. A +small fire of resinous branches was sinking into a faintly glowing mass +close outside of it. + +The flap was, however, drawn back, and Wyllard, who lay facing the +opening, could see a triangular patch of dim blue sky with a sharp +sickle moon hanging low above a black fir branch. The night was clear +and still, but now and then there was a faint elfin sighing among the +stunted trees that died away again. He was then, while still +determined, moodily discouraged, for they had seen no sign of human +life during the journey, and his reason told him that he might search +for years before he found the bones of the last survivor of the party. +Still, he meant to search while Overweg was willing to supply him with +provisions. + +By and bye he saw Charly sharply raise his head and gaze towards the +opening. + +"Did you hear anything outside?" he asked. + +"It would be the Kamtchadales," said Wyllard. + +"They went back a mile or two to lay some traps." + +"Then," said Wyllard, decisively, "it couldn't have been anything." + +Charly did not appear satisfied, and it seemed to Wyllard that Overweg +was also listening, but there was deep stillness outside now, and he +dismissed the matter from his mind. A few minutes later it, however, +seemed to him that a shadowy form appeared out of the gloom among the +firs and faded into it again. This struck him as very curious, since +if it had been one of the Kamtchadales he would have walked straight +into camp, but he said nothing to his companions, and there was silence +for a while until Charly rose softly to his feet. + +"Get out as quietly as you can," he said, as he slipped by Wyllard, who +crept after him to the entrance. + +When he reached it his companion's voice rang out with a startling +vehemence. + +"Stop right now!" he cried, and after a pause, "Nobody's going to hurt +you. Walk right ahead." + +Then Wyllard felt his heart beat furiously, for a dusky, half-seen +figure materialised out of the gloom, and grew into sharper form as it +drew nearer to the sinking fire. The thing was wholly unexpected, +almost incredible, but it was clear that the man could understand +English, and his face was white. In another moment Wyllard's last +doubt vanished, and he sprang forward with a gasp. + +"Lewson--Tom Lewson," he said. + +Then Charly thrust the man inside the tent, and when somebody lighted a +lamp he sat down stupidly and looked at them. His face was gaunt and +furrowed, and almost blackened by exposure to the frost, his hair was +long, and tattered garments of greasy skins hung about him. There was +also something that suggested bewildered incredulity in his eyes. + +"It's real?" he said, slowly and haltingly. "You have come at last?" + +They assured him that this was the case, and for a moment or two the +man's face worked and he made a hoarse sound in his throat. + +"Lord," he said, "if I'm dreaming I don't want to wake." + +Charly leaned forward and smote him on the shoulder. + +"Shall I hit you like I did that afternoon in the Thompson House on the +Vancouver water front?" he asked. + +Then the certainty of the thing seemed to dawn upon the man, for he +quivered, and his eyes half closed. After that he straightened himself +with an effort. + +"I should have known, and I think I did," he said. "Something seemed +to tell me that you would come for us when you could." + +Wyllard's face flushed, but he said nothing, and it was Charly who +asked the next question. + +"The others are dead?" + +Lewson made a little expressive gesture. "Hopkins was drowned in a +crevice of the ice. I buried Leslie back yonder." + +He broke off abruptly, as though speech cost him an effort, and Wyllard +turned to Overweg. + +"This is the last of the men I was looking for," he said. + +Overweg quietly nodded. "Then you have my felicitations--but it might +be advisable if you did not tell me too much," he said. "Afterwards I +may be questioned by those in authority." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +CAST AWAY. + +Tom Lewson had been an hour in camp before he commenced the story of +his wanderings, and at first he spoke slowly and falteringly, lying +propped up on one elbow, with the lamplight on his worn face. + +"We broke an oar coming off the beach that night, and it kind of +crippled us," he said. "Twice she nearly went back again in the surf, +and I don't quite know how we pulled her off. Anyway, one of us was +busy heaving out the water that broke into her. It was Jake, I think, +and he seemed kind of silly. Once we saw a boat hove up on a sea, but +we lost her in the spray, and a long while after we saw the schooner. +Just then a comber that broke on board most hove us over, and when we +had dodged the next two there wasn't a sign of her. After that we knew +that we were done, and we just tried to keep her head-to and ease her +to the seas." + +He stopped a moment, and looked round at the others with troubled eyes, +as though trying to marshal uncertain memories, for this was a simple +sailorman, who contented himself with the baldest narrative. Still, +two of those who heard him could fill in the things he had not +mentioned--the mad lurching of the half-swamped boat, the tense +struggle with the oars each time a big frothing comber forged out of +the darkness, and the savage desperation of the drenched and +half-frozen men cast away with the roaring surf to lee of them and +their enemies watching upon the hammered beach. + +"It blew hard that night," he added. "Somehow she lived through it, +but there wasn't a sign of the island when morning came. Nothing but +the combers and the flying haze. Guess the wind must have shifted a +few points and drove us by the end of it. Then we found Jake had his +head laid open by a sealing club. The sea was getting longer, and as +we were too played out to hold her to it we got her away before it, and +somehow she didn't roll over. I think it was next day, though it might +have been longer, when we fetched another island. She just washed up +on it, and one of the others pulled me out. There wasn't a sign of +anybody on the beach, but there were plenty of skinned holluschackie +seals on the slope behind it, and that was fortunate for us." + +"You struck nobody on the island?" enquired Wyllard. + +"We didn't," said Lewson simply. "The Russians must have sent a vessel +to take off the killers after the last drive of the season a day or two +before, for the holluschackie were quite fresh, and perhaps it was +blowing hard and the surf getting steep, for they'd left quite a few of +their things behind them. Anyway, that was how we figured it. We +found the shacks the killers lived in, and we made out that winter in +one of them." + +It occurred to Wyllard that this was a thing very few men except +sealers could have done had they been cast ashore without stores or +tools to face the awful winter of the north. + +"How did you get through?" he asked. + +"Well," said Lewson, "we had a rifle, and the ca'tridges weren't +spoilt. The killers hadn't taken their cooking outfit, and by and bye +we got a walrus in an open lane among the ice. They'd left some gear +behind them, but we were most of two days cutting and heaving the beast +out with a parbuckle under him. There was no trouble about things +keeping in that frost. Besides, we'd the holluschackie blubber to +burn, and there was a half-empty bag or two of stores in one of the +shacks. No, we hadn't any great trouble in making out." + +"You had to stay there until the ice broke up?" said Charly. + +"And after. The boat was gone, and we couldn't get away. She broke up +in the surf, and we burned what we saved of her. At last a schooner +came along, and we hid out across the island until she'd gone away. It +was blowing fresh, and hazy, and she just shoved a new gang of killers +ashore. There was an Okotsk Russian with them, but he made no trouble +for us. He was white, anyway, and it kind of seemed to me he didn't +like one of the other men who got hurt that night on the beach." + +"Then some of them did get badly hurt?" Wyllard broke in. + +Lewson laughed, a little, almost silent laugh, which nevertheless +sounded strangely grim. + +"Well," he said, "from what that Russian told us--and we got to +understand each other by and bye--one of the killers had his ribs +broke, and it seems that another would go lame for life. Besides, +among other things, there was a white man got his face quite smashed. +I saw him after with his nose flattened way out to starboard, and one +eye canted. He was a boss of some kind. They called him Smirnoff." + +Overweg looked up sharply. "Ah," he said, "Smirnoff. A man with an +unsavoury name. I have heard of him." + +"Anyway," Lewson went on, "we killed seals all the open season with +that Russian, and I've no fault to find with him. In fact, I figure if +he could have fixed it he'd have left us on the island that winter, but +when a schooner came to take the killers off and collect the skins +Smirnoff was on board of her. That"--and an ominous gleam crept into +Lewson's eyes--"was the real beginning of the trouble." + +"He had us hauled up before him--guess the other man had to tell him +who we were--and when I wouldn't answer he slashed me with a +sled-dog-whip across the face." + +Lewson clenched a lean brown fist. "Yes," he added, hoarsely, "I was +whipped--but they should have tied my hands first. It was not my fault +I didn't have that man's life. It was most a minute before three of +them pulled me off him, and he was considerably worse to look at then." + +There was silence for a minute or two, and Wyllard, who felt his own +face grow a trifle warm, saw the suggestive hardness in Charly's eyes. +Lewson was gazing out into the darkness, but the veins were swollen on +his forehead and his whole body had stiffened. Then he spread his +hands out. + +"We'll let that go. I can't think of it. They put us on board the +schooner, and by and bye she ran into a creek on the coast. We were to +be sent somewhere to be dealt with, and we knew what that meant, with +what they had against us. Well, they went ashore to collect some skins +from the Kamtchadales, and at night we cut the boat adrift. We got off +in the darkness, and if they followed they never trailed us. Guess +they figured we couldn't make out through the winter that was coming +on." + +So far the story had been more or less connected and comprehensible. +It laid no great tax on Wyllard's credulity, and, indeed, all that +Lewson described had come about very much as Dampier had once or twice +suggested; but it seemed an almost impossible thing that the three men +should have survived during the years that followed. Lewson, as it +happened, never made that matter very clear. He sat silent for almost +a minute before he went on again. + +"We hauled the boat out, and hid her among the rocks, and after that we +fell in with some Kamtchadales going north," he said. "They took us +along, I don't know how far, but they were trapping for furs, and by +and bye--I think it was months after--we got away from them. Then we +fell in with another crowd, and went on further north with them. They +were Koriaks, and we lived with them a long while--a winter and a +summer anyway. It was more, perhaps--I can't remember." + +He broke off with a vague gesture, and sat looking at the others +vacantly with his lean face furrowed. + +"We must have been with them two years--but I don't quite know. It was +all the same up yonder--ever so far to the north." + +It seemed to Wyllard that he had seldom heard anything more expressive +in its way than this sailorman's brief and fragmentary description of +his life in the wilderness. He had heard from steam whaler skippers a +little about the tundra that fringes the Polar Sea, the vast desolation +frozen hard in summer a few inches below the surface, on which nothing +beyond the mosses ever grew. It was easy to understand the +brain-crushing sameness and monotony of an existence chequered only by +times of dire scarcity on those lonely shores. + +"How did you live?" he asked. + +"There were the birds in summer, and fish in the rivers. In winter we +killed things in the lanes in the ice, though there were weeks when we +lay about the blubber lamp in the pits. They made pits and put a roof +on them. I don't know why we stayed there, but Jake had always a +notion that we might get across to Alaska--somehow. We were way out on +the ice one day when Jim fell into a crevice, and we couldn't get him +out." + +He broke off, and sat still awhile as one dreaming. "I can't put +things together, but at last we came south, Jake and I, and struck the +Kamtchadales again. We could talk to them, and one of them told us +about a schooner lying in an inlet by a settlement. The Russians had +brought her there from the islands, and she must have been a sealer. +Jake figured it was just possible we might run away with her and push +across for the Aleutians or Alaska." + +Charly looked up suddenly. "She--was--a sealer--Hayson's _Seminole_. +I was in Victoria when we heard that the Russians had seized her." + +Wyllard turned to Overweg, who nodded when he asked a question in +French. + +"Yes," he said, "I believe the vessel lies in the inlet still. They +have used her now and then. It is understood that they were warranted +in seizing her, but I think there was some diplomatic pressure brought +to bear on them, for they sent her crew home." + +Then Lewson went on again. "Food was scarce that season, and we got +most nothing in the traps," he said. "Besides, there were Russians out +prospecting, and that headed us off. We figured that some of the +Kamtchadales who traded skins to the settlements would put them on our +trail. When we went to look for the boat she'd gone, but we hadn't +much notion of getting off in her, though another time--I don't +remember when--we gave two Kamtchadales messages we'd cut on slips of +wood. Sometimes the schooners stood in along the coast." + +Wyllard nodded. "Dunton of the _Cypress_ got your message," he said. +"He was in difficulties then, but he afterwards sent it me." + +"Well," said Lewson, "there isn't much more to it. We hung about the +beach awhile, and then went north before the winter. Jake played out +on the trail. By and bye he had to let up, and in a day or two I +buried him." + +He spread his hands out, and his voice grew hoarse. "After that it +didn't seem to matter what became of me, but I kept the trail somehow, +and found I couldn't stay up yonder. That's why I started south with +some of them before the summer came. Now I'm here--talking +English--talking with white men--but it doesn't seem the same as it +should have been--without the others." + +He broke off, and said no more that night, but Wyllard translated part +of his story for the benefit of Overweg. The latter made a little +expressive gesture. + +"The thing, it seems incredible," he commented. "This man, who has so +little to tell, knows things which would make a trained explorer +famous." + +"It generally happens that way," said Wyllard with a dry smile. "The +men who know can't tell." + +Overweg made a sign of assent, and then changed the subject. + +"What will you do now?" + +"Start for the inlet where we expect to find the schooner at sunrise. +I want to say"--and Wyllard hesitated--"that you have laid an +obligation on me which I can never repay; but I can, at least, replace +the provisions you have supplied me with." + +"That goes for nothing," said the other with a smile. "I have, +however, drawn upon my base camp rather heavily, and should be glad of +any stores from the schooner that you could let me have. The +difficulty is that I do not wish to go too far towards the beach." + +They arranged a rendezvous a day or two's march from the inlet, and in +another half-hour all of them were fast asleep. + +When the first of the daylight came Wyllard set off with his two +companions, and since it was evident that Dampier must have now lain in +the inlet awaiting them a considerable time, they marched fast for +several days. Then to their consternation they came upon the Siwash +lying beside a river badly lame. It appeared that in climbing a +slippery ridge of rock the knee he had injured had given way, and he +had fallen some distance heavily, after which the Kamtchadale finding +him helpless had disappeared with most of the provisions. None of the +party ever learned what had become of him, but they realised in the +meanwhile that the situation was now a rather serious one. Charly, who +looked at Wyllard when he had heard the Indian's story, explained it +concisely. + +"I'm worrying about the boat we left on the edge of the ice," he said. +"I've had a notion all along it was going to make trouble. Dampier +would see the wreckage when he ran in, and I guess it would only mean +one thing to him. He'd make quite certain he was right when he didn't +find us at the inlet." He paused and pointed towards the distant sea. +"You have got to push right on with Lewson as fast as you can while I +try to bring the Siwash along." + +Wyllard started in the next few minutes, and afterwards never quite +forgot the strain and stress of that arduous march. The journey he had +made with Overweg had been difficult enough, but they had then, at +least, traversed rising ground from which most of the melting snow had +drained away. Now, however, as they approached the more level littoral +there were wide tracts of mire and swamp to be painfully floundered +through, while every ravine and hollow was swept by a frothing torrent, +and they had often to search for hours for a place where it was +possible to cross. To make things worse, they were drenched with +bitter rain half the time, and trails of dingy mist obscured their +path, but they toiled on stubbornly through every obstacle, though it +was only by the tensest effort that Wyllard kept pace with his +companion. The gaunt, long-haired Lewson seemed proof against physical +weariness, and there was seldom any change in the expression of his +grim, lined face. Now and then Wyllard felt a curious shrinking as he +glanced at it, for its fixed look suggested what this man had borne in +the awful solitudes of the frozen north. + +Slowly, with infinite toil, they crossed the weary leagues, lying at +night with a single skin between them and the soil, for they travelled +light; and Wyllard was limping painfully with his boots worn off his +feet, when at length one morning they came into sight of a low +promontory which rose against a stretch of grey, lifeless sea. His +heart throbbed fast as he realised that behind it lay the inlet into +which Dampier had arranged to bring the _Selache_. He glanced at +Lewson, who said nothing, and they plodded forward faster than before. + +The misty sun was high in the heavens when at length they reached the +foot of the steep rise, and Wyllard gasped heavily as they crept up the +ascent. He was making a severe muscular effort; but it was the nervous +tension that troubled him most, for he knew that he would look down +upon the inlet from the summit. He blamed himself bitterly for not +sending on a messenger to Dampier when he fell in with Overweg, which, +in his eagerness to follow up the clue the latter had given him, he had +at first omitted to do. There had certainly been difficulties in the +way, for the increase in the scientist's party had made additional +packers necessary, and Wyllard felt that he could not reasonably compel +him to leave the camp comforts he had evidently been accustomed to +behind. In spite of that, he had been at fault in not disregarding +every objection, and he realised it now. + +Somehow he kept pace with Lewson, but he closed one hand tight as he +neared the top. When he reached it he stopped suddenly, and his face +set hard as he looked down, standing very still. Beneath him lay a +strip of dim, green water, with a fringe of soft, white surf at the +foot of the promontory, while beyond the latter there stretched away an +empty expanse of slowly heaving sea. There was nothing else, however; +no schooner in the inlet, no boat upon the beach. + +In another moment or two they went down the slope savagely at a +stumbling run, and then stopped, gasping by the water's edge, and +looked at one another. There were marks in the sand which showed them +where a boat had been drawn up not very long ago. The _Selache_ had +evidently been there, and had sailed away again. + +Then Wyllard sat down limply upon the shingle, for all the strength +seemed to suddenly melt out of him, and it was several minutes before +he looked up. Lewson was still standing, a shapeless, barbaric figure +in his garments of skins, with a dark lined face that had scarcely +changed, gazing out to sea. The hide moccasins he wore had chafed +through, and Wyllard noticed that the blood was trickling from one of +his feet. + +"Well?" he said, harshly. + +Wyllard laid a stern restraint upon himself. Their case looked +desperate, but it must, at least, be grappled with. + +"We must go back and meet the rest," he said. "That first--what is to +come afterwards I don't quite know." Then a faint gleam of resolution +crept into his eyes. "The schooner the Russians seized lies in an +inlet down the coast." + +Lewson made a sign of comprehension. "There are four of us. There +will be birds by and bye. I can trap things." + +Then he flung himself down near his comrade, and for an hour neither of +them said anything. Wyllard, at least, was worn-out physically, and +limp from the last few hours' mental strain, while Lewson very seldom +said more than was absolutely necessary. Then they made a very frugal +meal, and long afterwards Wyllard was haunted by the memory of that +dreary afternoon during which he lay upon the shingle watching the slow +pulsations of the dim, lifeless sea. + +They set out again early next morning, and, as it happened, found a +little depot of provisions that Dampier had made, but it was several +days before they met Charly and the Indian, and another week had passed +before Overweg reached the place appointed. He listened to Wyllard's +story gravely, and then appeared to consider. + +"You have some plans?" he asked. + +Wyllard admitted that this was the case, and Overweg smiled behind his +spectacles. + +"It is, perhaps, better that you do not tell me what they are," he +said. "There is, however, one thing I can do. You say you left some +stores you could not carry at the depot, which I will take, for +provisions are now not plentiful with me, but there are still a few +things you have not which are almost necessary at my base camp, +and"--he spread his hands out--"after all, if I have to go south a +little earlier than I intended it is not a great matter." + +He wrote on a strip of paper which he handed to Wyllard. "You will +take these, and nothing else. I may add that Smirnoff is stationed at +the inlet where the schooner lies." + +Wyllard thanked him, and then looked him in the eyes. "There is a long +journey before us, and you have only my word that I will take nothing +but these things." + +Overweg nodded quietly. "Yes," he said, "it is, however, perhaps +permissible to assure you that it is sufficient for me." + +Very little more was said, and in another half-hour Wyllard and his +companions were ready to set out. He and the little spectacled +scientist grasped each other's hands, and then Wyllard abruptly turned +away. A few minutes later he turned again, and looking back saw +Overweg standing upon the ridge where he had left him silhouetted +against a low, grey sky. He raised his cap once, and Wyllard, who +answered him, swung round once more, and strode on faster towards the +south. He knew that his regard for this stranger who had fallen across +his path would remain unchanged while his life should last. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE LAST EFFORT. + +It was after a long and arduous journey which had left its mark on all +of them that Wyllard and his companions lay among the boulders beside a +sheltered inlet waiting for the dusk to fall one lowering evening. +They were cramped and aching, for they had scarcely moved during the +last hour; their garments were badly tattered, and their half-covered +feet were bleeding. They were, as they recognised, a pitiful company +to seize a vessel, with three knives and one rifle between them, but +there was resolution in their haggard faces. + +Close in front of them the green water lapped softly among the stones. +The breeze was light off shore, and the tide, which was just running +ebb, rippled against the bows of a little schooner lying some thirty +yards from the bank. She had been seized for illegal sealing some +years earlier, and it was evident that she had been very little used +since then. The paint was peeling from her cracked and weathered side, +her gear was frayed and bleached with frost and rain, and only very +hard-pressed men would have faced the thought of going to sea in her. +Wyllard and his companions were, however, very hard-pressed indeed, and +they preferred the hazards of a voyage in the crazy vessel to falling +into the Russians' hands. It was also clear that they had no choice. +It must be either one thing or the other. + +Some little distance up-stream a low rise cut against the dingy sky. +It shut off all view of the upper part of the inlet, which wound in +behind it, but Wyllard and his companions had cautiously climbed the +slope earlier in the afternoon, and lying flat upon the summit had +looked down upon the little wooden houses that clustered above the +beach. He had then decided that this part of the inlet would dry out +at about half-ebb, and as the schooner's boat, which he meant to seize, +lay upon the shingle it was evident that he must carry out his plans +within the next three hours. + +These were very simple. There was nobody on board the schooner, which +lay in deeper water, and he fancied that it would be possible to swim +off to her and slip the cable; but they must have provisions, and there +was, so far as he could see, only one way of obtaining them. A +building which stood by itself close beside the beach was evidently a +store, for he had seen two men carrying bags and cases out of it under +the superintendence of a third in some kind of uniform, and it appeared +to be unguarded. Wyllard, who had reasons for surmising that the few +settlements on the coast were under strict official control, fancied +that the store contained Government supplies, and had arranged that +Charly and Lewson should break into it as soon as darkness fell, and +pull off to the schooner with anything they could find inside. Whether +they would succeed in doing this he did not know, and he admitted to +himself that it scarcely seemed probable, but he could think of no +other plan, and the attempt must be made. + +In the meanwhile a thin haze drove across the crest of the rise, the +breeze freshened slightly, and the little ripples lapped more noisily +along the shingle. There was evidently a good deal of fresh water +coming down the inlet, and it was in a fever of impatience he watched +the schooner strain at her cable. That evening had already seemed the +longest he had ever spent in his life. By and bye it commenced to +rain, and little streams of chilly water trickled about the weary men, +but they lay still, with lips tight set, in tense suspense. What +Lewson had had to face in the awful icy wastes to the north of them +Wyllard could scarcely imagine, and Lewson could not tell, but he and +his two other comrades had borne things almost beyond endurance since +he commenced his search, and now there was far too much at stake for +him to increase the odds against them by any undue precipitancy. He +was then in a dangerous mood, but he had laid his plans with grim, +cold-blooded caution, and he meant to adhere to them. + +At length, and very slowly, the light faded, until the beach grew +shadowy, and the schooner's spars and rigging showed dim and blurred +against a dusky background. The rise that shut off the settlement was +lost in drifting haze, and the dull rumble of the surf on the outer +beach came up more sharply through the gathering darkness. The +measured beat of its deep pulsations almost maddened Wyllard as he lay +and listened, for if all went right he would be sliding out over the +long heave with every sail piled on to the crazy schooner in another +hour or two. + +At length, when there was only a faint gleam of water sliding by below, +he rose stiffly to his feet, and Lewson stretched out a hand for the +rifle that lay among the stones. There was a sharp click as he jerked +the lever, and then he laughed, a little jarring laugh, as the magazine +snapped back. + +"They'll treat us as pirates if they get hands on us--and I've been +lashed in the face--with a sled-dog-whip," he said. + +Charly said nothing as he loosened the long seaman's knife in his belt, +and Wyllard made no remonstrance, for there is, as he recognised, a +point beyond which prudence does not count. After what Overweg had +once or twice told him, it was unthinkable that they should fall into +Smirnoff's hands. + +Then Lewson and Charly melted away into the darkness, and Wyllard and +the Siwash walked quietly down to the water's edge, a little up-stream +of the schooner, as the stream was running strong. They, however, +stripped off nothing, for it was evident that none of the rags they +left behind could be replaced, and they knew from experience that when +the first shock is over a man swimming in icy water is kept a little +warmer by his clothing. For all that, the cold struck through Wyllard +like a knife when he flung himself forward and swung his left hand out, +and it was perhaps a minute before he was clearly conscious of anything +beyond the physical agony and the mental effort to retain control of +his faculties. Then he made out the schooner, a vague, blurred shape a +little down-stream of him, and he swam furiously, his face dipping +under each time his left hand came out. + +He drew level with her, clutched at her cable, a foot short, and was +driven against her bows. Then the stream swept him onward, gasping, +and clawing savagely at her slippery side, until his fingers found a +hold. It was merely the rounded top of a bolt, but with a desperate +effort he clutched the bent iron that led up from it to one of the +dead-eyes of the mainmast-shrouds. He could not, however, draw himself +up any further, and he hung on, wondering when his strength would fail +him, until the Siwash, who had already crawled up the cable, leaned +down from above and seized his shoulder. In another moment or two he +reached the rail, and went staggering across the deck, dripping, and +half dazed. + +Action was, however, imperatively necessary, and he braced himself for +the effort. The schooner was lying with her anchor up-stream, but he +did not think it would be possible to heave her over it and break it +out unless he waited until the others arrived, and it would then be a +lengthy and, what was more to the purpose, a noisy operation. The +anchor must be sacrificed, but there was the difficulty that he could +hardly expect to find a shackle on the cable in the dark. Running +forward with the Siwash, he pulled a chain stopper out, and then +shipping the windlass levers found with vast relief that it would work. +It would make a horribly distinct clanking, he knew, but that could not +be helped, and the next thing was to discover if the end of the chain +was made fast below, for it is very seldom that a skipper finds it +necessary to pay all his cable out. + +Dropping into the darkness of the locker beneath the forecastle, he was +more fortunate than he could reasonably have expected to be, for as he +crawled over the rusty links he felt a shackle. It appeared to be of +the usual harp-pattern with a cottered pin, and he called out sharply +to the Siwash, who presently flung him an iron bar and a big spike. +Then he struck one of the two or three sulphur matches he had carefully +treasured, and when the sputtering blue flame went out set to work to +back the pin out in the dark. He smashed his knuckles and badly +bruised his hands, but he succeeded, and knew that he had shortened the +chain by two-thirds now. + +Then he scrambled up on deck again and hurried aft, for the vessel's +kedge had been laid out astern to prevent her swinging. There was a +heavy hemp warp attached to it, and it cost them some time to heave +most of it over, after which they proceeded to get the mainsail on to +her. It was covered with a coat, and Wyllard cut himself as he slashed +through the tiers in savage impatience. Then he and the Siwash toiled +at the halliards desperately, for the task of raising the heavy gaff +was almost beyond their powers. + +There was no grease on the mast-hoops, the blocks had evidently not +been used for months, and several times they desisted a moment or two, +gasping, breathless, and utterly exhausted. Still, foot by foot they +got the black canvas up, and then, leaving the peak hanging, ran +forward to the boom-foresail, which was smaller and lighter. They set +that, cast two jibs and the staysail loose, and let them lie, and +Wyllard sat down feeling that the thing they had done would, if +attempted in cold blood, have appeared almost impossible. + +It was done, however, and now he must wait until the boat appeared. +There was no sign of her, and as he gazed up the inlet, seeing only the +dim glimmer of the water and the sliding mist, the suspense became +almost intolerable. Minute slipped by after minute, and still nothing +loomed out of the haze. The canvas rustled and banged above him, there +was a growing splashing beneath the bows, and the schooner strained +more heavily at her cable. Everything was ready, only his comrades did +not appear. He clenched his hands and set his lips as he waited, and +wondered at the Siwash who sat upon the rail, a dim, shapeless figure, +impassively still. + +At length his heart throbbed furiously, for a faint splash of oars came +out of the darkness, and they both ran forward to the windlass. The +sharp clanking it made drowned the splash of oars, but in another +minute or two there was a crash as the boat drove alongside, and Charly +scrambled up with a rope while Lewson hurled sundry bags and cases +after him. Then he climbed on deck in turn, and Charly commenced a +breathless explanation. + +"It's all we could get. There's nobody on our trail," he said. + +The last fact was most important, and Wyllard cut him short. "Get the +jibs and staysail on to her." + +The new arrivals did it while the cable clanked and rattled as the +schooner drove astern, but at the first heave the rotten staysail tore +off the hanks, and one jib burst as they ran it up its stay. Then for +an anxious moment or two the cable jammed, and the anchor brought the +schooner up. All four flung themselves upon the windlass levers, and +after a furious effort the chain came up again and ran out faster, +fathom by fathom, rattling horribly, until the end of it shot suddenly +over the windlass. Then there was another check as the schooner +brought up by the kedge swung suddenly across the stream. + +Her banging canvas filled, she listed over, and it was evident to all +of them that if the kedge started she would forthwith drive ashore. +Its warp ripped out of the water tense with strain, and she was +swinging on it heading for the beach when; Wyllard flung himself upon +the wheel. + +"Hang on to every inch or break it!" he roared. "Out main-boom; box +your jib and staysail up to weather!" + +They did it, amidst a great clatter of blocks and thrashing of canvas, +in desperate haste, while Wyllard wrenched up his helm, and the +schooner, straining on the warp, fell away with her bows down-stream. +He was quivering all through, and the sweat of effort dripped from him +when he swung up an arm to Lewson, who was standing at the bollard the +warp was made fast to. + +"Now," he cried hoarsely, "let her go!" + +The rope fell with a splash, the schooner lurched forward and drove +away down the inlet with the stream running seaward under her, while +Wyllard felt a trifle dazed from sheer revulsion of feeling. The +rumble of the surf was growing louder, the deck slanted slightly +beneath him, and if they could keep her off the beach for the next few +minutes there was freedom before them. He hazarded a glance astern, +but could see no sign of a boat up the inlet. They had done a thing +which even then appeared almost incredible. + +The breeze came down fresher, the gurgle at the bows grew louder, and +the deck commenced to heave with a slow and regular rise and fall. +Then a long, shadowy point girt about with spectral surf slipped by, +and they were out in open water. They ran her out for an hour or two +and then, though the peak of the mainsail burst to tatters as they +hauled her on a wind, let her stretch away northwards following the +trend of coast. + +"We'll stand on as she's lying until we find a creek or river mouth. +We must have water," Wyllard said. + +An hour later he called Charly to the wheel, and sitting down in the +shelter of the rail soon afterwards went to sleep, though this was +about the last thing he had contemplated doing. It was grey dawn when +he opened his eyes again, and stood up, aching all over and very cold, +to see that the schooner was tumbling over a little spiteful sea with +the hazy loom of land not far away from her. Then he glanced at the +gear and canvas, and was almost appalled, while Charly, who was busy +close by, saw his face and grinned. + +"You don't want to look at her too much," he said. "We took a swig on +the peak-halliards a little while ago, and had to let up before we +pulled the gaff off her. Boom-foresail's worse, and the jibs are +dropping off her, while the water just pours in through her topsides +when she puts another lee plank down." + +Wyllard made a little expressive gesture, and leaned upon the rail. He +realised then something of the nature of the task he had undertaken. +They had no anchor, no fresh water, no fuel for cooking, and, so far as +he was aware, very few provisions, while it seemed to him that the +weathered, worn-out gear would not hold the masts in the vessel in any +weight of breeze. Still, the thing must be attempted, and there was +one want, at least, that could be supplied. + +"Anyway," he said, "we'll beat her in. When we come abreast of the +first creek you and Tom and the Siwash will go ashore." + +It was afternoon when they sighted one, and they took most of the +canvas off the vessel before three of them pulled away in the boat, +leaving Wyllard at the helm. It was blowing moderately fresh off +shore, and it was with feverish impatience he watched them toiling at +the oars, two of them pulling while the third man sculled. Then they +disappeared behind a point, and an anxious hour went by before the +boat, which now showed a very scanty strip of side above the tumbling +foam, crept out from the beach again. Having no breakers, they had +brought the water off in bulk, sitting in it as they pulled, and it was +fortunate that the boat lurched off shore easily before the little +splashing seas. They lost some of the water before they hove it into +the big and very rusty tank, and then they held a consultation when +they had swung the boat in and the schooner was running off to the east +again. + +"We've about stores enough to last two weeks--that is, if you don't +expect too much," Lewson pointed out. "There's an American stove in +the deck-house, and while we can't find anything meant to burn in it +there's an axe down forward, and we could cut out cabin floorings, or a +beam or two, without taking too much stiffening out of her." + +Wyllard, who had inspected the stores, fancied that a fortnight was the +very longest that could be counted on, though they ate no more than +would keep a modicum of strength in them. From their kind and quality +he surmised that they had been intended for the officials in charge of +the settlement. + +"How did you get them, Tom?" he asked. + +"The thing," said Lewson quietly, "was simple. It was dark and hazy, +and raining quite hard, and the first thing we did was to run the boat +down and leave her nearly afloat. Then we crawled back, and lay by +listening outside that store. We were figuring how we were to break it +in when two men came along. They went in and came out with a bag or +two, and as they left the door open we figured they were coming back +for more. We humped out a moderate load, and had just got it down to +the boat when we saw those men, or two others, in the haze. I was for +lying by, but Charly would get out then." + +Charly laughed drily. "He wanted to take the rifle and go back to look +for Smirnoff. I'd no use for any trouble of that kind, and I shoved +the boat off while he was seeing how many ca'tridges there were in the +magazine. He waded in and grabbed the boat when he saw I was sure +going, but I shoved her away from him. Then it kind of struck him he +had to get in or swim." + +Lewson's expression grew very grim. "That's the thing that hurts the +most--to go away before I got even with that man," he said. "Still, I +may get over it if I try to think of him with his nose smashed hard to +starboard." + +Wyllard made a sign of impatience. He felt that, after all, there was +perhaps something to be said for Smirnoff's point of view. + +"There is just one plan open to us, and that's to drive her across to +the eastward as fast as we can," he said. "We might, perhaps, pick up +an Alaska C.C. factory before the provisions quite run out if this +breeze and the gear hold up. Failing that, we must try for one of the +Western Aleutians." + +The others concurred in this, and very fortunately the breeze kept to +the west and south, for Wyllard had very grave doubts as to whether he +could have thrashed the schooner to windward through a steep head sea. +Indeed, on looking back on that voyage and remembering the state of the +vessel, it seemed to him that he and his companions had only escaped as +by a miracle. In any case, they hove her to one misty evening in a +deep inlet behind a promontory, and Wyllard, who sculled up it alone in +the growing darkness, badly startled the agent of an A.C.C. factory +when he appeared, ragged, haggard, and wet with rain, in the doorway of +a big, stove-warmed room. + +The agent, however, was, as he admitted, out for business, and when +Wyllard produced a wad of paper money stained by wet and perspiration +he appeared quite willing to part with certain provisions. He was also +told that no questions would be answered, and when he had given Wyllard +supper the latter sculled away in the darkness leaving him none the +wiser. Half an hour later the schooner slipped out to sea again. + +The rest was by comparison easy. They had the coast of Alaska and +British Columbia close aboard, and they crept southwards in fine +weather, once running off their course when the smoke of a steamer +crept up above the horizon. Then they ran for the northern tongue of +Vancouver Island in a strong breeze of wind, and Wyllard, who had +already decided that the vessel would scarcely fetch five hundred +dollars and that it would be better if all trace of her disappeared, +pulled his wheel over suddenly as she was scraping by a surf-swept reef. + +In another minute she was on hard and fast, and they had scarcely got +the boat over when the masts went with a crash. A quarter of an hour +later they were thrown up on the beach, and before they set out on a +long march through the bush there was very little to be seen of the +vessel. + +Three or four days afterwards they reached a little wooden town, and +Wyllard, who slipped into it alone in the dusk, bought clothing for +himself and his companions, who put it on in the bush. Then they went +into the town together, and slept that night in a wooden hotel. + +Their troubles were over, and, what was more, Wyllard, who pledged the +rest to secrecy, fancied that what had become of the schooner would +remain a mystery. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +WYLLARD COMES HOME. + +Harvest had commenced at the Range, and the clashing binders were +moving through the grain when Hawtrey sat one afternoon in Wyllard's +room at the Range. It was then about five o'clock, and every man +belonging to the homestead was toiling bare-armed and grimed with dust +among the yellow oats, but Hawtrey sat at a table gazing at the litter +of papers in front of him with a troubled face. He wore a white shirt +and store clothes, which was distinctly unusual in case of a Western +farmer at harvest time, and Edmonds, the mortgage jobber, leaned back +in a big chair quietly watching him. + +The latter had, as it happened, called at a singularly inconvenient +time, and Hawtrey was anxious to get rid of him before the guests he +expected arrived. It was Sally's birthday, and since she took pleasure +in simple festivities of any kind he had arranged to celebrate it at +the Range. He was, however, sufficiently acquainted with his +companion's character to realise that it was most unlikely that he +would take his departure before he had accomplished the purpose which +had brought him there. This was to collect several thousand dollars. + +It was quite clear to Hawtrey that he was in an unpleasantly tight +place. Edmonds held a bond upon his homestead, teams, and implements +as security for a short date loan, repayment of which was due, and he +was to be married to Sally in a month or so. + +"Can't you wait a little?" he asked at length. + +"I'm afraid not," was the uncompromising reply. "Money's tight this +fall, and things have gone against me. Besides, you could pay me off +if you wanted to." + +Edmonds turned towards an open window, and glanced at the great stretch +of yellow grain that ran back across the prairie. Dusty teams and +binders with flashing wooden arms moved half-hidden along the edge of +it, and the still, clear air was filled with a clash and clatter and +the rustle of flung-out sheaves. + +There was no doubt that money could be raised upon that harvest field. +Indeed, Hawtrey fancied that his companion would be quite content to +take a bond for the delivery of so many thousand bushels in repayment +of the loan, but while he had already gone further than he had at one +time contemplated doing, this was a course he shrank from suggesting. +After all, the grain was Wyllard's, and there was the difficulty that +Wyllard might still come back, while if he failed to do this an absence +of another few months would entitle his executors to presume him dead. +In either case, Hawtrey would be required to account for his property. + +"No," he said, "I can't take--that way." + +There was a trace of contempt in the mortgage jobber's smile. "You of +course understand just how you're fixed, but it seemed to me from that +draft of the arrangement with Wyllard that you have the power to do +pretty much what you like. Anyway, if you gave me a bond on as much of +that grain as would wipe out the loan at present figure, it would only +mean that you would have Wyllard's trustees for creditors instead of +me, and it's probable that they wouldn't be as hard upon you as I'm +compelled to be. As things stand, you have got to square up or I throw +your place on the market." + +Hawtrey's face betrayed his dismay, and his companion fancied that he +would yield to a little further pressure. He had not said anything +about the mortgage to Sally, and it would be singularly unpleasant to +be turned out upon the prairie within a month or two of his marriage, +for he could not count upon being left in possession of the Range much +longer. + +"I'm only entitled to handle Wyllard's money on--his--account," he +objected. + +Edmonds appeared to reflect. "So far as I can remember there was +nothing of that kind stated in the draft of the arrangement. It +empowered you to do anything you thought fit with the money, but it's +altogether your own affair. I can, of course, get my dollars back by +selling your homestead up, and I have to decide if that must be done or +not before I leave." + +He had very little doubt as to what the decision would be. Hawtrey +would yield, and afterwards it would not be difficult to draw him into +some unwise speculation with the object of getting the money back, +which he imagined that Hawtrey would be desperately anxious to do. As +the result of this, he expected to get such a hold upon the Range that +he would be master of the situation when the property fell into the +hands of Wyllard's trustees. That Hawtrey would be disgraced as well +as ruined naturally did not count with him. + +The latter took up one of the papers, and read it through with +vacillation in his eyes. Then he rose, and stood leaning on the table +while he gazed at the teams toiling amidst the grain. There was wealth +enough yonder to release him from his torturing anxieties, and after +all, he felt, something must turn up before the reckoning was due. It +was not in his nature to face a crisis, and with him a trouble seemed +less formidable if it could only be put off a little. Edmonds, who +knew with what kind of man he had to deal, said nothing further, and +quietly reached out for another cigar. + +In the meanwhile, though neither of the men were aware of this, Sally +had just got down from her waggon on the other side of the house, and +another couple of teams were already growing larger upon the sweep of +whitened prairie. As she entered the homestead she met Mrs. Nansen, +and the latter informed her that Hawtrey was busy with Edmonds in +Wyllard's room. Sally's eyes sparkled when she heard it, and her face +grew hard. + +"That man!" she said. "Well, I guess I'll go right in to them." + +In another minute she opened the door, and answered the mortgage +jobber's somewhat embarrassed greeting with a frigid stare. Having +some experience of Sally's uncompromising directness, he was inclined +to fancy that the game was up, but he said nothing further, and she +fixed her eyes on Hawtrey. + +"What's this man doing here again?" she asked. "You promised me you +would never make another deal with him." + +Hawtrey flushed. Had he fancied it would have been the least use he +would have made some attempt to get Sally out of the room, but he was +unpleasantly sure that unless she was fully satisfied first it would +only result in failure. Besides, driven to desperation, as he was, he +had a half-conscious feeling that she might provide him with some means +of escape. Sally had certainly saved him once already, and, +humiliating as it was, he fancied that she did not expect too much from +him. She might be very angry, but Sally's anger was, after all, less +difficult to face than Agatha's quiet scorn. + +"I haven't made another deal. It's--a previous one," he said lamely. + +Sally swung round on Edmonds. "You have come here for money? You may +as well tell me. I won't leave you with Gregory until you do." + +It was quite evident that she would make her promise good, and Edmonds +nodded. + +"Yes," he said; "about 3,000 dollars." + +"And Gregory can't pay you?" + +Edmonds reflected rapidly, and decided to take a bold course. He was +acquainted with Hawtrey's habit of putting things off, and fancied that +the latter would seize upon the first loophole of escape from an +embarrassing situation. That was why he gave him a lead. + +"Well," he said, "there is a way in which he could do it if he wished. +He has only to fill in a paper and hand it me." + +He had, however, not sufficiently counted on Sally's knowledge of his +victim's affairs, or her quickness of wit, for she turned to Hawtrey +with a commanding gesture. + +"Where are you going to get 3,000 dollars from?" she asked. + +The blood crept into Hawtrey's face, for this was a thing he could not +tell her; but a swift suspicion flashed into her mind as she looked at +him. + +"Perhaps it could be--raised," he said. + +"To pay his mortgage off?" and Sally swung round on Edmonds now. + +"Yes," the latter admitted; "he can easily do it." + +Then the girl turned to Hawtrey. "Gregory," she said with harsh +incisiveness, "there's only one way you could get that money--and it +isn't yours." + +Hawtrey said nothing, but he could not meet her gaze, and when he +turned from her she looked back at the mortgage jobber. + +"If you're gone before I come back there'll sure be trouble," she +informed him, and sped swiftly out of the room. + +Then Hawtrey sat down limply in his chair, and Edmonds laughed in a +jarring manner. The game was up, but, after all, if he got his 3,000 +dollars he could be satisfied, for he had already extracted a good many +from Hawtrey one way or another. + +"If I were you I'd marry that girl right away," he said. "You'd be +safer if you had her to look after you." + +Hawtrey let the jibe pass. For one thing, he felt that it was +warranted, and just then his anxiety was too strong for anger. + +In the meanwhile, Sally ran out of the house to meet Hastings, who had +just handed his wife down from their waggon, and drew him a pace or two +aside. + +"I'm worried about Gregory," she said; "he's in trouble--big trouble. +Somehow we have got to raise 3,000 dollars. Edmonds is inside with +him." + +Hastings did not seem greatly astonished. "Ah!" he said, "I guess it's +over that mortgage of his. It would be awkward for you and Gregory if +Edmonds took the homestead and turned him out." + +Sally's face grew rather white, but she met his gaze steadily. + +"Oh," she said, "that's not what I would mind the most." + +Hastings reflected a moment or two. He fancied that this was a very +difficult admission for the girl to make, and that she had made it +suggested that Hawtrey might become involved in more serious +difficulties. He had also a strong suspicion of what they were likely +to be. + +"Sally," he said quietly, "you are afraid of Edmonds making him do +something you would not like?" + +Though she did not answer directly he saw the shame in the girl's face, +and remembered that he was one of Wyllard's trustees. + +"I must raise those dollars--now--and I don't know where to get more +than five hundred from. I might manage that," she said. + +"Well," said Hastings, "you want me to lend you them, and I'm not sure +that I can. Still, if you'll wait a few minutes I'll see what I can +do." + +Sally left him, and he turned to his wife, whose expression suggested +that she had overheard part of what was said and had guessed the rest. + +"You mean to raise that money? After all, we are friends of his, and +it may save him from letting Edmonds get his grip upon the Range," she +said. + +Hastings made a sign of reluctant assent. "I don't quite know how I +can do it personally, in view of the figure wheat is standing at, and I +don't think much of any security that Gregory could offer me. Still, +there is, perhaps, a way in which it could be arranged, and it's one +that, considering everything, is more or less admissible. I think I'll +wait here for Agatha." + +Agatha was in the waggon driven by Sproatly close behind them, and when +he had handed her and Winifred down Hastings, who walked to the house +with them, drew her into an unoccupied room, while Mrs. Nansen took the +rest into the big general one. + +"I'm afraid that Gregory's in rather serious trouble. Sally seems very +anxious about him," he said. "It's rather a delicate subject, but I +understand that in a general way you are on good terms with both of +them?" + +Agatha met his somewhat embarrassed gaze with a smile. She fancied +that what he really wished to discover was whether she still felt any +bitterness against Gregory and blamed him for pledging himself to Sally. + +"Yes," she said, "Sally and I are good friends, and I am very sorry to +hear that Gregory is in any difficulty." + +Hastings still seemed embarrassed, and she was becoming puzzled by his +manner. + +"Once upon a time you would have done anything possible to make things +easier for him," he said. "I wonder if I might ask if to some extent +you have that feeling still?" + +"Of course. If he is in serious trouble I should be glad to do +anything within my power to help him." + +"Even if it cost, we will say, about six hundred English pounds?" + +Agatha gazed at him in bewildered astonishment. "There are some twenty +dollars in my possession which your wife handed me not long ago." + +"Still, if you had the money, you would be glad to help him--and would +not regret it afterwards?" + +"No," said Agatha decisively; "if I had the means, and the need was +urgent, I should be glad to do what I could." Then she laughed. "I +can't understand in the least how this is to the purpose." + +"If you will wait for the next two or three months I may be able to +explain it to you," said Hastings. "In the meanwhile, there are one or +two things I have to do." + +Agatha sat still when he left her, wondering what he could have meant, +but feeling that she would be willing to do what she had assured him. +His suggestion that it was possible that she still cherished any sense +of grievance against Gregory because he was going to marry Sally, +however, brought a little scornful smile into her eyes. It was +singularly easy to forgive Gregory that, for she now saw him as he +was--shallow, careless, shiftless, a man without depth of character. +He had a few surface graces, and on occasion a certain half-insolent +forcefulness of manner which in a curious fashion was almost becoming. +There was, however, nothing beneath the surface. When he had to face a +crisis he collapsed like a pricked bladder, which was the first simile +she could think of, though she admitted that it was not a particularly +elegant one. He was, it seemed, quite willing that a woman should help +him out of the trouble he had involved himself in, for she had no doubt +that Sally had sent Hastings on his somewhat incomprehensible errand. + +Then a clear voice came in through the window, and turning towards it +she saw that a young lad clad in blue duck was singing as he drove his +binder through the grain. The song was a very simple one which had +some vogue just then upon the prairie, but her eyes grew suddenly hazy +as odd snatches of it reached her through the beat of hoofs, the clash +of the binder's arms, and the rustle of the flung-out sheaves. + + "My Bonny lies over the ocean, + My Bonny lies far over the sea." + + +Then he called to his horses, and it was a few moments before she heard +again-- + + "Bring back my Bonny to me." + + +A quiver ran through her as she leaned upon the window frame. There +was a certain pathos in the simple strain, and she could fancy that the +lad, who was clearly English, as an exile felt it, too. Once more as +the jaded horses and clashing machine grew smaller down the edge of the +great sweep of yellow grain, his voice came faintly up to her with its +haunting thrill of longing and regret-- + + "Bring back my Bonny to me." + + +This in her case was more than anyone could do, and as she stood +listening a tear splashed upon her closed hands. The man, by +comparison with whom Gregory appeared a mere lay figure, was in all +probability lying still far up in the solitudes of the frozen North, +with his last grim journey done. This time, however, he had not +carried her picture with him. Gregory was to blame for that, and it +was the one thing she could not forgive him. + +She leaned against the window for another minute, struggling with an +almost uncontrollable longing, and looking out upon the sweep of golden +wheat and whitened grass with brimming eyes, until there was a rattle +of wheels, and she saw Edmonds drive away. In another minute she heard +voices in the corridor, and it became evident that Hastings was +speaking to his wife. + +"I've got rid of the man, and it's reasonable to expect that Gregory +will keep clear of him after this," he said. + +"Don't you mean that Agatha did it?" + +It was Mrs. Hastings who asked the question, and Agatha became intent +as she heard her name. She did not, however, hear the answer, and Mrs. +Hastings spoke again. + +"Allen," she said, "you don't keep a secret badly, though Harry pledged +you not to tell. Still, all that caution was a little unnecessary. It +was, of course, just the kind of thing he would do." + +"What did he do?" Hastings asked, and Agatha heard his wife's soft +laugh, for they were just outside the door now. + +"Left the Range, or most of it, to Agatha in case he didn't come back +again." + +They went on, and Agatha, turning from the window, sat down limply with +the blood in her face and her heart beating horribly fast. Wyllard's +last care, it seemed, had been to provide for her, and that fact +brought her a curious sense of solace. In an unexplainable fashion it +took the bitterest sting out of her grief, though how far he had +succeeded in his intentions did not seem to matter in the least. It +was sufficient to know that amidst all the haste of his preparation he +had not forgotten her. + +Then, becoming a little calmer, she understood what had been in +Hastings's mind during the interview that had puzzled her, and was glad +that she assured him of her willingness to sacrifice anything that +might be hers if it was needed to set Gregory free. It was, she felt, +what Wyllard would have done with the money. He had said that Gregory +was a friend of his, and that, she knew, meant a good deal to him. + +It was, however, evident that she must join the others if she did not +wish her absence to excite undesirable comment, and going out she came +face to face with Sally in the corridor. The girl stopped, and saw the +sympathy in her eyes. + +"Yes," she said impulsively, "I've saved him. Edmonds has gone. +Hastings bought him off, and, though I don't quite know how, you helped +him. He stayed behind to wait for you." + +Agatha smiled. The vibrant relief in her companion's voice stirred +her, and she realised once more that in choosing this half-taught girl, +at least, Gregory had acted with wholly unusual wisdom. It was with a +sense of half-contemptuous amusement at her folly she remembered how +she had once fancied that Gregory was marrying beneath him. Sally was +far from perfect, but when it was a matter of essentials the man was +not fit to brush her shoes. + +"My dear," she said, "I really don't know exactly what I--have--done, +but if it amounts to anything it is a pleasure to me." + +Then they went together into the big general room where Gregory was +talking to Winifred somewhat volubly. Agatha, however, fancied from +his manner that he had, at least, the grace to feel ashamed of himself. +Supper, she heard Mrs. Nansen say, would be ready very shortly, and +feeling in no mood for general conversation she sat near a window +looking out across the harvest field until she heard a distant shout, +and saw a waggon appear on the crest of the rise. Then, to her +astonishment, two of the binders stopped, and she saw a couple of men +who sprang down from them run to meet the waggon. In another moment or +two more of the teams stopped, and a faint clamour of cries went up, +while here and there little running figures straggled up the slope. +Then her companions clustered about her at the window, wondering, and +Winifred turned to Hastings. + +"What are they shouting for?" she asked. "They are all crowding about +the waggon now." + +Agatha felt suddenly dazed and dizzy, for she knew what the answer to +that question must be even before Mrs. Hastings spoke. + +"It's Harry coming back," she said, and gasped. + +In another moment they streamed out of the house, and Agatha found it +scarcely possible to follow them, for the sudden revulsion of feeling +had almost overpowered her. Still, she reached the door, and saw the +waggon drawn up amidst a cluster of struggling men, and by and bye +Wyllard, whom they surrounded, break out as if by force from the midst +of them. She stood on the threshold waiting him, and in the midst of +her exultation a pang smote her as she saw how gaunt and worn he was. +He came straight towards her, apparently regardless of the others, and +clasping the hands she held out drew her into the house. + +"So you have not married Gregory yet?" he said, and laughed +triumphantly when he saw the answer in her shining eyes. + +"No," she said softly, "it is certain that I will never marry him." + +Wyllard drew her back still further with a compelling grasp. + +"Why?" he asked. + +Agatha looked up at him, and then turned her eyes away. + +"I was waiting for you," she said simply. + +[Illustration: "'I was waiting for you,' she said simply."] + +Then he took her in his arms and kissed her before he turned, still +with her hand in his, to face the others who were now flocking back to +the house, and in another moment or two they went in together amidst a +confused clamour of good wishes. + + + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hawtrey's Deputy, by Harold Bindloss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAWTREY'S DEPUTY *** + +***** This file should be named 27601.txt or 27601.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/6/0/27601/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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