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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/38723-8.txt b/38723-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc9d0e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/38723-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11632 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Prairie Courtship, 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: A Prairie Courtship + +Author: Harold Bindloss + +Release Date: January 31, 2012 [EBook #38723] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP *** + + + + +Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP + +BY HAROLD BINDLOSS + +AUTHOR OF "MASTERS OF THE WHEAT-LANDS," +"WINSTON OF THE PRAIRIE," "LORIMER OF +THE NORTHWEST," "ALTON OF SOMASCO," +"THURSTON OF ORCHARD VALLEY," ETC. + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN +LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + +COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + +PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TITLE "ALISON'S ADVENTURE" + + +[Illustration: FAS Co September, 1911] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. A COLD WELCOME 3 + II. MAVERICK THORNE 17 + III. THE CAMP IN THE BLUFF 32 + IV. THE FARQUHAR HOMESTEAD 47 + V. THORNE GIVES ADVICE 59 + VI. THORNE CONTEMPLATES A CHANGE 72 + VII. A USEFUL FRIEND 86 + VIII. A FIT OF TEMPER 99 + IX. THE RAISING 110 + X. THORNE RESENTS REPROOF 123 + XI. AN ESCAPADE 135 + XII. HUNTER MAKES AN ENEMY 145 + XIII. NEVIS PICKS UP A CLUE 157 + XIV. WINTHROP'S LETTER 167 + XV. ON THE TRAIL 179 + XVI. CORPORAL SLANEY'S DEFEAT 189 + XVII. A COMPROMISE 199 + XVIII. NEVIS'S VISITOR 209 + XIX. THE MORTGAGE DEED 219 + XX. HAIL 231 + XXI. A POINT OF HONOR 242 + XXII. ALISON SPOILS HER GLOVES 254 + XXIII. AN UNEXPECTED DISASTER 265 + XXIV. LUCY GOES TO THE RESCUE 275 + XXV. THE ONLY MEANS 287 + XXVI. OPEN CONFESSION 300 + XXVII. A HELPING HAND 312 + XXVIII. THE RECKONING 324 + XXIX. THE NEW OUTLOOK 337 + + + + +A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A COLD WELCOME + + +It was falling dusk and the long emigrant train was clattering, +close-packed with its load of somewhat frowsy humanity, through the last +of the pine forest which rolls westward north of the Great Lakes toward +the wide, bare levels of Manitoba, when Alison Leigh stood on the +platform of a lurching car. A bitter wind eddied about her, for it was +early in the Canadian spring, and there were still shattered fangs of +ice in the slacker pools of the rivers. Now and then a shower of cinders +that rattled upon the roof whirled down about her and the jolting brass +rail to which she clung was unpleasantly greasy, but the air was, at +least, gloriously fresh out there and she shrank from the vitiated +atmosphere of the stove-heated car. She had learned during the past few +years that it is not wise for a young woman who must earn her living to +be fastidious, but one has to face a good many unpleasantnesses when +traveling Colonist in a crowded train. + +A gray sky without a break in it hung low above the ragged spires of the +pines; the river the track skirted, and presently crossed upon a wooden +bridge, shone in the gathering shadow with a wan, chill gleam; and the +bare rocky ridges that flitted by now and then looked grim and +forbidding. Indeed, it was a singularly desolate landscape, with no +touch of human life in it, and Alison shivered as she gazed at it with a +somewhat heavy heart and weary eyes. Her head ached from want of sleep +and several days of continuous jolting; she was physically worn out, and +her courage was slipping away from her. She knew that she would need the +latter, for she was beginning to realize that it was a rather hazardous +undertaking for a delicately brought up girl of twenty-four to set out +to seek her fortune in western Canada. + +Leaning upon the greasy rails, she recalled the events which had led her +to decide on this course, or, to be more accurate, which had forced it +on her. Until three years ago, she had led a sheltered life, and then +her father, dying suddenly, had left his affairs involved. This she knew +now had been the fault of her aspiring mother, who had spent his by no +means large income in an attempt to win a prominent position in +second-rate smart society, and had succeeded to the extent of marrying +her other daughter well. The latter, however, had displayed very little +eagerness to offer financial assistance in the crisis which had followed +her father's death. + +In the end Mrs. Leigh was found a scantily paid appointment as secretary +of a woman's club, while Alison was left to shift for herself, and it +came as a shock to the girl to discover that her few capabilities were +apparently of no practical use to anybody. She could paint and could +play the violin indifferently well, but she had not the gift of +imparting to others even the little she knew. A graceful manner and a +nicely modulated voice appeared to possess no market value, and the +unpalatable truth that nothing she had been taught was likely to prove +more than a drawback in the struggle for existence was promptly forced +on her. + +She faced it with a certain courage, however, for her defects were the +results of her upbringing and not inherent in her nature, and she +forthwith sought a remedy. In spite of her mother's protests, her +sister's husband was induced to send her for a few months' training to a +business school, and when she left the latter there followed a +three-years' experience which was in some respects as painful as it was +varied. + +Her handwriting did not please the crabbed scientist who first engaged +her as amanuensis. Her second employer favored her with personal +compliments which were worse to bear than his predecessor's sarcastic +censure; and she had afterward drifted from occupation to occupation, +sinking on each occasion a little lower in the social scale. In the +meanwhile her prosperous sister's manner became steadily chillier; her +few influential friends appeared desirous of forgetting her; and at last +she formed the desperate resolution of going out to Canada. Nobody, +however, objected to this, and her brother-in-law, who was engaged in +commerce, sent her a very small check with significant readiness, and by +some means secured her a position as typist and stenographer in the +service of a business firm in Winnipeg. + +For the last three days she had lived on canned fruit and crackers in +the train, not because she liked that diet, but because the charges at +the dining-stations were beyond her means. She had now five dollars and +a few cents in her little shabby purse. That, however, did not much +trouble her, for she would reach Winnipeg on the morrow, and she +supposed that she would begin her new duties immediately. She was +wondering with some misgivings what her employers would be like, when a +girl of about her own age appeared in the doorway of the vestibule. + +"Aren't you coming in? It's getting late, and I'm almost asleep," she +said. + +Alison turned, and with inward repugnance followed her into the long +car. It was brilliantly lighted by big oil lamps, and it was undoubtedly +warm, for there was a stove in the vestibule, but the frowsy odors that +greeted her were almost overwhelming after the fresh night air. An aisle +ran down the middle of the car, and already men and women and peevish +children were retiring to rest. There was very little attempt at +privacy, and a few wholly unabashed aliens were partially disrobing +wherever they could find room for the operation. Some lay down upon +boards pulled forward between two seats, some upon little platforms that +let down by chains from the roof, and the car was filled with the +complaining of tired children and a drowsy murmur of voices in many +languages. + +Alison sat down and glanced round at the passengers who had not yet +retired. In one corner were three young Scandinavian girls, fresh-faced +and tow-haired, of innocent and wholesome appearance, going out, as they +had unblushingly informed her in broken English, to look for husbands +among the prairie farmers. She was afterward to learn that such +marriages not infrequently turned out well. Opposite them sat a young +Englishman with a hollow face and chest, who could not stand his native +climate, and had been married, so Alison had heard, to the delicate girl +beside him the day before he sailed. They were going to Brandon on the +prairie, and had not the faintest notion what they would do when they +got there. + +Close by were a group of big, blonde Lithuanians, hardened by toil, in +odoriferous garments; a black-haired Pole; a Jewess whose beauty had run +to fatness; and her greasy, ferret-eyed husband. Farther on a burly +Englishman, who had evidently laid in alcoholic refreshment farther back +down the line, was crooning a maudlin song. There was, however, an +interruption presently, for a man's head was thrust out from behind a +curtain which hung between the roof and one of the platforms above. + +"Let up!" he said. + +The song rose a little louder in response, and a voice with a western +intonation broke in. + +"Throw a boot at the hog!" + +"No, sir," replied the man above; "he might keep it; and I guess they're +most used to heaving bottles where he comes from." + +The words were followed by a scuffling sound which seemed to indicate +that the speaker was fumbling about the shelf for something, and then he +added: + +"This will have to do. Are you going to sleep down there, sonny?" + +The Englishman paused to inform anybody who cared to listen that he +would go to sleep when he wanted and that it would take a train-load of +Canadians like the questioner, whose personal appearance he alluded to +in vitriolic terms, to prevent him from singing when he desired; after +which he resumed the maudlin ditty. Immediately there was a rustle of +snapping leaves, as a volume of the detective literature that is +commonly peddled on the trains went hurtling across the car. It struck +the woodwork behind the singer with a vicious thud, and he stood up +unsteadily. + +"Now," he said, "I mean to show you what comes of insulting me." + +He moved forward a pace or two, fell against a seat in an attempt to +avoid a toddling child, and, grabbing at his disturber's platform, +endeavored to clamber up to it. The chains rattled, and it seemed that +the light boards were bodily coming down when he felt with one hand +behind the curtain, part of which he rent from its fastenings. Then his +hand reappeared clutching a stockinged foot, and a bronzed-faced man in +shirt and trousers dropped from a neighboring resting-place. + +"You get out!" thundered the Englishman. "Teach you to be civil when +I've done with him. Gimme time, and I'll settle the lot of you, and the +sausages"--he presumably meant the Lithuanians--"afterward." + +The man above contrived to kick him in the face with his unembarrassed +foot, but he held on persistently to the other, and a general fracas +appeared imminent when the conductor strode into the car. The latter had +very little in common with the average English railway guard, for he was +a sharp-tongued, domineering autocrat, like most of his kind. + +"Now," he demanded, "what's this circus about?" + +The Englishman informed him that he had been insulted, and firmly +intended to wipe it out in blood. The conductor looked at him with a +faint grim smile. + +"Go right back to your berth, and sleep it off," he advised. + +He stood still, collectedly resolute, clothed with authority, and the +Englishman hesitated. He had doubtless pluck enough, and his blood was +up, but he had also the innate, ingrained capacity for obedience to duly +constituted power, which is not as a rule a characteristic of the +Westerner. Then the conductor spoke again: + +"Get a move on! I'll dump you off into the bush if you try to make +trouble here." + +It proved sufficient. The singer let the captive foot go and turned +away; and when the conductor left, peace had settled down upon the +clattering car. The little incident had, however, an unpleasant effect +on Alison, for this was not the kind of thing to which she had been +accustomed. It was a moment or two before she turned to her companion. + +"I shall be very glad to get off the train to-morrow, Milly--and I +suppose you will be quite as pleased," she said. + +The girl blushed. She was young and pretty in a homely fashion, and had +informed Alison, who had made her acquaintance on the steamer, that she +was to be married to a young Englishman on her arrival at Winnipeg. + +"Yes," she replied; "Jim will be there waiting; I got a telegram at +Montreal. It's four years since I've seen him." + +The words were simple, but there was something in the speaker's voice +and eyes which stirred Alison to half-conscious envy. It was not that +marriage in the abstract had any attraction for her, for the thought of +it rather jarred on her temperament, and it was, perhaps, not altogether +astonishing that she had of late been brought into contact chiefly with +the seamy side of the masculine character. Still, lonely and cast +adrift as she was, she envied this girl who had somebody to take her +troubles upon his shoulders and shelter her, and she was faintly stirred +by her evident tenderness for the man. + +"Four years!" she said reflectively. "It's a very long time." + +"Oh," declared Milly, "it wouldn't matter if it had been a dozen now. +He's the same--only a little handsomer in his last picture. Except for +that, he hasn't changed a bit--I read you some of his letters on the +steamer." + +Alison could not help a smile. The girl's upbringing had clearly been +very different from her own, and the extracts from Jim's letters had +chiefly appealed to her sense of the ludicrous; but now she felt that +his badly expressed devotion rang true, and her smile slowly faded. It +must, she admitted, be something to know that through the four years, +which had apparently been ones of constant stress and toil, the man's +affection had never wavered, and that his every effort had been inspired +by the thought that the result of it would bring his sweetheart in +England so much nearer him, until at last, as the time grew rapidly +shorter, he had, as he said, worked half the night to make the rude +prairie homestead more fit for her. + +"I suppose he wasn't rich when he went out?" + +"No," replied Milly. "Jim had nothing until an uncle died and left him +three or four hundred pounds. When he came and told me of it I made him +go." + +"You made him go?" exclaimed Alison, wondering. + +"Of course! There was no chance for him in England; I couldn't keep him, +just to have him near me--always poor--and I knew that whatever he did +in Canada he would be true to me. The poor boy had trouble. His first +crop was frozen, and his plow oxen died--I think I told you he has a +little farm three or four days' ride back from the railroad." The girl's +face colored again. "I sold one or two things I had--a little gold watch +and a locket--and sent him the money. I wouldn't tell him how I got it, +but he said it saved him." + +Alison sat silent for the next moment or two. She was touched by her +companion's words and the tenderness in her eyes. Alison's upbringing +had in some respects not been a good one, for she had been taught to +shut her eyes to the realities of life, and to believe that the smooth +things it had to offer were, though they must now and then be schemed +for, hers by right. It was only the last three years that had given her +comprehension and sympathy, and in spite of the clearer insight she had +gained during that time, it seemed strange to her that this girl with +her homely prettiness and still more homely speech and manners should be +capable of such unfaltering fidelity to the man she had sent to Canada, +and still more strange that she should ever have inspired him with a +passion which had given him power to break down, or endurance patiently +to undermine, the barriers that stood between them. Alison had yet to +learn a good deal about the capacities of the English rank and file, +which become most manifest where they are given free scope in a new and +fertile field. + +"Well," she said, conscious of the lameness of the speech, "I believe +you will be happy." + +Milly smiled compassionately, as though this expression of opinion was +quite superfluous; and then with a tact which Alison had scarcely +expected she changed the subject. + +"I've talked too much about myself. You told me you had something to do +when you got to Winnipeg?" + +"Yes," was the answer; "I'm to begin at once as correspondent in a big +hardware business." + +"You have no friends there?" + +"No," replied Alison; "I haven't a friend in Canada, except, perhaps, +one who married a western wheat-grower two or three years ago, and I'm +not sure that she would be pleased to see me. As it happens, my mother +was once or twice, I am afraid, a little rude to her." + +It was a rather inadequate description of the persecution of an +inoffensive girl who had for a time been treated on a more or less +friendly footing and made use of by a certain circle of suburban society +interested in parochial philanthropy in which Mrs. Leigh had aspired to +rule supreme. Florence Ashton had been tolerated, in spite of the fact +that she earned her living, until an eloquent curate whose means were +supposed to be ample happened to cast approving eyes on her, when +pressure was judicially brought to bear. The girl had made a plucky +fight, but the odds against her were overwhelmingly heavy, and the +curate, it seemed, had not quite made up his mind. In any case, she was +vanquished, and tactfully forced out of a guild which paid her a very +small stipend for certain services; and eventually she married a +Canadian who had come over on a brief visit to the old country. How +Florence had managed it, Alison, who fancied that the phrase was in this +case justifiable, did not exactly know, but she had reasons for +believing that the girl had really liked the curate and would not +readily forgive her mother. + +"Well," said Milly, "if ever you want a friend you must come to Jim and +me; and, after all, you may want one some day." She paused, and glanced +at Alison critically. "Of course, so many girls have to work nowadays, +but you don't look like it, somehow." + +This was true. Although Alison's attire was a little faded and shabby, +its fit was irreproachable, and nobody could have found fault with the +color scheme. She possessed, without being unduly conscious of it, an +artistic taste and a natural grace of carriage which enabled her to wear +almost anything so that it became her. In addition to this, she was, +besides being attractive in face and feature, endued with a certain +tranquillity of manner which suggested to the discerning that she had +once held her own in high places. It was deceptive to this extent that, +after all, the places had been only very moderately elevated. + +"I'm afraid that's rather a drawback than anything else," she said in +reference to Milly's last observation. "But it's a little while since +you told me that you were sleepy." + +They climbed up to two adjoining shelves they drew down from the roof, +and though this entailed a rather undignified scramble, Alison wished +that her companion had refrained from a confused giggle. Then they +closed the curtains they had hired, and lay down, to sleep if possible, +on the very thin mattresses the railway company supplies to Colonist +passengers for a consideration. An attempt at disrobing would not have +been advisable, but, after all, a large proportion of the occupants of +the car were probably more or less addicted to sleeping in their +clothes. + +There was a change when Alison descended early in the morning, in order +at least to dabble her hands and face in cold water, which would not +have been possible a little later. Even first-class Pullman passengers +have, as a rule, something to put up with if they desire to be clean, +and Colonist travelers are not expected to be endued with any particular +sense of delicacy or seemliness. As a matter of fact, a good many of +them have not the faintest idea of it. It was chiefly for this reason +that Alison retired to the car platform after hasty ablutions, and, +though it was very cold, she stayed there until the rest had risen. + +The long train had run out of the forest in the night, and was now +speeding over a vast white level which lay soft and quaggy in the +sunshine, for the snow had lately gone. Here and there odd groves of +birches went streaming by, but for the most part there were only +leafless willow copses about the gleaming strips of water which she +afterward learned were sloos. In between, the white waste ran back, +bleached by the winter, to the far horizon. It looked strangely +desolate, for there was scarcely a house on it, but, at least, the sun +was shining, and it was the first brightness she had seen in the land of +the clear skies. + +Most of the passengers were partly dressed, for which she was thankful, +when she went back into the car; and after one or two of them had kept +her waiting she was at length permitted to set on the stove the tin +kettle which was the joint property of herself and her companion. Then +they made tea, and after eating the last of their crackers and emptying +the fruit can, they set themselves to wait with as much patience as +possible until the train reached Winnipeg. + +The sun had disappeared, and a fine rain was falling when at last the +long cars came clanking into the station amid the doleful tolling of the +locomotive bell. Alison, stepping down from the platform, noticed a man +in a long fur coat and a wide soft hat running toward the car. Then +there was a cry and an outbreak of strained laughter, and she saw him +lift her companion down and hold her unabashed in his arms. After that +Milly seized her by the shoulder. + +"This is Jim," she announced. "Miss Alison Leigh. I told her that if +ever she wanted a home out here she was to come to us." + +The man, who had a pleasant, bronzed face, laughed and held out his +hand. + +"If you're a friend of Milly's we'll take you now," he said. "She ought +to have one bridesmaid, anyway. Come along and stay with her until you +get used to the country." + +Milly blushed and giggled, but it was evident that she seconded the +invitation, and once more Alison was touched. The offer was frank and +spontaneous, and she fancied that the man meant it. She explained, +however, that she was beginning work on the morrow; and Jim, giving her +his address, presently turned away with Milly. + +After that Alison felt very desolate as she stood alone amid the swarm +of frowsy aliens who poured out from the train. The station was cold and +sloppy; everything was strange and unfamiliar. There was a new +intonation in the voices she heard, and even the dress of the citizens +who scurried by her was different in details from that to which she had +been accustomed. In the meanwhile Jim and Milly had disappeared, and as +she had been told that the railroad people would take care of her +baggage until she produced her check, she decided to proceed at once to +her employers' establishment and inform them of her arrival. + +A man of whom she made inquiries gave her a few hasty directions, and +walking out of the station she presently boarded a street-car and was +carried through the city until she alighted in front of a big hardware +store. Being sent to an office at the back of it she noticed that the +smart clerk looked at her in a curious fashion when she asked for the +manager by name. + +"He's not here," he said. "Won't be back again." + +Alison leaned against the counter with a sudden presage of disaster. + +"How is that?" she asked. + +"Company went under a few days ago. Creditors selling the stock up. I'm +acting for the liquidator." + +Alison felt physically dizzy, but she contrived to ask another question +or two, and then went out, utterly cast down and desperate, into the +steadily falling rain. She was alone in the big western city, with very +little money in her purse and no idea as to what she should do. + +She stood still for several minutes until she remembered having heard +that accommodation of an elementary kind was provided in buildings near +the station where emigrants just arrived could live for a time, at +least, free of charge, though they must provide their own food. As she +knew that every cent was precious now, she turned back on foot along the +miry street. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MAVERICK THORNE + + +Alison slept soundly that night. The blow had been so heavy and +unexpected that it had deadened her sensibility, and kindly nature had +her way. Besides, the very hard berth she occupied was at least still, +and she was not kept awake by the distressful vibration that had +disturbed her in the Colonist car. Awakening refreshed in the morning, +she sallied out to purchase provisions for the day, and was unpleasantly +astonished at the cost of them. She had yet to learn that a dollar goes +a very little way in a country where rents and wages are high. + +Returning to the emigrant quarters which were provided with a +cooking-stove, she made a frugal breakfast, and then after a +conversation with an official who gave her all the information in his +power, she spent the day offering her services at stores and hotels and +offices up and down the city. Nobody, however, seemed to want her. It +was, she learned, a time of general bad trade, for the wheat harvest, on +which that city largely depends, had failed the previous year. + +Day followed day with much the same result, until Alison, who never +looked back upon them afterward without a shiver, had at last parted +with most of her slender stock of garments to one of the Jew dealers who +then occupied a row of rickety wooden shacks near the station at +Winnipeg. He gave her remarkably little for them; and one night she sat +down dejectedly in the emigrant quarters to grapple with the crisis. By +and by a girl who had traveled in the same car and had spoken to her now +and then sat down beside her. + +"Nothing yet?" she asked. + +"No," said Alison wearily; "I have heard of nothing that I could turn my +hands to." + +"Then," advised her companion, "you'll just have to do the same as the +rest of us. You're almost as good-looking as I am." She lowered her +voice a little. "I dare say you have noticed that those Norwegians have +gone?" + +Alison had noticed that, and also that two or three lean and wiry men +with faces almost blackened by exposure to the frost had been hanging +about the emigrant quarters for a day or two preceding the disappearance +of the girls. The blood crept into her cheeks as she remembered it, but +her companion laughed, somewhat harshly. + +"Oh," she explained, "they're married and gone off to farm; but what I +want to tell you is that I'm going to follow their example to-morrow. +It's quite straight. We're to be married in the morning. He says he's +got a nice house, and he looks as if he'd treat me decently." She laid +her hand on Alison's arm, and seemed to hesitate. "A neighbor, another +farmer, came in with him--and he hasn't found anybody yet." + +Alison shrank from her, white in face now, with an almost intolerable +sense of disgust, but in another moment or two the blood surged into her +cheeks, and her companion made a half-ashamed gesture. + +"Oh, well," she said, "I think you're foolish, but I won't say any more +about it. Besides, I had only a minute or two. Charley's waiting in the +street for me now." + +She withdrew somewhat hastily, and Alison sat still, almost too troubled +to be capable of indignation, forcing herself to think. One thing was +becoming clear; she must escape from Winnipeg before the unpleasant +suggestion was made to her again, perhaps by some man in person, and go +on farther West. After all, she had one friend, the one her mother had +persecuted, living somewhere within reach of a station which she had +discovered was situated about three hundred miles down the line, and +Florence might take her in, for a time at least. She decided to set out +and try to find her the next day. Rising with sudden determination, she +walked across to the station to make inquiries about the train, and as +she reached it a man strode up to her. It was evident that he meant to +speak, and as there was just then no official to whom she could appeal, +she drew herself up and faced him resolutely. He was a young man, neatly +dressed in store clothes, though he did not look like an inhabitant of +the city, and he had what she could not help admitting was a pleasant +expression. + +"You're Miss Leigh," he said, taking off his wide gray hat, and his +intonation betrayed him to be an Englishman. + +"How did you learn my name?" Alison asked chillingly. + +"I made inquiries," he confessed. "The fact is, I asked Miss Carstairs +to get me an introduction, and to tell the truth I wasn't very much +astonished when she said you wouldn't hear of it." + +Alison recognized now that the man was the one her companion had alluded +to as her prospective husband's neighbor, and for a moment she felt +that she could have struck him. That feeling, however, passed. There was +a hint of deference in his attitude; he met the one indignant glance she +flashed at him, which was somehow reassuring, and since she could not +run away ignominiously she stood her ground. + +"That's why I thought I'd make an attempt to plead my cause in person," +he added. + +"What do you want?" Alison asked in desperation, though she was quite +aware that this was giving him a lead. + +The man's gesture seemed to beseech her forbearance. + +"I'm afraid it will sound rather alarming, but in the first place I'd +better--clear the ground. The plain truth is that I want a wife." + +"Oh," cried Alison, "how dare you say this to me!" + +"Well," he answered quietly, "the fact that I expected you to look at it +in that way was one of the things that influenced me. A self-respecting +girl with any delicacy of feeling would naturally resent it; but I'm not +sure yet that it's altogether an insult I'm offering you. Let me own +that I've been here some little time, and that I've spent a good deal of +it in watching you." He raised his hand as he saw the indignation in her +eyes. "Give me a minute or two, and then if you think it justified you +can be angry. I want to say just this. We live in a pretty primitive +fashion on our hundred-and-sixty-acre holdings out on the prairie, and +conventions don't count for much with us. What is more to the purpose, +we are forced to make some irregular venture of this kind if we think of +marrying. Now, I have a comparatively decent place about two hundred +miles from here, and my wife would not have to work as hard as you would +certainly have to do in a hotel or store. That's to begin with. To go +on, I don't think I've ever been unkind to any one or any thing, and, +though it must seem a horrible piece of assurance, I said the day I saw +you get out of the train that you were the girl for me. I would do what +I could, everything I could, to make things smooth for you." + +Alison felt that, strange as it seemed, she could believe him. The man +did not look as if he would be unkind to any one. What was more, he was +apparently a man of some education. + +"Now," he added, "what I should like to do is this. I'd find you +quarters in a decent boarding-house, and just call and take you round to +show you the city for an hour or two each afternoon. I'd try to satisfy +you as to--we'll say my mode of life and character, and you could, +perhaps, form some idea of me. I don't want to form any idea of +you--I've done that already. Then if my offer appears as repugnant as +I'm afraid it does now, I'd try to take my dismissal in good part; and I +think I could find you a post in a creamery on the prairie, if you would +care for it." + +He broke off, and Alison wondered at herself while he stood watching her +anxiously. Her anger and disgust had gone. She could see the ludicrous +aspect of the situation, but that was not her clearest impression, for +she felt that this most unconventional stranger was, after all, a man +one could have confidence in. Still, she had not the least intention of +marrying him. + +"Thank you," she said quietly. "What you suggest is, however, quite out +of the question." + +The man's face fell, and she felt, extraordinary as it seemed, almost +sorry that she had been compelled to hurt him; but once more he took off +his soft hat. + +"Well," he said, "I suppose I must accept that, and--though I don't know +if it's a compliment--I shall go back alone. There's just another +matter. If you have any knowledge of business I could have you made +clerk at the creamery." + +Urgent as her need was, Alison would not entertain the proposal. She +felt that it would be equally impossible to accept a favor from or to +live near him. + +"No," she replied; "it is generous of you, but I am going West +to-morrow." + +The man, saying nothing further, turned away, and she thought of him +long afterward with a feeling of half-amused good-will. It was the first +offer of marriage she had ever had, made in a deserted, half-lighted +station by a man to whom she had never spoken until that evening. She +was to learn, however, that the strangeness of any event naturally +depends very largely on what one has been accustomed to, and that one +meets with many things which at least appear remarkable when one +ventures out of the beaten track. + +She went on with the west-bound train the next afternoon, and early in +the morning alighted at a wayside station which consisted of one wooden +shanty and a big water-tank. A cluster of little frame houses stood +beneath the huge bulk of two grain elevators beyond the unfenced track, +which ran straight as the crow flies across a bare, white waste of +prairie. As the train sped out along this and grew smaller and smaller +Alison stood forlornly beside the half-empty trunk which contained the +remnant of her few possessions. She had then just two dollars in her +pocket. It was a raw, cold morning, for spring was unusually late that +year, and a bitter wind swept across the desolate waste. In a minute or +two the station-agent came out of the shanty and looked at her with +obvious curiosity. + +"I guess you've got off at the right place?" he said in a manner which +made the words seem less of a statement than an inquiry. + +Alison asked him if he knew a Mr. Hunter who lived near Graham's Bluff, +and how it was possible to reach his homestead. + +"I know Hunter, but the Bluff is quite a way from here," the man +replied. "The boys drive in now and then, and a freighter goes through +with a wagon about once a fortnight." + +He saw the girl's face fall, and added, as though something had suddenly +struck him: + +"There's a man in the settlement who said he was going that way to-day +or to-morrow, and it's quite likely that he'd drive you over. Guess you +had better ask for Maverick Thorne at the hotel." + +Alison thanked him and, crossing the track, made for the rude frame +building he indicated. Her thin boots were very muddy before she reached +it, for there was no semblance of a street and the space between the +houses and elevators was torn up and deeply rutted by wagon wheels. She +now understood why a high plank sidewalk usually ran, as she had +noticed, along the front of the buildings in the smaller prairie towns. + +It was with a good deal of diffidence that she walked into the hotel and +entered a long and very barely furnished room which just then was +occupied by a group of men. + +Several of them wore ordinary city clothes and were, she supposed, +clerks or storekeepers in the little town; but the rest had +weather-darkened faces and their garments were flecked with sun-dried +mire and stained with soil, while the dilapidated skin coats thrown down +here and there evidently belonged to them. Some were just finishing +breakfast and the others stood lighting their pipes about a big rusty +stove. The place reeked of the smell of cooking and tobacco smoke, and +looked very comfortless with its uncovered walls and roughly boarded +floor. There was, however, no bar in it, and it was consoling to see a +very neat maid gathering up the plates. + +"Is Mr. Maverick Thorne here just now?" she asked the girl. + +She was unpleasantly conscious that the men had gazed at her with some +astonishment when she walked in, and it was clear that they had heard +her inquiry, because several of them smiled. + +"Quit talking, Mavy. Here's a lady asking for you," said one, and a man +who had been surrounded by a laughing group moved toward her. + +She glanced at him apprehensively, for after her recent experience she +was signally shy of seeking a favor from any of his kind. He was a tall +man, bronzed and somewhat lean, as most of the inhabitants of the +prairie seemed to be, and the state of his attire was not calculated to +impress a stranger in his favor. His long boots were caked with mire and +the fur was coming off the battered cap he held in one hand; his blue +duck trousers were rent at one knee and a very old jacket hung over his +coarse blue shirt. Still, his face was reassuring and he had whimsical +brown eyes. + +"Mr. Thorne?" she said. + +The man made her a respectful inclination, which was not what she had +expected. + +"At your command," he replied. + +She stood silent a moment or two, hesitating, and he watched her +unobtrusively. He saw a jaded girl in a badly creased and somewhat +shabby dress who nevertheless had an air of refinement about her which +he immediately recognized. Her face was delicately pretty and cleanly +cut, though it was weary and a little anxious then, and she had fine +hazel eyes. Still, the red-lipped mouth was somehow determined and there +was a hint of decision of character in the way she looked at him from +under straight-drawn brows. Her hair, as much as he could see of it, was +neither brown nor golden, but of a shade between, and he decided that +the contrast between the warm color in her cheeks and the creamy +whiteness of the rest of her face was a little more marked than usual, +as indeed it was, for Alison was troubled with a very natural +embarrassment just then. + +"I want to go to Graham's Bluff," she said. "The man at the station told +me that you were driving there." + +He did not answer immediately, and she awaited his reply in tense +anxiety. It was evident that she could not stay where she was, even if +she had been possessed of the means to pay for such rude accommodation +as the place provided, which was not the case. In the meanwhile it +occurred to the man that she looked very forlorn in the big, bare room, +and something in her expression appealed to him. He was, as it happened, +a compassionate person. + +"Well," he replied, "I could take you, though as I've a round to make it +will be quite a long drive. I had thought of starting this afternoon, +but we had perhaps better get off in the next hour or so." + +He turned to the girl who was gathering up the plates. + +"Won't you try to get this lady some breakfast, Kristine?" + +The girl said that she would see what she could do, but Alison was not +aware until afterward that it was only due to the fact that the man was +a favorite in the place that food was presently set before her. The +average Westerner gets through his breakfast in about ten minutes; and +as a rule the traveler who arrives at a prairie hotel a few minutes +after a meal is over must wait with what patience he can command until +the next is ready. + +In any case, Alison was astonished when porridge and maple syrup, a thin +hard steak and a great bowl of potatoes, besides strong green tea and a +dish of desiccated apricots stewed down to pulp, were laid in front of +her. It was most unlike an English breakfast, but she was to learn that +there is very little difference between any of the three daily meals +served in that country. Its inhabitants, who rise for the most part at +sunup, do not require to be tempted by dainties, which is fortunate, +since they could not by any means obtain them, and in a land where the +liquor prohibition laws are generally applied and men work twelve and +fourteen hours daily, morning appetizers are quite unnecessary. + +In the meanwhile Thorne and his companions had disappeared, for which +Alison was thankful, though they left an acrid reek of tobacco smoke +behind them; but when Kristine presently demanded fifty cents she +realized with a fresh pang of anxiety that she had now just a dollar and +a half in her possession, and she scarcely dared contemplate what might +happen if Florence Hunter should not be disposed to welcome her. Besides +this, there was the unpleasant possibility that the man might expect +more than she could pay him for driving her to Graham's Bluff, and it +was with some misgivings that she rose when he appeared an hour later to +intimate that the team was ready. + +Going out with him she saw two rough-coated horses apparently +endeavoring to kick in the front of a high, four-wheeled vehicle, until +they desisted and backed it violently into the side of the hotel. There +are various rigs, as they term them--buckboards, sulkies and the humble +bob-sleds--in use in that country, but the favorite one is the narrow, +general-purpose wagon mounted on tall slender wheels, which will carry a +moderate load though light enough to go reasonably fast. + +Thorne helped Alison up, and as he swung himself into the vehicle +several loungers hurled laughing questions at him. + +"Aren't you going to trade that man the gramophone? You'd get him sure +in half an hour," called one. + +"Webster wants a tonic that will fix his wooden leg," cried another; and +a third suggested that a Chinaman in the vicinity was open to purchase +some hair-restorer. Alison did not know then that, probably because he +wears only one tail of it, a Chinaman's hair usually grows without the +least assistance three feet long. + +Thorne smiled at them and then, calling to Kristine, who was standing +near the door, he leaned down and handed her a bottle which he took from +an open case. + +"I guess you haven't much use for anything of this kind, but that elixir +will make your cheeks bloom like peaches if you rub it in," he informed +her. "I sold some round Stanbury down the line not long ago and there +wasn't an unmarried girl near the place when I next came along." + +"There was only two before, and one of them was cross-eyed," said a +grinning man. + +Thorne, without answering this, told Alison to hold fast and flicked the +horses with the whip. They plunged forward at a mad gallop, scattering +clods of half-dried mud, and the wagon bounced violently into and out of +the ruts. It seemed to leap into the air when the wheels struck the +rails as they crossed the track, and then Thorne's arms grew rigid and +there was a further kicking and plunging as he pulled the team up +outside the little station shed. A man who appeared from within +condescended to hand Alison's light trunk up, which she did not know +then was a very great favor, and in another moment or two they were +flying out across the white waste of prairie. + +It ran dead level, like a frozen sea, to where it met the crystalline +blueness that hung over it, for the grasses which had lain for months in +the grip of the iron frost shone in the sunlight a pale silvery gray. +There was not a trail of smoke or a house on it, only here and there a +formless blur that was in reality a bluff of straggling birches or a +clump of willows, and, to complete the illusion, when Alison looked +around by and by, the houses had sunk down beneath the rim and only the +bulk of the wheat elevators rose up like island crags against the sky. + +It was, however, warm at last, and a wonderful fresh breeze which had +the quality of an elixir in it rippled the whitened grass. Alison felt +her heart grow lighter. The vast plain was certainly desolate, but it +had lost its forbidding grimness. It had no limit or boundary; one felt +free out there and cares and apprehensions melted in the sunshine that +flooded it. She began to understand why she had seen no pinched and +pallid faces in this new land. Its inhabitants laughed whole-heartedly, +looked one in the eyes, and walked with a quick, jaunty swing. They +seemed alert, self-confident, optimistic and quaintly whimsical. It was +hard to believe there was not some nook in it that she could fill. + +In the meanwhile she was becoming more reassured about her companion. +She decided that his age was twenty-six and that he had a pleasant face. +His eyes were clear and brown and steady, his nose and lips clearly cut, +and there was a suggestive cleanness about his deeply bronzed skin which +was the result of a simple and wholesome life led out in the wind and +the sun. Alison was puzzled, however, by something in both his manner +and his voice that hinted at a careful upbringing and intelligence. It +certainly was not in keeping with his clothes or his profession, which +was apparently that of a pedler. She had already noticed the nerve and +coolness with which he controlled the half-broken team. + +"I'm afraid you started before you were quite ready," she said at +length. + +The man laughed. + +"I might have planted a gramophone on to one of the boys and a few +bottles of general-purpose specifics among the rest. They are"--his eyes +twinkled humorously--"quite harmless. Anyway, I've no doubt I can unload +them on to somebody next time. So far, at least, I haven't any rivals in +this neighborhood." + +"Then you sell things?" + +"Anything to anybody. If I haven't got what the buyer wants I promise to +bring it next journey, or bewilder him with an oration until he gives +me a dollar for something he has no possible use for. That, however, +isn't a thing you can do very frequently, which is why some folks in my +profession fail disastrously. They can't realize that if you sell a man +what he doesn't want too often he's apt to turn out with a club on the +next occasion." He paused and sighed whimsically. "If I hadn't been +troubled with a conscience I could have been running a store by now. +That is, it must be added, if I had wanted to." + +"You find a conscience handicaps you?" Alison inquired, for she was half +amused and half interested in him. + +"I'm afraid it does. For instance, I came across a man with a badly +sprained wrist the other day and he offered me two dollars for anything +that would cure it. Now it would have been singularly easy to have +affixed a different label to my unrivaled peach-bloom cosmetic and have +supplied him with a sure-to-heal embrocation. As it was, I got my supper +at his place and recommended cold-water bandages. There was another man +I cured of a broken leg, and I resisted the temptation to brace him up +with hair-restorer." + +"What remedy did you use for the broken leg?" + +"Splints," said Thorne dryly, "after I'd set it." + +"But isn't that a difficult thing? How did you know how to go about it?" + +"Oh, I'd seen it done." + +"On the prairie?" + +"No," replied Thorne, with a rather curious smile; "in an Edinburgh +hospital." + +Something in his manner warned her that it might not be judicious to +pursue her inquiries any further, though she was, without exactly +knowing why, a little curious upon the point. It occurred to her that if +he had been a patient in the hospital the injured man would in all +probability not have been treated in his sight, while it seemed somewhat +strange that he should now be peddling patent medicines in Canada had he +been qualifying for his diploma. He, however, said nothing more, and +they drove on in silence for a while. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE CAMP IN THE BLUFF + + +They stopped in a thin grove of birches at midday for a meal which +Thorne prepared, and it was late in the afternoon when Alison, who ached +with the jolting, asked if Graham's Bluff was very much farther. It +struck her that the fact that she had not made the inquiry earlier said +a good deal for her companion's conversational powers. + +"Oh, yes," he answered casually, "it's most of thirty miles." + +Alison started with dismay. + +"But--" she said and stopped, for it was evident that her misgivings +could not very well be expressed. + +"We're not going through to-night," Thorne explained. "The team have had +about enough already, and there's a farmer ahead who'll take us in. If +we reach the Bluff by to-morrow afternoon it will be as much as one +could expect." + +Alison did not care to ask whether the farmer was married, though as +there seemed to be singularly few women in the country she was afraid +that it was scarcely probable. There was, however, no doubt that she +must face the unusual and somewhat embarrassing situation. + +"I had no idea it was a two days' drive," she said. + +"It's possible to get through in the same day if you start early," +Thorne replied. "I've a call to make, however, which is taking me a good +many miles off the direct trail. Anyway, if you hadn't come with me you +would have had to wait a week at the hotel." + +"Do you know Mrs. Hunter?" + +"Well," answered Thorne with a certain dryness, "we are certainly +acquainted. When you use the other term in England it to some extent +implies that you could be regarded as a friend of the person mentioned." + +"I wonder whether you like her?" Alison was conscious that the speech +was not a very judicious one. + +Thorne's eyes twinkled in a way that she had noticed already. + +"I must confess that I liked her better when she first came to Canada. +She hadn't begun to remodel arrangements at her husband's homestead +then. Hunter, I understand, came into some money shortly before he +married her, and--" he paused with a little laugh--"most of my friends +are poor." + +This was not very definite, but it tended to confirm the misgivings +concerning her reception which already troubled Alison. She noticed the +tact with which the man had refrained from making any inquiries as to +her business with Mrs. Hunter. Indeed, he said nothing for the next +half-hour, and then, as they reached the crest of a low rise, he pointed +to a cluster of what seemed to be ridiculously small buildings on the +wide plain below. + +"That's as far as we'll go to-night," he said. + +The buildings rapidly grew into clearer shape, until Alison recognized +that one was a diminutive frame house which looked as though it had been +made for dolls to live in. It rose abruptly from the prairie, without +sheltering tree or fence or garden; but near it there was a pile of +straw and two shapeless structures, which seemed to be composed of soil +or sods. Behind them the vast sweep of silvery gray grass was broken by +a narrow strip of ochre-tinted stubble. + +Presently they reached the lonely homestead and a neatly dressed woman +with hard, red hands and a worn face appeared in the doorway when Thorne +helped Alison down. The girl felt sincerely pleased to see her. + +"I've no doubt you'll take my companion, who's going on toward the Bluff +to-morrow, in for the night and let me camp in the barn," said Thorne. +"Is Tom anywhere around? I want to see him about a horse he talked of +selling." + +The woman said that he had gone off to borrow a team of oxen and would +not be back until the next day, and then she led Alison into a little +roughly match-boarded room with an uncovered floor and very little +furniture except the big stove in the middle of it. A child was toddling +about the floor and another, a very little girl, lay with a flushed face +in a canvas chair. The woman asked Alison no questions, but set about +getting supper ready, and after a while Thorne, who had apparently been +putting up the team, came in. As he did so the child in the chair held +out her hands to him. + +"Candies, Mavy," she cried. "Got some candies for me?" + +Thorne picked her up and sat down with her on his knee, and taking a +parcel out of his pocket he unwrapped and handed some of its contents to +her. While she munched the sweetmeats he glanced at her mother +interrogatively. + +"Yes," declared the woman, "I'm right glad you came. She's been like +this three or four days. I don't know what to do with her, or what's the +matter." + +Thorne looked down at the child before he turned toward his hostess. + +"Well," he said, "I have at least a notion. A little feverish, for one +thing." + +He asked a question or two, and then held the child out to her mother. + +"Will you take her while I get a draught mixed? I'm not sure that she'll +sit down again in her chair." + +The child bore this out, for she would neither sit alone nor go to her +mother. + +"If Mavy goes out I sure go along with him," she persisted. + +The man got rid of her with some difficulty and, going out to where his +wagon stood, he came back with a little brass-strapped box in his hand. +He asked for some water and disappeared into an adjoining room, out of +which there presently rose the clink of glass and a slight rattling. +Then he called the woman, who gave the child to Alison, and when she +came back somewhat relieved in face she laid out the supper. It much +resembled the breakfast Alison had made at the hotel, only that strips +of untempting salt pork were substituted for the hard steak. + +An hour or two later she was given a very rude bunk filled with straw +and a couple of blankets in an unoccupied room, and being tired out, she +slept soundly. Lying still when she awakened early the next morning she +heard the woman moving about the adjoining room until the outer door +opened and a man whose voice she recognized as Thorne's came in. + +"I'll go through and look at the kiddie, if I may," he said. + +Alison heard him cross the room, and when he came back his hostess +evidently walked toward the outer door of the house with him. + +"You'll have to be careful of her for a few days, but if you give her +the stuff I left as I told you, she'll cause you no trouble then," he +said. "I'm sorry I didn't see Tom, but we'll have to get on after +breakfast." + +"What am I to give you for the medicine?" the woman asked. + +Alison, who listened unabashed, heard Thorne's laugh. + +"Breakfast," he answered; "that will put us square. I've been selling +gramophones and little mirrors by the dozen right along the line, and +when I've struck a streak of that kind I don't rob my friends." + +Though she did not know exactly why, Alison had expected such an answer, +and she remembered with a curious feeling that he had said his friends +were poor. She heard the woman thank him, and then a flush crept into +her face, for she certainly had not expected the next question. + +"Are you going to quit the peddling and take up a quarter-section with +the girl?" + +"No," laughed Thorne; "I don't know where you got that idea." + +"She's your kind," replied his hostess, and this appeared significant to +Alison. "I've seen folks like her back in Montreal." + +"It's quite likely," said Thorne. "She's going to Mrs. Hunter." + +"Mrs. Hunter? Why didn't they send for her? What's her name?" + +"I haven't a notion. She walked into Brown's hotel yesterday looking +played out and anxious, and said somebody had told her I was going to +the Bluff. As I felt sorry for her I started at once." + +"Well," responded the woman, "I guess you couldn't help it. It's just +the kind of thing you would do." + +Thorne apparently went out after this and Alison lay still for a time +while her hostess clattered about the room. She was troubled by what she +had heard, for although she recognized that she had need of it, there +was something unpleasant in the fact that she was indebted to this +stranger's charity. He had confessed that he was sorry for her. Rising a +little later she breakfasted with the others, and then, when Thorne went +out to harness his team, she diffidently asked the woman what she owed +her. + +"Nothing," was the uncompromising reply. + +"But--" Alison began, and the woman checked her. + +"We're not running a hotel. You can stop right now." + +Alison realized that expostulation would be useless, and this, as a +matter of fact, was in one respect a relief to her, for just then there +were but two silver coins in her possession. A few minutes later Thorne +helped her into the wagon and they drove away. + +The prairie was flooded with sunlight, and it was no longer monotonously +level. It stretched away before her in long, billowy rises, which dipped +again to vast shallow hollows when the team plodded over the crest of +them, and here and there little specks of flowers peeped out among the +whitened grass or there was a faint sprinkling of tender green. The air +was cool yet, and exhilarating as wine. Alison, refreshed by her sound +sleep, rejoiced in it, and it was some time before she spoke to her +companion. + +"I felt slightly embarrassed," she said. "That woman would let me pay +nothing for my entertainment. She can't have very much, either." + +"She hasn't," replied Thorne. "Her husband had his crop hailed out last +fall. Still, you see, that kind of thing is a custom of the country. +They're a hospitable people, and, in a general way, when you are in need +of a kindness, you're most likely to get it from people who are as hard +up as you are." He paused with a whimsical smile. "One can't logically +feel hurt at the other kind for standing aside or shutting their eyes, +but when they proceed to point out that if you had only emulated their +virtues you would be equally prosperous, it becomes exasperating, +especially as it isn't true. So far as my observation goes, it isn't the +practice of the stricter virtues that leads to riches." + +"Why didn't you say your experience?" Alison inquired. "It's the usual +word." + +"It would suggest that I had tried the thing, and I'm afraid that I've +only watched other people. To get knowledge that way is considerably +easier. But I presume I was taking too much for granted in supposing +that you had--any reason for agreeing with my previous observation." + +Alison felt that this was a question delicately put, so that if it +pleased her she could avoid a definite reply. She did not in the least +resent it, and something urged her to take this stranger into her +confidence. + +"If you mean that I don't know what it is to be poor you are wrong," she +confessed. "At the present moment I'm unpleasantly close to the end of +my resources." + +"But you said that you were going to Mrs. Hunter's." + +"I don't know whether she will take me in. I shouldn't be astonished if +she didn't." + +The man saw the warmth in her face and looked at her thoughtfully. + +"Well," he said, "you have courage, and that goes quite a way out here. +I don't think you need be unduly anxious, in any case." + +He flicked the team with his whip and by and by they reached a +straggling birch bluff on the crest of a steeper slope. A rutted trail +led between the trees, and as the team moved a little faster down the +dip the wagon jolted sharply. Then one of the beasts stumbled, plunged, +and recovered itself again, and Thorne, seizing Alison's arm as she was +almost flung from her seat, pulled them up and swung himself down. +Looking over the side she saw him stoop and lift one of the horse's +feet. It was a few minutes before he came back again. + +"A badger hole," he explained. "Volador fell into it. An accident of +that kind makes trouble now and then." + +He drove slowly for the next few miles, but, so far as Alison noticed, +the horse showed no sign of injury, and it was midday when they stopped +for a meal beside a creek which wound through a deep hollow. On setting +out again, however, the horse began to flag and Thorne, who got down +once or twice in the meanwhile, was driving at a walking pace when they +reached a birch bluff larger than the last one. He pulled the team up +and springing to the ground looked at Alison a few minutes later. + +"Volador's going very lame," he said. "It would be cruelty to drive him +much farther." + +Alison was conscious of a shock of dismay. Sitting in the wagon on the +crest of the rise she could look down across the birches upon a vast +sweep of prairie, and there was no sign of a house anywhere on it. It +almost seemed as if she must spend the night in the bluff. + +"What is to be done?" she asked. + +"Can you ride?" + +Alison said she had never tried, and the man's expression hinted that +the expedient he had suggested was out of the question. + +"Do you think you could walk sixteen miles?" he asked. + +"I'm afraid I couldn't," Alison confessed, though if the feat had +appeared within her powers she would gladly have attempted it. + +"Then you'll have to camp here in the wagon, though I can fix it up +quite comfortably." + +He held up his hand. + +"You may as well get down, and we'll set about making supper." + +She was glad that he spoke without any sign of diffidence or hesitation, +which would have suggested that he expected her to be embarrassed by the +situation, though this was undoubtedly the case. It seemed to her that +his manner implied the possession of a certain amount of tact and +delicacy. For all that, she looked out across the prairie with her face +turned away from him when she reached the ground. + +"Now," he said presently, handing down a big box, "if you will open that +and fill the kettle at the creek down there among the trees, I'll bring +some branches to make a fire." + +She moved away with the kettle, and when she came back the horses had +disappeared and she could hear the thud of her companion's ax some +distance away in the bush. When he reappeared with an armful of dry +branches she had laid out a frying-pan, an enameled plate or two, a bag +of flour, a big piece of bacon, which, however, seemed to be termed pork +in that country, and a paper package of desiccated apples. She was +looking at them somewhat helplessly, for she knew very little about +cooking. Thorne made a fire between two birches which he hewed down for +the purpose, and laid several strips of pork in the frying-pan, which +she heard him call a spider. These he presently emptied out on to a +plate laid near the fire, after which he poured some water into a basin +partly filled with flour. + +"Flapjacks are the usual standby in camp," he informed her. "If I'd +known we would be held up here I'd have soaked those apples. Do you mind +sprinkling this flour with a pinch or two of the yeast-powder in yonder +tin, though it's a thing a sour-dough would never come down to." + +"A sour-dough?" inquired Alison, doing as he requested. + +"An old-timer," explained Thorne, who splashed himself rather freely as +he proceeded to beat up the flour and water. "Sour-dough has much the +same significance as unleavened bread, only that our pioneers kept on +eating it more or less regularly in the land of promise. For all that, I +wouldn't wish for better bread than the kind still made with a +preparation of sour potatoes and boiled-down hops stirred in with the +flour. In this operation, however, the great thing is to whip fast +enough." + +He splashed another white smear upon his jacket, and rubbed it with his +hand before he poured some of the mixture into the hot spider, out of +which he presently shook what appeared to be a very light pancake. +Three or four more followed in quick succession, and then he poured +water on to the green tea and handed Alison a plate containing two +flapjacks and some pork. She found them palatable. Even the desiccated +apples, which from want of soaking were somewhat leathery, did not come +amiss, and the flavor of the wood smoke failed to spoil the strong green +tea. Then Thorne poured a little hot water over the plates, and as there +was no vessel that would hold them, she overruled his objections when +she volunteered to go down and wash them thoroughly in the creek. When +she came back she found that he had made up a clear fire and spread out +a blanket as a seat for her. + +"You are satisfied now?" he asked. + +Alison smiled. She was astonished to find herself so much at ease with +him. + +"Yes," she answered; "I felt that I could at least wash the plates. In a +way, it wasn't altogether my fault that I could do nothing else. You +see, I was never taught to cook." + +"Isn't that rather a pity?" Thorne suggested. + +"It's more," said Alison with what was in her case unusual warmth. "It's +an injustice. Still, there are thousands of us brought up in that way +yonder, and when some unexpected thing brings disaster we are left to +wonder what use we are to anybody. I suppose," she added, "the answer +must be--none." + +Thorne expressed no opinion on this point, but presently took out his +pipe. + +"You won't mind?" he asked. "I suppose they taught you something?" + +"Yes," answered Alison; "accomplishments. I can play and sing +indifferently, and paint simple landscapes if there are no figures in +them--because figures imply serious study. I can follow a French +conversation if they don't speak fast, and read Italian with a +dictionary. Before any of these things will bring a girl in sixpence she +must do them excellently, and they seem very unlikely to be of the least +service in this part of Canada." + +She was angry with herself for the outbreak as soon as she had spoken, +as it seemed absurd that she should supply a stranger with these +personal details; but the longing to utter some protest against the +half-education which had been merely a handicap during the last three +bitter years was too much for her. Thorne, however, made a sign of +sympathetic comprehension. + +"Yes," he assented, "that kind of thing's rather a pity. Did you never +learn anything--practical?" + +"Shorthand," replied Alison. "I can generally, though not always, read +what I've written, if it hasn't exceeded about eighty words a minute. +Then I can type about two-thirds as fast as one really ought to, and can +keep simple accounts so long as neatness is not insisted on. I naturally +had to learn all this after I left home. It seems to me that to bring up +English girls in such a way is downright cruelty." + +Thorne laughed. + +"It's not remarkably different in our case. There's a man in a town not +far along the line who used to shine at the Oxford Union and is now +uncommonly glad to earn a few dollars by his talents as an auctioneer; +that's how they estimate oratory on the prairie. There's another who +devoted most of his time at Cambridge to physical culture, and as the +result of it he gets pretty steady employment on the railroad track as a +ballast shoveler." + +Then he changed his tone. + +"Have you any idea as to what you will do if you don't stay with Mrs. +Hunter?" + +"No," confessed Alison, somewhat ruefully. + +"Well," said Thorne, "as I believe I mentioned, I don't think you need +worry about the matter. It's very probable that some of the small +wheat-growers' wives would be glad to have you." + +"But I can't even sew decently." + +The man's eyes twinkled. + +"In a general way, they're too busy to be fastidious." + +There was silence for a little after this and Alison cast one or two +swift unobtrusive glances at her companion, who lay smoking opposite her +on the other side of the fire. The sun now hung low above the great +white waste and the red light streamed in upon them both between the +leafless birches. Again she decided that he had a pleasant face and, +what was more, in spite of his attire, his whole personality seemed to +suggest a clean and wholesome virility. + +She had seen that he could be gentle, in the sick child's case, and she +suspected that he could be generous, but there was something about him +that also hinted at force. Then she remembered some of the men with whom +she had been brought into unpleasant contact in the cities--many who +bore the unmistakable mark of the beast, the cheap swagger of others, +and the inane attempts at gallantries which some of the rest indulged +in. They were not all like that, she realized; there were true men +everywhere; but now that her first shrinking from the grim and lonely +land was lessening it seemed to her that it had, in some respects at +least, a more bracing influence on those who lived in it than that other +still very dear one on which she had turned her back. Then she realized +that she was, after all, appraising its inhabitants by a single +specimen. She had yet to learn that they are now and then a little too +aggressively proud of themselves in western Canada, though it must be +said that the boaster is usually ready to pour out the sweat of tensest +effort with ax and saw or ox-team to prove his vaunting warranted. + +After a while the sun dipped and it grew chilly as dusk crept up from +the hazy east across the leagues of grass. Thorne brought her another +blanket to lay over her shoulders, and lying down again relighted his +pipe. There was not a breath of wind, and though she could hear the +knee-hobbled horses moving every now and then the silence became +impressive. She felt impelled to break it presently, for it seemed to +her that casual conversation would lessen the probability of the +somewhat unusual situation having too marked an effect on either of +them. + +"How is it that you have so many provisions in your wagon?" she asked. + +Thorne laughed. + +"I live in it all summer." + +"And you drive about selling things? Is it very remunerative?" + +"No," admitted Thorne dryly; "I can't say that it is; but, you see, I +like it. I'm afraid that I've a rooted objection to staying in one place +very long, and while I can get a meal and the few things I need by +selling an odd bottle of cosmetic, a gramophone, or a mirror, I'm +content." He made a humorous gesture. "That's the kind of man I am." + +Then he stood up. + +"It's getting rather late and you'll find the wagon fixed up ready. If +you hear a doleful howling you needn't be alarmed. It will only be the +coyotes." + +He disappeared into the shadows and Alison turned away toward the +wagon. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FARQUHAR HOMESTEAD + + +When she reached the wagon Alison found it covered by a heavy waterproof +sheet which was stretched across a pole. Loose hay had been strewn +between a row of wooden cases and one side of the vehicle and the space +beneath the sheeted roof was filled with a faint aromatic odor, which +she afterward learned was the smell of the wild peppermint that grows in +the prairie grass. When she had spread one blanket on the hay the couch +felt seductively soft, and she sank into it contentedly. Tired as she +was, however, she did not go to sleep immediately, for it was the first +night she had ever spent in the open, and for a time the strangeness of +her surroundings reacted on her. + +The front of the tent was open, and resting on one elbow she could see +the sinking fires still burning red among the leafless trees, and the +pale wisps of smoke that drifted among their spectral stems. At the foot +of the slope there was a wan gleam of water and beyond that in turn the +prairie rolled away, vast and dim and shadowy, with a silver half-moon +hanging low above its eastern rim. To one who had lived in the cities, +as she had done, the silence was at first so deep as to be almost +overwhelming, but by degrees she became conscious that it was broken by +tiny sounds. There was a very faint, elfin tinkle of running water, a +whispering of grasses that bent to the little cold breeze which had just +sprung up, and the softest, caressing rustle of the lace-like birch +twigs. Then, as the moon rose higher the vast sweep of wilderness and +sky gathered depth of color and became a wonderful nocturne in blue and +silver. + +In the meanwhile a pleasant warmth was creeping through her wearied body +and she began to wonder with a sense of compunction how many blankets +Thorne possessed, and where he was. It was at least certain that he was +nowhere near the fire, for she had carefully satisfied herself on that +point. Then a wild, drawn-out howl drifted up to her across the faintly +gleaming prairie and she started and held her breath, until she +remembered that Thorne had said there was no reason why she should be +alarmed if she heard a coyote. He was, she felt, a man one could +believe. The beast did not howl again, but she continued to think of her +companion as her eyes grew heavy. There was no doubt that he had a +pleasant voice and a handsome face. Then her eyes closed altogether and +her yielding elbow slipped down among the hay. + +The sun was where the moon had been when she opened her eyes again. +Climbing down from the wagon she saw no sign of Thorne. A bucket filled +with very cold water, however, stood beneath a tree, where she did not +remember having noticed it on the previous evening, and a towel hung +close by. A few minutes later she took down the towel and glanced at it +dubiously. It was by no means overclean and she wondered with misgivings +what the man did with it. It seemed within the bounds of possibility +that he dried the plates on it and, what was worse, that he might do so +again. In the meanwhile, however, the hair on her forehead was dripping +and the water was trickling down her neck, so she shut her eyes tight +and applied the towel, after which she concealed it carefully in the +wagon. + +A quarter of an hour later Thorne appeared and she was relieved upon one +point at least. Whether he had slept with blankets or without them, he +did not look cold, and his appearance indeed suggested that he had been +in the neighboring creek. She was astonished to notice that he had +brushed himself carefully and had sewed up the rent in the knee of his +overalls. Clothes-brushes, she correctly supposed, were scarce on the +Canadian prairie, but it seemed probable that he would require a brush +of some kind to clean his horses. + +"If you wouldn't mind laying out breakfast I'll make a fire and catch +the team," he said. "It's a glorious morning; but once the winter's over +we have a good many of them here." + +"Yes," assented Alison; "everything is so delightfully fresh." + +His eyes rested on her for a moment and she was unpleasantly conscious +that her dress was badly creased and crumpled as well as shabby; but he +did not seem to notice this. + +"That," he said, "is what struck me a minute or two ago." + +He busied himself about the fire, and when he strode away through the +bluff in search of the horses she heard him singing softly to himself. +She recognized the aria, and wondered a little, for it was not one that +could be considered as popular music. + +They had breakfast when he came back and both laughed when she prepared +the flapjacks under his direction. She felt no restraint in this +stranger's company. Indeed, she was conscious of a pleasant sense of +camaraderie, which seemed the best name for it, though she had hired +him to drive her to Mrs. Hunter's and was very uncertain as to whether +she could pay him. + +He harnessed the team when the meal was over and explained that although +Volador was still lame they might contrive to reach Graham's Bluff at +sundown by proceeding by easy stages, and Alison tactfully led him on to +talk about himself as they drove away. Though there were one or two +points on which he was reserved, he displayed very little diffidence, +which, however, is a quality not often met with among the inhabitants of +western Canada. + +"Well," he said with an air of whimsical reflection in answer to one +question, "I suppose my chief complaint is an excess of individuality. +They beat it out of you with clubs in England, unless you're +rich--really rich--when you can, of course, do anything. On the other +hand, the man who is merely stodgily prosperous is hampered by more +rules than anybody else. This is, I must explain, another notion I've +arrived at by observation and not from experience." + +"One supposes that a certain amount of uniformity and subordination is +necessary to progress," commented Alison. + +"Oh, yes," agreed Thorne; "that's the trouble. Progress marches with +massed battalions and makes so much dust that it's not always able to +see where it's going. Perhaps it's that or the bewildering change of +leaders that renders so much countermarching unavoidable." + +"Then you prefer to act with the vedettes and skirmishers?" + +"No," said Thorne; "not that exactly. Some of us are more like the +camp-followers. We collect our toll on the booty and when that's too +difficult we live on the country. After all, mine's an ancient if not a +very respectable calling. There were always pilgrims, minstrels and +pedlers." + +"It can't be a luxurious life." + +Thorne looked amused. + +"Are you quite sure you didn't mean a useful one?" + +Alison felt uncomfortable, because this idea had been in her mind. + +"I'll answer the question, anyway," continued Thorne. "These people and +those in the wheat-growing lands across the frontier work twelve and +fourteen hours every day. It's always the same unceasing toil with +them--they have no diversions. We go round and carry the news from place +to place, tell them the latest stories, and now and then sing to them. +We don't tax them too much either--a supper when they're poor--a dollar +for a mirror or a bottle of elixir, which it must be confessed most of +them have no possible use for." + +"Did you never do anything else?" Alison inquired; "that is, in Canada?" + +"Oh, yes," replied her companion. "I was clerk in an implement store +which I walked out of at its proprietor's request after an attack of +injudicious candor. You see, a rather big farmer came in one day and +spent most of the morning examining our seeders and pointing out their +defects. Then he inquired why we had the assurance to demand so much for +our implement when he could buy a very much better one several dollars +cheaper. I asked him if he was sure of that, and when he said he was I +suggested that it would be considerably wiser to go right away and buy +it instead of wasting his time and mine. The proprietor desired to know +how we expected him to make a living if we talked to customers like +that, and I pointed out that we couldn't do so anyway by answering +insane questions." + +Alison laughed delightedly. She felt that this was not mere rodomontade, +but that the man was perfectly capable of doing as he had said. + +"Had you any more experiences of the same kind?" she asked. + +"I was shortly afterward projected out of a wheat broker's office." + +"Projected?" + +Thorne grinned. + +"I believe that describes it. You see, they were three to one; but I +took part of the office fittings along with me. I must own that I lost +my temper and insulted them." + +"But why did you do so?" + +"Well," answered Thorne reflectively, "I like the Colonial, and +especially the Westerner, though he's rather fond of insisting on his +superiority over the rest of mankind. One gets used to this, but it now +and then grows galling when he compares himself with the folks who come +out from the old country. On the day in question the trouble arose from +a repetition of the usual formula that if it wasn't for the ocean they'd +have the whole scum of Europe coming over. I, however, shook hands with +the man who said it not long afterward, and he told me that after I had +gone, which was how he expressed it, they sat down and laughed until +they ached, thinking what the wheat broker, who was out on business, +would say when he saw his office." + +Alison was genuinely amused and she ventured another question. + +"Did you leave your situations in England in the same fashion?" + +The man's face darkened for a moment. + +"As it happened, I hadn't any." + +Alison turned the conversation into what promised to be a safer channel, +and they drove along very slowly all morning. When they set out again +after a lengthy stop at noon Thorne asked her if she would mind walking +for a while, as Volador was becoming very lame. He added that he would +make for an outlying homestead, where they would find entertainment, +instead of Graham's Bluff, and that they should reach Mrs. Hunter's on +the following day. + +It was six o'clock in the evening when they arrived at a frame house +which stood, roofed with cedar shingles, in the shelter of a big birch +bluff. There was a very rude sod-built stable, a small log barn, and a +great pile of straw, which appeared to be hollow inside and used as a +store of some kind. A middle-aged man with a good-humored look met them +at the door, and his wife greeted Alison in a kindly fashion when Thorne +explained the cause of their visit. Indeed, Alison was pleased with the +woman's face and manner, though, like many of the small wheat-growers' +wives, she looked a little worn and faded. Though the men toil +strenuously on the newly broken prairie, the heavier burden not +infrequently falls to the woman's share. + +Farquhar, their host, went out to work after supper but came back a +little before dusk, and when they sat out on the stoop together, Thorne +got his banjo and sang twice at Mrs. Farquhar's request; once some +amusing jingle he had heard in Winnipeg, and afterward "Mandalay." + +The song was not new to Alison, but she fancied that she had never heard +it rendered as Maverick Thorne sang it then. It was not his voice, +though that was a fine one, but the knowledge that had given him power +of expression, which held her tense and still. This man knew and had +indulged in and probably suffered for the longing for something that was +strange and different from all that his experience had touched before. +He was one of the free-lances who could not sit snugly at home; and in +her heart Alison sympathized with him. + +She had never seen the glowing, sensuous East and South, but the new +West lay open before her in all its clean, pristine virility. A vast +sweep of sky that was duskily purple eastward stretched overhead, a +wonderful crystalline bluish green, until it changed far off on the +grassland's rim to a streak of smoky red. Under it the prairie rolled +back like a great silent sea. There was something that set the blood +stirring in the dew-chilled air, and the faint smell of the wood smoke +and the calling of the wild fowl on a distant sloo intensified the sense +of the new and unfamiliar. One could be free in that wide land, she +felt; and as she thought of the customs, castes, and conventions to +which one must submit at home, she wondered whether they were needed +guides and guards or mere cramping fetters. They seemed to have none of +them in western Canada. + +She said "Thank you!" when Thorne laid down his banjo, and felt that the +spoken word had its limits, though she was careful not to look at him +directly just then, and soon afterward she retired. This house was +larger and much better furnished than the one she had last slept in, +though she supposed that it would have looked singularly comfortless and +almost empty in England. There was, for one thing, neither a curtain at +a window nor a carpet on the floor. + +When she joined the others at breakfast the next morning her host +informed Thorne that if they could wait until noon he could lend him a +horse to replace the lame Volador. He had, he explained, sent his hired +man off with a team on the previous day for a plow which was being +repaired by a smith who lived at a distance, and he had some work for +the second pair that morning. The men went out together when breakfast +was over, and Mrs. Farquhar sat down opposite Alison after she had +cleared the table. + +"Thorne tells me you are going to Mrs. Hunter's, though you don't know +yet whether you will stay with her or not," she said. + +It occurred to Alison that this was a tactful way of expressing it, +though she was not sure that the delicacy was altogether Thorne's, for +she had no doubt that her hostess had once been accustomed to a much +smoother life in the Canadian cities. + +"No," she replied, "I really can't tell until I get there." + +"Then, in case you don't decide to stay, we should be glad to have you +here." + +Alison was astonished, but in spite of her usual outward calm there was +a vein of impulsiveness in her, and she leaned forward in her chair. + +"I don't suppose you know that I am quite useless at any kind of +housework," she said. "I can't wash things, I can't cook, and I can +scarcely sew." + +Mrs. Farquhar smiled. + +"When I first came out here from Toronto it was much the same with me, +and there was nobody to teach me. It's fortunate that men are not very +fastidious in this part of Canada. In any case I had, perhaps, better +mention that while I would be glad to pay you at the usual rate and you +would be required to help, you would live with us as one of the family. +I want a companion. With my husband at work from sunup until dark, it's +often lonely here. Besides, the arrangement would give you an +opportunity for learning a little and finding out how you like the +country." + +Alison thought hard for a few moments. What she was offered was a +situation as a servant, but she decided that it would be more pleasant +here than she supposed it must generally be in England. She felt +inclined to like this woman, and her husband's manner was reassuring. +There was no doubt that they would treat her well. + +"I'm afraid that in a little while you would be sorry you had suggested +it," she said. + +"The question is, would you like to try?" + +"I'm quite sure of that," declared Alison impulsively. "I don't suppose +you know what it is to be offered a resting-place when you arrive, +feeling very friendless and forlorn, in a new country." + +Mrs. Farquhar smiled. + +"Then if you don't care to stay with Mrs. Hunter you must come straight +back here. It would, perhaps, be better if you went to her in the first +instance." + +"But don't you want any references?" + +"I don't think I do. In this case, your face is sufficient, and from +experience we don't attach any great importance to vouchers of the other +kind. Harry sometimes says that when a man is found to be insufferable +in the old country they give him a walletful of letters of introduction, +crediting him with all the virtues, and send him out to us. Besides, +even if you were really quite dreadful, your friends wouldn't go back on +you when I wrote to them." + +Alison laughed, and as the hired man appeared at noon with Farquhar's +team she drove away with Thorne soon after dinner. When they had left +the house behind she turned to him. + +"You have been talking about me to Mrs. Farquhar," she said. + +"Yes," admitted Thorne with a smile, "I must confess that I have. Is +there any reason why you should be angry?" + +"I'm not," Alison informed him. "But why did you do it?" + +"I'm far from sure that you will like Mrs. Hunter. In fact, I'd be a +little astonished if you did; and if you were a relative of mine I'd try +to make you stay with Mrs. Farquhar." + +"I wonder whether that means that Mrs. Hunter doesn't like you?" + +Thorne laughed good-humoredly. + +"Oh, I'm much too insignificant a person to count either way. Mrs. +Hunter is what you might call _grande dame_." + +"Have you any of them in western Canada?" + +"Well," answered Thorne, with an air of whimsical reflection, "there are +certainly not many, and in spite of it the country gets along pretty +well. We have, however, quite a few women of excellent education and +manners who don't seem to mind making their children's dresses and +washing their husband's clothes. Anyway, if she's at home, you can form +your own opinion of Florence Hunter in an hour or two." + +"Is she often away?" + +"Not infrequently. Every now and then she goes off to Winnipeg, Toronto, +or Montreal." + +"But what about her husband? Can he leave his farm?" + +"Hunter," Thorne replied dryly, "invariably stays at home." + +His manner made it clear that he intended to say no more on that +subject, and they talked about other matters while the wagon jolted on +across the sunlit prairie. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THORNE GIVES ADVICE + +It was early in the evening when they drove into sight of the Hunter +homestead, and as they approached it Alison glanced about her with some +curiosity. Long rows of clods out of which rose a tangle of withered +grass tussocks stretched across the foreground. Thorne told her that +this was the breaking, land won from the prairie too late for sowing in +the previous year. Farther on, they skirted another stretch of more +friable and cleaner clods, shattered and mellowed by the frost, and then +they came to a space of charred stubble. Beyond that, a waste of yellow +straw stood almost knee-high, and Thorne said that as the latter had no +value on the prairie it was generally burned off to clear the ground for +the following crop. He added that wheat was usually grown on the same +land for several years without any attempt at fertilization. + +Alison, however, knew nothing of farming, and it was the house at which +she gazed with most interest. It stood not far from a broad shallow lake +with a thin birch bluff on one side of it, a commodious two-storied +building with a wide veranda. It was apparently built of wood, but its +severity of outline was relieved by gaily picked-out scroll-work and +lattice shutters; and in front of the entrance somebody had attempted to +make a garden. The stables and barns behind it were new frame buildings, +and there were wire fences stretching back from these. After her +experience of the last few days, Alison had not expected to see anything +like it in western Canada. + +Then she began to wonder whether Florence Hunter's life in the West had +made much change in her. She recollected her as a pretty but rather +pallid girl, with a manner a little too suggestive of self-confidence, +and a look of calculating tenacity in her eyes. Alison had continued to +treat her as a friend after she had incurred the hostility of Mrs. +Leigh, but she realized that it was chiefly Florence's courage and +resourcefulness that had impressed her, and not her other qualities. She +had not seen Florence's husband. + +A few minutes later Thorne drove up to the front of the house, and +Alison saw a woman, who hitherto had been hidden by one of the pillars, +lying in a canvas chair on the veranda with a book in her hand. The +sunlight that streamed in upon her called up fiery gleams in her red +hair and shimmered on her long dress of soft, filmy green. Alison +promptly decided that the latter had come from New York or Montreal. +There was no doubt that Florence Hunter's appearance was striking, +though her expression even in repose seemed to indicate a dissatisfied, +exacting temperament. At length she heard the rattle of wheels, for she +rose. + +"Alison, by all that's wonderful!" she cried. + +There was astonishment in the exclamation, but Alison could not convince +herself that there was any great pleasure, and it was with a certain +sense of constraint that she permitted Thorne to help her down. He +walked with her up to the veranda, and acknowledged Mrs. Hunter's casual +greeting by lifting his hat. + +"Sit down," said the latter to Alison, pointing to another chair. "Where +have you sprung from?" + +"From Winnipeg. I came out to earn my living, and nobody seemed to want +me there." + +Florence laughed. + +"You earn your living! It's clear that something very extraordinary must +have happened; but we'll talk of that after supper. So you decided to +come to me?" + +It was, Alison realized, merely a question and nothing more. + +"I'm afraid I was a little presumptuous," she replied. "There is, of +course, no reason why you should have me." + +Her companion looked at her with a curious smile. + +"You are still in the habit of saying things of that kind? I suppose it +runs in the family." + +Alison winced, for she remembered that her mother could on occasion be +painfully rude. + +"You haven't said anything to convince me that I was wrong." + +"Was it necessary?" Florence asked languidly. "I was never very +effusive, as you ought to know. Of course, you'll stay here as long as +it pleases you." + +The invitation was clear enough, but there was no warmth in it; and +Alison was relieved when a man came up the steps. He was rather short in +stature, and there was nothing striking in his appearance. He had a +quiet brown face and very brown hands, and he had evidently been +working, for he wore long boots, a coarse blue shirt, and blue duck +overalls. He shook hands with Thorne cordially, and then turned toward +Alison. + +"My husband," said Florence. "Miss Leigh, Elcot; I used to know her in +England. She has just arrived." + +Alison noticed that Hunter favored her with a glance of grave scrutiny, +but he did not seem in the least astonished, nor did he glance at his +wife. This indicated that he was in the habit of accepting without +question anything that the latter did. Then he held out his hand. + +"I'm very glad to see you, and we'll try to make you comfortable," he +said with a smile which softened the girl's heart toward him. Then he +turned to his wife. + +"Is supper ready? I want to haul in another load of wood before it's +dark." + +"It should have been ready now. I don't know what they're doing inside," +was the careless reply. + +It occurred to Alison that her hostess might have gone to see, but she +was half annoyed with Thorne when she noticed his badly dissembled grin. +Then Hunter inquired if she had had a comfortable journey. + +"Not very," she answered. "You see, I traveled Colonist." + +"How dreadful!" Florence exclaimed. + +Her husband smiled at Alison. + +"It depends," he said. "It's good enough if you can wait until after the +steamboat train. I used to travel that way myself once upon a time; I +had to do it then." + +"Elcot," his wife explained, "is one of the most economically minded men +living. He grudges every dollar unless it's for new implements." + +Hunter did not contradict her. He and Thorne left the veranda, and soon +after they returned from leading the team to the stable, a trim maid +appeared to announce that supper was ready. Hunter led Alison into a big +and very simply furnished room. A long table ran down one side, and half +a dozen men attired much as Hunter was took their places about the +uncovered lower half of it. There was a cloth on the upper portion, with +a gap of several feet between its margin and the nearest of the +teamsters' seats. It occurred to Alison, who had been told that the +hired man generally ate with his employer on the prairie, that this +compromise was rather pitiful, though she did not know that Hunter had +once or twice had words with his wife on the question. As the meal, +which was bountiful, proceeded, he now and then spoke to the men; but +Florence confined her attention to Alison, until at length she addressed +Thorne. + +"To what do we owe the pleasure of seeing you?" she inquired. + +"In the first place, I came to bring Miss Leigh; she hired me." + +Thorne laid a very slight stress upon the hired. It seemed to indicate +that he recognized his station in relation to a guest of the house, and +Alison felt a little uncomfortable. For one thing, though that did not +quite account for her uneasiness, she remembered that she had not paid +him. + +"Then," he added, "I called in the usual course of business. I have for +disposal a few tablets of very excellent English soap, a case of +peach-bloom cosmetic, and one or two other requisites of the kind." + +Alison regretted that she laughed, but she felt that Florence's attitude +toward the man had rendered the thrust admissible, and she saw a faint +smile in Hunter's eyes. Her hostess, however, was equal to the occasion. + +"If they're not as rubbishy as usual, I'll buy a few things and give +them to the maids. Is that the whole of your stock?" + +"I've a box of new gramophone records." + +Florence looked at her husband, and Alison fancied that she had noticed +and meant to punish him for his smile. + +"You'll buy them, Elcot." + +"You haven't tried the other lot," Hunter protested. "Besides, the +instrument seemed to have contracted bronchitis when I last had it out." + +"It will do to amuse the boys when the nights get dark," replied +Florence. Then she turned to Alison. "One could hardly get a dollar out +of him with a lever." + +"Doesn't it depend on the kind of lever you use?" Alison asked. + +Thorne grinned, but Florence answered unhesitatingly. + +"Oh, in the case of the average man it doesn't matter, so long as it's +strong enough and you have a fulcrum. We'll admit that the type can be +generous, but it's only when it throws a reflected luster on themselves. +Otherwise judicious pressure is necessary." + +"Are you going to camp with us to-night?" Hunter asked Thorne. + +"No," answered the latter. "I have some business at the Bluff, and I +want to get off again early to-morrow." + +In a few more minutes the teamsters rose, and Hunter, making excuses to +Alison, went out with them. Florence looked after them, and then turned +to the girl with a disdainful lifting of her brows. + +"Cormorants," she commented. "They've been very slow to-night. Eight +minutes is about their usual limit. I don't think they even look at +their food--it just goes down. I have once or twice suggested to Elcot +that he is wasting his money by giving them the things he does. It's +difficult, though, to make him listen to reason." + +Alison said nothing, and after a while Florence rose. + +"We'll have a talk on the veranda while they clear away." + +She pointed to a chair when they reached the veranda, and then sank +languidly into one close by. + +"Tell me all about it," she said. + +It was not a pleasant task to Alison, for it entailed the mention of her +father's death and an account of the difficulties that had followed, but +she spoke for a few minutes, and her companion casually expressed her +sympathy. + +"I can understand why you came out," she added with a bitter laugh. +"When I first met you I was earning just enough to keep me on the border +line between respectability and--the other thing--that is by the +exercise of the most unpleasant self-denial. What I should have done +without the extra twelve pounds your mother's guild paid me for playing +the piano twice a week at the working girls' club I don't like to think. +That is why I made no complaint when they added to my duties the +teaching of a class on another evening and the collecting of the +subscriptions to the sewing society. Your mother, I heard, informed the +committee that in her opinion twelve pounds was a good deal too much, +and I believe she added that such a rate of payment was apt to make a +young woman of my class far too independent." + +Alison's cheeks burned, for she knew that Florence had been correctly +informed; but she had no thought of mentioning that she had +expostulated with her mother on the subject. + +"Well," said Florence, "it was not your fault, and I'm sorry for you. I +suppose you had--difficulties--with some of your employers? No doubt one +or two of them tried to make love to you?" + +Alison made a little gesture of disgust. + +"Oh," laughed Florence, "I know. You probably flared out at the +offender, and either got your work found fault with or lost your +situation. I didn't. After all, a smile costs nothing, though it's a +little difficult now and then. In my case, it led to shorter hours, +higher wages, an occasional Saturday afternoon trip to the country. I +got what I could, and in due time it was generally easy to turn round +upon and get rid of the provider. Still, it was just a little +humiliating with a certain type of man, and it was a relief when Elcot +took me out of it. I try to remember that I owe him that when he gets +unusually wearisome, though one must do him the justice to admit that he +never refers to it." + +Alison sat silent, shrinking from her companion. She had faced a good +many unpleasant things during the past few years, but they had wrought +but little change in her nature. The part her hostess had played would +have been a wholly hateful one to her. + +"Where did you come across Thorne?" Florence asked. + +Alison told her, and she looked thoughtful. + +"When was that? I supposed you had come straight from the station." + +"Four days ago," answered Alison unhesitatingly, though she would have +much preferred not to mention it. + +"Four days! And you have been driving round the country since then with +Thorne?" + +Alison felt her face grow hot, but her answer was clear and sharp. + +"Of course; I couldn't help it. We should have been here earlier, only a +horse went lame. In any case, after what you have told me, I cannot see +why you should adopt that tone." + +Florence raised her brows. + +"My dear," she said, "I was a working woman of no account in England +when I first met you--but things are rather different now. It doesn't +exactly please me that a guest of mine should indulge in an escapade of +this description. Doesn't it strike you as hardly fitting?" + +Hunter, who had come up the steps unobserved, stopped beside them just +then. + +"Rubbish!" he said curtly. "It was unavoidable. I've had a talk with +Leslie; he told me exactly what delayed him." + +Florence waved her hand. + +"Oh," she replied, "let it go at that. I couldn't resist the temptation +of sticking a pin or two into Alison. What has brought you back?" + +"We broke the wagon pole. It didn't seem worth while to put in a new one +to-night." + +He moved away and left them, and Alison turned to her companion. + +"Did he mean Mr. Thorne by Leslie?" + +"Of course." + +"But isn't his name Maverick?" + +"Did you call him that?" + +"I can't remember, though I suppose I must have done so. Some of the +others certainly did." + +Florence looked amused. + +"I suppose you haven't an idea what a maverick is?" + +Alison said that she had none at all, and her companion proceeded to +inform her. + +"It's a steer that won't feed and follow tamely with the herd, but goes +off or gets wild and smashes things, and generally does what's least +desirable. As you have spent some days with him you will no doubt +understand why they have fixed the name on Thorne." + +Alison glanced at her with a sparkle in her eyes. + +"I can only say this. I have met a few men one could look up to--after +all, there are good people in the world--but I haven't yet come across +one who showed more tact and considerate thoughtfulness than Maverick +Thorne." + +Florence was evidently amused at this--indeed, to be sardonically amused +at something seemed her favorite pose. + +"I shouldn't like to disturb that kind of optimism--and here he is; I'll +leave you to talk to him. As it happens, Elcot looks rather grumpy, and +the mail-carrier has just brought out a sheaf of my bills from Winnipeg +which he hasn't seen yet." + +She sailed away with a rustle of elaborate draperies, and Thorne sat +down. + +"I'm going on to the bluff in half an hour," he informed her. + +Alison was conscious of a certain hesitation, but there was something to +be said. + +"How much do I owe you?" she asked. + +"Half a dollar." + +Alison flushed. + +"Why didn't you say four or five dollars?" + +"Since you evidently mean to insist on an answer, there are several +reasons for my modesty. For one thing, you would have to borrow the +money from Mrs. Hunter, which I don't think you would like to do. For +another, if you were a Canadian I'd say--nothing--but as you're not used +to the country yet you wouldn't care to accept a favor from a stranger." + +"But it would be a favor in any case." + +"Then you can get rid of the obligation by giving me half a dollar." + +The girl looked at him sharply as she laid the silver coin in his hand, +but he met her gaze with a whimsical smile. + +"Thank you," he said. "I suppose you are going back to Mrs. Farquhar?" + +"Yes," replied Alison impulsively. "I believe I am; but I may wait for a +few days." + +"I think you're wise. You wouldn't find things very pleasant here." + +"Why?" + +"If you'll permit me to mention it, you're too pretty." + +Alison straightened herself suddenly in her chair. + +"You don't like Mrs. Hunter, but does that justify you in saying what +you have? You can't mean that she would be--jealous?" + +"That's exactly what I do mean." + +He saw the angry color mantle in the face of the girl, and raised his +hand in expostulation. + +"Wait a little; I want to explain. First of all, she wouldn't have the +slightest cause for jealousy. You're not the kind to give her one, and +Elcot Hunter is one of the best and straightest men I know. In fact, +that's partly what is troubling me." + +"Why should it trouble you?" Alison interrupted. + +Thorne appeared to reflect, and, indignant with his presumption as she +was, the girl admitted that he did it very well. + +"If you urge me for a precise answer, I'm afraid I'll have to confess +that I don't quite know. Anyway, because Hunter is the sort of man I +have described, he'd try to make things pleasant for you, and there's no +doubt that his wife would resent it. Whether she's fond of him at all, +or not, I naturally can't say, but she expects him to be entirely at her +beck and call, and I don't think she'd tolerate any little courtesies he +might show you." + +Alison sat silent for a moment or two when he stopped, looking at him +with perplexed eyes, though she felt that he was right. + +"It's curious, isn't it?" she said at length. "Florence must have had a +very unpleasant time in England, where she had to practise the strictest +self-denial. One would have thought it would have made her content and +compassionate now that she has everything that she could wish for." + +"No," responded Thorne, "in a way, it's natural. That kind of life often +has the opposite effect. Those who lead it have so much to put up with +that if once they escape it makes them determined never even to +contemplate doing the least thing they don't like again." + +"Oh," declared Alison impulsively, "I shouldn't care to think that." + +"Well," said Thorne, with unmoved gravity, "I don't know whether you +have had as much to face as you say that she has, though one or two +things seem to suggest it, but it certainly hasn't spoiled you." + +Then he rose. + +"As I want to reach the bluff to-night, I'll get my team harnessed." + +Alison watched him go down the steps with a somewhat perplexing sense of +regret. She had met the man only four days ago, but she felt that she +was parting from a friend. + +A few minutes later Florence Hunter called her into the house; and she +stayed with her a week before she went to Mrs. Farquhar. She admitted +that Florence had given her no particular cause for leaving, but she at +least made no objections when Alison acquainted her with her decision. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THORNE CONTEMPLATES A CHANGE + + +Alison had spent a few days with Mrs. Farquhar without finding the least +reason to regret the choice she had made, when one evening Farquhar +helped her and his wife into his wagon in front of the little hotel at +Graham's Bluff, where he had passed the last half-hour in conversation +with an implement dealer. When they had taken their places he drove +cautiously down the wide, unpaved street, which was seamed with ruts. On +either side of it, straggling and singularly unpicturesque frame houses, +destitute of paint or any attempt at adornment, rose abruptly from the +prairie, though here and there the usual plank sidewalk ran along the +front of them. Alison was convinced that she had rarely seen a more +uninteresting place, though she had discovered that its inhabitants were +not only quite satisfied with it, but firmly believed in its roseate +future. This seemed somewhat curious, as a number of them had come there +from the cities, but she did not know then that the optimistic assurance +with which they were endued is common in the West, and that it is, as a +rule, in due time justified. + +Turning a corner, they came out into a wider space from which a riband +of rutted trail led out into the wilderness. Farquhar pulled up his +team. Close in front of them, a crowd had gathered about a wagon, and a +man who stood upon a box in it seemed to be addressing the assembly. +Alison could not see his face, and his voice was, for the most part, +drowned by bursts of laughter, but he was waving his hands to emphasize +his remarks, and this and his general attitude reminded her of the +itinerant auctioneers she had now and then seen in the market-place of +an English provincial town, though the crowd and the surroundings were +in this case very different. + +The prairie, which was dusty white, stretched back to the soft red glow +of the far horizon, and overhead there was a wonderful blue +transparency. The light was still sharp, and the figures of the men +stood out with a curious distinctness. Most of them were picturesque in +wide, gray hats and long boots, with blue shirt and jacket hanging loose +above the rather tight, dust-smeared trousers, though there were some +who wore black hats and spruce store clothes. These, however, looked +very much out of place. + +"Thorne's pitching it to the boys in great style to-night," chuckled +Farquhar. "We'll get a little nearer; I like to hear him when he has a +good head of steam up." + +He started the team, but Alison was sensible of a slight shock of +displeasure. She was aware that Thorne sold things, because he had told +her so, but she had never seen him actively engaged in his profession, +and this kind of thing seemed extremely undignified. She had got rid of +a good many prejudices during the past few years, and was, for that +matter, in due time to discard some more; but it hurt her to see a +friend of hers--and she admitted that she regarded him as such--playing +the part of mountebank to amuse the inhabitants of a forlorn prairie +town. + +Farquhar drew up his team again presently. Alison fancied that Mrs. +Farquhar was watching her, and she fixed her eyes upon the crowd and +Thorne. His remarks were received with uproarious laughter, but she was +quick to notice that there was nothing in what he said that any one +could reasonably take exception to. + +Presently there was an interruption, for a man in white shirt and store +clothing pushed forward through the crowd, with another, who was big and +lank and hard-faced, and wore old blue duck, following close behind him. + +"Now," exclaimed Farquhar expectantly, "we're going to have some fun. +That's Sergeant, the storekeeper, who sells drugs and things, and he's +been on Mavy's trail for quite a while. So far, Mavy has generally +talked him down, but to-night he's got a backer. Custer has the +reputation of being a bad man, and it's generally supposed that he owes +Sergeant a good deal of money." + +"Hadn't we better drive on if there's likely to be any trouble?" +suggested his wife. + +Farquhar said that Thorne would probably prove a match for his opponents +without provoking actual hostilities, and added that they could go on +later if it seemed advisable. Alison laughed when a hoarse burst of +merriment followed the orator's last sally. + +"It was really witty," she said. "In fact, it's all clever. I wonder how +he learned to talk like that." + +Mrs. Farquhar smiled. + +"It's probably in the blood. I believe one of his close relatives is a +bishop." + +"It doesn't quite follow," objected Farquhar. "I heard one of them, an +English one, in Montreal, who wasn't a patch on Mavy. Anyway, if you +want to hold the boys here you have to be clever." + +Then a protesting voice broke in upon Thorne's flowing periods. + +"Boys," it said, "that man has played you for suckers 'bout long enough, +and this kind of thing is rough on every decent storekeeper in the town. +We're making the place grow; we're always willing to make a deal when +you have anything to sell; and we're generally open to supply you with +better goods than he keeps, at a lower figure." + +"In my case," Thorne pointed out, "you get amusing tales and sound +advice thrown in. You can at any time consult me about anything, from +the best way to make your hair curl to the easiest means of getting rid +of the mortgage man, which in most cases is to pay his bill." + +"I could tell 'way funnier tales than you do when I was asleep," +interrupted the storekeeper's friend. + +Thorne disregarded this. + +"I've nothing to urge against the storekeepers, boys. They're useful to +the community--it's possible that they're more useful than I am--but it +doesn't seem quite fitting to hold them up as deserving objects of your +compassion. If you have any doubt on that point you have only to look at +their clothes. I don't like to be personal, but since there are two men +here from whom I don't expect very much delicacy, I feel inclined to +wonder whether that is a brass watch and guard Mr. Sergeant is wearing." + +"No, sir," snapped the other, who was evidently too disturbed in temper +to notice the simple trap, "it's English gold. Cost me most of a +hundred and twenty dollars in Winnipeg." + +Thorne waved his hand. + +"That's the point, boys. Mine, which was made in Connecticut, cost five. +I think you can see the inference. If you don't, I should like you to +ask him where he got the hundred and twenty dollars." + +There was applauding laughter, for the men were quite aware that they +had furnished it, but Thorne proceeded: + +"It's likely that I could buy things of that kind, and keep as smart a +team as our friend does, if I struck you for the interest he charges on +your held-over accounts." + +"That's quite right!" somebody cried. "They don't want no pity. They've +got bonds on half our farms. Guess the usual interest's blamed robbery." + +Once more the storekeeper lifted up his voice. + +"You wouldn't call it that, if you'd ever tried to collect it. You stand +out of your money until harvest's in, and then when you drive round the +homestead's empty, and somebody's written on the door, 'Sorry I couldn't +pack the house off.'" + +This was followed by further laughter, for, as Farquhar explained to +Alison, pack signifies the transporting of one's possessions, usually +upon the owner's back, in most of western Canada, and the notice thus +implies that the defaulting farmer had judiciously removed himself and +everything of value except his dwelling, before the arrival of his +creditor. + +"You could shut down on the land, anyway," retorted one man. + +"Could I?" Sergeant inquired savagely. "When it's free-grant land, and +the man hadn't broke enough to get his patent?" + +The crowd, encouraged by a word or two from Thorne, seemed disposed to +drift off into a disquisition on the homestead laws, but Sergeant pulled +them up. + +"We'll keep to the point," he said. "When you buy your drugs at my store +you get just what you ask for with the maker's label stuck fast on it. +Maverick keeps loose ones, and if you ask him to cure your liver it's +quite likely that he'll give you hair-restorer." + +Farquhar chuckled. + +"I'm afraid there's some truth in that," he admitted. "Still, it's to +Mavy's credit that when the case is serious he generally prescribes a +visit to the nearest doctor." + +In the meanwhile the storekeeper had secured the attention of the +assembly. + +"What I said, I'll prove!" he added vehemently. "Get up and tell them +how he played you, Custer." + +His companion waved his hand. + +"I'll do that, in the first place, and when I've got through I'll do a +little more. I went to Maverick most two weeks ago when my stomach was +sour, and he gives me a bottle for a dollar." + +"He's perfectly correct so far, except that he hasn't produced the +dollar yet," Thorne assented. "I should like to point out that I can +cure the kind of sourness he said it was every time, but I can't do very +much when the trouble's in the man's sour nature. You took that stuff I +gave you the day you got it, Custer?" + +"I did. I was powerful sick next morning." + +He turned to the crowd, speaking in a tragic voice. + +"Boys, he'd run out of the cure I wanted and gave me the first bottle +handy, with a wrong label on. I've no use for a man who doses you with +stuff that makes your inside feel like it was growing wool." + +There were delighted cries at this, but Custer appeared perfectly +serious, and Thorne looked down at him. + +"No," he drawled, "in your case it would grow bristles." + +The laugh was with him now, but it was a moment or two before Custer, +who was evidently slow of comprehension, quite grasped the nature of the +compliment which had been paid him. The term hog is a particularly +offensive one in that country. Then he proceeded to clamber up into the +wagon, and Thorne addressed those among his listeners who stood nearest +it. + +"Hold on to him just a moment," he cried, and two men did as he +directed. "I merely want to point out that our friend has supplied the +explanation of the trouble--he said he was sick the next morning. Well, +as my internal cure is a powerful one, there are instructions on every +bottle to take a tablespoonful every six hours, which would have carried +him on for several days. It's clear that he felt better after one dose, +which encouraged him to take the lot for the next one." + +"He has probably hit it," commented Farquhar. "They do it now and then." + +"Now," continued Thorne to the men below, "you can let Mr. Custer go. If +it's the only thing that will satisfy him, I'll get down." + +"You'll get down sure," bawled Custer. "If you're not out when I'm +ready, I'll pitch you." + +Farquhar started his team. + +"I've no doubt Sergeant had the thing fixed beforehand, but I'm +inclined to fancy that Custer will be sorry before he's through. Anyway, +we'll get on." + +He had driven only a few yards when his wife looked at him with a smile. + +"Was it a very great self-denial, Harry?" + +"Since you ask the question, I'm afraid it was," laughed Farquhar. + +"Then I won't mind very much if you get down and see that they don't +impose on Mavy--I mean too many of them. I don't want him to get hurt if +it can be prevented." + +Farquhar swung himself over the side of the wagon. + +"It's hardly probable. The boys like Mavy, but, as Sergeant has one or +two toughs among the crowd, I'll go along." + +Mrs. Farquhar smiled at Alison as she drove on. + +"One mustn't expect too much," she said. "After all, if he comes home +with a swollen face it will be in a good cause." + +Alison made no comment. She was slightly disgusted, and her pride was +somewhat hurt. She had made a friend of this man, perhaps, she thought, +too readily, and the fact that he had laid himself out to amuse the +crowd and had, as the result of it, been drawn into a discreditable +brawl was far from pleasant. She was compelled to confess on reflection +that he could not very well have avoided the latter, but it was equally +clear that he had not even attempted it. Indeed, she had noticed that he +jumped down from his wagon with a suspicious alacrity. + +Half an hour later a fast team overtook them and Farquhar alighted from +a two-seated vehicle. He smiled at his wife as he sat down beside her. + +"There was very little trouble," he announced. "Mavy's friends kept the +toughs off, and I believe he'll sell out everything he has in his +wagon." + +"And Custer?" + +"I don't think he can see quite as well as he could an hour ago--as one +result," replied Farquhar dryly. + +Then he flicked the team, and they drove on faster into the dusk that +was creeping up across the prairie. + +The next morning Alison was standing in the sunshine outside the house +when Thorne drove into sight from behind the barn which cut off the view +of one strip of prairie. He got down from his wagon and appeared +disconcerted when he saw the girl, who fancied that she understood the +reason, for he had a discolored bruise on one cheek and a lump on his +forehead. + +"I want a few words with Farquhar," he explained. "I saw him at the +settlement last night, but I couldn't get hold of him." + +"No," returned Alison disdainfully, "you were too busy." Then something +impelled her to add, "You don't seem a very great deal the worse for +your exploit." + +Thorne leaned against the side of the wagon, though she noticed that he +first pulled the brim of his soft hat lower down over his face. + +"That fact doesn't seem to cause you much satisfaction," he observed. + +"Why should it?" + +"We'll let that pass. On the other hand, there's just as little reason +why you should be displeased with me." + +"Are you sure that I am displeased?" inquired Alison, suspecting his +intention of leading her up to some definite expression of indignation. +This would, as she realized, be tantamount to the betrayal of a greater +interest in his doings than she was prepared to show. + +"Your appearance suggested it; but we'll call it disgusted, if you +like," he retorted with amusement in his eyes. + +It occurred to Alison that as he had evidently taken her resentment for +granted it might after all be wiser to prove it justifiable. + +"Then," she said, "a scene of the kind you figured in last night is +naturally repugnant to any one not accustomed to it." + +"Did it jar on Mrs. Farquhar?" + +"No," Alison admitted, "I don't think it did." + +"Then she's not accustomed to such scenes either. Rows of any kind +really aren't very common in western Canada--but she seems to have more +comprehension than you have." + +This was turning the tables with a vengeance, and Alison was a trifle +disconcerted, for instead of standing on his defense the man had +unexpectedly proceeded to attack. + +"Do you care to explain that?" she asked. + +"I'll try," Thorne replied genially. "Perhaps because she's married, +Mrs. Farquhar seems to understand that there are occasions when a man is +driven into doing things he has an aversion for. In a way, it's to his +credit when he recognizes that the alternative is out of the question. +Can you get hold of that?" + +"I'm not sure. You see, you suggest that there may be an alternative." + +"It's often the case. The difficulty is that now and then the +consequences of choosing it are a good deal worse than the other +thing." + +Alison could grasp the gist of this. There was something to be said for +the resolution that could boldly grapple with a crisis as soon as it +arose, instead of seeking the readiest means of escape from it. + +"Now," added Thorne, "I was quite sure when the storekeeper appeared on +the scene that he had hired the biggest tough in the settlement to make +trouble for me. Of course I could have backed down, or at least I could +have tried it, but the result would naturally have been to make the +opposition more determined on the next occasion. It seemed wiser to face +the situation then and there." + +Again Alison felt that he was right, and she shifted her point of +attack. + +"You wish to assure me that it was with very great reluctance you jumped +down from your wagon last night?" + +Thorne laughed softly. + +"No," he acknowledged; "if one must be honest, I can't go quite so far +as that." + +The girl was a little astonished at herself. In spite of his last +confession her disgust--though she felt that was not the right +word--with his conduct had greatly lessened, and she was conscious of a +certain curiosity about his sensations during the incident. + +"You were not in the least afraid?" she asked. + +"No; but, after all, that's no great admission. You see, with most of us +what we call courage is largely the result of experience. Now, I knew I +was a match for Sergeant's tough. The man is big, but he has only a hazy +notion when to lead off and how to parry." + +"How did you know that--from experience?" + +"Oh, no," returned Thorne, smiling. "I once watched him endeavoring to +convince another man that he was utterly wrong in maintaining that the +country derived the least benefit from the liquor prohibition laws. He +succeeded because the other man didn't know any more than he did." + +Alison laughed. + +"After all, I don't think the subject is of very great interest. I +wonder why you went to so much trouble to explain the thing to me." + +The man gazed at her a moment in somewhat natural astonishment and then +he took off his wide hat ceremoniously, though as a smile crept into his +eyes she could not be sure whether it was done in seriousness or +whimsically. In any case, he spoiled the effect by remembering his +bruised face and hastily clapping it on again. + +"May I say that I should like to retain your favorable opinion if it's +possible?" he replied, and leaving his team plucking at the grass he +turned away and entered the house. As it happened, Farquhar had just +come in for dinner, which was not quite ready, and Thorne sat down +opposite him. + +"If your wife has no objections, I want you to do me a favor, Harry," he +said. + +His host expressed his readiness, but Mrs. Farquhar looked at him +inquiringly. + +"It's just this," he explained. "You deal with Grantly at the railroad +settlement, and it's possible that he may not have formed a very +accurate opinion of my character. In fact, I shouldn't wonder if odd +things the boys have said have prejudiced him against me." + +"It's quite likely," Farquhar admitted with a grin. + +"Then I want you to assure him that I'm a perfectly responsible and +reliable person." + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed outright. + +"Aren't you asking rather more than Harry could consistently do?" + +"Well," Thorne replied thoughtfully, "it might serve the purpose if he +told Grantly that I generally paid my bills. I don't ask him to +guarantee my account or back my draft. It wouldn't be reasonable." + +"It wouldn't," assented Mrs. Farquhar with uncompromising decision. "Are +you going to make some new venture?" + +"I have a hazy notion that I might take up a quarter-section and turn +farmer." + +His hostess flashed a significant glance at her husband, who smiled. + +"But why?" + +"If you don't get your crop hailed out, droughted, or frozen, you can +now and then pick up a few dollars that way," Thorne explained. +"Besides, a farmer is a person of acknowledged status on the prairie." + +"Have you any other reasons--more convincing ones?" + +Thorne regarded his hostess with undiminished gravity. + +"If I have, they may appear by and by--when, for instance, I've doubled +my holding and raised a record crop on three hundred and twenty acres." + +"It isn't done in a day," warned Farquhar. + +"It depends on how you begin; and commencing with a tent, a span of +oxen, and one breaker-plow doesn't appeal to me. I want a couple of +horse teams, the latest implements and the best seed I can get my hands +on." + +"I guess my word alone won't induce Grantly to let you have them--still, +I'll do what I can." + +Thorne spread out his hands. + +"If anything more is wanted Hunter will be given an opportunity for +supplying it. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't distribute my +favors." + +"And when does the rash experiment begin?" + +Thorne straightened himself in his chair. + +"It won't be an experiment. If I take hold, which isn't quite certain +yet, I'll stay with the thing." + +Then he broke into his usual careless laugh. + +"I'll take a long drive round all the outlying settlements and work off +a last frolic first." + +"Yes," observed his hostess, "the carnival before Lent." + +After that she proceeded to lay out dinner and they let the subject +drop, but Alison, who entered the room just then, wondered why Mrs. +Farquhar flashed a searching glance at her. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A USEFUL FRIEND + + +Thorne drove away after dinner and, for it must be admitted that he +preferred other people's cookery to his own, he contrived to reach the +Hunter homestead just as supper was being laid out one evening some days +later. During the meal he announced his intention of staying all night, +but he did not explain what had brought him there until he sat with his +host and hostess on the veranda while dusk crept up across the prairie. +He felt inclined to wonder why Mrs. Hunter had favored them with her +company, for he supposed that it was not altogether for the sake of +enjoying the cool evening air. This surmise, as it happened, was quite +correct. She had another purpose in her mind, for since Alison's visit +she had taken a certain interest in the man. + +"Is there anything keeping you about the bluff?" she asked at length. "I +hear you have been in the neighborhood several days." + +"Four," said Thorne, "if one must be precise. For one thing, there +seemed to be a good demand for gramophones; for another, I wanted a talk +with Elcot, and somebody said he was in at the railroad yesterday." + +"I suppose you want to borrow a team from him again?" + +"No," Thorne replied tranquilly; "in this case my object is to borrow +money--or, at least, I want to raise it in such a way that if I don't +meet my obligations your husband will be liable." + +He turned toward his host. + +"Do you think you could guarantee me to the extent of, say, a thousand +dollars?" + +"If it's merely a question of ability, I believe I could. Whether it +would be judicious is quite another matter. What are you going to do +with the money?" + +Thorne explained his purpose much as he had done to Farquhar and Hunter +listened with quiet amusement. + +"The whim might last a month, and then there'd probably be an auction of +your stock and implements, and we would get word that you had gone off +on the trail again," he said. "A quiet life wouldn't suit you. You tried +it once with Bishop and it's generally understood that you turned his +house inside out one day during the winter you spent with him." + +"There's just a little truth in that," Thorne confessed. "Bishop's a +nice man, but he has the most exasperating ways, and one would need more +patience than I have to stand them. Try to imagine it--three months of +improving conversation and undeviating regularity. Breakfast to the +minute; the kettle to stand always on the same spot on the stove; the +potato pan on another. Your boots must be put in exactly the same +corner." + +"It's unthinkable," laughed Mrs. Hunter. "We once had him here for a day +or two. But what was the particular cause of trouble?" + +Her husband smiled. + +"House cleaning, I believe. Bishop undertakes it systematically once a +month in the winter." + +"Oftener," interjected Thorne. "That is, when the temperature's high +enough for him to wash the floor." + +"It wasn't high enough on the day in question," Hunter proceeded; "but I +understand that he insisted on putting his furniture outside so that he +could brush the place thoroughly, and Thorne told him to get the door +open and stand carefully clear." + +"Well?" Mrs. Hunter prompted. + +"Thorne fired the things, you see, as quick as he could lift them; first +the chairs and table, then the whole outfit of plates and cups and pots +and pans. When he got half-way through, Bishop, who was horror-struck, +made a protest. Thorne told him he would have the things put out, and +out they were going." + +Mrs. Hunter laughed and addressed her guest. + +"Did you get a bump on your forehead on that occasion? Still, I suppose +one could manage it by falling out of a wagon." + +"I didn't," replied Thorne. "For any further particulars about this one +I'm afraid you must apply at the settlement; but it seems to me that the +subject I'm most anxious to talk about is being tactfully avoided." + +"When you have so many friends up and down the prairie, why did you come +to Elcot?" + +"Your husband," explained Thorne unblushingly, "has the most money. Each +will, however, be provided with an opportunity for contributing +according to his ability. I'll borrow a team from one and a plow from +another; the man who can't spare either can lend me a mower. In addition +to this I'll have to arrange a second loan." + +"Do you mean to stay with it?" Hunter asked. + +"Give me a show and I'll convince you," Thorne assured him with a sudden +intentness in his eyes. "I'm dead serious now." + +Hunter looked at him quietly for a minute or two before he answered. + +"Then," he said, "I'll guarantee you for a thousand dollars, payable +after harvest." + +Thorne thanked him and presently strolled away to get something out of +his wagon. When he disappeared Florence turned to her husband. + +"Elcot," she protested, "you are going to throw every dollar of that +money away." + +"I'm far from sure of it," returned Hunter quietly. + +"In any case, it's only a few days since you told me you couldn't face +the expense when I said that I wanted to spend a month in Toronto this +spring." + +"I should like to point out that you spent a good deal of the winter in +Montreal." + +"Would you expect me to live here altogether?" + +Hunter made a gesture of weariness. + +"I did expect something of that kind once upon a time; I'm sorry you +have made it clear that I was wrong." + +Florence favored him with a mocking smile. + +"After all, you have stood it rather well. It's only during the last few +months you have been getting bitter; but that's beside the question. Why +are you so willing to waste on that man the money you can't spare for +me?" + +"To begin with, I'm by no means certain that I'll have to pay it. +There's good stuff in him, and I want to give him an opportunity for +becoming a useful citizen. In the next place, the line must be drawn +somewhere, and the crop I'm putting in wouldn't stand the cost of a +spring in Toronto, if it's to be anything like the winter in Montreal." + +Florence saw that he meant it and changed the subject, for there were +times when she realized that it was not advisable to drive her husband +too far. After a while he strolled away toward the stables in search of +Thorne, and a few minutes later they sat down together on the summit of +a low rise. Hunter lighted his pipe and, resting one elbow in the grass, +lay smoking thoughtfully for a while before he spoke to his companion. + +"Mavy," he said, "you are going to do what would be the wisest thing in +the case of the average man--but I'm not wholly sure it would be that in +yours. After all, there's a good deal to be said for the life you lead." + +"It will hurt a little to give it up," Thorne acknowledged. "But isn't +there something to be said for--the other kind?" + +Hunter pointed with his pipe to where the rise ran into the birches. + +"I spent my first summer as a farmer in a tent yonder, and in several +ways it was the happiest one I've ever known. I couldn't cook, and as a +rule when I unyoked my oxen after the day's work I was too played out to +light a fire. I lived on messes that would probably kill me now, and my +clothes went to bits before the summer was half-way through, but I was +bubbling over with aspirations and a whole-hearted optimism then. I had +scarcely a dollar, but I had what seemed better--an unwavering belief in +the future. It was just as good then to lie down, healthily tired, and +listen to the little leaves whispering in the cool of the dusk as it was +to get up with the dawn without a care, fit and ready for what must be +done." + +"Oh, yes," assented Thorne, "I know. They never cast a stove in a +foundry that would give you the same warmth as the red fire in the birch +bluff, and the finest tea that goes to Russia wouldn't taste as good as +what you drink flavored with wood smoke out of a blackened can. Then +there's the empty prairie with the long trail leading on to something +you feel will be better still beyond the horizon. Silence, space, +liberty. How they get hold of you!" + +"Then, what do you expect instead of them when you give them up?" + +"It strikes me that you should be able to tell me." + +Hunter smiled in a rather weary fashion and glanced back toward his +house. + +"Well," he said, "I've a place that's generally supposed to be the +smartest one within sixty miles, and some status in the country, +whatever it may be worth--my wife sees to that. The Grits would make me +a leader if I cared for politics." + +"Then why don't you? Your wife would like it." + +"I think you ought to know. We both escaped from the cities, and while +you drive your wagon I follow the plow. Men like you and I have nothing +to do with wire-pullers' tricks, juggling committees, and shouting +crowds. It's my part to make a little more wheat grow." + +Thorne looked at him with a thoughtful face. + +"I wonder," he said, "why you want to prevent me from doing the same?" + +"I don't. I only want to warn you that if you make a success of it you +can't own a house and land and teams without facing the cost." + +"And that is?" + +"Unconditional surrender. In a little while they'll own you. It's +probable that you'll add a wife to them, and then, unless she's a woman +of unusual courage, you'll find yourself shackled down to half the +formulas you have run away from." + +"Still, you get something in return." + +"Yes," assented Hunter slowly. "I'm optimist enough to believe that--but +it's an elusive quantity. I suppose it depends largely on what you +expect." + +He stood up and emptied his pipe. + +"It's getting late and I have to start again at six to-morrow." + +They went back to the house together and Thorne drove away early the +next morning. Soon after midday Hunter set out for Graham's Bluff, where +he had some business. When he had gone Florence carried a bundle of +papers out to a little table placed in the shadow on the veranda, and +sitting down before it looked at them with a frown. Most of them were +bills, which she had once half thought of showing to her husband, though +she had not done so, chiefly because the bankbook which she had recently +sent up to be balanced revealed the fact that there was then just eighty +dollars standing to her credit. As Florence seldom filled in the +counterfoils of the checks she drew, this information had been a painful +shock to her. It was evident that she had spent a good deal more money +in Montreal than she had supposed, and that she could not pay the bills, +and there was no doubt that her husband would be signally displeased. + +As a rule he was very patient. She was willing to own that, though she +now and then did so with a certain illogical irritation at his +complacency; but when it was a question of money he could be inflexible. +He had, however, treated her liberally, and to save her the necessity +of applying to him he paid so many dollars into her bank twice a year +and within that limit left her to control the domestic expenses as she +pleased. This, indeed, was what chiefly troubled her, for there should +have been enough to her credit to carry her on until harvest, when the +next payment would be made. This, however, was unfortunately not the +case. There was no doubt that she had to grapple with a financial +crisis. + +She added up the bills several times and signally failed to make them +any less, though it was now perfectly clear that it would not be +advisable to show them to her husband. Thrusting them aside, she leaned +back in her chair and presently decided, with the renewal of an existing +grievance, that the situation was the result of Elcot's absurd retiring +habits. If he would only go about with her now and then, or bring a few +smart people out in the summer, she might be able to take pleasure in +less costly diversions and, to some extent at least, avoid extravagance. +On the other hand, however, there were, as she had already realized, one +or two reasons why it seemed just as well that Elcot should stay at +home. He now looked very much like a farmer, though he had not been +reared as one, and she fancied that his rather grim reserve, which was +broken now and then by attacks of sardonic candor, was scarcely likely +to be appreciated in the world she visited. As a matter of fact, his own +relatives with whom she sometimes stayed were in the habit of smiling +significantly when they mentioned him. He had, it seemed, flung up +excellent prospects when, in spite of his family's protests, he went +West with very inadequate means as a prairie farmer. That he had +succeeded was, she understood, largely due to the fact that an eccentric +relative who agreed with him had subsequently died and left him a few +hundred dollars. + +In the meanwhile these reflections brought her no nearer a solution of +the difficulty. There was a big deficit, and she had no idea how she was +to meet it. Then she remembered that when she was married Elcot had +among other things settled a certain strip of land on her. He had failed +to interest her in its management, though she was pleased to receive the +proceeds of its cultivation, which he handed her after each harvest. +They were sowing again now, and she had heard that it was possible to +sell a crop, or at least to raise money on it in some way, beforehand. +She determined to question Nevis, who carried on a general business at +the railroad settlement, about the matter when he next drove over, which +he had said he would probably do during the next day or two. He might +even turn up that afternoon and, as Elcot was out of the way, she wished +he would. He was a man of prepossessing appearance and easy manners, and +he had now and then paid her a deferential homage which was not +unpleasant. Indeed, she had once or twice contrasted him with Elcot, and +the comparison had not been altogether in the latter's favor. + +Half an hour later he drove up in a light buggy and handed the horse +over to one of the teamsters. Then he walked up on the veranda, where +Florence was still sitting with the bills before her. Turning around +when he had greeted her, he pointed to the plodding teams which moved +down the long furrows that ran back from the house. + +"I didn't see Elcot at work with the boys as I drove by," he said. + +"He is away and probably will not be back until after supper." + +"I'm sorry I can't wait so long," Nevis replied, taking the chair to +which she pointed. "Anyway, it isn't a matter of much importance, and +I'll try to call again." + +Florence sent for some tea, though it is seldom that refreshments of any +kind are provided between the regular meals on the prairie, and then +leaned back in her chair watching him while he sat with his cup in his +hand. He was, as she had decided on other occasions, a well-favored man, +dark-haired and dark-eyed, and, as usual, he was artistically dressed. +The hat he had laid on a neighboring chair was a genuine Panama, such as +Mexican half-breeds spend months in weaving; his rather tight, +light-colored clothes were excellently cut; and once more it struck her +with a sense of injury that it was a pity Elcot insisted on attiring +himself as his teamsters did. + +"I had half expected to find you gone," he said; "you mentioned a visit +to Toronto when I last saw you. After all, if your husband can spare +you, it must be nice to get away. You must feel that you are rather +wasted here." + +This was a point on which Florence was convinced already and she did not +in the least object to his mentioning it. + +"Elcot," she replied dryly, "has his farm." + +"Well," responded Nevis, "I'm glad you haven't gone. The rest of us can +badly spare the one bright light which shines upon our primitive +obscurity." + +His hostess did not check him. The man was usually rather daring, and +she seldom resented a speech of this kind, no matter from whom it came. + +"In any case, I am not going," she informed him. "That"--she pointed to +the bundle of papers--"is the reason." + +"Bills? Permit me." + +Before she could prevent it he took them up and flicked them over. Then +he turned and looked at her with a smile in his dark eyes. + +"On examination of them I'm inclined to think the reason's a good one." + +Florence recognized that he had ventured further in the last few minutes +than Elcot would have done in a month before he married her, and, though +she was not greatly displeased, she changed the subject, for a time. + +"What did you want to see my husband about?" she asked. + +"I'm anxious to disarm his opposition to the part I feel like taking in +the Bluff Creamery scheme. I'm willing to back the experiment on +reasonable terms, but I understand that Elcot's dubious about permitting +it; and Thorne has been advising the boys to have nothing to do with me. +Rough on a man who's ready to finance them, isn't it?" + +Florence did not care whether it was rough or not. Except that she would +have liked to spend double her husband's income, financial questions +seldom interested her. + +"I suppose you wish to do it to encourage them--out of philanthropy?" +she suggested with a yawn. + +Nevis laughed good-humoredly. + +"You can put that question to your husband or Thorne. I'm willing to +confess that in these affairs I'm out for business pure and simple, +though that doesn't prevent my taking an interest in my friends' +difficulties now and then." He tapped the bills with his fingers. "You +are at present short of three hundred dollars?" + +"I'm short of nine hundred," corrected Florence with candor. + +The next question was difficult. In fact, it was one that could not well +be put directly, and the man's voice became judiciously sympathetic. + +"Wheat sold badly last fall, and Elcot has, no doubt, his share of +worries?" he suggested. "You naturally wouldn't like to add to them?" + +They looked at each other and Florence was quite aware that he would go +a little farther as soon as he had ascertained whether she had any +intention of mentioning the deficit to her husband. She also recognized +that the fact that she had drawn his attention to the bills would make +this seem improbable. + +"I'm not sure that I'm so unselfish," she said with a laugh. "In any +case, I'm independent; I don't care to bother other people with my +troubles." + +The man leaned forward, looking at her as though begging a favor. + +"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that such a course might be a +little rough on some of them. Do you never make an exception?" + +"I haven't done so yet." + +"Then," said Nevis eagerly, "if you'll try it in this instance I'll tell +you what I'll do. The thing's in my line of business and I'll find those +nine hundred dollars for you." + +Florence sat silent, watching him for a few moments. She meant to agree, +and though she quite realized that general opinion would have regarded +this as tantamount to placing herself in the man's power, that did not +trouble her. She had never yet been in any man's power and she did not +intend to be. + +"Well," she consented at length; "but it mustn't be a favor." + +Nevis tactfully declared that it could be done on a purely business +footing, with which object he suggested, after a few judicious +questions, that she should give him an order for the delivery of so many +bushels of wheat after harvest, which she did. That the document was +most informal and merely scribbled on a half-sheet of note-paper did not +seem to concern him. Then he wrote her out a check. + +"I don't mind saying that I'm going to make eight per cent. out of you, +which is enough to content me," he explained. "You see, I never let an +opportunity go by." + +Florence made no comment. Whether or not he would continue to be content +with the mere interest on the money was a question with which she would +be competent to deal when it arose. + +In a few minutes he prepared to take his departure. He bowed over her +hand in a manner that was not common on the prairie, and she watched him +with a meaning smile when he drove away. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A FIT OF TEMPER + + +It was two days later that Nevis led his worn-out horse up the side of +one of the deep ravines which every here and there wind through the +prairie. It was then about the middle of the afternoon and almost +unpleasantly hot in the sheltered hollow. The crest of it shut out the +wind that swept the open levels, and the sunshine struck down between +the birches, which were just then unfolding lace-like streamers of tiny +leaves. There were no other trees except the willows wrapped in a bright +emerald flush along the banks of a little creek. + +Nevis felt unpleasantly weary. Although a man of fine proportions, he +did not care for physical exertion and avoided it as far as possible; +but the commercial instinct was strong in him and he had driven a long +way in pursuit of money during the last few days. It was supposed that +he picked up a good deal of it in the most unlikely as well as the more +obvious places, for he was troubled by few scruples and was endued with +the faculty of getting money. He was a young man, evidently of excellent +education, though nobody seemed to know where he had received it or +where he came from. Beginning as an implement dealer and general +mortgage broker on a humble scale two or three years earlier, he had +extended his field of operations rapidly. + +It appears to be an unfortunate fact that the grip of the money-lender +is firmly fastened on the small agriculturalist in many countries, and, +strange to say, perhaps more particularly in those where the soil he +tills is his own. In the new wheat-lands of the West the possessions of +the small farmers and ranchers on both sides of the frontier are as a +rule mortgaged to the hilt, or at least they were a few years ago. They +lived, and no more, for when the seasons vouchsafed them a bountiful +harvest, storekeeper, land agency man, or mortgage jobber usually swept +the proceeds into his coffer. It must, nevertheless, be said that many a +man would be forced to abandon the struggle after an untimely frost in +fall without the money-lender's help, and that the latter has often to +face a serious hazard which varies with the weather. + +Nevis was half-way up the slope when his jaded horse refused to go on, +and he sat down on a fallen birch, wondering where he could borrow +another one or, if this were not possible, how he could reach the +settlement. He was then, he supposed, eight or nine miles from the +nearest farm, and it seemed very probable that even if he succeeded in +reaching it every horse would be engaged in plowing. He had no +provisions with him, and he had eaten nothing since breakfast that +morning. He was unpleasantly conscious of this fact, for he usually +lived well. + +A few minutes later a drumming of hoofs fell across the birches from the +plain above, and he saw a team swing over the brink of the declivity. +For a moment or two the horses disappeared among the trees, but by the +rapid beat of hoofs which mingled with the rattle of wheels they seemed +to be coming down at a gallop. Nevis was aware that the prairie farmers +as a rule wasted very little time in breaking young horses, but +harnessed them to plow or wagon as soon as they were amenable to any +control at all. + +As the team above broke out furiously from among the trees a hoarse +shout reached him directing him to pull his buggy clear; but he decided +to let it stay exactly where it was. He fancied that the driver, who +could not get by, could stop his team if he made a determined effort, +and this surmise proved correct, for a minute or two later Thorne, +braced backward on the driving-seat, looked down at him with a wrathful +face. + +"What did you stop me for? Couldn't you get out of the way?" he asked. + +"Why were you driving at that breakneck pace?" + +"A jack-rabbit bolted right under Volador's feet. I'll get on again if +you'll move your buggy." + +Nevis sat still. + +"Are you open to earn a few dollars?" + +"It depends," replied Thorne, "on what I'm expected to do and whom +they're coming from." + +"I'm anxious to get hold of somebody who'll drive me to the settlement. +This horse is played out." + +"In that case I'm not open. I'm too busy." + +"I'll give you your own price for your time. It will probably pay you +better than--selling mirrors." + +Thorne noticed the half-contemptuous stress upon the last words. + +"You should have been content with the reason I offered," he retorted. +"As you were not, I'll give you another; I'm not a very particular +person, but I shouldn't like to touch your money." + +Nevis stood up with a laugh of half-veiled malevolence. + +"Do you think that kind of thing is wise?" + +"I haven't troubled to ask myself the question. I've never been +remarkably prudent, and when I saw that you meant to hold me up my first +impulse was to drive smash into your buggy. It was only out of regard +for the horses that I didn't do so." + +"Is there any particular reason for this gratuitous insolence?" + +"There are two," explained Thorne. "In the first place, I don't like +being stopped on an open trail; and in the next, I've spent the last few +days borrowing things for a friend of mine whom you pitched out on to +the prairie with his wife and child." + +Nevis smiled. + +"I might have guessed it was something of that kind. You're rudimentary +and haven't the crudest notion of what you have up against you. It would +be about as sensible for one of your horses to start kicking because it +didn't like your style of driving." + +"That," returned Thorne, "is just where you're wrong. I've no complaint +against human nature in general or the way this country's run. My +dislikes are concentrated on a few particularly obnoxious people who +live in it, of whom you're one. You're a discredit even to the +profession which you follow." + +"It's not as dangerous to the people I deal with as yours is," Nevis +retorted. + +"We'll let that pass. I've already stopped here talking with you longer +than I care about. Will you pull your buggy out of the way?" + +Nevis felt a strong inclination to let the buggy remain where it stood. +It was galling to be spoken to in that fashion by a wandering pedler, +and even more annoying to be left stranded nine miles from anywhere +with a worn-out horse; but a glance at the lean, determined face of the +man on the driving-seat of the wagon decided him, and he drew his rig +aside. Then Thorne looked down again. + +"There's one thing you can do, and that's to unyoke the beast and hobble +it, and then strike for Taylor's on your feet," he advised. "The walk +will probably do you good, if only by convincing you that it doesn't pay +to drive a horse to the verge of exhaustion." + +He swung his whip, and the team plunged forward down the declivity with +the wagon jolting and rattling behind them. Two or three hours later he +pulled up in front of Farquhar's homestead, where, as he informed its +owner, he meant to stay the night; and when the dusk was closing in he +sat with the others on the stoop. + +"Did you meet anybody on the trail?" Mrs. Farquhar asked. + +"Nevis," answered Thorne genially. "I believe I insulted him. Anyway, I +meant to, but he's tough in the hide, and I'm half afraid I wasn't quite +up to my usual form." + +"But why did you want to insult him?" + +"Well," replied Thorne, with an air of reflection, "I think it was his +clothes that irritated me." + +"His clothes?" Alison broke in. + +Thorne turned to her with a smile. + +"Yes," he said; "unreasonable, isn't it? Still, you see, the man was so +immaculately neat, from his tie, which was a marvel, to his very elegant +pointed shoes. I dare say he'll find them most uncomfortable before he +has walked nine miles in them." + +"But why should that annoy you?" + +"If you mean the thought of his limping across the prairie for miles +and getting very hot and dusty, it certainly didn't. If you mean his +apparel, too much neatness always acts as a red rag on me, and in this +case the manner in which he was got up seemed symbolical. It hinted that +only the best of everything would content him, and that he meant to get +it, no matter what it cost anybody else. There was his horse, for +instance, played out, foul with dust, and thirsty--with a creek close +by. He'd driven the poor brute almost to death the last few days sooner +than cut out a single visit to any one he wanted to see about the +creamery." + +"We have got to head him off that scheme," declared Farquhar; and his +wife joined in again. + +"Haven't you some other grievance against him?" + +"If another one is needed, there's Langton's case," answered Thorne. +"The man's a crank, of course, which is partly why I like him, and he +has some eccentric notions about farming; but he has paid Nevis his +interest for quite a while, besides buying everything he used from him +at double prices, and now the first time the money's not forthcoming +he's sold up. Nevis turned him out, with his wife still ailing, and the +child." + +Mrs. Farquhar started with a flush of indignation in her face. + +"It's the first I've heard of it. Why didn't you send us word?" + +"Langton's rather out of your district, and the boys have fixed him up. +They got a few things together, and he's camped in a tent on Government +land. I believe they're going to build him a sod and birchpole house." + +"I suppose," interjected Farquhar, "you were somewhere about?" + +"That's certain," laughed his wife. "Who went round and got the tent and +the other things you mentioned, Mavy?" + +Thorne smiled. + +"As soon as they heard of it, the boys brought them in." + +Alison cast a quick glance at him. He was quite devoid of +self-consciousness, and it was evident that he took the thing lightly; +but she fancied that there were strong chivalrous impulses in this +humorous vagabond which would on due occasion lead him to ride a +reckless tilt against overwhelming odds in the cause of the helpless and +oppressed. Her heart warmed toward him, as it had done once or twice +before, but she said nothing, and it became evident that Mrs. Farquhar +shared the thought that was in her mind. + +"Mavy," she cautioned, "I'm afraid you'll get yourself hurt some day by +doing more than is wise or needful. Nobody could find fault with you for +helping Langton, but you should have stopped at that. Insulting men like +Nevis just because they dress well, or for other reasons, is apt to lead +to trouble." + +Then Farquhar broke in, and Alison recognized that he meant to follow +his wife's lead. + +"It was Langton's misfortune that he wouldn't fall into line," he said. +"If he had, he wouldn't have been forced to borrow money from Nevis. For +instance, what has the electrical tension in the atmosphere he used to +fret about to do with one's harrowing, anyway, unless it brings down +rain, and why must he cut his prairie hay two or three weeks after all +his neighbors have theirs in?" + +"He says he likes it thoroughly ripened," Thorne answered with a laugh. +"Still, I can't see why a man should be hounded down because he won't do +exactly what everybody else does. What do you think, Miss Leigh?" + +"It's rather a pity, but I'm afraid men of that kind generally have to +pay," replied Alison. "That is, unless they're very strong and +fortunate, and then they lead. What was supposed to be a craze of theirs +becomes a desirable custom, and the others humbly copy them." + +"And if the others won't?" questioned Farquhar. + +"Even then, it's perhaps just as well there are a few men with the +courage of their convictions who will couch the lance in the face of any +opposition that can be brought against them, and ride right home. There +must be something in their fancies, and the stir they make clears the +air. Stagnation's unwholesome." + +Mrs. Farquhar regarded her severely. + +"You shouldn't encourage him. It's quite superfluous. He'd charge a +locomotive any day with pleasure," she said. + +"Well," laughed Thorne, "you will no doubt be consoled to hear that I've +come into line. There are now one hundred and sixty acres of virgin +prairie recorded in my name, and I believe a carload of sawed lumber and +general fixings will arrive at the station in the next few days. When +they do, I'll borrow your wagon and hired man to haul them out, though +I'll have to camp in a tent until I get my first crop in." + +Farquhar and his wife looked astonished, and both laughed when he +gravely reproached them for not believing that he would carry out the +project which he had already mentioned. Then the two men strolled away +toward the barn together, and Alison was left with Mrs. Farquhar. The +prairie was wrapped in shadow now, and a half-moon was rising above its +eastern rim. It was very still, and there was a wonderful freshness in +the chilly air. Looking out upon the vast sweep of dusky grass, it +seemed to Alison that this wide country gave one clearness of vision and +breadth of character. + +"Does Thorne really mean to turn farmer?" she asked at length. + +"It looks as if he does," answered Mrs. Farquhar. "Why shouldn't he?" + +"I can't think of any reason," replied Alison. "Still, it isn't what I +should have anticipated. What can have influenced him?" + +"I have a suspicion that he means to get married. He couldn't expect his +wife to set up housekeeping in a wagon, though, for that matter, I don't +know whether he lives in the vehicle or camps on the ground beside it." + +Alison knew, however, and on the whole she was glad that it was too dark +for her companion to see her face clearly. It was, for no very +ostensible reason, not exactly pleasant to think of Thorne's getting +married at all. The idea of his being willing to contemplate marriage, +so to speak, in the abstract, as the men who went to Winnipeg for their +wives did, was repugnant to her, and the alternative possibility that he +had somebody in particular in view already afforded her no great +consolation. + +"I suppose he wouldn't have very much trouble if that was his idea," she +said with a trace of disdain. + +"No," responded Mrs. Farquhar; "there would be very little trouble in +Leslie Thorne's case. Whatever that man may lack it won't be the love of +women." + +It occurred to Alison that there was truth in this. She could even +confess that the man's light-hearted manner, his whimsical generosity +and his daring appealed to her. + +"He doesn't seem to get on very well with Florence Hunter," she said +reflectively. + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed. + +"I think I may tell you a secret which Mavy has never guessed. He could +have got on a good deal better with Mrs. Hunter had he been anxious to, +and she hasn't forgiven him because he didn't realize it." + +Alison started, and a warmth crept into her face, but her hostess +proceeded: + +"I don't mean very much by that. Mrs. Hunter merely wished +to--annex--him; to command his respectful homage, which he was quite +ready to pay her as Elcot's wife, though that wasn't quite what she +intended. There's an unpleasant streak in that woman's nature." + +Alison sat silent a moment or two, for she was forced to confess that +this sounded correct. + +"But Florence can have no complaint against her husband," she objected. +"He seems to indulge her and treat her generously." + +"That's half the trouble," was the answer. "Some day she'll wear his +patience out, and then he'll take the other way--and they'll get on +better afterward. However, that's a matter that doesn't concern us." She +paused a moment, with a smile. "Anyway, I'm glad you decided to come to +me." + +"Thank you," said Alison quietly. + +She had never regretted her choice. The work she had undertaken was +certainly not what she had expected to do when she came to Canada, and +she smiled as she remembered the indignation her mother had expressed +concerning it in her last letter; but her duties were not unpleasant, +and she was growing fond of the unassuming but very sensible people with +whom she dwelt. Their view was narrowed by no prejudices, and they +disdained pretense; they toiled with cheerful courage and were as +cheerfully willing to hold out an open hand to the stranger and the +unfortunate. The latter fact was once more made evident when Farquhar, +followed by Thorne, strolled up to the door. + +"I think I'll start off at sunup and drive over to see how Langton's +getting on," he said. "I couldn't very well be back the same night, but +you'll have Miss Leigh with you." + +"Of course," assented his wife, smiling. "It was only yesterday that you +declared you didn't know how you were going to get through with the +sowing. I suppose you'll want to take a few things along with you?" + +Thorne produced a strip of paper and handed it to her. + +"I can't always trust my memory," he explained. + +They went into the house, where a light was already burning, and Mrs. +Farquhar glanced at the paper with a smile. + +"Well," she said, "I suppose I can manage to let you have about half of +what you ask for." Then she turned to Alison. "As soon as he mentioned +the matter I expected this." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE RAISING + + +One afternoon when the prairie was flooded with sunshine and sprinkled +with a flush of tender green, Farquhar drove his wife and Alison up to +Thorne's new holding. A tent with loose curtain flapping in the breeze +stood on a slight rise, with sundry piles of boards and framed timber +lying on the grass about it, while Thorne and a young lad stood beside a +fire above which a four-gallon coal-oil can hung boiling. His face was +smutted and there was grime on his hands; while near him smoke was +issuing from a beehive-shaped mass of soil which Mrs. Farquhar informed +Alison was an earth oven. + +The girl waited behind a few moments when her companions greeted Thorne, +looking about her with some curiosity. An oblong of shattered clods, +almost hidden by the fresh green blades of oats, stretched across the +foreground, and beyond it there was the usual vast sweep of grass. On +one side of the plowed land, however, a thin birch bluff in full leaf +straggled up the rise, and a little creek of clear water wound through a +deep hollow not far away. The situation, she decided, was an attractive +one. Then she glanced at the piles of timber, which seemed to be +arranged in carefully planned order, and surmised from the quantity of +sawdust strewed among the grass that a good deal of work had been done +on it by somebody. There was also a row of birch logs, evidently +obtained from the bluff, with notches cut in them, and a heap of thin +strips of wood which had a sweet resinous smell. These were red-cedar +roofing shingles from British Columbia. + +Alison strolled forward and joined the group about the fire. + +"It will be a couple of hours yet before the boys turn up; and, +considering everything, it's just as well," Thorne was explaining. +"Still, the bread ought to be ready, and I'd be glad if somebody would +get it out to cool. I want the oven for the chickens." + +"Where are they?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired. + +Thorne suddenly stooped over the big coal-oil can. + +"I was almost forgetting them; they're here. Dave should have fished +them out some time ago." + +Alison glanced into the improvised cauldron and saw to her astonishment +what looked like a mass of bedraggled fowls. + +"Oh," she cried, "have you boiled them with their feathers on?" + +"Well," replied Thorne, somewhat ruefully, "I certainly didn't mean to. +In fact, I put them in to bring their feathers off, though I've hitherto +generally done it beneath the blow-down valve of a thrashing engine." + +He turned to his young companion. + +"Be quick! Fish them out!" + +The lad did it with a strip of shingle, and when a number of dripping +birds were strewed upon the grass Alison was more astonished still. + +"Where have their heads gone?" she exclaimed. + +"I'll leave Dave to tell you that; I believe it's his first attempt at +dressing fowls," chuckled Thorne. "I just sent his employer word that I +wanted chickens, and this is how they were brought." + +The lad colored, for he was very young. + +"Jackson drove off as soon as he'd told Stepney and me to get them," he +explained. "We're both of us just out from Toronto, and we didn't know +how to set about the thing." He paused and looked at Alison. "I don't +mind admitting that neither of us enjoyed it, but it had to be done." + +"I must add that he told me he made Stepney use the ax," laughed Thorne. + +"I had to hold them, anyway--and that wasn't very much better," retorted +the lad. + +Thorne turned to Farquhar. + +"You'll have to pluck; I dare say Mrs. Farquhar and Miss Leigh will get +out the bread and what crockery there is. The boys will probably bring +some plates and things along with them; that is, if they're wise." + +He moved away and Alison sat down on the grass and laughed. + +"I believe he can cook better than I can, but he's primitive in some +respects," she commented. "Shall we all have to use the same things if +the boys don't bring the cups?" + +"Oh, no," Mrs. Farquhar assured her. "He'll no doubt provide a few old +fruit cans. Anyway, you must not expect too much of him. He has been +working his fingers off for the last six weeks, and as there has been +moonlight lately it's very probable that he has cut himself down to an +hour or two's sleep. Perhaps you haven't noticed that it shows on him." + +As a matter of fact, Alison had done so. She had seen very little of +Thorne for the last few weeks, and now it struck her that his face was +leaner and browner than it had been and that there were signs of tension +in his eyes. Then she glanced at the strip of plowed land and the piles +of timber. + +"Has he done all that?" she asked. + +"Most of it, anyway. Some of the boys helped him when they could, which +wasn't very often. I believe he has done about twice as much as Harry +considered possible. I've an idea that Mavy is going to open his +neighbors' eyes." + +Alison glanced at the empty prairie and wondered where the neighbors +lived; but just them Mrs. Farquhar called her to the oven, which she +opened with a spade, and they raked out several big and somewhat +blackened loaves. After that, they proceeded to the tent and busied +themselves laying out the provisions it contained. + +It was an hour or two later when the guests arrived in dusty rigs of +various kinds and different stages of decrepitude, and Alison noticed +that those who were accompanied by their wives and daughters also +brought baskets with them. They were evidently acquainted with the +limitations of bachelor housekeeping. For the most part, however, the +new arrivals were young men, deeply bronzed and wiry, though one, whom +they seemed to regard as leader, had a lined face and grizzled hair. He +gathered them round him when the horses had been unyoked and tethered. + +"Boys," he said, "you haven't come here just for fun, though you're +going to get that later. In the first place you have to earn your +supper." He turned to Thorne. "Will you send us to our places and tell +us what to do?" + +"No," replied Thorne; "I'd rather leave the thing to the best man on +the ground. I'll take my orders from him and stand in among the crowd." + +The elder man made a sign of acquiescence, for he now knew where he +stood and etiquette was satisfied. He and Thorne walked round and +examined the piles of timber. Then he sent the men to their places; one +with a hammer here, two or three with long, steel-shod poles there, +another with a saw at a corner, and the rest spread out in a row. + +"Now," he directed, "if you're ready we'll get the house on end. The +girls are watching you!" + +They went at the work with a rush, and the little oblong marked out upon +the prairie sod became alive with toiling figures. Tall birch posts rose +as by magic, with struggling men thrusting with the long pike-poles +beneath them; stringers, plates and ties seemed to fly into place; and +Alison, sitting on the grass with Mrs. Farquhar, wondered as the +skeleton of the house grew moment by moment before her eyes. She had +never thought it possible that a dwelling could be built in a night; but +the men were clearly on their mettle, and they worked with an almost +bewildering activity. They were on the ground one minute, hauling +ponderous masses of timber, and the next climbing among the framing; +were standing with one foot on a slender beam, or crawling along another +on hands and knees. There was a constant thudding of ax-heads on wooden +pegs, a sharper ringing of hammers on heavy nails; curt orders broke +through the clatter of boards and the persistent crunch of saws. Still, +there seemed to be no confusion. Each man knew exactly what to do, for, +though houses are by no means invariably raised in this fashion on the +prairie, some of the men had learned their work in the bush of +Michigan, and some in Ontario. When the hammers clattered more furiously +and the skeleton became partly clothed, there were cries of +encouragement from the women. + +"Jake will have that plate pinned down before your spikes are in!" +called one. + +"Are you going to let the boys from across the creek get ahead of you?" +protested another. + +A third ran forward with both hands full of nails. + +"They're catching you up!" she shouted. "Get them in! I can't have the +laugh put on my man." + +Husband, sweetheart and brother responded gallantly, and the pace became +faster still, until at length Thorne shouted and waved his hand. + +"We're through. It's time to quit," he said. "You've done 'most twice as +much as I ever figured on your getting in to-night." + +They had worked willingly, but it was evident that most of them were as +willing to stop. Hammers, saws, and axes were flung together, and the +men stood in groups, hot and gasping, in the early dusk. Thorne walked +up to their leader. + +"I can only say 'Thank you!' though that doesn't go far enough," he +said. "What makes the thing seem more to me is that I haven't the least +call on one of you." + +There was a murmur of denial and then they waited until he turned to +Mrs. Farquhar, though he addressed the company generally. + +"Now," he invited, "I'll ask you to come in and look at my place." + +He moved on ahead with Mrs. Farquhar, while the others fell in behind; +but it seemed that the selection he had made did not satisfy all of +them, for there was a laugh when somebody cried: + +"She has got a good man already! It isn't a square deal!" + +Then, and how it came about Alison was never sure, though she had a +suspicion that her employer must have connived at it, Mrs. Farquhar +either moved or was quietly pushed aside, and she and Thorne were left +to cross the threshold together at the head of the company. This +appeared to please his guests, for there was further laughter when +another voice cried: + +"It's the first time. Didn't they teach you manners in the old country, +Mavy? What's the matter with giving her your arm?" + +Alison was conscious of a certain embarrassment, but she moved on +quietly and shot one swift glance at Thorne. He was looking up at the +beams above him, of which she was glad, for she was wondering whether +the others attached any particular significance to the fact that she was +the first woman to enter his new house with him. Dismissing the question +as troublesome, she glanced about her and saw the roof framing cutting +black against the soft blue of the night overhead. The house, she +supposed, would eventually contain four rooms, two on the ground floor +and two above, and though only the principal supports had been placed in +position yet, she once more wondered how the man and his companions had +accomplished so much. + +"What you have done is really astonishing!" she exclaimed. "I suppose +you had everything ready, but even then you are not a carpenter or a +builder." + +Thorne laughed. + +"The fact that I can sell patent medicines to people who haven't the +least use for them ought to be a guaranty of my ability to do anything +in reason." + +"He's not quite right," interposed Farquhar, appearing from behind them. +"In a general way, the man who's smart at business is good at nothing +else. Most of those who are couldn't hammer a nail in. Anyway, Mavy +hasn't the least bit of the true commercial instinct in him." + +"Haven't I?" Thorne appealed to Mrs. Farquhar. "Is there another man +round here who could start off for a month's drive and sell out most of +a wagonload of mirrors and gramophones?" + +"No," laughed Mrs. Farquhar; "I don't think there is; but that's not +quite the point. The proof of commercial ability lies not in the sales +but in the margin after them, and you never seemed to get much richer by +your efforts. You don't sell your things because you're a smart business +man, but because the boys like you." + +The rest had evidently heard her, for there were cries of assent, and +Alison was conscious of a little thrill of sympathy when Thorne turned +to his other guests. + +"I should be a proud man if I were quite convinced that that is right." + +They assured him of it, and there was no doubt about their sincerity. A +few minutes later they trooped out again, when somebody announced that +supper was ready. There were neither chairs nor tables, and though the +dew was falling they sat down on the grass, while a full moon that had +sailed half-way up the heavens poured down a silver light on them. The +crockery proved insufficient, and husbands and wives or sweethearts +shared each other's cups, but they made an astonishing feast, for the +inhabitants of that land eat with the same strenuous vigor with which +they work and live. + +In the meanwhile Alison became interested in watching the women. They +were not very numerous, and one and all were dressed in garments that +were obviously the work of their own fingers. They were not bronzed like +the men, and even in the moonlight it struck her that their faces lacked +the delicate bloom of the average Englishwoman's skin. Their hands were +hard, and in most cases reddened; but for all that there was a +brightness in their eyes and an optimistic cheerfulness in their manner +which she fancied would hardly have characterized such an assembly in +the old country. + +Then she noticed that one young woman sat at Thorne's side not far away, +and that they seemed to be talking confidentially. She could not be sure +that they had not one cup between them, and this possibility irritated +her. The girl, she confessed, was not ungraceful, although slighter and +generally straighter in figure than most young Englishwomen, and she had +rather fine hair. It shone lustrously in the moonlight, and there were +golden gleams in it. There was also no doubt that she had fine eyes. +Alison could think of no reason why Thorne should not talk to whom he +liked, but she was, in spite of this, not pleased with what she had +noticed. + +After a while somebody tuned a fiddle, and when they began dancing on +the grass, Alison realized that most of them danced very well. Thorne +led her out once, but he seemed preoccupied, and soon afterward he and +the girl she had already noticed once more drew apart from the rest. +Alison watched them sitting out two dances in the shadow of the house, +and she felt curious as to what they had to say to each other. As a +matter of fact, Thorne was looking at his companion very thoughtfully +just then. + +"Lucy," he said, "I'm afraid what Jake has done is going to get him into +trouble." + +"I tried to make him see that, but he said as they'd seized his +homestead he couldn't stay here, and he allowed that, one way or +another, he'd paid off all he owed," the girl replied. "Nevis put up all +kinds of charges on him and bled him dry the past few years." + +"Of course he did," assented Thorne. "Still, that's not likely to count +for a great deal in his favor. The trouble is that they could jail him +for selling off those cattle after he got notice of foreclosure. What +made him do it?" + +Lucy looked down. + +"You may not have heard that we were to have been married most three +years ago, but my father said Jake must wipe off his mortgage first. +When he died he left us nothing but the teams and implements, and mother +and I tried to run the place with a hired man, but we've been going back +ever since, and Jake was getting deeper in debt all the while." + +Thorne made a sign of sympathy. + +"Now that Nevis has shut down on him, I suppose he's going away to work +on the new branch line until he can get hold of another place farther +West and send for you." + +"Yes," returned Lucy slowly, "now you understand the thing, or, anyway, +most of it. Only--" and she looked up at him with appealing eyes--"Jake +hasn't got very far yet, and we had word that the police troopers are +out after him." + +"Where is he?" + +Lucy turned and pointed toward the bluff. + +"Yonder." + +Thorne started, but he sat still again, rather grim in face, and his +companion went on: + +"He hasn't a horse. He got out in a hurry with no provisions, and if he +went into the settlement for some it would put the troopers on to his +trail." She laid a hand on Thorne's arm. "Mavy, you're sure not going to +let them get him." + +"If I'd a grain of sense that's just what I would do; as I haven't, I +suppose I must try to get him off. Well, it would be better for several +reasons that Jake shouldn't see me, but if you'll stuff a basket with +eatables I'll quietly drive a horse round toward the bluff. While you're +getting the things together I'll have another dance." + +He led out a flushed matron, and when at length he left her breathless, +only Alison and one other person saw him slip away over the edge of the +hollow through which the creek flowed. There was something in the way he +moved that aroused Alison's curiosity, and she walked forward a few +yards until she reached the crest of the slope, from which she saw him +saddle one of the two hobbled horses that browsed apart from the rest. +She wondered why he did so, but it was some relief to notice that the +girl he had spoken to was not with him, and when he moved on again +toward the bluff she turned back to where the others were. + +He reappeared a few minutes later and claimed a dance, which she gave +him, and some time had passed when a drumming of hoofs grew rapidly +louder and two shadowy figures materialized out of the prairie. Then +the music stopped as a couple of mounted police drew bridle in front of +the astonished guests. One who carried a carbine across his saddle threw +up his hand commandingly. + +"Is Jake Winthrop here?" he asked. + +"No," answered Thorne, who strode forward; "he certainly is not, +Corporal Slaney." + +"Have you seen him to-night?" + +"I haven't," was the quiet answer. + +"Then," said the corporal, "you may be surprised to hear that he was +seen heading for this bluff two or three hours ago, and that we struck +his trail where he crossed the creek not a mile back." + +He turned in his saddle and looked at the others. + +"Can you give me any information?" + +Their faces were clear in the moonlight, and Alison felt that they at +least had nothing to conceal; but the corporal did not look quite +satisfied with the assurances they offered him. Addressing two or three, +one after another, he interrogated them sharply. + +"I'll have to trouble you to lead up your horses, boys," he said at +length. + +They did it with some grumbling, and when the corporal was convinced +that not a beast was missing, he turned to Thorne. + +"You keep a team here, don't you?" + +"Oh, yes," replied Thorne carelessly, though he had dreaded this +question. + +The corporal swung round and looked at his companion, who had quietly +slipped away for a few minutes when they first rode in. + +"There's one beast hobbled by the creek," announced the trooper. "I can +see no sign of the other." + +The corporal looked at Thorne. + +"Do you feel like making any explanation?" + +"No. If you have anything against me I'll leave you to prove it." + +The corporal then turned to one of the guests. + +"You rode in. Where did you put your saddle?" + +"On the ground with the rest." + +"Can you produce it?" + +"No," admitted the man; "I may as well allow that I can't, if the +trooper has been round counting them." + +The corporal looked at him steadily. + +"Well," he said, "what we have to do first of all is to pick up +Winthrop's trail. It's quite likely we'll have a word for Thorne and you +later." + +He spoke to his companion and they rode out across the prairie. When +they disappeared, Thorne called to the fiddler to strike up another +tune, and the dance went on again. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THORNE RESENTS REPROOF + + +Farquhar was sitting with his wife and Alison on the stoop in the cool +of the evening a week or two after the house-raising, when Thorne rode +up out of the prairie, leading a second horse. He tethered the two +beasts to a fence before he approached the house, and Alison noticed +that he looked very lean and jaded. He sat down wearily and flung off +his hat when he had greeted the party. + +"I've come to borrow your mower, Farquhar," he announced. "I suppose I +may as well get some hay in." + +"You don't seem very sure about it," remarked Farquhar. + +"As a matter of fact, I'm not enthusiastic about cutting that hay. I've +been putting in sixteen hours a day lately, and I expect I'm getting a +little stale. Among other things, I'd got most of the shingles on the +house when one of the boys came along and told me I'd fixed them wrong. +Then the police have been round again worrying me." + +"Have you got your horse back?" asked Mrs. Farquhar. + +"Yes," replied Thorne, with a soft laugh. "It was found near the +railroad a day or two after it disappeared, and a friend of mine sent it +along. I understand, however, that Corporal Slaney has failed to pick up +Winthrop's trail." + +Mrs. Farquhar regarded him severely. + +"Why did you mix yourself up in that affair?" + +"The thing rather appealed to me," declared Thorne. "I believe Jake was +justified ethically; and anybody who takes a way that's not the +recognized one has my sympathy." + +"Now you've reached the point," Farquhar laughed. "On the whole, the +fact you mention is unfortunate." + +"I'm not sure," Thorne answered moodily. "Plodding along the lauded +beaten track now and then palls on one, and it isn't the least bit +easier than the other. Anyway, I only did what I had to; Lucy said she +had counted on me." + +This last confession, which he seemed to make in a moment of +forgetfulness, stirred Alison to a sense of irritation that astonished +her a little. + +"Were you compelled to help a defaulting debtor escape?" she demanded. +"I understand that is what Winthrop is." + +"If you knew the whole story you would hardly call him that," Thorne +retorted with an indignant sparkle in his eyes. + +"But he borrowed money on his cattle, among other things, didn't he, and +then sold them, and ran away when the man who lent it to him wanted it +back?" + +"He did," Thorne assented with some dryness. "I'm sorry I must confess +it, because a baldly correct statement of the kind you have just made +which leaves out all extenuating details is often a most misleading +thing." + +"How can a statement of fact be misleading?" + +Farquhar smiled and Thorne made a grimace. + +"The aspect of any fact varies with one's point of view. You evidently +can't get away from the conventional one." + +Alison was growing angry, though subsequent reflection convinced her +that this was not due to his last observation. She had sympathized with +his attitude when he had in the first instance mentioned his dislike of +Nevis; and his willingness to side with the injured against the +oppressor had certainly pleased her. In the abstract, it appeared wholly +commendable; but, in particular, that it should have led him to take up +the cause of a girl against whom for no very clear reason she felt +prejudiced was a different thing. + +"Well," she responded, "it has by degrees become evident to society in +general that it can only look at certain matters in a certain way; and +if you insist on doing the opposite, you must expect to get into +trouble. I'm not sure you don't deserve it, too." + +"That," returned Thorne, grimly, "is their idea in England, and I must +do them the justice to own that they act up to it. I had, however, +expected a little more liberality--from you. Anyway, I'm not in the +least sorry for what I've done." + +He rose and turned toward his host. + +"Hadn't we better get that mower, Farquhar?" + +They strolled away, Thorne leading his team, and Mrs. Farquhar laughed. + +"Mavy's very young in some respects. I'm almost afraid you have +succeeded in setting him off again." + +"Is the last remark warranted?" + +Mrs. Farquhar nodded. + +"He has been sticking to what he probably finds a very uninteresting +task with a patience I hardly thought was in him. Just now he's no doubt +ready for an outbreak." + +"An outbreak?" + +"I'll say a frolic. It won't be anything very shocking, though I should +expect it to be distinctly original." + +Alison made a sign of impatience. + +"Isn't it absurd that he should fly off in this unbalanced fashion +because of a few words?" + +"One mustn't expect perfection; and it wasn't altogether what you +said--that merely fired the train. Mavy has been going steady for an +unusual time, and as a rule it doesn't take a great deal to drive him +into some piece of rashness. For instance, he was quite willing to +involve himself in trouble with the police at a word from Lucy Calvert." + +She fancied from Alison's expression that this was where the grievance +lay, but the girl made no comment, and they sat silent for a while until +Farquhar came back alone. + +"Mavy's gone off with the mower--he wouldn't come back," he explained. +"In fact he seemed a little out of temper." + +Farquhar was correct in this surmise. Thorne was somewhat erratic by +nature, and any insistence on the strictly conventional point of view, +even when it was backed by sound sense, usually acted upon him as a red +rag. After all, he could not help his nature, and he had been reared in +an atmosphere of straight-laced respectability which had imposed on him +an intolerable restraint. What was, perhaps, more to the purpose, he had +been demanding too much of his bodily strength during the last two +months, and had been living in a Spartan fashion on badly cooked and +very irregular meals, until at length his nervous system began to feel +the strain. That being so, he felt himself justified in resenting +Alison's censorious attitude; though it was not the mere fact that she +had disagreed with what he had done that he found most irritating. It +was, he knew, because she had disappointed him. He had regarded her as a +broad-minded, clear-sighted girl, emancipated from the petty prejudices +and traditions which were the bane of most young Englishwomen, and now +he had discovered that she was as exasperatingly narrow as the rest of +them. + +It was late when he reached his homestead, and after sleeping a few +hours he rose with the dawn, and lighting a fire, left the kettle to +boil while he clambered to the roof to nail on cedar shingles. He could +not, however, get them to lie as he wanted them, and, being very dry, +they split every now and then as he drove in the nails. Besides this, it +was difficult to work upon the narrow rafters, and when at length he +descended for breakfast he found that the fire had gone out in the +meanwhile. He surveyed it and the kettle disgustedly, with brows drawn +down; and then, restraining a strong desire to fling the vessel into the +birches, he sat down and fished out of the congealed fat in the +frying-pan a piece of cold pork left over from the previous day. This, +with a piece of bread that had acquired a rocky texture from being left +uncovered, formed his breakfast, and when he had eaten it he went back +moodily to the roof. He had for some time in a most determined manner +concentrated his energies on a task generally regarded as a commendable +one in that country, but there was no doubt whatever that it was +beginning to pall on him. + +He lay up on the rafters for several hours with a hot sun blazing down +on his neck and shoulders while he nailed on shingles; but in spite of +every effort, things would go wrong. Nails slipped through his fingers; +he dropped his hammer and had to climb down for it; while every now and +then a shingle he had just secured rent from top to bottom. Finally, in +a state of exasperation, he struck a vicious blow at a nail which had +evaded his previous attacks, and hit his thumb instead. This was the +climax, and he savagely hurled the hammer as far as he could throw it +out upon the prairie. Then he swung himself down, and, walking +resolutely to his tent, dragged out a box containing about a dozen small +cheap mirrors. There were a few gramophone records in another box; and +after putting both cases, a blanket or two and a bag of flour into his +wagon, he drove away across the sweep of grass at a gallop. The horses, +which had done nothing worth mentioning for the last few weeks, seemed +as pleased with the change as he did. + +The next morning a man who was passing Farquhar's homestead pulled up +his team to deliver its owner a note. + +"Mavy sent you this," he said with a grin. "Guess he's out on the trail +again. He had the boys sitting up half last night at the Bluff Hotel." + +Farquhar read the note, which was curt. + +"Thanks for the mower. Better go for it if you want the thing," it ran. +"I'm off for a change of air, and haven't the least notion when I'm +coming back. I've discovered that one has to get seasoned to a quiet +life." + +Going back into the house, he handed the note to his wife, who was +sitting with Alison at breakfast, and she gave it to the girl in turn +when she had read it. + +"It's too bad, though I must say I expected it," she remarked, regarding +her with reproachful eyes. + +"If he has a singularly unbalanced nature, can I help it?" Alison +asked. + +Her companion appeared to consider. + +"I don't know which to be most vexed with; you or Lucy. He would be +quietly cutting prairie hay now if you had both left him alone." + +Farquhar watched them with a smile. + +"Mavy," he observed, "will in all probability require a good deal of +breaking in; but that's no reason why one should despair of him. I've +known a young horse turn out an excellent hauler and go steady as a rock +in double harness, after in the first place kicking in the whole front +of the wagon." + +"Why double harness?" his wife inquired with a twinkle in her eyes. + +"Well," replied Farquhar, "perhaps I was anticipating things." + +He lounged out, and Alison went on with her breakfast with an +expressionless face, though Mrs. Farquhar noticed that she seemed +preoccupied after that. + +Three or four days later Thorne sat on the veranda of a little wooden +hotel after supper. A couple of men lounged near him smoking, and in +front of them a double row of unpicturesque frame-houses straggled +beside the trail that led straight as the crow flies into a waste of +prairie. + +"I've had a notion that Jake Winthrop would look in here," Thorne +remarked presently. + +One of his companions glanced round toward the house, but there did not +seem to be anybody within hearing just then. + +"He did," he confided. "Baxter once worked with him on the railroad, and +Jake crawled up to the back of his shack at night. Baxter gave him a +different hat and a jacket." + +"That's quite right," said the other man. "I figured the troopers would +know what he was wearing. I drove him quite a piece toward the railroad +early in the morning, and I've a notion he got off with a freight-train +that was taking a crowd of boys from down East to do something farther +on up the track. If he did, he must have jumped off quietly when they +stopped to let the Pacific express by. Next thing, two or three troopers +turned up, and I guess they heard about the train and wired up the line; +but they haven't got Winthrop yet. Corporal Slaney, who sent two of them +south, is in the settlement now. He's plumb sure that Jake's hanging +round here waiting to make a break for the U. S. boundary." + +"What had he on when he first struck you?" Thorne inquired. + +Baxter told him, and he laughed. + +"Then," he declared, "Slaney's trailing a man with an old black plug hat +and a brown duck jacket; the latter would certainly fix him, as blue's +much more common. Now if he saw that man riding south at night he'd +probably call off the troopers, and they'd work the trail right down to +the frontier. As they wouldn't get their man, they'd no doubt give the +thing up, deciding he'd already slipped across." + +"But how's he going to see him, when Jake's up the track?" + +"It strikes me there ought to be a black plug hat and a brown duck +jacket somewhere in this settlement," drawled Thorne. "I'll leave you to +find them." + +A light broke in upon his companions, and they laughed; but one of them +pointed out that Thorne might find himself unpleasantly situated if +Corporal Slaney overtook him. Thorne, however, smiled at this. + +"I've been driving easy the last few days, and it's hardly likely the +police have a horse that could run Volador down," he said. "Besides, if +he should press me too hard, I could lose my man somehow in the big +bluff on the mountain." + +They agreed with this, and proceeded to elaborate a workable scheme. +Suddenly Baxter turned to Thorne, as though a thought had just struck +him. + +"Why do you want to do it?" he asked. "Jake Winthrop wasn't a partner of +yours." + +Thorne broke into a whimsical smile. Now that he endeavored to analyze +his reasons calmly, he was conscious that none of them appeared +sufficient to warrant any action at all on his part. He was only certain +that he disliked Nevis, and that an anxious girl had not long ago looked +at him with an appeal in her eyes. + +"Since you ask me the question, I don't quite know," he confessed. + +Baxter laughed, and turned to his comrade. + +"He's a daisy, sure. Anyway, I'll look round for a hat and jacket like +the one I burned. You get him a saddle, Murray." + +Thorne left them presently and drove away toward a ravine some miles +from the settlement, and soon after he started Baxter saddled a horse +and rode out to an outlying farm. In the meanwhile Corporal Slaney +sauntered into the general room of the hotel, where Murray and several +others were then sitting smoking. There was a box of crackers, a +soda-water fountain, and a bottle of some highly colored syrup on one +table, but that was all the refreshment the place provided. + +Seating himself in a corner, the corporal sat unobtrusively listening to +the conversation, which Murray presently turned into a particular +channel for his especial benefit. It was a hot evening, and he sat +astride a bench, clad only in blue shirt and trousers, with a glass of +soda-water in front of him and a pipe in his hand. A big tin lamp burned +unsteadily above him, for all the doors and windows were open, and a hot +smell of dust and baked earth flowed into the room. The walls were +formed of badly rent boards, and there was as usual no covering on the +roughly laid floor. + +"As I've often said," he observed, "the police will never get another +man like old Sergeant Mackintyre. He ran his man down right away every +time." + +Slaney pricked his ears, and another of them broke in: + +"Mackintyre would have had Jake Winthrop jailed quite a while ago. The +boys aren't up to trailing now." + +"Seems to me they didn't want Winthrop much," drawled Murray. "They went +prowling round the homesteads, worrying folks who didn't know anything +about him, while he hit the trail for the frontier." + +A third man turned to Slaney. + +"Didn't you send two of the boys off Dakota way, Corporal?" + +"We did," answered Slaney shortly. "That's about all I'm open to tell +you." + +"Two troopers couldn't cover a great deal of prairie," remarked another. +"Guess he might have slipped through between them; that is, if he's not +hanging round here somewhere waiting for a chance to break away." + +Murray saw the gleam in the corporal's eyes, and he broke in again. + +"Now," he said, "when you think of it, that's quite likely, after all. +There's three or four big bluffs a man could hide in, and if he was +stuck for a horse he wouldn't care to try the open. If he lay by a while +he might fix it up with somebody to bring him one. Of course, he might +have got away up the track, but they'd wire on to watch the stations. +Didn't you do that, Corporal?" + +"We did," Slaney answered. + +Murray turned to the others. + +"Then, one would allow that Winthrop couldn't have cleared by train. If +he'd done that, they'd sure have got him." He paused, and, hearing a +beat of hoofs, added thoughtfully, "It looks mighty like he was still in +the neighborhood." + +Something in Slaney's expression suggested that he shared this opinion; +but the drumming of hoofs was growing louder, and a man strolled toward +the doorway. + +"It's Baxter," he announced. + +A few minutes later Baxter came in, flushed and dusty, and helped +himself at the soda-water fountain before he turned to the others with a +cracker in his hand. + +"It's powerful warm, boys, and I've had a ride for nothing," he informed +them. "Been over to Lorton's place and he wasn't in." + +"He's at Cricklewood's," said Murray. "If you'd waited a little you +would have met him on the trail." + +"I didn't, anyway," was Baxter's indifferent reply; "I only met a +stranger." + +Corporal Slaney had no reason to suspect that the brief conversation +which had followed Baxter's arrival had been carefully prearranged for +his benefit. + +"Where did you meet that stranger?" he asked. + +"About two miles east of the bluff." + +"Did you speak to him?" + +Baxter smiled. + +"I didn't; he didn't give me a chance. He was going south as fast as his +horse could lay hoofs to the ground." + +"What was he like? Did you see him clearly?" + +"Well," drawled Baxter, "it's only a half-moon, and the man wasn't very +close, but I think he'd a black plug hat. As most of us wear gray ones, +that kind of struck me. I've a notion that his overall jacket was +brown." + +He sat down as Slaney vanished through the open door. In a few moments +there was a clatter of hoofs, and the men crowding about the entrance +saw a mounted figure riding at a gallop down the unpaved street. Then +Murray looked at his comrade with a grin. + +"Must have had his horse saddled ready," he chuckled. "We've fixed the +thing." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AN ESCAPADE + + +The night was still and clear when Thorne rode out of the ravine, in the +hollow of which he had left his wagon and one hobbled horse. Reaching +the level, he drew bridle and sat still in his saddle for a minute or +two looking about him. The dew was settling heavily on the short, wiry +grass, which shone faintly in the elusive light, with patches of darker +color where his horse's hoofs had passed. Ahead, the prairie rolled +away, a vast dimly lighted plain, to the soft dusky grayness which +obscured the horizon, and he knew that somewhere beyond the dip of the +latter stood the mountain, a broken stretch of higher ground covered +with birches and willows, where if Corporal Slaney held on so long he +must endeavor to evade him. + +Volador seemed fit and fresh, for which he was thankful, for it was +nearly twenty miles to the mountain, and he was, after all, a little +uncertain about the speed of the policeman's horse, though the +appearance of the beast, which he had seen in the hotel stable, did not +suggest any great powers in this respect. It was, however, not the one +Slaney usually rode, which he fancied might, perhaps, be significant. At +length he leaned down and patted Volador's neck. + +"You'll have to go to-night, old boy," he said. + +The beast responded to his voice and a shake of the bridle, and they set +off southward at a trot. The moon already hung rather low in the +western sky, and he calculated that in another couple of hours it would +have dipped beneath the grassland's rim. By then he should reach the +mountain, and the darkness would be in his favor if he had not already +outdistanced his pursuer. It was in a singularly buoyant mood that he +rode quietly on, and it was reluctantly that he checked the horse which +once or twice attempted to gallop. After the last few months of prosaic +and unremitting toil, the prospect of a mad night ride, and the zest of +the hazard attached to it, proved strangely exhilarating to one of his +temperament. He admitted that, as Winthrop was not a particular friend +of his, there was no reason why he should have undertaken the thing at +all; but he remembered the appeal in Lucy Calvert's eyes, and that and +the lust of a frolic was sufficient for him. There are men of his kind +who, in their hearts, at least, never grow old. + +He had covered two or three miles when he saw a mounted man following +the trail to the settlement, and he rode on across the trail with a wave +of his hat. He did not feel inclined for conversation, and everything +had already been arranged. The mounted figure presently sank out of +sight again, and he pulled Volador up to a slow walk. He would give +Baxter half an hour to reach the settlement and put Slaney on his trail, +and there was no use in wasting his horse's strength in the meanwhile. + +It was nearly an hour later, and he was riding slowly, a lonely, moving +speck in the center of a great level waste whose boundaries steadily +receded before him, when a faint drumming of hoofs came out of the +silence. Then he pulled Volador up altogether, and sat still, +listening, for a while, until he felt sure that his pursuer, who was +apparently riding hard, would hear him. He did not wish the man to draw +too close, but it would, on the other hand, serve no purpose if he rode +south unless Slaney followed him. It seemed only reasonable to suppose +that once the police decided that Winthrop had got safely away to Dakota +they would abandon the search for him in western Canada. + +Then something in the sound, which was rapidly growing louder, struck +him as curious, and he listened more closely with a frown, for it was +now becoming evident that instead of one pursuer he had two to deal +with, which was certainly not what he had desired or expected. Touching +Volador with his heels, he let him go, and for five or six minutes they +fled south at a fast gallop with a thud of hoofs on sun-baked sod +ringing far behind them. Then he pulled the horse up with a struggle, +and listened again. He was at length certain that the police had heard +him and were following as fast as possible. There was no cover until he +reached the mountain; nothing but an open wilderness, unbroken by even a +ravine or a clump of willows, and he must ride. + +Once more he let Volador go, and the cool night air streamed past him, +whipping his hot face and bringing the blood to it, while long billowy +rises came back to him, looking in the uncertain moonlight like the vast +undulations of a glassy sea underrun by the swell of a distant gale. +Each time he swung over the gradual crest of one, a rhythmic staccato +drumming became sharply audible, and sank again as he dipped into the +great grassy hollows. Volador seemed fresh still, which was consoling, +for there was no doubt that the sound of the pursuit was as clear as it +had been. This was a fresh surprise. + +Half an hour passed, and they swung out upon a wide, high level, where +for the first time he twisted in his saddle and looked behind him. He +could see, rather more plainly than he cared about, two dim figures, +spread out well apart on the verge of the plateau, and it was evident +that they were not dropping behind. It would, he recognized, lead to +unpleasant complications if they overtook him. He raised a quirt he had +borrowed, but, reflecting, he let his arm drop again. After all, it +might be desirable to let Volador keep a little in hand. Then he glanced +to the westward, and was pleased to see that the moon was rapidly +nearing the rim of the plain. It would be dark when he reached the +mountain. + +Volador was flagging a little when at length they swept up the slope of +another rise. On crossing the top of this Thorne was conscious of a +difference in the drumming of hoofs behind. One of the pursuers was +clearly falling back, which was satisfactory, though he fancied that the +other man was still holding his own. Then he saw away in front of him a +blurred mass with an uneven crest which cut dimly black against the sky. +It stretched broad across his course, and he struck Volador with the +quirt, for he recognized it as the mountain, and knew that he must ride +in earnest now. A mounted man would make a good deal of noise descending +the ravines which seamed it and smashing through the undergrowth beneath +the birches, and it was desirable that he should reach their shelter +well ahead of the troopers. + +The horse responded gallantly, but the beat of hoofs which he longed to +get away from grew no fainter, and when five minutes had flown by he +plied the quirt again. He was very hot, and somewhat anxious, but the +moon was now near the verge of the prairie. It was large and red, and +already the light was failing, though a long black shadow still fled +beside him across the dewy grass. + +At last he fancied he was drawing ahead, and a mad fit came upon him as +they went flying down a rugged and broken slope to a water-course, while +the mountain rose higher and blacker ahead. Stones clattered and rattled +under them, clouds of light soil flew up, and then there was a great +splashing as the horse plunged through the creek. After that the pace +grew slower as they faced the ascent; and he swung low in the saddle +when they sped in among the birches. A branch struck him in the face and +swept his hat away, but it had done its work and he decided that he was +better rid of it. + +A semblance of a trail that dipped into hollows and swung over rises led +through the mountain, though as a rule any one riding south skirted +this. Thorne had already decided that he must leave it somewhere as +quietly as possible and let Corporal Slaney go by. He could not hear the +trooper now, and this was reassuring, for he would have to stop soon and +he did not wish his pursuer to notice that the noise in front of him had +suddenly ceased. + +Two or three minutes later, however, the sound he was beginning to dread +once more reached him, breaking in upon the crackle of dry sticks under +his horse's hoofs and the crash he made as he now and then blundered +into a brake or thicket. It was very dark in the bluff; he could +scarcely see the spectral trunks of the flitting trees, and to pick the +way or avoid the obstacles around which the trail here and there twisted +was out of the question. He faced the hazards as they came and rode +savagely; but the thud of pursuing hoofs and the smashing and crackling +which mingled with it sounded very close when he reached the brink of a +ravine which he understood it was almost impossible to descend on +horseback. To dismount would, however, as he realized, entail his +capture; and setting his lips tight he drove the failing horse at the +almost precipitous gully. They plunged down with soil and stones sliding +and rattling after them, splashed into a creek, and were half-way up the +opposite side when a second clatter of falling stones was followed by a +heavy downward rush of loosened soil. Then there was a dull thud and +afterward a curiously impressive silence. + +Thorne pulled up his badly blown horse and, twisting in his saddle, +looked back across the ravine. He could see nothing but a shadowy mass +of trees which stood out dimly against a strip of soft blue sky. He +could feel his heart beating, and the deep silence troubled him. Indeed, +it was with difficulty that he refrained from shouting to the fallen +man, but he reflected that as he had now and then spoken to Slaney, the +latter would probably recognize his voice. Then he heard the man get up, +and the sounds which followed indicated that he was urging his horse to +rise. Thorne once more tapped Volador with his quirt. + +A hoarse cry rang after him, commanding him to stop, but this was on the +whole a consolation, for it did not seem likely that Slaney was badly +hurt if he could shout, and Thorne rode on with a laugh. He scarcely +supposed the policeman's horse would be fit for much after a heavy fall, +but there was another trooper somewhere behind who might turn up at any +moment. He purposely rode through a brake or two in order that the +crackle of undergrowth might make it clear that he was going on, and +then, when some time had passed and there was no sign of any pursuit, he +turned sharply off the trail and headed into the bush. It soon became +necessary to dismount and lead his horse, and finally he looped the +bridle round a branch and sat down wearily. + +He fancied that half an hour had passed when he heard an increasing +sound which suggested that two mounted men were riding cautiously along +the trail some distance away. He could hear an occasional sharp snapping +of rotten branches and the crash of trodden undergrowth as well as the +beat of hoofs. Listening carefully, he decided that the riders were +pushing straight on, and he was sure of it later, when the sound began +to die away. He sat still, however, for almost another hour, and then +succeeded with some difficulty in finding the trail. Following it back +until it led him out of the mountain, he stripped off his duck jacket +and flung it where anybody who passed that way could not well help +seeing it, and then he took out a soft gray hat he had carried rolled up +in his belt. Clad in blue shirt and trousers, he rode on slowly into the +prairie. The dawn found him some miles from the mountain and at least as +far from any trail, in the open waste. Reaching a ravine, he lay down at +the bottom of it beside a creek and ate the breakfast he had brought +with him, while Volador cropped the grass. Then he went quietly to +sleep. + +It was midday when he awakened, and falling dusk when he eventually +reached the ravine near the settlement, where he had left his wagon and +the other horse. There was nothing to suggest that anybody had visited +the place in his absence, and after making an excellent supper he lay +down again inside the vehicle with a sigh of content. Everything had +gone satisfactorily, and it was most unlikely that Winthrop would be +further troubled by the police. He did not know much about the +extradition laws, but it was generally believed that when a man once got +across the frontier the troopers contented themselves with notifying the +authorities and nothing further was heard of the matter, unless the +fugitive were guilty of some very serious offense. A good deal of the +boundary then ran through an empty wilderness, and it was difficult to +trace any one who managed to reach the settlements on its southern side. +Indeed, it was seldom that a determined attempt was made. + +Early on the following morning Thorne set out for his holding, and on +the day after he got there he set about cutting prairie hay. As a rule, +nobody sows artificial grasses when taking up new land, but as some +fodder for the teams is required it is generally cut in a dried-up sloo +where the water gathers in the thaw. In such places the grass grows +tall, and as it rapidly ripens and whitens in the sun all the farmer +need do is to cut it and carry it home. + +Thorne was stripped to shirt and trousers, besides being grimed all over +with dust, when looking around for a moment he saw Mrs. Farquhar and +Alison in a wagon not far away. A black cloud of flies hovered about his +head and followed his plodding horses, while a thick haze of dust rose +from the grass that went down before the clanging mower. He stopped, +however, and looked around with a tranquil smile when Mrs. Farquhar +pulled up her team. + +"You seem astonished to see me," he said. + +Mrs. Farquhar turned and pointed to the long rows of fallen grass. + +"I'm certainly astonished to see all that hay down." + +"I wonder," quizzed Thorne, "if you intended that to be complimentary. +You see, I rather cling to the idea that I can do as much as other +people when I'm forced to it." + +"You must have had the team out at sunup and have made the most of every +minute since," laughed Mrs. Farquhar. + +"It looks like it, unless I had them out the previous evening." + +"You hadn't," declared Alison, and her companion broke in again. + +"She is quite right. You were not here yesterday. It was partly to +satisfy her curiosity that Harry drove round to see." + +Thorne fancied that Alison was not exactly pleased with this statement, +but she made no attempt to contradict it. + +"What strikes me most," she said, "is the fact that you look as if you +had never been away." + +"That," returned Thorne, "is the impression I wished to give people. Now +that I've had my frolic, I want to forget it. It's a natural desire. On +the whole, I'm sorry you took the trouble to ascertain that I've just +come back." + +"The question is, what have you been doing while you were absent?" asked +Mrs. Farquhar severely. + +"Selling things most of the time. It's another example of what you can +do if you try. I'd given up half a case of tarnished mirrors as quite +unsalable, and somehow or other I got rid of every one of them." + +"Anything else?" + +"Well," replied Thorne with a thoughtful air, "I had a rather pleasant +ride. In fact, I feel so braced up by the whole trip that I expect I +shall be able to go on steadily for another few months, at least." + +"And then?" Alison inquired. + +Thorne looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes. + +"Oh," he said, "if any of my friends make too persistent attempts to +reform me it's quite possible I shall go off on the trail again." + +"I don't think you need anticipate any further trouble of that kind," +Alison assured him. + +Thorne turned to Mrs. Farquhar. + +"May I drive over to supper to-morrow evening? I'd like a talk with +Harry--among other things." + +"Of course," responded Mrs. Farquhar. "As a matter of fact, though I +don't suppose it would have much result, I should like a talk with you. +In the meanwhile we'll get on. It wouldn't be considerate to keep you +back when you're seized by a fit of sensible activity." + +She drove away with the clang of the mower following her and a few +minutes later she smiled at Alison. + +"He's very far from perfect, and that's probably why he has so many +friends," she observed. "I should very much like to hear an unvarnished +account of all his doings since he went away." + +Alison, though she would not confess it, was sensible of a similar +curiosity. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HUNTER MAKES AN ENEMY + + +The committee of the new creamery scheme were sitting in a room of the +Graham's Bluff Hotel one evening after supper when Nevis laid his plan +for the financing of the project before them. He had come there at their +invitation for that purpose, and when he finished speaking they looked +at one another with uncertainty in their faces. There were six of them, +including Hunter, the chairman; prairie farmers who had been chosen by +their neighbors to decide on a means of raising the necessary capital. +All of them owned a few head of stock, for they were beginning to raise +cattle as well as wheat in that district, and one or two more fortunate +than their companions had an odd thousand dollars to their credit at the +bank, which was a somewhat unusual thing in the case of men of their +calling. The venture they contemplated would not have been justified +now, for the Government has lately erected creameries where there is a +reasonable demand for them. In a few moments Nevis, a little astonished +at his companions' silence, spoke again. + +"You have heard my views, gentlemen," he said. "I'm prepared to find you +half the money on the terms laid down. It remains for you to decide +whether you will bring my scheme before the next meeting--in which case +it will, no doubt, be adopted." + +Still nobody said anything and he leaned on the back of a chair with a +strip of paper in one hand, watching them out of keen, dark eyes. As +usual, he was almost too neatly dressed in light, tight-fitting clothes, +and this and his white, soft-skinned hands emphasized the contrast +between him and his audience. Among the latter were one or two men of +liberal education, but their faces, like those of the others, were +darkened by exposure to stinging frosts and scorching sun and their +hands were hard and brown. They looked what they were, men who lived +very plainly and spent their days in unremitting toil. Two, indeed, wore +old, soil-stained jackets over their coarse blue shirts, and there was +no attempt at elegance in the attire of the others. + +Hunter, whose appearance was wholly inconspicuous, sat at the head of +the table with a quiet face, waiting for somebody to speak, though the +reticence of his companions did not astonish him. Nevis was a power in +that district, and Hunter had grounds for believing that three of those +present were in his debt. This made it reasonably evident that they +would not care to offend a man who was generally understood to be an +exacting creditor. Hunter had their case in his mind when at length he +spoke. + +"Mr. Nevis's scheme seems perfectly clear, on the face of it, and we +have now to make up our minds whether we'll support it or not. If none +of you have any questions to put we'll ask him to excuse us for a few +minutes while we consider the matter and vote on it. I would suggest a +ballot--to be decided by a simple majority." + +A gleam which Hunter noticed crept into Nevis's eyes and hinted that the +suggestion did not meet with his approval. It is possible he had +expected that some of the men would not care to vote against him +openly. + +"That," said one briefly, "strikes me as the squarest way; I'll second +the proposition." + +"Well," assented Nevis, "I won't embarrass you if you want to talk it +over. You can send for me when you want me. I'll go down for a smoke." + +There was less reserve when he withdrew, and they discussed his plan +guardedly without arriving at any decision until Hunter laid six little +strips of paper and a pencil on the table. + +"We'll vote on the scheme--the words for or against will be sufficient +without your names," he said. + +Each wrote on a scrap of paper and flung it into a hat in turn, but two +of them, it was noticeable, hesitated for a moment or so. Then Hunter +shook out the papers and counted them. + +"It's even--three for and three against," he announced. "Since that's +the case I'll exercise my chairman's option. It's against." + +There was satisfaction in some of the faces and in the others +uncertainty, which, however, scarcely suggested much regret. Then they +decided on Hunter's recommendation to raise what capital they could +among their friends, even if they had to content themselves with a +smaller outlay. Nevis, who was called in, heard the result with an easy +indifference. + +"Well," he said, "I can't complain. There was a risk in the thing, +anyway, and I guess you know what you want best." + +He went out again, and soon afterward the meeting broke up; but Hunter, +who remained after the others had gone, was not astonished when Nevis +presently strolled into the room. He sat down opposite Hunter and +lighted a cigar. + +"I suppose I have you to thank for this," he began. + +"You mean the choosing of the alternative scheme? How did you find out +that you owed it to me?" + +It was a difficult question, put with a disconcerting quietness. As it +happened, none of the committee had informed Nevis that the matter had +been decided by the chairman's vote, and he was naturally reluctant to +admit that three of them were under his influence. + +"I didn't find out," he answered. "I assumed it." + +"On what grounds?" + +This was still more troublesome to parry, as it appeared quite possible +to Nevis that if he furnished Hunter with a hint of the truth the latter +would find means of getting rid of men who might under pressure be +tempted to betray the confidence of their comrades. He was beginning to +realize that the plain, brown-faced farmer with the unwavering eyes was +a match for him, which was a fact he had not suspected hitherto, though +he had been acquainted with him for some time. Then Hunter smiled +significantly. + +"We'll let it pass," he said. "I don't mind admitting that you were +correct in your surmise. The thing turned upon my vote and I gave it +against your scheme. What follows?" + +It was not a conciliatory answer, but it at least furnished Nevis with +the lead he desired. + +"Your decision isn't quite final yet," he declared. "You have to report +it to a general meeting, and a good deal will depend on whether you +merely lay your views before those present or urge them upon them. Now, +as my proposition isn't an unreasonable one, I'll ask you right out +what your objections to it are?" + +"I haven't any--to the scheme. As you say, it's reasonable, and it would +save our raising a good deal of money." + +Nevis was not particularly sensitive, but something in his companion's +manner brought the blood to his cheek. + +"Then you object to me--personally. Will you explain why?" + +"Since you insist," replied Hunter. "To begin with, we propose to start +the creamery for the benefit of the stock-raising farmers in this +district, and several things lead me to believe that if you once get +your grip on the management it will in process of time be run for your +benefit exclusively. That is one reason I voted against your scheme, and +I'm rather glad the decision rested with me, because"--he paused a +moment--"I, at least, don't owe you any money." + +Nevis with difficulty repressed a start at this. If Hunter was not in +his debt his wife undoubtedly was, and something might be made of the +fact by and by. In the meanwhile he was keenly anxious to secure an +interest in the creamery. Once he could manage it, he apprehended no +insuperable difficulty in obtaining control; but he could not get the +necessary footing in the face of Hunter's opposition. + +"It strikes me we're only working around the point and shifting ground," +he said. "What makes you believe I don't mean to act straight?" + +"What happened in Langton's and Winthrop's case?" + +Nevis sat silent a moment or two. There was a vein of vindictiveness in +him, but he was avaricious first of all, and he could generally keep his +resentment in the background when it was a question of money. + +"Are you a friend of either of them?" he asked. + +"Not exactly; but I took a certain interest in Winthrop--I liked the +man. In fact, I helped him out of a tight place once or twice, and might +have done it again, only that I realized the one result would be to put +a few more dollars into your pocket. That"--and Hunter smiled--"didn't +seem worth while." + +"It was a straight deal; I lent him the money at the usual interest. He +couldn't have got it cheaper from anybody else." + +Hunter looked at him in a curious manner and Nevis wondered somewhat +uneasily how much this farmer knew. He had been correct as far as he had +gone, but he had, as he recognized, left one opening for attack when he +had foreclosed on Winthrop's stock and homestead. There are exemption +laws in parts of Canada which to some extent protect the small farmer's +possessions from seizure for debt unless he has actually mortgaged them. +Winthrop had done this, but the mortgage was not a heavy one, and Nevis +had afterward lent him further money, with the deliberate intention of +breaking him. When the value of the possessions pledged greatly exceeds +what has been advanced on them, which is generally the case, it is now +and then profitable to foreclose, even though any excess above the loan +realized at the sale must ostensibly be handed to the borrower. There, +are, however, means of preventing him from getting very much of it, and +though the process is sometimes risky this did not count for much with +Nevis. + +"Well," said Hunter quietly, "I'm not sure that what you tell me has any +bearing on the matter." + +This might mean anything or nothing, and Nevis, determining to force an +issue, leaned forward confidentially. + +"Let's face the point," he replied. "I want a share in this creamery--I +can make it pay. There's only you who really counts against me. I may as +well own it. Now, can't we come to terms somehow? I merely want you to +abandon your opposition, and you would have no difficulty in preventing +my doing anything that appeared against the stockholders' interests." + +"I've already made up my mind that it would be safer to keep you out of +it." + +"That's your last word?" + +"Yes. I don't mean to be offensive. It's a matter of business." + +His companion took up his hat. He had failed, as indeed he had half +expected to do, but he bade Hunter good-evening tranquilly and went out +with strong resentment in his heart. Henceforward he meant to adopt an +aggressive policy, and the farmer who had thwarted him must stand upon +his guard. This decision, however, was largely prompted by business +reasons, for Nevis had now no doubt that Hunter, who was looked up to as +a leader by his neighbors, would use his influence against him in other +matters besides the creamery scheme unless something could be done to +embarrass or discredit him. The farmer, he thought, was open to attack +in two ways--through his wife and through the defaulting debtor he had +befriended. + +When Hunter walked out of the hotel a few minutes afterward he also was +thinking of Winthrop. He found Thorne harnessing his team. + +"Did Winthrop ever show you his mortgage deed or any other papers +relating to his deal with Nevis?" he asked. + +"No," answered Thorne; "I was only in his place three or four times. Why +do you ask?" + +"There's a point in connection with it that occurs to me; but I dare say +he took them with him." + +Hunter paused and flashed a quick glance at his companion. + +"Do you know where he is?" + +"I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't want to, though it's possible +that I could find out. The trouble is that if I made inquiries it might +set other people--Nevis, for instance--on his trail." + +"Yes," assented Hunter, "there's a good deal in that. On the whole, it +might be wiser if you kept carefully clear of the thing, particularly if +Corporal Slaney feels inclined to move any further in the matter. Well, +as I've a long drive before me I must be getting on." + +He turned away toward the stables and Thorne grinned cheerfully. He had +a respect for the astuteness of this quiet, steady-eyed farmer, and he +was disposed to fancy that Nevis would share it before the struggle +which he forecasted was over. What was more, he was quite ready to act +in any way as Hunter's ally, and he believed that between them they +could give the plotter something to think about. + +It was getting dark when Hunter reached home and found his wife waiting +for him in the general living room. She was evidently a little out of +temper. + +"You are very late," she said. "I suppose you have been to one of those +creamery meetings again?" + +Hunter sat down where the lamplight fell upon his face, and there was a +trace of weariness in it. + +"Yes," he answered; "I had to go. On the whole, I'm glad I did." + +"A crisis of some kind? You haven't been increasing your interest in the +scheme?" + +"No," replied Hunter with a smile; "not in money, anyway. You will, no +doubt, be pleased to hear it." + +"I am," retorted Florence. "If you had been ready to give those people +anything they asked for it wouldn't have been flattering. You're not +remarkably generous where I'm concerned." + +Hunter made a gesture of protest. + +"I'm not giving them anything at all. Once we make it a success I can +get back the money I'm putting into the undertaking at any time; and if +I don't I expect every bit of it to earn me something." + +He looked around at her directly, for he knew where the grievance lay. + +"That's a very different matter from handing you a big check for your +expenses in Toronto or Montreal." + +"Oh, yes," pouted Florence; "the latter would give me pleasure." + +She paused and there was a sudden change in her expression. + +"Elcot," she added, "can't you realize that now and then you can lay out +money without getting anything back for it, and yet find that it pays +you well?" + +The man looked at her hesitatingly. He knew what this question meant and +he was half disposed to yield. Living simply and toiling hard, he had +treated her generously in comparison with his means, which, after all, +were not large; but he remembered that he had yielded rather often of +late and that each concession had merely led to a fresh demand. + +"There's a limit, Flo," he said. "Still, if three hundred dollars will +meet the case I might stretch a point. I suppose you are determined on +that visit to Toronto?" + +The woman knew that any further attempt to win him round would fail, +and, this being so, it seemed a pity to waste energy on him. The three +hundred dollars would by no means suffice for the purpose. This in +itself was unpleasant, but in the fact that he could not be induced to +make what appeared to be a small sacrifice for her pleasure there lay an +extra sting. It was, perhaps, a pity that she had of late given him +small cause for suspecting anything of the kind. + +"It would be better than nothing," she said coldly, and then leaned back +in her chair in a sudden fit of impatience with him and the whole +situation. + +"I sometimes wonder how I stand with you!" she exclaimed. + +"First," declared the man, and he spoke the simple truth; but +unfortunately he was not wise enough to content himself with the brief +assurance. "Still," he added, "I have other duties." + +"To Maverick Thorne, and Winthrop, and everybody in the district +generally!" + +"Well," replied Hunter, with the hint of weariness creeping back into +his expression, "I suppose that more or less fits the case. You have all +along been first with me, and I think I have done what I could to please +you--and done it willingly. Still, there are these others--I owe them +something. When I came here, a poor man, they held out their hands to +me; one lent me a team, another, when I had no mower, cut and carried in +my hay, and some came over night after night to build my log barn. I +think I should have gone under if it hadn't been for them." He looked up +at his wife with resolute eyes. "Now that I can pay them back without, +in all probability, its costing me a dollar I'm at least going to try." + +Florence's lips set scornfully. She had no liking for the surrounding +farmers. They were, in her estimation, mere unlettered toilers--simple, +unimaginative, brown-faced men who thought about nothing but the seasons +and the price of wheat. What was, perhaps, as much to the purpose, she +had a suspicion that most of them were not greatly impressed in her +favor. Now her husband was, it seemed, anxious to waste his means for +their benefit. + +"Elcot," she asked abruptly, "has it never occurred to you that you +could make more of your life than you are doing here?" + +Hunter faced the question humorously. + +"It would be astonishing if it hadn't, since you have suggested it more +than once, but the answer is in the negative. This place is paying +pretty well, and my means would certainly not keep us in Winnipeg, +Toronto or Montreal; anyway, not in the comfort with which, after all, +you have been surrounded. Of course, I might, for instance, try to run a +store, but it doesn't strike me that this would be of much benefit to +you. Would the kind of people you like welcome you as readily if your +husband were retailing hats or groceries in the neighborhood?" + +Florence knew that it was most improbable, though she would not confess +it. Instead, she decided to see if it were possible to irritate him. + +"After all," she retorted, "there is no great difference between a +storekeeper and a farmer. All my city friends know what you are, and I +can find no fault with the way they treat me." + +Hunter laughed as he glanced down at his hard brown hands and dusty +attire. + +"The point is that in your case the farmer husband does not put in an +appearance. It might be different if he did." + +Florence looked at him in silence for a moment or two. Though he had +been to the creamery meeting he was very plainly dressed; his bronzed +face and battered nails told their own tale of arduous toil in the open, +and there was no doubt that he looked a prairie farmer. Yet he was, as +she realized now and then, well favored in a way; a man who might have +made his mark in a different station, widely read and quietly forceful. +Indeed, his inflexibility on certain points, though it sometimes angered +her, compelled her deference. + +"Oh," she cried at length, "it doesn't cost you much self-denial to stay +behind. It's easy for you to be content. You like this life." + +"Yes," returned Hunter quietly; "I'm thankful that I do. It's what I was +made for. However, I don't wish to force too much of it on you, and so +I'll give you a check for the three hundred dollars." + +He crossed the room and, opening a desk, sat down at it for a minute or +two. Then he came back and laid a strip of paper on the table in front +of Florence. + +"After all," she conceded, "as I was away a good deal of last winter, +it's rather liberal, Elcot." + +Hunter, without answering her, went quietly out. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +NEVIS PICKS UP A CLUE + + +A week had slipped by since the meeting of the creamery committee and it +was about the middle of the afternoon when Nevis lay, cigar in hand, in +the shadow of a straggling bluff. It was pleasantly cool there and +scorching sunshine beat down upon the prairie, across which he had +plodded during the last half hour, and he had still some miles to go +before he could reach the farm at which he expected to borrow a team. He +was not fond of walking, but the man who had driven him out from the +settlement, being in haste to reach Graham's Bluff, had set him down +some distance from the homestead he desired to visit. Nevis found it +advisable to look his clients up every now and then and see how they +were getting on. This enabled him to sell to those who were not too +deeply in his debt implements and stores at top prices, and to put +judicious pressure upon the ones whose payments had fallen behind. + +He was, however, thinking of Hunter as he lay full length among the +grass with a frown on his face. It seemed desirable to let the man who +had deprived him of what looked like a promising opportunity for lining +his pockets feel that it would be wiser to refrain from interfering with +his affairs in future, and he fancied that if Winthrop, whom Hunter had +confessed to befriending, should be brought to trial it would convey a +useful hint. This course was also advisable for other reasons. It must +be admitted that the bondholder does not always come out on top, +especially in bad seasons, and Nevis had already decided that the arrest +of Winthrop would serve as a warning to any of his neighbors who might +feel tempted to evade their liabilities in a similar fashion. He was +still on the absconder's trail, though as yet it had not led him very +far. + +By and by he heard a soft beat of hoofs and a rattle of wheels, and +looking up was pleased to see Mrs. Hunter drive around a corner of the +bluff. He had of late been conscious of a growing delight in her +company, and, what was almost as much to the purpose, he had partly +thought out a plan of attacking her husband through her. He had, +however, too much tact to force himself on her, and he lay still, +apparently unobservant of her approach until she pulled up the horse. + +"What are you doing here?" she asked. + +"Resting," replied Nevis, rising to his feet. "I'm going across to +Jordan's place. Walking's no doubt healthy, but I'm afraid I'm not fond +of it." + +He waited to see whether she would take the hint, which he had made as +plain as possible, and as he did so a gleam crept into his eyes. +Florence had an eye for color and an artistic taste in dress, and she +was attired then in filmy draperies of a faint, shimmering green--the +color of clear sea-water rippling over sand. They suggested the fine +contour of her form and emphasized the shifting tones of burnished +copper in her hair and the clearness of her eyes. What she saw in his +expression did not appear, but she smiled at him. + +"Then if you will get in I can drive you part of the way," she said +graciously. + +Nevis did not wait for a second invitation and she turned to him when he +had taken his place at her side. + +"You haven't come back to call on us." + +"No," responded Nevis; "I saw your husband at one of the creamery +meetings and I'm sorry to own there were one or two matters upon which +we couldn't agree." + +He watched her to see how she would receive this, but she laughed. + +"I'm not responsible for all Elcot's opinions, and I must do him the +justice to say that he seldom attempts to force them on me. For all +that, I shouldn't wonder if he were right." + +Nevis was far too astute to disparage the man he did not like openly to +his wife, so he made a sign of assent. + +"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "it's possible that he was. In one sense, +he generally is. Elcot's what one might call altruistic; he has a finer +perception of ethical right than the rest of us, and one could fancy it +occasionally makes difficulties for him. Indeed, it's bound to when he +rubs against ordinary mortals who're content to look out for what's +going to benefit them." + +His companion recognized the truth of this, and, as he had expected, it +irritated her. Deep down in her nature there was a hidden respect for +the quiet, resolute man who, though he seldom proclaimed them, lived in +what she now and then considered too strict compliance with his +principles. He recognized his duty toward her and had discharged it, in +most respects, with a conscientious thoroughness; but that accomplished, +he had also recognized his duty to others, and had unwaveringly insisted +on fulfilling this in turn. There, as Nevis had cunningly suggested, lay +the grievance. It would have been more pleasant for her, and--she +confessed this--in many little ways also for him, had she stood alone +in his eyes, instead of merely standing first. There was a marked and +often inconvenient distinction between the two things. Now and then his +point of view appealed to her, but more often her pride received a jar +and she thought of him bitterly when he befriended his neighbors, as she +tried to convince herself, at her expense. She could, she felt, have +loved the man, and perhaps have made an unconditional surrender to him, +but he must first be hers altogether and think of nobody else. + +Then Nevis interrupted her thoughts with a veiled purpose, and once more +touched the tender spot. + +"Most of the boys think a good deal of Elcot, and I guess it's natural. +He has given quite a few of them a lift now and then. There's Winthrop +and Thorne, for instance--he guaranteed Maverick for a thousand dollars, +somebody told me--and now he's putting a good deal more into this +creamery scheme. From experience of their habits, I should say he must +find that kind of thing expensive now and then. Perhaps, if one might +suggest it, that is why he lives as plainly as he does. In a way, it's +rather fine of him, though it wouldn't appeal to me." + +There was no doubt that any self-denial on her husband's part in which +she might be compelled to share did not appeal to Florence either, but +she noticed the tact with which Nevis had refrained from supporting his +statement by a reference to his loan or the unpaid bills. + +"Well," she declared, "I, at least, believe in getting the most one can +out of life." + +"That," said Nevis, "is my own idea, and it leads up to the question why +you haven't gone away yet? Have your husband's benefactions made it +impossible?" + +He had at last attained his object. Florence had longed for the visit, +and had resented the fact that Elcot had not been willing to indulge her +in it at any cost. He had certainly given her a check, but, while +Toronto is a cheaper place than Montreal, three hundred dollars will not +go very far in any Canadian city, at least when one is satisfied with +only the best that is obtainable. + +"They have certainly helped," she replied curtly. + +Nevis recognized that she would not have admitted this had she not been +disposed to treat him on a confidential footing, and it was clear that +the indignation she had displayed in her answer was directed against her +husband and had not been occasioned by his presumption. + +"Then," he suggested, "if you really wish to go, there's a way in which +it could be managed; though it's an act of self-sacrifice on my part to +further such an object." + +Florence swallowed the last suggestion and looked at him sharply. + +"You mean?" + +"I could find you the money--on the same terms as the last." He added +the explanation hastily lest her pride should take alarm. + +There was silence for a moment, and during it Florence's resentment +against her husband grew stronger. She was anxious for the visit, but +had he been poor she would have given it up more or less willingly. +That, however, was not the case, for, as her companion had cunningly +hinted, he was at least rich enough to bestow his favors on men like +Winthrop, the absconder, and the pedler Thorne. Now she blamed him for +driving her into borrowing from the man at her side. + +"I should be glad to have it on those conditions," she said at length. + +She pulled up the horse presently while Nevis took out a fountain-pen +and his pocketbook, and when she drove on again she held a check of his +in her hand. Twenty minutes later he looked around at her as the horse +plodded more slowly up a slight rise. + +"I think I'll get out here," he said. "It's only half a mile to Jordan's +place; you can see the house from the top." + +There was not a great deal in the words, but Florence grasped their +hidden significance. They conveyed a delicate suggestion that it might +not be desirable for her to be seen in his company, and she was quite +aware that to fall in with it would imply that there was already +something in their relations that must be kept concealed from their +neighbors' gaze. For a moment she felt inclined to insist on driving him +up to the homestead door, and then the feel of his check in her hand +restrained her. She stopped the horse and smiled when he got down. + +"Thank you again," she said. + +"That's a little superfluous," returned the man. "It's a business deal; +but if you can spare a few minutes when you are in Toronto you might +manage to write a line. After all, I can, perhaps, ask that much." + +"I won't promise," Florence laughed. "Still, it's possible that I may +make the effort." + +She drove away and Nevis climbed the rise feeling very well satisfied. +He had got a firmer hold on Hunter now and he meant to break ground for +the next attack by picking up Winthrop's trail. In this also, fortune +favored him, for when he drew up his hired rig outside Farquhar's house +on the following evening he found that both he and his wife were out. +Alison was in, however, and when she said that they would probably reach +home shortly he got down and sat a while talking with her on the stoop, +which in the summer frequently serves the purpose of a drawing-room at a +prairie homestead. Alison had met him once or twice before and was +sensible of a slight dislike toward the man, though she could not deny +that he was an amusing companion. By and by a girl drove along the trail +two or three hundred yards away in a wagon, and he gazed rather hard at +her. + +"She recognized you, didn't she?" he questioned. "I can't quite fix +her." + +"Lucy Calvert," Alison informed him. + +"It's rather curious that I haven't seen her before, as I should +certainly have remembered it, though I had once or twice a deal with her +father." + +Alison was conscious of a slight irritation, which, indeed, any +reference to the girl in question usually aroused in her. + +"Then," she said, "if Lucy has any say in the matter you are scarcely +likely to do any further business with the family." + +Nevis raised his eyebrows. + +"I wonder what you mean?" + +"Only that it's generally supposed Miss Calvert was to have married +Winthrop. Whether she still intends to do so is more than I know." + +She was puzzled by the sudden intentness of the man's face and for no +particular cause half regretted the speech. + +"It's the first time I've heard of it," he said thoughtfully. Then he +smiled. "Anyway, she can't be very wise if she's anxious to marry him." + +Alison, who had watched him closely, fancied that his smile was meant to +cover his interest in the information she had given him. She also +noticed how quickly he changed the subject, and they talked about other +matters until at last, as Farquhar did not make his appearance, he stood +up. + +"I'll look in another time," he told her. "It's getting late, and I'm +due at the bluff to-night." + +Soon after he had driven away Farquhar turned up with his wife and +Thorne, and Alison noticed the frown on the latter's face when she +informed Mrs. Farquhar of Nevis's visit. + +"I'm astonished that you have him here at all," he broke out. + +"Why shouldn't I?" his hostess asked. + +"That question," returned Thorne, "strikes me as a little superfluous, +considering that he's an utterly unscrupulous, scoundrelly vampire. +Still, I dare say you can forgive him a good deal for the sake of his +appearance." + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed. + +"The last, I suppose, is after all his chief offense." + +Alison saw that this shot had reached its mark by the way Thorne drew +down his brows. The man, as she had heard, had a quick temper, but she +was not displeased that he should obviously resent the fact that Nevis +had spent half an hour in her company. Then, remembering that Winthrop +was a friend of Thorne's, she felt a little guilty, and when later on +they all sauntered out across the prairie, she drew him aside. + +"There's something I think I should mention," she said. "I told Nevis +that Miss Calvert was to have married Winthrop. He seemed unusually +interested." + +Thorne started and looked hard at her. + +"What on earth made you do that?" he asked sharply. "Did he lead up to +it?" + +"No," replied Alison with some reluctance, "I don't think he did. So far +as I can remember, I volunteered the information." + +There was no doubt about the man's displeasure. + +"He certainly would be interested, and I'm very much afraid you have +made trouble. But you haven't told me why you did it." + +"I spoke on the spur of the moment--without thinking." + +"Without thinking clearly," Thorne corrected. "For all that, it's +possible you had a kind of subconscious motive. You can't deny that you +are prejudiced against Winthrop." + +Alison was sensible of a certain relief, and she smiled at him. The man +had shown some insight, but he had not gone quite far enough in his +surmises, for it was not Winthrop but Lucy Calvert against whom she was +prejudiced. + +"What have I done?" she asked. "If it's any harm, I'm sorry." + +Her companion's face relaxed. He never cherished his anger long. + +"Well," he explained, "I'm afraid you have put Nevis on Winthrop's +trail, though the thing's not certain. After all, it's possible that +there's another reason for his interest." + +"And that is?" + +"He's a man with a weakness for pretty faces, which will probably get +him into trouble by and by, though he's generally supposed to be a +clever--philanderer. It's not quite the thing to abuse any one you +don't like when he's absent, but in spite of that I can't help saying +that he's absolutely unprincipled and should be avoided by every +self-respecting woman." + +Again Alison smiled. He had spoken strongly, though he had carefully +picked his words, and she had little difficulty in following the +workings of his mind, which on the whole were amusing. He had meant the +speech as a warning to her. + +"I suppose Miss Calvert could be called good-looking?" she suggested. + +"That," answered Thorne, with a trace of sharpness, "is not quite the +point. She's a girl who has a good deal to contend with and is making a +very plucky fight. Whether she's wise in being as fond of Winthrop as +she seems to be is another matter; one that doesn't concern us. Anyway, +she has difficulties enough without it. It's not easy for two women to +make a living out of a farm of the kind they're running when it's +burdened with a heavy debt." + +Alison could forgive him a good deal for his chivalrous pity, though the +fact that it was Lucy Calvert who had excited it still somewhat +irritated her. It seemed, however, that he had a little more to say. + +"In any case," he added, "I'm glad you told me." + +Then he turned back toward the others and she had no opportunity for +further speech with him. She noticed, however, that he seemed unusually +thoughtful during the rest of the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +WINTHROP'S LETTER + + +After breakfast the next morning Alison sat sewing in a thoughtful mood. +She now genuinely regretted having given Nevis the information about +Lucy Calvert, and in addition to this Thorne's reserve on the previous +evening somewhat troubled her. He had not thought fit to tell her what +he meant to do, but she was convinced that he would do something, and +the most obvious course would be to warn Lucy against any attempt which +Nevis might make to trace her lover. It was possible that the man might +cunningly entrap her into some admission that would be of assistance to +him. On the other hand, Alison realized that Thorne's task was not so +simple as it appeared on the face of it. Though quick-witted, he was, +she suspected, by no means subtle, and she supposed that he would find +it difficult to put Lucy on her guard without betraying the part that +she had played in the matter. She was quite sure that nothing would +induce him to let this become apparent. + +It was, however, necessary that Lucy should be warned as soon as +possible, and Alison decided that as she was the one who had made the +trouble it was she who should set it right. This would be only an act of +justice, besides which it would give her an opportunity for forming a +clearer opinion of Lucy than she had as yet been able to do. As the +result of it all, she obtained Mrs. Farquhar's permission to visit the +Calvert homestead, which was not very far away, during the afternoon. + +In the meanwhile Nevis had been considering how he could best make use +of the information she had supplied him, and his mind was still occupied +with the question when he drove across the prairie that afternoon. It +was a fiercely hot day, and the wide grassland, which had turned dusty +white again, was flooded with dazzling light. The usual invigorating +breeze was still, and Nevis's horse had fallen to a walk, pursued by a +cloud of flies, when he made out the mail-carrier plodding slowly down +the rut-marked trail in front of him. Nevis was quite aware that a +prairie mail-carrier is usually more or less acquainted with the affairs +of every farmer in the district he visits, and he pulled up when he +overtook him. + +"What's the matter with your horse?" he asked. "Isn't it stipulated that +you should keep one?" + +"That's so," assented the man. "The trouble is that you can't get a +horse that won't go lame on a round like this. I had to leave him at +Stretton's an hour ago." + +"Going far?" Nevis asked. + +"Round by Mrs. Calvert's to the ravine." + +Nevis decided that he was fortunate, but he carefully concealed any sign +of satisfaction. + +"I can give you a lift as far as the first place, if you like to get +in." + +The man was glad to do so, and Nevis presently handed him a cigar. + +"Do you get letters for all the farms every round?" + +"No," replied his companion; "I'm quite glad I don't; guess I'd use up +two horses if I did. It saves me a league or two when I can cut out some +of my visits." + +"Yes," agreed Nevis, who had a purpose in pursuing the topic. "One can +understand that. It's the people back from the trail who will give you +most trouble. It must be a morning's ride to Boyton's or Walthew's; and +Mrs. Calvert's is almost as much off your round. Do you have to go there +often?" + +The question was asked casually, with no show of interest, and the +mail-carrier evidently suspected nothing. + +"Most every trip the last few weeks," he replied. + +Nevis felt that the scent was getting hot. He made a sign of sympathy. + +"That's rough on you; anyway, if you have to pack out any weight," he +said. "Some of these people get a good many implement catalogues and +circulars from Winnipeg, no doubt?" + +"In Mrs. Calvert's case it's one blamed letter takes me most a league +off the trail." + +Nevis asked no more questions; they did not seem necessary. He had +discovered that somebody wrote to Mrs. Calvert or her daughter once a +week, and he had no trouble in deciding who it must be. He also +remembered that letters bore postmarks, and he had a strong desire to +ascertain where Winthrop was then located. + +"If you like, I'll hand that letter in," he offered. "I'm calling on +Mrs. Calvert anyway, and you can go straight to the next place if you +give it to me." + +The man hesitated a moment, and then shook his head. + +"I'm sorry it can't be done," he said. "It's safer to stick to the +regulations, and then if you have any trouble nobody can turn round on +you." + +Nevis was too wise to urge the point, though he meant, if it could by +any means be managed, to get the letter into his hands. + +"Well," he assented, "I guess you're right in that." + +They drove on to the Calvert homestead, which was rudely built of birch +logs sawed in a neighboring bluff, and Nevis sprang down first when an +elderly woman with a careworn face appeared in the doorway. The +mail-carrier, who followed him more slowly, stood still a moment +fumbling in his bag until the woman spoke to him. + +"Got something to-day, Steve?" + +"I've got it all right," was the answer. "Letter for Lucy. The trouble +is to find the thing." + +Nevis, standing nearer the house, waited until the man took out an +envelope. Then he stretched out his hand, as though willing to save him +the trouble of walking up to the door, but the mail-carrier either did +not notice the action or was too punctilious in the execution of his +duty to deliver the letter to him. + +"Here it is, Mrs. Calvert," he said. "Thank you, Mr. Nevis." + +He strode away and Nevis turned to the woman with a smile. + +"May I come in?" he asked. "I'll leave the horse here; he'll stand +quietly." + +Mrs. Calvert made no objections, though he noticed that she laid the +envelope on a table across the room when he sat down. + +"It's two or three years since I was in this house," he began. + +"Three," corrected the woman. + +"I suppose it is," acknowledged Nevis, who seemed to reflect. "I got on +with your husband pleasantly, and I'm sorry in several ways that our +connection has been broken off. I don't think the thing was any fault of +mine." + +Mrs. Calvert did not answer at once. Winthrop was not a great favorite +of hers, and although she had made no attempt to turn Lucy against him +she had on the other hand not altogether sympathized with the latter's +views concerning her present visitor. She remembered that her husband +had liked the man, and there was no doubt that the goods he supplied +were of excellent quality. Nevis was certainly not scrupulous, and he +had treated some of those who dealt with him with harshness, but he at +least never descended to any petty trickery over the sale of a machine. +For one thing, he was too clever; he recognized that it was not worth +his while. + +"Well," he added, "I don't like for old friends to leave me, and I +decided to look you up again. Will you want a new binder or a back-set +plow this fall?" + +"We'll want a binder," answered his hostess, who was a woman of somewhat +yielding nature. "Still, I guess we'll get it from Grantly." + +"His things are good enough, though he stands out for the top price," +responded Nevis, who was too wise to disparage openly a rival's goods. +"Just now, however, I'm rather loaded up, and the orders aren't coming +along, so I'm making a special cut. I'll knock an extra four dollars off +the list figure for the binder, and wait for the money until you have +hauled in your wheat." + +Nobody would have suspected that he did not care in the least whether he +secured the order or not, or that he had long ago decided that any +business he was likely to do with the woman was not worth his attention. +She, however, appeared to consider the offer. + +"It's cheap, and that's a fact," she said. "It's most a pity I can't buy +the thing from you." + +"I suppose that trouble over Winthrop has turned Miss Calvert against +me?" + +"You have got it," was the answer. "Lucy's mad with you. She runs this +place, and she deals with Grantly." + +This was the lead Nevis had been waiting for, and he seized upon it. + +"If she's about, I'd like a talk with her. I might reason her out of her +prejudice against me." + +"It wouldn't be easy. She drove over to the bluff, but she should be +back at any time now." + +Nevis had no particular desire to see Miss Calvert, but he had made up +his mind to wait for an opportunity to examine the postmark on the +letter, if it could be managed. Taking a catalogue out of his pocket, he +proceeded to talk about the machines and implements described in it, +until at length there was a rattle of wheels outside and, somewhat to +his astonishment, Alison walked in. He rose when she greeted Mrs. +Calvert, and noticed that there was something which suggested hostility +in her eyes when for a moment she let them rest on him. + +"Farquhar's hired man brought me; he's going to Bagshaw's place," she +announced. "I came over to see Lucy, but she seems to be out." + +Mrs. Calvert asked her to wait a little, and when she was seated Nevis +sat down again. Alison, however, noticed that he had now moved to +another chair which was nearer the table than the one he had previously +occupied, and she wondered whether he could have had any particular +motive for changing his place. Then, leaning one elbow on the table, she +looked around the room. + +There was only one window in it, for even with double casements it is +difficult enough to keep a small prairie homestead warm in winter, and +the place was somewhat shadowy. The log walls were uncovered, and she +could see the chinking of moss and clay which had been driven into the +crevices in them; and there was, as usual, nothing on the very roughly +boarded floor. One bright ray of sunshine, however, streamed in, and +fell dazzlingly across the table, upon which an apparently unopened +letter lay. The white envelope which caught the light seized her +attention, and she remembered that the mail-carrier visited the district +that day. As Lucy Calvert was not in, it was reasonable to suppose that +the letter was addressed to her, which would explain why her mother had +not opened it, and this supposition carried her a little farther. The +most likely person to write to the girl was her lover, and Alison was +almost sure that it was a man who had inscribed the address on the +envelope. By and by she saw Nevis glance at the square of paper in what +did not appear to be an altogether casual fashion, and the half-formed +idea in her mind grew into definite shape. There was a reason why he +should be interested in the letter, and she decided to sit him out. She +opened a conversation with Mrs. Calvert, and some time had slipped away +when a distant rattle of wheels rose out of the prairie. Nevis, rising, +addressed his hostess. + +"I guess that's Miss Calvert, and as there's a point or two about our +binder which I believe I forgot to mention, I'd like to explain the +thing before she turns up," he said. "I want to get on again as soon as +possible after I've had a word with her. No doubt Miss Leigh will excuse +us for a minute." + +He moved forward toward the table with what appeared to be a photograph +of some harvesting machinery in his hand, and as he did so Alison, who +remembered that they had been laughing and speaking rather loudly during +the last three or four minutes, fancied she heard a footstep outside the +open window. She was, however, not quite sure of this, and she watched +the man with every sense strung up as he approached her hostess. It +struck her that his object was to get near enough to see the writing or +the postmark on the envelope, which would probably be impossible after +Lucy arrived. + +Leaning forward a little, she rested one arm farther on the table, which +was covered with a light cloth, and drew the latter toward her with a +slight movement of her elbow until a wider strip of it overhung the +edge. She could not warn her hostess in the hearing of the man, when she +had only suspicion to act on, but she was determined that he should not +discover Winthrop's whereabouts if she could help it. Nevis's eyes, as +she noticed, were fixed on the envelope, but he was evidently still too +far off to read the postmark, and she waited another moment, watching +him with mingled disgust and anger at the means he used. + +In the meanwhile it was clear that Mrs. Calvert had no suspicion of what +was going forward, for there was nothing to show that Alison's heart was +beating a good deal faster than it generally did, or that the man was +conscious of a vindictive satisfaction. His approach had been ostensibly +careless, and there was only a faintly suggestive hardness in his eyes. +The girl sat very still, and if her face was a little more intent than +usual her hostess did not notice it. + +Alison fancied that she heard a sound outside the window again, but she +paid no heed to it, and as Nevis was about to lay his hand on the table +and lean over it she moved her elbow sharply. The next moment the cloth +slid down into a heap on the floor, and the letter disappeared. + +Nevis closed one hand viciously, but he opened it again immediately as +he turned to Alison. The man was quick, and held himself well in hand, +and she felt a certain satisfaction in outwitting him, for it was clear +that he had not suspected her of having any motive for jerking the cloth +off. + +"Am I accountable for the accident?" he asked. + +"No," replied Alison; "it was my fault." + +The danger, however, was not quite over. Alison quietly felt with one +little, lightly shod foot beneath the cloth, part of which had caught +and rested on her dress. Her shoe touched something that seemed harder +than the soft fabric, and she contrived to draw it toward her. + +"You knocked a letter off the table," said Nevis. "It must have fallen +somewhere near. Permit me." + +He stooped to pick up the cloth, and Alison saw that Mrs. Calvert was at +last uneasy. It was obvious that she did not wish Nevis to lay his hands +on the envelope. He raised the cloth, and after a glance beneath it +moved a pace or two and shook it vigorously, but nothing fell out, and +Alison quietly pushed back her chair. + +"It's here beneath my skirt." + +She picked it up and handed it to Mrs. Calvert, who laid it on a shelf +across the room. After that there was a moment's silence, during which +the two women looked at each other curiously, while Nevis, whose face +was expressionless, looked at them both. Then the awkward stillness was +broken by the entrance of Thorne. Ignoring Nevis completely, he turned +to Mrs. Calvert with a smile. + +"I don't know whether I need an excuse for this visit, but it occurred +to me that I could drive Miss Leigh home," he explained. "I was hauling +in logs for Gillow when Farquhar's hired man came along and told me he'd +brought Miss Leigh over but wasn't sure when he could come back for her. +Lucy will be here in a minute." + +He leaned on a chair, talking about the wheat crop, until the rattle of +wheels, which had been growing louder, stopped, when he moved toward the +door, saying that he would help Lucy with the team. It was some time +before he reappeared with her, and then the girl turned imperiously to +Nevis. + +"You here!" she exclaimed. "What do you want?" + +"I was trying to sell your mother a binder," Nevis answered blandly. + +Lucy, standing very straight, looked at him with a snap in her eyes. + +"Then I guess you're wasting time. While there are implements to be had +anywhere between here and Winnipeg we'll buy none from you." + +Nevis favored her with a single swift glance, and then took up his hat. + +"In that case I may as well get on again. I dare say your mother and +Miss Leigh will excuse me." + +He did not offer to shake hands with either of them, which may have been +due to the fact that Mrs. Calvert's face was now hard and suspicious, +and Alison carefully looked away from him. There was, also, a gleam of +ironical amusement, which probably had some effect, in Thorne's eyes. +Soon after he disappeared, Mrs. Calvert asked Thorne to come out and +look at a mower which she said the hired man had had some trouble with, +and when they left the room Lucy leaned back in her chair with her eyes +fixed on Alison in a significant manner. They were of a clear blue, and +Alison admitted that, with the somewhat unusual color in her cheeks and +the light on her mass of gleaming hair, the girl was aggressively +pretty. + +"I'm glad they've gone--I guess I have to thank you for what you did," +she said. "It was right smart, and I'm not sure my mother caught on to +the thing." + +"How did you know?" Alison asked in rather disturbed astonishment. + +Lucy laughed. + +"Mavy saw you through the window. The mail-carrier told him Nevis was +here, and it was quite easy to figure what he was after. That's why Mavy +hitched his team behind the willows and crept up quiet to see what was +going on, so he could spoil his game, but he left it to you when he saw +that you were on to it. Said he felt quite sure you could fix the man." + +Alison remembered the footstep at the window, but she was curious about +another aspect of the matter. + +"Why did he tell you?" she asked. + +Lucy's manner changed, and there was a hint of hardness in her +expression. + +"Well," she answered, "perhaps he wanted me to know what you had done, +and, anyway, he had to put me on my guard. Still, though Mavy's quick, +they're none of them very smart after all, and there was a point that +didn't seem to strike him. He wasn't clear as to why Nevis would try to +pick up Jake's trail through me." + +The last words were flung sharply at the listener, and Alison made a +gesture of appeal. + +"Of course," she returned, "he wouldn't tell you that." + +"No," declared Lucy; "nothing would have got it out of him. That's the +kind of man he is." She paused a moment. "What made you send Nevis after +me?" + +"It was done without thinking. I couldn't foresee that it might make +trouble. I was sorry afterward; I am sorry now." + +Her companion looked at her with disconcerting steadiness. + +"We'll let it go at that. There's just this to say--you haven't any +reason to be afraid of me. I don't know a straighter man than Mavy +Thorne--but I don't want him! Jake's quite enough for me, and there's +trouble in front of him, with Nevis on his trail." + +It cost Alison an effort to retain a befitting composure. This +plain-speaking girl had obviously taken a good deal for granted, but +Alison was uneasily conscious that she had certainly arrived at the +truth. It was a relief to her when Mrs. Calvert and Thorne presently +entered the room together. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ON THE TRAIL + + +Nevis was not, as a rule, easily turned aside when he had taken a task +in hand, and his failure at the Calvert homestead only made him more +determined to run Winthrop down. Besides, he had not failed altogether, +for he had at least caught a glimpse of the stamp on the letter, and he +had no doubt that it was a Canadian one. There was an appreciable +difference in the design and color of the American stamps. This +indicated that in all probability Winthrop was still in Canada, in which +case there would be no difficulty in arresting him once his whereabouts +could be discovered. The tracing of the latter promised to be less easy, +but Nevis set about it, and shortly afterward fortune once more favored +him. + +His business was an extensive one; he had money laid out here and there +over a wide stretch of country, and he had already discovered that it +required a good deal of watching. As a matter of fact, the latter was +advisable, for some of the men to whom he lent it were addicted to +disappearing without leaving any address or intimation as to what they +had done with the movable portion of their hypothecated possessions. It +is true that they generally had repaid Nevis a large part of his loan, +as well as an exorbitant interest for a considerable time, but then had +abandoned the struggle in despair. From his point of view, however, +neither fact had any particular bearing on the matter. He expected a +good deal more than the value of a hundred cents when he laid down a +dollar. + +One night a week or two after he called on Mrs. Calvert, he strolled out +on to the platform of a train that had been run on to a lonely +side-track beside a galvanized iron shed and a big water-tank. He was +leaning on the rails, when the conductor came out of the vestibule +behind him. + +"We're not scheduled to stop," he commented. + +"No, sir," replied the conductor. "Guess the company had once a notion +of making a station here, but they cut it out. It's used as a +section-depot and side-track, and now and then a freight pulls up for +water. There's a soft spring here, and you can't get good water right +along the line. Any kind won't do in a locomotive boiler." + +The man was unusually loquacious for a western railroad hand, and Nevis, +who had been glancing out at the shadowy sweep of prairie, amid which +the straight track lost itself, felt inclined to talk. + +"But what's holding us up?" he asked. + +"Montreal express. She's on the next section, and it's quite a long one. +They side-track everything to let her through." + +A thought took shape in Nevis's mind. The point that suggested itself +appeared at least worth attention, and he asked a question: + +"Would a wire to anybody in the district be sent to the station ahead?" + +The conductor said that it would, and added that the man in charge of +the place where they were then stopping was called up only in case of +necessity to hold a train on the side-track. He explained that although +the instruments clicked out any message sent right along the circuit +the operators, as a rule, listened only when they got their particular +signal. This had a certain significance to Nevis. + +"Is there often a freight-train waiting here when you come along?" he +asked. + +"That's so," said his companion. "We take the section if the Atlantic +flyer's late, and they have to cut out the pick-up freight if she's in +front of us. When she was standing yonder one night a little while back +I saw what struck me as quite a curious thing. Just as we struck the +tail switches a man dropped off a caboose coupled on behind the +freight-cars; it was good clear moonlight, and I watched him. He kept +the train between him and the shack behind you, and started out over the +prairie as fast as he could. Then we ran in behind the freight-cars, but +as soon as we were clear the engineer pulled them out, and as I looked +back the man dropped into the grass like a stone. Bill, who runs this +place, was standing outside his shack, and that may have had something +to do with it." + +"It sounds strange," commented Nevis. "Can you remember when it was?" + +The conductor contrived to do so, and Nevis was not astonished when he +heard the date. He decided that it would be wise to compare his +conclusion with any views his companion might have about the matter. + +"It's possible it was only one of the boys stealing a ride," he +suggested. + +"In that case he needn't have been so scared of Bill," was the answer. +"It's most unlikely he'd have got out on the prairie after him. Strikes +me the man was mighty anxious nobody should see him. Anyway, I thought +no more about the thing, and only remembered it to-night." + +Just then the scream of a whistle came ringing up the track, and the +conductor pointed to a fan-shaped blaze of brightness which swept up out +of the prairie. + +"The express; I'll have to get along. We'll be off in two or three +minutes now." + +Nevis lighted a cigar as soon as he was left alone, and by the time the +great express had flashed by with a clash and clatter he felt convinced +that Corporal Slaney had erred in assuming that Winthrop had escaped +across the frontier. Having arrived at this decision, he strolled back +into the lighted car as the train crept out across the switches on to +the waste of prairie. He had now something to act upon. + +In the meanwhile, a weary man, dressed in somewhat ragged duck, sat one +evening outside a tent pitched in the hollow of a prairie coulée, with a +letter in his hand. His attitude was suggestive of dejection, but he +clenched the paper in hard, brown fingers, and there was an ominous look +in his weather-darkened face. It was careworn, though he was young, and +his general appearance and expression seemed to indicate that he was a +simple man who had borne a burden too heavy for him, until at last he +had revolted in desperation against the intolerable load. + +A new branch line crept along the side of the shallow coulée, which +wound deviously across the great white sea of grass, and the trestles of +a half-finished bridge rose, a gaunt skeleton of timber, above the creek +that flowed through the valley. A cluster of tents and a galvanized iron +shack, with a funnel projecting above it, crowned the crest of a +neighboring ridge, and a murmur of voices and laughter rose faintly +from the groups of men who lay about them. Winthrop, however, had +pitched his camp a little distance from the others, so as to be nearer +his work, which consisted in removing the soil from the side of the +coulée to make room for the road-bed. He had obtained a team from a +neighboring rancher, and a satisfactory rate of payment from the +railroad contractor. Indeed, during the last few weeks he had almost +fancied that he was at last leaving his troubles behind him, and then +that afternoon another blow had suddenly fallen. The letter from Lucy +Calvert contained the disturbing news that Nevis, who seemed to have +discovered that he had not left Canada, was still in pursuit of him. + +Presently two of his comrades from the camp strolled up to his tent and +stretched themselves out on the harsh, white grass in front of it. They +were attired as he was, and they had toiled hard under a scorching sun +all day handling heavy rails, but one was a man of excellent education, +and the other had owned a wheat farm until the frost had reaped his crop +and ruined him. + +"You're looking blue to-night," commented the latter. + +"Well," acknowledged Winthrop grimly, "there's a reason. I've put quite +a lot of work in on that road-bed the last few weeks, but the trouble is +I won't get a dollar unless I stay with it and keep up to specification +until next pay-day." + +"Of course!" said the man who had spoken. "Why should you want to quit?" + +Winthrop glanced at the letter. + +"I've had a warning. Guess I'll have to pull out again sudden one of +these days." + +There was silence for a few moments after this. The men had gone on +well together, and within certain limits the toilers in a track-grading +camp make friends rapidly, but for all that there are unwritten rules of +etiquette in such places, and questions on some points are apt to be +resented. + +Still, Winthrop's face was troubled, and his expression hinted that it +might be a consolation to take somebody into his confidence. + +"Creditors?" one of his companions ventured to suggest. + +"You've hit it first time, Drakesford. Bondholder who's been bleeding me +quite a few years now. Raked in what I made each harvest--left me not +quite enough to live on--until I began to see that I'd have to work a +lifetime to get clear of him. When I knocked a little off the debt one +good year he piled up something else on me. Then I was short last +payment, and he shut down on my farm." + +Drakesford turned to his companion. + +"Ever hear anything like that before, Watson?" + +There was a trace of dryness in the other man's smile. + +"I have," he answered; "it's not quite new on the prairie. One or two of +the boys I know have been through that mill." + +He turned toward Winthrop. + +"How did the blamed insect first get hold of you?" + +"I'd a notion of getting married, and meant to raise a record crop. Went +along to the blood-sucker, who was quite willing to back me, and took +out a mortgage. Pledged him all the place and stock for what he let me +have." + +"Probably a third of its value," interposed Drakesford. + +"About that," Winthrop agreed. "A big crop might have cleared me then, +but we had frost that year, and he commenced to play me. Made me insure +stock and homestead in his company--and I guess he stuck me over that. +Then I had to buy implements and any stores he sold from him, at about +twice the usual figure; and one way or another the debt kept piling up." + +"Couldn't you have gone short in your payments before it got too big, +and let him sell the place?" suggested Drakesford. "In that case, +anything over and above what he advanced would have had to be refunded +to you. Still, the man you dealt with would probably have provided for +that difficulty." + +Watson grinned. + +"A sure thing! He wouldn't shut down until it was a year when wheat was +cheap and farms were bringing mighty little. Then he'd sell him up and +buy the place in through a dummy, 'way down beneath its value. After +that he'd rent it out until wheat went up and he'd get twice what he +gave for it from some sucker." + +It is possible that the farmer had arrived at something very near the +truth, but his companion, who still seemed thoughtful, looked at +Winthrop. + +"When you got notice of foreclosure I suppose you cleared out and left +him the place," he said. "How does that give him a hold on you?" + +"I sold the team and stock first," replied Winthrop grimly. "He sent the +police after me." + +The man made a sign of comprehension. + +"Naturally! But haven't you got some homestead exemption laws in this +part of the country?" + +"They don't apply to mortgaged property," Watson broke in. Then he +looked up sharply. "But, I guess you've hit it. The debt secured by +mortgage wasn't a big one, and the man piled up more on to it afterward. +The law would exempt from seizure on that." + +Winthrop considered this moodily. + +"Well," he answered at length, "suppose you're right. Who's going to +take up my case, and where am I to get the money to put up a fight? The +only lawyer in the district wouldn't act against the bondholder, and I +couldn't get at my mortgage deed anyway. It's in the man's hands, and I +haven't a copy. I got out with the price of a few beasts, and left the +rest to him." He paused, and clenched a big, brown hand. "If he's wise +he'll be content with that, and quit; but you can't satisfy that man. +He's got my farm; he's made my life bitter; brought three years of +trouble on the girl I meant to marry; and now he's after me again. Seems +to me I've laid down under it about long enough!" + +He broke off and sat silent a while, gazing out across the prairie +toward where the red glow of sunset burned far off on the lonely +grassland's rim. Iron shack and clustered tents stood out against it +sharply now, and the faint sound of voices that came up through the +still, clear air seemed to jar on the man. + +"They can laugh," he complained. "I could, once." + +Then Watson changed the subject. + +"Butler had a notion he'd try a shot or two to-morrow where the road +goes through the rise, and he sent some giant-powder along. He wants you +to clinch the detonators on the fuses and put them in." + +Now dynamite is not often used in prairie railroading, but Winthrop had +once handled it in another part of the country, and had mentioned the +fact to a foreman who was disposed to experiment with it. + +"It's no use in that loose stuff," he pointed out. + +"Butler wants to try it," answered Watson. "There's no reason why you +shouldn't let him. I dumped the magazine he sent you in the coulée. I +didn't want to lie about smoking too near the detonators." + +He walked away a little distance and came back with a case, out of which +Winthrop took what looked like several yellow wax candles. Then he cut +off three or four pieces of fuse, and carefully pinched down a big +copper cap on the end of each of them. These he inserted into different +sticks of the semi-plastic giant-powder in turn, and his companions drew +a little away from him as he did so. It was getting dark now, but they +could still see his face, and it was very hard and grim. It impressed +them unpleasantly as they watched him handle the yellow rolls which +contained imprisoned within them such tremendous powers. Giant-powder is +a somewhat unstable product, as Winthrop knew from experience and the +other two had heard, and in case of a premature explosion there was very +little doubt as to what the fate of the party would be. Annihilation in +its most literal sense was the only word that would describe it, for +there was force enough in those yellow sticks to transform material +flesh and blood into unsubstantial gases. The fulminate in the +detonators he cautiously imbedded was even more terrible, and sitting +with his bent form outlined darkly against the shadowy waste of grass, +he looked curiously sinister. He finished his task at last and handed +one of them the magazine. + +"Shouldn't there be another stick?" Watson asked. "Have you left it in +the grass?" + +"You can look," said Winthrop curtly, as he moved aside. + +Watson glanced round the place where he had been sitting. + +"I can't see it, anyway. I dare say I couldn't have brought another one, +after all." + +He moved away with Drakesford and looked at the latter when they were +some distance from the tent. + +"It's curious about that stick," he observed. "I'm not convinced yet +that I've got as many as I brought with me." + +"Why should he want to keep one?" his companion asked. + +"I don't know," Watson confessed. "But there was something in his face +that didn't please me." + +"Yes," agreed Drakesford; "I've once or twice seen overdriven men look +like that, and so far as I can remember there was trouble afterward." + +They said nothing further, and while they proceeded along the crest of +the coulée Winthrop, still sitting beside his tent, took a stick of +giant-powder from his pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +CORPORAL SLANEY'S DEFEAT + + +The sun had just dipped, and there was a wonderful invigorating coolness +in the dew-chilled air. Winthrop sat in the cook-shed which was built +against the back of the iron store-shack. Outside, as he could see +through the doorway, the prairie ran back, a vast gray-white stretch, to +the horizon, beneath as vast a sweep of green transparency. The little +shed, however, was growing shadowy, and a red twinkle showed through the +front of the stove in which the sinking fire was still burning. + +The cook was somewhere outside talking with the boys, and Winthrop, who +wished to beg a cotton flour-bag from him to use in mending his clothes, +sat quietly smoking while he waited until he should come back. He felt +no inclination to join the others, for he had grown anxious and morose +since Lucy's warning had reached him a week or two earlier. He was quite +aware that there was some danger in remaining at his work, but pay-day +was approaching and he meant at least to wait until he could collect the +money due him. After that he would disappear again if anything +transpired to render it necessary. Just then Watson looked into the +shed. + +"I guess you'd better come right out," he said hurriedly. "There are two +strangers riding into camp." + +Winthrop was on his feet in a moment, and the haste with which he rose +betrayed his anxiety. Going out, he ran forward until he could obtain an +uninterrupted view of the plain. The waste of grass was growing dim, +but two mounted figures showed up black on it. Watson indicated them +with outstretched hand. + +"Notice anything interesting about them?" + +"Yes," Winthrop answered grimly; "they ride like police troopers." + +"That's just how it seemed to me," exclaimed Drakesford. "They're coming +from southward, and if they'd left the trunk line soon after the +Vancouver train came in they would get here about now. They could have +borrowed horses from the rancher near the station." + +Winthrop watched them steadily before he spoke. + +"They're troopers, sure," he said at length. "The short one looks like +Corporal Slaney, who's out after me; and they'll be in before I could +catch either of my horses. I turned them out in the soft grass some way +back in the coulée." + +"You have got to do something," declared Watson, "and do it right now!" + +Winthrop glanced out across the great, level plain, and his face grew +set. + +"They'd sure search the coulée, and, except for that, there isn't cover +for a coyote for a league or two. It won't be dark for half an hour yet, +and they'd ride me down in three or four minutes in the open." + +This was obvious, and silence followed until Winthrop spoke again. + +"I haven't a gun of any kind." + +"That's fortunate," said Drakesford. "What do you want a gun for, +anyway? Plugging one of the troopers wouldn't help you." + +In the meanwhile, the mounted figures were rapidly drawing nearer. The +three men stood tensely watching them until Winthrop suddenly swung +round toward his companions. + +"You can tell them where my tent is, and they'll waste some minutes +going there. That's all I want you to do." + +Watson looked at him inquiringly, but he made a sign of impatience. + +"I'm going back to the cook-shed. You can't help any. Keep out of this +trouble." + +Moving away from them, he disappeared into the shadowy interior of the +shed, and his companions waited until the rest of the men came running +up as the police rode in. The latter asked a few questions which Watson +answered truthfully, and then they rode off toward Winthrop's tent. +Presently one dismounted trooper reappeared, and proceeded to search the +other tents, amid ironical banter and a few protests. This took him some +time, and darkness was not far off when he reached the iron shack, the +door of which was unusually difficult to open, though Watson, who had +visited it in the meanwhile, could have explained the cause of it. Then +the other trooper came back, and led both horses out upon the prairie. +Leaving them there, he joined his comrade, who addressed the men. + +"Boys," he said, "we're holding a warrant for your partner, and we've +got to have him." + +"Nobody's stopping you," one of them answered. "We haven't a place to +hide him in unless he's crawled down a gopher-hole." + +As a gopher is smaller than an ordinary squirrel, the point of this was +evident, and while a laugh went up the policemen conferred together in +front of the iron shack; then, after looking in, they walked around to +the back of it. They had no doubt already noticed the cook-shed, but as +it was very small and the door stood partly open, it appeared a most +unpromising place for the fugitive to seek refuge. Now, however, they +moved close to it, and Winthrop, sitting back in the shadow, became +dimly visible. + +"Come out! We've got you!" one trooper cried. + +The man did not move, but he had something in his hand, which was +stretched out toward the stove. One of the pot-holes in the top of the +stove was open, and a faint glow shone upon the object he held clenched +in his fingers. It bore, as Corporal Slaney noticed, no resemblance to a +pistol. + +"Come out!" he repeated. "There's no use in making trouble." + +Winthrop laughed in a jarring fashion. + +"I guess I'll stay a while right where I am." + +Then he raised his voice. + +"If you're wise you'll wait outside, Corporal." + +Slaney stood still just outside the door, peering into the shed; and the +trooper behind him had his carbine ready. + +"Don't be foolish, Jake. We've got you sure," he called. + +He moved a pace nearer, and Winthrop leaned forward a little farther +over the pot-hole. + +"See what this is?" he inquired, glancing down at the object in his +hand. + +"It's not a gun, anyway," said the trooper to his superior. + +"It's a stick of giant-powder. There's a detonator in it and an inch or +two of fuse. As soon as you're inside the door I drop it in the stove." + +Slaney promptly recoiled a yard or two. Having had some experience in +dealing with men driven to extremities, he knew that Winthrop's warning +was not empty bluff. There was something in the man's voice that +convinced him that he meant what he said. For the next few moments he +and the trooper stood irresolutely still, wondering what they should do, +while the motionless figure quietly watched them through the doorway. +The corporal was by no means timid or overcautious, and had Winthrop +held a pistol it is highly probable that he would have attempted to rush +him. Except in the hands of a master of it, the short-barreled weapon is +singularly unreliable, and shots fired by a man disturbed by fear or +anger as a rule go wide; but the stick of dynamite meant certain death. +Slaney had not the nerve to face that, and, besides, as he rightfully +reflected, it would serve no purpose except to nip in the bud the career +of a promising police officer. Then Winthrop spoke again. + +"You'll have to haul off this time, Corporal. Letting this thing drop is +quicker than shooting, even if you had me covered." + +"We could plug you from a distance through the shack," Slaney pointed +out. + +"That's so," Winthrop assented calmly; "I guess you could; but I'm not +sure your bosses would thank you for doing it." + +There was, as the corporal recognized, some truth in this. The police +would be held blameless for shooting down a fugitive who refused to +surrender, but after all the exploit would not count to their credit +unless the man were a desperado guilty of some particularly serious +offense. It was their business to capture the person for whom they had a +warrant. + +Drawing back a little farther, the corporal conferred with the trooper, +who suggested several ways of getting over the difficulty, none of +which, however, appeared altogether practicable. For one thing, he said, +they could wait, sleeping in turn, until from utter weariness Winthrop's +vigilance relaxed; but that, it was evident, would most likely take more +time than they could spare. They could also seek the assistance of the +trackgraders and arrange with them to make a diversion while they crept +up unobserved. Against this there was, however, as the corporal pointed +out, the probability that the men were more or less in sympathy with the +fugitive, and that as a result any assistance they might be commanded to +render could not be depended on. He added that he would rather wait for +daylight, and then, if it should be absolutely necessary, fire into the +shed. + +In the meantime Watson was discussing the affair with Drakesford. + +"That man has some kind of plan in his mind, though I can't tell you +what it is," he declared. "Anyway, it would be better that the troopers +hadn't their horses handy in case he gets out in the dark and makes a +break for the prairie." + +"They're back behind the tents," observed Drakesford, pointedly. + +"Picketed," grinned Watson. "They should have knee-hobbled them. A horse +will now and then pull a picket out when the soil's light." + +It was too dark to see his companion's face clearly, but Drakesford +appeared to smile in a manner that suggested comprehension, and they +strolled a little nearer the corporal, who had just sent for the cook. +The corporal explained that he had ridden a long way since his dinner, +and asked for a can of coffee and some eatables, and the cook proceeded +dubiously toward the shed. He came back empty-handed in a minute or two. + +"I can't get you anything," he said. "The man you're after won't let me +in." + +The corporal expressed his feelings somewhat freely, but the cook +grinned. + +"You want to be reasonable," he protested. "How do you expect me to get +in, when he's holding off the two of you, and you've got arms?" + +Watson touched his companion's shoulder. + +"It's my opinion that our friend would better get out to-night," he +whispered. "The boys are holding off in the meanwhile, but if they can't +get their breakfast there'll probably be trouble." + +Drakesford agreed with this, and shortly afterward he proceeded +circuitously toward the troopers' horses. + +In the meanwhile, Slaney and his subordinate sat down on the grass well +apart from each other and about sixty yards from the cook-shed, and, +rolling their blankets about them, prepared to spend the night as +comfortably as possible. It was not very dark, though there was no moon, +and a slight haze, which promised an increased obscurity, was now +creeping across the sky. They could see the black shape of the shed, and +it was evident that nobody could slip out from it without their +observation; and they had their carbines handy. Slaney would have crept +up a little nearer, only that he felt it desirable to keep outside the +striking range of the giant-powder, in case Winthrop happened to get +drowsy and drop it in the stove. + +After a while the track-graders, who had sat among the grass smoking and +watching the troopers, began to drift away to their sleeping-quarters. +The drama was interesting, but they had no part in it, and they would +certainly have to rise soon after sunup to a long day's arduous toil. In +the meanwhile, their attitude could best be described as reluctantly +neutral. There were a few toughs among them who had no doubt sufficient +reason for not loving a policeman of any kind, but the rest recognized +the inadvisability of any interference with constituted authority. On +the other hand, though they did not know the rights or wrongs of the +matter, the desperate, cold-blooded courage of the hard-pressed man +appealed to them, and they decided that Corporal Slaney need not look +for any effective assistance which it might be in their power to render. +Most of them were simple men who lived and toiled in the open, and, as +is usual with their kind, their sympathies were with the weaker party. + +In an hour or two the last of them had vanished, and if a few still +watched outside their tents there was, at least, nothing that suggested +their presence to Corporal Slaney. He lay resting on one elbow, with his +eyes fixed on the shed, while a little chilly breeze set the dry grasses +rustling about him. It was now slightly darker than it usually is on the +prairie in summer-time, for the haze had gradually spread across most of +the sky. The tents had faded almost out of sight, though the black shape +of the shack remained, and now and then, when the breeze sank away, the +silence grew almost oppressive. Once the corporal started as he heard a +sound in the shed, but he sank down again when he recognized the clatter +and rattle that succeeded it. Winthrop, who evidently did not mean to +neglect any precaution, was, he decided, putting more fuel into the +stove. After that the howl of a coyote came faintly up the breeze, which +grew stronger, and the low murmur of the grasses began once more. + +A pearly light was growing clearer on the eastern rim of the prairie +when at length Slaney, damp with the dew, rose to his feet with a shiver +and softly called the trooper, who announced that he had heard nothing +suspicious during the night. After a brief parley they crept up +cautiously a little nearer the shed, but there was, so far as they could +make out, no sign of life within. Indeed, the stillness was becoming +suspicious. Moving nearer still, they could look into part of the shed +through the open door, and, for the light was getting clearer, it became +evident that Winthrop was no longer sitting beside the stove. This was +encouraging, because it looked as if he had fallen asleep. + +Making a short detour, so as to keep to one side of the entrance, they +crept up closer, with faces set and hearts beating a good deal faster +than usual; but there was no sound except a faint crackle, apparently +from the stove. Then Slaney lay down in the grass and crawled up to the +doorway, where he rose and suddenly sprang into the shed. The next +moment his voice rang out hoarse with anger, for the place was empty. He +waited until the trooper joined him, and then pointed to a little door +in the back of the larger building. + +"That explains the thing!" he exclaimed. "You looked round the shack?" + +"I did," the trooper admitted, and added, somewhat tactlessly, "so did +you." + +Slaney frowned at this reminder, but it was evident that a discussion as +to whose fault it was that Winthrop had got away would in no way assist +them in his capture, and they proceeded into the larger building, where +they had no trouble in finding an explanation of his escape. + +Men working on the prairie or in the bush of Canada are usually boarded +by their employers at a weekly charge, and there were a good many of +them engaged on the track. As a result of it, the iron shack was partly +filled with provisions, and when Slaney and the trooper entered by the +front they had seen a pile of cases and flour-bags apparently built up +against one wall. It was, however, growing dark then, and neither of +them had noticed that there was a narrow space behind the provisions +which had been left to facilitate the entrance of the cook. Winthrop, it +was clear, had slipped out through it in the darkness, and the shack had +prevented either of the watchers from seeing him crawl away across the +prairie. It occurred to Slaney that from the position of the tents it +was scarcely likely he had got away quite unnoticed, but he had reasons +for believing that it would be difficult to elicit any reliable +information on that point from the man's comrades. + +There was only one thing to be done, and that was to mount as soon as +possible and endeavor to pick up the fugitive's trail; but when they +reached the spot where they had left their horses there was no sign of +them, and it was half an hour before the trooper came upon them some +distance up the coulée. Slaney was quite convinced that neither of the +beasts had succeeded in dragging the picket out of the ground +unassisted, but this was a thing he could not prove; and when the cook +had supplied them with a hastily prepared breakfast he and the trooper +rode away across the prairie. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A COMPROMISE + + +Thorne was driving Alison home from Graham's Bluff one afternoon about a +week after Winthrop's escape when a couple of horsemen became visible on +the crest of a low rise. The girl glanced at them from under her white +parasol, which shone dazzlingly in the fierce sunlight, and then fixed +her eyes on her companion. + +"They're coming this way, aren't they?" she asked. + +"They seem to be," replied Thorne. "One of them looks like the corporal, +and I shouldn't wonder if he wanted a word with me." + +He saw the girl's slight start, but was not greatly flattered, as he +could not be sure whether it resulted from concern on his behalf or mere +annoyance. He knew what she thought of Winthrop. + +"There's no cause for alarm," he added with a laugh. "I haven't done +anything particularly unlawful for some time." + +He had half expected Alison to explain that she was not alarmed at all, +but she disappointed him, and he wondered whether there was any +significance in this. He had already discovered that she did not +invariably reveal exactly what she felt. + +"What can he want?" she asked. + +"It probably concerns Winthrop. I don't think I told you that they +almost caught him a little while ago, though he got away again." + +"You didn't. Was that because you were afraid you could not trust me?" + +A tinge of deeper color crept into her companion's face, and she decided +rightly that this was due to displeasure. In the encounters which were +not altogether infrequent between them she now and then delivered a +galling thrust, but this, he thought, was striking below the guard. + +"What a question, Miss Leigh!" + +"It wouldn't have been unnatural if you had considered it wiser to be +reticent. What happened on the last occasion would have justified it." + +"If you are referring to Nevis's visit to Mrs. Calvert, I should be +quite willing to leave you to outwit him again. The way you secured the +letter was masterly. Still, in view of the opinions you expressed about +Winthrop, I don't understand why you did it, and, so far as I can +remember, you haven't explained the thing." + +"I meant his visit to the Farquhar homestead when I told him about Lucy; +but I'll try to answer you. For one reason, I wanted to make amends for +my previous--rashness." + +Alison paused at the word, as she remembered that Lucy had suggested +that what she now termed rashness was jealousy. + +"Well," laughed Thorne, "you were certainly rash, but I feel inclined to +wonder whether you were anything else. Your hesitation just now +was--significant." + +Alison recognized that she had a quick-witted antagonist. + +"I believe I have already admitted that I was prejudiced against +Winthrop." + +"That," returned Thorne, "is, perhaps, from your point of view, no more +than natural. In fact, I'm not sure I could say he was right in +everything he has done." He paused a moment. "But, I shouldn't like to +think that your prejudice extends to Lucy." + +Alison had not expected this, and she wondered with some resentment +exactly what he meant to imply. + +"Of course," he added, "some of her ideas and some of the things she +says might jar on you, but that doesn't count for very much, after all. +The girl's staunch all through, and the way she has stuck to Winthrop in +his trouble and the way she has run the farm would compel the respect of +any one who understood what she has had to put up with." + +Alison wondered whether he wished to reassure her concerning Lucy's +devotion to her lover, which, as she remembered, the girl herself had +already done; but she scarcely fancied that he would adopt such a course +as this. It would, at least, be very much out of harmony with his usual +conduct. + +"I venture to believe that Lucy and I will be good friends in the +future," she said. + +Slaney and the trooper were now rapidly approaching, and a minute or two +later Thorne pulled up and turned to the corporal, who reined in his +horse close beside the wagon. + +"You have something to say to me?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied Slaney; "it's this: Do you know where Jake Winthrop is?" + +"No," answered Thorne; "on the whole, I'm glad I don't. What's more, I +haven't the least suspicion." + +They looked at each other steadily, and it struck Alison that the little +gesture Slaney made was a striking testimonial to her companion's +character. It indicated that the corporal had no hesitation in taking +the word of the man with whom he was at variance. Though she and Thorne +occupied the same seat they were far enough apart for her to see his +face, and as he sat with his broad hat tilted back, smiling down at +Slaney, she recognized that in spite of the old blue duck he wore there +was a virile grace in every line of his figure. In addition to this, by +contrast with the smartly uniformed corporal, he looked, as she felt it +could most fittingly be described, thoroughbred, and there was something +in his half-whimsical manner that curiously pleased her. + +"I guess you heard what happened up the track?" Slaney next inquired. + +"I did. Rather amusing in some respects, wasn't it? I understand that +you and the trooper sat out most of the night watching an empty shack." + +"Well," asserted Slaney grimly, "there was nothing very amusing about +the giant-powder. I tell you the man meant to drop it into the fire." + +"From what I know of Winthrop, I'm inclined to believe he did. In fact, +in my opinion, it would be considerably wiser of Nevis if he left that +man alone. I'm not sure he has a very good case against him, anyway; +though, of course, that's no concern of yours or mine. You can't pick up +his trail?" + +"That's a cold fact," declared the corporal. "I guess you wouldn't mind +getting down and walking along a few yards with me?" + +"It's not worth while. I've no objections to Miss Leigh's hearing what +you have to say, and I'm afraid Volador wouldn't stand unless I kept the +reins. The flies are bothering him, and he doesn't seem quite easy when +you're in the neighborhood." Thorne paused and laughed. "In a way, +that's not astonishing." + +Slaney disregarded the last observation. + +"Then," he said, "I'm not the man to make useless trouble--anyway, +unless it's going to give me a shove up toward promotion--but you're +worrying me. The fact is, wherever I pick up Winthrop's trail I strike +yours too. Now there was a night some while back when we ran one of you +down close to the frontier." + +Thorne saw Alison glance sharply at the corporal, and he smiled. + +"Why should I ride for the frontier with the police after me?" + +"That's what I don't exactly know, but I have my views. I want to say +that we picked up a black plug hat when we were coming back along the +trail. The point is that the thing was new. Then we found a brown duck +jacket with a tear in it, but I figured the tear had been made quite +lately." + +"I don't think you could prove very much from that." + +"Well," said Slaney, "I could try. It would look bad if I put the other +matter of the horse Winthrop found near your homestead alongside it. Now +I'll ask you right out--Are you going to mix yourself up with Jake's +affairs any more?" + +"In return, I'd like to hear whether you have any notion of carrying +your investigations further?" Thorne parried. + +They looked rather hard at each other, and then Slaney smiled. + +"I guess it will depend a good deal on your answer; that is, unless +Nevis gets hold of the thing." + +"Then it's my intention to drop Jake Winthrop now. There's very little +probability of his wanting any further assistance that I could render +him." + +"Well, let it go at that," replied Slaney simply. "I guess it will save +you trouble. Good-day to you." + +He rode away, and Alison turned to her companion when they drove on +again. + +"One could have imagined that you and the corporal were making a +bargain," she suggested. + +Thorne laughed. + +"Well," he admitted, "I'm afraid it was quite illegal, but it amounted +to something very much like that. The bargain, however, is only a +provisional one. If Nevis chances on the truth, he may upset it by +forcing Slaney's hand." + +"But, after all, you gave each other only a vague hint. It would be +difficult even to reproach the corporal if, as you say, he went back on +it." + +"Oh, yes," assented Thorne dryly. "Still, I haven't the least reason for +believing that probable." + +Alison made no comment, though the attitude of both men appealed to her. +They were enemies in some respects, and yet once the indefinite +understanding had been arrived at neither seemed to have the slightest +fear that the other would violate it. They were, she remembered, men who +lived in the open, who broke and rode wild horses, and who faced +exposure and strenuous toil. Why this should be conducive to reliability +of character was not very clear, but it apparently had that result. Then +she remembered what the corporal had mentioned. + +"You have been doing something to help Winthrop to escape since the +night you let him have the horse?" + +Thorne admitted it, and when she pressed him for the story he told it +whimsically; but this time Alison felt no anger. A few plain words +spoken by Lucy Calvert had obviated that, for it was now quite clear +that the man had been prompted by mere chivalrous pity and lust of +excitement, and had no desire to win the girl's favor. + +"That was splendid!" she exclaimed. + +Thorne smiled, though he looked at her in a somewhat curious fashion. +Then at her request he related how Winthrop had held off the police. As +it happened, he could tell a story with dramatic force, and both the +brief narratives had their effect on Alison. She had imagination, and +could picture the man who now sat beside her smashing furiously through +the tangled bluff in the blackness of the night, and the other sitting +grimly resolute beside the stove with the stick of giant-powder in his +hand. After all, they were, she realized, the doings of primitive men; +but charity that did not stop to count the cost, and steadfast, +unflinching valor, were rudimentary too, and all the progress of a +complex civilization had evolved nothing finer. Man could add nothing to +them. They were perfect gifts to him, though there was reason for +believing that they were not distributed broadcast. + +Then they chatted about other matters, and Alison was almost sorry when +the Farquhar homestead and its barns and stables rose, girt about with a +sweep of tall green wheat, out of the prairie. Thorne stayed for supper, +and he was standing beside his team with Farquhar an hour afterward when +the latter suddenly made an excuse and moved away as his wife came out +of the doorway. Thorne grinned at this, and there was still a gleam of +amusement in his eyes when his hostess stopped beside him. He indicated +the retreating Farquhar with a wave of his hand. + +"Harry remembered that he'd want the wagon to-morrow, and there's a bolt +loose," he explained. "It didn't seem to occur to him until he noticed +you. I suppose one could call it a coincidence." + +"Have you any different ideas on the subject?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired. + +"Since you ask the question, it looks rather like collusion." + +"Well," laughed Mrs. Farquhar, "I certainly wanted a little talk with +you. To begin with, I should like to point out that we have had a good +deal of your company lately." + +"That's a fact. Perhaps I'd better say that quite apart from the +pleasure of spending an evening with you and Harry there's another +reason." + +"The thing has been perfectly obvious for some time; indeed, it has had +my serious consideration. You see, I hold myself responsible for Alison +to some extent." + +"You feel that you stand _in loco parentis_--I believe that's the +correct phrase--but in one way it doesn't seem to apply. Nobody would +believe you were old enough to be her mother." + +Mrs. Farquhar glanced at him in half-amused impatience, but his manner +swiftly changed. + +"It's my intention to marry Alison as soon as things permit," he added. +"Anyway, that is what I should like to do, but whether I'll ever get any +farther is, of course, another matter. It's one on which I'd be glad to +have your opinion; and that suggests a question. Can my views have been +perfectly obvious to Alison?" + +His companion looked thoughtful. + +"That's a little difficult to answer; though I feel inclined to say that +they certainly ought to have been. On the other hand, it's possible +that she may believe you merely saw in her what we'll call an +intellectual equal--somebody you would have more in common with than you +would, for example, with Lucy. This seems the more likely because I +don't think that marriage in itself has any great attraction for her. +Indeed, I'm inclined to fancy that it was rather a shock to her to +discover how it is regarded by some people in this country. It's +unfortunate that she fell in with one hasty suitor who was anxious to +marry her offhand immediately on her arrival. That being the case, it +strikes me that you had better proceed cautiously and avoid anything +that may suggest a too materialistic point of view." + +Thorne made a gesture of comprehensive repudiation. + +"I'm thankful that nobody could call me smugly practical. But, it must +be admitted that, as she is situated, marriage seems to be her only +vocation in this country." + +"If you let her see that you think that, you may as well give up your +project." Mrs. Farquhar hesitated a moment. "Have you ever tried to +formulate what you expect from Alison?" + +Thorne's smile made it evident that he guessed what was in her mind. + +"I can at least tell you what I don't expect. I've no hankering for a +house and domestic comforts--in my experience they're singularly apt to +pall on one. I don't want a woman to mend my clothes and prepare me +tempting meals--that way of looking at the thing strikes one as almost +unthinkable, and there never was a banquet where the fare was half as +good as what you turn out of the blackened spider in the birch bluff. I +want Alison, with her English graces and English prejudices; her only, +and nothing else." + +"That is a sentiment which would no doubt appeal to her; but one has to +be practical; and you would in any case have to do a good deal before +you got her. She couldn't, for instance, dress in flour-bags and live in +the wagon. Nor do I think that Bishop would feel equal to entertaining a +married couple during the winter." + +"The point of all this is that you want to be satisfied that I can give +up my vagabond habits?" suggested Thorne. "Well, I must try to convince +you, though I want to say that it was a willing sacrifice. Haven't I +gone into harness--yoked myself down to a house and land, with a +mortgage on both of them; haven't I slept for several months now under +at least a partly shingled roof? If any more proof is wanted, haven't I +come to terms with Corporal Slaney and given up the excitement of +bluffing the police; and haven't I decided, as far as it's possible for +me, to leave Nevis unmolested? Aren't all these things foreign to my +nature?" + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed. + +"Mavy," she asked, "do you find living in some degree of comfort, and +devoting your intelligence to a task that will probably pay you, so very +intolerable?" + +Thorne smiled and made a little, confidential gesture. + +"I must confess that I don't find it quite as unpleasant as I had +expected. But you haven't given me your opinion on the point that +concerns me most." + +"Then," said Mrs. Farquhar, with an air of reflection, "while Alison has +naturally not said anything to me on the subject, I don't think you need +consider your case as altogether desperate." + +She smiled at Thorne, who swung himself up into his wagon and drove +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +NEVIS'S VISITOR + + +Florence Hunter had lately returned from Toronto and was sitting on the +veranda toward the middle of the afternoon in an unusually thoughtful +mood. Among other reasons for this, there was the fact that she had +spent a good deal of money while she was away, and she was far from sure +that she had received its full value. Most of the people she had met in +Toronto appeared to be endued with irritatingly respectable, +old-fashioned views, and as a result of it they could not be induced to +forget that she was a married woman separated for a few weeks from a +self-sacrificing husband. Indeed, one or two of them went so far as to +condole with her for his absence, and their general attitude imposed on +her an unwelcome restraint. There was certainly one exception, but this +man had no tact, and the lady who stood sponsor for her openly frowned +at his too marked devotion, while some of the others laughed. Florence +at length got rid of him summarily, and then half regretted it when +nobody else aspired to fill his place. + +It had, further, occurred to her in Elcot's absence that he had a number +of strong points, after all. He was quiet and steadfast, not to be moved +from his purpose by anger or cajolery, and though this was sometimes +troublesome, there was no doubt that he was a man who could be relied +upon. She had nothing to fear, except, perhaps, her own imprudence, +while she was in his care. Then, although she would hardly have +expected it before she went away, she found the spacious wooden house +pleasantly cool and quiet after the stir and rush of life in the hot +city, and Elcot's unobtrusive regard for her comfort soothing. He never +fussed, but when she wanted anything done he was almost invariably at +hand. She determined to be more gracious to him in the future, for she +was troubled with a slightly uncomfortable feeling that he might have +had something to complain of in this respect in the past. + +On the whole, her thoughts were far from pleasant, and in addition to +this the temperature, which was a good deal higher than usual, had a +depressing effect on her. There was no breeze that afternoon, and the +air was still and heavy; the white prairie flung back a trying light, +even on to the shaded veranda, and she felt restless, captious and +irritable. At length, however, she took up a book and endeavored to +become engrossed in it. She so far succeeded that she did not hear a +buggy drive up, and it was with a start that she straightened herself in +her chair as Nevis walked quietly on to the veranda. + +"I never expected you!" she exclaimed. + +The man smiled in a deprecatory fashion. + +"I heard at the station that you arrived yesterday." + +Florence frowned at this. The inference was too obvious; he evidently +wished to imply that it would have been unnatural had he delayed his +visit. + +"Well," she said, "you startled me. Do you generally walk into places +that way--like a pickpocket?" + +Nevis laughed, and when he sat down rather close to her, uninvited, she +favored him with a gaze of careful and undisguised scrutiny. Florence +could be openly rude upon occasion, and though his visits hitherto had +afforded her some satisfaction, she now felt that she would have been +better pleased had he stayed away. He was, as usual, tastefully dressed; +there was no doubt that his clothes became him; but somehow it struck +her that, although she had not realized this earlier, the man looked +cheap, which on consideration seemed the best word for it. + +"I suppose you enjoyed yourself while you were away?" he began. + +"No," replied Florence; "on the whole, I don't think I did." + +She broke off and added irritably: + +"Why do you always come at this time? If you drove over in the evening +you would find Elcot at home." + +She was genuinely provoked by her companion's smile. It so tactlessly +implied that she did not mean what she had said. His signal lack of +delicacy jarred on her now, though she remembered with faint wonder that +she had on previous occasions found a relish in his conversation. + +"Well," he answered, "for one reason, I generally call here when I'm +going to the bluff. It's convenient to get there for supper." + +Florence was annoyed at the opening words. The hint that there was a +stronger reason which he had not mentioned was so crude that it savored +of mere impertinence. Somehow she felt disappointed in the man. She had, +as she realized at length, expected clever compliments from him, firmly +finished, subtle boldness that would be just sufficiently apparent to +convey a pleasurable thrill, and, with the latter exception, a wholly +respectful homage. As to what he had expected she was far from clear, +but that was a point of much less account. The polish, however, seemed +suddenly to have been rubbed off him, and there was nothing into which +she cared to look beneath. Even Elcot would have been capable of +something more skilful than his too familiar inanities. What had brought +about this change in the way she regarded him she did not know, but +there was no doubt that she felt all at once disillusioned. She was in +her caprices essentially variable. + +"Your supper is evidently a matter of importance to you," she said. + +Nevis looked at her sharply. + +"Not more than it is to most other men. In return, I wonder if I might +point out that you don't seem quite as amiable as usual to-day?" + +Florence laughed. + +"As a matter of fact, I'm not. Nobody could feel very pleasant at this +temperature; and I'm disappointed--with several things." She leaned back +languidly in her chair with an air of weariness. "When that happens it's +a relief to be disagreeable to anybody who comes along. Besides, you're +not in the least entertaining this afternoon." + +There was something in her manner that stung the man, and he ventured +upon an impertinence. + +"I suppose that means that Elcot hasn't proved amenable, as usual; but +it's a little rough on me that I should have to meet the bill after a +long and scorching drive." + +Florence laughed again, scornfully. + +"Elcot," she retorted, "is accustomed to carrying his own load, and on +occasion other people's too, which is a weakness with which I'd never +credit you. Besides, if he'd traveled for a week to see me he wouldn't +think of reminding me of it." + +"You seem inclined to drag his virtues out and parade them to-day." + +There was no doubt that the man was going too far, and that led Florence +to wonder whether he could be driven into going any farther. + +"That," she replied, "would be quite unnecessary in Elcot's case. In +fact, his virtues have an almost exasperating habit of meeting you in +the face, which is no doubt why it's rather pleasant to get away from +them--occasionally." + +"You prefer something different on the off-days?" + +"Yes," Florence answered reflectively, "I like a change; but it must be +admitted that I invariably feel an increased respect for Elcot after +it." + +Nevis winced at this. She had made it clear that it was his part to +amuse her at irregular intervals and enhance her husband's finer +qualities by the contrast. It was not, however, one that appealed to +him, and he had a vindictive temper. As it happened, she presently gave +him an opportunity for indulging it. + +"I wish I'd never gone to Toronto," she said petulantly. + +"Considering everything, that's quite a pity," Nevis pointed out. "The +visit probably cost you a good deal of money; and"--he added this with a +grim suggestiveness--"wheat is steadily going down." + +Florence gazed at him with a hardening face. He evidently meant it as a +reminder that she owed him money. The man was becoming intolerable. + +"Is it?" she asked indifferently. "In any case, I shall no doubt manage +to meet my debts when they fall due." + +Nevis had reasons for believing that it would be more difficult than +she seemed to anticipate, but he talked about something else, and then, +finding that his companion did not favor him with very much attention, +he took his leave. When he was getting into his buggy Hunter came up and +stopped him. + +"I'm rather busy, but I can spare you a few minutes if it's necessary," +he said. + +Nevis looked at him with a provocative smile. + +"It isn't," he answered. "It was your wife I came to see; she entrusted +me with the arranging of a little matter." + +He gathered up the reins, and added, as though to explain his departure: + +"There are several things I want to get through with at the bluff this +evening." + +"Then I won't try to keep you." + +Hunter walked up on the veranda and, leaning on the balustrade, looked +at his wife. + +"You have had a deal of some kind with that man?" + +A flush of anger swept into Florence's cheek. + +"He told you that?" she exclaimed; and then added, with a harsh laugh, +"As it happens, he was quite correct." + +Hunter stood still with an expressionless face for a moment or two, +apparently waiting in case she had anything else to say; and then, with +a gesture which might have meant anything, he moved away along the +veranda. Florence's conscience accused her when he disappeared into the +house; but she was most clearly sensible that she was now a little +afraid of Nevis and disposed to hate him. However, she lay quietly in +her basket-chair until word was brought her that supper was ready. + +Two or three days later Nevis sat late one night in his office at the +railroad settlement. It was situated at the back of his implement store, +on the ground floor of a very ugly wooden building which had a false +front that rose a little beyond the ridge of roof. One door opened +directly on to the prairie; the other led into the store, from which +there exuded a pungent smell of paint and varnish. A nickeled lamp hung +over Nevis's head, and the little room was unpleasantly hot, so hot, +indeed, that he sat in his shirt-sleeves before a table littered with +papers. Not far away a small safe stood open. This contained further +papers tied up in several bundles and neatly endorsed. There was nothing +else in the room except a few shelves filled with account books; and +there was no covering on the floor. Nevis, like most commercial men in +the small western towns, wasted very little money on superfluous +accessories. He found that he could employ it much more profitably. + +He had, as it happened, a troublesome matter to decide on, and seeing no +way out of the difficulties which complicated it, he rose at length, +and, lighting a cigar, opened the outer door and stood leaning against +it. It was cooler there, and he noticed that the night was unusually +dark. The stream of light that flowed out past him, forcing up his +figure in a sharp, black silhouette, only intensified the thick +obscurity in which it was almost immediately lost. It was also very +still, and he could hear his white shirt crackle at each slight movement +of the hand that held the cigar. Everybody in the little wooden town +was, he surmised, already asleep, though he knew that a west-bound train +would stop there in half an hour or so. + +He did not know how long he remained in the doorway, but by degrees the +stillness became oppressive, and at last he started as a sound rose +suddenly out of the darkness. It was a faint, metallic rattle, and he +leaned forward a little, listening in strained attention. The noise was +so unexpected that it jarred on him. + +Then he recollected that some of his neighbors were addicted to dumping +empty provision cans and similar refuse into a clump of willows which +straggled close up to the back of the town not far away, and he decided +that one of them had fallen down or rolled over. After that he went back +to his table, leaving the door open for the sake of coolness, and he was +once more occupied with his papers when he heard a sharp knocking at the +front of the store. Pushing his chair back he took out his watch. +Somebody who was going west by the train that was almost due apparently +desired to see him, though it seemed a curious thing that the man had +not called earlier. He rose and entered the store, where he fell against +the projecting handle of a plow in the darkness. This ruffled his +temper, and he spent some time impatiently fumbling for and undoing the +fastenings of the outer door. Then he flung it open somewhat violently, +and strode out into the darkness. There was, so far as he could see, +nobody in the vicinity, and when, moving forward a few paces he called +out, he got no answer. + +Feeling slightly uneasy as well as astonished, he stood still for, +perhaps, a minute, gazing about him. He could dimly see the houses +across the street, with the tall false fronts of one or two cutting +black against the sky, but there was not a light in any of them, and +there was certainly no sound of footsteps. He was neither a nervous nor +a fanciful man, and it scarcely seemed possible that his ears had +deceived him. Swinging around suddenly, he went back into the store and +fastened the outer door before he reentered his office. The door at the +back of the office and the safe stood open just as he had left them. +Crossing the room he looked into the safe. + +As a rule, a man's possessions are as secure in a small prairie town as +they would be in, for example, London or Montreal, but Nevis seldom kept +much money in his safe. He usually made his collections after harvest, +and remitted the proceeds to a bank in Winnipeg. A small iron cash-box, +however, occupied one shelf, and it was at once evident that this had +not been touched, which seemed to prove that nobody with dishonest +intentions had entered the place in his absence. This was satisfactory, +but a few moments later it struck him that one of the bundles of +docketed papers was not lying exactly where he had last placed it. He +could not be quite sure of this, though he was methodical in his habits, +and he took the bundle up and examined it. The tape around it was +securely tied and the papers did not seem to have been disturbed. +Besides this, they were in no sense marketable securities. + +He laid them down again and closed the safe. Then, locking the outer +door behind him, he proceeded through the silent town toward the track. +As he did so the clanging of a locomotive bell broke through a +slackening clatter of wheels, and when after a smart run he reached the +station, hot and somewhat breathless, the lights of the long train were +just sliding out of it. He strode up to the agent, who stood in the +doorway of his office shack with a lantern in his hand. + +"Did anybody get on board?" he asked. + +"No," replied the agent. "Nobody got off, either. Did you expect to +catch up any one?" + +"I fancied somebody called at the store a few minutes ago. It occurred +to me that the man might want to leave some message and had forgotten it +until he was going to catch the train." + +"I guess it must have been a delusion," remarked the agent. + +Nevis had almost arrived at the same conclusion. He waited a few +minutes, and then they walked back together through the settlement. The +agent left him outside the store, above which he had a room, and +dismissing the matter from his mind he went tranquilly to sleep half an +hour later. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE MORTGAGE DEED + + +Alison was sitting alone in the general living-room of the Farquhar +homestead about an hour after breakfast when she laid down her sewing +with a start as a man whom she had not heard approaching suddenly +appeared in the doorway. He stood there, looking at her with what she +felt was a very suspicious curiosity, and there was no doubt that his +appearance was decidedly against him. His clothing, which had been +rudely patched with cotton flour-bags, was old and stained with soil; +his face was hard and grim; and she grew apprehensive under his fixed +scrutiny. + +"Where's the rest of you?" he asked after an unpleasant silence of a few +moments. + +Alison felt that it would be singularly injudicious to inform him, and +while she hesitated, wondering what to answer, he strode into the room +and fell heavily into the nearest chair. + +"You'll excuse me," he apologized. "I'm played out." + +The signs of weariness were plain on him, and Alison became a little +reassured. After all, she remembered, there was nothing of very much +value in the homestead; and she had never as yet had any reason to fear +the men she had come across upon the prairie. In fact, though one had +wanted to marry her offhand, their general conduct compared very +favorably with that of one or two whom she had met in English cities. + +"Have you come far?" she asked. + +"From the railroad--on my feet," answered the man. "I left it about +midnight two nights ago, and since then I've only had a morsel of food." +Then he smiled at her. "You haven't told me yet where Harry Farquhar and +his wife have gone." + +It was clear that he had already satisfied himself that they were out, +and Alison reluctantly admitted it. + +"Mrs. Farquhar has driven over to the bluff," she said. "She took her +husband with her, but she was to drop him at the ravine where the +birches are. He wanted to cut some poles." + +The look of annoyance in the man's face further reassured her, as it +implied that he regretted Farquhar's absence almost as much as she had +done a few moments earlier. + +"It's a sure thing I can't wait till they come back, and the trouble is +I can't make Mrs. Calvert's place without a rest, either." + +He paused and gazed searchingly at Alison. + +"You're Miss Leigh, aren't you? I guess you could be trusted; I've heard +of you." + +Alison's astonishment was evident, and he smiled. + +"It's quite likely," he added dryly, "that you've heard of me. My name's +Jake Winthrop." + +Alison sat very still, and it was a moment or two before she spoke. + +"What do you want?" she asked. + +"Breakfast, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. Then, as Farquhar's out, +there's a piece of paper I'd like to give you. Guess it would be safer +out of my hands; the police troopers are after me." + +Alison set the kettle and frying-pan on the stove. She was +compassionate by nature, and the man looked very jaded and weary. When +she sat down again he handed her a rather bulky folded paper which +appeared to be some kind of legal document. + +"What am I to do with this?" she asked. + +"You can give it to Farquhar, or keep it and hide it," said the man. "I +guess the last would be wisest. Nobody would figure you had the thing, +and I can't give it to Lucy, because Nevis would sure get after her." + +"Is it very important?" + +"It might be. I can't go and ask a lawyer now. Guess the man would feel +it was his duty to put Slaney on my trail, and I couldn't go near the +settlement in daylight without doing the same. Anyway, it's my mortgage +deed, and I have a notion that it might give me a pull on Nevis if the +troopers get me. If I'm right, he'll be mighty anxious to get it back +again." + +"I don't understand," returned Alison. "If he was afraid of your using +it against him, he wouldn't have given it to you at all." + +Winthrop grinned. + +"He didn't. I got him out of his office late at night and crept in for +it. I knew where he kept the thing because I'd seen him put it in his +safe." + +Alison was far from pleased with this confession, but while she +considered it another point occurred to her. + +"But don't people generally get a duplicate of a paper of this kind?" +she asked. + +"I had one, but Nevis wanted me to do something that didn't seem quite +what we had agreed on, and I went over with the deed to show him he was +wrong. He said I'd better leave it, and somehow or other I could never +get it out of his hands again." + +"Ah," said Alison softly, "I think I wouldn't mind helping you against +that man. But you must tell me exactly what you mean to do." + +"I'm going across to see Lucy--and out West somewhere after that. If I +can get away, and strike anything that will pay me, it's quite likely +that I'll leave Nevis alone. If I can't, or there's a reason for it +later, I'll write you, and Farquhar or Thorne could take the deed to a +lawyer and see if he could get at Nevis with it. In the meanwhile it +would be wiser if you just hid the thing away. If Farquhar knows nothing +about it, I guess it would save him trouble." + +Alison did not answer for a moment or two. She felt that she was acting +imprudently in allowing herself to be drawn into the affair, but she was +sorry for the man. He was a friend of Thorne's, and that counted for a +good deal in his favor. In addition to this, the idea of playing a part, +and possibly a leading part, in something of the nature of a complicated +drama appealed to her, and there was, half formulated at the back of her +mind, the desire to prove to Thorne just what she was capable of. + +"Well," she said at length, "you may leave it with me." + +Then she set about getting him a meal, and a little while later he +limped wearily away. He left her with the impression that it would be +wise of Nevis to abandon his pursuit of him, for there was something in +the man's manner which indicated that he might prove dangerous if +pressed too hard. The morning had slipped away before she could get the +thought of him out of her mind. + +In the meanwhile, he was plodding across the white wilderness under a +scorching sun. The atmosphere was crystallinely clear, and an almost +intolerable brightness flooded the wide levels. A birch bluff miles away +was etched in clean-cut tracery upon the horizon, but though the weary +man kept his eyes sharply open he felt reasonably safe from observation, +which it seemed desirable to avoid. He did not believe that any of the +scattered farmers would betray him, even if some pressure should be put +upon them with the view of extracting information, but it was clear that +they would be better able to evade any attempts Nevis or Slaney might +make to entrap them into some incautious admission if they had none to +impart. Winthrop based this decision on the fact that a man certainly +cannot tell what he does not know. + +It was consoling to remember that the wide, open prairie is by no means +a bad place to hide in. A mounted figure or a team and wagon shows up +for a vast distance against the skyline, while a few grass tussocks less +than a foot in height will effectually conceal a man who lies down among +them with the outline of his body broken by the blades from anybody +passing within two or three hundred yards of him. Winthrop was aware, +however, that it would be different if he attempted to run away; and +once he dropped like a stone when a buggy rose unexpectedly out of a +ravine. The man who drove it was an acquaintance of his, but he seemed +to gaze right at the spot where Winthrop was stretched out without +seeing him. The latter was not disturbed again, but he cast rather +dubious glances round him as he resumed his march. There was another +long journey in front of him that night, and he did not like the signs +of the weather. It struck him as ominously clear. + +He was, as it happened, not the only person who noticed this, for other +people who had at different times suffered severely in pocket from the +vagaries of the climate had arrived at much the same opinion that +afternoon, with more or less uneasiness according to their temperament. +The wheat was everywhere standing tall and green, and the season had +been on the whole so propitious that from bitter experience they almost +expected a change. As the small cultivator has discovered, the simile of +a beneficent nature is a singularly misleading one, for the stern truth +was proclaimed in ages long ago that man must toil with painful effort +for the bread he eats, and must subdue the earth before he can render it +fruitful. In the new West he has made himself many big machines, +including the great gang-plows that rip their multiple furrows through +the prairie soil, but he still lies defenseless against the fickle +elements. + +Elcot Hunter, at least, was anxious that night as he sat in the general +living-room of his homestead opposite his wife. She was not greatly +interested in the book she held, and she glanced at him now and then as +he sat poring over a newspaper which was noted for its crop and market +reports. They afforded Hunter very little satisfaction, for they made it +clear that the West would produce enough wheat that season to flood an +already lifeless market. + +The windows of the room were open wide, and the smell of sun-baked soil +damped by the heavy dew came in with the sound made by the movements of +a restless horse or two. The fall of hoofs appeared unusually distinct. +The wooden house, which had lain baking under a scorching sun all day, +was still very hot, but the faint puffs of air which flowed in were +delightfully cool, and at length Florence, who was very lightly clad, +shivered as one that was stronger than the rest lifted a sheet of +Hunter's paper. + +"It is positively getting cold," she remarked. + +"Cold?" returned Hunter. "I wouldn't call it that." + +He resumed his reading, and three or four minutes had slipped by when +Florence turned to him with irritation in her manner. + +"Haven't you anything to say, Elcot?" she broke out. "Are those crop +statistics so very fascinating?" + +Hunter looked up at her with a rather grim smile. She lay in a low cane +chair beneath the lamp, with her figure falling into long sweeping +lines, attired in costly fripperies lately purchased in the East, but +there was not the least doubt that they became her. Indeed, with the +satiny whiteness of her neck and arms half revealed beneath the gauzy +draperies, and her hair gleaming lustrously about a face that had been +carefully shielded from the ravages of the weather, she seemed strangely +out of place in the primitively furnished room of a western homestead. +The man noticed it, as he had done on other occasions, with a pang of +regret. There had been a time when he had expected her to rejoice in his +successes and console him in his defeats, and it had hurt when she had +made it clear that any reference to his occupation only irritated her. +He had got over that, as he had borne other troubles, with an +uncomplaining quietness, and, though she had never suspected this, he +had often felt sorry for her. Still, he was a man of somewhat unyielding +character, and there was occasionally friction when he did what he +considered most fitting, in spite of her protests. + +"Well," he said in answer to her question, "they have, anyway, some +interest to a farmer who has a good deal at stake." He threw the paper +down. "Things in general aren't very promising, and I may be rather +tightly fixed after the harvest. I seem to have been spending a great +deal of money lately." + +Florence felt guilty. After all, as she was the principal cause of his +expenses, it was generous of him to put it as he had done. Indeed, she +decided to make a confession about the loan from Nevis sometime when he +appeared to be in an unusually favorable mood. + +"You have a splendid crop, haven't you?" she asked. + +"The trouble is that I may not get much for it, and a wheat crop is +never quite safe until it's thrashed out. I'm uncertain about the +weather." + +"The aneroid has gone up; I looked at it." + +"It's gone up too much and too suddenly," said Hunter. "That sometimes +means a bad outbreak from the north." + +Florence was moved by a sudden impulse. The man was bronzed and +toughened by labor, but there was, as she had noticed since she came +home, a jaded look in his face. + +"Elcot," she asked, "do you think I oughtn't to have gone away?" + +The man seemed to consider this. + +"No," he answered, "I don't think that, so long as you were able to +manage it with the little help I could give you." He paused a moment, +and looked puzzled, for there was a suspicion of heightened color in +Florence's face. "On the whole, I'm glad you went, if you enjoyed the +visit." + +"You don't seem very sure. Wasn't it rather dull for you here?" + +It was, so far as he could remember, the first time she had displayed +any interest on this point, and he smiled. + +"Oh, I had the place to look after, as usual. It's fortunate that it +occupies a good deal of my attention." + +Florence leaned forward suddenly. + +"Elcot, won't you tell me exactly how much you mean by that?" + +It was a moment or two before Hunter answered. + +"Well," he said gravely, "since you have suggested it, perhaps I better +had, though it means the dragging in of questions we've talked over +quite often already. I took up farming because I couldn't stand the +cities and it seemed the thing I was most fitted for. On that point I +haven't changed my opinions. Where I did wrong was in marrying you." He +checked her with a lifted hand as she was about to speak. "If you had +never met me, you would probably have taken the next man with means who +came along." + +"Yes," admitted Florence, meeting his gaze. "I think that's true. Having +gone so far, hadn't you better proceed?" + +"I'm trying to look at it from your standpoint; I've never been sorry on +my own account." + +Florence laughed in a strained fashion. + +"That's a little difficult to believe. Still, one must do you the +justice to own that you have, at least, never mentioned your regrets." + +"I don't think I've often mentioned my expectations either. That's one +reason I'm speaking now. You seem--approachable--to-night." + +"I suppose they were not fulfilled?" + +"If they were not, it was my own fault. I took you out of the +environment you were suited to and content with." + +"I wasn't," Florence declared sharply. "Things were horribly unpleasant +to me then. I was struggling desperately to earn a living, and had to +put up with a good deal from most disagreeable people." + +Again a faint, grim smile crept into her husband's eyes. + +"After all, perfect candor is a little painful now and then; but let me +go on. At least, I brought you into an environment with which you were +not content. The kind of life I led was irksome to you; you could not +help me in it; even to hear me talk of what I did each day was +burdensome to you. I couldn't speak of my plans for the future, or the +difficulties that must be met and faced continually. For a while I felt +it badly." + +"Yes," Florence acknowledged, "it must have been hard on you, Elcot." + +"It could be borne, but there was another side of the matter. It was +clear that you were longing for company, stir, gaiety--and I could not +give them to you. As I've often said, I'm not rich enough to make a mark +in any of the cities, unless I went into business, for which I've +neither the training nor inclination, and most of my money is sunk in +the land here. It's difficult to sell a farm of this size for anything +like its value unless wheat is dear. Besides, the friends you would wish +to make wouldn't take to me. That is certain; I lived among people of +their description before I met you. I couldn't in any way have helped +you to make yourself a leading place in the only kind of society that +would satisfy you. All this has stood between us--no doubt it was +unavoidable--but it made the troubles I could share with no one a +little worse to bear, and my few successes of less account to me. After +all, since I could, at least, send you to the cities now and then, it +was fortunate that I had my farm." He stopped a moment and added +deprecatingly: "Whether you will be able to get away next winter is more +than I know. As I said, the outlook is far from promising in the +meanwhile." + +Florence did not answer immediately. At last, she could clearly grasp +the man's point of view. Indeed, she realized that during the few years +they had lived together she had taken all he had to offer and had given +practically nothing in return. She felt almost impelled to tell him that +her last visit to the cities had brought her very little pleasure, and +that she would be willing to spend the next winter with him at the +lonely homestead; but she could not do so. A surrender of any kind was +difficult to her, and she had by degrees built up a barrier of reserve +between them that could not immediately be thrown down. Besides, there +was in the background the memory of Nevis's loan. + +"Things may look better by and by," she said lamely. + +Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, and it seemed to Florence that +the room grew perceptibly colder, while once or twice a little puff of +air struck with a sudden chill upon her face. Then there was a sharp +drumming, which ceased again abruptly, upon the shingled roof, and she +followed Hunter when he strode out on the veranda. An impenetrable +darkness now overhung most of the sky, and there was a wild beat of +hoofs as three or four invisible horses dashed across the paddock. +Florence knew that the beasts were young, and understood that they were +valuable. Her husband moved toward the steps. + +"I'll put them into the stable, or, if I can't manage that, turn them +out on the prairie," he said. "I'm afraid of the new fence. They're not +accustomed to it yet, and there are two barbed strands in it." + +"Take one of the hired men with you," Florence called after him, but he +made no answer, and the next moment a mad beat of hoofs once more broke +out as the uneasy horses galloped furiously back across the fenced-in +space. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +HAIL + + +The air had grown very still again when Florence leaned on the veranda +balustrade, gazing into the darkness, which was now intense. The brief +shower of heavy rain had wet the grass, and waves of warm moisture +charged with an odor like that of a hothouse seemed to flow about her +and recede again, leaving her almost shivering in her gauzy dress, for +between whiles it was by contrast strangely cold. She could hear Hunter +calling to the horses, which apparently broke away from him now and then +in short, savage rushes, but she could see nothing of him or them. +Presently the sharp cries of one of the hired men broke in, and +Florence, who felt her nerves tingling, became conscious of an +unpleasant tension. + +Then for a second, or part of it, the figures of moving men and beasts +became visible, etched hard and black against an overwhelming +brightness, as a blaze of lightning smote the prairie. The glare of it +was dazzling, and when it vanished Florence was left gripping the +balustrade, bewildered and wrapped in an intolerable darkness. After +that a drumming of hoofs and a hoarse cry broke upon her ears, but both +were drowned and lost in a deafening crash of thunder. It rolled far +back into the distance in great reverberations, and while her light +skirt fluttered about her in an icy draught another sound emerged from +them as they died away. + +It grew nearer and louder in a persistent, portentous crescendo, for at +first it suggested the galloping of a squadron of horse, then a +regiment, and at length the furious approach of a division of cavalry. +Holding fast to the balustrade, she could even imagine that there were +mingled with it the crash of jolting wheels and a clamor of wild voices +as of a host behind pressing onward to the onslaught. The din was +scarcely drowned by a tremendous rumbling that twice filled the air; and +there was forced upon her a vague perception of the fact that it was a +very real attack upon the things that enabled her to have the ease she +loved. Wheat and cattle, stables and homestead must, it almost seemed, +go down, and there were, as sole and pitiful defense, two men somewhere +out in the darkness exposed to the outbreak of elemental fury. There was +now no sign of her husband or his companion. It was quite impossible to +hear any sound they made, and she stood quivering, until, loosing her +hold of the balustrade with an effort, she ran down the steps. + +"Elcot!" she cried. + +No answer reached her. She knew it was useless to call, but an +overmastering fear came upon her as she remembered the mad flight of the +terrified horses, and she ran on a few paces over the wet grass, crying +out again. Then she was beaten back, gasping, with her hands raised in a +futile attempt to shield her face and her dress driven flat against her, +as a merciless shower of ice broke out of the darkness. It swept the +veranda like the storm of lead from a volley, only it did not cease; +crashing upon the balustrade and lashing the front of the house, while +the very building seemed to rock in the savage blast. She staggered back +before it, too dazed and bewildered to notice where she was going, +until she struck the wall and cowered against the boards. There was a +narrow roof above her, but it did not keep off much of the wind-driven +hail, and she could not be sure that the whole of it was now standing. +The veranda was wrapped in darkness, for the lamp had blown out. + +She never remembered how long she stood there. For a time, every sense +was concentrated on an effort to shelter her face from the hail which +fell upon her thinly covered arms and shoulders like a scourge of +knotted wire. Then, faint and breathless, she crept forward toward where +she supposed the door must be, and staggered into the unlighted room. +She struck a chair, and sank into it, to sit shivering and listening +appalled to the cataclysm of sound. + +Then a terror which had been driven out of her mind for the last few +minutes crept back. Elcot was out amid the rush of hurtling ice; and she +knew him well enough to feel certain that he would stay in the paddock +until the horses were secured. She could picture him trying to guide the +maddened beasts out between the slip-rails, heading them off from the +perilous fence they rushed down upon at a terror-stricken gallop, or, +perhaps, lying upon the hail-swept grass with a broken limb. It was +horrible to contemplate, and she became conscious of a torturing anxiety +concerning the safety of the man for whose comfort she had scarcely +spared a thought since she married him. + +Though it was difficult, she contrived to shut the door and window, and +to relight the lamp, and then she glanced round the room. Elcot's paper +had fallen to pieces and had been scattered here and there, while a +long pile of hail lay melting on the floor. She could understand now +why she felt bruised all over except where the fullness of her dress had +protected her, for she had never seen hail like this in England. The +jagged lumps were of all shapes, and most of them seemed the size of +hazelnuts. Then she became conscious that her hair was streaming about +her face and that her dress clung saturated to her limbs. This, however, +appeared of no moment, for her anxiety about her husband was becoming +intolerable. + +Nerving herself for an effort, she moved toward the door. It was flung +back upon her when she lifted the latch, and she staggered beneath the +blow. Then, panting hard, she forced it to again and went back limply to +her chair. It was utterly impossible for her to face that hail. She had +the will to do so, and she was no coward, but the flesh she had pampered +and shielded failed her, which was in no way astonishing. Wheat-growers, +herders, police troopers, and, unfortunately, patient women learn that +the body must be sternly brought into subjection to the mind by long +repression before one can face wind-driven ice, snow-laden blizzard, or +the awful cold which now and then descends upon the vast spaces of +western Canada. + +In a few more minutes the uproar subsided. The drumming on the walls and +roof suddenly ceased and the wind no longer buffeted the house. The +tumult receded in gradations of sinking sound, until at last there was +silence, except for the drip from the veranda eaves. It was shortly +broken by quick footsteps and Florence turned toward the door as Hunter +came in. + +His face showed where the hail had beaten it, for his hat had gone; the +water ran from him, and one hand was bleeding. He looked limp and +exhausted, but what struck her most was the sternness of his expression. + +"Are you hurt?" she asked. + +Hunter glanced down at his reddened hand. + +"Nothing to speak of. I got a rip from the fence somehow, and one leg's +a little stiff; one of the horses must have kicked me. Guess I'll know +more about it to-morrow." + +"And the horses?" + +"We managed to get them out. But what were you doing outside? Your dress +is dripping." + +Florence hesitated. It seemed extraordinary that while she had seldom +felt the least diffidence in dealing as appeared expedient with any of +the men she had known, she was unable to inform her husband that she had +been driven into the storm by anxiety for his safety; but somehow she +could not get the words out. She recognized that it had never occurred +to him that she could have been actuated by any motive of this kind, +though she was forced to own that, considering everything, this was no +more than natural. The thought brought a half-bitter smile into her +eyes. + +"I was on the steps when the hail began, and I could scarcely get back +into the house," she said. "Can it have done very much harm?" + +Hunter made a gesture of dejection. + +"That's a point I'm most afraid to investigate, and it can't be done +to-night. In the meanwhile, hadn't you better get those wet things off?" + +His preoccupied manner indicated that he was in no mood for +conversation, and Florence left him standing moodily still. It was some +minutes before he felt chilly and went upstairs to change his clothes, +but he came back almost immediately and took some papers and a couple +of account books from a bureau. After this he lighted his pipe and sat +down to make copious extracts, with a view to discovering how he stood. +He had no great trouble in ascertaining his liabilities, for he was a +methodical man, but it was different when he came to consider what he +had to set off against them. He had counted on his wheat crop to leave +him a certain surplus, but it now seemed unfortunately probable that +there would be no harvest at all that year. Admitting this, he busied +himself with figures in an attempt to discover how far it might be +possible to convert what promised to be a crushing disaster into a +temporary defeat, and several hours slipped by before any means of doing +so occurred to him. His expenses had been unusually heavy, there were +many points to consider and balance against each other, and a gray light +was breaking low down on the rim of the prairie when at length he rose +and thrust the books back into the bureau. The night's labor had at +least convinced him that if he were to hold his own during the next +twelve months it could be only by persistent effort and stern economy, +and he had misgivings as to how his wife would regard the prospect of +the latter. + +On going out on to the veranda a few minutes later he was astonished to +hear footsteps behind him, and when he turned and waited Florence came +out of the doorway. + +"I heard you moving and I came down," she said. "Are you going to look +at the wheat?" + +"Yes," replied Hunter. "I'm afraid there won't be very much of it to +see." + +The light was growing a little clearer and Florence noticed the +weariness of his face. He seemed to hold himself slackly and she had +never seen him fall into that dejected attitude. The man was, however, +physically jaded, for a day of severe labor had preceded the struggle in +the paddock and the hours he had spent in anxious thought, and he had, +as he was quite aware, a heavy blow to face. + +"May I go with you?" she asked hesitatingly. + +"Why?" + +The question was not encouraging, nor was his manner, and Florence felt +reluctant to explain that her request had been prompted by a desire to +share his troubles. She was conscious that a statement to this effect +would probably appear somewhat astonishing, as she had never offered to +do anything of the kind hitherto. + +"If you must have a reason, I'm as anxious to see what damage the hail +has done as you are. It can't very well affect you without affecting +me." + +"Yes," agreed Hunter, "that's undoubtedly the case. I'm afraid you'll +have to put up with me and the homestead for the next twelve months. +It's quite likely that there'll be very few new dresses, either." + +Florence endeavored to keep her patience. It was not often that she felt +in a penitent mood, and he did not seem disposed to make it any easier +for her. + +"Do you suppose new dresses are a matter of vital importance to me?" she +asked. + +"Well," answered Hunter, "since you put the question, several things +almost lead me to believe it." + +He turned abruptly toward the steps. + +"If you are coming with me, we may as well go along." + +They crossed the wet paddock together, and now and then Florence +glanced covertly at her husband's face. It was set and anxious, but +there was no sign of surrender in it. She had, however, not expected to +see the latter, for she knew that Elcot was one who could, when occasion +demanded it, make a very stubborn fight. + +At length they stopped and stood looking out across what at sunset had +been a vast sea of tall, green wheat. Now it had gone down, parts of it +as before the knife of a reaper, while the rest lay crushed and flung +this way and that, as though an army had marched through it. Lush blades +and half-formed ears were smashed into the mire and the odd clusters of +battered stalks that stood leaning above the tangled chaos only served +to heighten the suggestion of widespread ruin. + +Florence watched her husband, but she did not care to speak, for there +are times when expressions of sympathy are superfluous. When he walked +slowly forward along the edge of the grain she followed him, without +noticing that her thin shoes were saturated and her light skirt was +trailing in the harsh wet grass. The ground rose slightly, and stopping +when they reached the highest point he answered her inquiring glance. + +"It looks pretty bad," he said. "Some of it--a very little--may fill out +and ripen and we might get the binders through it, but the thing's going +to be difficult." + +"Will this hit you very hard, Elcot?" + +Hunter turned and looked at her with gravely searching eyes, and she +shrank from his gaze while a warmth crept into her face. + +"Oh," she broke out indignantly, "I'm not thinking--now--of what I might +have to do without. Still, I suppose it was only natural that you should +suspect it." + +The man's gesture seemed to imply that this was after all a matter of +minor importance, and it jarred on her. + +"Well," he answered, "I guess I can weather the trouble, though it will +mean a long, stiff pull and a general whittling down of expenses. I +spent most of last night figuring on the latter, and I've got my plans +worked out, though it was troublesome to see where I was to begin." + +Florence's heart smote her. Her allowance was a liberal one, but she +knew it would only be when every other expedient had failed that he +would think of touching that. It would have been a relief to tell him he +could begin with it, but she remembered Nevis's loan. The thought of +that loan was becoming a burden, and she felt that it must be wiped off +somehow at any cost. + +"Yes," she sympathized, "it must have been difficult. You don't spend +much money unnecessarily, Elcot." + +He did not answer, and she glanced at his hands, which were hard and +roughened like those of a workman. There was an untended red gash which +the fence had made across the back of one. Another glance at his +clothing carried her a little farther along the same line of thought, +for his garments were old and shabby and faded by the weather. + +"Anyway," he said, apparently without having heeded her last +observation, "I'm thankful I have no debts just now." + +It was an unconscious thrust, but Florence winced, for it wounded her, +and she began to see how Nevis had with deliberate purpose strengthened +the barrier between her and her husband. What was more, she determined +that the man should regret it. Why she had ever encouraged him she did +not know, but there was no doubt that she was anxious to get rid of him +now. She would have made an open confession about the loan then and +there, but the time was singularly inopportune. It was out of the +question that she should add to her husband's anxiety. + +"After all, it doesn't often hail," she encouraged him. "Another good +year will set you straight again." + +The man seemed lost in thought, but he looked up when she spoke. + +"We can make a bid for it," he replied. "I must have bigger and newer +machines. Like most of the rest, I've been too afraid of launching out +and have clung to old-fashioned means. There will have to be a change +and a clearance before next season." + +It was very matter-of-fact, but Florence knew him well enough to realize +what it implied. Defeat could not crush him; it only nerved him to a +more resolute fight, for which he meant to equip himself at any +sacrifice with more efficient weapons. Again she was conscious of a +growing respect for him. + +"I'm afraid I have been a drag on you, Elcot, but in this case you can +count upon my doing--what I can." + +He scarcely seemed to hear her, and she realized with a trace of bitter +amusement that her assurance did not appear of any particular +consequence to him. + +"I have teams enough," he continued, picking up the course of thought +where he had broken off. "Anyway, one should get something for the old +machines." + +Florence set her lips as they turned back toward the house. This was a +matter in which she evidently did not count; but there was no doubt that +in the light of past events the man's attitude was justified. It would +be necessary to prove that he was wrong, and, with Nevis's loan still to +be met, that promised to be difficult. + +"Elcot," she said, "I don't think I've told you yet how sorry I am." + +He looked at her in a manner which implied that his mind was still busy +with his plans. + +"Yes--of course," he replied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A POINT OF HONOR + + +Florence Hunter sat in her wagon in front of the grocery store at +Graham's Bluff waiting until the man who kept it should bring out +various goods she had ordered. Though a fresh breeze swept the +surrounding prairie the little town was very hot, and it looked +singularly unattractive with the dust blowing through its one unpaved +street. In one place a gaily striped shade, which flapped and fluttered +in the wind, had been stretched above the window of an ambitious store; +but with this exception the unlovely wooden buildings boldly fronted the +weather, with the sun-glare on their thin, rent boarding and the roofing +shingles crackling overhead, as they had done when they had borne the +scourge of snow-laden gales and the almost Arctic frost. They were +square and squat, as destitute, most of them, of paint as they were of +any attempt at adornment; and in hot weather the newer ones were +permeated with a pungent, resinous smell. + +Where Florence sat, however, the odors that flowed out of the store were +more diffuse, for the fragrance of perspiring cheese was mingled with +that of pork which had gained flavor and lost its stiffness in the heat, +and the aroma of what was sold as coffee at Graham's Bluff. Florence, +indeed, had been glad to escape from the store, which resembled an oven +with savory cooking going on, though after all it was not a great deal +better in the wagon. The dust was beginning to gather in the folds of +her dainty dress, the wind plucked at her veil, and the fierce sun smote +her face. + +On the whole, she was displeased with things in general and inclined to +regret that she had driven into the settlement, which she had done in a +fit of compunction. Hitherto she had contented herself with sending the +storekeeper an order for goods to be supplied, without any attempt to +investigate his charges, but now, with Elcot's harvest ruined it had +appeared her duty to consider carefully the subject of housekeeping +accounts. She rather resented the fact that her first experiment had +proved unpleasant, for she had shrunk from the sight of the slabs of +half-melted pork flung down for her inspection, and having hitherto +shopped only in England and eastern Canada she had found the naïve +abruptness of the western storekeeper somewhat hard on her temper. +Retail dealers in the prairie settlements seldom defer to their +customers. If the latter do not like their goods or charges they are +generally favored with a hint that they would better go somewhere else, +and there is an end of the matter. It really did not look as if much +encouragement was held out to those who aspired to cultivate the +domestic virtues. At length the storekeeper appeared with several large +packages. + +"You want to cover this one up; it's the butter," he cautioned. "Guess +you're going to have some trouble in keeping it in the wagon if the sun +gets on to it. Better bring a big can next time, same as your hired man +does." + +The warning was justified, because when the inexperienced customer +brings nothing to put it in, butter is usually retailed in light baskets +made of wood, in spite of the fact that it is addicted to running out +of them in the heat of the day. The man next deposited a heavy cotton +bag in the wagon, and while a thin cloud of flour which followed its +fall descended upon Florence he laid his hands on the wheel and looked +at her confidentially. + +"I guess if your husband meant to let up on that creamery scheme you +would have heard of it," he suggested. + +"Yes," replied Florence; "I don't think he has any intention of doing +so." + +The man made a sign of assent. + +"That's just what I was telling the boys last night. There were two or +three of them from Traverse staying at the hotel, and when we got to +talking about the hail they allowed that he'd have to cut the creamery +plan out. I said that when Elcot Hunter took a thing up he stayed with +it until he put it through." + +His words had their effect on Florence. This, it seemed, was what the +men who dealt with Elcot thought of him. After a few more general +observations about the creamery her companion went back into his store, +and as he did so Nevis came out of a house near by. He stopped beside +her team. + +"I didn't know you were in the settlement," he said, and his manner +implied that had he been acquainted with the fact he would have sought +her out. + +Florence glanced at him sharply as she gathered up the reins. The man +seemed disposed to be more amiable than he had shown himself on the last +occasion, but she now cherished two strong grievances against him. He +had cunningly saddled her with a debt which was becoming horribly +embarrassing, and he had given her husband a hint that she had dealings +of some kind with him. As the latter course was, on the face of it, +clearly not calculated to earn her gratitude, she surmised that he must +have had some ulterior object in adopting it. + +"I've been buying stores," she answered indifferently. + +"That's a new departure, isn't it?" Nevis suggested. "You generally +contented yourself with sending in for them." + +Florence did not like his tone, and he seemed suspiciously well informed +about her habits. This indicated that he had been making inquiries about +her, and she naturally resented it. She disregarded the speech, however. + +"I suppose you're here on business?" + +"Yes," answered Nevis, and there was something significant in his +manner; "I thought it wiser to look up my clients after the hail we had +two nights ago. It's going to make things very tight for many of the +prairie farmers." + +"And a disaster naturally brings you on the field. Rather like the +vultures, isn't it?" + +She was about to drive on, but Nevis suddenly laid his hand on the rein. + +"I think you ought to give me a minute or two, if only to answer that," +he said with a laugh. "You compared me to a pickpocket not long ago, and +I'm not prepared to own that you have chosen a very fortunate simile +now." + +"No? After the fact you mentioned it struck me as rather apposite; but I +may have been wrong. The point's hardly worth discussing, and I'm going +on to the hotel." + +She had expected him to take the hint and drop the rein, but he showed +no intention of doing so, and it suddenly dawned on her that he meant +to keep her talking as long as possible. Everybody in the settlement who +cared to look out could see them, and she had no doubt that the women in +the place were keenly observant. It almost seemed as if he wished the +fact that they had a good deal to say to each other to attract +attention, with the idea that this might serve to give him a further +hold on her. It was an opposite policy to the one he had pursued when +she had driven him across the prairie some time ago, but the man had +become bolder and more aggressive since then. + +"Will you let that rein go?" she asked directly. + +Nevis did not comply, and though he made a gesture of deprecation the +look in his eyes warned her that he meant to let her feel his power. + +"Won't you give me an opportunity for convincing you that I'm not like +the vultures first? You see, they gather round the carrion, and I don't +suppose you would care to apply that term to the farmers in our +vicinity. Most of them aren't more than moribund yet." + +It struck Florence that he was indifferent as to whether she took +offense at this or not; and he was undoubtedly determined to stick fast +to the rein. There were already one or two loungers watching them, and, +if he persisted, she could not start the team without some highly +undesirable display of force. The man, she fancied, realized this, and +an angry warmth crept into her face. Then, somewhat to her relief, she +saw Thorne strolling down the street behind her companion. He wore a +battered, wide gray hat, a blue shirt which hung open at the neck, duck +trousers and long boots, and though he was freely sprinkled with dust he +looked distinctly picturesque. What was more to the purpose, he seemed +to be regarding Nevis with suspicion, and she knew that he was a man of +quick resource. In any case, the situation was becoming intolerable, and +she flashed a quick glance at him. She fancied that he would understand +it as an intimation that he was wanted, and the expectation was +justified, for although she had never been gracious to him he approached +a little faster. In the meanwhile Nevis, who had seen nothing of all +this, talked on. + +"There are, of course," he added, "people who are prejudiced against me; +but on the other hand I have set a good many of the small farmers on +their feet again." + +"Presumably you made them pay for it?" + +The man had no opportunity for answering this, for just then Thorne's +hand fell heavily upon his shoulder. + +"You here, Nevis?" he cried. + +Nevis dropped the rein as he swung around and Florence wasted no time in +starting her team. As the wagon jolted away down the rutted street +Nevis, standing still, somewhat flushed in face, gazed at Thorne. + +"Well," he demanded, "what do you want?" + +Thorne leaned against the front of the store with sardonic amusement in +his eyes. + +"Oh," he replied, "it merely occurred to me that Mrs. Hunter wished to +drive on. I thought I'd better point it out to you." + +Nevis glanced at him savagely and then strode away, which was, indeed, +all that he could do. An altercation would serve no useful purpose, and +his antagonist was notoriously quick at repartee. + +Thorne proceeded toward the wooden hotel and crossing the veranda he +entered a long roughly boarded room, where he found Alison and Mrs. +Farquhar as well as Florence Hunter waiting for supper. Mrs. Farquhar +told him that supper would be served to them before the regular +customers came in for theirs. They chatted a while and then a young lad +appeared in the doorway and stopped hesitatingly. + +"I'm sorry if I'm intruding," he apologized. "I meant to have supper +with the boys, and Symonds didn't tell me there was anybody in the +room." + +Thorne turned to Mrs. Farquhar, and she smiled. + +"Then unless you would prefer to take it with the boys, Dave, there's no +reason why you should run away," he said. + +He led the lad toward Alison when Mrs. Farquhar had spoken to him. + +"I think you will remember him, Miss Leigh. He's the young man who +boiled the fowls whole at the raising." + +Alison laughed and shook hands with him, but after a word or two with +her he looked at Thorne significantly and moved a few paces toward the +door. + +"Did you know that Winthrop was in the neighborhood?" he whispered. + +Alison still stood near them and Thorne fancied that she started +slightly, which implied that she had overheard, though why the news +should cause her concern was far from clear to him. + +"I didn't," he said sharply. "It's a little difficult to believe it now. +You're quite sure?" + +"I saw him," the lad persisted. "I was riding here along the trail and +I'd come to the ravine. It's quite likely the birches had hidden me, for +when I came out of them he was sitting on the edge of the sloo on the +south side, near enough for me to recognize him, eating something. The +next moment he rolled over into the grass and vanished." + +"Then you didn't speak to him?" + +"He was too quick. It looked as if he didn't want me to see him, and I +rode on. I had to call at Forrester's and I found Corporal Slaney there. +One or two things he said made it clear that he hadn't the faintest +notion that Winthrop was within a mile or two of him." + +He was apparently about to add something further when Thorne looked at +him warningly. They were standing near the entrance, the approach to +which led through the veranda, and the next moment Nevis walked into the +room. + +"Have you been picking up interesting news?" he asked. "I believe I +caught Winthrop's name." + +It was spoken sharply, in the expectation, Thorne fancied, that his +companion, taken off his guard, would blurt out some fresh information; +but the lad turned toward Nevis with an air of cold resentment. + +"I was talking to Mr. Thorne," he replied. + +Nevis laughed, though Thorne noticed that he did not do it easily. + +"Well," he said, "I'm sorry if I interrupted you." + +Then he turned toward the others as if he had just noticed them. + +"I didn't know that Symonds had placed the room at your disposal; I've +no doubt that will excuse me." + +Nobody invited him to remain, but he withdrew gracefully, and when he +had gone Thorne led the lad out on to the veranda. It was unoccupied, +but as it stood some little height above the ground he walked to the +edge of it and looked over before he spoke. + +"Now, Dave, I want you to tell me one or two things as clearly as you +can." + +The lad answered his questions, and in a minute or two Thorne nodded as +if satisfied. Then he pointed to the room. + +"Go in and talk to Mrs. Farquhar. Keep clear of Nevis, and ride home as +soon as you can after supper. If you feel compelled to mention the +thing, there's no reason why you shouldn't to-morrow. It won't do much +harm then." + +He went down the steps and along the street, and when he came back some +time later he found Alison waiting for him on the veranda. + +"So you heard what Dave told me? I thought you did," he said. + +"Yes," assented Alison. "The question is whether Nevis heard him too." + +"He certainly heard part, but there are one or two things he can't very +well know. For instance, it was Slaney's intention to ride in to the +railroad as soon as he'd had supper." + +"Forrester's place must be at least two leagues from here," commented +Alison. + +"About that," Thorne agreed with a smile. "It's far enough to make it +exceedingly probable that anybody who started from this settlement when +he'd had his supper would only get there after Winthrop had gone." + +"But Nevis might send a messenger immediately." + +Thorne shook his head. + +"It strikes me as very unlikely that he'd get any one to go. There are +only one or two horses in the place, and I've been round to see the men +to whom they belong." + +Alison's eyes sparkled approvingly. + +"But suppose he goes himself?" + +"He won't until after supper. Nevis is not the man to deny himself +unless it seems absolutely necessary, and he'll naturally assume that +Slaney is spending the night with Forrester. But there's a certain +probability of his setting out immediately after the meal." + +"And what are you going to do about it?" + +Thorne's expression became regretful. + +"I'm very much afraid I can't do anything. You see, +the--arrangement--with Corporal Slaney stands in the way." + +"You never thought that Winthrop would come back here when you made it," +Alison suggested. + +"No," acknowledged Thorne; "the point is that the corporal didn't +either." + +Alison appeared to reflect, and he watched her with quiet amusement. + +"I've changed my mind about Winthrop," she told him at length. "I want +him to get away." + +Thorne made no answer, and she continued: + +"Lucy Calvert is, no doubt, a good deal more anxious than I am that he +should escape, and it would be only natural if you wished to earn her +thanks. I think she could be very nice, and her eyes are wonderfully +blue." + +Thorne met her inquiring gaze with one of contemplative scrutiny. + +"Yours," he said, "are usually delightfully still and gray--like a pool +on a moorland stream at home under a faintly clouded sky; but now and +then they gleam with a golden light as the water does when the sun comes +through." + +His companion hastily abandoned that line of attack. His defense was too +vigorous for her to follow it up. + +"You feel that your hands are absolutely tied by the hint you gave +Slaney that afternoon?" she asked. + +"That's how it strikes me," Thorne declared. "In this case I'm afraid +I'll have to stand aside and content myself with looking on." + +"But haven't you already made it difficult for Nevis to get a +messenger?" + +"I've certainly given a couple of men a hint that I'd rather they didn't +do any errand of his to-night. That may have been going too far--I can't +tell." He paused and laughed softly. "Except when it's a case of selling +patent medicines, I'm not a casuist." + +Alison realized his point of view and in several ways it appealed to +her. He had treated the matter humorously, but, though so little had +been said by either of the men, it was clear that he felt he had pledged +himself to Slaney, and was not to be moved. + +"Well," she urged, "somebody must stop Nevis from driving over to +Forrester's." + +"It would be very desirable," Thorne admitted dryly. "The most annoying +thing is that it could have been managed with very little trouble." + +"How?" Alison asked with assumed indifference. + +Thorne, suspecting nothing, fell into the trap. + +"Nevis's hired buggy is a rather rickety affair. It wouldn't astonish +anybody if, when he wished to start, there was a bolt short." + +A look of satisfaction flashed into Alison's eyes. + +"Then he will certainly have to put up with any trouble the absence of +that bolt is capable of causing. As there doesn't seem to be any other +way, I'll pull it out myself. Your scruples won't compel you to forbid +me?" + +The man expostulated, but she was quietly determined. + +"If you won't tell me what to do, I'll get Dave," she laughed. "I've no +doubt he'd be willing to help me." + +Thorne thought it highly undesirable that they should take a third +person into their confidence, and he reluctantly yielded. + +"Then," he advised, "it would be wiser to set about it while the boys +are getting supper; there'll be nobody about the back of the hotel then. +In the meanwhile, we'd better go in again and talk to the others." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +ALISON SPOILS HER GLOVES + + +Mrs. Farquhar and her friends had finished supper, and the men who got +their meals there were trooping into the hotel, when Alison found Thorne +waiting on the veranda. + +"You're ready, I suppose?" + +"I've no intention of keeping you waiting, anyway," Thorne replied. + +Alison looked at him with a hint of sharpness. + +"If you would very much rather stay here, why should you come at all? +Now that you have told me what to do, it really isn't necessary." + +Thorne smiled. + +"Well," he said, "on the whole, it strikes me as advisable." + +He walked down the steps with her, and, sauntering a few yards along the +street, they turned down an opening between the houses and stopped at +the back of the hotel. There were only two windows in that part of the +building, and the rude wooden stable would shield anybody standing close +beneath one side of it from observation. Several gigs stood there to +wait until their owners were ready to drive back to their outlying +farms, and behind them the gray-white prairie ran back into the +distance, empty and unbroken except for the riband of rutted trail. +There was no sound from the hotel, for the average Westerner eats in +silent, strenuous haste, and the two could hear only the movements of a +restless horse in the stable. + +Alison walked up to a somewhat dilapidated buggy and inspected it +dubiously. + +"This must be the one, and I suppose that's the bolt," she said. "There +seems to be a big nut beneath it, and I don't quite see how I'm to get +it off. Would your scruples prevent your making any suggestion?" + +Thorne appeared to consider, though there was a twinkle in his eyes. + +"I might go so far as to point out that if you went into the stable you +would find a spanner on the ledge behind the door. It's an instrument +that's made for screwing off nuts with." + +Alison disappeared into the stable and came back with the spanner in her +hand. Thorne noticed that she had put on a pair of rather shabby light +gloves, with the object, he supposed, of protecting her fingers. +Stooping down behind the buggy she stretched out an arm beneath the +seat, and became desperately busy, to judge from the tapping and +clinking she made. Then she straightened herself and looked up at him, +hot and a trifle flushed. + +"It won't go on to the nut," she complained. "Is it quite out of the +question that you should help me?" + +She saw the constraint in his face, and was pleased with it. She did not +wish the man to break his pledge, and it is probable that she would have +refused his assistance; but she was, on the other hand, very human in +most respects, and she greatly desired to ascertain how strong the +temptation to help her was. + +"In the first place, you might try turning the screw on the spanner a +little," he advised. "It will make the opening wider." + +She did so, and had no more difficulty on that point, but the bolt was +rusty and the nut very stiff. While she struggled with it there was a +sound of footsteps, and Thorne, moving suddenly forward, snatched the +tool from her. + +"Stay there until I make it possible for you to slip away!" he whispered +sharply; then he stepped swiftly back a few paces and leaned against a +wagon with the spanner in his hand. + +He had scarcely done so when a man came out of the opening between the +houses, and Alison felt her heart throb unpleasantly fast. If the +newcomer should look around toward the stables it seemed impossible that +he should fail to notice Thorne. The latter, however, stood quietly +still, with his shoulders resting against the wagon wheel, and the +spanner in full view in front of him. The other man drew abreast of +them, but he did not look around, and Alison gasped with relief when he +vanished behind one of the neighboring buildings. + +Then she turned impulsively to her companion. + +"Oh," she cried, "you meant him to see you!" + +Thorne raised his hand in expostulation. + +"Hadn't you better get the thing out before somebody else comes along?" + +There was no doubt that he was right in this, and Alison attacked the +nut again. In two or three more minutes she moved away from the buggy +with the bolt in her hand. + +"What had I better do with it?" she asked. + +"I might suggest dropping it into a thick clump of grass. If you don't +mind, we'll stroll out a little way on the prairie. There's too much +dust to be pleasant blowing down the street." + +They had left the wooden buildings some distance behind when Alison next +spoke to him. + +"That was a generous thing you did just now." + +Thorne looked confused, but he made no attempt to evade an answer. + +"It was necessary." + +"If the man had seen you with the spanner, Corporal Slaney would, no +doubt, have heard of it afterward. That would have hurt you?" + +"It certainly wouldn't have pleased me." + +"Then why did you do what you did?" + +"I think I have just told you." + +"You said it was necessary," replied Alison, looking at him with eyes +which just then had what he thought a very wonderful light in them. "You +haven't convinced me that it wasn't--rather fine of you." + +Thorne was manifestly more embarrassed, and embarrassment of any kind +was somewhat unusual with him. + +"Then," he said, "you compel me to try. If we had remained standing as +we did when the man first came out from behind the houses and he had +noticed you, it's exceedingly probable that he would have noticed me. +Even if he hadn't, it's almost certain that several people must have +seen you leave the hotel in my company. They wouldn't have had much +trouble in figuring out the thing." + +"Of course!" exclaimed Alison, a little astonished that this had not +occurred to her earlier. Then her face grew suddenly warm. "You mean +they would have recognized that I was acting--on your instructions?" + +Thorne looked at her with a disconcerting steadiness. + +"You haven't quite grasped the most important fact yet. They would have +wondered how I was able to get you to do it--in other words, what gave +me such a hold on you. The trouble is that there's an explanation that +would naturally suggest itself." + +"Yes," murmured Alison, with her eyes turned away from him; "that would +have been unpleasant--for both of us." + +Thorne did not quite know what to make of the pause, though he had a +shadowy idea that it somehow rendered her assertion less positive, and +left the point open to doubt. In any case, it set his heart beating +fast, and he had some trouble in holding himself in hand. Outwardly, +however, he was graver than usual. + +"Well," he added, "I didn't think it desirable in several ways. You see, +a pedler is, after all, a person of no account in this part of Canada. +He has no particular interest in the fortune of the country; he doesn't +help its progress; his calling benefits nobody." + +"But you are a farmer now," protested Alison, glancing at him covertly. + +"Strictly on probation. In fact, there's very little doubt that my new +venture is generally regarded as a harmless eccentricity. It will be +some time before my neighbors realize that I'm capable of anything +that's not connected with an amusing frolic." He stopped a moment, and +smiled at her. "On the whole, I can't reasonably blame them. My +situation's a very precarious one; a frozen crop would break me." + +Alison wondered what the drift of these observations could be, for she +imagined that he must have had some particular purpose in saying so +much. It was, so far as her experience went, a very unusual thing for a +man to confess that he was an object of amusement to his neighbors, or +that there was a probability of his failing to make his mark in his +profession. + +"I suppose," she suggested, to help him out, "you're not content with +such a state of things?" + +"That is just the point. It's my intention to alter it as soon as +possible, and a bonanza harvest this year would go a long way toward +setting me on my feet. In the meanwhile, it seems only fitting that I +should put up with popular opinion, and try to bear in mind my +disabilities." + +He was far from explicit, but explicitness was, after all, not what +Alison desired, and she fancied she understood him. It had not been +without a sufficient reason that he had, to his friends' astonishment, +turned farmer, and now he meant to wait until he had made a success of +it, and had shown that he could hold his own with the best of them, +before going any farther. This naturally suggested the question as to +what he meant to do then, and she fancied that she could supply the +answer. She had already confessed to herself that she liked the man, and +this was sufficient for the time being. + +"I heard that your wheat escaped, as Farquhar's did." + +Thorne, glancing at her, surmised that this was a lead, and that he was +not expected to pursue the previous subject. + +"Yes," he replied, "I'm thankful to say it did. Most of the grain a few +miles to the west of us was blotted out, including Hunter's--I'm sorry +for him. The storm seems to have traveled straight down into Dakota, +destroying everything in its path. My place lay just outside it, and at +present everything promises a record crop." He broke off, and glanced +down at her hands. "Have you noticed your glove?" + +Alison held it up and displayed a large rusty stain across the palm and +part of the back of it. + +"Yes," she answered; "I did that getting the bolt out, and I'm rather +vexed about it. Mrs. Farquhar will, no doubt, notice the stain, and I +don't feel anxious to explain how it was done." + +"Then you'll have to take the glove off," advised Thorne. + +Alison smiled. + +"I'm not sure that simple expedient would get over the difficulty. Of +course, I might leave them behind altogether." Then she shook her head. +"No; the person who found them would see the stain and guess whose they +were. I don't think that would do, either." + +"It wouldn't," Thorne agreed. + +Then they began to talk of something else, and presently they turned +back together toward the hotel. When they reached it, Florence Hunter +and Mrs. Farquhar were sitting on the veranda, while two or three men +occupied the lower steps, and another group lounged about near them, +pipe in hand. A few minutes later Nevis appeared striding down the +street with his lips set and some signs of temper. He stopped in front +of the hotel, and Alison glanced at Thorne significantly when he turned +to the lounging men. + +"You folks seem mighty prosperous in spite of the hail," he sneered. "I +can't find a man in this town who's open to earn a couple of dollars." + +Some of them grinned, but none made any answer. His tone was offensive, +in the first place, and, while nobody is overburdened with riches on the +prairie, the average Westerner has his own ideas as to what is +becoming. + +Nevis signed to one of them. + +"Get my buggy, Bill!" + +The man hesitated, and though he strolled off toward the stables, +Nevis's sharpness cost him several minutes' unnecessary delay. +Eventually the buggy was brought out, and nobody said anything when +Nevis got in and flicked the horse smartly with a whip, though the tilt +of the seat must have been evident to most of the lookers-on. Alison +touched Thorne's arm. + +"Hadn't you better call to him?" she suggested. + +The next moment the warning was rendered unnecessary, for there was a +crash, and the seat of the buggy collapsed. Nevis lurched violently +forward, but he managed to recover his balance and pull up the horse. +Then he swung himself down, and after crawling under the vehicle, stood +up with a frowning face while the loungers began to gather about him. + +"There's a bolt out. I didn't notice it when I drove up," he grumbled. +"It's three-eighths by the hole, I think. Ask Bill if he's got anything +of the kind in the stable." + +Bill, who had been standing near, sauntered away, and it was at least +five minutes before he came back, empty-handed. + +"I've nothing that will fit," he announced. + +"Then go in and see if they've got one at the hardware store," ordered +Nevis. "I ought to have thought of that earlier." + +Bill was away a long while this time, and when he returned he held up an +unusually long bolt for inspection. + +"Guess it won't be any use," he said. "Thread doesn't go far enough to +let the nut to the plate." + +"Then what in thunder did you bring it for?" Nevis asked with rising +anger. + +Alison looked at Thorne and laughed. + +"Have you been giving that man a hint?" she inquired. + +"No," answered Thorne, smiling; "it would have been wasted in any case. +Nevis has succeeded in riling him. He couldn't have managed the thing +better if I had prompted him." + +In the meanwhile Bill languidly affected to consider Nevis's question. + +"I guess I wanted to be quite sure it wouldn't fit," he replied at +length. "If it doesn't, I could see if he has got a shorter one in +another package." + +Nevis flung out his arms in savage expostulation. + +"Well," he cried, "I've never yet struck anybody quite as thick as you. +Couldn't you have brought the shorter one along?" + +"Those bolts," Bill answered solemnly, "don't run many to the dollar, +and I'd a kind of notion I might find a big nut or some washers I could +fill up with in the stables." + +"No," snapped Nevis; "you have wasted time enough! If it won't do, take +the thing back into the store and ask Bevan to cut the thread farther +along it!" + +Bill strolled away at a particularly leisurely gait, and Thorne took out +his watch. + +"It's highly probable that Slaney will have left Forrester's before our +friend gets off," he said. "In that case, it will no doubt be noon +to-morrow before the police make their first attempt to get on +Winthrop's trail. I wonder whether anybody except Dave can have seen +him." + +"I did," Alison told him; "the morning before the hail." + +Thorne turned toward her with a start. + +"Where?" + +"At the homestead. Farquhar and his wife were out." + +"What brought Winthrop there?" + +"That," smiled Alison, "I may tell you some day, but not just now. I +wonder what has kept him in the neighborhood?" + +"It's easily figured out. He'd head for Mrs. Calvert's, and probably +stay an hour or two there; then he'd go on to Brayton's place--they're +friends--at night. Jardine's would be his next call, and he'd be +striking west away from the larger settlements when Dave came across +him." + +This struck Alison as probable, but just then Bill came out of the store +again. + +"Beavan hasn't anything shorter, and he's doing up his accounts. He +can't cut threads on bolts, anyway," he announced. "It's Pete who does +that kind of thing for him." + +Judging from his face, it cost Nevis a determined effort to check an +outbreak of fury. + +"Then where in thunder is Pete?" he shouted. + +It appeared that the man had gone home to supper, and a quarter of an +hour passed before he came upon the scene. Then it took him quite as +long to operate on the bolt and fit it in the buggy, and Nevis's face +was very hot and red when he flung himself into the vehicle. He used the +whip savagely, and there was some derisive applause and laughter when +the horse went down the street at a gallop with the buggy jolting +dangerously in the ruts behind it. + +Thorne descended the steps and disappeared. When he came back Mrs. +Farquhar's wagon was being brought out, and he walked up to Alison with +a parcel in his hand. + +"I think," he said, "that's the best way of hiding the stain." + +Alison opened the parcel, and was conscious of a curious thrill, in +which pleasure and embarrassment were mingled, when she found a pair of +gloves inside. It was the first gift he had made her. + +"Thank you," she murmured. "They fit me, too. How did you guess the +size?" + +"Oh," laughed Thorne, "it was very simple. I just asked for the smallest +pair they had in the store." + +Then Mrs. Farquhar came up, and he helped her and Alison into the +wagon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AN UNEXPECTED DISASTER + + +Several weeks had slipped away since the evening Nevis drove out of +Graham's Bluff in search of Corporal Slaney, and there had been no news +of Winthrop, when Thorne plodded across the prairie beside his team, +hauling in a load of dressed lumber for the new creamery. Hunter had +contracted with him to convey the necessary material from the railroad, +and in the interval between sowing and reaping Thorne had found the +arrangement a profitable one. He had a use for every dollar he could +raise, and all through the heat of the summer he had worked double +tides. + +It was blazing hot that afternoon, and the wide plain lay scorching +under a pitiless glare. Thorne was not sorry when the Farquhar homestead +with its encircling sea of wheat took shape ahead. The trail led past +it, and, though time was precious to him then, he felt that he could put +up with an hour or two's delay in case Mrs. Farquhar invited him to wait +for supper. It was now a fortnight since he had seen Alison. + +The wooden buildings rose very slowly, though he several times urged the +jaded horses. They had made a long haul that day, and the man, who had +trudged at their head since early morning, was almost as weary. On the +odd days that they had spent in the stable he had toiled arduously on +his house and half-finished barn, beginning with the dawn and ceasing at +dark. Now he was grimed with dust and dripping with perspiration, and a +tantalizing cloud of flies hovered over him. All this was a decided +change from driving a few hours daily in a lightly loaded wagon, but +what at first had appeared an almost unexplainable liking for the +constant effort had grown upon him. He would not have abandoned it now +had that course been open to him. + +By degrees the sea of grain grew nearer, its edge rising in a clean-cut +ridge above the flat white sweep of dazzling plain. It had changed from +green to pale yellow in the past few weeks, but there were here and +there vivid coppery gleams in it. It promised a bounteous yield when +thrashing was over, and he thought of his own splendid crop with the +clean pride of accomplishment. Then he noticed that a buggy was +approaching from the opposite direction, and when he reached the +homestead a man in white shirt and store clothes had just pulled up his +horse. He shook hands with Thorne, who had already recognized him as a +dealer in implements and general farming supplies from the railroad +settlement. + +"Glad I met you. It will save my going on to your place," he said. + +Thorne noticed that the man, who was usually optimistic and cheerful, +looked depressed. + +"Did you want to see me about something, Grantly?" he asked. + +"Yes. To cut it short, I'm going out of business." + +The full significance of this announcement did not immediately dawn upon +Thorne. + +"I expect most of the boys will regret it as much as I do," he said. +"One could rely on anything sent out from your store, and there's no +doubt that you have always treated us liberally." + +"That's just the trouble. I've been too blamed easy with some of you. If +I'd kept a tighter hand on the folks who owed me money it's quite likely +I'd have been able to meet my bills." + +"Is it as bad as that?" Thorne inquired with genuine sympathy. + +Grantly turned to Farquhar, who had joined them in the meanwhile. + +"The fact is, things have been going against me the last three years. +Nevis has been steadily cutting into my trade; but I held on somehow, +expecting that a record harvest or a high market would put me straight. +I'd have been able to get some of my money in again then. In the +meanwhile I was getting behind with the makers who supplied me, and now +one or two of them have pulled me up; I guess it was the hail that +decided them. It's a private compromise, but the point is that Nevis +takes over my liabilities." + +Thorne's face suddenly hardened, and Farquhar looked grave. + +"It's bad news," said the latter. "Is he paying cash?" + +"Part," Grantly answered. "The rest in bills. He has Brand, of Winnipeg, +behind him, and he's good enough. In fact, I believe the man has been +backing Nevis right along." He turned to Thorne. "Anyway, I've got to +give the store up, and you'll have Nevis for a creditor instead of me. +That's really what brought me over. The note you gave me calls for a +good many dollars and it's due very soon." + +Thorne endeavored to brace himself after the blow, which had been as +unexpected as it was heavy. He had obtained all his implements and most +of the materials he required for his house-building from Grantly, giving +him a claim upon his possessions as security, in addition to a promise +to pay at a date by which harvest was usually over; but owing to an +exceptionally cold spring, harvest was late that year. + +"It was understood that you wouldn't press me if I should be a few weeks +behind," he reminded him. + +"That's quite right," Grantly assented. "The trouble is that it was only +a verbal promise, and it won't count for much with Nevis. He's been +after you for some time, and I guess he'll stick to the date on the +note. If you're not ready with the money he'll break you." + +Farquhar made a sign of concurrence. + +"I'm afraid it's very probable. What are you going to do about it, +Mavy?" + +Thorne stood silent for almost a minute, and the bronze faded a little +in his face, which was very grim. + +"That note will have to be met. You told Grantly I was to be relied +upon, and I'm not going back on you. It's not my intention to let Nevis +do what he likes with me, either. In a general way, I'd have gone to +Hunter, and I've no doubt that he would have financed me; but that's +quite out of the question now. He has all the trouble he's fit to stand +on his hands already." + +"A sure thing," Farquhar agreed. + +"Well," Thorne added, "the oats are about ripe, and though I'd rather +they had stood another week or so, I'll put the binder into them at +sunup to-morrow. The wheat should be nearly ready by the time I'm +through, and I'll hire the help I could have borrowed if I had been +able to wait a while. I'll have to let up on the haulage contract and +work right on, almost without stopping, until I can get the thrashers +in; but I'll put the crop on the market before the note is due!" + +"You couldn't do it, Mavy, if you worked all night." + +Thorne laughed in a harsh fashion. + +"Just wait and see! It has to be done! In the meanwhile, please make my +excuses to Mrs. Farquhar for not calling. I must be getting on." + +"You can't do anything to-night," Farquhar objected. + +"I can ride over to Hall's and get back to my place by sunup with his +team." + +He called to his horses, and with a creaking of suddenly tightened +harness the wagon jolted on, but as he passed the door of the homestead +Alison came out. Thorne stopped, while the team slowly plodded forward, +and it seemed to her that there was a striking change in the man. +Nothing in his manner suggested that he had ever regarded life as a +frolic and taken his part in it with careless gaiety. His eyes were very +grave and there was a look she had never seen in them before, while his +face seemed to have set in sharper lines. He looked strangely determined +and forceful; almost, as she thought of it, dominant. + +"What is the matter? You are in some trouble?" she exclaimed. + +"Yes," said Thorne simply. "Farquhar will no doubt explain the thing. +There's a very tough fight in front of me. I don't think I could have +undertaken it six months ago." He spread out his hands. "It's +unthinkable that I should be beaten!" + +Alison felt strangely stirred by something in his voice. + +"Then," she urged, "you will have to win! You must; I want you to!" + +Thorne looked at her with a gleam in his eyes that set her heart +throbbing painfully fast. + +"Now," he laughed, "the thing seems almost easy!" + +He turned away after his wagon, and Alison waited until Farquhar came up +with Grantly. + +"What has Thorne undertaken?" she asked. + +Farquhar smiled. + +"I'll try to tell you after supper. In the meanwhile, I can only say +that he seems determined on breaking himself up by attempting a task +that in my opinion is beyond the power of any man on the prairie." + +He went into the house with Grantly, and it was an hour or two later +before Alison was able to form a fairly accurate idea of the situation. +Then her heart grew very soft toward Thorne, and she thought of him with +a sense of pride. It was for her sake he had braced himself for this +most unequal fight, and she knew that he meant to win. + +In the meanwhile Thorne was urging on his team, and dusk was closing in +when he flung down the lumber from his wagon. After that, he drove +through the soft darkness for two or three hours, and finally roused an +outlying neighbor from his well-earned slumber. The man, descending, +roundly abused him, but became a little mollified when he heard his +story. + +"The thing surely can't be done, and just now you can't count on much +help, either. The Ontario boys are only just starting West, and the +first of them will be snapped up before they get to Brandon. Anyway, +I'll come along with you and do what I can." He moved toward a +cupboard. "If you left Farquhar's when you said, you couldn't have got +your supper." + +"Now that you mention it," laughed Thorne, "I don't think I did." + +His friend set food before him, and an hour later they drove off in the +darkness, leaving Thorne's jaded team behind them. Eventually they +reached his homestead in the early dawn, and Thorne, who had been on +foot most of the time since sunrise on the previous morning, sat down +wearily on the stoop and took out his pipe while he looked about him. +Eager as he was to get to work, he could not begin just yet, for the +night had been clear and cold, and the grain was dripping with the heavy +dew. + +He had his back to the house, which was at last almost ready for +habitation, but the half-finished barn and the rude sod stable rose +before him blackly against the growing light. Beyond these, the sweep of +grain stretched back, a darker patch on the shadowy prairie, with +another dusky oblong just discernible on the short grass some distance +away. Determined as he was, his heart sank as he gazed at them. He had +undertaken a task that looked utterly beyond his powers. + +Had he been content to begin on his hundred-and-sixty-acre holding on +the scale usual in the case of men with scanty means, he would probably +have had no great trouble in harvesting all the crop he could have +raised; but he had seen enough during his journeyings up and down the +prairie to convince him that there was remarkably little to be made in +this fashion. As a result he had staked boldly, breaking practically all +his land, with hired assistance and the most modern implements that +could be purchased, though this necessitated the borrowing of money. He +had, in addition, secured the use of a neighboring holding, part of +which had been under grain before, from a man who had worked it long +enough to secure his patent and had then discovered that he could earn +considerably more as a subcontractor on a new branch railroad. + +In consequence of this, Thorne had a large crop to garner, and very +little time in which to do it, for he was convinced that Nevis would +press for payment immediately the note was due. It could not be met +until the grain was thrashed and sold, and he realized that any delay +would place him in the power of a man who would not fail to make the +utmost use of the opportunity. Besides this, it would render it +impossible for him to obtain any further loans, and he scarcely expected +to finance his operations unassisted for some time yet. It was only +Hunter's guarantee that had made the venture possible, and there was no +doubt in his mind that unless he could satisfy Nevis's claim his career +as a farmer would terminate abruptly before the next month was over. + +Then he recalled the months of determined labor he had expended upon the +house and holding, the noonday heat in which he had toiled, and the +chilly dawns when he had gone out, aching all over after a very +insufficient sleep, to begin his task again. Sixteen and often eighteen +hours comprised his working day, and out of them he had spared very few +minutes for cookery. His clothes had gone unmended, and it must be +confessed that he had not infrequently slept in them when he was too +weary to take them off, and that they were by no means regularly washed. +In fact, once or twice when he was about to drive over to the Farquhar +homestead he remembered with a slight shock that it was several days +since he had made any attempt worth mentioning at a toilet. In the +meanwhile, he had grown leaner and harder and browner, while there had +by degrees crept into his face that curious look which one may see now +and then in the faces of monks, highly trained athletes, and even of +those who unconsciously practise asceticism from love of a calling that +makes stern demands on them; a look which, though it does not always +suggest the final triumph of the mind over the body, is never a +characteristic of full-fed, ease-loving men. His eyes were strikingly +clear and unwavering, his weather-darkened skin was singularly clean, +and his whole face had grown, as it were, refined, though the man was as +quickly moved to anger, impatience, or laughter as he had always been. +It would seem that a good many purely human impulses usually survive the +partial subjugation of the flesh, which is, after all, no doubt +fortunate. + +He rose stiffly, damp with the dew, when he had smoked one pipe out, and +gazed toward where the sun was rising fiery red above the rim of the +prairie. His expression was very resolute. + +"A low dawn, Hall; we'll have all the heat we want by noon," he +commented. "The oats will be drying by the time we're ready with the +team. If you'll look after them I'll oil the binder." + +His companion grinned. + +"It strikes me the first thing is to set the stove going. Guess if I'm +going to get on a record hustle I want my breakfast." + +Thorne frowned impatiently, but he carried an armful of birch billets +into the house, and when half an hour later he called in his companion, +the latter glanced with undisguised disgust at the provisions on the +table and the contents of the frying-pan. + +"Well," he ejaculated, "if you can raise steam on that kind of truck, I +most certainly can't. The first of the boys who drives by to the +settlement is going to bring us out something fit to eat, if I have to +pay for it." + +"What's the matter with this?" Thorne asked indifferently. + +Hall raised a fragment of half-raw pork upon his fork. + +"It would be wasting time to tell you, if you can't smell it," he +retorted. + +Then he took up a block of bread and banged it down on the table. + +"Not a crack in it! You want to bake some more and sell it to the +railroad for locomotive brakes." + +Thorne laughed. + +"Send for anything you like. Hunter's hired man will probably be going +in." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +LUCY GOES TO THE RESCUE + + +About four o'clock in the afternoon of the day following the beginning +of his harvest, Thorne sat heavy-eyed in the saddle of a binder which +three horses hauled along the edge of the grain. He had been at work +since sunrise, except for a brief rest at midday, and he was wondering +whether the team could hold out until nightfall. The binder had not +quite reached its present efficiency then, and the traction was heavy. +It was fiercely hot, and there was only the faintest breeze, while a +thin cloud of dust that made his eyes smart and crept into his nostrils +eddied about him. The whirling wooden arms of the machine flashed in the +midst of it as they flung out the sheaves, and there was a sharp clash +and tinkle as the knife rasped through the tall oat stalks. + +As he neared a corner, driving wearily, he turned and glanced back along +the rows of piled-up sheaves which stood blazing with light down the +belt of gleaming stubble. The latter was narrow, for although it was the +result of two days' determined labor, he had somehow accomplished less +than he had anticipated. Half the time he had spent, turn about with +Hall, in the saddle and the rest gathering up the tossed-out sheaves in +the wake of the machine. It was desirable to keep pace with the binder, +though the task is one that is beyond the strength of a single man in a +heavy crop, and it was only by toiling with a savage persistency that he +and his companion had partially accomplished it. Now, however, his +heart sank as he looked round at the sea of grain. + +It rose in a great oblong, glowing with tints of ochre, silvery gray and +cadmium, relieved here and there by coppery flashes and delicate +pencilings of warm sienna, and over it there hung a cloudless vault of +blue. It looked very large, and there was another oblong yet unbroken +some distance away. Thorne's head ached, and his eyes ached, and his +back hurt him at each jolt of the machine. He had been almost worn-out +when he began the task, and since then he had lain down for only a few +hours, and then had not been able to sleep. + +Beyond the grain, the prairie stretched away, intolerably white in the +sun-glare, to the horizon. Thorne fancied that he had seen a moving +object upon it some time earlier. The machine had, however, engrossed +most of his attention, and he was not sure. He reached the turning and +was proceeding away from the house when a voice hailed him, and as he +pulled up the team Lucy Calvert appeared. + +"What brought you over?" he asked in dull astonishment. + +Lucy smiled coquettishly. + +"It's generally allowed that you and I are friends. Anyway, if you'd +rather, I can go home again." + +Thorne looked at her with drawn-down brows. He was worn-out, his brain +was heavy, and he did not feel equal to any attempt at repartee. + +"You had better stop for supper first," he suggested. + +"I guess I'm going to," Lucy laughed. "Still, you won't want it for two +hours yet, and it looks as if there's something to be done in the +meanwhile. I didn't come over for supper or to talk to you; I met +Farquhar on the prairie, and he told me all about the thing." + +She turned and pointed to a row of sheaves which were still lying prone. + +"Why haven't you got those on end? Where's Hall?" + +"Gone over to his place for my team." + +"Then," said Lucy, "you can get off that machine right now and set the +sheaves up while I drive. I'll stay on until it's too dark to see, and +come round again first thing in the morning. We don't expect to get our +binders in for a week yet." + +Thorne was touched, and his face made it plain. He needed assistance +badly, and did not know where to obtain it, for his friends whose crops +the hail had spared were either beginning their own harvest or preparing +for it. Besides, there was not the slightest doubt that Lucy was +capable. + +"Get down right away!" she ordered laughingly. "I don't want thanks +from--you." + +Thorne was never sure afterward whether he attempted to offer her any, +but he set to work among the sheaves when she took her place in the +saddle and the binder went clinking and clashing on again. In spite of +his efforts, it drew farther and farther away, though he toiled in +half-breathless haste and the perspiration dripped from him. As he was +facing then, the sun beat upon his back and shoulders intolerably hot. +At length, when the shadows of the stooked sheaves had lengthened across +the crackling stubble in which he floundered, Lucy stopped her team a +moment and looked back at him. + +"I'll unyoke them at the corner and get supper," she said. "You get into +the shade there and lie down and smoke. If I see you move before I call +you, I'll go home again." + +She drove away before he could protest, but it was, after all, a relief +to obey her, and flinging himself down with his back to a cluster of the +sheaves, he took out his pipe. It was a little cooler there, and his +eyes were closing when a summons reached him across the grain. Getting +up with an effort, he walked toward the house, and was hazily astonished +when he entered it. Exactly what Lucy had done he could not tell, but +the place looked different. For the first time it seemed comfortably +habitable. There was a cloth, which was a thing he did not possess, on +the table, and his simple crockery, which shone absolutely white, and +his indurated ware made a neat display. The provisions laid out on it +looked tempting, too; in fact, he did not think that Hall could have +found any fault with them, and it presently struck him that they +included articles which he did not remember purchasing. + +He sat down when Lucy told him to, and it was pleasant to find what he +required ready at hand, instead of having to walk backward and forward +between the table and the stove. He did not remember what she said, but +they both laughed every now and then, and after the meal was over he was +content to sit still a while when she bade him. The presence of the girl +somehow changed the whole aspect of the room; but he was conscious of a +regret that it was she and not another who occupied the place opposite +him across his table. It was not Lucy Calvert he had often pictured +sitting there. At length he pointed through the doorway to the grain. + +"Lucy," he said, "that crop doesn't look by any means as hard to reap as +it did an hour ago." + +"I guess it's the supper," Lucy suggested cheerfully. + +"I don't think it's that exactly, though there's no doubt it's the best +meal I've had for a considerable time." + +Lucy leaned back in her chair. + +"Well," she observed, "it's company you want, and it's quite nice being +here. You and I kind of hit it, don't we, Mavy?" + +"Of course. We always did," Thorne assented, though there was a hint of +astonishment in his tone. + +"Then if you'll get rid of Hall--send him off again for something--I'll +get supper for you the next two or three evenings." + +"I don't see why he should be done out of his share," protested Thorne +cautiously. He felt that Lucy was more gracious than there was any +occasion for. + +"Don't you, Mavy?" she asked, with lifted brows. "Now, I've a notion +that anybody else would kind of spoil things." + +Until lately Thorne had seldom shrunk from any harmless gallantry, but +he did not respond just then with the readiness which the girl seemed to +expect. + +"It's a relief to hear you say it," he declared. "I'm afraid I'm a dull +companion to-night." + +Lucy nodded sympathetically. + +"Well," she replied, "I have seen you brighter, but you're anxious and +played out. Sit nice and still for half an hour while I talk to you." + +"I ought to be stooking those sheaves," Thorne answered dubiously. + +"You can do it by and by," Lucy urged. "It won't be dark for quite a +while yet." + +She adroitly led him on to talk, and presently bade him light his pipe. +He had always hated any unnecessary reserve and ceremony, and by +degrees his natural gaiety once more asserted itself. At length, when +they were both laughing over a narrative of his, he stretched his arm +out across the table and it happened by merest accident that their hands +met. Lucy did not draw hers away; she looked up at him with a smile. + +"Mavy," she teased, "I wonder what Miss Leigh would say if she could see +you." + +Thorne straightened himself somewhat hastily in his chair. Nothing in +the shape of a tactful answer occurred to him, and he grew uneasy under +his companion's smile. + +"Would you like to see her walk right in just now?" she persisted. + +There was no doubt that this would not have afforded the man the +slightest pleasure, but he could not admit it. + +"It's scarcely likely to happen," he evaded awkwardly. + +Then to his relief Lucy laughed. + +"Mavy, I've sure got you fixed. The curious thing is they allow at the +settlement that you could most talk the head off any of the boys." + +"I really don't see what satisfaction you expected it to afford you," +Thorne rejoined. + +"I guessed it would help to put Nevis out of your mind. I'd an idea you +wanted cheering up--and I felt a little like that myself." + +The girl's manner changed abruptly as she rose, and there was only +concern in her eyes. + +"I wonder," she added softly, "where Jake is and what he is doing now." + +Thorne felt that he had been favored with a hint. + +"You haven't heard from him?" + +"He hasn't sent a line; it wouldn't have been safe. It's kind of +wearing, Mavy." + +"I'm sorry," sympathized Thorne. "But it's most unlikely that the +troopers will get him." + +Lucy, without answering this, went out, and when they reached the binder +Thorne turned to her with a smile. + +"Lucy," he said, "I don't quite understand yet what possessed you a +little while ago." + +"Did you never feel so worried that it was kind of soothing to do +something mad?" + +"I'm afraid I have once or twice," Thorne confessed. "On the other hand, +my experience wouldn't justify me in advising other people to indulge in +outbreaks of the kind. Suppose I'd been--we'll say equal to the +occasion?" + +Lucy laughed, but there was a snap in her eyes. + +"Then," she retorted, "it's a sure thing you would never have tried to +be equal to it again. Anyway, I didn't feel anxious about you. You +looked real amusing, Mavy." + +"Perhaps I did. Still, I don't quite think you need have pointed it +out." + +They set to work after this, Lucy guiding the team along the edge of the +grain and Thorne stooping among the sheaves in the wake of the machine. +They were thus engaged, oblivious to everything but their task, when +Mrs. Farquhar reined in her team close beside them, and Alison gazed +with somewhat confused sensations at the pair. + +Lucy had obviously made her dress herself, of the cheapest kind of +print, but it was light in hue, as was her big hat, and in addition to +falling in with the flood of vivid color through which she moved it +flowed about her in becoming lines, and when she pulled up her horses +and turned partly toward the wagon her pose was expressive of a curious +virile grace. Behind her, straight-cut along its paler upper edge, where +the feathery tassels of the oats shone with a silvery luster against the +cold blue of the sky, the yellow grain glowed in the warm evening light. +The glaring vermilion paint on the binder added to the general effect, +and it occurred to Alison that the girl, with her brown face and hands +and the signs of a splendid vitality plain upon her, was very much in +harmony with her surroundings. The lean figure of the man stooping among +the sheaves, lightly clad in blue that had lost its harshness by long +exposure to the weather, formed a fit and necessary complement of the +picture. + +They were, Alison recognized, engaged upon humanity's most natural and +beneficent task, and as she remembered how she had seen that soil lying +waste, covered only with the harsh wild grasses, in the early spring, it +was borne in upon her that there could be no greater reward than the +bounteous harvest for man's arduous toil. Then she became troubled by a +vague perception of the fact that this breaking of the wilderness and +rendering the good soil fruitful was one of the sternest and most real +tests of man's efficiency. Meretricious graces, paltry accomplishments, +and the pretenses of civilization availed one nothing here. The only +things that counted were the elemental qualities: slow endurance, faith +that held fast through all the vagaries of the weather, and the power of +toughened muscle that might ache but must in spite of that yield due +obedience to the will. Alison regarded Lucy, who could play her part in +the reaping, with a troubled feeling that was not far from envy. + +Then Thorne looked up, partly dazzled with the level sunrays in his +eyes, and walked toward the wagon. When he stopped beside it Mrs. +Farquhar greeted him. + +"We have been across to Shafter's place," she explained. "Harry asked me +to drive round and see how you were getting on. He'll try to send you +over his hired man in a day or two." + +Thorne pointed to the rows of stooked sheaves. + +"Thanks; I haven't done as much as I should have liked. Hall has gone +back for my other team, and if it hadn't been for Lucy I'd have been a +good deal farther behind." + +"How much has she cut?" Mrs. Farquhar asked. + +Thorne was quite aware that an answer would fix the time the girl had +spent with him. Before he could speak, however, Lucy had approached the +wagon and she broke in. + +"I guess Mrs. Shafter would give you supper?" + +Mrs. Farquhar said that she had done so, and Lucy smiled. + +"That's going to save some trouble. Mavy and I had ours together most an +hour ago and the stove's out by now." + +Thorne imagined that this intimation, which struck him as a trifle +superfluous, was made with a deliberate purpose; but one of the binder +horses, tormented by the flies, began to kick just then, and he turned +away to quiet it, while Lucy, who stood beside the wagon, smiled +provocatively at Alison. + +"You'll have to excuse Mavy--he's been hustling round since sunup, and +he's played out," she said. "Still, you needn't get anxious. I'll look +after him." + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed, while Alison's attitude grew distinctly prim. She +considered that in taking her anxiety for granted and alluding to it +openly Lucy had gone too far. She also felt inclined to resent the +girl's last consolatory assurance. + +"Can I drive you home?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired. "I suppose you will be +going soon, and it won't make a very big round." + +"No," replied Lucy decisively, "you needn't trouble. I've a horse here, +and I guess Mavy's not going to make love to me. For one thing, he's too +busy. Besides, I want to cut round that other side before I go." + +"Then I suppose we had better not keep you," said Mrs. Farquhar. + +She waved her hand to Thorne and drove away, and when they had left the +oats behind she turned to Alison. + +"Lucy," she observed, "is now and then a little outspoken, but I'm +curious as to what she meant when she said that Thorne was not likely to +make love to her. Of course, the thing's improbable, anyway, but she +spoke as if he had been offered an opportunity." + +Alison's face flushed with anger. + +"Leaving the fact that she's to marry Winthrop out of the question, the +girl must have some self-respect. She would surely never go so far as +you suggest." + +"Well," smiled her companion, "she might go far enough to place Thorne +in an embarrassing position, purely for the sake of the amusement she +might derive from it. In fact, when I remember how she laughed, I'm far +from sure that she didn't do something of the kind." + +Alison sat silent for a minute or two. There was no doubt that she was +very angry with Lucy, but she was also troubled by other sensations, +among which was a certain envy of the girl's capacity for work that was +held of high account in that country. Thorne's attitude and his weary +face as he toiled among the sheaves had been very suggestive. He was, +she knew, hard-pressed, engaged in a desperate grapple with a task that +was generally admitted to be beyond his strength, and she could only +stand aside and watch his efforts with wholly ineffective sympathy. + +Then she became conscious that Mrs. Farquhar was glancing at her +curiously. + +"I feel humiliated to-night!" she broke out. "There's so little that +seems of the least use to anybody here that I can do; and my abilities +scarcely got me food and shelter in England. Isn't it almost a crime +that they teach so many of us only fripperies? Were we only made to be +taken care of and petted?" + +Her companion smiled. + +"If it's any consolation, I may point out that we haven't found you +useless at the Farquhar homestead, and I can't see why you shouldn't be +just as useful presiding over a place of your own. After all, since you +raise the question what you were made for, that seems to be the usual +destiny, and I haven't found it an unpleasant or ignoble one." + +She broke off, and for a minute or two the jolting of the wagon rendered +further conversation out of the question. + +"There's another point," she added presently; "it's my opinion that an +encouraging word from you would do more to brace Mavy for the work in +front of him than the offer of half a dozen binders and teams." + +Alison made no answer, and they drove on in silence across the waste, +which was beginning to grow dim and shadowy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ONLY MEANS + + +Alison sat one afternoon in the shadow of a pile of sheaves in +Farquhar's harvest field. She had a little leisure, and it was +unpleasantly hot in the wooden house. There was some sewing in her hand, +but even in the shade the light was trying and she leaned back languidly +among the warm straw with half-closed eyes. Two men were talking some +distance behind her as they pitched up the rustling sheaves, and the +tramp of horses' feet among the stubble and the rattle of a binder which +she knew Farquhar was driving drew steadily nearer. Presently another +beat of hoofs broke in, and a minute or two later Hall rode past, +looking very hot, apparently without seeing her. Then the rattle of the +binder ceased and she heard the newcomer greet Farquhar. + +"If you've got one of those bent-end-spanners you could let me have I'd +be glad," he said. "I've mislaid mine somehow, and there's a loose nut I +can't get at making trouble on my binder." + +Farquhar sent his hired man for one and Hall referred to the grain. + +"So you have made a start. Looks quite a heavy crop. Good and ripe, too, +isn't it?" + +"We put the binder in yesterday," answered Farquhar. "I'd have done it +earlier only that I sent Pete over to Thorne's place for a few days +after you left him." + +"I was kind of sorry I had to leave. He's surely going to be beaten. I +looked in on him yesterday." + +Alison became suddenly intent. She drew her light skirt closer about +her, for she did not wish it to catch the men's eyes and betray her, as +she thought it probable that they would speak to each other unreservedly +and she would hear the actual truth about Thorne. When she had +questioned Farquhar he had answered her in general terms, avoiding any +very definite particulars, and she now strained her ears to catch his +reply to Hall. + +"I was afraid of it after what Pete told me," he said. "I would have +helped him more if I could have managed it, but I can't let a big crop +like this stand over when I've bills to meet." + +"That," declared Hall, "is just how I'm fixed, though I stayed with him +as long as I could. The trouble is that he hasn't been able to hire a +man since I left him. There seem to be mighty few of the Ontario boys +coming in this season, and so far they've been snapped up farther back +along the line." + +"Has he tried any of the men who had their crops hailed out west of the +creek?" + +"They cleared as soon as they saw they had no harvest left. Most of them +are out track-grading on the branch line, and I heard the rest went +East. Mavy's surely up against it; he was figuring last evening that +even if the weather held he'd be most a month behind." + +"Then I'm afraid he'll have to give the place up. Nevis will come down +on him the day that payment's due." + +"Couldn't he raise the money somehow, for a month?" Hall inquired. + +"It's scarcely likely. I can't lend him any, with wheat at present +figure, and Hunter, who has already guaranteed him a thousand dollars, +is very tightly fixed. Besides Mavy couldn't expect anything more from +him. It wouldn't be much use going to a bank, either. With the bottom +dropping out of the market they're getting scared of wheat, and he has +nothing to offer them but a crop that isn't reaped, with Grantly's note +calling for most of it." + +"Then I guess he has just got to quit. Hunter would no doubt have lent +him a binder and a couple of hired men, but he has them busy trying to +straighten up his hailed crop and cut patches of it." + +"It's a pity," Farquhar assented in a regretful voice. "It will hurt +Mavy to give the place up." + +The man arrived with the spanner and Alison heard Hall ride away. When +the clash and rattle of the binder began again she lay still for a long +time beneath the sheaves. The men's conversation had made it clear that +Thorne would shortly be involved in disaster, and that alone was painful +news, though by comparison with another aspect of the matter it was of +minor importance. The man loved her, and it was for that reason he had +undertaken this most unfortunate farming venture. Everybody seemed to +know it, though he had never told her what was in his mind, and she had +been content to wait. Now, however, she had no doubt that she loved him, +and he would, it seemed, shortly go away and vanish altogether beyond +her reach--at least, unless something should very promptly be done. She +knew he would not claim her while he was an outcast and a ruined man. + +She closed one hand tight and a flush crept into her face as she made up +her mind on one point, and she was thankful while she did so that she +was on the Canadian prairie, where the thing seemed easier than it +would have done in England. In that new land time-honored prejudices and +hampering traditions did not seem to count. Men and women outgrew them +there and obeyed the impulses of human nature, which were, after all, +elemental and existent long before the invention of what were, perhaps, +in the more complex society of other lands, necessary fetters. Thorne, +the pedler, farmer, railroad hand, or whatever he might become, should +at least know that she loved him and decide with that knowledge before +him whether he would go away. + +Then, growing a little more collected, she considered the second point. +Though Hall and Farquhar had cast considerable doubt upon his ability to +help, there was just a possibility that Hunter might hold out a hand, +and she would stoop to beg for any favor that might be shown her lover. +This latter decision, however, she prudently determined to keep from +Thorne in the meanwhile. + +By and by she walked quietly back to the house and busied herself as +usual, though late in the afternoon she asked Mrs. Farquhar for a horse +and the buggy. Her employer did not trouble her with any questions as to +why she wanted them, though she favored her with a glance of unobtrusive +but very keen scrutiny, and soon after supper the hired man brought the +buggy to the door. Then Alison came out from her room, where she had +spent some time carefully comparing the two or three dresses she had +clung to when she had parted with the rest in Winnipeg, one after +another. She had attired herself in the one that became her best, for +she felt that there must be nothing wanting in the gift she meant to +offer her lover. She recognized that this was what her intention +amounted to. What other women did with more reserve, veiling their +advances in disguises which were after all so flimsy that nobody except +those who wished could be deceived, she would do with imperious +openness. + +The days were now rapidly growing shorter, and when she reached Thorne's +homestead the sun hung low above the verge of the great white plain. The +man was not in sight, which struck her as strange, as there would be +light enough to work for some time yet, but she was not astonished that +he had evidently not heard her approach, because she had driven slowly +for the last mile, almost repenting of her rashness and wondering +whether she should not turn and go back again. Once she had set about +it, the thing she had undertaken appeared increasingly difficult. +Indeed, she knew that had the man been less severely pressed nothing +would have driven her into the action she contemplated. It was only the +fact that he was face to face with disaster, beaten down, desperate, +that warranted the sacrifice of her reserve and pride. + +Getting down at length, she left the horse, which was a quiet one, and +walked toward the house. The door stood open when she reached it, and +looking in she saw the man sitting at a table, on which there lay a +strip of paper covered with figures. His face was worn and set, and +every line of his slack pose was expressive of dejection. He did not +immediately see her, and a deep pity overwhelmed her and helped to sweep +away her doubts and hesitation as she glanced round the room. It was +growing shadowy, but it looked horribly comfortless, and the few dishes +that were still scattered about the table bore the remnants of a +singularly uninviting meal. There was a portion of a loaf, blackened +outside, sad and damp within; butter that had liquefied and partly +congealed again in discolored streaks; a morsel of half-cooked pork +reposing in solid fat; and a can of flavored syrup, black with flies. +She wondered how any one coming back oppressed with anxiety from a day +of exhausting toil could eat such fare. Then she noticed a small heap of +tattered garments, which he evidently had no leisure to mend, lying on +the floor, and while it brought her no sense of repulsion, the sight of +them further troubled her. These were things which jarred on the +beneficent, home-making instincts which suddenly awoke within her +nature, and they moved her to a compassionate longing to care for and +shelter the lonely man. + +Then he looked up and saw her, and she flushed at the swift elation in +his face, which, however, almost immediately grew hard again. It was as +though he had yielded for a moment to some pleasurable impulse, and had +then, with an effort, repressed it and resumed his self-control. + +"Come in," he invited, rising with outstretched hand, and she suddenly +recalled how she had last crossed that threshold in his company. There +had been careless laughter in his eyes then, he had moved and spoken +with a joyous optimism, and now there was plain upon him the stamp of +defeat. Even physically the man looked different. + +She sat down when he drew her out a chair, but he remained standing, +leaning with one hand on the table. + +"Is Mrs. Farquhar outside?" + +"No; I drove across alone." + +He looked at her with a hint of astonishment and something that +suggested a natural curiosity as to the cause for the visit, which she +now found it insuperably difficult to explain. + +"You haven't been at work this evening?" she asked. + +"No," replied Thorne. "I rode in to the railroad early yesterday and +I've just got back after calling at two or three farms west of the +creek. It seemed possible that I might be able to hire a couple of men +I'd wired for back along the line, but I found that somebody else had +got hold of them at another station. As a matter of fact, I had expected +it." + +"Then you must have made the journey almost without a rest!" + +"Volador's dead played out," answered Thorne. "I had to do something, +though it seemed pretty useless in any case." + +"Ah!" Alison exclaimed softly; "then you mean to go on?" + +"Until I'm turned out, which will no doubt happen very shortly." + +"I suppose that will hurt you?" + +He looked at her for a moment with his face awry and signs of a sternly +repressed longing in his eyes. + +"Yes," he answered, "it will hurt me more than anything I could have had +to face. In fact, the thought of it has been almost unbearable; but it's +now clear that I shall have to go through with it." + +This was satisfactory to Alison in some respects, and she was quick to +sympathize. + +"It must be very hard to give up the farm on which you have spent so +much earnest work." + +"Yes," assented Thorne, with something in his tone that suggested +half-contemptuous indifference to the sacrifice; "it won't be easy to +give up even the farm." + +Then for the first time it occurred to him that there was an unusual +hint of strain in her manner, and that he had never seen her dressed in +the same fashion before. She did not look daintier, for daintiness was +not quite the quality he would have ascribed to her, but more highly +cultivated, farther beyond the reach of a ruined farmer, though there +was a strange softness--it almost seemed tenderness--shining in her +eyes. He gripped the table hard and his face grew stern as he gazed at +her. He felt that it was almost impossible that he would ever have the +strength to let her go. + +"What will you do then?" she asked with what seemed a merciless +persistency. + +"Go away," declared Thorne. "Strike west and vanish out of sight. I've +no doubt somebody will hire me to load up railroad ballast or herd +cattle." He smiled at her harshly. "After all, it will be a relief to my +few friends. They may be a little sorry--but my absence will save their +making excuses for me." + +Alison looked up at him steadily, though there was a flush of color in +her cheeks. + +"You must be just to them," she said. "Why should they invent +excuses--when you have made such a fight with so much against you? +Besides, you are wrong when you say they might be--a little sorry. Can +you believe that it would be easy to let you go away?" + +Thorne frowned as he met her gaze. He did not know what to make of this, +but there was a suggestiveness in her voice that was almost too much for +him. + +"Is there any one who would have much difficulty in doing that?" he +asked with a quietness that cost him a determined effort. + +"Yes," murmured Alison, with suddenly lowered eyes; "there is at least +one person who would feel it dreadfully." + +He gazed at her, straining to cling to the resolution that had almost +deserted him, though his face was firmly set. + +"It is quite true," she added, with flaming cheeks. "I must say it. I +mean myself." + +He drew back a pace and stood very still, as though afraid to trust +himself. + +"Don't make it all unbearable!" he cried at length. "There's only one +course open to me. It's hard enough already." + +Alison faced him with a new steadiness. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "you can only look at it from your point of +view--can't you understand yet that there is another? If you had meant +to go away you should have gone--some time ago." + +Thorne closed his hands firmly. + +"I'm afraid you are right; but I believed that I might make a success of +this farming venture." + +The girl laughed with open scorn. + +"Dare you believe that would have mattered so very much to me? Do you +think I didn't know why you turned farmer, and why you have since then +done things that none of your neighbors would have been capable of?" + +"It seemed necessary," explained Thorne, still with the same expressive +quietness. "I did so because I wanted you, and that is exactly what +makes defeat so bitter now." + +"And you imagined that you had hidden your motive? Can you believe that +a man could change his whole mode of life and take up a burden he had +carefully avoided, as you have done, without having the woman on whose +account he did it understand why? Are we so blind or utterly foolish? +Don't you know that our perceptions and intuitions are twice as keen as +yours?" + +"Then you understood what my object was all along--and it didn't strike +you as absurd and impossible?" + +Alison smiled at him. + +"Why should it seem absurd that I should love you, Mavy?" + +He came no nearer, but stood still, looking at her with elation and +trouble curiously mingled in his face, and she realized that the fight +was but half won. He had of late sloughed off his wayward carelessness +and she knew that there had always been a depth of resolute character +beneath it. He was a man who would do what he felt was the fitting +thing, even though it hurt him. + +"Well," he said, speaking slowly in a tense voice, "ever since I first +saw you I longed that this should come about. It was what I worked for, +and nothing would have been too hard that brought me nearer you, but +it's almost a cruelty that I should have succeeded--now." + +"Why?" asked Alison, bracing herself for another effort, for the strain +was beginning to tell. "Is what you have won of no value to you?" + +Thorne spread out his hands as if in desperation. + +"It is because it is so precious that I shrink from involving you in the +disaster that is hanging over me. I am a ruined, discredited man, and in +a few more weeks I will be driven out of my homestead without a dollar. +It will be three or four years at least before I can struggle to my feet +again." + +"Is that so very dreadful, Mavy?" Alison smiled. "I almost think that +in the things that count the most many of you are, after all, more bound +by traditions than we are. Your wildest flight was the driving about the +prairie with a load of patent medicines, and now your imagination is +bounded by a homestead and household comforts. You could teach a woman +to love you, and then go away, driven by some fantastic point of honor, +because you could not realize that her views might be wider than yours." + +"I could hardly suppose that you would care to live in a wagon." + +"I did it once--and it was not so very dreadful. I really think, if it +were needful, I could do it again." + +She leaned forward toward him. + +"It would be very much worse, Mavy, if you went away and left me +behind." + +At length he came toward her and seized both her hands. + +"Dear," he cried, "I have tried to do what I felt I ought--and now I'm +not sorry that I find I'm not strong enough. I can't tell you how I want +you--but I'm afraid you could not face what you would have to bear with +me." + +"Try!" said Alison simply. + +He drew her to him with an exultant laugh. + +"I've done what I could, and it seems I've failed. Now let Nevis turn me +out and I'll almost thank him. After all, there are many worse places +than a camp beside the wagon in the birch bluff." + +Alison was not at all convinced that it would end in that, and indeed +she did not mean it to if she could help it; but in another moment she +felt his arms about her and his lips hot upon her face, and it was half +an hour later when they left the homestead together. The sun had +dipped, and the vast dim plain stretched away before them under a vault +of fading blue, but she drove very slowly while Thorne walked beside the +buggy for almost a league. + +As a result of this, it was very late when she reached the homestead, +and she was relieved when Mrs. Farquhar came out alone as she got down. +The light fell upon the girl's face as she approached the doorway, and +her companion flashed a smiling glance at her. + +"I suppose you have been to Thorne's place?" + +"Yes," answered Alison quietly. "I am going to marry him." + +Mrs. Farquhar kissed her. + +"It's very good news. Still, from what I know of Mavy and how he's +situated, I'm a little astonished that you were able to arrange it." + +"Why do you put it that way?" Alison asked with a start. + +Her companion laughed. + +"My dear, I'm only glad that you had sense enough not to let him go. +That man would be afraid of even a cold air blowing on you. Anyway, you +have got the one husband I would most gladly have given you to." + +Then she drew Alison into the house and called to Farquhar. + +"Harry, take the horse in, and it isn't necessary for you to hurry +back." + +She drew Alison out a chair and sat down close beside her. + +"The first thing you have to do is to drive over and see Florence +Hunter. Her husband's the only person who can pull Mavy out of this +trouble." + +"I had thought of that." + +"I believe it's necessary. We can't let Mavy be turned out now, and if +he won't ask a favor of a man who would grant it willingly if he could, +somebody must do it for him." + +Then she laid her hand caressingly on the girl's shoulder. + +"I haven't been so pleased for a very long while. Keep a good courage. +We'll find some means of outwitting Nevis." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +OPEN CONFESSION + + +It was about the middle of the afternoon when Alison reached the Hunter +homestead, and she was slightly astonished when, on inquiring for +Florence, a maid informed her that the latter was busy and could not be +with her for some minutes. Alison had imagined from what she had seen on +previous visits that in the warm weather Florence invariably spent her +afternoons reclining in a canvas chair on the veranda. A couple of +chairs stood on it when she arrived, and after the maid had gone she +drew one back into the shadow, and sitting down looked out across the +great stretch of grain in front of the house. + +All round the edge of it there were scattered men and teams, but they +were moving very slowly, and almost every minute the clatter of one or +another of the binders ceased and she saw stooping figures busy in front +of the machine. Though she could not make out exactly what they were +doing, the state of the harvest-field seemed to explain why the delays +were unavoidable. Great patches of the wheat lay prone; the part that +stood upright looked tangled and torn, and there were wide stretches +from which it had partially disappeared, leaving only ragged stubble +mixed with crumpled straw. Alison had, however, seen other crops that +had been wholly wiped out by the scourging hail. She waited about a +quarter of an hour before Florence appeared, looking rather hot and +dressed with unusual plainness. + +"You'll have to excuse me for keeping you, but I'm glad you came," she +said. "I've been busy since seven o'clock this morning, and now that +I've a little leisure it's a relief to sit down." + +A gleam of amusement crept into Alison's eyes, and her companion +evidently noticed it. + +"It is rather a novelty in my case," she laughed. "On the other hand, +there's no doubt that the exertion is necessary. The waste that has been +going on in this homestead is positively alarming." + +It cost Alison an effort to preserve a becoming gravity. Florence, who +had presided over the place for several years, spoke as if the fact she +mentioned, which had been patent to those who visited her for a +considerable time, had only dawned upon her very recently. + +"You are trying to set things straight?" she suggested. + +"It threatens to prove a difficult task, but I'm making the attempt +while I feel equal to it; and there's a certain interest even in looking +into household accounts. For instance, I had an idea this morning that +promised to save me three or four dollars a month, but when I mentioned +it to Elcot he only grinned. There are one or two respects in which I'm +afraid he's a little extravagant." + +Alison laughed outright. The idea that Florence, who had hitherto +squandered money with both hands, should trouble herself about the +saving of three dollars and complain of her self-denying husband's +extravagance was irresistibly amusing. + +"When did the desire to investigate affairs first get hold of you?" she +asked. + +"I believe that it was when I came back from Toronto," answered +Florence thoughtfully. "Afterward we had the hail, and it became clear +at once that there would have to be some cutting down of our expenses." +Her face grew suddenly anxious as she glanced toward the grain. "That," +she added, "ought to explain why the subject's an interesting one to +me." + +Alison was somewhat puzzled. There were signs of a change in her +companion, who hitherto had, so far at least as she had noticed, taken +only a very casual interest in her husband's affairs. + +"Yes," she replied, "it does. I was very sorry when I heard about it." + +Florence made a little abrupt gesture, as though in dismissal of the +topic. + +"What brought you over? You haven't been very often." + +It was difficult to answer offhand, and Alison proceeded circuitously. + +"You and I were pretty good friends in England, weren't we?" + +"Of course," assented Florence. "You stood by me when your mother turned +against me, and I've always had an idea that you suffered for it. We'll +admit the fact. What comes next?" + +Her manner was abrupt, but that was not infrequently the case, and +Alison, who was fighting for her lover, was not readily daunted. + +"Well," she said, "I have never troubled you for any favors in return." + +Florence regarded her in a rather curious fashion. + +"No," she admitted, "you haven't. You made no claim on me, as, perhaps, +you were entitled to do, when you first came out here. In fact, I have +once or twice felt slightly vexed with you because you went to Mrs. +Farquhar." + +Alison smiled as she remembered that her companion had not shown the +least desire to prevent her doing the thing she now resented. + +"Then there's a favor that I must ask at last; but first of all I'd +better tell you that I'm going to marry Leslie Thorne." + +"Mavy Thorne!" Florence gazed at her in open wonder. "I heard a whisper +or two that seemed to point to the possibility of your doing something +of the kind, but I resolutely refused to believe it." + +"Why?" + +Florence laughed. + +"Oh, in half a dozen ways it's ludicrous. If you really mean it, you are +as absurd as he is." + +Alison rose with an air of quiet dignity. + +"If you are quite convinced of that, there is nothing more to be said. +You couldn't expect me to appreciate your attitude." + +Her companion laid a restraining hand on her arm as she was about to +move away. + +"Sit down! If I vexed you, I'm sorry; but you really shouldn't be so +quick in temper. Besides, you shouldn't have flung the news at me in +that startling fashion. After all, I've no doubt he has something to +recommend him. Most of them have a few good qualities which now and then +become evident when you don't expect them." + +She paused and looked up at Alison with a smile in which there was a +hint of tenderness. + +"For instance, it has been dawning on me of late that there's a good +deal that's rather nice in Elcot. Now try to be reasonable, and tell me +what the trouble is." + +Alison's indignation dissipated. It was, after all, difficult to be +angry with Florence, and she supplied her with a brief account of how +Thorne was situated. Her companion listened with more interest than she +had fancied her capable of displaying, and when Alison stopped she made +a sign of comprehension. + +"You want me to ask Elcot to send him over some of our men? I wish I +could--I almost feel I owe you that--but it's difficult. Elcot's trying +desperately to save the remnant of his crop. He has been very badly +hit." + +Alison sat silent in tense anxiety. She could not urge Florence to do +anything that would clearly be to her husband's detriment, and she did +not see how Hunter could help Thorne without neglecting his own harvest. +Then her companion turned to her again. + +"I quite realize that Thorne will be turned out unless he clears off the +loan, but you haven't mentioned the name of the creditor who wishes to +ruin him." + +"It's Nevis." + +An ominous sparkle crept into Florence's eyes, and her face grew hard. + +"Then I'll try to explain it all to Elcot to-night, and if he can drive +off Nevis by any means that won't cost him too great a sacrifice I think +you can count on its being done." + +Alison felt inclined to wonder why the mention of Nevis's part in the +affair had had such an effect on her companion, but that, after all, did +not seem a very important point, and when she drove away half an hour +later she was in an exultant mood. When she had gone, Florence +supervised the preparations for the men's supper, and after the meal +was over she stopped Hunter as he was going out again through the +veranda. + +"If you can wait for a few minutes I have something to tell you," she +said. "To begin with, Alison Leigh is going to marry Thorne." + +Hunter did not look much astonished. + +"I think Mavy has made a wise choice, but I'm very much afraid there's +trouble in front of them," he said. + +"That," returned Florence, "is exactly what I meant to speak about. +Alison was here this afternoon, and she mentioned it to me. I want to +save them as much as I can." + +Hunter's face remained expressionless. It was the first time, so far as +he could remember, that Florence had concerned herself about any other +person's difficulties. + +"Well," he asked gravely, "how do you propose to set about it?" + +"In the first place, I thought I'd mention it to you." + +A dry smile crept into Hunter's eyes. + +"Then you'd better give me all the particulars in your possession. I +have some idea as to the cause of the trouble, but I haven't been over +to Mavy's place for some time, and he has sent no word to me." + +Florence told him what she knew, and when she had finished he gazed at +her reflectively. + +"You want me to send him all the men and binders I can spare? That's the +only useful course." + +Florence hesitated, and when she spoke her manner was unusually +diffident. + +"I feel it's rather shabby to promise a favor and then hand on the work +to you, but in this case I'm helpless. I should like you to get Thorne +out of his trouble, if it's only on Alison's account; but on the other +hand I don't want you to increase your own difficulties by sending men +away. You stand first with me." + +Hunter made no allusion to the last assurance. + +"It seems very likely that what the boys are now doing will in the end +come to much the same thing as changing a dollar and getting about +ninety cents back for it, which naturally prevents me from feeling that +I would be making very much of a sacrifice in discontinuing the +operation." + +"I don't quite understand how that could be. Even if the hail has almost +spoiled the crop, you have the men, and it won't cost you any more if +you keep them busy saving as much of it as is possible." + +"That," explained Hunter, "is partly why I'm doing so, and the other +reason is that I must have something that will keep me occupied just +now. On the other hand, before I can get anything for the wheat it must +be thrashed and hauled in to the elevators. Now, thrashing is usually +done by contract--at so much the bushel--in this country, and I've +reason to believe that the thrasher boys will charge me considerably +more than the average rate. Considering the state of the crop, they'll +have to do a great deal of work for a very little wheat. Besides, that +little's damaged and would bring less than the market price, which is a +particularly low one this year. Then there's the cost of haulage, which +is an item, because it would entail keeping the hired men on, and I've +the option of paying them off as soon as harvest's over." + +"In short," said Florence in a troubled voice, "it would probably be +more profitable to let the whole crop rot as it stands." + +"I'm afraid that's the case," Hunter agreed. + +Florence sat silent for almost a minute watching him covertly. It once +more struck her that he looked very jaded, and she was touched by the +weariness in his face. Then, though the occasion seemed most +inopportune, she was carried away by a sudden impulse which compelled +her to mention Nevis's loan. + +"Elcot," she blurted out, "I have made things worse for you all +along--and now there's another trouble I have brought upon you." + +For a minute or two she poured out disjointed sentences, and though the +man listened gravely, almost unmoved in face, she found the making of +that confession about the most difficult thing she had ever done. + +"How much did you borrow?" he inquired. + +She told him; and raising himself a little from his leaning posture he +looked down upon her with an embarrassing quietness. + +"I was half afraid there might be something of that kind in the +background," he said at length. "There's one point I must raise. +Presumably, you wouldn't allow a man who was to all intents and purposes +a stranger to lend you money?" + +He spoke as if the matter were open to doubt, and Florence found the +situation rapidly becoming intolerable, but it was to her credit that +she recognized that half-measures would be useless then. + +"No," she acknowledged. + +"Then I must ask exactly what kind of interest you took in the man, and +how far your acquaintance with him went?" + +Florence's face burned, but she roused herself to answer him. + +"He was amusing," she said slowly, picking her words. "He came here once +or twice when you were out, and on a few occasions I met him by accident +on the prairie and at the settlement. I suppose I was--pleasant--to him, +but nobody could have called it more than that. Then there was a change +in his attitude." + +"It was to be expected," Hunter interposed dryly. "Do you wish me to +understand that you were astonished?" + +Florence rose and turned on him with hot anger in her eyes. + +"Yes!" she exclaimed, "I was astonished and--you must believe +it--horribly mortified! He tried to make me feel that I was in his +power!" + +She paused and clenched one hand tight before she cried: + +"What can I do to convince you? I hate the man! I want you to crush and +humble him!" + +Hunter greeted this outbreak with a smile, but he made no answer; and +growing calmer in a few moments she looked at him again. + +"What are you going to do about it, Elcot?" she asked. + +"In the first place, those two notes of yours must be paid when they +fall due. After that I shall act--as appears advisable." + +Florence sat down with relief in her face. + +"Raising the money will be another difficulty," she said. "I will give +up my allowance until it is paid off." + +"That," replied Hunter, with undiminished dryness, "will no doubt have +to be done." + +He turned away from her and leaned heavily on the balustrade for a +minute or two, apparently watching the hired men toiling among his +ruined wheat. Then he slowly looked around again. + +"Well," he observed, "I'm glad you have told me about the thing; but I'm +somewhat surprised that you didn't realize that you could have disarmed +Nevis--and freed yourself--by mentioning it earlier." + +"I was ashamed--though there was in one sense no reason why I should be. +It would have looked--so suggestive." + +Hunter interrupted her with a little bitter laugh. + +"No; when I asked you what interest you took in Nevis it wasn't quite +what I meant. I merely thought your answer might throw some light on his +views, which I wanted to be sure of. You are too dispassionate, and too +much alive to your own benefit, to make much of a sacrifice for the sake +of any man." + +Florence winced at this, but she rose and laid her hand on his arm. + +"Try me, Elcot," she begged. "I know I'm fond of ease and +luxury--perhaps it's because I had so little of them before I married +you, but now you must give me nothing for the next twelve months. Cut +the household expenses down by half and send everybody but one maid +away." + +"I'm afraid you'll have to be prepared for something of the kind," +replied Hunter quietly. "In the meanwhile, I'll take the boys and the +binders over to Thorne's place in the morning." + +He moved away toward his ruined crop without another word, but Florence +did not resent the attitude he had adopted. Indeed, his uncompromising +directness had appealed to her in his favor. When, soon after their +marriage, she had by various means made it plain that he was expected +to keep his distance and leave her largely to her own devices it had +been a relief that he had fallen in with her views without protest, +though it had been evident that it had grievously hurt him. Then his +forbearance and apparent content with the situation had by degrees grown +galling, and now, when at last he seemed inclined to assert himself, she +was not displeased. It had, as she had admitted to Alison, begun to dawn +on her that she had somehow never recognized her husband's good +qualities, and that there were unexpected possibilities in the simple +farmer. Besides this, she was seized with a fit of wholly genuine +penitence. + +In the meanwhile Hunter climbed into the seat of a binder which he drove +slowly through the tangled grain, and Florence, still lingering on the +veranda, noticed the carefulness with which he and his men stooked the +sheaves of wheat which might never be sold. The rows of black shadows +behind them lengthened rapidly, until at last they coalesced and the +stubble lay dim, while the western face of the grain along which the +binders crept alone glowed with a coppery radiance as the red sun +dipped. Then a wonderful exhilarating coolness crept into the air, and +there was a stillness not apparent earlier through which the clash and +clatter of the machines rang harshly distinct. They moved on with the +bent figures which grew dimmer toiling behind them for another +half-hour, and then while the others trooped off to the stables Hunter +walked slowly toward the house. Florence noticed the suggestive +slackness of his bearing and her heart smote her, for she knew it was +not mere physical weariness which had crushed the vigor out of the man. +When he came up the steps she turned to him. + +"Is the wheat looking no better?" + +"No," answered Hunter simply; "It's looking worse. I'm going in to write +a letter--to the bank." + +He strode on and disappeared into the house, but Florence, who presently +saw a light stream out from one of the windows, sat still, though the +dew was getting heavy and it was chilly now. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A HELPING HAND + + +Lucy Calvert came over as often as she was able; but at length she was +compelled to discontinue her visits to Thorne. Soon after she had done +so, there was a welcome change in the almost torrid weather, and grass +and grain lay still under a faintly clouded sky when he toiled among the +sheaves one clear, cool afternoon. The binder which flung them out moved +along the edge of the oats in front of him, and another man was busy +among the crackling stubble a pace or two behind, for a neighbor had +driven across to help him on the previous evening, and the station-agent +had at last sent him out a man from the railroad settlement. They had +been at work since early morning, but each time Thorne glanced at the +oblong of standing grain he realized more clearly the futility of what +he was doing. + +The belt of knee-high stubble, which shone, a sweep of warm ochre +tinting, against the white and gray of the parched grass beyond it, was +widening steadily as the crop went down before the binder, but he had a +good deal yet to cut, and there was another oblong of untouched grain +running back from a deserted wooden shack some distance away. Thorne had +followed the custom of the country, sowing oats on the newly broken land +and wheat on that which had been worked before, though in the latter +case he had agreed to pay a share of the proceeds to the owner of the +soil. He had secured an option of purchasing this second holding, but +it was quite out of the question that he should exercise it now, and a +very simple calculation convinced him that at his present rate of +progress less than half the crop would be ready when Grantly's note fell +due. + +There was no doubt that his activity was illogical, as it was obvious +that the result of every hour's strenuous labor would only be to put so +much more money into Nevis's pocket, but he could not force himself to +give up the fight until the last moment. He still clung to a faint +expectation that something might transpire to lessen the odds against +him. He admitted that there was nothing to warrant this view, but in +spite of it he toiled on savagely, and the stooked sheaves rose before +him in lengthening golden ranks as he floundered with bowed shoulders +and busy arms through the crackling stubble. The soil beneath the straw +was dry and parched, and the dust which rose from it crept into his eyes +and nostrils. Now and then he gasped, but he worked on with no +slackening of effort, for that part of the crop was heavy and the +sheaves were falling thick and fast in the wake of the machine. At +length, however, it stopped at a corner, and Thorne straightened his +aching back when the man who drove it got down. + +"She wants a drop of oil," he explained, and looking round him pointed +out across the prairie. "Seems as if Shafter was through with his +harvest, and I guess he has to sell. Some of the storekeepers have been +putting the screw on him." + +Thorne gazed toward the spot he indicated and saw two or three teams and +wagons etched upon the horizon where a low rise ran up to meet the sky. +They were so far off that they appeared stationary, and it was only +when one of the binder's arms hid the first of them a moment or two +later that he could see they moved. Then as he watched the others a hot +fit of resentment and envy came upon him. It was clear that Shafter, who +had plowed unusually early, had cut and thrashed his grain, for stacking +is seldom attempted in that country, where very few farmers have any +money in hand and storekeepers generally look for payment once the crop +is in. In the latter case it is put on the market as soon as possible, +though now and then the last of it is hauled in on the bob-sleds across +the snow. Shafter, at least, could clear off his liabilities, and though +Thorne did not grudge the man this satisfaction, the sight of his loaded +wagons crawling slowly to the elevators was bitter to him. He could have +done what Shafter was doing, and so escaped from Nevis's clutches, had +he only been allowed a little longer time. + +"When you're through with that oiling, we'll get on," he said harshly. + +His companion made no answer, but climbed into the saddle and the binder +moved steadily along the edge of the grain until they came to the second +corner. Turning it, the driver looked out across a stretch of prairie +which a birch bluff on one hand of them had previously hidden. Then he +pulled up his team excitedly. + +"Mavy!" he cried, "there's quite a lot of teams back yonder to the +eastward, beyond the creek!" + +Thorne sprang up on the binder, for where he had been standing a cluster +of sheaves obscured his view. He saw that there undoubtedly were horses +on the sweep of grass in the distance. What was more, they were moving +in his direction. + +"There's one wagon," declared his second companion. "I can't quite make +out the other things. If there was hay in the sloos still I'd say they +were mowers." + +Thorne's heart seemed suddenly to leap, and the man in the saddle of the +machine burst into a hoarse laugh. + +"Well," he said, "nobody would figure you'd been farming, unless you use +the scythe down in Ontario. They're sure binders!" + +He turned and smote Thorne encouragingly upon the shoulder. + +"Mavy, it's the Hunter crowd! Guess you're going to have no trouble +getting your crop in now!" + +Thorne got down and leaned against the wheel of the binder. His face had +grown paler than usual, and he felt almost limp with the relief which +was too great for him to express. It was several moments before he broke +the silence. + +"They can't be here for a while. I think I'll have a smoke." + +His companion nodded sympathetically. + +"That's what you want, Mavy. Then you'll be fresh for a hustle; and +we'll have to move quite lively to keep ahead of the Hunter boys. +Hunter's no use for slouches and he knows how to speed up the crowd he +hires." + +He called to his horses, and the other man fell to work behind him when +the machine clattered on, but Thorne sat down among the sheaves. He +could now allow himself a brief relaxation, and for once his grip was +nerveless, for his heart was overfull. His cares had suddenly vanished, +and there was, he almost thought, victory in front of him. He had some +trouble in shredding the tobacco to fill his pipe, and when the +operation was accomplished he lay resting on one elbow watching the +teams draw nearer with a satisfaction which came near to overwhelming +him. By the time he had smoked the pipe out, however, he had grown a +little calmer, and rousing himself he stood up and walked out upon the +prairie to meet the newcomers. Hunter was driving a wagon in front of +them and he stopped his team when he was a few yards away. + +"We'll soon clean that crop up," he declared cheerily when Thorne had +clambered to the seat beside him. "I've brought the smartest of the boys +and the newest machines along." + +"Thanks," Thorne replied simply. "Just now I can't say anything more, +except that in one way I'm sorry you were able to come." + +Hunter's face grew suddenly grave. + +"I can believe it, Mavy. Had things been different it's quite likely I'd +have had to keep the boys at home; I was only sure that I was throwing +my time away yesterday. Anyway, I'm thankful that one hailed crop won't +clean me out." + +He dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. + +"As a matter of fact," he added, "though I'd probably come in any case, +it was really Mrs. Hunter who sent me along." + +"Mrs. Hunter!" ejaculated Thorne in what afterward occurred to him was +very tactless astonishment. + +"Sure!" laughed his companion. "She had a visitor shortly before she +spoke to me about it, which may have had something to do with the thing, +but the possibility of the notion's having struck Miss Leigh first +wasn't any reason why I shouldn't come across. Mavy, it's my opinion +that you're a very lucky man." + +"It's mine, too," Thorne answered with a light in his eyes. "Still, I +almost felt ashamed to admit it half an hour ago. The outlook seemed +very black to me just then." + +Hunter made a sign of comprehension. + +"Well," he said, "from what I've seen of her, I don't think Miss Leigh +would have fallen in with your point of view, though it was a very +natural one. It strikes me there's a good deal of courage and a capacity +for making the most of things in that girl. Anyway, there ought to be +considerably fewer difficulties in front of both of you when we get this +crop in; and that brings up another matter. The thrashers are leaving +Shafter's for Tom Jordan's place to-morrow. Hadn't you better write to +them right away and arrange for them to come along as soon as we're +ready?" + +Thorne recognized that this would be judicious, particularly as he +expected that a neighbor who had spoken to him that morning would pass +close by in the next hour or two. The man, who lived near Jordan, would, +he felt confident, undertake to hand on the letter. A few minutes later +he got down and entered his dwelling while Hunter drove on toward the +grain. He found, however, that his ink had almost dried up, and when he +sat down to write it was difficult to fix his thoughts on what he had to +say. The relief he had experienced a little while ago had been great +enough partly to bewilder him, and some time had passed before he +produced a fairly intelligible letter. Putting it into his pocket, he +went out again, and stopped a moment or two just outside the threshold +with a sense of exultation that sent an almost painful thrill through +him as he saw that Hunter had already got to work. + +Plodding teams and machines, marshaled in careful order, were advancing +in echelon through the grain, which melted away before them. Behind +each, bowed, bare-armed figures set up the flung-out sheaves, which rose +in ranks that now lengthened reassuringly fast. The still air was filled +with the sounds of a strenuous activity; the crackle of the stubble, the +rasp and tinkle of the knives, and the rustle of falling grain. Already +there was a wide gap, which extended while he gazed at it, bitten out of +one corner of the golden oblong. Along its indented edges the arms of +the binders whirled and gleamed, half-buried in yellow straw, through +which, as most of them were new, he caught odd glimpses of streaks of +flaring vermilion and harshest green, while the dull blue garments and +bronzed skin of the men who moved on stooping showed against the sweep +of ochre and coppery hues. It was a medley of vivid color and a blending +of stirring sound, and the jaded man forgot his aches and weariness as +he gazed. The crop he had despaired of reaping was falling fast before +his eyes. + +Then he saw that his own team was leading, and there was only one figure +struggling with the sheaves behind it. In another moment it became +apparent that the man in the saddle was waving to him, and he set off at +a run. When he reached the grain one of his companions glanced at him +reproachfully. + +"See where that binder's got?" he grumbled. "We went in first, but +though I've most pulled my arms off they're crowding right on top of us +with the next Hunter team. Do you want the boys to put it on us that we +can't keep ahead of them?" + +Thorne saw that the team of the following binder was very close behind, +and that a wide strip of stubble strewed with fallen sheaves, which had +accumulated in his absence, divided him and his companion from the +machine that belonged to him. + +"Well," he said with a cheerful laugh, "there's a good deal to pull up, +but it has to be done." + +They set about it vigorously, and drew away foot by foot from the men +behind. Thorne had toiled hard before, but now he felt that he could do +half as much again. After all, the grim courage of the forlorn hope +provides a feebler animus than the thrill of victory. At length, +however, his companion turned to him with a gasping expostulation. + +"I guess you have me beat," he exclaimed. "We'll hook Jim off the binder +and put you on instead. I'll own up I'd rather have him along with me +just now." + +They made the change, and Thorne contrived to drive a little faster than +the other man had done. Hunter's men could not let him draw too far +ahead, and everywhere the effort grew tenser still. Nobody objected +when, as the supper hour drew near, Hunter said that since the days were +shortening fast they would go on until dark fell before they made the +meal, instead of working afterward. Still, as the time slipped by, a man +here and there drew his belt tighter or stopped a moment to straighten +his aching back, and by degrees the horses moved more and more slowly +amid the falling grain. The clatter of the binders grew less insistent, +there were halts to oil or tighten something now and then; and at last, +when all the great plain was growing dim, it was with relief that the +men desisted when Hunter called to them. He and Thorne loosed their +teams, and the latter looked uneasy when they walked toward the house +together. + +"There's a thing that only struck me a few minutes ago, and I'm rather +troubled about it," he confessed. "The boys have worked hard enough +already without being set to making flapjacks and cooking their supper, +while I really don't know how I'm to tide over breakfast to-morrow." + +Hunter laughed. + +"That's not going to prove much of a difficulty, particularly as it's +one Mrs. Hunter has provided for. As it happens, Hall looked in on us +last night, and I gathered that he hadn't a very high opinion of your +cookery and catering." + +A minute or two later they came out from behind the barn into view of +the house and Thorne saw that a bountiful meal was already spread out on +the grass in front of it. A man, whose absence he had not noticed, was +carrying a kettle and a frying-pan out of the doorway. It was the climax +of a day of unexpected happenings and vanishing troubles, and when he +looked at Hunter he found it difficult to speak. The latter, however, +laughed. + +"Mavy," he said, "you sit right down yonder. Supper's ready, and the +boys are waiting." + +Thorne took his place among the others, who ate in such determined +fashion that in a very few minutes there was nothing left of the meal. +Then two or three of them gathered up the plates, and the others, lying +down on the grass, took out their pipes. In the meanwhile it had grown +almost dark, though a few pale streaks of saffron and green lingered low +upon the prairie's western verge. The long rows of sheaves stood out +dimly upon the stubble, but the standing crop had faded into a blurred +and shadowy mass, one edge of which alone showed with a certain +distinctness above the sweep of the darkening plain. Near the house, +however, a little fire which somebody had lighted--probably because +there was not room for all the cooking utensils on Thorne's +stove--burned redly between the two birch logs, and its flickering glow +wavered across the recumbent figures of the men. + +Some of them lay propped up on one elbow, some had stretched themselves +out full-length among the grass, and now and then a brown face or +uncovered bronzed arm stood out in the uncertain radiance and vanished +again. The men spoke in low voices, lazily, wearied with the day's toil, +though at irregular intervals a hoarse laugh broke out, and once or +twice the howl of a coyote came up faint and hollow out of the waste of +prairie. A little apart from the others, Thorne and Hunter sat with +their shoulders against the front of the house, talking quietly. + +"I'll see you through with the hauling in," Hunter promised. "We'll +start right away as soon as the thrashers can give us a load, and in my +opinion you should have a reasonable surplus after clearing off Nevis's +claim." + +"Yes," assented Thorne with deep but languid content; "it looks almost +as if another moderately good harvest would wipe out my last obligation +and set me solidly on my feet. Once I'm free of Nevis, I don't +anticipate any trouble with the other men. So long as they get their +interest they'll hold me up for their own sakes." + +"That's how it strikes me," Hunter agreed. "They don't run their +business on Nevis's lines; which reminds me that I picked up a little +information that suggested that he might have to make a change, when I +was over at Brandon a week or two ago. I may say that as I had reasons +for believing that the man hadn't a great deal of money of his own I've +been rather astonished at the way he has gone on from one thing to +another during the last few years, until Farquhar told me something +which seemed to supply the explanation. He got it from Grantly, who +declares that Brand, of Winnipeg, has been backing Nevis all along. +Well, I spent an evening with one of the big milling people in Brandon, +and he told me it was generally believed that Brand has been severely +hit by the fall in wheat. It turns out that he and a few others were at +the bottom of the late rally, which, however, only made things worse for +them. The point is that if Brand is getting shaky he'll probably call in +any money he has supplied to Nevis." + +"Nobody would be sorry if he pulled him down altogether." + +"It's almost too much to expect," replied Hunter, dismissing the subject +with a wave of his hand. "By the way, I had a look round your house +after supper, and it's my opinion that you only want a wagon-load of +dressed lumber and a couple of carpenters for two or three days to make +the place quite comfortable. A few simple furnishings won't cost you +much, and you can, of course, add to them as you go on." + +Thorne realized that this statement covered a question, and he smiled in +a manner that indicated unalloyed satisfaction. + +"I intend to consult with Alison about ordering them as soon as the +thrashing's over." + +His companion rose and stretched himself. + +"Well," he yawned, "if we're to start at sunup we had better get off to +rest." + +He turned to the others. + +"You'll find your blankets in the wagon, boys, and you can camp in the +house. If you're particular about a soft bed there's hay in the barn." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE RECKONING + + +Thorne's last load of wheat had been hauled in, and he had duly met his +obligations, when he drove into Graham's Bluff early one evening. The +days were rapidly getting shorter, and though it was not yet dark there +was a chill in the air, and here and there a light blinked in the window +of a store. Odd groups of loiterers stood about the sidewalk or strolled +along the rutted street, for it was Saturday evening, and now that +harvest was generally over the outlying farmers had driven in to +purchase provisions or to gather any news that might be had, in +accordance with their usual custom. It was about their only relaxation, +and of late a supplementary mail arrived on Saturdays, which was another +excuse for the visit. + +Thorne was in an unusually optimistic mood. He had left his troubles +behind him, there was an alluring prospect opening out ahead, and he +expected to meet Alison and Mrs. Farquhar at the hotel. Besides, he had +driven fast, and the swift motion had stirred his blood. He answered +with a cheerful laugh when some of the loungers called to him. As he +drove by one corner Corporal Slaney raised a greeting hand, and Thorne, +wondering what he was doing there, waved his whip. It was, as a rule, +only when he had some particular business on hand that the corporal was +seen at Graham's Bluff. Supper had been over some time when Thorne +stopped his team at the back of the hotel, and getting down handed it +over to a man who came out from the stable. + +"Has the mail-carrier got in yet, Bill?" he asked. + +"No; he's most an hour behind his usual time. Guess you're late, too. +They've cleared the tables quite a while ago." + +"I got supper with Forrester as I came along. I suppose you haven't any +idea as to what has brought Slaney over?" + +Bill grinned. + +"It is my opinion that's about the one thing Slaney's not going to +explain, though he was in the stable talking, and I saw him looking kind +of curious at Lucy Calvert. She's in town, and so is Mrs. Hunter. She +came in alone, but somebody told me that Hunter had ridden round by +Hall's place and would be along by and by." + +"Are there any of my other friends about?" + +"I don't know if you'd call Nevis one, but he's in the hotel; when I +last saw him he looked powerful mad. Mrs. Hunter had pulled up before +the dry-goods store when he walked up and started to talk to her. I +don't know what she said to him, but it kind of struck me she'd have +liked to lay into him with the whip, and Nevis came back across the road +mighty quick. After that Mrs. Farquhar drove in with Miss Leigh and left +word that you were to wait at the hotel." + +Bill paused a moment and grinned at Thorne mischievously. + +"Guess they didn't want you trailing round after them in the dry-goods +store. Looks as if they'd been buying quite a lot, for it's most half an +hour since they went in. The lawyer man who came to see Miss Leigh has +gone off up the street." + +"The lawyer man!" exclaimed Thorne in some astonishment, for, though he +could guess what Alison was buying, the last piece of news roused his +interest. + +"Parsons--from somewhere down the line. He has been in the settlement +once or twice lately. Wanted to know where Miss Leigh was, and when +she'd be back again." + +Thorne, without asking any more questions, walked round to the front of +the hotel, where he found Nevis talking to several farmers on the +veranda. He was inclined to think the man had not noticed his arrival, +and sitting down he took out his pipe without greeting him. He had +treated Nevis to a somewhat forcible expression of opinion when he had +met Grantly's note a few days earlier, and they had by no means parted +on friendly terms. Soon after he sat down Symonds, the hotel-keeper, +came out on the veranda. + +"Are you going to stay here to-night, Mr. Nevis?" he inquired. + +"Yes," said Nevis. "I didn't intend to when I drove in, but I think I'll +stop over until Monday morning. I'll drive on to Hunter's place after +breakfast then." + +Thorne, remembering what Bill had told him, wondered how far Nevis's +meeting with Mrs. Hunter might explain his change of mind. He could +think of no very definite reason that would warrant the conjecture, but +a stream of light from the room behind the veranda fell on the man's +face and its expression suggested vindictive malice. Just then two or +three newcomers strolled on to the veranda, and a teamster, who had been +sitting at the farther side of it, moved toward Nevis. + +"What do you want to go to Hunter's for?" he asked bluntly. "You and he +haven't had any dealings since he beat you out of the creamery." + +Thorne watched Nevis closely, and imagined that the ominous look in his +face grew plainer still. + +"Well," he said, with a jarring laugh, "Mrs. Hunter is a customer of +mine." + +There was a murmur of astonishment and the men gathered round the +speaker, evidently in the expectation of hearing something more. + +"Is that a cold fact?" one of them inquired. + +"Certainly," answered Nevis; and Thorne joined the group. + +"Even if it is, this isn't the place to discuss it!" he broke in. +"Perhaps I'd better mention that if Hunter isn't in town already he will +be very soon." + +Nevis looked around at him, and Thorne fancied that the man, who was +evidently filled with savage resentment, intended, with some vindictive +purpose, to take the gathering group of bystanders into his confidence. +Several more men were ascending the steps. + +"Have you any reason to doubt what I'm saying?" he asked. + +"Well," drawled Thorne, "there's your general character, for one thing." + +Some of the others laughed, but it occurred to Thorne that his +interference had not been particularly tactful when one of them asked a +question. + +"Are you telling us that Hunter, who has plenty of money, lets his wife +go borrowing from people like you?" + +"I can't say that he lets her," Nevis retorted meaningly. "I've the +best of reasons, however, for being certain that she does so." + +There was an awkward silence, which indicated that all who had heard it +grasped the full significance of the last statement. Nevis smiled as he +glanced round at them. + +"You mean he doesn't know anything about it?" somebody exclaimed. + +"If you insist, that's about the size of it," Nevis answered. "Since her +husband cuts down her allowance to the last dollar, it's not an +altogether unnatural thing that Mrs. Hunter should borrow from her +friends without mentioning it to him." + +The speech was offensive on the face of it, but there was in addition +something in the man's manner which endued it with a gross +suggestiveness. It implied that he could furnish a reason why the woman +should have no hesitation in borrowing from him. Thorne stood still +fuming. He recognized that an altercation with Nevis would in all +probability only provide the latter with an opportunity for making +further undesirable insinuations. + +Just then, however, the group suddenly fell apart and another man strode +across the veranda. He carried a riding-quirt, and his face showed white +and set in the stream of light. + +"It's a malicious lie!" + +He raised the plaited quirt, and the hotel-keeper flung himself in front +of Nevis. + +"Stop there!" he cried. "Hold on, Hunter!" + +Thorne, springing forward, grasped his friend's arm. He felt it his duty +to restrain him, though it was one that he undertook most reluctantly. + +"Thrashing him wouldn't be an answer," he insisted. "After what he has +just said, it would be very much better if you gave us your account of +the thing." + +There was a murmur of approval from the assembly. The men had heard the +accusation cunningly conveyed, and although the prospect of a +sensational climax in which the riding-quirt should figure appealed to +them, they felt it only fitting that they should also hear it proved or +withdrawn. + +"I'll do that--first," consented Hunter, very grimly. "I have just this +to say. I'm perfectly aware that Mrs. Hunter borrowed from this man on +two occasions, and to bear it out I'll state the fact that the loans +fall due on Tuesday." + +Nevis made no attempt to deny it, and one of the bystanders spoke. + +"We can let it go at that, boys; Nevis said he was going over to +Hunter's place on Monday." + +"In that case," continued Hunter, "he will have the notes my wife gave +him in his pocket. I'll mention what the amounts are, and afterward ask +Nevis to produce the papers, and Symonds will tell you if I'm correct." + +"Then if he doesn't want us to strip him he had better trot them out!" +cried another man. + +Nevis, who saw no help for it, produced two papers, which the +hotel-keeper seized. The latter made a sign of agreement when Hunter +spoke again. + +"Yes," he confirmed; "you have given the figures right." + +Hunter once more turned to the waiting men. + +"I think I've made out my case. Are you convinced that he's a dangerous +liar, boys?" + +There were cries of assent. + +"Lay into the hog with the quirt!" somebody added. + +Thorne chuckled at the sight of Nevis's face. It was suffused with blood +and dark with baffled malevolence. The man evidently recognized that he +was discredited and would get no further hearing now. It occurred to +Thorne, however, that his friend had succeeded better than he could +reasonably have expected, for, after all, he had not disproved the fact +that his wife had, in the first place at least, borrowed the money +without his knowledge. The others, he thought, had not noticed that +point. + +Then Hunter raised his hand for silence. + +"I'll ask Symonds and Thorne to come into the room with Nevis and me," +he said. "I want a table to write at, for one thing." + +It did not look as if Nevis were particularly anxious to accompany them, +but Symonds, who was a powerful man, hustled him forward, and Thorne +took his place with his back to the door to keep out the others, who +seemed desirous of following them. Hunter, sitting down at a table, +wrote out a check and pocketed the papers Nevis gave him in exchange for +it. Then he rose and took up the strongly plaited quirt. + +"Now," he said, addressing Nevis, "I'll ask you to walk out on to the +veranda and inform our friends outside that you wish to express your +regret for the malicious statements you have lately made, and that you +declare they were completely unjustified." + +"I'll see you damned first!" muttered Nevis with a dangerous glitter in +his eyes. + +The events of the next few moments were sudden and confusing, and Thorne +was never able to arrange them clearly in his mind. It speedily became +evident, however, that the equity of his cause does not necessarily +render a man either invincible or invulnerable. Nevis, although a person +of somewhat lethargic physical habits, appeared when forced to action +sufficiently vigorous, and Hunter was hampered by the quirt to which he +persistently clung. Though he managed to use it once or twice it was a +serious handicap when they came to grips. In the meanwhile, the dust +flew up from the uncovered floor and obscured the view of the men on the +veranda, who crowded about the window and clamored furiously to get in. +Then in the midst of the turmoil the lamp went out and Thorne felt a +hand on his shoulder. + +"Let them out!" the hotel-keeper cried. + +As Thorne was forcibly driven away from the door, it swung open and a +man sprang out on to the veranda with another close behind, while +confused cries went up. + +"Head him off from the stairway!" + +"Leave them to it!" + +"Get a light!" + +In a few moments, Bill pushed through the crowd with a lantern in his +hand, but before he crossed the veranda another light sprang up again in +the room and streamed out through the door and window. It fell upon the +waiting men and the two dominant figures in the narrow clear space in +front of them--Nevis, standing still, looking about him savagely with a +darkly suffused face, and Hunter, gripping his quirt, very quiet and +very grim. He was, however, breathing heavily, and signs of the conflict +were plain on both of them. + +There was an impressive silence, and everybody stood tensely expectant, +until it was suddenly broken by a murmur and a movement of those nearest +the steps. They drew back, and Mrs. Farquhar and Mrs. Hunter, with +Alison and Lucy Calvert, came up on the veranda. Moving forward a few +paces they stopped in very natural surprise, and the stillness grew +deeper when Hunter suddenly flung down his quirt. This was a change in +the situation which nobody had anticipated. + +Then a cry rose sharply from somewhere below. + +"Miss Leigh! Get back there! Let me up!" + +It was followed by a shout from the crowd. + +"Winthrop!" + +The next moment a man came scrambling up the steps. He was hot and dusty +and apparently in desperate haste, but to Thorne's astonishment he ran +toward Alison. As he did so, Nevis sprang toward the veranda rails. + +"Slaney!" he shouted. + +He was still almost breathless from the struggle, and it scarcely seemed +possible that his hoarse voice would carry far, but Winthrop turning +suddenly, grabbed up a shotgun that lay on a chair. One of the outlying +farmers had brought it with him, for there were duck about just then. + +"Call out again and I'll plug you sure!" he threatened, and the look in +his face suggested that he fully meant it. "You've hounded me from place +to place up and down the prairie; you've got my money, more than you +lent, and that wouldn't satisfy you. Two weeks ago I was working quietly +when you put the blamed police on my trail again. Now I guess I've got +you, and we're going to straighten things." + +He broke off as Lucy stepped forward and laid her hand on the gun, and +Thorne noticed that she placed it with deliberate purpose over the +muzzle. + +"Let me have it, Jake! The boys will see that he doesn't call out." + +There was a murmur of assent from the crowd, and Thorne seized +Winthrop's arm. + +"What do you want Miss Leigh for, anyway?" Lucy asked Winthrop. + +The instinct which had prompted the question seemed so natural to Thorne +that, strung up and intent as he was, he smiled; but just then Winthrop +lowered the gun and turned to Alison. + +"Have you got that mortgage deed and shown it to the lawyer man?" he +asked. + +"It's here," said Alison. "Mr. Parsons is in the settlement; I expect to +see him in the next few minutes." + +It struck Thorne that Nevis started, but before any of those most +concerned could speak there was a rapid thud of horse-hoofs approaching +down the street. Then a man on the steps cried out: + +"Here's Slaney and a trooper! You've got to quit, Jake!" + +Winthrop plunged into the lighted room and the door closed behind him +with a crash; a moment or two later another door banged somewhere below +and the men poured tumultuously down the steps. Lucy followed them, and +almost immediately the veranda was deserted except for Thorne and Alison +and Hunter, who remained there with his wife, though he did not speak to +her. Mrs. Farquhar had apparently been hustled down the steps by the +others in their haste, and Nevis had also vanished. Nobody had noticed +what became of him in the confusion that succeeded Winthrop's flight. + +The thud of hoofs, which had ceased for a moment, almost immediately +began again. Once the corporal's voice rose sharply, and then there +were disconnected cries, a sound of running feet, and a clamor that +rapidly receded down the street. When it grew very faint Thorne turned +to Alison. + +"Haven't you got something to explain?" he asked. + +"It's very simple," said Alison. "Winthrop gave me his mortgage deed +some time ago; he said it would be wiser not to hand it to Lucy. Nevis +had got it from him by an excuse, but he crept into his office for it +late one night. I understand it proves that Nevis hadn't an indisputable +claim to the cattle he sold. About a fortnight ago, Winthrop wrote to me +that the police were on his trail again and I was to show the deed to a +lawyer and see if it would clear him. I don't know why he came here, +unless it was because the troopers had cut off any other means of escape +and he fancied some of his friends would hide him; and it's also +possible that he took the risk of being arrested because of his anxiety +to find out what the lawyer thought." + +Thorne nodded. + +"That probably accounts for it; though there are still one or two points +which are far from clear." + +A few minutes later, a distant clamor broke out again, and by degrees +confused voices and a sound of footsteps drew nearer. Then while Thorne +and Alison leaned over the balustrade a crowd poured past in front of +the hotel with a mounted figure showing above the shoulders of those +about it. Thorne looked round at the girl. + +"They've got him at last," he said. + +Hunter crossed the veranda and drew him into the adjoining room, and +Alison was left alone with Mrs. Hunter. The latter said nothing to her +and she sat silent for some time until the lawyer walked up the steps. + +"I was told that I should find Miss Leigh here." + +Alison said that was her name, and the man, drawing a chair forward, sat +down opposite her. + +"I understand that you have Winthrop's mortgage deed in your possession. +He now desires you to hand it to me." + +"I shall be very glad to get rid of it," declared Alison, taking the +document out of a pocket in her light jacket. "Will you be able to get +him off with it?" + +"That's a matter on which I can't very well express an opinion until I +have read the deed and had a talk with Winthrop. I've no doubt you have +heard that he has just been arrested while endeavoring to escape, but I +contrived to get a word or two with him and Corporal Slaney. The latter +considers it advisable to get his prisoner out of the settlement as soon +as possible, and I understand he means to spend the night at a homestead +a few miles away. He has promised me an opportunity for speaking to +Winthrop when he gets there." + +"I should very much like to hear what you decide," Alison informed him. + +The lawyer rose. + +"It's probable that I may find it necessary to make a few inquiries in +connection with the affair, and I have another piece of business which +will keep me a day or two in the neighborhood. If Winthrop has no +objections, I could no doubt call on you at the Farquhar homestead on +Monday." + +Alison thanked him, and soon after he withdrew Hunter came out of the +hotel with Thorne. Alison accompanied Thorne down to the street in +search of Mrs. Farquhar. Then Hunter turned toward his wife. + +"If you have nothing more to do here, we may as well be getting home," +he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE NEW OUTLOOK + + +It was unusually dark when Florence Hunter drove out of the settlement +with her husband riding beside the wagon, and the roughness of the trail +made conversation difficult. Florence was, on the whole, glad of this, +because, although she felt that there was a good deal to be said, she +could not express herself befittingly while her attention was +concentrated on the team. Besides, she wanted to see the man and watch +his face when she spoke to him. + +She was accordingly content that he should ride in silence except for an +occasional disconnected observation about the horses or the trail, to +which she merely made a casual answer. It was late when they reached the +homestead, and though a light or two was burning nobody seemed to be +about, which was, however, only what she had expected. Hunter led the +horses away toward the stables, and entering the house she sat down to +wait for him somewhat anxiously, though she realized that the +possibility of his being angry would not have troubled her a little +while ago. + +He came in at length and stood looking down at her. Now that the light +was better than it had been on the veranda of the hotel, she noticed +that his lips were cut and that there was a bruise above one cheekbone. +His jacket was also torn and there was no doubt that, taking it all +round, his appearance was far from reputable. That, however, did not +trouble her, for she had seen enough at the hotel to realize that the +man had been injured while fighting in her cause. Still, she was wise +enough not to begin by pitying him. + +"Elcot," she said, "I want you to tell me exactly what happened at the +settlement." + +"I hadn't arrived at the beginning of it," the man replied. "I had a +talk with Thorne afterward, however, and he confirmed my conclusion that +Nevis had been informing anybody who cared to hear that you were in the +habit of borrowing money from him. This was objectionable in itself, but +he added in my hearing that I knew nothing about your action, and the +way in which he said it was insufferable." + +Florence's face flushed. + +"What did you do about it?" + +"First of all, I denied the most damaging statement--that I knew nothing +about the thing. It seemed necessary to prove the contrary, which I did, +though I had to admit the borrowing." + +"And then?" + +"I paid off the loans." + +Hunter paused, and taking out two strips of paper threw them on the +table. + +"Here are your notes. I feel compelled to say that unless you get my +consent beforehand you must never incur a liability of the kind again." + +"I shall never wish to," Florence answered penitently. "We'll talk about +that afterward; I want you to go on. You haven't told me the whole of it +yet." + +"What do you expect to hear?" + +Florence's eyes flashed. + +"I should like to hear that you had thrashed the man until he could +scarcely stand!" + +Her husband's face relaxed into a grim smile. + +"Well, I'm afraid I didn't go as far as that, though it wasn't because +the desire to do so failed me. As it happens, there's a good deal more +courage in the fellow than I ever gave him credit for, and it's +unfortunate that virtuous indignation doesn't make up for an inequality +in muscular weight." He stopped a moment and laughed outright. "Still, I +believe I got in once or twice with the quirt, which is consoling to +remember, and I dare say I should have left another mark or two on him +if the lamp hadn't suddenly been put out. On taxing Symonds with it +afterward, he admitted that he was afraid his wife would make trouble if +the room should be wrecked." + +"Would it please you, Elcot, if I were to say that I'm very proud of +that cut on your lip--though I'm horribly ashamed of being the cause of +it? In any case, it's the simple truth." + +"We'll take it for granted," replied Hunter, looking at her searchingly. +"The trouble is that this matter has forced on a crisis. It's evident +that our relations can't remain as they are just now." + +"You don't find them satisfactory?" + +"No." Hunter broke into a harsh laugh. "I don't know how I have borne +with them as long as I have, though I've resolutely tried to fall in +with your point of view. Anyway, I can't go on living with, and at the +same time utterly apart from, you. It might have been possible if I had +never been fond of you." + +"Nobody could have blamed you if you had grown out of that regard for +me," Florence suggested. + +"The difficulty is that I haven't done so," Hunter declared more +quietly, though there was still a trace of harshness in his tone. "As +you imply, it's perhaps unreasonable of me, but there the fact is. The +question is, What am I going to do?" + +Florence stretched out her hands and her voice was very soft. + +"Elcot," she murmured, "I really must have tried your patience very hard +now and then, but just now I'm glad you find this state of things +unbearable. Would it be very difficult to go back a few years and begin +again--differently?" + +The man moved nearer her and then stopped, hesitating. + +"I'm afraid," he answered slowly, "there are respects in which I can't +change. To begin with, I don't see how I am to provide for you as I +should like if I abandon the life you chafe at and give up the farm. I +have told you this often; but, even if it stands between us, it's a +truth that must still be faced." + +Florence rose and laid her hands in his. + +"Then it's fortunate that a change is not impossible to me--in fact, I +think I've changed a good deal already. It rather hurt me, Elcot, that +you didn't seem to notice it." + +The man stooped and kissed her. + +"I noticed it," he said; "but I was almost afraid." + +"Afraid it wouldn't last?" Florence reproached him. "Well, I suppose +that is not so very astonishing--but I think this change will go on, and +grow greater steadily. Anyway, I want it to." + +Then she drew away from him. + +"You're rather a reserved person, Elcot, and it will no doubt be a +relief to you if we become severely practical. Besides, I want to show +you how determined I am. Now that you have paid off my debts, we'll get +out the account-books, and you shall decide how I'm to carry on the +homestead." + +Hunter laughed. + +"No accounts to-night. It's beginning to strike me that both of us might +have been happier if I hadn't thought about them so much. After all, I +dare say it isn't wise to give economic questions the foremost place." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Florence, "it's a pity it has taken you so long to learn +that truth. I suppose I'm fond of money--at least, I'm fond of the +things I used to fancy it could buy, but by degrees I found out that it +can't buy those that are really worth the most. Now it almost looks as +if I could get them at home--without any cost." + +She paused while she sat down, and then once more she smiled up at him. + +"Well," she continued, "I'll probably embarrass you if I go on in this +strain--you seem to get uneasy when you venture ever so little out of +your shell. For a change, you can read me the paper you brought from the +settlement, and I won't grumble if it's about the markets and the price +of wheat." + +Hunter took up the paper. He was, where his deeper feelings were +concerned, a singularly reticent man, which was, perhaps, an excuse for +Florence and one explanation of the coldness that had grown up between +them. Now he felt that there was to be a change, and because the +prospect brought him a fervent satisfaction he refrained from speaking +of it. He had, however, scarcely opened the paper when he started. + +"Here's a piece of striking news!" he exclaimed. "Brand, of Winnipeg, +has gone down--a disastrous smash. The fall in wheat has broken him. It +appears that his liabilities are enormous, and there's practically +nothing to meet them with." + +He laid down the paper. + +"I wonder," he added, "if Nevis could have heard of it before he left +the settlement--though I think he must have done so, for the mail was +already in. Anyway, when I was getting your team Bill told me that the +man had driven off a few minutes earlier as fast as he could go." + +"But how could the failure in Winnipeg affect Nevis?" + +"Brand has been backing him, finding him the money to carry on his +business, and now that he has gone under it may pull him down. The +creditors will at once try to call in all outstanding loans, and I +expect Nevis has his money so scattered that he can't immediately get +hold of it. It's possible that the failure may drive him out of this +part of the country." + +They talked over the matter at some length, and the man was slightly +astonished at the acumen his wife displayed. When at last he rose, it +was with a deep content. He felt that a vista of happier days was +opening up before them both. + +On the following Monday he drove over to the Farquhar homestead, where +Thorne was already waiting to hear what the lawyer had to tell. The +latter, however, did not arrive until the evening, and Farquhar took him +into the general-room where the others were sitting. + +"You can, of course, speak to Miss Leigh privately, if you prefer," he +said. "On the other hand, we are all of us acquaintances of Winthrop's, +and, what is as much to the purpose, nobody you see here is very fond of +Nevis." + +Parsons smiled. + +"As a matter of fact, I have Winthrop's permission to tell his friends +anything they desire to learn, and he mentioned you and Mr. Thorne +particularly. To begin with, I must excuse myself for the delay, but I +found it necessary to go on to the railroad to meet Sergeant Williamson, +and I had to call at Mrs. Calvert's. To proceed, after considering +Winthrop's mortgage deed, it's my opinion that if he can substantiate +his statements he has no cause for serious anxiety about the result in +the event of his being brought to trial." + +"It would be difficult to get over the fact that he sold the cattle," +contested Farquhar. + +"It would be impossible," Parsons corrected him. "Still, there's very +little doubt that Nevis went farther than the homestead laws permit, and +while our friend would very likely be found guilty of the offense +there's so much to mitigate it that I'm inclined to believe it would be +regarded very leniently. In fact, it's scarcely reasonable to suppose +that Nevis would have proceeded to extremities unless he had counted on +being able to retain possession of the mortgage deed." + +"But couldn't he have been compelled to produce it in court?" Thorne +inquired. + +"Yes; if Winthrop had been ably represented. It must, however, be borne +in mind that he has no great education, and he would probably not have +set out matters clearly to any one who undertook to plead for him. He +admits that he never thought of the mortgage deed until somebody +suggested that he should try to recover it. Besides this, I'm inclined +to fancy that Nevis was influenced by the fact that what appears to be a +simple police case based upon an indisputable act--in this case the +selling of the cattle--is apt to be rather casually handled by the +court." + +"Then you believe he will get off?" + +"It's by no means certain yet that he will be tried." + +They heard the announcement with varying astonishment, and Parsons +continued. + +"I endeavored to impress the views I have laid before you on Sergeant +Williamson," he explained. "The matter, of course, does not rest with +him, but he has come over to make inquiries, and what he has to say will +be listened to. I also pointed out to him that one would expect the +police case to break down if the man who had instituted it was either +absent or reluctant to press it." He stopped a moment and looked round +with a confidential air. "You have heard that Brand, of Winnipeg, has +failed disastrously? There are reasons for believing that Nevis is +involved in his fall; in any case, his office is closed, and it is known +that he left the settlement, presumably for Winnipeg, by the last +Montreal express." + +There was only satisfaction in the faces of those who heard him. Then +Mrs. Farquhar broke the silence. + +"I wonder whether you could add anything to the last piece of +information?" + +"Well," smiled Parsons, "prediction is generally dangerous, and in my +case it would be unprofessional, but I may confess that from one or two +things I gathered I shouldn't be greatly astonished if Nevis failed to +come back again." + +Thorne laughed outright. + +"After that," he said, "we'll take the thing for granted, and I haven't +the least hesitation in declaring that it's a great relief to hear it." + +Then the group broke up, and Alison strolled out with Thorne across the +prairie. A half-moon hung above its eastern rim, and the great sweep of +grass ran back into the dim distance faintly touched with the pale +silvery light. It fell upon the girl's face when at length she stopped +and stood looking about her with the man's hand on her shoulder. A long +rise of ground, so slight as to be almost imperceptible, had cut off the +lights of the house, and they stood alone in the empty waste surrounded +by a deep stillness. + +"It seems such a little while since I first saw the prairie, and I +shrank from it then," she said. "It looked so bare and grim and utterly +forbidding." + +"And now?" Thorne prompted her. + +Alison laughed, a little, happy laugh. + +"Now its harshness has vanished and it has grown beautiful. When it lies +under the moonlight it is steeped in glamour and mystery. Even the tiny +grasses make elfin music when everything is still. I came out at sunrise +this morning when a faint breeze got up and listened to them." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Thorne softly, "it is only a few who can hear that music +at all, and those, I think, must have it in their hearts already. It is +a sign that you belong to the wilderness and it has laid its claim on +you." + +Alison smiled. + +"Now that I have learned to know it, a fondness for the wilderness has +crept into my blood; but, after all, your views are narrow; you don't go +quite far enough. I think one could sometimes hear the music I spoke of +in the noisy cities. Only, as you say, it must be in one's heart +already." + +Thorne looked down at her with a glow in his eyes. + +"Ours are in unison." + +"No," protested Alison, smilingly, "I think we should not benefit if +that were possible. The most we can look for is a complex harmony. In +the strain humanity raises there must be many different notes and many +different parts." + +Thorne laughed rather strangely as, with a little instinctive movement, +he straightened himself. + +"But the same insistent throb in all that is worth listening to." + +"Ah!" murmured the girl; "then you recognized the note of unrest and +endeavor, though you tried to shut your ears?" + +"Now I know I heard it in crowded places; in the pounding of the forges, +and the rumble of the mills. I've heard it a little plainer in the wash +beneath the liner's bows and the din the Pacific express made crossing +the silent prairie with the Empress mails. Still, as you suggested, I +wouldn't grasp its message until one night I sat in the bluff and heard +the birch twigs whispering while you rested in the wagon. Then I knew I +was an idler and a trifler; one who stood aside while the others took +their fill of the joys and pains of life." + +Alison glanced up at him. + +"Then you were awake that night?" + +"Yes; I sat beneath a tree, and I don't know how often I smoked my pipe +out, but my mouth was parched at sunrise, and there was a new purpose +growing into shape at the bottom of my mind. You see, I realized that I +must fall into line and toil like the rest if I wanted you." + +"But you had seen me for only two or three days!" + +Thorne laughed softly. + +"I think if I had seen you for only an hour it would have had the same +result. Anyway, I tried farming, and--though I was very nearly +beaten--you can see what I have made of it." + +He stooped a little toward her. + +"The house is almost ready, dear, and I want you to drive in to the +railroad with me to-morrow. A man from Winnipeg will be at the hotel +then, and I should like you to choose what you think is needed from his +lists of furnishings." + +Alison looked down, for she was conscious of a warmth in her cheeks. "If +you will come over early, I'll be ready." + +Thorne drew her hand within his arm and they moved on slowly in the +faint moonlight that etherealized the plain. + +"It is a marvelous night!" he exclaimed. "The wilderness gripped me when +I came out, but I don't think I ever realized how wonderful it is as I +do just now. And there are people who can see in it only an empty, +wind-swept land!" + +He drew her impulsively to him. + +"Still, there are excuses for them. Only part of the glamour is in the +prairie. The rest of it is due to the supreme good fortune that has +fallen to me." + +"You are very sure of that?" murmured Alison. + +"Yes," declared Thorne, with resolute decisiveness, "it's a certainty +that will only grow deeper as the years roll on!" + + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the +original edition have been corrected. + +In Chapter I, "a rather hazardout undertaking" was changed to "a rather +hazardous undertaking". + +In Chapter VI, "when the storekeper appeared on the scene" was changed +to "when the storekeeper appeared on the scene". + +In Chapter X, a missing quotation mark was added after "he's no doubt +ready for an outbreak." + +In Chapter XI, "it might he desirable to let Volador" was changed to "it +might be desirable to let Volador". + +In Chapter XII, "in which case it will, no doubt, he adopted" was +changed to "in which case it will, no doubt, be adopted". + +In Chapter XIX, "when he strode out on the verenda" was changed to "when +he strode out on the veranda", and "dubious glances round him at he +resumed his march" was changed to "dubious glances round him as he +resumed his march". + +Chapter XXVII, A HELPING HAND, was mislabeled "Chapter XXVI" originally. + +In Chapter XXIX, "there the fact it" was changed to "there the fact is". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Prairie Courtship, by Harold Bindloss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP *** + +***** This file should be named 38723-8.txt or 38723-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/2/38723/ + +Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +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: A Prairie Courtship + +Author: Harold Bindloss + +Release Date: January 31, 2012 [EBook #38723] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP *** + + + + +Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 324px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="324" height="500" alt="cover of A Prairie Courtship" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="thin" /> + +<h1>A PRAIRIE<br /> +COURTSHIP</h1> + + +<p class="center bigtext"><span class="smcap">By</span> HAROLD BINDLOSS</p> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "MASTERS OF THE WHEAT-LANDS," +"WINSTON OF THE PRAIRIE," "LORIMER OF +THE NORTHWEST," "ALTON OF SOMASCO," +"THURSTON OF ORCHARD VALLEY," ETC.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/logo.png" width="150" height="141" alt="decorative logo" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center"><span class="smalltext">NEW YORK</span><br /> +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY<br /> +<span class="smalltext">PUBLISHERS</span></p> + +<p class="center smalltext">ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN +LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN</p> + +<p class="center smalltext">COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY<br /> +PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TITLE "ALISON'S ADVENTURE"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/pubdate.png" width="400" height="110" alt="FAS Co September, 1911" title="FAS Co September, 1911" /> +</div> + +<hr class="wide" /> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table class="figcenter" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum smalltext">CHAPTER</td> +<td class="chapname smalltext"> </td> +<td class="chappage smalltext">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">I.</td> +<td class="chapname">A Cold Welcome</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">II.</td> +<td class="chapname">Maverick Thorne</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">17</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">III.</td> +<td class="chapname">The Camp in the Bluff</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">32</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">IV.</td> +<td class="chapname">The Farquhar Homestead</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">47</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">V.</td> +<td class="chapname">Thorne Gives Advice</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">59</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">VI.</td> +<td class="chapname">Thorne Contemplates a Change</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">VII.</td> +<td class="chapname">A Useful Friend</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">86</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">VIII.</td> +<td class="chapname">A Fit of Temper</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">99</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">IX.</td> +<td class="chapname">The Raising</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">110</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">X.</td> +<td class="chapname">Thorne Resents Reproof</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">123</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XI.</td> +<td class="chapname">An Escapade</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">135</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XII.</td> +<td class="chapname">Hunter Makes an Enemy</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">145</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XIII.</td> +<td class="chapname">Nevis Picks up a Clue</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">157</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XIV.</td> +<td class="chapname">Winthrop's Letter</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XV.</td> +<td class="chapname">On the Trail</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">179</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XVI.</td> +<td class="chapname">Corporal Slaney's Defeat</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">189</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XVII.</td> +<td class="chapname">A Compromise</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">199</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XVIII.</td> +<td class="chapname">Nevis's Visitor</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">209</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XIX.</td> +<td class="chapname">The Mortgage Deed</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">219</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XX.</td> +<td class="chapname">Hail</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">231</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXI.</td> +<td class="chapname">A Point of Honor</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">242</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXII.</td> +<td class="chapname">Alison Spoils Her Gloves</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">254</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXIII.</td> +<td class="chapname">An Unexpected Disaster</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">265</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXIV.</td> +<td class="chapname">Lucy Goes to the Rescue</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">275</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXV.</td> +<td class="chapname">The Only Means</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">287</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXVI.</td> +<td class="chapname">Open Confession</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">300</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXVII.</td> +<td class="chapname">A Helping Hand</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">312</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXVIII.</td> +<td class="chapname">The Reckoning</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">324</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="chapnum">XXIX.</td> +<td class="chapname">The New Outlook</td> +<td class="chappage"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">337</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="wide" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="A_PRAIRIE_COURTSHIP" id="A_PRAIRIE_COURTSHIP"></a>A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP</h2> + +<h2 class="chapterone"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /> +<span class="smalltext">A COLD WELCOME</span></h2> + + +<p>It was falling dusk and the long emigrant train was clattering, +close-packed with its load of somewhat frowsy humanity, through the last +of the pine forest which rolls westward north of the Great Lakes toward +the wide, bare levels of Manitoba, when Alison Leigh stood on the +platform of a lurching car. A bitter wind eddied about her, for it was +early in the Canadian spring, and there were still shattered fangs of +ice in the slacker pools of the rivers. Now and then a shower of cinders +that rattled upon the roof whirled down about her and the jolting brass +rail to which she clung was unpleasantly greasy, but the air was, at +least, gloriously fresh out there and she shrank from the vitiated +atmosphere of the stove-heated car. She had learned during the past few +years that it is not wise for a young woman who must earn her living to +be fastidious, but one has to face a good many unpleasantnesses when +traveling Colonist in a crowded train.</p> + +<p>A gray sky without a break in it hung low above the ragged spires of the +pines; the river the track skirted, and presently crossed upon a wooden +bridge, shone in the gathering shadow with a wan, chill gleam; and the +bare rocky ridges that flitted by now and then looked grim and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>forbidding. Indeed, it was a singularly desolate landscape, with no +touch of human life in it, and Alison shivered as she gazed at it with a +somewhat heavy heart and weary eyes. Her head ached from want of sleep +and several days of continuous jolting; she was physically worn out, and +her courage was slipping away from her. She knew that she would need the +latter, for she was beginning to realize that it was a rather hazardous +undertaking for a delicately brought up girl of twenty-four to set out +to seek her fortune in western Canada.</p> + +<p>Leaning upon the greasy rails, she recalled the events which had led her +to decide on this course, or, to be more accurate, which had forced it +on her. Until three years ago, she had led a sheltered life, and then +her father, dying suddenly, had left his affairs involved. This she knew +now had been the fault of her aspiring mother, who had spent his by no +means large income in an attempt to win a prominent position in +second-rate smart society, and had succeeded to the extent of marrying +her other daughter well. The latter, however, had displayed very little +eagerness to offer financial assistance in the crisis which had followed +her father's death.</p> + +<p>In the end Mrs. Leigh was found a scantily paid appointment as secretary +of a woman's club, while Alison was left to shift for herself, and it +came as a shock to the girl to discover that her few capabilities were +apparently of no practical use to anybody. She could paint and could +play the violin indifferently well, but she had not the gift of +imparting to others even the little she knew. A graceful manner and a +nicely modulated voice appeared to possess no market value, and the +unpalatable truth that nothing she had been taught<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> was likely to prove +more than a drawback in the struggle for existence was promptly forced +on her.</p> + +<p>She faced it with a certain courage, however, for her defects were the +results of her upbringing and not inherent in her nature, and she +forthwith sought a remedy. In spite of her mother's protests, her +sister's husband was induced to send her for a few months' training to a +business school, and when she left the latter there followed a +three-years' experience which was in some respects as painful as it was +varied.</p> + +<p>Her handwriting did not please the crabbed scientist who first engaged +her as amanuensis. Her second employer favored her with personal +compliments which were worse to bear than his predecessor's sarcastic +censure; and she had afterward drifted from occupation to occupation, +sinking on each occasion a little lower in the social scale. In the +meanwhile her prosperous sister's manner became steadily chillier; her +few influential friends appeared desirous of forgetting her; and at last +she formed the desperate resolution of going out to Canada. Nobody, +however, objected to this, and her brother-in-law, who was engaged in +commerce, sent her a very small check with significant readiness, and by +some means secured her a position as typist and stenographer in the +service of a business firm in Winnipeg.</p> + +<p>For the last three days she had lived on canned fruit and crackers in +the train, not because she liked that diet, but because the charges at +the dining-stations were beyond her means. She had now five dollars and +a few cents in her little shabby purse. That, however, did not much +trouble her, for she would reach Winnipeg on the morrow, and she +supposed that she would begin her new duties immediately. She was +wondering with some mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>givings what her employers would be like, when a +girl of about her own age appeared in the doorway of the vestibule.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you coming in? It's getting late, and I'm almost asleep," she +said.</p> + +<p>Alison turned, and with inward repugnance followed her into the long +car. It was brilliantly lighted by big oil lamps, and it was undoubtedly +warm, for there was a stove in the vestibule, but the frowsy odors that +greeted her were almost overwhelming after the fresh night air. An aisle +ran down the middle of the car, and already men and women and peevish +children were retiring to rest. There was very little attempt at +privacy, and a few wholly unabashed aliens were partially disrobing +wherever they could find room for the operation. Some lay down upon +boards pulled forward between two seats, some upon little platforms that +let down by chains from the roof, and the car was filled with the +complaining of tired children and a drowsy murmur of voices in many +languages.</p> + +<p>Alison sat down and glanced round at the passengers who had not yet +retired. In one corner were three young Scandinavian girls, fresh-faced +and tow-haired, of innocent and wholesome appearance, going out, as they +had unblushingly informed her in broken English, to look for husbands +among the prairie farmers. She was afterward to learn that such +marriages not infrequently turned out well. Opposite them sat a young +Englishman with a hollow face and chest, who could not stand his native +climate, and had been married, so Alison had heard, to the delicate girl +beside him the day before he sailed. They were going to Brandon on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +prairie, and had not the faintest notion what they would do when they +got there.</p> + +<p>Close by were a group of big, blonde Lithuanians, hardened by toil, in +odoriferous garments; a black-haired Pole; a Jewess whose beauty had run +to fatness; and her greasy, ferret-eyed husband. Farther on a burly +Englishman, who had evidently laid in alcoholic refreshment farther back +down the line, was crooning a maudlin song. There was, however, an +interruption presently, for a man's head was thrust out from behind a +curtain which hung between the roof and one of the platforms above.</p> + +<p>"Let up!" he said.</p> + +<p>The song rose a little louder in response, and a voice with a western +intonation broke in.</p> + +<p>"Throw a boot at the hog!"</p> + +<p>"No, sir," replied the man above; "he might keep it; and I guess they're +most used to heaving bottles where he comes from."</p> + +<p>The words were followed by a scuffling sound which seemed to indicate +that the speaker was fumbling about the shelf for something, and then he +added:</p> + +<p>"This will have to do. Are you going to sleep down there, sonny?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman paused to inform anybody who cared to listen that he +would go to sleep when he wanted and that it would take a train-load of +Canadians like the questioner, whose personal appearance he alluded to +in vitriolic terms, to prevent him from singing when he desired; after +which he resumed the maudlin ditty. Immediately there was a rustle of +snapping leaves, as a volume of the detective literature that is +commonly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> peddled on the trains went hurtling across the car. It struck +the woodwork behind the singer with a vicious thud, and he stood up +unsteadily.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, "I mean to show you what comes of insulting me."</p> + +<p>He moved forward a pace or two, fell against a seat in an attempt to +avoid a toddling child, and, grabbing at his disturber's platform, +endeavored to clamber up to it. The chains rattled, and it seemed that +the light boards were bodily coming down when he felt with one hand +behind the curtain, part of which he rent from its fastenings. Then his +hand reappeared clutching a stockinged foot, and a bronzed-faced man in +shirt and trousers dropped from a neighboring resting-place.</p> + +<p>"You get out!" thundered the Englishman. "Teach you to be civil when +I've done with him. Gimme time, and I'll settle the lot of you, and the +sausages"—he presumably meant the Lithuanians—"afterward."</p> + +<p>The man above contrived to kick him in the face with his unembarrassed +foot, but he held on persistently to the other, and a general fracas +appeared imminent when the conductor strode into the car. The latter had +very little in common with the average English railway guard, for he was +a sharp-tongued, domineering autocrat, like most of his kind.</p> + +<p>"Now," he demanded, "what's this circus about?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman informed him that he had been insulted, and firmly +intended to wipe it out in blood. The conductor looked at him with a +faint grim smile.</p> + +<p>"Go right back to your berth, and sleep it off," he advised.</p> + +<p>He stood still, collectedly resolute, clothed with authority, and the +Englishman hesitated. He had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> doubtless pluck enough, and his blood was +up, but he had also the innate, ingrained capacity for obedience to duly +constituted power, which is not as a rule a characteristic of the +Westerner. Then the conductor spoke again:</p> + +<p>"Get a move on! I'll dump you off into the bush if you try to make +trouble here."</p> + +<p>It proved sufficient. The singer let the captive foot go and turned +away; and when the conductor left, peace had settled down upon the +clattering car. The little incident had, however, an unpleasant effect +on Alison, for this was not the kind of thing to which she had been +accustomed. It was a moment or two before she turned to her companion.</p> + +<p>"I shall be very glad to get off the train to-morrow, Milly—and I +suppose you will be quite as pleased," she said.</p> + +<p>The girl blushed. She was young and pretty in a homely fashion, and had +informed Alison, who had made her acquaintance on the steamer, that she +was to be married to a young Englishman on her arrival at Winnipeg.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied; "Jim will be there waiting; I got a telegram at +Montreal. It's four years since I've seen him."</p> + +<p>The words were simple, but there was something in the speaker's voice +and eyes which stirred Alison to half-conscious envy. It was not that +marriage in the abstract had any attraction for her, for the thought of +it rather jarred on her temperament, and it was, perhaps, not altogether +astonishing that she had of late been brought into contact chiefly with +the seamy side of the masculine character. Still, lonely and cast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +adrift as she was, she envied this girl who had somebody to take her +troubles upon his shoulders and shelter her, and she was faintly stirred +by her evident tenderness for the man.</p> + +<p>"Four years!" she said reflectively. "It's a very long time."</p> + +<p>"Oh," declared Milly, "it wouldn't matter if it had been a dozen now. +He's the same—only a little handsomer in his last picture. Except for +that, he hasn't changed a bit—I read you some of his letters on the +steamer."</p> + +<p>Alison could not help a smile. The girl's upbringing had clearly been +very different from her own, and the extracts from Jim's letters had +chiefly appealed to her sense of the ludicrous; but now she felt that +his badly expressed devotion rang true, and her smile slowly faded. It +must, she admitted, be something to know that through the four years, +which had apparently been ones of constant stress and toil, the man's +affection had never wavered, and that his every effort had been inspired +by the thought that the result of it would bring his sweetheart in +England so much nearer him, until at last, as the time grew rapidly +shorter, he had, as he said, worked half the night to make the rude +prairie homestead more fit for her.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he wasn't rich when he went out?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Milly. "Jim had nothing until an uncle died and left him +three or four hundred pounds. When he came and told me of it I made him +go."</p> + +<p>"You made him go?" exclaimed Alison, wondering.</p> + +<p>"Of course! There was no chance for him in England; I couldn't keep him, +just to have him near me—always poor—and I knew that whatever he did +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> Canada he would be true to me. The poor boy had trouble. His first +crop was frozen, and his plow oxen died—I think I told you he has a +little farm three or four days' ride back from the railroad." The girl's +face colored again. "I sold one or two things I had—a little gold watch +and a locket—and sent him the money. I wouldn't tell him how I got it, +but he said it saved him."</p> + +<p>Alison sat silent for the next moment or two. She was touched by her +companion's words and the tenderness in her eyes. Alison's upbringing +had in some respects not been a good one, for she had been taught to +shut her eyes to the realities of life, and to believe that the smooth +things it had to offer were, though they must now and then be schemed +for, hers by right. It was only the last three years that had given her +comprehension and sympathy, and in spite of the clearer insight she had +gained during that time, it seemed strange to her that this girl with +her homely prettiness and still more homely speech and manners should be +capable of such unfaltering fidelity to the man she had sent to Canada, +and still more strange that she should ever have inspired him with a +passion which had given him power to break down, or endurance patiently +to undermine, the barriers that stood between them. Alison had yet to +learn a good deal about the capacities of the English rank and file, +which become most manifest where they are given free scope in a new and +fertile field.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, conscious of the lameness of the speech, "I believe +you will be happy."</p> + +<p>Milly smiled compassionately, as though this expression of opinion was +quite superfluous; and then with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> tact which Alison had scarcely +expected she changed the subject.</p> + +<p>"I've talked too much about myself. You told me you had something to do +when you got to Winnipeg?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," was the answer; "I'm to begin at once as correspondent in a big +hardware business."</p> + +<p>"You have no friends there?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Alison; "I haven't a friend in Canada, except, perhaps, +one who married a western wheat-grower two or three years ago, and I'm +not sure that she would be pleased to see me. As it happens, my mother +was once or twice, I am afraid, a little rude to her."</p> + +<p>It was a rather inadequate description of the persecution of an +inoffensive girl who had for a time been treated on a more or less +friendly footing and made use of by a certain circle of suburban society +interested in parochial philanthropy in which Mrs. Leigh had aspired to +rule supreme. Florence Ashton had been tolerated, in spite of the fact +that she earned her living, until an eloquent curate whose means were +supposed to be ample happened to cast approving eyes on her, when +pressure was judicially brought to bear. The girl had made a plucky +fight, but the odds against her were overwhelmingly heavy, and the +curate, it seemed, had not quite made up his mind. In any case, she was +vanquished, and tactfully forced out of a guild which paid her a very +small stipend for certain services; and eventually she married a +Canadian who had come over on a brief visit to the old country. How +Florence had managed it, Alison, who fancied that the phrase was in this +case justifiable, did not exactly know, but she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> reasons for +believing that the girl had really liked the curate and would not +readily forgive her mother.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Milly, "if ever you want a friend you must come to Jim and +me; and, after all, you may want one some day." She paused, and glanced +at Alison critically. "Of course, so many girls have to work nowadays, +but you don't look like it, somehow."</p> + +<p>This was true. Although Alison's attire was a little faded and shabby, +its fit was irreproachable, and nobody could have found fault with the +color scheme. She possessed, without being unduly conscious of it, an +artistic taste and a natural grace of carriage which enabled her to wear +almost anything so that it became her. In addition to this, she was, +besides being attractive in face and feature, endued with a certain +tranquillity of manner which suggested to the discerning that she had +once held her own in high places. It was deceptive to this extent that, +after all, the places had been only very moderately elevated.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid that's rather a drawback than anything else," she said in +reference to Milly's last observation. "But it's a little while since +you told me that you were sleepy."</p> + +<p>They climbed up to two adjoining shelves they drew down from the roof, +and though this entailed a rather undignified scramble, Alison wished +that her companion had refrained from a confused giggle. Then they +closed the curtains they had hired, and lay down, to sleep if possible, +on the very thin mattresses the railway company supplies to Colonist +passengers for a consideration. An attempt at disrobing would not have +been advisable, but, after all, a large proportion of the occupants of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +the car were probably more or less addicted to sleeping in their +clothes.</p> + +<p>There was a change when Alison descended early in the morning, in order +at least to dabble her hands and face in cold water, which would not +have been possible a little later. Even first-class Pullman passengers +have, as a rule, something to put up with if they desire to be clean, +and Colonist travelers are not expected to be endued with any particular +sense of delicacy or seemliness. As a matter of fact, a good many of +them have not the faintest idea of it. It was chiefly for this reason +that Alison retired to the car platform after hasty ablutions, and, +though it was very cold, she stayed there until the rest had risen.</p> + +<p>The long train had run out of the forest in the night, and was now +speeding over a vast white level which lay soft and quaggy in the +sunshine, for the snow had lately gone. Here and there odd groves of +birches went streaming by, but for the most part there were only +leafless willow copses about the gleaming strips of water which she +afterward learned were sloos. In between, the white waste ran back, +bleached by the winter, to the far horizon. It looked strangely +desolate, for there was scarcely a house on it, but, at least, the sun +was shining, and it was the first brightness she had seen in the land of +the clear skies.</p> + +<p>Most of the passengers were partly dressed, for which she was thankful, +when she went back into the car; and after one or two of them had kept +her waiting she was at length permitted to set on the stove the tin +kettle which was the joint property of herself and her companion. Then +they made tea, and after eating the last of their crackers and emptying +the fruit can, they set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> themselves to wait with as much patience as +possible until the train reached Winnipeg.</p> + +<p>The sun had disappeared, and a fine rain was falling when at last the +long cars came clanking into the station amid the doleful tolling of the +locomotive bell. Alison, stepping down from the platform, noticed a man +in a long fur coat and a wide soft hat running toward the car. Then +there was a cry and an outbreak of strained laughter, and she saw him +lift her companion down and hold her unabashed in his arms. After that +Milly seized her by the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"This is Jim," she announced. "Miss Alison Leigh. I told her that if +ever she wanted a home out here she was to come to us."</p> + +<p>The man, who had a pleasant, bronzed face, laughed and held out his +hand.</p> + +<p>"If you're a friend of Milly's we'll take you now," he said. "She ought +to have one bridesmaid, anyway. Come along and stay with her until you +get used to the country."</p> + +<p>Milly blushed and giggled, but it was evident that she seconded the +invitation, and once more Alison was touched. The offer was frank and +spontaneous, and she fancied that the man meant it. She explained, +however, that she was beginning work on the morrow; and Jim, giving her +his address, presently turned away with Milly.</p> + +<p>After that Alison felt very desolate as she stood alone amid the swarm +of frowsy aliens who poured out from the train. The station was cold and +sloppy; everything was strange and unfamiliar. There was a new +intonation in the voices she heard, and even the dress of the citizens +who scurried by her was different in details from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> that to which she had +been accustomed. In the meanwhile Jim and Milly had disappeared, and as +she had been told that the railroad people would take care of her +baggage until she produced her check, she decided to proceed at once to +her employers' establishment and inform them of her arrival.</p> + +<p>A man of whom she made inquiries gave her a few hasty directions, and +walking out of the station she presently boarded a street-car and was +carried through the city until she alighted in front of a big hardware +store. Being sent to an office at the back of it she noticed that the +smart clerk looked at her in a curious fashion when she asked for the +manager by name.</p> + +<p>"He's not here," he said. "Won't be back again."</p> + +<p>Alison leaned against the counter with a sudden presage of disaster.</p> + +<p>"How is that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Company went under a few days ago. Creditors selling the stock up. I'm +acting for the liquidator."</p> + +<p>Alison felt physically dizzy, but she contrived to ask another question +or two, and then went out, utterly cast down and desperate, into the +steadily falling rain. She was alone in the big western city, with very +little money in her purse and no idea as to what she should do.</p> + +<p>She stood still for several minutes until she remembered having heard +that accommodation of an elementary kind was provided in buildings near +the station where emigrants just arrived could live for a time, at +least, free of charge, though they must provide their own food. As she +knew that every cent was precious now, she turned back on foot along the +miry street.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /> +<span class="smalltext">MAVERICK THORNE</span></h2> + + +<p>Alison slept soundly that night. The blow had been so heavy and +unexpected that it had deadened her sensibility, and kindly nature had +her way. Besides, the very hard berth she occupied was at least still, +and she was not kept awake by the distressful vibration that had +disturbed her in the Colonist car. Awakening refreshed in the morning, +she sallied out to purchase provisions for the day, and was unpleasantly +astonished at the cost of them. She had yet to learn that a dollar goes +a very little way in a country where rents and wages are high.</p> + +<p>Returning to the emigrant quarters which were provided with a +cooking-stove, she made a frugal breakfast, and then after a +conversation with an official who gave her all the information in his +power, she spent the day offering her services at stores and hotels and +offices up and down the city. Nobody, however, seemed to want her. It +was, she learned, a time of general bad trade, for the wheat harvest, on +which that city largely depends, had failed the previous year.</p> + +<p>Day followed day with much the same result, until Alison, who never +looked back upon them afterward without a shiver, had at last parted +with most of her slender stock of garments to one of the Jew dealers who +then occupied a row of rickety wooden shacks near the station at +Winnipeg. He gave her remarkably lit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>tle for them; and one night she sat +down dejectedly in the emigrant quarters to grapple with the crisis. By +and by a girl who had traveled in the same car and had spoken to her now +and then sat down beside her.</p> + +<p>"Nothing yet?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No," said Alison wearily; "I have heard of nothing that I could turn my +hands to."</p> + +<p>"Then," advised her companion, "you'll just have to do the same as the +rest of us. You're almost as good-looking as I am." She lowered her +voice a little. "I dare say you have noticed that those Norwegians have +gone?"</p> + +<p>Alison had noticed that, and also that two or three lean and wiry men +with faces almost blackened by exposure to the frost had been hanging +about the emigrant quarters for a day or two preceding the disappearance +of the girls. The blood crept into her cheeks as she remembered it, but +her companion laughed, somewhat harshly.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she explained, "they're married and gone off to farm; but what I +want to tell you is that I'm going to follow their example to-morrow. +It's quite straight. We're to be married in the morning. He says he's +got a nice house, and he looks as if he'd treat me decently." She laid +her hand on Alison's arm, and seemed to hesitate. "A neighbor, another +farmer, came in with him—and he hasn't found anybody yet."</p> + +<p>Alison shrank from her, white in face now, with an almost intolerable +sense of disgust, but in another moment or two the blood surged into her +cheeks, and her companion made a half-ashamed gesture.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," she said, "I think you're foolish, but I won't say any more +about it. Besides, I had only a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> minute or two. Charley's waiting in the +street for me now."</p> + +<p>She withdrew somewhat hastily, and Alison sat still, almost too troubled +to be capable of indignation, forcing herself to think. One thing was +becoming clear; she must escape from Winnipeg before the unpleasant +suggestion was made to her again, perhaps by some man in person, and go +on farther West. After all, she had one friend, the one her mother had +persecuted, living somewhere within reach of a station which she had +discovered was situated about three hundred miles down the line, and +Florence might take her in, for a time at least. She decided to set out +and try to find her the next day. Rising with sudden determination, she +walked across to the station to make inquiries about the train, and as +she reached it a man strode up to her. It was evident that he meant to +speak, and as there was just then no official to whom she could appeal, +she drew herself up and faced him resolutely. He was a young man, neatly +dressed in store clothes, though he did not look like an inhabitant of +the city, and he had what she could not help admitting was a pleasant +expression.</p> + +<p>"You're Miss Leigh," he said, taking off his wide gray hat, and his +intonation betrayed him to be an Englishman.</p> + +<p>"How did you learn my name?" Alison asked chillingly.</p> + +<p>"I made inquiries," he confessed. "The fact is, I asked Miss Carstairs +to get me an introduction, and to tell the truth I wasn't very much +astonished when she said you wouldn't hear of it."</p> + +<p>Alison recognized now that the man was the one her companion had alluded +to as her prospective husband's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> neighbor, and for a moment she felt +that she could have struck him. That feeling, however, passed. There was +a hint of deference in his attitude; he met the one indignant glance she +flashed at him, which was somehow reassuring, and since she could not +run away ignominiously she stood her ground.</p> + +<p>"That's why I thought I'd make an attempt to plead my cause in person," +he added.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" Alison asked in desperation, though she was quite +aware that this was giving him a lead.</p> + +<p>The man's gesture seemed to beseech her forbearance.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it will sound rather alarming, but in the first place I'd +better—clear the ground. The plain truth is that I want a wife."</p> + +<p>"Oh," cried Alison, "how dare you say this to me!"</p> + +<p>"Well," he answered quietly, "the fact that I expected you to look at it +in that way was one of the things that influenced me. A self-respecting +girl with any delicacy of feeling would naturally resent it; but I'm not +sure yet that it's altogether an insult I'm offering you. Let me own +that I've been here some little time, and that I've spent a good deal of +it in watching you." He raised his hand as he saw the indignation in her +eyes. "Give me a minute or two, and then if you think it justified you +can be angry. I want to say just this. We live in a pretty primitive +fashion on our hundred-and-sixty-acre holdings out on the prairie, and +conventions don't count for much with us. What is more to the purpose, +we are forced to make some irregular venture of this kind if we think of +marrying. Now, I have a comparatively decent place about two hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +miles from here, and my wife would not have to work as hard as you would +certainly have to do in a hotel or store. That's to begin with. To go +on, I don't think I've ever been unkind to any one or any thing, and, +though it must seem a horrible piece of assurance, I said the day I saw +you get out of the train that you were the girl for me. I would do what +I could, everything I could, to make things smooth for you."</p> + +<p>Alison felt that, strange as it seemed, she could believe him. The man +did not look as if he would be unkind to any one. What was more, he was +apparently a man of some education.</p> + +<p>"Now," he added, "what I should like to do is this. I'd find you +quarters in a decent boarding-house, and just call and take you round to +show you the city for an hour or two each afternoon. I'd try to satisfy +you as to—we'll say my mode of life and character, and you could, +perhaps, form some idea of me. I don't want to form any idea of +you—I've done that already. Then if my offer appears as repugnant as +I'm afraid it does now, I'd try to take my dismissal in good part; and I +think I could find you a post in a creamery on the prairie, if you would +care for it."</p> + +<p>He broke off, and Alison wondered at herself while he stood watching her +anxiously. Her anger and disgust had gone. She could see the ludicrous +aspect of the situation, but that was not her clearest impression, for +she felt that this most unconventional stranger was, after all, a man +one could have confidence in. Still, she had not the least intention of +marrying him.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she said quietly. "What you suggest is, however, quite out +of the question."</p> + +<p>The man's face fell, and she felt, extraordinary as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> it seemed, almost +sorry that she had been compelled to hurt him; but once more he took off +his soft hat.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I suppose I must accept that, and—though I don't know +if it's a compliment—I shall go back alone. There's just another +matter. If you have any knowledge of business I could have you made +clerk at the creamery."</p> + +<p>Urgent as her need was, Alison would not entertain the proposal. She +felt that it would be equally impossible to accept a favor from or to +live near him.</p> + +<p>"No," she replied; "it is generous of you, but I am going West +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>The man, saying nothing further, turned away, and she thought of him +long afterward with a feeling of half-amused good-will. It was the first +offer of marriage she had ever had, made in a deserted, half-lighted +station by a man to whom she had never spoken until that evening. She +was to learn, however, that the strangeness of any event naturally +depends very largely on what one has been accustomed to, and that one +meets with many things which at least appear remarkable when one +ventures out of the beaten track.</p> + +<p>She went on with the west-bound train the next afternoon, and early in +the morning alighted at a wayside station which consisted of one wooden +shanty and a big water-tank. A cluster of little frame houses stood +beneath the huge bulk of two grain elevators beyond the unfenced track, +which ran straight as the crow flies across a bare, white waste of +prairie. As the train sped out along this and grew smaller and smaller +Alison stood forlornly beside the half-empty trunk which contained the +remnant of her few possessions. She had then just two dollars in her +pocket. It was a raw, cold morning,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> for spring was unusually late that +year, and a bitter wind swept across the desolate waste. In a minute or +two the station-agent came out of the shanty and looked at her with +obvious curiosity.</p> + +<p>"I guess you've got off at the right place?" he said in a manner which +made the words seem less of a statement than an inquiry.</p> + +<p>Alison asked him if he knew a Mr. Hunter who lived near Graham's Bluff, +and how it was possible to reach his homestead.</p> + +<p>"I know Hunter, but the Bluff is quite a way from here," the man +replied. "The boys drive in now and then, and a freighter goes through +with a wagon about once a fortnight."</p> + +<p>He saw the girl's face fall, and added, as though something had suddenly +struck him:</p> + +<p>"There's a man in the settlement who said he was going that way to-day +or to-morrow, and it's quite likely that he'd drive you over. Guess you +had better ask for Maverick Thorne at the hotel."</p> + +<p>Alison thanked him and, crossing the track, made for the rude frame +building he indicated. Her thin boots were very muddy before she reached +it, for there was no semblance of a street and the space between the +houses and elevators was torn up and deeply rutted by wagon wheels. She +now understood why a high plank sidewalk usually ran, as she had +noticed, along the front of the buildings in the smaller prairie towns.</p> + +<p>It was with a good deal of diffidence that she walked into the hotel and +entered a long and very barely furnished room which just then was +occupied by a group of men.</p> + +<p>Several of them wore ordinary city clothes and were,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> she supposed, +clerks or storekeepers in the little town; but the rest had +weather-darkened faces and their garments were flecked with sun-dried +mire and stained with soil, while the dilapidated skin coats thrown down +here and there evidently belonged to them. Some were just finishing +breakfast and the others stood lighting their pipes about a big rusty +stove. The place reeked of the smell of cooking and tobacco smoke, and +looked very comfortless with its uncovered walls and roughly boarded +floor. There was, however, no bar in it, and it was consoling to see a +very neat maid gathering up the plates.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Maverick Thorne here just now?" she asked the girl.</p> + +<p>She was unpleasantly conscious that the men had gazed at her with some +astonishment when she walked in, and it was clear that they had heard +her inquiry, because several of them smiled.</p> + +<p>"Quit talking, Mavy. Here's a lady asking for you," said one, and a man +who had been surrounded by a laughing group moved toward her.</p> + +<p>She glanced at him apprehensively, for after her recent experience she +was signally shy of seeking a favor from any of his kind. He was a tall +man, bronzed and somewhat lean, as most of the inhabitants of the +prairie seemed to be, and the state of his attire was not calculated to +impress a stranger in his favor. His long boots were caked with mire and +the fur was coming off the battered cap he held in one hand; his blue +duck trousers were rent at one knee and a very old jacket hung over his +coarse blue shirt. Still, his face was reassuring and he had whimsical +brown eyes.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Thorne?" she said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>The man made her a respectful inclination, which was not what she had +expected.</p> + +<p>"At your command," he replied.</p> + +<p>She stood silent a moment or two, hesitating, and he watched her +unobtrusively. He saw a jaded girl in a badly creased and somewhat +shabby dress who nevertheless had an air of refinement about her which +he immediately recognized. Her face was delicately pretty and cleanly +cut, though it was weary and a little anxious then, and she had fine +hazel eyes. Still, the red-lipped mouth was somehow determined and there +was a hint of decision of character in the way she looked at him from +under straight-drawn brows. Her hair, as much as he could see of it, was +neither brown nor golden, but of a shade between, and he decided that +the contrast between the warm color in her cheeks and the creamy +whiteness of the rest of her face was a little more marked than usual, +as indeed it was, for Alison was troubled with a very natural +embarrassment just then.</p> + +<p>"I want to go to Graham's Bluff," she said. "The man at the station told +me that you were driving there."</p> + +<p>He did not answer immediately, and she awaited his reply in tense +anxiety. It was evident that she could not stay where she was, even if +she had been possessed of the means to pay for such rude accommodation +as the place provided, which was not the case. In the meanwhile it +occurred to the man that she looked very forlorn in the big, bare room, +and something in her expression appealed to him. He was, as it happened, +a compassionate person.</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied, "I could take you, though as I've a round to make it +will be quite a long drive. I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> thought of starting this afternoon, +but we had perhaps better get off in the next hour or so."</p> + +<p>He turned to the girl who was gathering up the plates.</p> + +<p>"Won't you try to get this lady some breakfast, Kristine?"</p> + +<p>The girl said that she would see what she could do, but Alison was not +aware until afterward that it was only due to the fact that the man was +a favorite in the place that food was presently set before her. The +average Westerner gets through his breakfast in about ten minutes; and +as a rule the traveler who arrives at a prairie hotel a few minutes +after a meal is over must wait with what patience he can command until +the next is ready.</p> + +<p>In any case, Alison was astonished when porridge and maple syrup, a thin +hard steak and a great bowl of potatoes, besides strong green tea and a +dish of desiccated apricots stewed down to pulp, were laid in front of +her. It was most unlike an English breakfast, but she was to learn that +there is very little difference between any of the three daily meals +served in that country. Its inhabitants, who rise for the most part at +sunup, do not require to be tempted by dainties, which is fortunate, +since they could not by any means obtain them, and in a land where the +liquor prohibition laws are generally applied and men work twelve and +fourteen hours daily, morning appetizers are quite unnecessary.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile Thorne and his companions had disappeared, for which +Alison was thankful, though they left an acrid reek of tobacco smoke +behind them; but when Kristine presently demanded fifty cents she +realized with a fresh pang of anxiety that she had now just a dollar and +a half in her possession, and she scarcely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> dared contemplate what might +happen if Florence Hunter should not be disposed to welcome her. Besides +this, there was the unpleasant possibility that the man might expect +more than she could pay him for driving her to Graham's Bluff, and it +was with some misgivings that she rose when he appeared an hour later to +intimate that the team was ready.</p> + +<p>Going out with him she saw two rough-coated horses apparently +endeavoring to kick in the front of a high, four-wheeled vehicle, until +they desisted and backed it violently into the side of the hotel. There +are various rigs, as they term them—buckboards, sulkies and the humble +bob-sleds—in use in that country, but the favorite one is the narrow, +general-purpose wagon mounted on tall slender wheels, which will carry a +moderate load though light enough to go reasonably fast.</p> + +<p>Thorne helped Alison up, and as he swung himself into the vehicle +several loungers hurled laughing questions at him.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to trade that man the gramophone? You'd get him sure +in half an hour," called one.</p> + +<p>"Webster wants a tonic that will fix his wooden leg," cried another; and +a third suggested that a Chinaman in the vicinity was open to purchase +some hair-restorer. Alison did not know then that, probably because he +wears only one tail of it, a Chinaman's hair usually grows without the +least assistance three feet long.</p> + +<p>Thorne smiled at them and then, calling to Kristine, who was standing +near the door, he leaned down and handed her a bottle which he took from +an open case.</p> + +<p>"I guess you haven't much use for anything of this kind, but that elixir +will make your cheeks bloom like peaches if you rub it in," he informed +her. "I sold some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> round Stanbury down the line not long ago and there +wasn't an unmarried girl near the place when I next came along."</p> + +<p>"There was only two before, and one of them was cross-eyed," said a +grinning man.</p> + +<p>Thorne, without answering this, told Alison to hold fast and flicked the +horses with the whip. They plunged forward at a mad gallop, scattering +clods of half-dried mud, and the wagon bounced violently into and out of +the ruts. It seemed to leap into the air when the wheels struck the +rails as they crossed the track, and then Thorne's arms grew rigid and +there was a further kicking and plunging as he pulled the team up +outside the little station shed. A man who appeared from within +condescended to hand Alison's light trunk up, which she did not know +then was a very great favor, and in another moment or two they were +flying out across the white waste of prairie.</p> + +<p>It ran dead level, like a frozen sea, to where it met the crystalline +blueness that hung over it, for the grasses which had lain for months in +the grip of the iron frost shone in the sunlight a pale silvery gray. +There was not a trail of smoke or a house on it, only here and there a +formless blur that was in reality a bluff of straggling birches or a +clump of willows, and, to complete the illusion, when Alison looked +around by and by, the houses had sunk down beneath the rim and only the +bulk of the wheat elevators rose up like island crags against the sky.</p> + +<p>It was, however, warm at last, and a wonderful fresh breeze which had +the quality of an elixir in it rippled the whitened grass. Alison felt +her heart grow lighter. The vast plain was certainly desolate, but it +had lost its forbidding grimness. It had no limit or boundary;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> one felt +free out there and cares and apprehensions melted in the sunshine that +flooded it. She began to understand why she had seen no pinched and +pallid faces in this new land. Its inhabitants laughed whole-heartedly, +looked one in the eyes, and walked with a quick, jaunty swing. They +seemed alert, self-confident, optimistic and quaintly whimsical. It was +hard to believe there was not some nook in it that she could fill.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile she was becoming more reassured about her companion. +She decided that his age was twenty-six and that he had a pleasant face. +His eyes were clear and brown and steady, his nose and lips clearly cut, +and there was a suggestive cleanness about his deeply bronzed skin which +was the result of a simple and wholesome life led out in the wind and +the sun. Alison was puzzled, however, by something in both his manner +and his voice that hinted at a careful upbringing and intelligence. It +certainly was not in keeping with his clothes or his profession, which +was apparently that of a pedler. She had already noticed the nerve and +coolness with which he controlled the half-broken team.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you started before you were quite ready," she said at +length.</p> + +<p>The man laughed.</p> + +<p>"I might have planted a gramophone on to one of the boys and a few +bottles of general-purpose specifics among the rest. They are"—his eyes +twinkled humorously—"quite harmless. Anyway, I've no doubt I can unload +them on to somebody next time. So far, at least, I haven't any rivals in +this neighborhood."</p> + +<p>"Then you sell things?"</p> + +<p>"Anything to anybody. If I haven't got what the buyer wants I promise to +bring it next journey, or be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>wilder him with an oration until he gives +me a dollar for something he has no possible use for. That, however, +isn't a thing you can do very frequently, which is why some folks in my +profession fail disastrously. They can't realize that if you sell a man +what he doesn't want too often he's apt to turn out with a club on the +next occasion." He paused and sighed whimsically. "If I hadn't been +troubled with a conscience I could have been running a store by now. +That is, it must be added, if I had wanted to."</p> + +<p>"You find a conscience handicaps you?" Alison inquired, for she was half +amused and half interested in him.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it does. For instance, I came across a man with a badly +sprained wrist the other day and he offered me two dollars for anything +that would cure it. Now it would have been singularly easy to have +affixed a different label to my unrivaled peach-bloom cosmetic and have +supplied him with a sure-to-heal embrocation. As it was, I got my supper +at his place and recommended cold-water bandages. There was another man +I cured of a broken leg, and I resisted the temptation to brace him up +with hair-restorer."</p> + +<p>"What remedy did you use for the broken leg?"</p> + +<p>"Splints," said Thorne dryly, "after I'd set it."</p> + +<p>"But isn't that a difficult thing? How did you know how to go about it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'd seen it done."</p> + +<p>"On the prairie?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Thorne, with a rather curious smile; "in an Edinburgh +hospital."</p> + +<p>Something in his manner warned her that it might not be judicious to +pursue her inquiries any further, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> she was, without exactly +knowing why, a little curious upon the point. It occurred to her that if +he had been a patient in the hospital the injured man would in all +probability not have been treated in his sight, while it seemed somewhat +strange that he should now be peddling patent medicines in Canada had he +been qualifying for his diploma. He, however, said nothing more, and +they drove on in silence for a while.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THE CAMP IN THE BLUFF</span></h2> + + +<p>They stopped in a thin grove of birches at midday for a meal which +Thorne prepared, and it was late in the afternoon when Alison, who ached +with the jolting, asked if Graham's Bluff was very much farther. It +struck her that the fact that she had not made the inquiry earlier said +a good deal for her companion's conversational powers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," he answered casually, "it's most of thirty miles."</p> + +<p>Alison started with dismay.</p> + +<p>"But—" she said and stopped, for it was evident that her misgivings +could not very well be expressed.</p> + +<p>"We're not going through to-night," Thorne explained. "The team have had +about enough already, and there's a farmer ahead who'll take us in. If +we reach the Bluff by to-morrow afternoon it will be as much as one +could expect."</p> + +<p>Alison did not care to ask whether the farmer was married, though as +there seemed to be singularly few women in the country she was afraid +that it was scarcely probable. There was, however, no doubt that she +must face the unusual and somewhat embarrassing situation.</p> + +<p>"I had no idea it was a two days' drive," she said.</p> + +<p>"It's possible to get through in the same day if you start early," +Thorne replied. "I've a call to make, however, which is taking me a good +many miles off the direct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> trail. Anyway, if you hadn't come with me you +would have had to wait a week at the hotel."</p> + +<p>"Do you know Mrs. Hunter?"</p> + +<p>"Well," answered Thorne with a certain dryness, "we are certainly +acquainted. When you use the other term in England it to some extent +implies that you could be regarded as a friend of the person mentioned."</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether you like her?" Alison was conscious that the speech +was not a very judicious one.</p> + +<p>Thorne's eyes twinkled in a way that she had noticed already.</p> + +<p>"I must confess that I liked her better when she first came to Canada. +She hadn't begun to remodel arrangements at her husband's homestead +then. Hunter, I understand, came into some money shortly before he +married her, and—" he paused with a little laugh—"most of my friends +are poor."</p> + +<p>This was not very definite, but it tended to confirm the misgivings +concerning her reception which already troubled Alison. She noticed the +tact with which the man had refrained from making any inquiries as to +her business with Mrs. Hunter. Indeed, he said nothing for the next +half-hour, and then, as they reached the crest of a low rise, he pointed +to a cluster of what seemed to be ridiculously small buildings on the +wide plain below.</p> + +<p>"That's as far as we'll go to-night," he said.</p> + +<p>The buildings rapidly grew into clearer shape, until Alison recognized +that one was a diminutive frame house which looked as though it had been +made for dolls to live in. It rose abruptly from the prairie, without +sheltering tree or fence or garden; but near it there was a pile of +straw and two shapeless structures, which seemed to be composed of soil +or sods. Behind them the vast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> sweep of silvery gray grass was broken by +a narrow strip of ochre-tinted stubble.</p> + +<p>Presently they reached the lonely homestead and a neatly dressed woman +with hard, red hands and a worn face appeared in the doorway when Thorne +helped Alison down. The girl felt sincerely pleased to see her.</p> + +<p>"I've no doubt you'll take my companion, who's going on toward the Bluff +to-morrow, in for the night and let me camp in the barn," said Thorne. +"Is Tom anywhere around? I want to see him about a horse he talked of +selling."</p> + +<p>The woman said that he had gone off to borrow a team of oxen and would +not be back until the next day, and then she led Alison into a little +roughly match-boarded room with an uncovered floor and very little +furniture except the big stove in the middle of it. A child was toddling +about the floor and another, a very little girl, lay with a flushed face +in a canvas chair. The woman asked Alison no questions, but set about +getting supper ready, and after a while Thorne, who had apparently been +putting up the team, came in. As he did so the child in the chair held +out her hands to him.</p> + +<p>"Candies, Mavy," she cried. "Got some candies for me?"</p> + +<p>Thorne picked her up and sat down with her on his knee, and taking a +parcel out of his pocket he unwrapped and handed some of its contents to +her. While she munched the sweetmeats he glanced at her mother +interrogatively.</p> + +<p>"Yes," declared the woman, "I'm right glad you came. She's been like +this three or four days. I don't know what to do with her, or what's the +matter."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>Thorne looked down at the child before he turned toward his hostess.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I have at least a notion. A little feverish, for one +thing."</p> + +<p>He asked a question or two, and then held the child out to her mother.</p> + +<p>"Will you take her while I get a draught mixed? I'm not sure that she'll +sit down again in her chair."</p> + +<p>The child bore this out, for she would neither sit alone nor go to her +mother.</p> + +<p>"If Mavy goes out I sure go along with him," she persisted.</p> + +<p>The man got rid of her with some difficulty and, going out to where his +wagon stood, he came back with a little brass-strapped box in his hand. +He asked for some water and disappeared into an adjoining room, out of +which there presently rose the clink of glass and a slight rattling. +Then he called the woman, who gave the child to Alison, and when she +came back somewhat relieved in face she laid out the supper. It much +resembled the breakfast Alison had made at the hotel, only that strips +of untempting salt pork were substituted for the hard steak.</p> + +<p>An hour or two later she was given a very rude bunk filled with straw +and a couple of blankets in an unoccupied room, and being tired out, she +slept soundly. Lying still when she awakened early the next morning she +heard the woman moving about the adjoining room until the outer door +opened and a man whose voice she recognized as Thorne's came in.</p> + +<p>"I'll go through and look at the kiddie, if I may," he said.</p> + +<p>Alison heard him cross the room, and when he came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> back his hostess +evidently walked toward the outer door of the house with him.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to be careful of her for a few days, but if you give her +the stuff I left as I told you, she'll cause you no trouble then," he +said. "I'm sorry I didn't see Tom, but we'll have to get on after +breakfast."</p> + +<p>"What am I to give you for the medicine?" the woman asked.</p> + +<p>Alison, who listened unabashed, heard Thorne's laugh.</p> + +<p>"Breakfast," he answered; "that will put us square. I've been selling +gramophones and little mirrors by the dozen right along the line, and +when I've struck a streak of that kind I don't rob my friends."</p> + +<p>Though she did not know exactly why, Alison had expected such an answer, +and she remembered with a curious feeling that he had said his friends +were poor. She heard the woman thank him, and then a flush crept into +her face, for she certainly had not expected the next question.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to quit the peddling and take up a quarter-section with +the girl?"</p> + +<p>"No," laughed Thorne; "I don't know where you got that idea."</p> + +<p>"She's your kind," replied his hostess, and this appeared significant to +Alison. "I've seen folks like her back in Montreal."</p> + +<p>"It's quite likely," said Thorne. "She's going to Mrs. Hunter."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Hunter? Why didn't they send for her? What's her name?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't a notion. She walked into Brown's hotel yesterday looking +played out and anxious, and said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> somebody had told her I was going to +the Bluff. As I felt sorry for her I started at once."</p> + +<p>"Well," responded the woman, "I guess you couldn't help it. It's just +the kind of thing you would do."</p> + +<p>Thorne apparently went out after this and Alison lay still for a time +while her hostess clattered about the room. She was troubled by what she +had heard, for although she recognized that she had need of it, there +was something unpleasant in the fact that she was indebted to this +stranger's charity. He had confessed that he was sorry for her. Rising a +little later she breakfasted with the others, and then, when Thorne went +out to harness his team, she diffidently asked the woman what she owed +her.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," was the uncompromising reply.</p> + +<p>"But—" Alison began, and the woman checked her.</p> + +<p>"We're not running a hotel. You can stop right now."</p> + +<p>Alison realized that expostulation would be useless, and this, as a +matter of fact, was in one respect a relief to her, for just then there +were but two silver coins in her possession. A few minutes later Thorne +helped her into the wagon and they drove away.</p> + +<p>The prairie was flooded with sunlight, and it was no longer monotonously +level. It stretched away before her in long, billowy rises, which dipped +again to vast shallow hollows when the team plodded over the crest of +them, and here and there little specks of flowers peeped out among the +whitened grass or there was a faint sprinkling of tender green. The air +was cool yet, and exhilarating as wine. Alison, refreshed by her sound +sleep, rejoiced in it, and it was some time before she spoke to her +companion.</p> + +<p>"I felt slightly embarrassed," she said. "That woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> would let me pay +nothing for my entertainment. She can't have very much, either."</p> + +<p>"She hasn't," replied Thorne. "Her husband had his crop hailed out last +fall. Still, you see, that kind of thing is a custom of the country. +They're a hospitable people, and, in a general way, when you are in need +of a kindness, you're most likely to get it from people who are as hard +up as you are." He paused with a whimsical smile. "One can't logically +feel hurt at the other kind for standing aside or shutting their eyes, +but when they proceed to point out that if you had only emulated their +virtues you would be equally prosperous, it becomes exasperating, +especially as it isn't true. So far as my observation goes, it isn't the +practice of the stricter virtues that leads to riches."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you say your experience?" Alison inquired. "It's the usual +word."</p> + +<p>"It would suggest that I had tried the thing, and I'm afraid that I've +only watched other people. To get knowledge that way is considerably +easier. But I presume I was taking too much for granted in supposing +that you had—any reason for agreeing with my previous observation."</p> + +<p>Alison felt that this was a question delicately put, so that if it +pleased her she could avoid a definite reply. She did not in the least +resent it, and something urged her to take this stranger into her +confidence.</p> + +<p>"If you mean that I don't know what it is to be poor you are wrong," she +confessed. "At the present moment I'm unpleasantly close to the end of +my resources."</p> + +<p>"But you said that you were going to Mrs. Hunter's."</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether she will take me in. I shouldn't be astonished if +she didn't."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>The man saw the warmth in her face and looked at her thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you have courage, and that goes quite a way out here. +I don't think you need be unduly anxious, in any case."</p> + +<p>He flicked the team with his whip and by and by they reached a +straggling birch bluff on the crest of a steeper slope. A rutted trail +led between the trees, and as the team moved a little faster down the +dip the wagon jolted sharply. Then one of the beasts stumbled, plunged, +and recovered itself again, and Thorne, seizing Alison's arm as she was +almost flung from her seat, pulled them up and swung himself down. +Looking over the side she saw him stoop and lift one of the horse's +feet. It was a few minutes before he came back again.</p> + +<p>"A badger hole," he explained. "Volador fell into it. An accident of +that kind makes trouble now and then."</p> + +<p>He drove slowly for the next few miles, but, so far as Alison noticed, +the horse showed no sign of injury, and it was midday when they stopped +for a meal beside a creek which wound through a deep hollow. On setting +out again, however, the horse began to flag and Thorne, who got down +once or twice in the meanwhile, was driving at a walking pace when they +reached a birch bluff larger than the last one. He pulled the team up +and springing to the ground looked at Alison a few minutes later.</p> + +<p>"Volador's going very lame," he said. "It would be cruelty to drive him +much farther."</p> + +<p>Alison was conscious of a shock of dismay. Sitting in the wagon on the +crest of the rise she could look down across the birches upon a vast +sweep of prairie, and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> was no sign of a house anywhere on it. It +almost seemed as if she must spend the night in the bluff.</p> + +<p>"What is to be done?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Can you ride?"</p> + +<p>Alison said she had never tried, and the man's expression hinted that +the expedient he had suggested was out of the question.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you could walk sixteen miles?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I couldn't," Alison confessed, though if the feat had +appeared within her powers she would gladly have attempted it.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll have to camp here in the wagon, though I can fix it up +quite comfortably."</p> + +<p>He held up his hand.</p> + +<p>"You may as well get down, and we'll set about making supper."</p> + +<p>She was glad that he spoke without any sign of diffidence or hesitation, +which would have suggested that he expected her to be embarrassed by the +situation, though this was undoubtedly the case. It seemed to her that +his manner implied the possession of a certain amount of tact and +delicacy. For all that, she looked out across the prairie with her face +turned away from him when she reached the ground.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said presently, handing down a big box, "if you will open that +and fill the kettle at the creek down there among the trees, I'll bring +some branches to make a fire."</p> + +<p>She moved away with the kettle, and when she came back the horses had +disappeared and she could hear the thud of her companion's ax some +distance away in the bush. When he reappeared with an armful of dry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +branches she had laid out a frying-pan, an enameled plate or two, a bag +of flour, a big piece of bacon, which, however, seemed to be termed pork +in that country, and a paper package of desiccated apples. She was +looking at them somewhat helplessly, for she knew very little about +cooking. Thorne made a fire between two birches which he hewed down for +the purpose, and laid several strips of pork in the frying-pan, which +she heard him call a spider. These he presently emptied out on to a +plate laid near the fire, after which he poured some water into a basin +partly filled with flour.</p> + +<p>"Flapjacks are the usual standby in camp," he informed her. "If I'd +known we would be held up here I'd have soaked those apples. Do you mind +sprinkling this flour with a pinch or two of the yeast-powder in yonder +tin, though it's a thing a sour-dough would never come down to."</p> + +<p>"A sour-dough?" inquired Alison, doing as he requested.</p> + +<p>"An old-timer," explained Thorne, who splashed himself rather freely as +he proceeded to beat up the flour and water. "Sour-dough has much the +same significance as unleavened bread, only that our pioneers kept on +eating it more or less regularly in the land of promise. For all that, I +wouldn't wish for better bread than the kind still made with a +preparation of sour potatoes and boiled-down hops stirred in with the +flour. In this operation, however, the great thing is to whip fast +enough."</p> + +<p>He splashed another white smear upon his jacket, and rubbed it with his +hand before he poured some of the mixture into the hot spider, out of +which he presently shook what appeared to be a very light pancake. +Three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> or four more followed in quick succession, and then he poured +water on to the green tea and handed Alison a plate containing two +flapjacks and some pork. She found them palatable. Even the desiccated +apples, which from want of soaking were somewhat leathery, did not come +amiss, and the flavor of the wood smoke failed to spoil the strong green +tea. Then Thorne poured a little hot water over the plates, and as there +was no vessel that would hold them, she overruled his objections when +she volunteered to go down and wash them thoroughly in the creek. When +she came back she found that he had made up a clear fire and spread out +a blanket as a seat for her.</p> + +<p>"You are satisfied now?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Alison smiled. She was astonished to find herself so much at ease with +him.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered; "I felt that I could at least wash the plates. In a +way, it wasn't altogether my fault that I could do nothing else. You +see, I was never taught to cook."</p> + +<p>"Isn't that rather a pity?" Thorne suggested.</p> + +<p>"It's more," said Alison with what was in her case unusual warmth. "It's +an injustice. Still, there are thousands of us brought up in that way +yonder, and when some unexpected thing brings disaster we are left to +wonder what use we are to anybody. I suppose," she added, "the answer +must be—none."</p> + +<p>Thorne expressed no opinion on this point, but presently took out his +pipe.</p> + +<p>"You won't mind?" he asked. "I suppose they taught you something?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Alison; "accomplishments. I can play and sing +indifferently, and paint simple landscapes if there are no figures in +them—because figures imply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> serious study. I can follow a French +conversation if they don't speak fast, and read Italian with a +dictionary. Before any of these things will bring a girl in sixpence she +must do them excellently, and they seem very unlikely to be of the least +service in this part of Canada."</p> + +<p>She was angry with herself for the outbreak as soon as she had spoken, +as it seemed absurd that she should supply a stranger with these +personal details; but the longing to utter some protest against the +half-education which had been merely a handicap during the last three +bitter years was too much for her. Thorne, however, made a sign of +sympathetic comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he assented, "that kind of thing's rather a pity. Did you never +learn anything—practical?"</p> + +<p>"Shorthand," replied Alison. "I can generally, though not always, read +what I've written, if it hasn't exceeded about eighty words a minute. +Then I can type about two-thirds as fast as one really ought to, and can +keep simple accounts so long as neatness is not insisted on. I naturally +had to learn all this after I left home. It seems to me that to bring up +English girls in such a way is downright cruelty."</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed.</p> + +<p>"It's not remarkably different in our case. There's a man in a town not +far along the line who used to shine at the Oxford Union and is now +uncommonly glad to earn a few dollars by his talents as an auctioneer; +that's how they estimate oratory on the prairie. There's another who +devoted most of his time at Cambridge to physical culture, and as the +result of it he gets pretty steady employment on the railroad track as a +ballast shoveler."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>Then he changed his tone.</p> + +<p>"Have you any idea as to what you will do if you don't stay with Mrs. +Hunter?"</p> + +<p>"No," confessed Alison, somewhat ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Thorne, "as I believe I mentioned, I don't think you need +worry about the matter. It's very probable that some of the small +wheat-growers' wives would be glad to have you."</p> + +<p>"But I can't even sew decently."</p> + +<p>The man's eyes twinkled.</p> + +<p>"In a general way, they're too busy to be fastidious."</p> + +<p>There was silence for a little after this and Alison cast one or two +swift unobtrusive glances at her companion, who lay smoking opposite her +on the other side of the fire. The sun now hung low above the great +white waste and the red light streamed in upon them both between the +leafless birches. Again she decided that he had a pleasant face and, +what was more, in spite of his attire, his whole personality seemed to +suggest a clean and wholesome virility.</p> + +<p>She had seen that he could be gentle, in the sick child's case, and she +suspected that he could be generous, but there was something about him +that also hinted at force. Then she remembered some of the men with whom +she had been brought into unpleasant contact in the cities—many who +bore the unmistakable mark of the beast, the cheap swagger of others, +and the inane attempts at gallantries which some of the rest indulged +in. They were not all like that, she realized; there were true men +everywhere; but now that her first shrinking from the grim and lonely +land was lessening it seemed to her that it had, in some respects at +least, a more bracing influence on those who lived in it than that other +still very dear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> one on which she had turned her back. Then she realized +that she was, after all, appraising its inhabitants by a single +specimen. She had yet to learn that they are now and then a little too +aggressively proud of themselves in western Canada, though it must be +said that the boaster is usually ready to pour out the sweat of tensest +effort with ax and saw or ox-team to prove his vaunting warranted.</p> + +<p>After a while the sun dipped and it grew chilly as dusk crept up from +the hazy east across the leagues of grass. Thorne brought her another +blanket to lay over her shoulders, and lying down again relighted his +pipe. There was not a breath of wind, and though she could hear the +knee-hobbled horses moving every now and then the silence became +impressive. She felt impelled to break it presently, for it seemed to +her that casual conversation would lessen the probability of the +somewhat unusual situation having too marked an effect on either of +them.</p> + +<p>"How is it that you have so many provisions in your wagon?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed.</p> + +<p>"I live in it all summer."</p> + +<p>"And you drive about selling things? Is it very remunerative?"</p> + +<p>"No," admitted Thorne dryly; "I can't say that it is; but, you see, I +like it. I'm afraid that I've a rooted objection to staying in one place +very long, and while I can get a meal and the few things I need by +selling an odd bottle of cosmetic, a gramophone, or a mirror, I'm +content." He made a humorous gesture. "That's the kind of man I am."</p> + +<p>Then he stood up.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>"It's getting rather late and you'll find the wagon fixed up ready. If +you hear a doleful howling you needn't be alarmed. It will only be the +coyotes."</p> + +<p>He disappeared into the shadows and Alison turned away toward the +wagon.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THE FARQUHAR HOMESTEAD</span></h2> + + +<p>When she reached the wagon Alison found it covered by a heavy waterproof +sheet which was stretched across a pole. Loose hay had been strewn +between a row of wooden cases and one side of the vehicle and the space +beneath the sheeted roof was filled with a faint aromatic odor, which +she afterward learned was the smell of the wild peppermint that grows in +the prairie grass. When she had spread one blanket on the hay the couch +felt seductively soft, and she sank into it contentedly. Tired as she +was, however, she did not go to sleep immediately, for it was the first +night she had ever spent in the open, and for a time the strangeness of +her surroundings reacted on her.</p> + +<p>The front of the tent was open, and resting on one elbow she could see +the sinking fires still burning red among the leafless trees, and the +pale wisps of smoke that drifted among their spectral stems. At the foot +of the slope there was a wan gleam of water and beyond that in turn the +prairie rolled away, vast and dim and shadowy, with a silver half-moon +hanging low above its eastern rim. To one who had lived in the cities, +as she had done, the silence was at first so deep as to be almost +overwhelming, but by degrees she became conscious that it was broken by +tiny sounds. There was a very faint, elfin tinkle of running water, a +whispering of grasses that bent to the little cold breeze which had just +sprung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> up, and the softest, caressing rustle of the lace-like birch +twigs. Then, as the moon rose higher the vast sweep of wilderness and +sky gathered depth of color and became a wonderful nocturne in blue and +silver.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile a pleasant warmth was creeping through her wearied body +and she began to wonder with a sense of compunction how many blankets +Thorne possessed, and where he was. It was at least certain that he was +nowhere near the fire, for she had carefully satisfied herself on that +point. Then a wild, drawn-out howl drifted up to her across the faintly +gleaming prairie and she started and held her breath, until she +remembered that Thorne had said there was no reason why she should be +alarmed if she heard a coyote. He was, she felt, a man one could +believe. The beast did not howl again, but she continued to think of her +companion as her eyes grew heavy. There was no doubt that he had a +pleasant voice and a handsome face. Then her eyes closed altogether and +her yielding elbow slipped down among the hay.</p> + +<p>The sun was where the moon had been when she opened her eyes again. +Climbing down from the wagon she saw no sign of Thorne. A bucket filled +with very cold water, however, stood beneath a tree, where she did not +remember having noticed it on the previous evening, and a towel hung +close by. A few minutes later she took down the towel and glanced at it +dubiously. It was by no means overclean and she wondered with misgivings +what the man did with it. It seemed within the bounds of possibility +that he dried the plates on it and, what was worse, that he might do so +again. In the meanwhile, however, the hair on her forehead was dripping +and the water was trickling down her neck, so she shut her eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> tight +and applied the towel, after which she concealed it carefully in the +wagon.</p> + +<p>A quarter of an hour later Thorne appeared and she was relieved upon one +point at least. Whether he had slept with blankets or without them, he +did not look cold, and his appearance indeed suggested that he had been +in the neighboring creek. She was astonished to notice that he had +brushed himself carefully and had sewed up the rent in the knee of his +overalls. Clothes-brushes, she correctly supposed, were scarce on the +Canadian prairie, but it seemed probable that he would require a brush +of some kind to clean his horses.</p> + +<p>"If you wouldn't mind laying out breakfast I'll make a fire and catch +the team," he said. "It's a glorious morning; but once the winter's over +we have a good many of them here."</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Alison; "everything is so delightfully fresh."</p> + +<p>His eyes rested on her for a moment and she was unpleasantly conscious +that her dress was badly creased and crumpled as well as shabby; but he +did not seem to notice this.</p> + +<p>"That," he said, "is what struck me a minute or two ago."</p> + +<p>He busied himself about the fire, and when he strode away through the +bluff in search of the horses she heard him singing softly to himself. +She recognized the aria, and wondered a little, for it was not one that +could be considered as popular music.</p> + +<p>They had breakfast when he came back and both laughed when she prepared +the flapjacks under his direction. She felt no restraint in this +stranger's company. Indeed, she was conscious of a pleasant sense of +cama<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>raderie, which seemed the best name for it, though she had hired +him to drive her to Mrs. Hunter's and was very uncertain as to whether +she could pay him.</p> + +<p>He harnessed the team when the meal was over and explained that although +Volador was still lame they might contrive to reach Graham's Bluff at +sundown by proceeding by easy stages, and Alison tactfully led him on to +talk about himself as they drove away. Though there were one or two +points on which he was reserved, he displayed very little diffidence, +which, however, is a quality not often met with among the inhabitants of +western Canada.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said with an air of whimsical reflection in answer to one +question, "I suppose my chief complaint is an excess of individuality. +They beat it out of you with clubs in England, unless you're +rich—really rich—when you can, of course, do anything. On the other +hand, the man who is merely stodgily prosperous is hampered by more +rules than anybody else. This is, I must explain, another notion I've +arrived at by observation and not from experience."</p> + +<p>"One supposes that a certain amount of uniformity and subordination is +necessary to progress," commented Alison.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," agreed Thorne; "that's the trouble. Progress marches with +massed battalions and makes so much dust that it's not always able to +see where it's going. Perhaps it's that or the bewildering change of +leaders that renders so much countermarching unavoidable."</p> + +<p>"Then you prefer to act with the vedettes and skirmishers?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Thorne; "not that exactly. Some of us are more like the +camp-followers. We collect our toll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> on the booty and when that's too +difficult we live on the country. After all, mine's an ancient if not a +very respectable calling. There were always pilgrims, minstrels and +pedlers."</p> + +<p>"It can't be a luxurious life."</p> + +<p>Thorne looked amused.</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure you didn't mean a useful one?"</p> + +<p>Alison felt uncomfortable, because this idea had been in her mind.</p> + +<p>"I'll answer the question, anyway," continued Thorne. "These people and +those in the wheat-growing lands across the frontier work twelve and +fourteen hours every day. It's always the same unceasing toil with +them—they have no diversions. We go round and carry the news from place +to place, tell them the latest stories, and now and then sing to them. +We don't tax them too much either—a supper when they're poor—a dollar +for a mirror or a bottle of elixir, which it must be confessed most of +them have no possible use for."</p> + +<p>"Did you never do anything else?" Alison inquired; "that is, in Canada?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," replied her companion. "I was clerk in an implement store +which I walked out of at its proprietor's request after an attack of +injudicious candor. You see, a rather big farmer came in one day and +spent most of the morning examining our seeders and pointing out their +defects. Then he inquired why we had the assurance to demand so much for +our implement when he could buy a very much better one several dollars +cheaper. I asked him if he was sure of that, and when he said he was I +suggested that it would be considerably wiser to go right away and buy +it instead of wasting his time and mine. The proprietor desired to know +how we expected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> him to make a living if we talked to customers like +that, and I pointed out that we couldn't do so anyway by answering +insane questions."</p> + +<p>Alison laughed delightedly. She felt that this was not mere rodomontade, +but that the man was perfectly capable of doing as he had said.</p> + +<p>"Had you any more experiences of the same kind?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I was shortly afterward projected out of a wheat broker's office."</p> + +<p>"Projected?"</p> + +<p>Thorne grinned.</p> + +<p>"I believe that describes it. You see, they were three to one; but I +took part of the office fittings along with me. I must own that I lost +my temper and insulted them."</p> + +<p>"But why did you do so?"</p> + +<p>"Well," answered Thorne reflectively, "I like the Colonial, and +especially the Westerner, though he's rather fond of insisting on his +superiority over the rest of mankind. One gets used to this, but it now +and then grows galling when he compares himself with the folks who come +out from the old country. On the day in question the trouble arose from +a repetition of the usual formula that if it wasn't for the ocean they'd +have the whole scum of Europe coming over. I, however, shook hands with +the man who said it not long afterward, and he told me that after I had +gone, which was how he expressed it, they sat down and laughed until +they ached, thinking what the wheat broker, who was out on business, +would say when he saw his office."</p> + +<p>Alison was genuinely amused and she ventured another question.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>"Did you leave your situations in England in the same fashion?"</p> + +<p>The man's face darkened for a moment.</p> + +<p>"As it happened, I hadn't any."</p> + +<p>Alison turned the conversation into what promised to be a safer channel, +and they drove along very slowly all morning. When they set out again +after a lengthy stop at noon Thorne asked her if she would mind walking +for a while, as Volador was becoming very lame. He added that he would +make for an outlying homestead, where they would find entertainment, +instead of Graham's Bluff, and that they should reach Mrs. Hunter's on +the following day.</p> + +<p>It was six o'clock in the evening when they arrived at a frame house +which stood, roofed with cedar shingles, in the shelter of a big birch +bluff. There was a very rude sod-built stable, a small log barn, and a +great pile of straw, which appeared to be hollow inside and used as a +store of some kind. A middle-aged man with a good-humored look met them +at the door, and his wife greeted Alison in a kindly fashion when Thorne +explained the cause of their visit. Indeed, Alison was pleased with the +woman's face and manner, though, like many of the small wheat-growers' +wives, she looked a little worn and faded. Though the men toil +strenuously on the newly broken prairie, the heavier burden not +infrequently falls to the woman's share.</p> + +<p>Farquhar, their host, went out to work after supper but came back a +little before dusk, and when they sat out on the stoop together, Thorne +got his banjo and sang twice at Mrs. Farquhar's request; once some +amusing jingle he had heard in Winnipeg, and afterward "Mandalay."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>The song was not new to Alison, but she fancied that she had never heard +it rendered as Maverick Thorne sang it then. It was not his voice, +though that was a fine one, but the knowledge that had given him power +of expression, which held her tense and still. This man knew and had +indulged in and probably suffered for the longing for something that was +strange and different from all that his experience had touched before. +He was one of the free-lances who could not sit snugly at home; and in +her heart Alison sympathized with him.</p> + +<p>She had never seen the glowing, sensuous East and South, but the new +West lay open before her in all its clean, pristine virility. A vast +sweep of sky that was duskily purple eastward stretched overhead, a +wonderful crystalline bluish green, until it changed far off on the +grassland's rim to a streak of smoky red. Under it the prairie rolled +back like a great silent sea. There was something that set the blood +stirring in the dew-chilled air, and the faint smell of the wood smoke +and the calling of the wild fowl on a distant sloo intensified the sense +of the new and unfamiliar. One could be free in that wide land, she +felt; and as she thought of the customs, castes, and conventions to +which one must submit at home, she wondered whether they were needed +guides and guards or mere cramping fetters. They seemed to have none of +them in western Canada.</p> + +<p>She said "Thank you!" when Thorne laid down his banjo, and felt that the +spoken word had its limits, though she was careful not to look at him +directly just then, and soon afterward she retired. This house was +larger and much better furnished than the one she had last slept in, +though she supposed that it would have looked singularly comfortless and +almost empty in Eng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>land. There was, for one thing, neither a curtain at +a window nor a carpet on the floor.</p> + +<p>When she joined the others at breakfast the next morning her host +informed Thorne that if they could wait until noon he could lend him a +horse to replace the lame Volador. He had, he explained, sent his hired +man off with a team on the previous day for a plow which was being +repaired by a smith who lived at a distance, and he had some work for +the second pair that morning. The men went out together when breakfast +was over, and Mrs. Farquhar sat down opposite Alison after she had +cleared the table.</p> + +<p>"Thorne tells me you are going to Mrs. Hunter's, though you don't know +yet whether you will stay with her or not," she said.</p> + +<p>It occurred to Alison that this was a tactful way of expressing it, +though she was not sure that the delicacy was altogether Thorne's, for +she had no doubt that her hostess had once been accustomed to a much +smoother life in the Canadian cities.</p> + +<p>"No," she replied, "I really can't tell until I get there."</p> + +<p>"Then, in case you don't decide to stay, we should be glad to have you +here."</p> + +<p>Alison was astonished, but in spite of her usual outward calm there was +a vein of impulsiveness in her, and she leaned forward in her chair.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you know that I am quite useless at any kind of +housework," she said. "I can't wash things, I can't cook, and I can +scarcely sew."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar smiled.</p> + +<p>"When I first came out here from Toronto it was much the same with me, +and there was nobody to teach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> me. It's fortunate that men are not very +fastidious in this part of Canada. In any case I had, perhaps, better +mention that while I would be glad to pay you at the usual rate and you +would be required to help, you would live with us as one of the family. +I want a companion. With my husband at work from sunup until dark, it's +often lonely here. Besides, the arrangement would give you an +opportunity for learning a little and finding out how you like the +country."</p> + +<p>Alison thought hard for a few moments. What she was offered was a +situation as a servant, but she decided that it would be more pleasant +here than she supposed it must generally be in England. She felt +inclined to like this woman, and her husband's manner was reassuring. +There was no doubt that they would treat her well.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid that in a little while you would be sorry you had suggested +it," she said.</p> + +<p>"The question is, would you like to try?"</p> + +<p>"I'm quite sure of that," declared Alison impulsively. "I don't suppose +you know what it is to be offered a resting-place when you arrive, +feeling very friendless and forlorn, in a new country."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar smiled.</p> + +<p>"Then if you don't care to stay with Mrs. Hunter you must come straight +back here. It would, perhaps, be better if you went to her in the first +instance."</p> + +<p>"But don't you want any references?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I do. In this case, your face is sufficient, and from +experience we don't attach any great importance to vouchers of the other +kind. Harry sometimes says that when a man is found to be insufferable +in the old country they give him a walletful of letters of introduction, +crediting him with all the virtues, and send<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> him out to us. Besides, +even if you were really quite dreadful, your friends wouldn't go back on +you when I wrote to them."</p> + +<p>Alison laughed, and as the hired man appeared at noon with Farquhar's +team she drove away with Thorne soon after dinner. When they had left +the house behind she turned to him.</p> + +<p>"You have been talking about me to Mrs. Farquhar," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," admitted Thorne with a smile, "I must confess that I have. Is +there any reason why you should be angry?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not," Alison informed him. "But why did you do it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm far from sure that you will like Mrs. Hunter. In fact, I'd be a +little astonished if you did; and if you were a relative of mine I'd try +to make you stay with Mrs. Farquhar."</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether that means that Mrs. Hunter doesn't like you?"</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed good-humoredly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm much too insignificant a person to count either way. Mrs. +Hunter is what you might call <i>grande dame</i>."</p> + +<p>"Have you any of them in western Canada?"</p> + +<p>"Well," answered Thorne, with an air of whimsical reflection, "there are +certainly not many, and in spite of it the country gets along pretty +well. We have, however, quite a few women of excellent education and +manners who don't seem to mind making their children's dresses and +washing their husband's clothes. Anyway, if she's at home, you can form +your own opinion of Florence Hunter in an hour or two."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>"Is she often away?"</p> + +<p>"Not infrequently. Every now and then she goes off to Winnipeg, Toronto, +or Montreal."</p> + +<p>"But what about her husband? Can he leave his farm?"</p> + +<p>"Hunter," Thorne replied dryly, "invariably stays at home."</p> + +<p>His manner made it clear that he intended to say no more on that +subject, and they talked about other matters while the wagon jolted on +across the sunlit prairie.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THORNE GIVES ADVICE</span></h2> + +<p>It was early in the evening when they drove into sight of the Hunter +homestead, and as they approached it Alison glanced about her with some +curiosity. Long rows of clods out of which rose a tangle of withered +grass tussocks stretched across the foreground. Thorne told her that +this was the breaking, land won from the prairie too late for sowing in +the previous year. Farther on, they skirted another stretch of more +friable and cleaner clods, shattered and mellowed by the frost, and then +they came to a space of charred stubble. Beyond that, a waste of yellow +straw stood almost knee-high, and Thorne said that as the latter had no +value on the prairie it was generally burned off to clear the ground for +the following crop. He added that wheat was usually grown on the same +land for several years without any attempt at fertilization.</p> + +<p>Alison, however, knew nothing of farming, and it was the house at which +she gazed with most interest. It stood not far from a broad shallow lake +with a thin birch bluff on one side of it, a commodious two-storied +building with a wide veranda. It was apparently built of wood, but its +severity of outline was relieved by gaily picked-out scroll-work and +lattice shutters; and in front of the entrance somebody had attempted to +make a garden. The stables and barns behind it were new frame buildings, +and there were wire fences stretch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>ing back from these. After her +experience of the last few days, Alison had not expected to see anything +like it in western Canada.</p> + +<p>Then she began to wonder whether Florence Hunter's life in the West had +made much change in her. She recollected her as a pretty but rather +pallid girl, with a manner a little too suggestive of self-confidence, +and a look of calculating tenacity in her eyes. Alison had continued to +treat her as a friend after she had incurred the hostility of Mrs. +Leigh, but she realized that it was chiefly Florence's courage and +resourcefulness that had impressed her, and not her other qualities. She +had not seen Florence's husband.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later Thorne drove up to the front of the house, and +Alison saw a woman, who hitherto had been hidden by one of the pillars, +lying in a canvas chair on the veranda with a book in her hand. The +sunlight that streamed in upon her called up fiery gleams in her red +hair and shimmered on her long dress of soft, filmy green. Alison +promptly decided that the latter had come from New York or Montreal. +There was no doubt that Florence Hunter's appearance was striking, +though her expression even in repose seemed to indicate a dissatisfied, +exacting temperament. At length she heard the rattle of wheels, for she +rose.</p> + +<p>"Alison, by all that's wonderful!" she cried.</p> + +<p>There was astonishment in the exclamation, but Alison could not convince +herself that there was any great pleasure, and it was with a certain +sense of constraint that she permitted Thorne to help her down. He +walked with her up to the veranda, and acknowledged Mrs. Hunter's casual +greeting by lifting his hat.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>"Sit down," said the latter to Alison, pointing to another chair. "Where +have you sprung from?"</p> + +<p>"From Winnipeg. I came out to earn my living, and nobody seemed to want +me there."</p> + +<p>Florence laughed.</p> + +<p>"You earn your living! It's clear that something very extraordinary must +have happened; but we'll talk of that after supper. So you decided to +come to me?"</p> + +<p>It was, Alison realized, merely a question and nothing more.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I was a little presumptuous," she replied. "There is, of +course, no reason why you should have me."</p> + +<p>Her companion looked at her with a curious smile.</p> + +<p>"You are still in the habit of saying things of that kind? I suppose it +runs in the family."</p> + +<p>Alison winced, for she remembered that her mother could on occasion be +painfully rude.</p> + +<p>"You haven't said anything to convince me that I was wrong."</p> + +<p>"Was it necessary?" Florence asked languidly. "I was never very +effusive, as you ought to know. Of course, you'll stay here as long as +it pleases you."</p> + +<p>The invitation was clear enough, but there was no warmth in it; and +Alison was relieved when a man came up the steps. He was rather short in +stature, and there was nothing striking in his appearance. He had a +quiet brown face and very brown hands, and he had evidently been +working, for he wore long boots, a coarse blue shirt, and blue duck +overalls. He shook hands with Thorne cordially, and then turned toward +Alison.</p> + +<p>"My husband," said Florence. "Miss Leigh, Elcot; I used to know her in +England. She has just arrived."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>Alison noticed that Hunter favored her with a glance of grave scrutiny, +but he did not seem in the least astonished, nor did he glance at his +wife. This indicated that he was in the habit of accepting without +question anything that the latter did. Then he held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad to see you, and we'll try to make you comfortable," he +said with a smile which softened the girl's heart toward him. Then he +turned to his wife.</p> + +<p>"Is supper ready? I want to haul in another load of wood before it's +dark."</p> + +<p>"It should have been ready now. I don't know what they're doing inside," +was the careless reply.</p> + +<p>It occurred to Alison that her hostess might have gone to see, but she +was half annoyed with Thorne when she noticed his badly dissembled grin. +Then Hunter inquired if she had had a comfortable journey.</p> + +<p>"Not very," she answered. "You see, I traveled Colonist."</p> + +<p>"How dreadful!" Florence exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Her husband smiled at Alison.</p> + +<p>"It depends," he said. "It's good enough if you can wait until after the +steamboat train. I used to travel that way myself once upon a time; I +had to do it then."</p> + +<p>"Elcot," his wife explained, "is one of the most economically minded men +living. He grudges every dollar unless it's for new implements."</p> + +<p>Hunter did not contradict her. He and Thorne left the veranda, and soon +after they returned from leading the team to the stable, a trim maid +appeared to announce that supper was ready. Hunter led Alison into a big +and very simply furnished room. A long table ran down one side, and half +a dozen men attired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> much as Hunter was took their places about the +uncovered lower half of it. There was a cloth on the upper portion, with +a gap of several feet between its margin and the nearest of the +teamsters' seats. It occurred to Alison, who had been told that the +hired man generally ate with his employer on the prairie, that this +compromise was rather pitiful, though she did not know that Hunter had +once or twice had words with his wife on the question. As the meal, +which was bountiful, proceeded, he now and then spoke to the men; but +Florence confined her attention to Alison, until at length she addressed +Thorne.</p> + +<p>"To what do we owe the pleasure of seeing you?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, I came to bring Miss Leigh; she hired me."</p> + +<p>Thorne laid a very slight stress upon the hired. It seemed to indicate +that he recognized his station in relation to a guest of the house, and +Alison felt a little uncomfortable. For one thing, though that did not +quite account for her uneasiness, she remembered that she had not paid +him.</p> + +<p>"Then," he added, "I called in the usual course of business. I have for +disposal a few tablets of very excellent English soap, a case of +peach-bloom cosmetic, and one or two other requisites of the kind."</p> + +<p>Alison regretted that she laughed, but she felt that Florence's attitude +toward the man had rendered the thrust admissible, and she saw a faint +smile in Hunter's eyes. Her hostess, however, was equal to the occasion.</p> + +<p>"If they're not as rubbishy as usual, I'll buy a few things and give +them to the maids. Is that the whole of your stock?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>"I've a box of new gramophone records."</p> + +<p>Florence looked at her husband, and Alison fancied that she had noticed +and meant to punish him for his smile.</p> + +<p>"You'll buy them, Elcot."</p> + +<p>"You haven't tried the other lot," Hunter protested. "Besides, the +instrument seemed to have contracted bronchitis when I last had it out."</p> + +<p>"It will do to amuse the boys when the nights get dark," replied +Florence. Then she turned to Alison. "One could hardly get a dollar out +of him with a lever."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it depend on the kind of lever you use?" Alison asked.</p> + +<p>Thorne grinned, but Florence answered unhesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, in the case of the average man it doesn't matter, so long as it's +strong enough and you have a fulcrum. We'll admit that the type can be +generous, but it's only when it throws a reflected luster on themselves. +Otherwise judicious pressure is necessary."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to camp with us to-night?" Hunter asked Thorne.</p> + +<p>"No," answered the latter. "I have some business at the Bluff, and I +want to get off again early to-morrow."</p> + +<p>In a few more minutes the teamsters rose, and Hunter, making excuses to +Alison, went out with them. Florence looked after them, and then turned +to the girl with a disdainful lifting of her brows.</p> + +<p>"Cormorants," she commented. "They've been very slow to-night. Eight +minutes is about their usual limit. I don't think they even look at +their food—it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> just goes down. I have once or twice suggested to Elcot +that he is wasting his money by giving them the things he does. It's +difficult, though, to make him listen to reason."</p> + +<p>Alison said nothing, and after a while Florence rose.</p> + +<p>"We'll have a talk on the veranda while they clear away."</p> + +<p>She pointed to a chair when they reached the veranda, and then sank +languidly into one close by.</p> + +<p>"Tell me all about it," she said.</p> + +<p>It was not a pleasant task to Alison, for it entailed the mention of her +father's death and an account of the difficulties that had followed, but +she spoke for a few minutes, and her companion casually expressed her +sympathy.</p> + +<p>"I can understand why you came out," she added with a bitter laugh. +"When I first met you I was earning just enough to keep me on the border +line between respectability and—the other thing—that is by the +exercise of the most unpleasant self-denial. What I should have done +without the extra twelve pounds your mother's guild paid me for playing +the piano twice a week at the working girls' club I don't like to think. +That is why I made no complaint when they added to my duties the +teaching of a class on another evening and the collecting of the +subscriptions to the sewing society. Your mother, I heard, informed the +committee that in her opinion twelve pounds was a good deal too much, +and I believe she added that such a rate of payment was apt to make a +young woman of my class far too independent."</p> + +<p>Alison's cheeks burned, for she knew that Florence had been correctly +informed; but she had no thought of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> mentioning that she had +expostulated with her mother on the subject.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Florence, "it was not your fault, and I'm sorry for you. I +suppose you had—difficulties—with some of your employers? No doubt one +or two of them tried to make love to you?"</p> + +<p>Alison made a little gesture of disgust.</p> + +<p>"Oh," laughed Florence, "I know. You probably flared out at the +offender, and either got your work found fault with or lost your +situation. I didn't. After all, a smile costs nothing, though it's a +little difficult now and then. In my case, it led to shorter hours, +higher wages, an occasional Saturday afternoon trip to the country. I +got what I could, and in due time it was generally easy to turn round +upon and get rid of the provider. Still, it was just a little +humiliating with a certain type of man, and it was a relief when Elcot +took me out of it. I try to remember that I owe him that when he gets +unusually wearisome, though one must do him the justice to admit that he +never refers to it."</p> + +<p>Alison sat silent, shrinking from her companion. She had faced a good +many unpleasant things during the past few years, but they had wrought +but little change in her nature. The part her hostess had played would +have been a wholly hateful one to her.</p> + +<p>"Where did you come across Thorne?" Florence asked.</p> + +<p>Alison told her, and she looked thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"When was that? I supposed you had come straight from the station."</p> + +<p>"Four days ago," answered Alison unhesitatingly, though she would have +much preferred not to mention it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>"Four days! And you have been driving round the country since then with +Thorne?"</p> + +<p>Alison felt her face grow hot, but her answer was clear and sharp.</p> + +<p>"Of course; I couldn't help it. We should have been here earlier, only a +horse went lame. In any case, after what you have told me, I cannot see +why you should adopt that tone."</p> + +<p>Florence raised her brows.</p> + +<p>"My dear," she said, "I was a working woman of no account in England +when I first met you—but things are rather different now. It doesn't +exactly please me that a guest of mine should indulge in an escapade of +this description. Doesn't it strike you as hardly fitting?"</p> + +<p>Hunter, who had come up the steps unobserved, stopped beside them just +then.</p> + +<p>"Rubbish!" he said curtly. "It was unavoidable. I've had a talk with +Leslie; he told me exactly what delayed him."</p> + +<p>Florence waved her hand.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she replied, "let it go at that. I couldn't resist the temptation +of sticking a pin or two into Alison. What has brought you back?"</p> + +<p>"We broke the wagon pole. It didn't seem worth while to put in a new one +to-night."</p> + +<p>He moved away and left them, and Alison turned to her companion.</p> + +<p>"Did he mean Mr. Thorne by Leslie?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"But isn't his name Maverick?"</p> + +<p>"Did you call him that?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>"I can't remember, though I suppose I must have done so. Some of the +others certainly did."</p> + +<p>Florence looked amused.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you haven't an idea what a maverick is?"</p> + +<p>Alison said that she had none at all, and her companion proceeded to +inform her.</p> + +<p>"It's a steer that won't feed and follow tamely with the herd, but goes +off or gets wild and smashes things, and generally does what's least +desirable. As you have spent some days with him you will no doubt +understand why they have fixed the name on Thorne."</p> + +<p>Alison glanced at her with a sparkle in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I can only say this. I have met a few men one could look up to—after +all, there are good people in the world—but I haven't yet come across +one who showed more tact and considerate thoughtfulness than Maverick +Thorne."</p> + +<p>Florence was evidently amused at this—indeed, to be sardonically amused +at something seemed her favorite pose.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't like to disturb that kind of optimism—and here he is; I'll +leave you to talk to him. As it happens, Elcot looks rather grumpy, and +the mail-carrier has just brought out a sheaf of my bills from Winnipeg +which he hasn't seen yet."</p> + +<p>She sailed away with a rustle of elaborate draperies, and Thorne sat +down.</p> + +<p>"I'm going on to the bluff in half an hour," he informed her.</p> + +<p>Alison was conscious of a certain hesitation, but there was something to +be said.</p> + +<p>"How much do I owe you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Half a dollar."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>Alison flushed.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you say four or five dollars?"</p> + +<p>"Since you evidently mean to insist on an answer, there are several +reasons for my modesty. For one thing, you would have to borrow the +money from Mrs. Hunter, which I don't think you would like to do. For +another, if you were a Canadian I'd say—nothing—but as you're not used +to the country yet you wouldn't care to accept a favor from a stranger."</p> + +<p>"But it would be a favor in any case."</p> + +<p>"Then you can get rid of the obligation by giving me half a dollar."</p> + +<p>The girl looked at him sharply as she laid the silver coin in his hand, +but he met her gaze with a whimsical smile.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said. "I suppose you are going back to Mrs. Farquhar?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Alison impulsively. "I believe I am; but I may wait for a +few days."</p> + +<p>"I think you're wise. You wouldn't find things very pleasant here."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"If you'll permit me to mention it, you're too pretty."</p> + +<p>Alison straightened herself suddenly in her chair.</p> + +<p>"You don't like Mrs. Hunter, but does that justify you in saying what +you have? You can't mean that she would be—jealous?"</p> + +<p>"That's exactly what I do mean."</p> + +<p>He saw the angry color mantle in the face of the girl, and raised his +hand in expostulation.</p> + +<p>"Wait a little; I want to explain. First of all, she wouldn't have the +slightest cause for jealousy. You're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> not the kind to give her one, and +Elcot Hunter is one of the best and straightest men I know. In fact, +that's partly what is troubling me."</p> + +<p>"Why should it trouble you?" Alison interrupted.</p> + +<p>Thorne appeared to reflect, and, indignant with his presumption as she +was, the girl admitted that he did it very well.</p> + +<p>"If you urge me for a precise answer, I'm afraid I'll have to confess +that I don't quite know. Anyway, because Hunter is the sort of man I +have described, he'd try to make things pleasant for you, and there's no +doubt that his wife would resent it. Whether she's fond of him at all, +or not, I naturally can't say, but she expects him to be entirely at her +beck and call, and I don't think she'd tolerate any little courtesies he +might show you."</p> + +<p>Alison sat silent for a moment or two when he stopped, looking at him +with perplexed eyes, though she felt that he was right.</p> + +<p>"It's curious, isn't it?" she said at length. "Florence must have had a +very unpleasant time in England, where she had to practise the strictest +self-denial. One would have thought it would have made her content and +compassionate now that she has everything that she could wish for."</p> + +<p>"No," responded Thorne, "in a way, it's natural. That kind of life often +has the opposite effect. Those who lead it have so much to put up with +that if once they escape it makes them determined never even to +contemplate doing the least thing they don't like again."</p> + +<p>"Oh," declared Alison impulsively, "I shouldn't care to think that."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Thorne, with unmoved gravity, "I don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> know whether you +have had as much to face as you say that she has, though one or two +things seem to suggest it, but it certainly hasn't spoiled you."</p> + +<p>Then he rose.</p> + +<p>"As I want to reach the bluff to-night, I'll get my team harnessed."</p> + +<p>Alison watched him go down the steps with a somewhat perplexing sense of +regret. She had met the man only four days ago, but she felt that she +was parting from a friend.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later Florence Hunter called her into the house; and she +stayed with her a week before she went to Mrs. Farquhar. She admitted +that Florence had given her no particular cause for leaving, but she at +least made no objections when Alison acquainted her with her decision.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THORNE CONTEMPLATES A CHANGE</span></h2> + + +<p>Alison had spent a few days with Mrs. Farquhar without finding the least +reason to regret the choice she had made, when one evening Farquhar +helped her and his wife into his wagon in front of the little hotel at +Graham's Bluff, where he had passed the last half-hour in conversation +with an implement dealer. When they had taken their places he drove +cautiously down the wide, unpaved street, which was seamed with ruts. On +either side of it, straggling and singularly unpicturesque frame houses, +destitute of paint or any attempt at adornment, rose abruptly from the +prairie, though here and there the usual plank sidewalk ran along the +front of them. Alison was convinced that she had rarely seen a more +uninteresting place, though she had discovered that its inhabitants were +not only quite satisfied with it, but firmly believed in its roseate +future. This seemed somewhat curious, as a number of them had come there +from the cities, but she did not know then that the optimistic assurance +with which they were endued is common in the West, and that it is, as a +rule, in due time justified.</p> + +<p>Turning a corner, they came out into a wider space from which a riband +of rutted trail led out into the wilderness. Farquhar pulled up his +team. Close in front of them, a crowd had gathered about a wagon, and a +man who stood upon a box in it seemed to be addressing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> assembly. +Alison could not see his face, and his voice was, for the most part, +drowned by bursts of laughter, but he was waving his hands to emphasize +his remarks, and this and his general attitude reminded her of the +itinerant auctioneers she had now and then seen in the market-place of +an English provincial town, though the crowd and the surroundings were +in this case very different.</p> + +<p>The prairie, which was dusty white, stretched back to the soft red glow +of the far horizon, and overhead there was a wonderful blue +transparency. The light was still sharp, and the figures of the men +stood out with a curious distinctness. Most of them were picturesque in +wide, gray hats and long boots, with blue shirt and jacket hanging loose +above the rather tight, dust-smeared trousers, though there were some +who wore black hats and spruce store clothes. These, however, looked +very much out of place.</p> + +<p>"Thorne's pitching it to the boys in great style to-night," chuckled +Farquhar. "We'll get a little nearer; I like to hear him when he has a +good head of steam up."</p> + +<p>He started the team, but Alison was sensible of a slight shock of +displeasure. She was aware that Thorne sold things, because he had told +her so, but she had never seen him actively engaged in his profession, +and this kind of thing seemed extremely undignified. She had got rid of +a good many prejudices during the past few years, and was, for that +matter, in due time to discard some more; but it hurt her to see a +friend of hers—and she admitted that she regarded him as such—playing +the part of mountebank to amuse the inhabitants of a forlorn prairie +town.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>Farquhar drew up his team again presently. Alison fancied that Mrs. +Farquhar was watching her, and she fixed her eyes upon the crowd and +Thorne. His remarks were received with uproarious laughter, but she was +quick to notice that there was nothing in what he said that any one +could reasonably take exception to.</p> + +<p>Presently there was an interruption, for a man in white shirt and store +clothing pushed forward through the crowd, with another, who was big and +lank and hard-faced, and wore old blue duck, following close behind him.</p> + +<p>"Now," exclaimed Farquhar expectantly, "we're going to have some fun. +That's Sergeant, the storekeeper, who sells drugs and things, and he's +been on Mavy's trail for quite a while. So far, Mavy has generally +talked him down, but to-night he's got a backer. Custer has the +reputation of being a bad man, and it's generally supposed that he owes +Sergeant a good deal of money."</p> + +<p>"Hadn't we better drive on if there's likely to be any trouble?" +suggested his wife.</p> + +<p>Farquhar said that Thorne would probably prove a match for his opponents +without provoking actual hostilities, and added that they could go on +later if it seemed advisable. Alison laughed when a hoarse burst of +merriment followed the orator's last sally.</p> + +<p>"It was really witty," she said. "In fact, it's all clever. I wonder how +he learned to talk like that."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar smiled.</p> + +<p>"It's probably in the blood. I believe one of his close relatives is a +bishop."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't quite follow," objected Farquhar. "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> heard one of them, an +English one, in Montreal, who wasn't a patch on Mavy. Anyway, if you +want to hold the boys here you have to be clever."</p> + +<p>Then a protesting voice broke in upon Thorne's flowing periods.</p> + +<p>"Boys," it said, "that man has played you for suckers 'bout long enough, +and this kind of thing is rough on every decent storekeeper in the town. +We're making the place grow; we're always willing to make a deal when +you have anything to sell; and we're generally open to supply you with +better goods than he keeps, at a lower figure."</p> + +<p>"In my case," Thorne pointed out, "you get amusing tales and sound +advice thrown in. You can at any time consult me about anything, from +the best way to make your hair curl to the easiest means of getting rid +of the mortgage man, which in most cases is to pay his bill."</p> + +<p>"I could tell 'way funnier tales than you do when I was asleep," +interrupted the storekeeper's friend.</p> + +<p>Thorne disregarded this.</p> + +<p>"I've nothing to urge against the storekeepers, boys. They're useful to +the community—it's possible that they're more useful than I am—but it +doesn't seem quite fitting to hold them up as deserving objects of your +compassion. If you have any doubt on that point you have only to look at +their clothes. I don't like to be personal, but since there are two men +here from whom I don't expect very much delicacy, I feel inclined to +wonder whether that is a brass watch and guard Mr. Sergeant is wearing."</p> + +<p>"No, sir," snapped the other, who was evidently too disturbed in temper +to notice the simple trap, "it's Eng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>lish gold. Cost me most of a +hundred and twenty dollars in Winnipeg."</p> + +<p>Thorne waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"That's the point, boys. Mine, which was made in Connecticut, cost five. +I think you can see the inference. If you don't, I should like you to +ask him where he got the hundred and twenty dollars."</p> + +<p>There was applauding laughter, for the men were quite aware that they +had furnished it, but Thorne proceeded:</p> + +<p>"It's likely that I could buy things of that kind, and keep as smart a +team as our friend does, if I struck you for the interest he charges on +your held-over accounts."</p> + +<p>"That's quite right!" somebody cried. "They don't want no pity. They've +got bonds on half our farms. Guess the usual interest's blamed robbery."</p> + +<p>Once more the storekeeper lifted up his voice.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't call it that, if you'd ever tried to collect it. You stand +out of your money until harvest's in, and then when you drive round the +homestead's empty, and somebody's written on the door, 'Sorry I couldn't +pack the house off.'"</p> + +<p>This was followed by further laughter, for, as Farquhar explained to +Alison, pack signifies the transporting of one's possessions, usually +upon the owner's back, in most of western Canada, and the notice thus +implies that the defaulting farmer had judiciously removed himself and +everything of value except his dwelling, before the arrival of his +creditor.</p> + +<p>"You could shut down on the land, anyway," retorted one man.</p> + +<p>"Could I?" Sergeant inquired savagely. "When it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> free-grant land, and +the man hadn't broke enough to get his patent?"</p> + +<p>The crowd, encouraged by a word or two from Thorne, seemed disposed to +drift off into a disquisition on the homestead laws, but Sergeant pulled +them up.</p> + +<p>"We'll keep to the point," he said. "When you buy your drugs at my store +you get just what you ask for with the maker's label stuck fast on it. +Maverick keeps loose ones, and if you ask him to cure your liver it's +quite likely that he'll give you hair-restorer."</p> + +<p>Farquhar chuckled.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid there's some truth in that," he admitted. "Still, it's to +Mavy's credit that when the case is serious he generally prescribes a +visit to the nearest doctor."</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile the storekeeper had secured the attention of the +assembly.</p> + +<p>"What I said, I'll prove!" he added vehemently. "Get up and tell them +how he played you, Custer."</p> + +<p>His companion waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"I'll do that, in the first place, and when I've got through I'll do a +little more. I went to Maverick most two weeks ago when my stomach was +sour, and he gives me a bottle for a dollar."</p> + +<p>"He's perfectly correct so far, except that he hasn't produced the +dollar yet," Thorne assented. "I should like to point out that I can +cure the kind of sourness he said it was every time, but I can't do very +much when the trouble's in the man's sour nature. You took that stuff I +gave you the day you got it, Custer?"</p> + +<p>"I did. I was powerful sick next morning."</p> + +<p>He turned to the crowd, speaking in a tragic voice.</p> + +<p>"Boys, he'd run out of the cure I wanted and gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> me the first bottle +handy, with a wrong label on. I've no use for a man who doses you with +stuff that makes your inside feel like it was growing wool."</p> + +<p>There were delighted cries at this, but Custer appeared perfectly +serious, and Thorne looked down at him.</p> + +<p>"No," he drawled, "in your case it would grow bristles."</p> + +<p>The laugh was with him now, but it was a moment or two before Custer, +who was evidently slow of comprehension, quite grasped the nature of the +compliment which had been paid him. The term hog is a particularly +offensive one in that country. Then he proceeded to clamber up into the +wagon, and Thorne addressed those among his listeners who stood nearest +it.</p> + +<p>"Hold on to him just a moment," he cried, and two men did as he +directed. "I merely want to point out that our friend has supplied the +explanation of the trouble—he said he was sick the next morning. Well, +as my internal cure is a powerful one, there are instructions on every +bottle to take a tablespoonful every six hours, which would have carried +him on for several days. It's clear that he felt better after one dose, +which encouraged him to take the lot for the next one."</p> + +<p>"He has probably hit it," commented Farquhar. "They do it now and then."</p> + +<p>"Now," continued Thorne to the men below, "you can let Mr. Custer go. If +it's the only thing that will satisfy him, I'll get down."</p> + +<p>"You'll get down sure," bawled Custer. "If you're not out when I'm +ready, I'll pitch you."</p> + +<p>Farquhar started his team.</p> + +<p>"I've no doubt Sergeant had the thing fixed before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>hand, but I'm +inclined to fancy that Custer will be sorry before he's through. Anyway, +we'll get on."</p> + +<p>He had driven only a few yards when his wife looked at him with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Was it a very great self-denial, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"Since you ask the question, I'm afraid it was," laughed Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"Then I won't mind very much if you get down and see that they don't +impose on Mavy—I mean too many of them. I don't want him to get hurt if +it can be prevented."</p> + +<p>Farquhar swung himself over the side of the wagon.</p> + +<p>"It's hardly probable. The boys like Mavy, but, as Sergeant has one or +two toughs among the crowd, I'll go along."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar smiled at Alison as she drove on.</p> + +<p>"One mustn't expect too much," she said. "After all, if he comes home +with a swollen face it will be in a good cause."</p> + +<p>Alison made no comment. She was slightly disgusted, and her pride was +somewhat hurt. She had made a friend of this man, perhaps, she thought, +too readily, and the fact that he had laid himself out to amuse the +crowd and had, as the result of it, been drawn into a discreditable +brawl was far from pleasant. She was compelled to confess on reflection +that he could not very well have avoided the latter, but it was equally +clear that he had not even attempted it. Indeed, she had noticed that he +jumped down from his wagon with a suspicious alacrity.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later a fast team overtook them and Farquhar alighted from +a two-seated vehicle. He smiled at his wife as he sat down beside her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>"There was very little trouble," he announced. "Mavy's friends kept the +toughs off, and I believe he'll sell out everything he has in his +wagon."</p> + +<p>"And Custer?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think he can see quite as well as he could an hour ago—as one +result," replied Farquhar dryly.</p> + +<p>Then he flicked the team, and they drove on faster into the dusk that +was creeping up across the prairie.</p> + +<p>The next morning Alison was standing in the sunshine outside the house +when Thorne drove into sight from behind the barn which cut off the view +of one strip of prairie. He got down from his wagon and appeared +disconcerted when he saw the girl, who fancied that she understood the +reason, for he had a discolored bruise on one cheek and a lump on his +forehead.</p> + +<p>"I want a few words with Farquhar," he explained. "I saw him at the +settlement last night, but I couldn't get hold of him."</p> + +<p>"No," returned Alison disdainfully, "you were too busy." Then something +impelled her to add, "You don't seem a very great deal the worse for +your exploit."</p> + +<p>Thorne leaned against the side of the wagon, though she noticed that he +first pulled the brim of his soft hat lower down over his face.</p> + +<p>"That fact doesn't seem to cause you much satisfaction," he observed.</p> + +<p>"Why should it?"</p> + +<p>"We'll let that pass. On the other hand, there's just as little reason +why you should be displeased with me."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure that I am displeased?" inquired Alison, suspecting his +intention of leading her up to some definite expression of indignation. +This would, as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> realized, be tantamount to the betrayal of a greater +interest in his doings than she was prepared to show.</p> + +<p>"Your appearance suggested it; but we'll call it disgusted, if you +like," he retorted with amusement in his eyes.</p> + +<p>It occurred to Alison that as he had evidently taken her resentment for +granted it might after all be wiser to prove it justifiable.</p> + +<p>"Then," she said, "a scene of the kind you figured in last night is +naturally repugnant to any one not accustomed to it."</p> + +<p>"Did it jar on Mrs. Farquhar?"</p> + +<p>"No," Alison admitted, "I don't think it did."</p> + +<p>"Then she's not accustomed to such scenes either. Rows of any kind +really aren't very common in western Canada—but she seems to have more +comprehension than you have."</p> + +<p>This was turning the tables with a vengeance, and Alison was a trifle +disconcerted, for instead of standing on his defense the man had +unexpectedly proceeded to attack.</p> + +<p>"Do you care to explain that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I'll try," Thorne replied genially. "Perhaps because she's married, +Mrs. Farquhar seems to understand that there are occasions when a man is +driven into doing things he has an aversion for. In a way, it's to his +credit when he recognizes that the alternative is out of the question. +Can you get hold of that?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure. You see, you suggest that there may be an alternative."</p> + +<p>"It's often the case. The difficulty is that now and then the +consequences of choosing it are a good deal worse than the other +thing."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>Alison could grasp the gist of this. There was something to be said for +the resolution that could boldly grapple with a crisis as soon as it +arose, instead of seeking the readiest means of escape from it.</p> + +<p>"Now," added Thorne, "I was quite sure when the storekeeper appeared on +the scene that he had hired the biggest tough in the settlement to make +trouble for me. Of course I could have backed down, or at least I could +have tried it, but the result would naturally have been to make the +opposition more determined on the next occasion. It seemed wiser to face +the situation then and there."</p> + +<p>Again Alison felt that he was right, and she shifted her point of +attack.</p> + +<p>"You wish to assure me that it was with very great reluctance you jumped +down from your wagon last night?"</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed softly.</p> + +<p>"No," he acknowledged; "if one must be honest, I can't go quite so far +as that."</p> + +<p>The girl was a little astonished at herself. In spite of his last +confession her disgust—though she felt that was not the right +word—with his conduct had greatly lessened, and she was conscious of a +certain curiosity about his sensations during the incident.</p> + +<p>"You were not in the least afraid?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No; but, after all, that's no great admission. You see, with most of us +what we call courage is largely the result of experience. Now, I knew I +was a match for Sergeant's tough. The man is big, but he has only a hazy +notion when to lead off and how to parry."</p> + +<p>"How did you know that—from experience?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," returned Thorne, smiling. "I once watched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> him endeavoring to +convince another man that he was utterly wrong in maintaining that the +country derived the least benefit from the liquor prohibition laws. He +succeeded because the other man didn't know any more than he did."</p> + +<p>Alison laughed.</p> + +<p>"After all, I don't think the subject is of very great interest. I +wonder why you went to so much trouble to explain the thing to me."</p> + +<p>The man gazed at her a moment in somewhat natural astonishment and then +he took off his wide hat ceremoniously, though as a smile crept into his +eyes she could not be sure whether it was done in seriousness or +whimsically. In any case, he spoiled the effect by remembering his +bruised face and hastily clapping it on again.</p> + +<p>"May I say that I should like to retain your favorable opinion if it's +possible?" he replied, and leaving his team plucking at the grass he +turned away and entered the house. As it happened, Farquhar had just +come in for dinner, which was not quite ready, and Thorne sat down +opposite him.</p> + +<p>"If your wife has no objections, I want you to do me a favor, Harry," he +said.</p> + +<p>His host expressed his readiness, but Mrs. Farquhar looked at him +inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"It's just this," he explained. "You deal with Grantly at the railroad +settlement, and it's possible that he may not have formed a very +accurate opinion of my character. In fact, I shouldn't wonder if odd +things the boys have said have prejudiced him against me."</p> + +<p>"It's quite likely," Farquhar admitted with a grin.</p> + +<p>"Then I want you to assure him that I'm a perfectly responsible and +reliable person."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>Mrs. Farquhar laughed outright.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you asking rather more than Harry could consistently do?"</p> + +<p>"Well," Thorne replied thoughtfully, "it might serve the purpose if he +told Grantly that I generally paid my bills. I don't ask him to +guarantee my account or back my draft. It wouldn't be reasonable."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't," assented Mrs. Farquhar with uncompromising decision. "Are +you going to make some new venture?"</p> + +<p>"I have a hazy notion that I might take up a quarter-section and turn +farmer."</p> + +<p>His hostess flashed a significant glance at her husband, who smiled.</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"If you don't get your crop hailed out, droughted, or frozen, you can +now and then pick up a few dollars that way," Thorne explained. +"Besides, a farmer is a person of acknowledged status on the prairie."</p> + +<p>"Have you any other reasons—more convincing ones?"</p> + +<p>Thorne regarded his hostess with undiminished gravity.</p> + +<p>"If I have, they may appear by and by—when, for instance, I've doubled +my holding and raised a record crop on three hundred and twenty acres."</p> + +<p>"It isn't done in a day," warned Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"It depends on how you begin; and commencing with a tent, a span of +oxen, and one breaker-plow doesn't appeal to me. I want a couple of +horse teams, the latest implements and the best seed I can get my hands +on."</p> + +<p>"I guess my word alone won't induce Grantly to let you have them—still, +I'll do what I can."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>Thorne spread out his hands.</p> + +<p>"If anything more is wanted Hunter will be given an opportunity for +supplying it. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't distribute my +favors."</p> + +<p>"And when does the rash experiment begin?"</p> + +<p>Thorne straightened himself in his chair.</p> + +<p>"It won't be an experiment. If I take hold, which isn't quite certain +yet, I'll stay with the thing."</p> + +<p>Then he broke into his usual careless laugh.</p> + +<p>"I'll take a long drive round all the outlying settlements and work off +a last frolic first."</p> + +<p>"Yes," observed his hostess, "the carnival before Lent."</p> + +<p>After that she proceeded to lay out dinner and they let the subject +drop, but Alison, who entered the room just then, wondered why Mrs. +Farquhar flashed a searching glance at her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">A USEFUL FRIEND</span></h2> + + +<p>Thorne drove away after dinner and, for it must be admitted that he +preferred other people's cookery to his own, he contrived to reach the +Hunter homestead just as supper was being laid out one evening some days +later. During the meal he announced his intention of staying all night, +but he did not explain what had brought him there until he sat with his +host and hostess on the veranda while dusk crept up across the prairie. +He felt inclined to wonder why Mrs. Hunter had favored them with her +company, for he supposed that it was not altogether for the sake of +enjoying the cool evening air. This surmise, as it happened, was quite +correct. She had another purpose in her mind, for since Alison's visit +she had taken a certain interest in the man.</p> + +<p>"Is there anything keeping you about the bluff?" she asked at length. "I +hear you have been in the neighborhood several days."</p> + +<p>"Four," said Thorne, "if one must be precise. For one thing, there +seemed to be a good demand for gramophones; for another, I wanted a talk +with Elcot, and somebody said he was in at the railroad yesterday."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you want to borrow a team from him again?"</p> + +<p>"No," Thorne replied tranquilly; "in this case my object is to borrow +money—or, at least, I want to raise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> it in such a way that if I don't +meet my obligations your husband will be liable."</p> + +<p>He turned toward his host.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you could guarantee me to the extent of, say, a thousand +dollars?"</p> + +<p>"If it's merely a question of ability, I believe I could. Whether it +would be judicious is quite another matter. What are you going to do +with the money?"</p> + +<p>Thorne explained his purpose much as he had done to Farquhar and Hunter +listened with quiet amusement.</p> + +<p>"The whim might last a month, and then there'd probably be an auction of +your stock and implements, and we would get word that you had gone off +on the trail again," he said. "A quiet life wouldn't suit you. You tried +it once with Bishop and it's generally understood that you turned his +house inside out one day during the winter you spent with him."</p> + +<p>"There's just a little truth in that," Thorne confessed. "Bishop's a +nice man, but he has the most exasperating ways, and one would need more +patience than I have to stand them. Try to imagine it—three months of +improving conversation and undeviating regularity. Breakfast to the +minute; the kettle to stand always on the same spot on the stove; the +potato pan on another. Your boots must be put in exactly the same +corner."</p> + +<p>"It's unthinkable," laughed Mrs. Hunter. "We once had him here for a day +or two. But what was the particular cause of trouble?"</p> + +<p>Her husband smiled.</p> + +<p>"House cleaning, I believe. Bishop undertakes it systematically once a +month in the winter."</p> + +<p>"Oftener," interjected Thorne. "That is, when the temperature's high +enough for him to wash the floor."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>"It wasn't high enough on the day in question," Hunter proceeded; "but I +understand that he insisted on putting his furniture outside so that he +could brush the place thoroughly, and Thorne told him to get the door +open and stand carefully clear."</p> + +<p>"Well?" Mrs. Hunter prompted.</p> + +<p>"Thorne fired the things, you see, as quick as he could lift them; first +the chairs and table, then the whole outfit of plates and cups and pots +and pans. When he got half-way through, Bishop, who was horror-struck, +made a protest. Thorne told him he would have the things put out, and +out they were going."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hunter laughed and addressed her guest.</p> + +<p>"Did you get a bump on your forehead on that occasion? Still, I suppose +one could manage it by falling out of a wagon."</p> + +<p>"I didn't," replied Thorne. "For any further particulars about this one +I'm afraid you must apply at the settlement; but it seems to me that the +subject I'm most anxious to talk about is being tactfully avoided."</p> + +<p>"When you have so many friends up and down the prairie, why did you come +to Elcot?"</p> + +<p>"Your husband," explained Thorne unblushingly, "has the most money. Each +will, however, be provided with an opportunity for contributing +according to his ability. I'll borrow a team from one and a plow from +another; the man who can't spare either can lend me a mower. In addition +to this I'll have to arrange a second loan."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to stay with it?" Hunter asked.</p> + +<p>"Give me a show and I'll convince you," Thorne assured him with a sudden +intentness in his eyes. "I'm dead serious now."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>Hunter looked at him quietly for a minute or two before he answered.</p> + +<p>"Then," he said, "I'll guarantee you for a thousand dollars, payable +after harvest."</p> + +<p>Thorne thanked him and presently strolled away to get something out of +his wagon. When he disappeared Florence turned to her husband.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she protested, "you are going to throw every dollar of that +money away."</p> + +<p>"I'm far from sure of it," returned Hunter quietly.</p> + +<p>"In any case, it's only a few days since you told me you couldn't face +the expense when I said that I wanted to spend a month in Toronto this +spring."</p> + +<p>"I should like to point out that you spent a good deal of the winter in +Montreal."</p> + +<p>"Would you expect me to live here altogether?"</p> + +<p>Hunter made a gesture of weariness.</p> + +<p>"I did expect something of that kind once upon a time; I'm sorry you +have made it clear that I was wrong."</p> + +<p>Florence favored him with a mocking smile.</p> + +<p>"After all, you have stood it rather well. It's only during the last few +months you have been getting bitter; but that's beside the question. Why +are you so willing to waste on that man the money you can't spare for +me?"</p> + +<p>"To begin with, I'm by no means certain that I'll have to pay it. +There's good stuff in him, and I want to give him an opportunity for +becoming a useful citizen. In the next place, the line must be drawn +somewhere, and the crop I'm putting in wouldn't stand the cost of a +spring in Toronto, if it's to be anything like the winter in Montreal."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>Florence saw that he meant it and changed the subject, for there were +times when she realized that it was not advisable to drive her husband +too far. After a while he strolled away toward the stables in search of +Thorne, and a few minutes later they sat down together on the summit of +a low rise. Hunter lighted his pipe and, resting one elbow in the grass, +lay smoking thoughtfully for a while before he spoke to his companion.</p> + +<p>"Mavy," he said, "you are going to do what would be the wisest thing in +the case of the average man—but I'm not wholly sure it would be that in +yours. After all, there's a good deal to be said for the life you lead."</p> + +<p>"It will hurt a little to give it up," Thorne acknowledged. "But isn't +there something to be said for—the other kind?"</p> + +<p>Hunter pointed with his pipe to where the rise ran into the birches.</p> + +<p>"I spent my first summer as a farmer in a tent yonder, and in several +ways it was the happiest one I've ever known. I couldn't cook, and as a +rule when I unyoked my oxen after the day's work I was too played out to +light a fire. I lived on messes that would probably kill me now, and my +clothes went to bits before the summer was half-way through, but I was +bubbling over with aspirations and a whole-hearted optimism then. I had +scarcely a dollar, but I had what seemed better—an unwavering belief in +the future. It was just as good then to lie down, healthily tired, and +listen to the little leaves whispering in the cool of the dusk as it was +to get up with the dawn without a care, fit and ready for what must be +done."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," assented Thorne, "I know. They never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> cast a stove in a +foundry that would give you the same warmth as the red fire in the birch +bluff, and the finest tea that goes to Russia wouldn't taste as good as +what you drink flavored with wood smoke out of a blackened can. Then +there's the empty prairie with the long trail leading on to something +you feel will be better still beyond the horizon. Silence, space, +liberty. How they get hold of you!"</p> + +<p>"Then, what do you expect instead of them when you give them up?"</p> + +<p>"It strikes me that you should be able to tell me."</p> + +<p>Hunter smiled in a rather weary fashion and glanced back toward his +house.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I've a place that's generally supposed to be the +smartest one within sixty miles, and some status in the country, +whatever it may be worth—my wife sees to that. The Grits would make me +a leader if I cared for politics."</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you? Your wife would like it."</p> + +<p>"I think you ought to know. We both escaped from the cities, and while +you drive your wagon I follow the plow. Men like you and I have nothing +to do with wire-pullers' tricks, juggling committees, and shouting +crowds. It's my part to make a little more wheat grow."</p> + +<p>Thorne looked at him with a thoughtful face.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he said, "why you want to prevent me from doing the same?"</p> + +<p>"I don't. I only want to warn you that if you make a success of it you +can't own a house and land and teams without facing the cost."</p> + +<p>"And that is?"</p> + +<p>"Unconditional surrender. In a little while they'll own you. It's +probable that you'll add a wife to them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> and then, unless she's a woman +of unusual courage, you'll find yourself shackled down to half the +formulas you have run away from."</p> + +<p>"Still, you get something in return."</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Hunter slowly. "I'm optimist enough to believe that—but +it's an elusive quantity. I suppose it depends largely on what you +expect."</p> + +<p>He stood up and emptied his pipe.</p> + +<p>"It's getting late and I have to start again at six to-morrow."</p> + +<p>They went back to the house together and Thorne drove away early the +next morning. Soon after midday Hunter set out for Graham's Bluff, where +he had some business. When he had gone Florence carried a bundle of +papers out to a little table placed in the shadow on the veranda, and +sitting down before it looked at them with a frown. Most of them were +bills, which she had once half thought of showing to her husband, though +she had not done so, chiefly because the bankbook which she had recently +sent up to be balanced revealed the fact that there was then just eighty +dollars standing to her credit. As Florence seldom filled in the +counterfoils of the checks she drew, this information had been a painful +shock to her. It was evident that she had spent a good deal more money +in Montreal than she had supposed, and that she could not pay the bills, +and there was no doubt that her husband would be signally displeased.</p> + +<p>As a rule he was very patient. She was willing to own that, though she +now and then did so with a certain illogical irritation at his +complacency; but when it was a question of money he could be inflexible. +He had, however, treated her liberally, and to save her the neces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>sity +of applying to him he paid so many dollars into her bank twice a year +and within that limit left her to control the domestic expenses as she +pleased. This, indeed, was what chiefly troubled her, for there should +have been enough to her credit to carry her on until harvest, when the +next payment would be made. This, however, was unfortunately not the +case. There was no doubt that she had to grapple with a financial +crisis.</p> + +<p>She added up the bills several times and signally failed to make them +any less, though it was now perfectly clear that it would not be +advisable to show them to her husband. Thrusting them aside, she leaned +back in her chair and presently decided, with the renewal of an existing +grievance, that the situation was the result of Elcot's absurd retiring +habits. If he would only go about with her now and then, or bring a few +smart people out in the summer, she might be able to take pleasure in +less costly diversions and, to some extent at least, avoid extravagance. +On the other hand, however, there were, as she had already realized, one +or two reasons why it seemed just as well that Elcot should stay at +home. He now looked very much like a farmer, though he had not been +reared as one, and she fancied that his rather grim reserve, which was +broken now and then by attacks of sardonic candor, was scarcely likely +to be appreciated in the world she visited. As a matter of fact, his own +relatives with whom she sometimes stayed were in the habit of smiling +significantly when they mentioned him. He had, it seemed, flung up +excellent prospects when, in spite of his family's protests, he went +West with very inadequate means as a prairie farmer. That he had +succeeded was, she understood, largely due to the fact that an eccentric +relative who agreed with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> him had subsequently died and left him a few +hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile these reflections brought her no nearer a solution of +the difficulty. There was a big deficit, and she had no idea how she was +to meet it. Then she remembered that when she was married Elcot had +among other things settled a certain strip of land on her. He had failed +to interest her in its management, though she was pleased to receive the +proceeds of its cultivation, which he handed her after each harvest. +They were sowing again now, and she had heard that it was possible to +sell a crop, or at least to raise money on it in some way, beforehand. +She determined to question Nevis, who carried on a general business at +the railroad settlement, about the matter when he next drove over, which +he had said he would probably do during the next day or two. He might +even turn up that afternoon and, as Elcot was out of the way, she wished +he would. He was a man of prepossessing appearance and easy manners, and +he had now and then paid her a deferential homage which was not +unpleasant. Indeed, she had once or twice contrasted him with Elcot, and +the comparison had not been altogether in the latter's favor.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later he drove up in a light buggy and handed the horse +over to one of the teamsters. Then he walked up on the veranda, where +Florence was still sitting with the bills before her. Turning around +when he had greeted her, he pointed to the plodding teams which moved +down the long furrows that ran back from the house.</p> + +<p>"I didn't see Elcot at work with the boys as I drove by," he said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>"He is away and probably will not be back until after supper."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I can't wait so long," Nevis replied, taking the chair to +which she pointed. "Anyway, it isn't a matter of much importance, and +I'll try to call again."</p> + +<p>Florence sent for some tea, though it is seldom that refreshments of any +kind are provided between the regular meals on the prairie, and then +leaned back in her chair watching him while he sat with his cup in his +hand. He was, as she had decided on other occasions, a well-favored man, +dark-haired and dark-eyed, and, as usual, he was artistically dressed. +The hat he had laid on a neighboring chair was a genuine Panama, such as +Mexican half-breeds spend months in weaving; his rather tight, +light-colored clothes were excellently cut; and once more it struck her +with a sense of injury that it was a pity Elcot insisted on attiring +himself as his teamsters did.</p> + +<p>"I had half expected to find you gone," he said; "you mentioned a visit +to Toronto when I last saw you. After all, if your husband can spare +you, it must be nice to get away. You must feel that you are rather +wasted here."</p> + +<p>This was a point on which Florence was convinced already and she did not +in the least object to his mentioning it.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she replied dryly, "has his farm."</p> + +<p>"Well," responded Nevis, "I'm glad you haven't gone. The rest of us can +badly spare the one bright light which shines upon our primitive +obscurity."</p> + +<p>His hostess did not check him. The man was usually rather daring, and +she seldom resented a speech of this kind, no matter from whom it came.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>"In any case, I am not going," she informed him. "That"—she pointed to +the bundle of papers—"is the reason."</p> + +<p>"Bills? Permit me."</p> + +<p>Before she could prevent it he took them up and flicked them over. Then +he turned and looked at her with a smile in his dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"On examination of them I'm inclined to think the reason's a good one."</p> + +<p>Florence recognized that he had ventured further in the last few minutes +than Elcot would have done in a month before he married her, and, though +she was not greatly displeased, she changed the subject, for a time.</p> + +<p>"What did you want to see my husband about?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm anxious to disarm his opposition to the part I feel like taking in +the Bluff Creamery scheme. I'm willing to back the experiment on +reasonable terms, but I understand that Elcot's dubious about permitting +it; and Thorne has been advising the boys to have nothing to do with me. +Rough on a man who's ready to finance them, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Florence did not care whether it was rough or not. Except that she would +have liked to spend double her husband's income, financial questions +seldom interested her.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you wish to do it to encourage them—out of philanthropy?" +she suggested with a yawn.</p> + +<p>Nevis laughed good-humoredly.</p> + +<p>"You can put that question to your husband or Thorne. I'm willing to +confess that in these affairs I'm out for business pure and simple, +though that doesn't prevent my taking an interest in my friends' +difficulties<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> now and then." He tapped the bills with his fingers. "You +are at present short of three hundred dollars?"</p> + +<p>"I'm short of nine hundred," corrected Florence with candor.</p> + +<p>The next question was difficult. In fact, it was one that could not well +be put directly, and the man's voice became judiciously sympathetic.</p> + +<p>"Wheat sold badly last fall, and Elcot has, no doubt, his share of +worries?" he suggested. "You naturally wouldn't like to add to them?"</p> + +<p>They looked at each other and Florence was quite aware that he would go +a little farther as soon as he had ascertained whether she had any +intention of mentioning the deficit to her husband. She also recognized +that the fact that she had drawn his attention to the bills would make +this seem improbable.</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure that I'm so unselfish," she said with a laugh. "In any +case, I'm independent; I don't care to bother other people with my +troubles."</p> + +<p>The man leaned forward, looking at her as though begging a favor.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that such a course might be a +little rough on some of them. Do you never make an exception?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't done so yet."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Nevis eagerly, "if you'll try it in this instance I'll tell +you what I'll do. The thing's in my line of business and I'll find those +nine hundred dollars for you."</p> + +<p>Florence sat silent, watching him for a few moments. She meant to agree, +and though she quite realized that general opinion would have regarded +this as tantamount to placing herself in the man's power, that did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +trouble her. She had never yet been in any man's power and she did not +intend to be.</p> + +<p>"Well," she consented at length; "but it mustn't be a favor."</p> + +<p>Nevis tactfully declared that it could be done on a purely business +footing, with which object he suggested, after a few judicious +questions, that she should give him an order for the delivery of so many +bushels of wheat after harvest, which she did. That the document was +most informal and merely scribbled on a half-sheet of note-paper did not +seem to concern him. Then he wrote her out a check.</p> + +<p>"I don't mind saying that I'm going to make eight per cent. out of you, +which is enough to content me," he explained. "You see, I never let an +opportunity go by."</p> + +<p>Florence made no comment. Whether or not he would continue to be content +with the mere interest on the money was a question with which she would +be competent to deal when it arose.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes he prepared to take his departure. He bowed over her +hand in a manner that was not common on the prairie, and she watched him +with a meaning smile when he drove away.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">A FIT OF TEMPER</span></h2> + + +<p>It was two days later that Nevis led his worn-out horse up the side of +one of the deep ravines which every here and there wind through the +prairie. It was then about the middle of the afternoon and almost +unpleasantly hot in the sheltered hollow. The crest of it shut out the +wind that swept the open levels, and the sunshine struck down between +the birches, which were just then unfolding lace-like streamers of tiny +leaves. There were no other trees except the willows wrapped in a bright +emerald flush along the banks of a little creek.</p> + +<p>Nevis felt unpleasantly weary. Although a man of fine proportions, he +did not care for physical exertion and avoided it as far as possible; +but the commercial instinct was strong in him and he had driven a long +way in pursuit of money during the last few days. It was supposed that +he picked up a good deal of it in the most unlikely as well as the more +obvious places, for he was troubled by few scruples and was endued with +the faculty of getting money. He was a young man, evidently of excellent +education, though nobody seemed to know where he had received it or +where he came from. Beginning as an implement dealer and general +mortgage broker on a humble scale two or three years earlier, he had +extended his field of operations rapidly.</p> + +<p>It appears to be an unfortunate fact that the grip of the money-lender +is firmly fastened on the small agri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>culturalist in many countries, and, +strange to say, perhaps more particularly in those where the soil he +tills is his own. In the new wheat-lands of the West the possessions of +the small farmers and ranchers on both sides of the frontier are as a +rule mortgaged to the hilt, or at least they were a few years ago. They +lived, and no more, for when the seasons vouchsafed them a bountiful +harvest, storekeeper, land agency man, or mortgage jobber usually swept +the proceeds into his coffer. It must, nevertheless, be said that many a +man would be forced to abandon the struggle after an untimely frost in +fall without the money-lender's help, and that the latter has often to +face a serious hazard which varies with the weather.</p> + +<p>Nevis was half-way up the slope when his jaded horse refused to go on, +and he sat down on a fallen birch, wondering where he could borrow +another one or, if this were not possible, how he could reach the +settlement. He was then, he supposed, eight or nine miles from the +nearest farm, and it seemed very probable that even if he succeeded in +reaching it every horse would be engaged in plowing. He had no +provisions with him, and he had eaten nothing since breakfast that +morning. He was unpleasantly conscious of this fact, for he usually +lived well.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later a drumming of hoofs fell across the birches from the +plain above, and he saw a team swing over the brink of the declivity. +For a moment or two the horses disappeared among the trees, but by the +rapid beat of hoofs which mingled with the rattle of wheels they seemed +to be coming down at a gallop. Nevis was aware that the prairie farmers +as a rule wasted very little time in breaking young horses, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +harnessed them to plow or wagon as soon as they were amenable to any +control at all.</p> + +<p>As the team above broke out furiously from among the trees a hoarse +shout reached him directing him to pull his buggy clear; but he decided +to let it stay exactly where it was. He fancied that the driver, who +could not get by, could stop his team if he made a determined effort, +and this surmise proved correct, for a minute or two later Thorne, +braced backward on the driving-seat, looked down at him with a wrathful +face.</p> + +<p>"What did you stop me for? Couldn't you get out of the way?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Why were you driving at that breakneck pace?"</p> + +<p>"A jack-rabbit bolted right under Volador's feet. I'll get on again if +you'll move your buggy."</p> + +<p>Nevis sat still.</p> + +<p>"Are you open to earn a few dollars?"</p> + +<p>"It depends," replied Thorne, "on what I'm expected to do and whom +they're coming from."</p> + +<p>"I'm anxious to get hold of somebody who'll drive me to the settlement. +This horse is played out."</p> + +<p>"In that case I'm not open. I'm too busy."</p> + +<p>"I'll give you your own price for your time. It will probably pay you +better than—selling mirrors."</p> + +<p>Thorne noticed the half-contemptuous stress upon the last words.</p> + +<p>"You should have been content with the reason I offered," he retorted. +"As you were not, I'll give you another; I'm not a very particular +person, but I shouldn't like to touch your money."</p> + +<p>Nevis stood up with a laugh of half-veiled malevolence.</p> + +<p>"Do you think that kind of thing is wise?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>"I haven't troubled to ask myself the question. I've never been +remarkably prudent, and when I saw that you meant to hold me up my first +impulse was to drive smash into your buggy. It was only out of regard +for the horses that I didn't do so."</p> + +<p>"Is there any particular reason for this gratuitous insolence?"</p> + +<p>"There are two," explained Thorne. "In the first place, I don't like +being stopped on an open trail; and in the next, I've spent the last few +days borrowing things for a friend of mine whom you pitched out on to +the prairie with his wife and child."</p> + +<p>Nevis smiled.</p> + +<p>"I might have guessed it was something of that kind. You're rudimentary +and haven't the crudest notion of what you have up against you. It would +be about as sensible for one of your horses to start kicking because it +didn't like your style of driving."</p> + +<p>"That," returned Thorne, "is just where you're wrong. I've no complaint +against human nature in general or the way this country's run. My +dislikes are concentrated on a few particularly obnoxious people who +live in it, of whom you're one. You're a discredit even to the +profession which you follow."</p> + +<p>"It's not as dangerous to the people I deal with as yours is," Nevis +retorted.</p> + +<p>"We'll let that pass. I've already stopped here talking with you longer +than I care about. Will you pull your buggy out of the way?"</p> + +<p>Nevis felt a strong inclination to let the buggy remain where it stood. +It was galling to be spoken to in that fashion by a wandering pedler, +and even more annoying to be left stranded nine miles from anywhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +with a worn-out horse; but a glance at the lean, determined face of the +man on the driving-seat of the wagon decided him, and he drew his rig +aside. Then Thorne looked down again.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing you can do, and that's to unyoke the beast and hobble +it, and then strike for Taylor's on your feet," he advised. "The walk +will probably do you good, if only by convincing you that it doesn't pay +to drive a horse to the verge of exhaustion."</p> + +<p>He swung his whip, and the team plunged forward down the declivity with +the wagon jolting and rattling behind them. Two or three hours later he +pulled up in front of Farquhar's homestead, where, as he informed its +owner, he meant to stay the night; and when the dusk was closing in he +sat with the others on the stoop.</p> + +<p>"Did you meet anybody on the trail?" Mrs. Farquhar asked.</p> + +<p>"Nevis," answered Thorne genially. "I believe I insulted him. Anyway, I +meant to, but he's tough in the hide, and I'm half afraid I wasn't quite +up to my usual form."</p> + +<p>"But why did you want to insult him?"</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Thorne, with an air of reflection, "I think it was his +clothes that irritated me."</p> + +<p>"His clothes?" Alison broke in.</p> + +<p>Thorne turned to her with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said; "unreasonable, isn't it? Still, you see, the man was so +immaculately neat, from his tie, which was a marvel, to his very elegant +pointed shoes. I dare say he'll find them most uncomfortable before he +has walked nine miles in them."</p> + +<p>"But why should that annoy you?"</p> + +<p>"If you mean the thought of his limping across the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> prairie for miles +and getting very hot and dusty, it certainly didn't. If you mean his +apparel, too much neatness always acts as a red rag on me, and in this +case the manner in which he was got up seemed symbolical. It hinted that +only the best of everything would content him, and that he meant to get +it, no matter what it cost anybody else. There was his horse, for +instance, played out, foul with dust, and thirsty—with a creek close +by. He'd driven the poor brute almost to death the last few days sooner +than cut out a single visit to any one he wanted to see about the +creamery."</p> + +<p>"We have got to head him off that scheme," declared Farquhar; and his +wife joined in again.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you some other grievance against him?"</p> + +<p>"If another one is needed, there's Langton's case," answered Thorne. +"The man's a crank, of course, which is partly why I like him, and he +has some eccentric notions about farming; but he has paid Nevis his +interest for quite a while, besides buying everything he used from him +at double prices, and now the first time the money's not forthcoming +he's sold up. Nevis turned him out, with his wife still ailing, and the +child."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar started with a flush of indignation in her face.</p> + +<p>"It's the first I've heard of it. Why didn't you send us word?"</p> + +<p>"Langton's rather out of your district, and the boys have fixed him up. +They got a few things together, and he's camped in a tent on Government +land. I believe they're going to build him a sod and birchpole house."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," interjected Farquhar, "you were somewhere about?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>"That's certain," laughed his wife. "Who went round and got the tent and +the other things you mentioned, Mavy?"</p> + +<p>Thorne smiled.</p> + +<p>"As soon as they heard of it, the boys brought them in."</p> + +<p>Alison cast a quick glance at him. He was quite devoid of +self-consciousness, and it was evident that he took the thing lightly; +but she fancied that there were strong chivalrous impulses in this +humorous vagabond which would on due occasion lead him to ride a +reckless tilt against overwhelming odds in the cause of the helpless and +oppressed. Her heart warmed toward him, as it had done once or twice +before, but she said nothing, and it became evident that Mrs. Farquhar +shared the thought that was in her mind.</p> + +<p>"Mavy," she cautioned, "I'm afraid you'll get yourself hurt some day by +doing more than is wise or needful. Nobody could find fault with you for +helping Langton, but you should have stopped at that. Insulting men like +Nevis just because they dress well, or for other reasons, is apt to lead +to trouble."</p> + +<p>Then Farquhar broke in, and Alison recognized that he meant to follow +his wife's lead.</p> + +<p>"It was Langton's misfortune that he wouldn't fall into line," he said. +"If he had, he wouldn't have been forced to borrow money from Nevis. For +instance, what has the electrical tension in the atmosphere he used to +fret about to do with one's harrowing, anyway, unless it brings down +rain, and why must he cut his prairie hay two or three weeks after all +his neighbors have theirs in?"</p> + +<p>"He says he likes it thoroughly ripened," Thorne<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> answered with a laugh. +"Still, I can't see why a man should be hounded down because he won't do +exactly what everybody else does. What do you think, Miss Leigh?"</p> + +<p>"It's rather a pity, but I'm afraid men of that kind generally have to +pay," replied Alison. "That is, unless they're very strong and +fortunate, and then they lead. What was supposed to be a craze of theirs +becomes a desirable custom, and the others humbly copy them."</p> + +<p>"And if the others won't?" questioned Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"Even then, it's perhaps just as well there are a few men with the +courage of their convictions who will couch the lance in the face of any +opposition that can be brought against them, and ride right home. There +must be something in their fancies, and the stir they make clears the +air. Stagnation's unwholesome."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar regarded her severely.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't encourage him. It's quite superfluous. He'd charge a +locomotive any day with pleasure," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well," laughed Thorne, "you will no doubt be consoled to hear that I've +come into line. There are now one hundred and sixty acres of virgin +prairie recorded in my name, and I believe a carload of sawed lumber and +general fixings will arrive at the station in the next few days. When +they do, I'll borrow your wagon and hired man to haul them out, though +I'll have to camp in a tent until I get my first crop in."</p> + +<p>Farquhar and his wife looked astonished, and both laughed when he +gravely reproached them for not believing that he would carry out the +project which he had already mentioned. Then the two men strolled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> away +toward the barn together, and Alison was left with Mrs. Farquhar. The +prairie was wrapped in shadow now, and a half-moon was rising above its +eastern rim. It was very still, and there was a wonderful freshness in +the chilly air. Looking out upon the vast sweep of dusky grass, it +seemed to Alison that this wide country gave one clearness of vision and +breadth of character.</p> + +<p>"Does Thorne really mean to turn farmer?" she asked at length.</p> + +<p>"It looks as if he does," answered Mrs. Farquhar. "Why shouldn't he?"</p> + +<p>"I can't think of any reason," replied Alison. "Still, it isn't what I +should have anticipated. What can have influenced him?"</p> + +<p>"I have a suspicion that he means to get married. He couldn't expect his +wife to set up housekeeping in a wagon, though, for that matter, I don't +know whether he lives in the vehicle or camps on the ground beside it."</p> + +<p>Alison knew, however, and on the whole she was glad that it was too dark +for her companion to see her face clearly. It was, for no very +ostensible reason, not exactly pleasant to think of Thorne's getting +married at all. The idea of his being willing to contemplate marriage, +so to speak, in the abstract, as the men who went to Winnipeg for their +wives did, was repugnant to her, and the alternative possibility that he +had somebody in particular in view already afforded her no great +consolation.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he wouldn't have very much trouble if that was his idea," she +said with a trace of disdain.</p> + +<p>"No," responded Mrs. Farquhar; "there would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> very little trouble in +Leslie Thorne's case. Whatever that man may lack it won't be the love of +women."</p> + +<p>It occurred to Alison that there was truth in this. She could even +confess that the man's light-hearted manner, his whimsical generosity +and his daring appealed to her.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't seem to get on very well with Florence Hunter," she said +reflectively.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar laughed.</p> + +<p>"I think I may tell you a secret which Mavy has never guessed. He could +have got on a good deal better with Mrs. Hunter had he been anxious to, +and she hasn't forgiven him because he didn't realize it."</p> + +<p>Alison started, and a warmth crept into her face, but her hostess +proceeded:</p> + +<p>"I don't mean very much by that. Mrs. Hunter merely wished +to—annex—him; to command his respectful homage, which he was quite +ready to pay her as Elcot's wife, though that wasn't quite what she +intended. There's an unpleasant streak in that woman's nature."</p> + +<p>Alison sat silent a moment or two, for she was forced to confess that +this sounded correct.</p> + +<p>"But Florence can have no complaint against her husband," she objected. +"He seems to indulge her and treat her generously."</p> + +<p>"That's half the trouble," was the answer. "Some day she'll wear his +patience out, and then he'll take the other way—and they'll get on +better afterward. However, that's a matter that doesn't concern us." She +paused a moment, with a smile. "Anyway, I'm glad you decided to come to +me."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Alison quietly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>She had never regretted her choice. The work she had undertaken was +certainly not what she had expected to do when she came to Canada, and +she smiled as she remembered the indignation her mother had expressed +concerning it in her last letter; but her duties were not unpleasant, +and she was growing fond of the unassuming but very sensible people with +whom she dwelt. Their view was narrowed by no prejudices, and they +disdained pretense; they toiled with cheerful courage and were as +cheerfully willing to hold out an open hand to the stranger and the +unfortunate. The latter fact was once more made evident when Farquhar, +followed by Thorne, strolled up to the door.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll start off at sunup and drive over to see how Langton's +getting on," he said. "I couldn't very well be back the same night, but +you'll have Miss Leigh with you."</p> + +<p>"Of course," assented his wife, smiling. "It was only yesterday that you +declared you didn't know how you were going to get through with the +sowing. I suppose you'll want to take a few things along with you?"</p> + +<p>Thorne produced a strip of paper and handed it to her.</p> + +<p>"I can't always trust my memory," he explained.</p> + +<p>They went into the house, where a light was already burning, and Mrs. +Farquhar glanced at the paper with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, "I suppose I can manage to let you have about half of +what you ask for." Then she turned to Alison. "As soon as he mentioned +the matter I expected this."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THE RAISING</span></h2> + + +<p>One afternoon when the prairie was flooded with sunshine and sprinkled +with a flush of tender green, Farquhar drove his wife and Alison up to +Thorne's new holding. A tent with loose curtain flapping in the breeze +stood on a slight rise, with sundry piles of boards and framed timber +lying on the grass about it, while Thorne and a young lad stood beside a +fire above which a four-gallon coal-oil can hung boiling. His face was +smutted and there was grime on his hands; while near him smoke was +issuing from a beehive-shaped mass of soil which Mrs. Farquhar informed +Alison was an earth oven.</p> + +<p>The girl waited behind a few moments when her companions greeted Thorne, +looking about her with some curiosity. An oblong of shattered clods, +almost hidden by the fresh green blades of oats, stretched across the +foreground, and beyond it there was the usual vast sweep of grass. On +one side of the plowed land, however, a thin birch bluff in full leaf +straggled up the rise, and a little creek of clear water wound through a +deep hollow not far away. The situation, she decided, was an attractive +one. Then she glanced at the piles of timber, which seemed to be +arranged in carefully planned order, and surmised from the quantity of +sawdust strewed among the grass that a good deal of work had been done +on it by somebody. There was also a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> row of birch logs, evidently +obtained from the bluff, with notches cut in them, and a heap of thin +strips of wood which had a sweet resinous smell. These were red-cedar +roofing shingles from British Columbia.</p> + +<p>Alison strolled forward and joined the group about the fire.</p> + +<p>"It will be a couple of hours yet before the boys turn up; and, +considering everything, it's just as well," Thorne was explaining. +"Still, the bread ought to be ready, and I'd be glad if somebody would +get it out to cool. I want the oven for the chickens."</p> + +<p>"Where are they?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired.</p> + +<p>Thorne suddenly stooped over the big coal-oil can.</p> + +<p>"I was almost forgetting them; they're here. Dave should have fished +them out some time ago."</p> + +<p>Alison glanced into the improvised cauldron and saw to her astonishment +what looked like a mass of bedraggled fowls.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "have you boiled them with their feathers on?"</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Thorne, somewhat ruefully, "I certainly didn't mean to. +In fact, I put them in to bring their feathers off, though I've hitherto +generally done it beneath the blow-down valve of a thrashing engine."</p> + +<p>He turned to his young companion.</p> + +<p>"Be quick! Fish them out!"</p> + +<p>The lad did it with a strip of shingle, and when a number of dripping +birds were strewed upon the grass Alison was more astonished still.</p> + +<p>"Where have their heads gone?" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"I'll leave Dave to tell you that; I believe it's his first attempt at +dressing fowls," chuckled Thorne. "I just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> sent his employer word that I +wanted chickens, and this is how they were brought."</p> + +<p>The lad colored, for he was very young.</p> + +<p>"Jackson drove off as soon as he'd told Stepney and me to get them," he +explained. "We're both of us just out from Toronto, and we didn't know +how to set about the thing." He paused and looked at Alison. "I don't +mind admitting that neither of us enjoyed it, but it had to be done."</p> + +<p>"I must add that he told me he made Stepney use the ax," laughed Thorne.</p> + +<p>"I had to hold them, anyway—and that wasn't very much better," retorted +the lad.</p> + +<p>Thorne turned to Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to pluck; I dare say Mrs. Farquhar and Miss Leigh will get +out the bread and what crockery there is. The boys will probably bring +some plates and things along with them; that is, if they're wise."</p> + +<p>He moved away and Alison sat down on the grass and laughed.</p> + +<p>"I believe he can cook better than I can, but he's primitive in some +respects," she commented. "Shall we all have to use the same things if +the boys don't bring the cups?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," Mrs. Farquhar assured her. "He'll no doubt provide a few old +fruit cans. Anyway, you must not expect too much of him. He has been +working his fingers off for the last six weeks, and as there has been +moonlight lately it's very probable that he has cut himself down to an +hour or two's sleep. Perhaps you haven't noticed that it shows on him."</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Alison had done so. She had seen very little of +Thorne for the last few weeks, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> now it struck her that his face was +leaner and browner than it had been and that there were signs of tension +in his eyes. Then she glanced at the strip of plowed land and the piles +of timber.</p> + +<p>"Has he done all that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Most of it, anyway. Some of the boys helped him when they could, which +wasn't very often. I believe he has done about twice as much as Harry +considered possible. I've an idea that Mavy is going to open his +neighbors' eyes."</p> + +<p>Alison glanced at the empty prairie and wondered where the neighbors +lived; but just them Mrs. Farquhar called her to the oven, which she +opened with a spade, and they raked out several big and somewhat +blackened loaves. After that, they proceeded to the tent and busied +themselves laying out the provisions it contained.</p> + +<p>It was an hour or two later when the guests arrived in dusty rigs of +various kinds and different stages of decrepitude, and Alison noticed +that those who were accompanied by their wives and daughters also +brought baskets with them. They were evidently acquainted with the +limitations of bachelor housekeeping. For the most part, however, the +new arrivals were young men, deeply bronzed and wiry, though one, whom +they seemed to regard as leader, had a lined face and grizzled hair. He +gathered them round him when the horses had been unyoked and tethered.</p> + +<p>"Boys," he said, "you haven't come here just for fun, though you're +going to get that later. In the first place you have to earn your +supper." He turned to Thorne. "Will you send us to our places and tell +us what to do?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Thorne; "I'd rather leave the thing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> the best man on +the ground. I'll take my orders from him and stand in among the crowd."</p> + +<p>The elder man made a sign of acquiescence, for he now knew where he +stood and etiquette was satisfied. He and Thorne walked round and +examined the piles of timber. Then he sent the men to their places; one +with a hammer here, two or three with long, steel-shod poles there, +another with a saw at a corner, and the rest spread out in a row.</p> + +<p>"Now," he directed, "if you're ready we'll get the house on end. The +girls are watching you!"</p> + +<p>They went at the work with a rush, and the little oblong marked out upon +the prairie sod became alive with toiling figures. Tall birch posts rose +as by magic, with struggling men thrusting with the long pike-poles +beneath them; stringers, plates and ties seemed to fly into place; and +Alison, sitting on the grass with Mrs. Farquhar, wondered as the +skeleton of the house grew moment by moment before her eyes. She had +never thought it possible that a dwelling could be built in a night; but +the men were clearly on their mettle, and they worked with an almost +bewildering activity. They were on the ground one minute, hauling +ponderous masses of timber, and the next climbing among the framing; +were standing with one foot on a slender beam, or crawling along another +on hands and knees. There was a constant thudding of ax-heads on wooden +pegs, a sharper ringing of hammers on heavy nails; curt orders broke +through the clatter of boards and the persistent crunch of saws. Still, +there seemed to be no confusion. Each man knew exactly what to do, for, +though houses are by no means invariably raised in this fashion on the +prairie, some of the men had learned their work in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> bush of +Michigan, and some in Ontario. When the hammers clattered more furiously +and the skeleton became partly clothed, there were cries of +encouragement from the women.</p> + +<p>"Jake will have that plate pinned down before your spikes are in!" +called one.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to let the boys from across the creek get ahead of you?" +protested another.</p> + +<p>A third ran forward with both hands full of nails.</p> + +<p>"They're catching you up!" she shouted. "Get them in! I can't have the +laugh put on my man."</p> + +<p>Husband, sweetheart and brother responded gallantly, and the pace became +faster still, until at length Thorne shouted and waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"We're through. It's time to quit," he said. "You've done 'most twice as +much as I ever figured on your getting in to-night."</p> + +<p>They had worked willingly, but it was evident that most of them were as +willing to stop. Hammers, saws, and axes were flung together, and the +men stood in groups, hot and gasping, in the early dusk. Thorne walked +up to their leader.</p> + +<p>"I can only say 'Thank you!' though that doesn't go far enough," he +said. "What makes the thing seem more to me is that I haven't the least +call on one of you."</p> + +<p>There was a murmur of denial and then they waited until he turned to +Mrs. Farquhar, though he addressed the company generally.</p> + +<p>"Now," he invited, "I'll ask you to come in and look at my place."</p> + +<p>He moved on ahead with Mrs. Farquhar, while the others fell in behind; +but it seemed that the selection he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> had made did not satisfy all of +them, for there was a laugh when somebody cried:</p> + +<p>"She has got a good man already! It isn't a square deal!"</p> + +<p>Then, and how it came about Alison was never sure, though she had a +suspicion that her employer must have connived at it, Mrs. Farquhar +either moved or was quietly pushed aside, and she and Thorne were left +to cross the threshold together at the head of the company. This +appeared to please his guests, for there was further laughter when +another voice cried:</p> + +<p>"It's the first time. Didn't they teach you manners in the old country, +Mavy? What's the matter with giving her your arm?"</p> + +<p>Alison was conscious of a certain embarrassment, but she moved on +quietly and shot one swift glance at Thorne. He was looking up at the +beams above him, of which she was glad, for she was wondering whether +the others attached any particular significance to the fact that she was +the first woman to enter his new house with him. Dismissing the question +as troublesome, she glanced about her and saw the roof framing cutting +black against the soft blue of the night overhead. The house, she +supposed, would eventually contain four rooms, two on the ground floor +and two above, and though only the principal supports had been placed in +position yet, she once more wondered how the man and his companions had +accomplished so much.</p> + +<p>"What you have done is really astonishing!" she exclaimed. "I suppose +you had everything ready, but even then you are not a carpenter or a +builder."</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed.</p> + +<p>"The fact that I can sell patent medicines to people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> who haven't the +least use for them ought to be a guaranty of my ability to do anything +in reason."</p> + +<p>"He's not quite right," interposed Farquhar, appearing from behind them. +"In a general way, the man who's smart at business is good at nothing +else. Most of those who are couldn't hammer a nail in. Anyway, Mavy +hasn't the least bit of the true commercial instinct in him."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I?" Thorne appealed to Mrs. Farquhar. "Is there another man +round here who could start off for a month's drive and sell out most of +a wagonload of mirrors and gramophones?"</p> + +<p>"No," laughed Mrs. Farquhar; "I don't think there is; but that's not +quite the point. The proof of commercial ability lies not in the sales +but in the margin after them, and you never seemed to get much richer by +your efforts. You don't sell your things because you're a smart business +man, but because the boys like you."</p> + +<p>The rest had evidently heard her, for there were cries of assent, and +Alison was conscious of a little thrill of sympathy when Thorne turned +to his other guests.</p> + +<p>"I should be a proud man if I were quite convinced that that is right."</p> + +<p>They assured him of it, and there was no doubt about their sincerity. A +few minutes later they trooped out again, when somebody announced that +supper was ready. There were neither chairs nor tables, and though the +dew was falling they sat down on the grass, while a full moon that had +sailed half-way up the heavens poured down a silver light on them. The +crockery proved insufficient, and husbands and wives or sweethearts +shared each other's cups, but they made an as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>tonishing feast, for the +inhabitants of that land eat with the same strenuous vigor with which +they work and live.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile Alison became interested in watching the women. They +were not very numerous, and one and all were dressed in garments that +were obviously the work of their own fingers. They were not bronzed like +the men, and even in the moonlight it struck her that their faces lacked +the delicate bloom of the average Englishwoman's skin. Their hands were +hard, and in most cases reddened; but for all that there was a +brightness in their eyes and an optimistic cheerfulness in their manner +which she fancied would hardly have characterized such an assembly in +the old country.</p> + +<p>Then she noticed that one young woman sat at Thorne's side not far away, +and that they seemed to be talking confidentially. She could not be sure +that they had not one cup between them, and this possibility irritated +her. The girl, she confessed, was not ungraceful, although slighter and +generally straighter in figure than most young Englishwomen, and she had +rather fine hair. It shone lustrously in the moonlight, and there were +golden gleams in it. There was also no doubt that she had fine eyes. +Alison could think of no reason why Thorne should not talk to whom he +liked, but she was, in spite of this, not pleased with what she had +noticed.</p> + +<p>After a while somebody tuned a fiddle, and when they began dancing on +the grass, Alison realized that most of them danced very well. Thorne +led her out once, but he seemed preoccupied, and soon afterward he and +the girl she had already noticed once more drew apart from the rest. +Alison watched them sitting out two dances in the shadow of the house, +and she felt curious as to what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> they had to say to each other. As a +matter of fact, Thorne was looking at his companion very thoughtfully +just then.</p> + +<p>"Lucy," he said, "I'm afraid what Jake has done is going to get him into +trouble."</p> + +<p>"I tried to make him see that, but he said as they'd seized his +homestead he couldn't stay here, and he allowed that, one way or +another, he'd paid off all he owed," the girl replied. "Nevis put up all +kinds of charges on him and bled him dry the past few years."</p> + +<p>"Of course he did," assented Thorne. "Still, that's not likely to count +for a great deal in his favor. The trouble is that they could jail him +for selling off those cattle after he got notice of foreclosure. What +made him do it?"</p> + +<p>Lucy looked down.</p> + +<p>"You may not have heard that we were to have been married most three +years ago, but my father said Jake must wipe off his mortgage first. +When he died he left us nothing but the teams and implements, and mother +and I tried to run the place with a hired man, but we've been going back +ever since, and Jake was getting deeper in debt all the while."</p> + +<p>Thorne made a sign of sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Now that Nevis has shut down on him, I suppose he's going away to work +on the new branch line until he can get hold of another place farther +West and send for you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," returned Lucy slowly, "now you understand the thing, or, anyway, +most of it. Only—" and she looked up at him with appealing eyes—"Jake +hasn't got very far yet, and we had word that the police troopers are +out after him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>"Where is he?"</p> + +<p>Lucy turned and pointed toward the bluff.</p> + +<p>"Yonder."</p> + +<p>Thorne started, but he sat still again, rather grim in face, and his +companion went on:</p> + +<p>"He hasn't a horse. He got out in a hurry with no provisions, and if he +went into the settlement for some it would put the troopers on to his +trail." She laid a hand on Thorne's arm. "Mavy, you're sure not going to +let them get him."</p> + +<p>"If I'd a grain of sense that's just what I would do; as I haven't, I +suppose I must try to get him off. Well, it would be better for several +reasons that Jake shouldn't see me, but if you'll stuff a basket with +eatables I'll quietly drive a horse round toward the bluff. While you're +getting the things together I'll have another dance."</p> + +<p>He led out a flushed matron, and when at length he left her breathless, +only Alison and one other person saw him slip away over the edge of the +hollow through which the creek flowed. There was something in the way he +moved that aroused Alison's curiosity, and she walked forward a few +yards until she reached the crest of the slope, from which she saw him +saddle one of the two hobbled horses that browsed apart from the rest. +She wondered why he did so, but it was some relief to notice that the +girl he had spoken to was not with him, and when he moved on again +toward the bluff she turned back to where the others were.</p> + +<p>He reappeared a few minutes later and claimed a dance, which she gave +him, and some time had passed when a drumming of hoofs grew rapidly +louder and two shadowy figures materialized out of the prairie. Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +the music stopped as a couple of mounted police drew bridle in front of +the astonished guests. One who carried a carbine across his saddle threw +up his hand commandingly.</p> + +<p>"Is Jake Winthrop here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," answered Thorne, who strode forward; "he certainly is not, +Corporal Slaney."</p> + +<p>"Have you seen him to-night?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't," was the quiet answer.</p> + +<p>"Then," said the corporal, "you may be surprised to hear that he was +seen heading for this bluff two or three hours ago, and that we struck +his trail where he crossed the creek not a mile back."</p> + +<p>He turned in his saddle and looked at the others.</p> + +<p>"Can you give me any information?"</p> + +<p>Their faces were clear in the moonlight, and Alison felt that they at +least had nothing to conceal; but the corporal did not look quite +satisfied with the assurances they offered him. Addressing two or three, +one after another, he interrogated them sharply.</p> + +<p>"I'll have to trouble you to lead up your horses, boys," he said at +length.</p> + +<p>They did it with some grumbling, and when the corporal was convinced +that not a beast was missing, he turned to Thorne.</p> + +<p>"You keep a team here, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," replied Thorne carelessly, though he had dreaded this +question.</p> + +<p>The corporal swung round and looked at his companion, who had quietly +slipped away for a few minutes when they first rode in.</p> + +<p>"There's one beast hobbled by the creek," announced the trooper. "I can +see no sign of the other."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>The corporal looked at Thorne.</p> + +<p>"Do you feel like making any explanation?"</p> + +<p>"No. If you have anything against me I'll leave you to prove it."</p> + +<p>The corporal then turned to one of the guests.</p> + +<p>"You rode in. Where did you put your saddle?"</p> + +<p>"On the ground with the rest."</p> + +<p>"Can you produce it?"</p> + +<p>"No," admitted the man; "I may as well allow that I can't, if the +trooper has been round counting them."</p> + +<p>The corporal looked at him steadily.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "what we have to do first of all is to pick up +Winthrop's trail. It's quite likely we'll have a word for Thorne and you +later."</p> + +<p>He spoke to his companion and they rode out across the prairie. When +they disappeared, Thorne called to the fiddler to strike up another +tune, and the dance went on again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THORNE RESENTS REPROOF</span></h2> + + +<p>Farquhar was sitting with his wife and Alison on the stoop in the cool +of the evening a week or two after the house-raising, when Thorne rode +up out of the prairie, leading a second horse. He tethered the two +beasts to a fence before he approached the house, and Alison noticed +that he looked very lean and jaded. He sat down wearily and flung off +his hat when he had greeted the party.</p> + +<p>"I've come to borrow your mower, Farquhar," he announced. "I suppose I +may as well get some hay in."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem very sure about it," remarked Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, I'm not enthusiastic about cutting that hay. I've +been putting in sixteen hours a day lately, and I expect I'm getting a +little stale. Among other things, I'd got most of the shingles on the +house when one of the boys came along and told me I'd fixed them wrong. +Then the police have been round again worrying me."</p> + +<p>"Have you got your horse back?" asked Mrs. Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Thorne, with a soft laugh. "It was found near the +railroad a day or two after it disappeared, and a friend of mine sent it +along. I understand, however, that Corporal Slaney has failed to pick up +Winthrop's trail."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar regarded him severely.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>"Why did you mix yourself up in that affair?"</p> + +<p>"The thing rather appealed to me," declared Thorne. "I believe Jake was +justified ethically; and anybody who takes a way that's not the +recognized one has my sympathy."</p> + +<p>"Now you've reached the point," Farquhar laughed. "On the whole, the +fact you mention is unfortunate."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure," Thorne answered moodily. "Plodding along the lauded +beaten track now and then palls on one, and it isn't the least bit +easier than the other. Anyway, I only did what I had to; Lucy said she +had counted on me."</p> + +<p>This last confession, which he seemed to make in a moment of +forgetfulness, stirred Alison to a sense of irritation that astonished +her a little.</p> + +<p>"Were you compelled to help a defaulting debtor escape?" she demanded. +"I understand that is what Winthrop is."</p> + +<p>"If you knew the whole story you would hardly call him that," Thorne +retorted with an indignant sparkle in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"But he borrowed money on his cattle, among other things, didn't he, and +then sold them, and ran away when the man who lent it to him wanted it +back?"</p> + +<p>"He did," Thorne assented with some dryness. "I'm sorry I must confess +it, because a baldly correct statement of the kind you have just made +which leaves out all extenuating details is often a most misleading +thing."</p> + +<p>"How can a statement of fact be misleading?"</p> + +<p>Farquhar smiled and Thorne made a grimace.</p> + +<p>"The aspect of any fact varies with one's point of view. You evidently +can't get away from the conventional one."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>Alison was growing angry, though subsequent reflection convinced her +that this was not due to his last observation. She had sympathized with +his attitude when he had in the first instance mentioned his dislike of +Nevis; and his willingness to side with the injured against the +oppressor had certainly pleased her. In the abstract, it appeared wholly +commendable; but, in particular, that it should have led him to take up +the cause of a girl against whom for no very clear reason she felt +prejudiced was a different thing.</p> + +<p>"Well," she responded, "it has by degrees become evident to society in +general that it can only look at certain matters in a certain way; and +if you insist on doing the opposite, you must expect to get into +trouble. I'm not sure you don't deserve it, too."</p> + +<p>"That," returned Thorne, grimly, "is their idea in England, and I must +do them the justice to own that they act up to it. I had, however, +expected a little more liberality—from you. Anyway, I'm not in the +least sorry for what I've done."</p> + +<p>He rose and turned toward his host.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't we better get that mower, Farquhar?"</p> + +<p>They strolled away, Thorne leading his team, and Mrs. Farquhar laughed.</p> + +<p>"Mavy's very young in some respects. I'm almost afraid you have +succeeded in setting him off again."</p> + +<p>"Is the last remark warranted?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar nodded.</p> + +<p>"He has been sticking to what he probably finds a very uninteresting +task with a patience I hardly thought was in him. Just now he's no doubt +ready for an outbreak."</p> + +<p>"An outbreak?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>"I'll say a frolic. It won't be anything very shocking, though I should +expect it to be distinctly original."</p> + +<p>Alison made a sign of impatience.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it absurd that he should fly off in this unbalanced fashion +because of a few words?"</p> + +<p>"One mustn't expect perfection; and it wasn't altogether what you +said—that merely fired the train. Mavy has been going steady for an +unusual time, and as a rule it doesn't take a great deal to drive him +into some piece of rashness. For instance, he was quite willing to +involve himself in trouble with the police at a word from Lucy Calvert."</p> + +<p>She fancied from Alison's expression that this was where the grievance +lay, but the girl made no comment, and they sat silent for a while until +Farquhar came back alone.</p> + +<p>"Mavy's gone off with the mower—he wouldn't come back," he explained. +"In fact he seemed a little out of temper."</p> + +<p>Farquhar was correct in this surmise. Thorne was somewhat erratic by +nature, and any insistence on the strictly conventional point of view, +even when it was backed by sound sense, usually acted upon him as a red +rag. After all, he could not help his nature, and he had been reared in +an atmosphere of straight-laced respectability which had imposed on him +an intolerable restraint. What was, perhaps, more to the purpose, he had +been demanding too much of his bodily strength during the last two +months, and had been living in a Spartan fashion on badly cooked and +very irregular meals, until at length his nervous system began to feel +the strain. That being so, he felt himself justified in resenting +Alison's censorious attitude; though it was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> the mere fact that she +had disagreed with what he had done that he found most irritating. It +was, he knew, because she had disappointed him. He had regarded her as a +broad-minded, clear-sighted girl, emancipated from the petty prejudices +and traditions which were the bane of most young Englishwomen, and now +he had discovered that she was as exasperatingly narrow as the rest of +them.</p> + +<p>It was late when he reached his homestead, and after sleeping a few +hours he rose with the dawn, and lighting a fire, left the kettle to +boil while he clambered to the roof to nail on cedar shingles. He could +not, however, get them to lie as he wanted them, and, being very dry, +they split every now and then as he drove in the nails. Besides this, it +was difficult to work upon the narrow rafters, and when at length he +descended for breakfast he found that the fire had gone out in the +meanwhile. He surveyed it and the kettle disgustedly, with brows drawn +down; and then, restraining a strong desire to fling the vessel into the +birches, he sat down and fished out of the congealed fat in the +frying-pan a piece of cold pork left over from the previous day. This, +with a piece of bread that had acquired a rocky texture from being left +uncovered, formed his breakfast, and when he had eaten it he went back +moodily to the roof. He had for some time in a most determined manner +concentrated his energies on a task generally regarded as a commendable +one in that country, but there was no doubt whatever that it was +beginning to pall on him.</p> + +<p>He lay up on the rafters for several hours with a hot sun blazing down +on his neck and shoulders while he nailed on shingles; but in spite of +every effort, things would go wrong. Nails slipped through his fingers; +he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> dropped his hammer and had to climb down for it; while every now and +then a shingle he had just secured rent from top to bottom. Finally, in +a state of exasperation, he struck a vicious blow at a nail which had +evaded his previous attacks, and hit his thumb instead. This was the +climax, and he savagely hurled the hammer as far as he could throw it +out upon the prairie. Then he swung himself down, and, walking +resolutely to his tent, dragged out a box containing about a dozen small +cheap mirrors. There were a few gramophone records in another box; and +after putting both cases, a blanket or two and a bag of flour into his +wagon, he drove away across the sweep of grass at a gallop. The horses, +which had done nothing worth mentioning for the last few weeks, seemed +as pleased with the change as he did.</p> + +<p>The next morning a man who was passing Farquhar's homestead pulled up +his team to deliver its owner a note.</p> + +<p>"Mavy sent you this," he said with a grin. "Guess he's out on the trail +again. He had the boys sitting up half last night at the Bluff Hotel."</p> + +<p>Farquhar read the note, which was curt.</p> + +<p>"Thanks for the mower. Better go for it if you want the thing," it ran. +"I'm off for a change of air, and haven't the least notion when I'm +coming back. I've discovered that one has to get seasoned to a quiet +life."</p> + +<p>Going back into the house, he handed the note to his wife, who was +sitting with Alison at breakfast, and she gave it to the girl in turn +when she had read it.</p> + +<p>"It's too bad, though I must say I expected it," she remarked, regarding +her with reproachful eyes.</p> + +<p>"If he has a singularly unbalanced nature, can I help it?" Alison +asked.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>Her companion appeared to consider.</p> + +<p>"I don't know which to be most vexed with; you or Lucy. He would be +quietly cutting prairie hay now if you had both left him alone."</p> + +<p>Farquhar watched them with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Mavy," he observed, "will in all probability require a good deal of +breaking in; but that's no reason why one should despair of him. I've +known a young horse turn out an excellent hauler and go steady as a rock +in double harness, after in the first place kicking in the whole front +of the wagon."</p> + +<p>"Why double harness?" his wife inquired with a twinkle in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Farquhar, "perhaps I was anticipating things."</p> + +<p>He lounged out, and Alison went on with her breakfast with an +expressionless face, though Mrs. Farquhar noticed that she seemed +preoccupied after that.</p> + +<p>Three or four days later Thorne sat on the veranda of a little wooden +hotel after supper. A couple of men lounged near him smoking, and in +front of them a double row of unpicturesque frame-houses straggled +beside the trail that led straight as the crow flies into a waste of +prairie.</p> + +<p>"I've had a notion that Jake Winthrop would look in here," Thorne +remarked presently.</p> + +<p>One of his companions glanced round toward the house, but there did not +seem to be anybody within hearing just then.</p> + +<p>"He did," he confided. "Baxter once worked with him on the railroad, and +Jake crawled up to the back of his shack at night. Baxter gave him a +different hat and a jacket."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>"That's quite right," said the other man. "I figured the troopers would +know what he was wearing. I drove him quite a piece toward the railroad +early in the morning, and I've a notion he got off with a freight-train +that was taking a crowd of boys from down East to do something farther +on up the track. If he did, he must have jumped off quietly when they +stopped to let the Pacific express by. Next thing, two or three troopers +turned up, and I guess they heard about the train and wired up the line; +but they haven't got Winthrop yet. Corporal Slaney, who sent two of them +south, is in the settlement now. He's plumb sure that Jake's hanging +round here waiting to make a break for the U. S. boundary."</p> + +<p>"What had he on when he first struck you?" Thorne inquired.</p> + +<p>Baxter told him, and he laughed.</p> + +<p>"Then," he declared, "Slaney's trailing a man with an old black plug hat +and a brown duck jacket; the latter would certainly fix him, as blue's +much more common. Now if he saw that man riding south at night he'd +probably call off the troopers, and they'd work the trail right down to +the frontier. As they wouldn't get their man, they'd no doubt give the +thing up, deciding he'd already slipped across."</p> + +<p>"But how's he going to see him, when Jake's up the track?"</p> + +<p>"It strikes me there ought to be a black plug hat and a brown duck +jacket somewhere in this settlement," drawled Thorne. "I'll leave you to +find them."</p> + +<p>A light broke in upon his companions, and they laughed; but one of them +pointed out that Thorne might find himself unpleasantly situated if +Corporal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> Slaney overtook him. Thorne, however, smiled at this.</p> + +<p>"I've been driving easy the last few days, and it's hardly likely the +police have a horse that could run Volador down," he said. "Besides, if +he should press me too hard, I could lose my man somehow in the big +bluff on the mountain."</p> + +<p>They agreed with this, and proceeded to elaborate a workable scheme. +Suddenly Baxter turned to Thorne, as though a thought had just struck +him.</p> + +<p>"Why do you want to do it?" he asked. "Jake Winthrop wasn't a partner of +yours."</p> + +<p>Thorne broke into a whimsical smile. Now that he endeavored to analyze +his reasons calmly, he was conscious that none of them appeared +sufficient to warrant any action at all on his part. He was only certain +that he disliked Nevis, and that an anxious girl had not long ago looked +at him with an appeal in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Since you ask me the question, I don't quite know," he confessed.</p> + +<p>Baxter laughed, and turned to his comrade.</p> + +<p>"He's a daisy, sure. Anyway, I'll look round for a hat and jacket like +the one I burned. You get him a saddle, Murray."</p> + +<p>Thorne left them presently and drove away toward a ravine some miles +from the settlement, and soon after he started Baxter saddled a horse +and rode out to an outlying farm. In the meanwhile Corporal Slaney +sauntered into the general room of the hotel, where Murray and several +others were then sitting smoking. There was a box of crackers, a +soda-water fountain, and a bottle of some highly colored syrup on one +table, but that was all the refreshment the place provided.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>Seating himself in a corner, the corporal sat unobtrusively listening to +the conversation, which Murray presently turned into a particular +channel for his especial benefit. It was a hot evening, and he sat +astride a bench, clad only in blue shirt and trousers, with a glass of +soda-water in front of him and a pipe in his hand. A big tin lamp burned +unsteadily above him, for all the doors and windows were open, and a hot +smell of dust and baked earth flowed into the room. The walls were +formed of badly rent boards, and there was as usual no covering on the +roughly laid floor.</p> + +<p>"As I've often said," he observed, "the police will never get another +man like old Sergeant Mackintyre. He ran his man down right away every +time."</p> + +<p>Slaney pricked his ears, and another of them broke in:</p> + +<p>"Mackintyre would have had Jake Winthrop jailed quite a while ago. The +boys aren't up to trailing now."</p> + +<p>"Seems to me they didn't want Winthrop much," drawled Murray. "They went +prowling round the homesteads, worrying folks who didn't know anything +about him, while he hit the trail for the frontier."</p> + +<p>A third man turned to Slaney.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you send two of the boys off Dakota way, Corporal?"</p> + +<p>"We did," answered Slaney shortly. "That's about all I'm open to tell +you."</p> + +<p>"Two troopers couldn't cover a great deal of prairie," remarked another. +"Guess he might have slipped through between them; that is, if he's not +hanging round here somewhere waiting for a chance to break away."</p> + +<p>Murray saw the gleam in the corporal's eyes, and he broke in again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>"Now," he said, "when you think of it, that's quite likely, after all. +There's three or four big bluffs a man could hide in, and if he was +stuck for a horse he wouldn't care to try the open. If he lay by a while +he might fix it up with somebody to bring him one. Of course, he might +have got away up the track, but they'd wire on to watch the stations. +Didn't you do that, Corporal?"</p> + +<p>"We did," Slaney answered.</p> + +<p>Murray turned to the others.</p> + +<p>"Then, one would allow that Winthrop couldn't have cleared by train. If +he'd done that, they'd sure have got him." He paused, and, hearing a +beat of hoofs, added thoughtfully, "It looks mighty like he was still in +the neighborhood."</p> + +<p>Something in Slaney's expression suggested that he shared this opinion; +but the drumming of hoofs was growing louder, and a man strolled toward +the doorway.</p> + +<p>"It's Baxter," he announced.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later Baxter came in, flushed and dusty, and helped +himself at the soda-water fountain before he turned to the others with a +cracker in his hand.</p> + +<p>"It's powerful warm, boys, and I've had a ride for nothing," he informed +them. "Been over to Lorton's place and he wasn't in."</p> + +<p>"He's at Cricklewood's," said Murray. "If you'd waited a little you +would have met him on the trail."</p> + +<p>"I didn't, anyway," was Baxter's indifferent reply; "I only met a +stranger."</p> + +<p>Corporal Slaney had no reason to suspect that the brief conversation +which had followed Baxter's arrival had been carefully prearranged for +his benefit.</p> + +<p>"Where did you meet that stranger?" he asked.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>"About two miles east of the bluff."</p> + +<p>"Did you speak to him?"</p> + +<p>Baxter smiled.</p> + +<p>"I didn't; he didn't give me a chance. He was going south as fast as his +horse could lay hoofs to the ground."</p> + +<p>"What was he like? Did you see him clearly?"</p> + +<p>"Well," drawled Baxter, "it's only a half-moon, and the man wasn't very +close, but I think he'd a black plug hat. As most of us wear gray ones, +that kind of struck me. I've a notion that his overall jacket was +brown."</p> + +<p>He sat down as Slaney vanished through the open door. In a few moments +there was a clatter of hoofs, and the men crowding about the entrance +saw a mounted figure riding at a gallop down the unpaved street. Then +Murray looked at his comrade with a grin.</p> + +<p>"Must have had his horse saddled ready," he chuckled. "We've fixed the +thing."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI<br /> +<span class="smalltext">AN ESCAPADE</span></h2> + + +<p>The night was still and clear when Thorne rode out of the ravine, in the +hollow of which he had left his wagon and one hobbled horse. Reaching +the level, he drew bridle and sat still in his saddle for a minute or +two looking about him. The dew was settling heavily on the short, wiry +grass, which shone faintly in the elusive light, with patches of darker +color where his horse's hoofs had passed. Ahead, the prairie rolled +away, a vast dimly lighted plain, to the soft dusky grayness which +obscured the horizon, and he knew that somewhere beyond the dip of the +latter stood the mountain, a broken stretch of higher ground covered +with birches and willows, where if Corporal Slaney held on so long he +must endeavor to evade him.</p> + +<p>Volador seemed fit and fresh, for which he was thankful, for it was +nearly twenty miles to the mountain, and he was, after all, a little +uncertain about the speed of the policeman's horse, though the +appearance of the beast, which he had seen in the hotel stable, did not +suggest any great powers in this respect. It was, however, not the one +Slaney usually rode, which he fancied might, perhaps, be significant. At +length he leaned down and patted Volador's neck.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to go to-night, old boy," he said.</p> + +<p>The beast responded to his voice and a shake of the bridle, and they set +off southward at a trot. The moon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> already hung rather low in the +western sky, and he calculated that in another couple of hours it would +have dipped beneath the grassland's rim. By then he should reach the +mountain, and the darkness would be in his favor if he had not already +outdistanced his pursuer. It was in a singularly buoyant mood that he +rode quietly on, and it was reluctantly that he checked the horse which +once or twice attempted to gallop. After the last few months of prosaic +and unremitting toil, the prospect of a mad night ride, and the zest of +the hazard attached to it, proved strangely exhilarating to one of his +temperament. He admitted that, as Winthrop was not a particular friend +of his, there was no reason why he should have undertaken the thing at +all; but he remembered the appeal in Lucy Calvert's eyes, and that and +the lust of a frolic was sufficient for him. There are men of his kind +who, in their hearts, at least, never grow old.</p> + +<p>He had covered two or three miles when he saw a mounted man following +the trail to the settlement, and he rode on across the trail with a wave +of his hat. He did not feel inclined for conversation, and everything +had already been arranged. The mounted figure presently sank out of +sight again, and he pulled Volador up to a slow walk. He would give +Baxter half an hour to reach the settlement and put Slaney on his trail, +and there was no use in wasting his horse's strength in the meanwhile.</p> + +<p>It was nearly an hour later, and he was riding slowly, a lonely, moving +speck in the center of a great level waste whose boundaries steadily +receded before him, when a faint drumming of hoofs came out of the +silence. Then he pulled Volador up altogether, and sat still,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +listening, for a while, until he felt sure that his pursuer, who was +apparently riding hard, would hear him. He did not wish the man to draw +too close, but it would, on the other hand, serve no purpose if he rode +south unless Slaney followed him. It seemed only reasonable to suppose +that once the police decided that Winthrop had got safely away to Dakota +they would abandon the search for him in western Canada.</p> + +<p>Then something in the sound, which was rapidly growing louder, struck +him as curious, and he listened more closely with a frown, for it was +now becoming evident that instead of one pursuer he had two to deal +with, which was certainly not what he had desired or expected. Touching +Volador with his heels, he let him go, and for five or six minutes they +fled south at a fast gallop with a thud of hoofs on sun-baked sod +ringing far behind them. Then he pulled the horse up with a struggle, +and listened again. He was at length certain that the police had heard +him and were following as fast as possible. There was no cover until he +reached the mountain; nothing but an open wilderness, unbroken by even a +ravine or a clump of willows, and he must ride.</p> + +<p>Once more he let Volador go, and the cool night air streamed past him, +whipping his hot face and bringing the blood to it, while long billowy +rises came back to him, looking in the uncertain moonlight like the vast +undulations of a glassy sea underrun by the swell of a distant gale. +Each time he swung over the gradual crest of one, a rhythmic staccato +drumming became sharply audible, and sank again as he dipped into the +great grassy hollows. Volador seemed fresh still, which was consoling, +for there was no doubt that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> sound of the pursuit was as clear as it +had been. This was a fresh surprise.</p> + +<p>Half an hour passed, and they swung out upon a wide, high level, where +for the first time he twisted in his saddle and looked behind him. He +could see, rather more plainly than he cared about, two dim figures, +spread out well apart on the verge of the plateau, and it was evident +that they were not dropping behind. It would, he recognized, lead to +unpleasant complications if they overtook him. He raised a quirt he had +borrowed, but, reflecting, he let his arm drop again. After all, it +might be desirable to let Volador keep a little in hand. Then he glanced +to the westward, and was pleased to see that the moon was rapidly +nearing the rim of the plain. It would be dark when he reached the +mountain.</p> + +<p>Volador was flagging a little when at length they swept up the slope of +another rise. On crossing the top of this Thorne was conscious of a +difference in the drumming of hoofs behind. One of the pursuers was +clearly falling back, which was satisfactory, though he fancied that the +other man was still holding his own. Then he saw away in front of him a +blurred mass with an uneven crest which cut dimly black against the sky. +It stretched broad across his course, and he struck Volador with the +quirt, for he recognized it as the mountain, and knew that he must ride +in earnest now. A mounted man would make a good deal of noise descending +the ravines which seamed it and smashing through the undergrowth beneath +the birches, and it was desirable that he should reach their shelter +well ahead of the troopers.</p> + +<p>The horse responded gallantly, but the beat of hoofs which he longed to +get away from grew no fainter, and when five minutes had flown by he +plied the quirt again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> He was very hot, and somewhat anxious, but the +moon was now near the verge of the prairie. It was large and red, and +already the light was failing, though a long black shadow still fled +beside him across the dewy grass.</p> + +<p>At last he fancied he was drawing ahead, and a mad fit came upon him as +they went flying down a rugged and broken slope to a water-course, while +the mountain rose higher and blacker ahead. Stones clattered and rattled +under them, clouds of light soil flew up, and then there was a great +splashing as the horse plunged through the creek. After that the pace +grew slower as they faced the ascent; and he swung low in the saddle +when they sped in among the birches. A branch struck him in the face and +swept his hat away, but it had done its work and he decided that he was +better rid of it.</p> + +<p>A semblance of a trail that dipped into hollows and swung over rises led +through the mountain, though as a rule any one riding south skirted +this. Thorne had already decided that he must leave it somewhere as +quietly as possible and let Corporal Slaney go by. He could not hear the +trooper now, and this was reassuring, for he would have to stop soon and +he did not wish his pursuer to notice that the noise in front of him had +suddenly ceased.</p> + +<p>Two or three minutes later, however, the sound he was beginning to dread +once more reached him, breaking in upon the crackle of dry sticks under +his horse's hoofs and the crash he made as he now and then blundered +into a brake or thicket. It was very dark in the bluff; he could +scarcely see the spectral trunks of the flitting trees, and to pick the +way or avoid the obstacles around which the trail here and there twisted +was out of the question. He faced the hazards as they came and rode<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +savagely; but the thud of pursuing hoofs and the smashing and crackling +which mingled with it sounded very close when he reached the brink of a +ravine which he understood it was almost impossible to descend on +horseback. To dismount would, however, as he realized, entail his +capture; and setting his lips tight he drove the failing horse at the +almost precipitous gully. They plunged down with soil and stones sliding +and rattling after them, splashed into a creek, and were half-way up the +opposite side when a second clatter of falling stones was followed by a +heavy downward rush of loosened soil. Then there was a dull thud and +afterward a curiously impressive silence.</p> + +<p>Thorne pulled up his badly blown horse and, twisting in his saddle, +looked back across the ravine. He could see nothing but a shadowy mass +of trees which stood out dimly against a strip of soft blue sky. He +could feel his heart beating, and the deep silence troubled him. Indeed, +it was with difficulty that he refrained from shouting to the fallen +man, but he reflected that as he had now and then spoken to Slaney, the +latter would probably recognize his voice. Then he heard the man get up, +and the sounds which followed indicated that he was urging his horse to +rise. Thorne once more tapped Volador with his quirt.</p> + +<p>A hoarse cry rang after him, commanding him to stop, but this was on the +whole a consolation, for it did not seem likely that Slaney was badly +hurt if he could shout, and Thorne rode on with a laugh. He scarcely +supposed the policeman's horse would be fit for much after a heavy fall, +but there was another trooper somewhere behind who might turn up at any +moment. He purposely rode through a brake or two in order that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +crackle of undergrowth might make it clear that he was going on, and +then, when some time had passed and there was no sign of any pursuit, he +turned sharply off the trail and headed into the bush. It soon became +necessary to dismount and lead his horse, and finally he looped the +bridle round a branch and sat down wearily.</p> + +<p>He fancied that half an hour had passed when he heard an increasing +sound which suggested that two mounted men were riding cautiously along +the trail some distance away. He could hear an occasional sharp snapping +of rotten branches and the crash of trodden undergrowth as well as the +beat of hoofs. Listening carefully, he decided that the riders were +pushing straight on, and he was sure of it later, when the sound began +to die away. He sat still, however, for almost another hour, and then +succeeded with some difficulty in finding the trail. Following it back +until it led him out of the mountain, he stripped off his duck jacket +and flung it where anybody who passed that way could not well help +seeing it, and then he took out a soft gray hat he had carried rolled up +in his belt. Clad in blue shirt and trousers, he rode on slowly into the +prairie. The dawn found him some miles from the mountain and at least as +far from any trail, in the open waste. Reaching a ravine, he lay down at +the bottom of it beside a creek and ate the breakfast he had brought +with him, while Volador cropped the grass. Then he went quietly to +sleep.</p> + +<p>It was midday when he awakened, and falling dusk when he eventually +reached the ravine near the settlement, where he had left his wagon and +the other horse. There was nothing to suggest that anybody had visited +the place in his absence, and after making an excellent supper he lay +down again inside the vehicle with a sigh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> of content. Everything had +gone satisfactorily, and it was most unlikely that Winthrop would be +further troubled by the police. He did not know much about the +extradition laws, but it was generally believed that when a man once got +across the frontier the troopers contented themselves with notifying the +authorities and nothing further was heard of the matter, unless the +fugitive were guilty of some very serious offense. A good deal of the +boundary then ran through an empty wilderness, and it was difficult to +trace any one who managed to reach the settlements on its southern side. +Indeed, it was seldom that a determined attempt was made.</p> + +<p>Early on the following morning Thorne set out for his holding, and on +the day after he got there he set about cutting prairie hay. As a rule, +nobody sows artificial grasses when taking up new land, but as some +fodder for the teams is required it is generally cut in a dried-up sloo +where the water gathers in the thaw. In such places the grass grows +tall, and as it rapidly ripens and whitens in the sun all the farmer +need do is to cut it and carry it home.</p> + +<p>Thorne was stripped to shirt and trousers, besides being grimed all over +with dust, when looking around for a moment he saw Mrs. Farquhar and +Alison in a wagon not far away. A black cloud of flies hovered about his +head and followed his plodding horses, while a thick haze of dust rose +from the grass that went down before the clanging mower. He stopped, +however, and looked around with a tranquil smile when Mrs. Farquhar +pulled up her team.</p> + +<p>"You seem astonished to see me," he said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar turned and pointed to the long rows of fallen grass.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>"I'm certainly astonished to see all that hay down."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," quizzed Thorne, "if you intended that to be complimentary. +You see, I rather cling to the idea that I can do as much as other +people when I'm forced to it."</p> + +<p>"You must have had the team out at sunup and have made the most of every +minute since," laughed Mrs. Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"It looks like it, unless I had them out the previous evening."</p> + +<p>"You hadn't," declared Alison, and her companion broke in again.</p> + +<p>"She is quite right. You were not here yesterday. It was partly to +satisfy her curiosity that Harry drove round to see."</p> + +<p>Thorne fancied that Alison was not exactly pleased with this statement, +but she made no attempt to contradict it.</p> + +<p>"What strikes me most," she said, "is the fact that you look as if you +had never been away."</p> + +<p>"That," returned Thorne, "is the impression I wished to give people. Now +that I've had my frolic, I want to forget it. It's a natural desire. On +the whole, I'm sorry you took the trouble to ascertain that I've just +come back."</p> + +<p>"The question is, what have you been doing while you were absent?" asked +Mrs. Farquhar severely.</p> + +<p>"Selling things most of the time. It's another example of what you can +do if you try. I'd given up half a case of tarnished mirrors as quite +unsalable, and somehow or other I got rid of every one of them."</p> + +<p>"Anything else?"</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Thorne with a thoughtful air, "I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> a rather pleasant +ride. In fact, I feel so braced up by the whole trip that I expect I +shall be able to go on steadily for another few months, at least."</p> + +<p>"And then?" Alison inquired.</p> + +<p>Thorne looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "if any of my friends make too persistent attempts to +reform me it's quite possible I shall go off on the trail again."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you need anticipate any further trouble of that kind," +Alison assured him.</p> + +<p>Thorne turned to Mrs. Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"May I drive over to supper to-morrow evening? I'd like a talk with +Harry—among other things."</p> + +<p>"Of course," responded Mrs. Farquhar. "As a matter of fact, though I +don't suppose it would have much result, I should like a talk with you. +In the meanwhile we'll get on. It wouldn't be considerate to keep you +back when you're seized by a fit of sensible activity."</p> + +<p>She drove away with the clang of the mower following her and a few +minutes later she smiled at Alison.</p> + +<p>"He's very far from perfect, and that's probably why he has so many +friends," she observed. "I should very much like to hear an unvarnished +account of all his doings since he went away."</p> + +<p>Alison, though she would not confess it, was sensible of a similar +curiosity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">HUNTER MAKES AN ENEMY</span></h2> + + +<p>The committee of the new creamery scheme were sitting in a room of the +Graham's Bluff Hotel one evening after supper when Nevis laid his plan +for the financing of the project before them. He had come there at their +invitation for that purpose, and when he finished speaking they looked +at one another with uncertainty in their faces. There were six of them, +including Hunter, the chairman; prairie farmers who had been chosen by +their neighbors to decide on a means of raising the necessary capital. +All of them owned a few head of stock, for they were beginning to raise +cattle as well as wheat in that district, and one or two more fortunate +than their companions had an odd thousand dollars to their credit at the +bank, which was a somewhat unusual thing in the case of men of their +calling. The venture they contemplated would not have been justified +now, for the Government has lately erected creameries where there is a +reasonable demand for them. In a few moments Nevis, a little astonished +at his companions' silence, spoke again.</p> + +<p>"You have heard my views, gentlemen," he said. "I'm prepared to find you +half the money on the terms laid down. It remains for you to decide +whether you will bring my scheme before the next meeting—in which case +it will, no doubt, be adopted."</p> + +<p>Still nobody said anything and he leaned on the back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> of a chair with a +strip of paper in one hand, watching them out of keen, dark eyes. As +usual, he was almost too neatly dressed in light, tight-fitting clothes, +and this and his white, soft-skinned hands emphasized the contrast +between him and his audience. Among the latter were one or two men of +liberal education, but their faces, like those of the others, were +darkened by exposure to stinging frosts and scorching sun and their +hands were hard and brown. They looked what they were, men who lived +very plainly and spent their days in unremitting toil. Two, indeed, wore +old, soil-stained jackets over their coarse blue shirts, and there was +no attempt at elegance in the attire of the others.</p> + +<p>Hunter, whose appearance was wholly inconspicuous, sat at the head of +the table with a quiet face, waiting for somebody to speak, though the +reticence of his companions did not astonish him. Nevis was a power in +that district, and Hunter had grounds for believing that three of those +present were in his debt. This made it reasonably evident that they +would not care to offend a man who was generally understood to be an +exacting creditor. Hunter had their case in his mind when at length he +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Nevis's scheme seems perfectly clear, on the face of it, and we +have now to make up our minds whether we'll support it or not. If none +of you have any questions to put we'll ask him to excuse us for a few +minutes while we consider the matter and vote on it. I would suggest a +ballot—to be decided by a simple majority."</p> + +<p>A gleam which Hunter noticed crept into Nevis's eyes and hinted that the +suggestion did not meet with his approval. It is possible he had +expected that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> some of the men would not care to vote against him +openly.</p> + +<p>"That," said one briefly, "strikes me as the squarest way; I'll second +the proposition."</p> + +<p>"Well," assented Nevis, "I won't embarrass you if you want to talk it +over. You can send for me when you want me. I'll go down for a smoke."</p> + +<p>There was less reserve when he withdrew, and they discussed his plan +guardedly without arriving at any decision until Hunter laid six little +strips of paper and a pencil on the table.</p> + +<p>"We'll vote on the scheme—the words for or against will be sufficient +without your names," he said.</p> + +<p>Each wrote on a scrap of paper and flung it into a hat in turn, but two +of them, it was noticeable, hesitated for a moment or so. Then Hunter +shook out the papers and counted them.</p> + +<p>"It's even—three for and three against," he announced. "Since that's +the case I'll exercise my chairman's option. It's against."</p> + +<p>There was satisfaction in some of the faces and in the others +uncertainty, which, however, scarcely suggested much regret. Then they +decided on Hunter's recommendation to raise what capital they could +among their friends, even if they had to content themselves with a +smaller outlay. Nevis, who was called in, heard the result with an easy +indifference.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I can't complain. There was a risk in the thing, +anyway, and I guess you know what you want best."</p> + +<p>He went out again, and soon afterward the meeting broke up; but Hunter, +who remained after the others had gone, was not astonished when Nevis +presently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> strolled into the room. He sat down opposite Hunter and +lighted a cigar.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I have you to thank for this," he began.</p> + +<p>"You mean the choosing of the alternative scheme? How did you find out +that you owed it to me?"</p> + +<p>It was a difficult question, put with a disconcerting quietness. As it +happened, none of the committee had informed Nevis that the matter had +been decided by the chairman's vote, and he was naturally reluctant to +admit that three of them were under his influence.</p> + +<p>"I didn't find out," he answered. "I assumed it."</p> + +<p>"On what grounds?"</p> + +<p>This was still more troublesome to parry, as it appeared quite possible +to Nevis that if he furnished Hunter with a hint of the truth the latter +would find means of getting rid of men who might under pressure be +tempted to betray the confidence of their comrades. He was beginning to +realize that the plain, brown-faced farmer with the unwavering eyes was +a match for him, which was a fact he had not suspected hitherto, though +he had been acquainted with him for some time. Then Hunter smiled +significantly.</p> + +<p>"We'll let it pass," he said. "I don't mind admitting that you were +correct in your surmise. The thing turned upon my vote and I gave it +against your scheme. What follows?"</p> + +<p>It was not a conciliatory answer, but it at least furnished Nevis with +the lead he desired.</p> + +<p>"Your decision isn't quite final yet," he declared. "You have to report +it to a general meeting, and a good deal will depend on whether you +merely lay your views before those present or urge them upon them. Now, +as my proposition isn't an unreasonable one,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> I'll ask you right out +what your objections to it are?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't any—to the scheme. As you say, it's reasonable, and it would +save our raising a good deal of money."</p> + +<p>Nevis was not particularly sensitive, but something in his companion's +manner brought the blood to his cheek.</p> + +<p>"Then you object to me—personally. Will you explain why?"</p> + +<p>"Since you insist," replied Hunter. "To begin with, we propose to start +the creamery for the benefit of the stock-raising farmers in this +district, and several things lead me to believe that if you once get +your grip on the management it will in process of time be run for your +benefit exclusively. That is one reason I voted against your scheme, and +I'm rather glad the decision rested with me, because"—he paused a +moment—"I, at least, don't owe you any money."</p> + +<p>Nevis with difficulty repressed a start at this. If Hunter was not in +his debt his wife undoubtedly was, and something might be made of the +fact by and by. In the meanwhile he was keenly anxious to secure an +interest in the creamery. Once he could manage it, he apprehended no +insuperable difficulty in obtaining control; but he could not get the +necessary footing in the face of Hunter's opposition.</p> + +<p>"It strikes me we're only working around the point and shifting ground," +he said. "What makes you believe I don't mean to act straight?"</p> + +<p>"What happened in Langton's and Winthrop's case?"</p> + +<p>Nevis sat silent a moment or two. There was a vein<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> of vindictiveness in +him, but he was avaricious first of all, and he could generally keep his +resentment in the background when it was a question of money.</p> + +<p>"Are you a friend of either of them?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not exactly; but I took a certain interest in Winthrop—I liked the +man. In fact, I helped him out of a tight place once or twice, and might +have done it again, only that I realized the one result would be to put +a few more dollars into your pocket. That"—and Hunter smiled—"didn't +seem worth while."</p> + +<p>"It was a straight deal; I lent him the money at the usual interest. He +couldn't have got it cheaper from anybody else."</p> + +<p>Hunter looked at him in a curious manner and Nevis wondered somewhat +uneasily how much this farmer knew. He had been correct as far as he had +gone, but he had, as he recognized, left one opening for attack when he +had foreclosed on Winthrop's stock and homestead. There are exemption +laws in parts of Canada which to some extent protect the small farmer's +possessions from seizure for debt unless he has actually mortgaged them. +Winthrop had done this, but the mortgage was not a heavy one, and Nevis +had afterward lent him further money, with the deliberate intention of +breaking him. When the value of the possessions pledged greatly exceeds +what has been advanced on them, which is generally the case, it is now +and then profitable to foreclose, even though any excess above the loan +realized at the sale must ostensibly be handed to the borrower. There, +are, however, means of preventing him from getting very much of it, and +though the process is sometimes risky this did not count for much with +Nevis.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>"Well," said Hunter quietly, "I'm not sure that what you tell me has any +bearing on the matter."</p> + +<p>This might mean anything or nothing, and Nevis, determining to force an +issue, leaned forward confidentially.</p> + +<p>"Let's face the point," he replied. "I want a share in this creamery—I +can make it pay. There's only you who really counts against me. I may as +well own it. Now, can't we come to terms somehow? I merely want you to +abandon your opposition, and you would have no difficulty in preventing +my doing anything that appeared against the stockholders' interests."</p> + +<p>"I've already made up my mind that it would be safer to keep you out of +it."</p> + +<p>"That's your last word?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I don't mean to be offensive. It's a matter of business."</p> + +<p>His companion took up his hat. He had failed, as indeed he had half +expected to do, but he bade Hunter good-evening tranquilly and went out +with strong resentment in his heart. Henceforward he meant to adopt an +aggressive policy, and the farmer who had thwarted him must stand upon +his guard. This decision, however, was largely prompted by business +reasons, for Nevis had now no doubt that Hunter, who was looked up to as +a leader by his neighbors, would use his influence against him in other +matters besides the creamery scheme unless something could be done to +embarrass or discredit him. The farmer, he thought, was open to attack +in two ways—through his wife and through the defaulting debtor he had +befriended.</p> + +<p>When Hunter walked out of the hotel a few minutes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> afterward he also was +thinking of Winthrop. He found Thorne harnessing his team.</p> + +<p>"Did Winthrop ever show you his mortgage deed or any other papers +relating to his deal with Nevis?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," answered Thorne; "I was only in his place three or four times. Why +do you ask?"</p> + +<p>"There's a point in connection with it that occurs to me; but I dare say +he took them with him."</p> + +<p>Hunter paused and flashed a quick glance at his companion.</p> + +<p>"Do you know where he is?"</p> + +<p>"I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't want to, though it's possible +that I could find out. The trouble is that if I made inquiries it might +set other people—Nevis, for instance—on his trail."</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Hunter, "there's a good deal in that. On the whole, it +might be wiser if you kept carefully clear of the thing, particularly if +Corporal Slaney feels inclined to move any further in the matter. Well, +as I've a long drive before me I must be getting on."</p> + +<p>He turned away toward the stables and Thorne grinned cheerfully. He had +a respect for the astuteness of this quiet, steady-eyed farmer, and he +was disposed to fancy that Nevis would share it before the struggle +which he forecasted was over. What was more, he was quite ready to act +in any way as Hunter's ally, and he believed that between them they +could give the plotter something to think about.</p> + +<p>It was getting dark when Hunter reached home and found his wife waiting +for him in the general living room. She was evidently a little out of +temper.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>"You are very late," she said. "I suppose you have been to one of those +creamery meetings again?"</p> + +<p>Hunter sat down where the lamplight fell upon his face, and there was a +trace of weariness in it.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered; "I had to go. On the whole, I'm glad I did."</p> + +<p>"A crisis of some kind? You haven't been increasing your interest in the +scheme?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Hunter with a smile; "not in money, anyway. You will, no +doubt, be pleased to hear it."</p> + +<p>"I am," retorted Florence. "If you had been ready to give those people +anything they asked for it wouldn't have been flattering. You're not +remarkably generous where I'm concerned."</p> + +<p>Hunter made a gesture of protest.</p> + +<p>"I'm not giving them anything at all. Once we make it a success I can +get back the money I'm putting into the undertaking at any time; and if +I don't I expect every bit of it to earn me something."</p> + +<p>He looked around at her directly, for he knew where the grievance lay.</p> + +<p>"That's a very different matter from handing you a big check for your +expenses in Toronto or Montreal."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," pouted Florence; "the latter would give me pleasure."</p> + +<p>She paused and there was a sudden change in her expression.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she added, "can't you realize that now and then you can lay out +money without getting anything back for it, and yet find that it pays +you well?"</p> + +<p>The man looked at her hesitatingly. He knew what this question meant and +he was half disposed to yield. Living simply and toiling hard, he had +treated her gen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>erously in comparison with his means, which, after all, +were not large; but he remembered that he had yielded rather often of +late and that each concession had merely led to a fresh demand.</p> + +<p>"There's a limit, Flo," he said. "Still, if three hundred dollars will +meet the case I might stretch a point. I suppose you are determined on +that visit to Toronto?"</p> + +<p>The woman knew that any further attempt to win him round would fail, +and, this being so, it seemed a pity to waste energy on him. The three +hundred dollars would by no means suffice for the purpose. This in +itself was unpleasant, but in the fact that he could not be induced to +make what appeared to be a small sacrifice for her pleasure there lay an +extra sting. It was, perhaps, a pity that she had of late given him +small cause for suspecting anything of the kind.</p> + +<p>"It would be better than nothing," she said coldly, and then leaned back +in her chair in a sudden fit of impatience with him and the whole +situation.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes wonder how I stand with you!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"First," declared the man, and he spoke the simple truth; but +unfortunately he was not wise enough to content himself with the brief +assurance. "Still," he added, "I have other duties."</p> + +<p>"To Maverick Thorne, and Winthrop, and everybody in the district +generally!"</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Hunter, with the hint of weariness creeping back into +his expression, "I suppose that more or less fits the case. You have all +along been first with me, and I think I have done what I could to please +you—and done it willingly. Still, there are these others—I owe them +something. When I came here, a poor man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> they held out their hands to +me; one lent me a team, another, when I had no mower, cut and carried in +my hay, and some came over night after night to build my log barn. I +think I should have gone under if it hadn't been for them." He looked up +at his wife with resolute eyes. "Now that I can pay them back without, +in all probability, its costing me a dollar I'm at least going to try."</p> + +<p>Florence's lips set scornfully. She had no liking for the surrounding +farmers. They were, in her estimation, mere unlettered toilers—simple, +unimaginative, brown-faced men who thought about nothing but the seasons +and the price of wheat. What was, perhaps, as much to the purpose, she +had a suspicion that most of them were not greatly impressed in her +favor. Now her husband was, it seemed, anxious to waste his means for +their benefit.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she asked abruptly, "has it never occurred to you that you +could make more of your life than you are doing here?"</p> + +<p>Hunter faced the question humorously.</p> + +<p>"It would be astonishing if it hadn't, since you have suggested it more +than once, but the answer is in the negative. This place is paying +pretty well, and my means would certainly not keep us in Winnipeg, +Toronto or Montreal; anyway, not in the comfort with which, after all, +you have been surrounded. Of course, I might, for instance, try to run a +store, but it doesn't strike me that this would be of much benefit to +you. Would the kind of people you like welcome you as readily if your +husband were retailing hats or groceries in the neighborhood?"</p> + +<p>Florence knew that it was most improbable, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> she would not confess +it. Instead, she decided to see if it were possible to irritate him.</p> + +<p>"After all," she retorted, "there is no great difference between a +storekeeper and a farmer. All my city friends know what you are, and I +can find no fault with the way they treat me."</p> + +<p>Hunter laughed as he glanced down at his hard brown hands and dusty +attire.</p> + +<p>"The point is that in your case the farmer husband does not put in an +appearance. It might be different if he did."</p> + +<p>Florence looked at him in silence for a moment or two. Though he had +been to the creamery meeting he was very plainly dressed; his bronzed +face and battered nails told their own tale of arduous toil in the open, +and there was no doubt that he looked a prairie farmer. Yet he was, as +she realized now and then, well favored in a way; a man who might have +made his mark in a different station, widely read and quietly forceful. +Indeed, his inflexibility on certain points, though it sometimes angered +her, compelled her deference.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried at length, "it doesn't cost you much self-denial to stay +behind. It's easy for you to be content. You like this life."</p> + +<p>"Yes," returned Hunter quietly; "I'm thankful that I do. It's what I was +made for. However, I don't wish to force too much of it on you, and so +I'll give you a check for the three hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>He crossed the room and, opening a desk, sat down at it for a minute or +two. Then he came back and laid a strip of paper on the table in front +of Florence.</p> + +<p>"After all," she conceded, "as I was away a good deal of last winter, +it's rather liberal, Elcot."</p> + +<p>Hunter, without answering her, went quietly out.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">NEVIS PICKS UP A CLUE</span></h2> + + +<p>A week had slipped by since the meeting of the creamery committee and it +was about the middle of the afternoon when Nevis lay, cigar in hand, in +the shadow of a straggling bluff. It was pleasantly cool there and +scorching sunshine beat down upon the prairie, across which he had +plodded during the last half hour, and he had still some miles to go +before he could reach the farm at which he expected to borrow a team. He +was not fond of walking, but the man who had driven him out from the +settlement, being in haste to reach Graham's Bluff, had set him down +some distance from the homestead he desired to visit. Nevis found it +advisable to look his clients up every now and then and see how they +were getting on. This enabled him to sell to those who were not too +deeply in his debt implements and stores at top prices, and to put +judicious pressure upon the ones whose payments had fallen behind.</p> + +<p>He was, however, thinking of Hunter as he lay full length among the +grass with a frown on his face. It seemed desirable to let the man who +had deprived him of what looked like a promising opportunity for lining +his pockets feel that it would be wiser to refrain from interfering with +his affairs in future, and he fancied that if Winthrop, whom Hunter had +confessed to befriending, should be brought to trial it would convey a +useful hint. This course was also advisable for other reasons. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> must +be admitted that the bondholder does not always come out on top, +especially in bad seasons, and Nevis had already decided that the arrest +of Winthrop would serve as a warning to any of his neighbors who might +feel tempted to evade their liabilities in a similar fashion. He was +still on the absconder's trail, though as yet it had not led him very +far.</p> + +<p>By and by he heard a soft beat of hoofs and a rattle of wheels, and +looking up was pleased to see Mrs. Hunter drive around a corner of the +bluff. He had of late been conscious of a growing delight in her +company, and, what was almost as much to the purpose, he had partly +thought out a plan of attacking her husband through her. He had, +however, too much tact to force himself on her, and he lay still, +apparently unobservant of her approach until she pulled up the horse.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Resting," replied Nevis, rising to his feet. "I'm going across to +Jordan's place. Walking's no doubt healthy, but I'm afraid I'm not fond +of it."</p> + +<p>He waited to see whether she would take the hint, which he had made as +plain as possible, and as he did so a gleam crept into his eyes. +Florence had an eye for color and an artistic taste in dress, and she +was attired then in filmy draperies of a faint, shimmering green—the +color of clear sea-water rippling over sand. They suggested the fine +contour of her form and emphasized the shifting tones of burnished +copper in her hair and the clearness of her eyes. What she saw in his +expression did not appear, but she smiled at him.</p> + +<p>"Then if you will get in I can drive you part of the way," she said +graciously.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>Nevis did not wait for a second invitation and she turned to him when he +had taken his place at her side.</p> + +<p>"You haven't come back to call on us."</p> + +<p>"No," responded Nevis; "I saw your husband at one of the creamery +meetings and I'm sorry to own there were one or two matters upon which +we couldn't agree."</p> + +<p>He watched her to see how she would receive this, but she laughed.</p> + +<p>"I'm not responsible for all Elcot's opinions, and I must do him the +justice to say that he seldom attempts to force them on me. For all +that, I shouldn't wonder if he were right."</p> + +<p>Nevis was far too astute to disparage the man he did not like openly to +his wife, so he made a sign of assent.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "it's possible that he was. In one sense, +he generally is. Elcot's what one might call altruistic; he has a finer +perception of ethical right than the rest of us, and one could fancy it +occasionally makes difficulties for him. Indeed, it's bound to when he +rubs against ordinary mortals who're content to look out for what's +going to benefit them."</p> + +<p>His companion recognized the truth of this, and, as he had expected, it +irritated her. Deep down in her nature there was a hidden respect for +the quiet, resolute man who, though he seldom proclaimed them, lived in +what she now and then considered too strict compliance with his +principles. He recognized his duty toward her and had discharged it, in +most respects, with a conscientious thoroughness; but that accomplished, +he had also recognized his duty to others, and had unwaveringly insisted +on fulfilling this in turn. There, as Nevis had cunningly suggested, lay +the grievance. It would have been more pleasant for her, and—she +confessed this—in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> many little ways also for him, had she stood alone +in his eyes, instead of merely standing first. There was a marked and +often inconvenient distinction between the two things. Now and then his +point of view appealed to her, but more often her pride received a jar +and she thought of him bitterly when he befriended his neighbors, as she +tried to convince herself, at her expense. She could, she felt, have +loved the man, and perhaps have made an unconditional surrender to him, +but he must first be hers altogether and think of nobody else.</p> + +<p>Then Nevis interrupted her thoughts with a veiled purpose, and once more +touched the tender spot.</p> + +<p>"Most of the boys think a good deal of Elcot, and I guess it's natural. +He has given quite a few of them a lift now and then. There's Winthrop +and Thorne, for instance—he guaranteed Maverick for a thousand dollars, +somebody told me—and now he's putting a good deal more into this +creamery scheme. From experience of their habits, I should say he must +find that kind of thing expensive now and then. Perhaps, if one might +suggest it, that is why he lives as plainly as he does. In a way, it's +rather fine of him, though it wouldn't appeal to me."</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that any self-denial on her husband's part in which +she might be compelled to share did not appeal to Florence either, but +she noticed the tact with which Nevis had refrained from supporting his +statement by a reference to his loan or the unpaid bills.</p> + +<p>"Well," she declared, "I, at least, believe in getting the most one can +out of life."</p> + +<p>"That," said Nevis, "is my own idea, and it leads up to the question why +you haven't gone away yet? Have your husband's benefactions made it +impossible?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>He had at last attained his object. Florence had longed for the visit, +and had resented the fact that Elcot had not been willing to indulge her +in it at any cost. He had certainly given her a check, but, while +Toronto is a cheaper place than Montreal, three hundred dollars will not +go very far in any Canadian city, at least when one is satisfied with +only the best that is obtainable.</p> + +<p>"They have certainly helped," she replied curtly.</p> + +<p>Nevis recognized that she would not have admitted this had she not been +disposed to treat him on a confidential footing, and it was clear that +the indignation she had displayed in her answer was directed against her +husband and had not been occasioned by his presumption.</p> + +<p>"Then," he suggested, "if you really wish to go, there's a way in which +it could be managed; though it's an act of self-sacrifice on my part to +further such an object."</p> + +<p>Florence swallowed the last suggestion and looked at him sharply.</p> + +<p>"You mean?"</p> + +<p>"I could find you the money—on the same terms as the last." He added +the explanation hastily lest her pride should take alarm.</p> + +<p>There was silence for a moment, and during it Florence's resentment +against her husband grew stronger. She was anxious for the visit, but +had he been poor she would have given it up more or less willingly. +That, however, was not the case, for, as her companion had cunningly +hinted, he was at least rich enough to bestow his favors on men like +Winthrop, the absconder, and the pedler Thorne. Now she blamed him for +driving her into borrowing from the man at her side.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>"I should be glad to have it on those conditions," she said at length.</p> + +<p>She pulled up the horse presently while Nevis took out a fountain-pen +and his pocketbook, and when she drove on again she held a check of his +in her hand. Twenty minutes later he looked around at her as the horse +plodded more slowly up a slight rise.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll get out here," he said. "It's only half a mile to Jordan's +place; you can see the house from the top."</p> + +<p>There was not a great deal in the words, but Florence grasped their +hidden significance. They conveyed a delicate suggestion that it might +not be desirable for her to be seen in his company, and she was quite +aware that to fall in with it would imply that there was already +something in their relations that must be kept concealed from their +neighbors' gaze. For a moment she felt inclined to insist on driving him +up to the homestead door, and then the feel of his check in her hand +restrained her. She stopped the horse and smiled when he got down.</p> + +<p>"Thank you again," she said.</p> + +<p>"That's a little superfluous," returned the man. "It's a business deal; +but if you can spare a few minutes when you are in Toronto you might +manage to write a line. After all, I can, perhaps, ask that much."</p> + +<p>"I won't promise," Florence laughed. "Still, it's possible that I may +make the effort."</p> + +<p>She drove away and Nevis climbed the rise feeling very well satisfied. +He had got a firmer hold on Hunter now and he meant to break ground for +the next attack by picking up Winthrop's trail. In this also, fortune +favored him, for when he drew up his hired rig outside Farquhar's house +on the following evening he found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> that both he and his wife were out. +Alison was in, however, and when she said that they would probably reach +home shortly he got down and sat a while talking with her on the stoop, +which in the summer frequently serves the purpose of a drawing-room at a +prairie homestead. Alison had met him once or twice before and was +sensible of a slight dislike toward the man, though she could not deny +that he was an amusing companion. By and by a girl drove along the trail +two or three hundred yards away in a wagon, and he gazed rather hard at +her.</p> + +<p>"She recognized you, didn't she?" he questioned. "I can't quite fix +her."</p> + +<p>"Lucy Calvert," Alison informed him.</p> + +<p>"It's rather curious that I haven't seen her before, as I should +certainly have remembered it, though I had once or twice a deal with her +father."</p> + +<p>Alison was conscious of a slight irritation, which, indeed, any +reference to the girl in question usually aroused in her.</p> + +<p>"Then," she said, "if Lucy has any say in the matter you are scarcely +likely to do any further business with the family."</p> + +<p>Nevis raised his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Only that it's generally supposed Miss Calvert was to have married +Winthrop. Whether she still intends to do so is more than I know."</p> + +<p>She was puzzled by the sudden intentness of the man's face and for no +particular cause half regretted the speech.</p> + +<p>"It's the first time I've heard of it," he said thoughtfully. Then he +smiled. "Anyway, she can't be very wise if she's anxious to marry him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>Alison, who had watched him closely, fancied that his smile was meant to +cover his interest in the information she had given him. She also +noticed how quickly he changed the subject, and they talked about other +matters until at last, as Farquhar did not make his appearance, he stood +up.</p> + +<p>"I'll look in another time," he told her. "It's getting late, and I'm +due at the bluff to-night."</p> + +<p>Soon after he had driven away Farquhar turned up with his wife and +Thorne, and Alison noticed the frown on the latter's face when she +informed Mrs. Farquhar of Nevis's visit.</p> + +<p>"I'm astonished that you have him here at all," he broke out.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I?" his hostess asked.</p> + +<p>"That question," returned Thorne, "strikes me as a little superfluous, +considering that he's an utterly unscrupulous, scoundrelly vampire. +Still, I dare say you can forgive him a good deal for the sake of his +appearance."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar laughed.</p> + +<p>"The last, I suppose, is after all his chief offense."</p> + +<p>Alison saw that this shot had reached its mark by the way Thorne drew +down his brows. The man, as she had heard, had a quick temper, but she +was not displeased that he should obviously resent the fact that Nevis +had spent half an hour in her company. Then, remembering that Winthrop +was a friend of Thorne's, she felt a little guilty, and when later on +they all sauntered out across the prairie, she drew him aside.</p> + +<p>"There's something I think I should mention," she said. "I told Nevis +that Miss Calvert was to have married Winthrop. He seemed unusually +interested."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>Thorne started and looked hard at her.</p> + +<p>"What on earth made you do that?" he asked sharply. "Did he lead up to +it?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Alison with some reluctance, "I don't think he did. So far +as I can remember, I volunteered the information."</p> + +<p>There was no doubt about the man's displeasure.</p> + +<p>"He certainly would be interested, and I'm very much afraid you have +made trouble. But you haven't told me why you did it."</p> + +<p>"I spoke on the spur of the moment—without thinking."</p> + +<p>"Without thinking clearly," Thorne corrected. "For all that, it's +possible you had a kind of subconscious motive. You can't deny that you +are prejudiced against Winthrop."</p> + +<p>Alison was sensible of a certain relief, and she smiled at him. The man +had shown some insight, but he had not gone quite far enough in his +surmises, for it was not Winthrop but Lucy Calvert against whom she was +prejudiced.</p> + +<p>"What have I done?" she asked. "If it's any harm, I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>Her companion's face relaxed. He never cherished his anger long.</p> + +<p>"Well," he explained, "I'm afraid you have put Nevis on Winthrop's +trail, though the thing's not certain. After all, it's possible that +there's another reason for his interest."</p> + +<p>"And that is?"</p> + +<p>"He's a man with a weakness for pretty faces, which will probably get +him into trouble by and by, though he's generally supposed to be a +clever—philanderer. It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> not quite the thing to abuse any one you +don't like when he's absent, but in spite of that I can't help saying +that he's absolutely unprincipled and should be avoided by every +self-respecting woman."</p> + +<p>Again Alison smiled. He had spoken strongly, though he had carefully +picked his words, and she had little difficulty in following the +workings of his mind, which on the whole were amusing. He had meant the +speech as a warning to her.</p> + +<p>"I suppose Miss Calvert could be called good-looking?" she suggested.</p> + +<p>"That," answered Thorne, with a trace of sharpness, "is not quite the +point. She's a girl who has a good deal to contend with and is making a +very plucky fight. Whether she's wise in being as fond of Winthrop as +she seems to be is another matter; one that doesn't concern us. Anyway, +she has difficulties enough without it. It's not easy for two women to +make a living out of a farm of the kind they're running when it's +burdened with a heavy debt."</p> + +<p>Alison could forgive him a good deal for his chivalrous pity, though the +fact that it was Lucy Calvert who had excited it still somewhat +irritated her. It seemed, however, that he had a little more to say.</p> + +<p>"In any case," he added, "I'm glad you told me."</p> + +<p>Then he turned back toward the others and she had no opportunity for +further speech with him. She noticed, however, that he seemed unusually +thoughtful during the rest of the evening.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br /> +<span class="smalltext">WINTHROP'S LETTER</span></h2> + + +<p>After breakfast the next morning Alison sat sewing in a thoughtful mood. +She now genuinely regretted having given Nevis the information about +Lucy Calvert, and in addition to this Thorne's reserve on the previous +evening somewhat troubled her. He had not thought fit to tell her what +he meant to do, but she was convinced that he would do something, and +the most obvious course would be to warn Lucy against any attempt which +Nevis might make to trace her lover. It was possible that the man might +cunningly entrap her into some admission that would be of assistance to +him. On the other hand, Alison realized that Thorne's task was not so +simple as it appeared on the face of it. Though quick-witted, he was, +she suspected, by no means subtle, and she supposed that he would find +it difficult to put Lucy on her guard without betraying the part that +she had played in the matter. She was quite sure that nothing would +induce him to let this become apparent.</p> + +<p>It was, however, necessary that Lucy should be warned as soon as +possible, and Alison decided that as she was the one who had made the +trouble it was she who should set it right. This would be only an act of +justice, besides which it would give her an opportunity for forming a +clearer opinion of Lucy than she had as yet been able to do. As the +result of it all, she obtained Mrs. Farquhar's permission to visit the +Calvert home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>stead, which was not very far away, during the afternoon.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile Nevis had been considering how he could best make use +of the information she had supplied him, and his mind was still occupied +with the question when he drove across the prairie that afternoon. It +was a fiercely hot day, and the wide grassland, which had turned dusty +white again, was flooded with dazzling light. The usual invigorating +breeze was still, and Nevis's horse had fallen to a walk, pursued by a +cloud of flies, when he made out the mail-carrier plodding slowly down +the rut-marked trail in front of him. Nevis was quite aware that a +prairie mail-carrier is usually more or less acquainted with the affairs +of every farmer in the district he visits, and he pulled up when he +overtook him.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with your horse?" he asked. "Isn't it stipulated that +you should keep one?"</p> + +<p>"That's so," assented the man. "The trouble is that you can't get a +horse that won't go lame on a round like this. I had to leave him at +Stretton's an hour ago."</p> + +<p>"Going far?" Nevis asked.</p> + +<p>"Round by Mrs. Calvert's to the ravine."</p> + +<p>Nevis decided that he was fortunate, but he carefully concealed any sign +of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"I can give you a lift as far as the first place, if you like to get +in."</p> + +<p>The man was glad to do so, and Nevis presently handed him a cigar.</p> + +<p>"Do you get letters for all the farms every round?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied his companion; "I'm quite glad I don't; guess I'd use up +two horses if I did. It saves me a league or two when I can cut out some +of my visits."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>"Yes," agreed Nevis, who had a purpose in pursuing the topic. "One can +understand that. It's the people back from the trail who will give you +most trouble. It must be a morning's ride to Boyton's or Walthew's; and +Mrs. Calvert's is almost as much off your round. Do you have to go there +often?"</p> + +<p>The question was asked casually, with no show of interest, and the +mail-carrier evidently suspected nothing.</p> + +<p>"Most every trip the last few weeks," he replied.</p> + +<p>Nevis felt that the scent was getting hot. He made a sign of sympathy.</p> + +<p>"That's rough on you; anyway, if you have to pack out any weight," he +said. "Some of these people get a good many implement catalogues and +circulars from Winnipeg, no doubt?"</p> + +<p>"In Mrs. Calvert's case it's one blamed letter takes me most a league +off the trail."</p> + +<p>Nevis asked no more questions; they did not seem necessary. He had +discovered that somebody wrote to Mrs. Calvert or her daughter once a +week, and he had no trouble in deciding who it must be. He also +remembered that letters bore postmarks, and he had a strong desire to +ascertain where Winthrop was then located.</p> + +<p>"If you like, I'll hand that letter in," he offered. "I'm calling on +Mrs. Calvert anyway, and you can go straight to the next place if you +give it to me."</p> + +<p>The man hesitated a moment, and then shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry it can't be done," he said. "It's safer to stick to the +regulations, and then if you have any trouble nobody can turn round on +you."</p> + +<p>Nevis was too wise to urge the point, though he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> meant, if it could by +any means be managed, to get the letter into his hands.</p> + +<p>"Well," he assented, "I guess you're right in that."</p> + +<p>They drove on to the Calvert homestead, which was rudely built of birch +logs sawed in a neighboring bluff, and Nevis sprang down first when an +elderly woman with a careworn face appeared in the doorway. The +mail-carrier, who followed him more slowly, stood still a moment +fumbling in his bag until the woman spoke to him.</p> + +<p>"Got something to-day, Steve?"</p> + +<p>"I've got it all right," was the answer. "Letter for Lucy. The trouble +is to find the thing."</p> + +<p>Nevis, standing nearer the house, waited until the man took out an +envelope. Then he stretched out his hand, as though willing to save him +the trouble of walking up to the door, but the mail-carrier either did +not notice the action or was too punctilious in the execution of his +duty to deliver the letter to him.</p> + +<p>"Here it is, Mrs. Calvert," he said. "Thank you, Mr. Nevis."</p> + +<p>He strode away and Nevis turned to the woman with a smile.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" he asked. "I'll leave the horse here; he'll stand +quietly."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Calvert made no objections, though he noticed that she laid the +envelope on a table across the room when he sat down.</p> + +<p>"It's two or three years since I was in this house," he began.</p> + +<p>"Three," corrected the woman.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it is," acknowledged Nevis, who seemed to reflect. "I got on +with your husband pleasantly, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> I'm sorry in several ways that our +connection has been broken off. I don't think the thing was any fault of +mine."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Calvert did not answer at once. Winthrop was not a great favorite +of hers, and although she had made no attempt to turn Lucy against him +she had on the other hand not altogether sympathized with the latter's +views concerning her present visitor. She remembered that her husband +had liked the man, and there was no doubt that the goods he supplied +were of excellent quality. Nevis was certainly not scrupulous, and he +had treated some of those who dealt with him with harshness, but he at +least never descended to any petty trickery over the sale of a machine. +For one thing, he was too clever; he recognized that it was not worth +his while.</p> + +<p>"Well," he added, "I don't like for old friends to leave me, and I +decided to look you up again. Will you want a new binder or a back-set +plow this fall?"</p> + +<p>"We'll want a binder," answered his hostess, who was a woman of somewhat +yielding nature. "Still, I guess we'll get it from Grantly."</p> + +<p>"His things are good enough, though he stands out for the top price," +responded Nevis, who was too wise to disparage openly a rival's goods. +"Just now, however, I'm rather loaded up, and the orders aren't coming +along, so I'm making a special cut. I'll knock an extra four dollars off +the list figure for the binder, and wait for the money until you have +hauled in your wheat."</p> + +<p>Nobody would have suspected that he did not care in the least whether he +secured the order or not, or that he had long ago decided that any +business he was likely to do with the woman was not worth his attention. +She, however, appeared to consider the offer.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>"It's cheap, and that's a fact," she said. "It's most a pity I can't buy +the thing from you."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that trouble over Winthrop has turned Miss Calvert against +me?"</p> + +<p>"You have got it," was the answer. "Lucy's mad with you. She runs this +place, and she deals with Grantly."</p> + +<p>This was the lead Nevis had been waiting for, and he seized upon it.</p> + +<p>"If she's about, I'd like a talk with her. I might reason her out of her +prejudice against me."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be easy. She drove over to the bluff, but she should be +back at any time now."</p> + +<p>Nevis had no particular desire to see Miss Calvert, but he had made up +his mind to wait for an opportunity to examine the postmark on the +letter, if it could be managed. Taking a catalogue out of his pocket, he +proceeded to talk about the machines and implements described in it, +until at length there was a rattle of wheels outside and, somewhat to +his astonishment, Alison walked in. He rose when she greeted Mrs. +Calvert, and noticed that there was something which suggested hostility +in her eyes when for a moment she let them rest on him.</p> + +<p>"Farquhar's hired man brought me; he's going to Bagshaw's place," she +announced. "I came over to see Lucy, but she seems to be out."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Calvert asked her to wait a little, and when she was seated Nevis +sat down again. Alison, however, noticed that he had now moved to +another chair which was nearer the table than the one he had previously +occupied, and she wondered whether he could have had any particular +motive for changing his place. Then, leaning one elbow on the table, she +looked around the room.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>There was only one window in it, for even with double casements it is +difficult enough to keep a small prairie homestead warm in winter, and +the place was somewhat shadowy. The log walls were uncovered, and she +could see the chinking of moss and clay which had been driven into the +crevices in them; and there was, as usual, nothing on the very roughly +boarded floor. One bright ray of sunshine, however, streamed in, and +fell dazzlingly across the table, upon which an apparently unopened +letter lay. The white envelope which caught the light seized her +attention, and she remembered that the mail-carrier visited the district +that day. As Lucy Calvert was not in, it was reasonable to suppose that +the letter was addressed to her, which would explain why her mother had +not opened it, and this supposition carried her a little farther. The +most likely person to write to the girl was her lover, and Alison was +almost sure that it was a man who had inscribed the address on the +envelope. By and by she saw Nevis glance at the square of paper in what +did not appear to be an altogether casual fashion, and the half-formed +idea in her mind grew into definite shape. There was a reason why he +should be interested in the letter, and she decided to sit him out. She +opened a conversation with Mrs. Calvert, and some time had slipped away +when a distant rattle of wheels rose out of the prairie. Nevis, rising, +addressed his hostess.</p> + +<p>"I guess that's Miss Calvert, and as there's a point or two about our +binder which I believe I forgot to mention, I'd like to explain the +thing before she turns up," he said. "I want to get on again as soon as +possible after I've had a word with her. No doubt Miss Leigh will excuse +us for a minute."</p> + +<p>He moved forward toward the table with what ap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>peared to be a photograph +of some harvesting machinery in his hand, and as he did so Alison, who +remembered that they had been laughing and speaking rather loudly during +the last three or four minutes, fancied she heard a footstep outside the +open window. She was, however, not quite sure of this, and she watched +the man with every sense strung up as he approached her hostess. It +struck her that his object was to get near enough to see the writing or +the postmark on the envelope, which would probably be impossible after +Lucy arrived.</p> + +<p>Leaning forward a little, she rested one arm farther on the table, which +was covered with a light cloth, and drew the latter toward her with a +slight movement of her elbow until a wider strip of it overhung the +edge. She could not warn her hostess in the hearing of the man, when she +had only suspicion to act on, but she was determined that he should not +discover Winthrop's whereabouts if she could help it. Nevis's eyes, as +she noticed, were fixed on the envelope, but he was evidently still too +far off to read the postmark, and she waited another moment, watching +him with mingled disgust and anger at the means he used.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile it was clear that Mrs. Calvert had no suspicion of what +was going forward, for there was nothing to show that Alison's heart was +beating a good deal faster than it generally did, or that the man was +conscious of a vindictive satisfaction. His approach had been ostensibly +careless, and there was only a faintly suggestive hardness in his eyes. +The girl sat very still, and if her face was a little more intent than +usual her hostess did not notice it.</p> + +<p>Alison fancied that she heard a sound outside the window again, but she +paid no heed to it, and as Nevis was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> about to lay his hand on the table +and lean over it she moved her elbow sharply. The next moment the cloth +slid down into a heap on the floor, and the letter disappeared.</p> + +<p>Nevis closed one hand viciously, but he opened it again immediately as +he turned to Alison. The man was quick, and held himself well in hand, +and she felt a certain satisfaction in outwitting him, for it was clear +that he had not suspected her of having any motive for jerking the cloth +off.</p> + +<p>"Am I accountable for the accident?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Alison; "it was my fault."</p> + +<p>The danger, however, was not quite over. Alison quietly felt with one +little, lightly shod foot beneath the cloth, part of which had caught +and rested on her dress. Her shoe touched something that seemed harder +than the soft fabric, and she contrived to draw it toward her.</p> + +<p>"You knocked a letter off the table," said Nevis. "It must have fallen +somewhere near. Permit me."</p> + +<p>He stooped to pick up the cloth, and Alison saw that Mrs. Calvert was at +last uneasy. It was obvious that she did not wish Nevis to lay his hands +on the envelope. He raised the cloth, and after a glance beneath it +moved a pace or two and shook it vigorously, but nothing fell out, and +Alison quietly pushed back her chair.</p> + +<p>"It's here beneath my skirt."</p> + +<p>She picked it up and handed it to Mrs. Calvert, who laid it on a shelf +across the room. After that there was a moment's silence, during which +the two women looked at each other curiously, while Nevis, whose face +was expressionless, looked at them both. Then the awkward stillness was +broken by the entrance of Thorne. Ignoring Nevis completely, he turned +to Mrs. Calvert with a smile.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>"I don't know whether I need an excuse for this visit, but it occurred +to me that I could drive Miss Leigh home," he explained. "I was hauling +in logs for Gillow when Farquhar's hired man came along and told me he'd +brought Miss Leigh over but wasn't sure when he could come back for her. +Lucy will be here in a minute."</p> + +<p>He leaned on a chair, talking about the wheat crop, until the rattle of +wheels, which had been growing louder, stopped, when he moved toward the +door, saying that he would help Lucy with the team. It was some time +before he reappeared with her, and then the girl turned imperiously to +Nevis.</p> + +<p>"You here!" she exclaimed. "What do you want?"</p> + +<p>"I was trying to sell your mother a binder," Nevis answered blandly.</p> + +<p>Lucy, standing very straight, looked at him with a snap in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then I guess you're wasting time. While there are implements to be had +anywhere between here and Winnipeg we'll buy none from you."</p> + +<p>Nevis favored her with a single swift glance, and then took up his hat.</p> + +<p>"In that case I may as well get on again. I dare say your mother and +Miss Leigh will excuse me."</p> + +<p>He did not offer to shake hands with either of them, which may have been +due to the fact that Mrs. Calvert's face was now hard and suspicious, +and Alison carefully looked away from him. There was, also, a gleam of +ironical amusement, which probably had some effect, in Thorne's eyes. +Soon after he disappeared, Mrs. Calvert asked Thorne to come out and +look at a mower which she said the hired man had had some trouble with, +and when they left the room Lucy leaned back in her chair with her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> eyes +fixed on Alison in a significant manner. They were of a clear blue, and +Alison admitted that, with the somewhat unusual color in her cheeks and +the light on her mass of gleaming hair, the girl was aggressively +pretty.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad they've gone—I guess I have to thank you for what you did," +she said. "It was right smart, and I'm not sure my mother caught on to +the thing."</p> + +<p>"How did you know?" Alison asked in rather disturbed astonishment.</p> + +<p>Lucy laughed.</p> + +<p>"Mavy saw you through the window. The mail-carrier told him Nevis was +here, and it was quite easy to figure what he was after. That's why Mavy +hitched his team behind the willows and crept up quiet to see what was +going on, so he could spoil his game, but he left it to you when he saw +that you were on to it. Said he felt quite sure you could fix the man."</p> + +<p>Alison remembered the footstep at the window, but she was curious about +another aspect of the matter.</p> + +<p>"Why did he tell you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Lucy's manner changed, and there was a hint of hardness in her +expression.</p> + +<p>"Well," she answered, "perhaps he wanted me to know what you had done, +and, anyway, he had to put me on my guard. Still, though Mavy's quick, +they're none of them very smart after all, and there was a point that +didn't seem to strike him. He wasn't clear as to why Nevis would try to +pick up Jake's trail through me."</p> + +<p>The last words were flung sharply at the listener, and Alison made a +gesture of appeal.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she returned, "he wouldn't tell you that."</p> + +<p>"No," declared Lucy; "nothing would have got it out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> of him. That's the +kind of man he is." She paused a moment. "What made you send Nevis after +me?"</p> + +<p>"It was done without thinking. I couldn't foresee that it might make +trouble. I was sorry afterward; I am sorry now."</p> + +<p>Her companion looked at her with disconcerting steadiness.</p> + +<p>"We'll let it go at that. There's just this to say—you haven't any +reason to be afraid of me. I don't know a straighter man than Mavy +Thorne—but I don't want him! Jake's quite enough for me, and there's +trouble in front of him, with Nevis on his trail."</p> + +<p>It cost Alison an effort to retain a befitting composure. This +plain-speaking girl had obviously taken a good deal for granted, but +Alison was uneasily conscious that she had certainly arrived at the +truth. It was a relief to her when Mrs. Calvert and Thorne presently +entered the room together.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV<br /> +<span class="smalltext">ON THE TRAIL</span></h2> + + +<p>Nevis was not, as a rule, easily turned aside when he had taken a task +in hand, and his failure at the Calvert homestead only made him more +determined to run Winthrop down. Besides, he had not failed altogether, +for he had at least caught a glimpse of the stamp on the letter, and he +had no doubt that it was a Canadian one. There was an appreciable +difference in the design and color of the American stamps. This +indicated that in all probability Winthrop was still in Canada, in which +case there would be no difficulty in arresting him once his whereabouts +could be discovered. The tracing of the latter promised to be less easy, +but Nevis set about it, and shortly afterward fortune once more favored +him.</p> + +<p>His business was an extensive one; he had money laid out here and there +over a wide stretch of country, and he had already discovered that it +required a good deal of watching. As a matter of fact, the latter was +advisable, for some of the men to whom he lent it were addicted to +disappearing without leaving any address or intimation as to what they +had done with the movable portion of their hypothecated possessions. It +is true that they generally had repaid Nevis a large part of his loan, +as well as an exorbitant interest for a considerable time, but then had +abandoned the struggle in despair. From his point of view, however, +neither fact had any particular bearing on the matter. He expected a +good deal more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> than the value of a hundred cents when he laid down a +dollar.</p> + +<p>One night a week or two after he called on Mrs. Calvert, he strolled out +on to the platform of a train that had been run on to a lonely +side-track beside a galvanized iron shed and a big water-tank. He was +leaning on the rails, when the conductor came out of the vestibule +behind him.</p> + +<p>"We're not scheduled to stop," he commented.</p> + +<p>"No, sir," replied the conductor. "Guess the company had once a notion +of making a station here, but they cut it out. It's used as a +section-depot and side-track, and now and then a freight pulls up for +water. There's a soft spring here, and you can't get good water right +along the line. Any kind won't do in a locomotive boiler."</p> + +<p>The man was unusually loquacious for a western railroad hand, and Nevis, +who had been glancing out at the shadowy sweep of prairie, amid which +the straight track lost itself, felt inclined to talk.</p> + +<p>"But what's holding us up?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Montreal express. She's on the next section, and it's quite a long one. +They side-track everything to let her through."</p> + +<p>A thought took shape in Nevis's mind. The point that suggested itself +appeared at least worth attention, and he asked a question:</p> + +<p>"Would a wire to anybody in the district be sent to the station ahead?"</p> + +<p>The conductor said that it would, and added that the man in charge of +the place where they were then stopping was called up only in case of +necessity to hold a train on the side-track. He explained that although +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> instruments clicked out any message sent right along the circuit +the operators, as a rule, listened only when they got their particular +signal. This had a certain significance to Nevis.</p> + +<p>"Is there often a freight-train waiting here when you come along?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"That's so," said his companion. "We take the section if the Atlantic +flyer's late, and they have to cut out the pick-up freight if she's in +front of us. When she was standing yonder one night a little while back +I saw what struck me as quite a curious thing. Just as we struck the +tail switches a man dropped off a caboose coupled on behind the +freight-cars; it was good clear moonlight, and I watched him. He kept +the train between him and the shack behind you, and started out over the +prairie as fast as he could. Then we ran in behind the freight-cars, but +as soon as we were clear the engineer pulled them out, and as I looked +back the man dropped into the grass like a stone. Bill, who runs this +place, was standing outside his shack, and that may have had something +to do with it."</p> + +<p>"It sounds strange," commented Nevis. "Can you remember when it was?"</p> + +<p>The conductor contrived to do so, and Nevis was not astonished when he +heard the date. He decided that it would be wise to compare his +conclusion with any views his companion might have about the matter.</p> + +<p>"It's possible it was only one of the boys stealing a ride," he +suggested.</p> + +<p>"In that case he needn't have been so scared of Bill," was the answer. +"It's most unlikely he'd have got out on the prairie after him. Strikes +me the man was mighty anxious nobody should see him. Anyway, I thought +no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> more about the thing, and only remembered it to-night."</p> + +<p>Just then the scream of a whistle came ringing up the track, and the +conductor pointed to a fan-shaped blaze of brightness which swept up out +of the prairie.</p> + +<p>"The express; I'll have to get along. We'll be off in two or three +minutes now."</p> + +<p>Nevis lighted a cigar as soon as he was left alone, and by the time the +great express had flashed by with a clash and clatter he felt convinced +that Corporal Slaney had erred in assuming that Winthrop had escaped +across the frontier. Having arrived at this decision, he strolled back +into the lighted car as the train crept out across the switches on to +the waste of prairie. He had now something to act upon.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile, a weary man, dressed in somewhat ragged duck, sat one +evening outside a tent pitched in the hollow of a prairie coulée, with a +letter in his hand. His attitude was suggestive of dejection, but he +clenched the paper in hard, brown fingers, and there was an ominous look +in his weather-darkened face. It was careworn, though he was young, and +his general appearance and expression seemed to indicate that he was a +simple man who had borne a burden too heavy for him, until at last he +had revolted in desperation against the intolerable load.</p> + +<p>A new branch line crept along the side of the shallow coulée, which +wound deviously across the great white sea of grass, and the trestles of +a half-finished bridge rose, a gaunt skeleton of timber, above the creek +that flowed through the valley. A cluster of tents and a galvanized iron +shack, with a funnel projecting above it, crowned the crest of a +neighboring ridge, and a murmur of voices<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> and laughter rose faintly +from the groups of men who lay about them. Winthrop, however, had +pitched his camp a little distance from the others, so as to be nearer +his work, which consisted in removing the soil from the side of the +coulée to make room for the road-bed. He had obtained a team from a +neighboring rancher, and a satisfactory rate of payment from the +railroad contractor. Indeed, during the last few weeks he had almost +fancied that he was at last leaving his troubles behind him, and then +that afternoon another blow had suddenly fallen. The letter from Lucy +Calvert contained the disturbing news that Nevis, who seemed to have +discovered that he had not left Canada, was still in pursuit of him.</p> + +<p>Presently two of his comrades from the camp strolled up to his tent and +stretched themselves out on the harsh, white grass in front of it. They +were attired as he was, and they had toiled hard under a scorching sun +all day handling heavy rails, but one was a man of excellent education, +and the other had owned a wheat farm until the frost had reaped his crop +and ruined him.</p> + +<p>"You're looking blue to-night," commented the latter.</p> + +<p>"Well," acknowledged Winthrop grimly, "there's a reason. I've put quite +a lot of work in on that road-bed the last few weeks, but the trouble is +I won't get a dollar unless I stay with it and keep up to specification +until next pay-day."</p> + +<p>"Of course!" said the man who had spoken. "Why should you want to quit?"</p> + +<p>Winthrop glanced at the letter.</p> + +<p>"I've had a warning. Guess I'll have to pull out again sudden one of +these days."</p> + +<p>There was silence for a few moments after this. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> men had gone on +well together, and within certain limits the toilers in a track-grading +camp make friends rapidly, but for all that there are unwritten rules of +etiquette in such places, and questions on some points are apt to be +resented.</p> + +<p>Still, Winthrop's face was troubled, and his expression hinted that it +might be a consolation to take somebody into his confidence.</p> + +<p>"Creditors?" one of his companions ventured to suggest.</p> + +<p>"You've hit it first time, Drakesford. Bondholder who's been bleeding me +quite a few years now. Raked in what I made each harvest—left me not +quite enough to live on—until I began to see that I'd have to work a +lifetime to get clear of him. When I knocked a little off the debt one +good year he piled up something else on me. Then I was short last +payment, and he shut down on my farm."</p> + +<p>Drakesford turned to his companion.</p> + +<p>"Ever hear anything like that before, Watson?"</p> + +<p>There was a trace of dryness in the other man's smile.</p> + +<p>"I have," he answered; "it's not quite new on the prairie. One or two of +the boys I know have been through that mill."</p> + +<p>He turned toward Winthrop.</p> + +<p>"How did the blamed insect first get hold of you?"</p> + +<p>"I'd a notion of getting married, and meant to raise a record crop. Went +along to the blood-sucker, who was quite willing to back me, and took +out a mortgage. Pledged him all the place and stock for what he let me +have."</p> + +<p>"Probably a third of its value," interposed Drakesford.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>"About that," Winthrop agreed. "A big crop might have cleared me then, +but we had frost that year, and he commenced to play me. Made me insure +stock and homestead in his company—and I guess he stuck me over that. +Then I had to buy implements and any stores he sold from him, at about +twice the usual figure; and one way or another the debt kept piling up."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you have gone short in your payments before it got too big, +and let him sell the place?" suggested Drakesford. "In that case, +anything over and above what he advanced would have had to be refunded +to you. Still, the man you dealt with would probably have provided for +that difficulty."</p> + +<p>Watson grinned.</p> + +<p>"A sure thing! He wouldn't shut down until it was a year when wheat was +cheap and farms were bringing mighty little. Then he'd sell him up and +buy the place in through a dummy, 'way down beneath its value. After +that he'd rent it out until wheat went up and he'd get twice what he +gave for it from some sucker."</p> + +<p>It is possible that the farmer had arrived at something very near the +truth, but his companion, who still seemed thoughtful, looked at +Winthrop.</p> + +<p>"When you got notice of foreclosure I suppose you cleared out and left +him the place," he said. "How does that give him a hold on you?"</p> + +<p>"I sold the team and stock first," replied Winthrop grimly. "He sent the +police after me."</p> + +<p>The man made a sign of comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Naturally! But haven't you got some homestead exemption laws in this +part of the country?"</p> + +<p>"They don't apply to mortgaged property," Watson broke in. Then he +looked up sharply. "But, I guess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> you've hit it. The debt secured by +mortgage wasn't a big one, and the man piled up more on to it afterward. +The law would exempt from seizure on that."</p> + +<p>Winthrop considered this moodily.</p> + +<p>"Well," he answered at length, "suppose you're right. Who's going to +take up my case, and where am I to get the money to put up a fight? The +only lawyer in the district wouldn't act against the bondholder, and I +couldn't get at my mortgage deed anyway. It's in the man's hands, and I +haven't a copy. I got out with the price of a few beasts, and left the +rest to him." He paused, and clenched a big, brown hand. "If he's wise +he'll be content with that, and quit; but you can't satisfy that man. +He's got my farm; he's made my life bitter; brought three years of +trouble on the girl I meant to marry; and now he's after me again. Seems +to me I've laid down under it about long enough!"</p> + +<p>He broke off and sat silent a while, gazing out across the prairie +toward where the red glow of sunset burned far off on the lonely +grassland's rim. Iron shack and clustered tents stood out against it +sharply now, and the faint sound of voices that came up through the +still, clear air seemed to jar on the man.</p> + +<p>"They can laugh," he complained. "I could, once."</p> + +<p>Then Watson changed the subject.</p> + +<p>"Butler had a notion he'd try a shot or two to-morrow where the road +goes through the rise, and he sent some giant-powder along. He wants you +to clinch the detonators on the fuses and put them in."</p> + +<p>Now dynamite is not often used in prairie railroading, but Winthrop had +once handled it in another part of the country, and had mentioned the +fact to a foreman who was disposed to experiment with it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>"It's no use in that loose stuff," he pointed out.</p> + +<p>"Butler wants to try it," answered Watson. "There's no reason why you +shouldn't let him. I dumped the magazine he sent you in the coulée. I +didn't want to lie about smoking too near the detonators."</p> + +<p>He walked away a little distance and came back with a case, out of which +Winthrop took what looked like several yellow wax candles. Then he cut +off three or four pieces of fuse, and carefully pinched down a big +copper cap on the end of each of them. These he inserted into different +sticks of the semi-plastic giant-powder in turn, and his companions drew +a little away from him as he did so. It was getting dark now, but they +could still see his face, and it was very hard and grim. It impressed +them unpleasantly as they watched him handle the yellow rolls which +contained imprisoned within them such tremendous powers. Giant-powder is +a somewhat unstable product, as Winthrop knew from experience and the +other two had heard, and in case of a premature explosion there was very +little doubt as to what the fate of the party would be. Annihilation in +its most literal sense was the only word that would describe it, for +there was force enough in those yellow sticks to transform material +flesh and blood into unsubstantial gases. The fulminate in the +detonators he cautiously imbedded was even more terrible, and sitting +with his bent form outlined darkly against the shadowy waste of grass, +he looked curiously sinister. He finished his task at last and handed +one of them the magazine.</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't there be another stick?" Watson asked. "Have you left it in +the grass?"</p> + +<p>"You can look," said Winthrop curtly, as he moved aside.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>Watson glanced round the place where he had been sitting.</p> + +<p>"I can't see it, anyway. I dare say I couldn't have brought another one, +after all."</p> + +<p>He moved away with Drakesford and looked at the latter when they were +some distance from the tent.</p> + +<p>"It's curious about that stick," he observed. "I'm not convinced yet +that I've got as many as I brought with me."</p> + +<p>"Why should he want to keep one?" his companion asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Watson confessed. "But there was something in his face +that didn't please me."</p> + +<p>"Yes," agreed Drakesford; "I've once or twice seen overdriven men look +like that, and so far as I can remember there was trouble afterward."</p> + +<p>They said nothing further, and while they proceeded along the crest of +the coulée Winthrop, still sitting beside his tent, took a stick of +giant-powder from his pocket.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br /> +<span class="smalltext">CORPORAL SLANEY'S DEFEAT</span></h2> + + +<p>The sun had just dipped, and there was a wonderful invigorating coolness +in the dew-chilled air. Winthrop sat in the cook-shed which was built +against the back of the iron store-shack. Outside, as he could see +through the doorway, the prairie ran back, a vast gray-white stretch, to +the horizon, beneath as vast a sweep of green transparency. The little +shed, however, was growing shadowy, and a red twinkle showed through the +front of the stove in which the sinking fire was still burning.</p> + +<p>The cook was somewhere outside talking with the boys, and Winthrop, who +wished to beg a cotton flour-bag from him to use in mending his clothes, +sat quietly smoking while he waited until he should come back. He felt +no inclination to join the others, for he had grown anxious and morose +since Lucy's warning had reached him a week or two earlier. He was quite +aware that there was some danger in remaining at his work, but pay-day +was approaching and he meant at least to wait until he could collect the +money due him. After that he would disappear again if anything +transpired to render it necessary. Just then Watson looked into the +shed.</p> + +<p>"I guess you'd better come right out," he said hurriedly. "There are two +strangers riding into camp."</p> + +<p>Winthrop was on his feet in a moment, and the haste with which he rose +betrayed his anxiety. Going out, he ran forward until he could obtain an +uninterrupted view<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> of the plain. The waste of grass was growing dim, +but two mounted figures showed up black on it. Watson indicated them +with outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>"Notice anything interesting about them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Winthrop answered grimly; "they ride like police troopers."</p> + +<p>"That's just how it seemed to me," exclaimed Drakesford. "They're coming +from southward, and if they'd left the trunk line soon after the +Vancouver train came in they would get here about now. They could have +borrowed horses from the rancher near the station."</p> + +<p>Winthrop watched them steadily before he spoke.</p> + +<p>"They're troopers, sure," he said at length. "The short one looks like +Corporal Slaney, who's out after me; and they'll be in before I could +catch either of my horses. I turned them out in the soft grass some way +back in the coulée."</p> + +<p>"You have got to do something," declared Watson, "and do it right now!"</p> + +<p>Winthrop glanced out across the great, level plain, and his face grew +set.</p> + +<p>"They'd sure search the coulée, and, except for that, there isn't cover +for a coyote for a league or two. It won't be dark for half an hour yet, +and they'd ride me down in three or four minutes in the open."</p> + +<p>This was obvious, and silence followed until Winthrop spoke again.</p> + +<p>"I haven't a gun of any kind."</p> + +<p>"That's fortunate," said Drakesford. "What do you want a gun for, +anyway? Plugging one of the troopers wouldn't help you."</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile, the mounted figures were rapidly drawing nearer. The +three men stood tensely watching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> them until Winthrop suddenly swung +round toward his companions.</p> + +<p>"You can tell them where my tent is, and they'll waste some minutes +going there. That's all I want you to do."</p> + +<p>Watson looked at him inquiringly, but he made a sign of impatience.</p> + +<p>"I'm going back to the cook-shed. You can't help any. Keep out of this +trouble."</p> + +<p>Moving away from them, he disappeared into the shadowy interior of the +shed, and his companions waited until the rest of the men came running +up as the police rode in. The latter asked a few questions which Watson +answered truthfully, and then they rode off toward Winthrop's tent. +Presently one dismounted trooper reappeared, and proceeded to search the +other tents, amid ironical banter and a few protests. This took him some +time, and darkness was not far off when he reached the iron shack, the +door of which was unusually difficult to open, though Watson, who had +visited it in the meanwhile, could have explained the cause of it. Then +the other trooper came back, and led both horses out upon the prairie. +Leaving them there, he joined his comrade, who addressed the men.</p> + +<p>"Boys," he said, "we're holding a warrant for your partner, and we've +got to have him."</p> + +<p>"Nobody's stopping you," one of them answered. "We haven't a place to +hide him in unless he's crawled down a gopher-hole."</p> + +<p>As a gopher is smaller than an ordinary squirrel, the point of this was +evident, and while a laugh went up the policemen conferred together in +front of the iron shack; then, after looking in, they walked around to +the back of it. They had no doubt already noticed the cook-shed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> but as +it was very small and the door stood partly open, it appeared a most +unpromising place for the fugitive to seek refuge. Now, however, they +moved close to it, and Winthrop, sitting back in the shadow, became +dimly visible.</p> + +<p>"Come out! We've got you!" one trooper cried.</p> + +<p>The man did not move, but he had something in his hand, which was +stretched out toward the stove. One of the pot-holes in the top of the +stove was open, and a faint glow shone upon the object he held clenched +in his fingers. It bore, as Corporal Slaney noticed, no resemblance to a +pistol.</p> + +<p>"Come out!" he repeated. "There's no use in making trouble."</p> + +<p>Winthrop laughed in a jarring fashion.</p> + +<p>"I guess I'll stay a while right where I am."</p> + +<p>Then he raised his voice.</p> + +<p>"If you're wise you'll wait outside, Corporal."</p> + +<p>Slaney stood still just outside the door, peering into the shed; and the +trooper behind him had his carbine ready.</p> + +<p>"Don't be foolish, Jake. We've got you sure," he called.</p> + +<p>He moved a pace nearer, and Winthrop leaned forward a little farther +over the pot-hole.</p> + +<p>"See what this is?" he inquired, glancing down at the object in his +hand.</p> + +<p>"It's not a gun, anyway," said the trooper to his superior.</p> + +<p>"It's a stick of giant-powder. There's a detonator in it and an inch or +two of fuse. As soon as you're inside the door I drop it in the stove."</p> + +<p>Slaney promptly recoiled a yard or two. Having had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> some experience in +dealing with men driven to extremities, he knew that Winthrop's warning +was not empty bluff. There was something in the man's voice that +convinced him that he meant what he said. For the next few moments he +and the trooper stood irresolutely still, wondering what they should do, +while the motionless figure quietly watched them through the doorway. +The corporal was by no means timid or overcautious, and had Winthrop +held a pistol it is highly probable that he would have attempted to rush +him. Except in the hands of a master of it, the short-barreled weapon is +singularly unreliable, and shots fired by a man disturbed by fear or +anger as a rule go wide; but the stick of dynamite meant certain death. +Slaney had not the nerve to face that, and, besides, as he rightfully +reflected, it would serve no purpose except to nip in the bud the career +of a promising police officer. Then Winthrop spoke again.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to haul off this time, Corporal. Letting this thing drop is +quicker than shooting, even if you had me covered."</p> + +<p>"We could plug you from a distance through the shack," Slaney pointed +out.</p> + +<p>"That's so," Winthrop assented calmly; "I guess you could; but I'm not +sure your bosses would thank you for doing it."</p> + +<p>There was, as the corporal recognized, some truth in this. The police +would be held blameless for shooting down a fugitive who refused to +surrender, but after all the exploit would not count to their credit +unless the man were a desperado guilty of some particularly serious +offense. It was their business to capture the person for whom they had a +warrant.</p> + +<p>Drawing back a little farther, the corporal conferred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> with the trooper, +who suggested several ways of getting over the difficulty, none of +which, however, appeared altogether practicable. For one thing, he said, +they could wait, sleeping in turn, until from utter weariness Winthrop's +vigilance relaxed; but that, it was evident, would most likely take more +time than they could spare. They could also seek the assistance of the +trackgraders and arrange with them to make a diversion while they crept +up unobserved. Against this there was, however, as the corporal pointed +out, the probability that the men were more or less in sympathy with the +fugitive, and that as a result any assistance they might be commanded to +render could not be depended on. He added that he would rather wait for +daylight, and then, if it should be absolutely necessary, fire into the +shed.</p> + +<p>In the meantime Watson was discussing the affair with Drakesford.</p> + +<p>"That man has some kind of plan in his mind, though I can't tell you +what it is," he declared. "Anyway, it would be better that the troopers +hadn't their horses handy in case he gets out in the dark and makes a +break for the prairie."</p> + +<p>"They're back behind the tents," observed Drakesford, pointedly.</p> + +<p>"Picketed," grinned Watson. "They should have knee-hobbled them. A horse +will now and then pull a picket out when the soil's light."</p> + +<p>It was too dark to see his companion's face clearly, but Drakesford +appeared to smile in a manner that suggested comprehension, and they +strolled a little nearer the corporal, who had just sent for the cook. +The corporal explained that he had ridden a long way since his dinner, +and asked for a can of coffee and some eatables,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> and the cook proceeded +dubiously toward the shed. He came back empty-handed in a minute or two.</p> + +<p>"I can't get you anything," he said. "The man you're after won't let me +in."</p> + +<p>The corporal expressed his feelings somewhat freely, but the cook +grinned.</p> + +<p>"You want to be reasonable," he protested. "How do you expect me to get +in, when he's holding off the two of you, and you've got arms?"</p> + +<p>Watson touched his companion's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"It's my opinion that our friend would better get out to-night," he +whispered. "The boys are holding off in the meanwhile, but if they can't +get their breakfast there'll probably be trouble."</p> + +<p>Drakesford agreed with this, and shortly afterward he proceeded +circuitously toward the troopers' horses.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile, Slaney and his subordinate sat down on the grass well +apart from each other and about sixty yards from the cook-shed, and, +rolling their blankets about them, prepared to spend the night as +comfortably as possible. It was not very dark, though there was no moon, +and a slight haze, which promised an increased obscurity, was now +creeping across the sky. They could see the black shape of the shed, and +it was evident that nobody could slip out from it without their +observation; and they had their carbines handy. Slaney would have crept +up a little nearer, only that he felt it desirable to keep outside the +striking range of the giant-powder, in case Winthrop happened to get +drowsy and drop it in the stove.</p> + +<p>After a while the track-graders, who had sat among the grass smoking and +watching the troopers, began to drift away to their sleeping-quarters. +The drama was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> interesting, but they had no part in it, and they would +certainly have to rise soon after sunup to a long day's arduous toil. In +the meanwhile, their attitude could best be described as reluctantly +neutral. There were a few toughs among them who had no doubt sufficient +reason for not loving a policeman of any kind, but the rest recognized +the inadvisability of any interference with constituted authority. On +the other hand, though they did not know the rights or wrongs of the +matter, the desperate, cold-blooded courage of the hard-pressed man +appealed to them, and they decided that Corporal Slaney need not look +for any effective assistance which it might be in their power to render. +Most of them were simple men who lived and toiled in the open, and, as +is usual with their kind, their sympathies were with the weaker party.</p> + +<p>In an hour or two the last of them had vanished, and if a few still +watched outside their tents there was, at least, nothing that suggested +their presence to Corporal Slaney. He lay resting on one elbow, with his +eyes fixed on the shed, while a little chilly breeze set the dry grasses +rustling about him. It was now slightly darker than it usually is on the +prairie in summer-time, for the haze had gradually spread across most of +the sky. The tents had faded almost out of sight, though the black shape +of the shack remained, and now and then, when the breeze sank away, the +silence grew almost oppressive. Once the corporal started as he heard a +sound in the shed, but he sank down again when he recognized the clatter +and rattle that succeeded it. Winthrop, who evidently did not mean to +neglect any precaution, was, he decided, putting more fuel into the +stove. After that the howl of a coyote came faintly up the breeze, which +grew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> stronger, and the low murmur of the grasses began once more.</p> + +<p>A pearly light was growing clearer on the eastern rim of the prairie +when at length Slaney, damp with the dew, rose to his feet with a shiver +and softly called the trooper, who announced that he had heard nothing +suspicious during the night. After a brief parley they crept up +cautiously a little nearer the shed, but there was, so far as they could +make out, no sign of life within. Indeed, the stillness was becoming +suspicious. Moving nearer still, they could look into part of the shed +through the open door, and, for the light was getting clearer, it became +evident that Winthrop was no longer sitting beside the stove. This was +encouraging, because it looked as if he had fallen asleep.</p> + +<p>Making a short detour, so as to keep to one side of the entrance, they +crept up closer, with faces set and hearts beating a good deal faster +than usual; but there was no sound except a faint crackle, apparently +from the stove. Then Slaney lay down in the grass and crawled up to the +doorway, where he rose and suddenly sprang into the shed. The next +moment his voice rang out hoarse with anger, for the place was empty. He +waited until the trooper joined him, and then pointed to a little door +in the back of the larger building.</p> + +<p>"That explains the thing!" he exclaimed. "You looked round the shack?"</p> + +<p>"I did," the trooper admitted, and added, somewhat tactlessly, "so did +you."</p> + +<p>Slaney frowned at this reminder, but it was evident that a discussion as +to whose fault it was that Winthrop had got away would in no way assist +them in his capture, and they proceeded into the larger building, where +they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> had no trouble in finding an explanation of his escape.</p> + +<p>Men working on the prairie or in the bush of Canada are usually boarded +by their employers at a weekly charge, and there were a good many of +them engaged on the track. As a result of it, the iron shack was partly +filled with provisions, and when Slaney and the trooper entered by the +front they had seen a pile of cases and flour-bags apparently built up +against one wall. It was, however, growing dark then, and neither of +them had noticed that there was a narrow space behind the provisions +which had been left to facilitate the entrance of the cook. Winthrop, it +was clear, had slipped out through it in the darkness, and the shack had +prevented either of the watchers from seeing him crawl away across the +prairie. It occurred to Slaney that from the position of the tents it +was scarcely likely he had got away quite unnoticed, but he had reasons +for believing that it would be difficult to elicit any reliable +information on that point from the man's comrades.</p> + +<p>There was only one thing to be done, and that was to mount as soon as +possible and endeavor to pick up the fugitive's trail; but when they +reached the spot where they had left their horses there was no sign of +them, and it was half an hour before the trooper came upon them some +distance up the coulée. Slaney was quite convinced that neither of the +beasts had succeeded in dragging the picket out of the ground +unassisted, but this was a thing he could not prove; and when the cook +had supplied them with a hastily prepared breakfast he and the trooper +rode away across the prairie.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">A COMPROMISE</span></h2> + + +<p>Thorne was driving Alison home from Graham's Bluff one afternoon about a +week after Winthrop's escape when a couple of horsemen became visible on +the crest of a low rise. The girl glanced at them from under her white +parasol, which shone dazzlingly in the fierce sunlight, and then fixed +her eyes on her companion.</p> + +<p>"They're coming this way, aren't they?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"They seem to be," replied Thorne. "One of them looks like the corporal, +and I shouldn't wonder if he wanted a word with me."</p> + +<p>He saw the girl's slight start, but was not greatly flattered, as he +could not be sure whether it resulted from concern on his behalf or mere +annoyance. He knew what she thought of Winthrop.</p> + +<p>"There's no cause for alarm," he added with a laugh. "I haven't done +anything particularly unlawful for some time."</p> + +<p>He had half expected Alison to explain that she was not alarmed at all, +but she disappointed him, and he wondered whether there was any +significance in this. He had already discovered that she did not +invariably reveal exactly what she felt.</p> + +<p>"What can he want?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"It probably concerns Winthrop. I don't think I told you that they +almost caught him a little while ago, though he got away again."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>"You didn't. Was that because you were afraid you could not trust me?"</p> + +<p>A tinge of deeper color crept into her companion's face, and she decided +rightly that this was due to displeasure. In the encounters which were +not altogether infrequent between them she now and then delivered a +galling thrust, but this, he thought, was striking below the guard.</p> + +<p>"What a question, Miss Leigh!"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't have been unnatural if you had considered it wiser to be +reticent. What happened on the last occasion would have justified it."</p> + +<p>"If you are referring to Nevis's visit to Mrs. Calvert, I should be +quite willing to leave you to outwit him again. The way you secured the +letter was masterly. Still, in view of the opinions you expressed about +Winthrop, I don't understand why you did it, and, so far as I can +remember, you haven't explained the thing."</p> + +<p>"I meant his visit to the Farquhar homestead when I told him about Lucy; +but I'll try to answer you. For one reason, I wanted to make amends for +my previous—rashness."</p> + +<p>Alison paused at the word, as she remembered that Lucy had suggested +that what she now termed rashness was jealousy.</p> + +<p>"Well," laughed Thorne, "you were certainly rash, but I feel inclined to +wonder whether you were anything else. Your hesitation just now +was—significant."</p> + +<p>Alison recognized that she had a quick-witted antagonist.</p> + +<p>"I believe I have already admitted that I was prejudiced against +Winthrop."</p> + +<p>"That," returned Thorne, "is, perhaps, from your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> point of view, no more +than natural. In fact, I'm not sure I could say he was right in +everything he has done." He paused a moment. "But, I shouldn't like to +think that your prejudice extends to Lucy."</p> + +<p>Alison had not expected this, and she wondered with some resentment +exactly what he meant to imply.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he added, "some of her ideas and some of the things she +says might jar on you, but that doesn't count for very much, after all. +The girl's staunch all through, and the way she has stuck to Winthrop in +his trouble and the way she has run the farm would compel the respect of +any one who understood what she has had to put up with."</p> + +<p>Alison wondered whether he wished to reassure her concerning Lucy's +devotion to her lover, which, as she remembered, the girl herself had +already done; but she scarcely fancied that he would adopt such a course +as this. It would, at least, be very much out of harmony with his usual +conduct.</p> + +<p>"I venture to believe that Lucy and I will be good friends in the +future," she said.</p> + +<p>Slaney and the trooper were now rapidly approaching, and a minute or two +later Thorne pulled up and turned to the corporal, who reined in his +horse close beside the wagon.</p> + +<p>"You have something to say to me?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Slaney; "it's this: Do you know where Jake Winthrop is?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Thorne; "on the whole, I'm glad I don't. What's more, I +haven't the least suspicion."</p> + +<p>They looked at each other steadily, and it struck Alison that the little +gesture Slaney made was a striking testimonial to her companion's +character. It indicated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> that the corporal had no hesitation in taking +the word of the man with whom he was at variance. Though she and Thorne +occupied the same seat they were far enough apart for her to see his +face, and as he sat with his broad hat tilted back, smiling down at +Slaney, she recognized that in spite of the old blue duck he wore there +was a virile grace in every line of his figure. In addition to this, by +contrast with the smartly uniformed corporal, he looked, as she felt it +could most fittingly be described, thoroughbred, and there was something +in his half-whimsical manner that curiously pleased her.</p> + +<p>"I guess you heard what happened up the track?" Slaney next inquired.</p> + +<p>"I did. Rather amusing in some respects, wasn't it? I understand that +you and the trooper sat out most of the night watching an empty shack."</p> + +<p>"Well," asserted Slaney grimly, "there was nothing very amusing about +the giant-powder. I tell you the man meant to drop it into the fire."</p> + +<p>"From what I know of Winthrop, I'm inclined to believe he did. In fact, +in my opinion, it would be considerably wiser of Nevis if he left that +man alone. I'm not sure he has a very good case against him, anyway; +though, of course, that's no concern of yours or mine. You can't pick up +his trail?"</p> + +<p>"That's a cold fact," declared the corporal. "I guess you wouldn't mind +getting down and walking along a few yards with me?"</p> + +<p>"It's not worth while. I've no objections to Miss Leigh's hearing what +you have to say, and I'm afraid Volador wouldn't stand unless I kept the +reins. The flies are bothering him, and he doesn't seem quite easy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> when +you're in the neighborhood." Thorne paused and laughed. "In a way, +that's not astonishing."</p> + +<p>Slaney disregarded the last observation.</p> + +<p>"Then," he said, "I'm not the man to make useless trouble—anyway, +unless it's going to give me a shove up toward promotion—but you're +worrying me. The fact is, wherever I pick up Winthrop's trail I strike +yours too. Now there was a night some while back when we ran one of you +down close to the frontier."</p> + +<p>Thorne saw Alison glance sharply at the corporal, and he smiled.</p> + +<p>"Why should I ride for the frontier with the police after me?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I don't exactly know, but I have my views. I want to say +that we picked up a black plug hat when we were coming back along the +trail. The point is that the thing was new. Then we found a brown duck +jacket with a tear in it, but I figured the tear had been made quite +lately."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you could prove very much from that."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Slaney, "I could try. It would look bad if I put the other +matter of the horse Winthrop found near your homestead alongside it. Now +I'll ask you right out—Are you going to mix yourself up with Jake's +affairs any more?"</p> + +<p>"In return, I'd like to hear whether you have any notion of carrying +your investigations further?" Thorne parried.</p> + +<p>They looked rather hard at each other, and then Slaney smiled.</p> + +<p>"I guess it will depend a good deal on your answer; that is, unless +Nevis gets hold of the thing."</p> + +<p>"Then it's my intention to drop Jake Winthrop now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> There's very little +probability of his wanting any further assistance that I could render +him."</p> + +<p>"Well, let it go at that," replied Slaney simply. "I guess it will save +you trouble. Good-day to you."</p> + +<p>He rode away, and Alison turned to her companion when they drove on +again.</p> + +<p>"One could have imagined that you and the corporal were making a +bargain," she suggested.</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well," he admitted, "I'm afraid it was quite illegal, but it amounted +to something very much like that. The bargain, however, is only a +provisional one. If Nevis chances on the truth, he may upset it by +forcing Slaney's hand."</p> + +<p>"But, after all, you gave each other only a vague hint. It would be +difficult even to reproach the corporal if, as you say, he went back on +it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," assented Thorne dryly. "Still, I haven't the least reason for +believing that probable."</p> + +<p>Alison made no comment, though the attitude of both men appealed to her. +They were enemies in some respects, and yet once the indefinite +understanding had been arrived at neither seemed to have the slightest +fear that the other would violate it. They were, she remembered, men who +lived in the open, who broke and rode wild horses, and who faced +exposure and strenuous toil. Why this should be conducive to reliability +of character was not very clear, but it apparently had that result. Then +she remembered what the corporal had mentioned.</p> + +<p>"You have been doing something to help Winthrop to escape since the +night you let him have the horse?"</p> + +<p>Thorne admitted it, and when she pressed him for the story he told it +whimsically; but this time Alison felt no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> anger. A few plain words +spoken by Lucy Calvert had obviated that, for it was now quite clear +that the man had been prompted by mere chivalrous pity and lust of +excitement, and had no desire to win the girl's favor.</p> + +<p>"That was splendid!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Thorne smiled, though he looked at her in a somewhat curious fashion. +Then at her request he related how Winthrop had held off the police. As +it happened, he could tell a story with dramatic force, and both the +brief narratives had their effect on Alison. She had imagination, and +could picture the man who now sat beside her smashing furiously through +the tangled bluff in the blackness of the night, and the other sitting +grimly resolute beside the stove with the stick of giant-powder in his +hand. After all, they were, she realized, the doings of primitive men; +but charity that did not stop to count the cost, and steadfast, +unflinching valor, were rudimentary too, and all the progress of a +complex civilization had evolved nothing finer. Man could add nothing to +them. They were perfect gifts to him, though there was reason for +believing that they were not distributed broadcast.</p> + +<p>Then they chatted about other matters, and Alison was almost sorry when +the Farquhar homestead and its barns and stables rose, girt about with a +sweep of tall green wheat, out of the prairie. Thorne stayed for supper, +and he was standing beside his team with Farquhar an hour afterward when +the latter suddenly made an excuse and moved away as his wife came out +of the doorway. Thorne grinned at this, and there was still a gleam of +amusement in his eyes when his hostess stopped beside him. He indicated +the retreating Farquhar with a wave of his hand.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>"Harry remembered that he'd want the wagon to-morrow, and there's a bolt +loose," he explained. "It didn't seem to occur to him until he noticed +you. I suppose one could call it a coincidence."</p> + +<p>"Have you any different ideas on the subject?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired.</p> + +<p>"Since you ask the question, it looks rather like collusion."</p> + +<p>"Well," laughed Mrs. Farquhar, "I certainly wanted a little talk with +you. To begin with, I should like to point out that we have had a good +deal of your company lately."</p> + +<p>"That's a fact. Perhaps I'd better say that quite apart from the +pleasure of spending an evening with you and Harry there's another +reason."</p> + +<p>"The thing has been perfectly obvious for some time; indeed, it has had +my serious consideration. You see, I hold myself responsible for Alison +to some extent."</p> + +<p>"You feel that you stand <i>in loco parentis</i>—I believe that's the +correct phrase—but in one way it doesn't seem to apply. Nobody would +believe you were old enough to be her mother."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar glanced at him in half-amused impatience, but his manner +swiftly changed.</p> + +<p>"It's my intention to marry Alison as soon as things permit," he added. +"Anyway, that is what I should like to do, but whether I'll ever get any +farther is, of course, another matter. It's one on which I'd be glad to +have your opinion; and that suggests a question. Can my views have been +perfectly obvious to Alison?"</p> + +<p>His companion looked thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"That's a little difficult to answer; though I feel inclined to say that +they certainly ought to have been. On<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> the other hand, it's possible +that she may believe you merely saw in her what we'll call an +intellectual equal—somebody you would have more in common with than you +would, for example, with Lucy. This seems the more likely because I +don't think that marriage in itself has any great attraction for her. +Indeed, I'm inclined to fancy that it was rather a shock to her to +discover how it is regarded by some people in this country. It's +unfortunate that she fell in with one hasty suitor who was anxious to +marry her offhand immediately on her arrival. That being the case, it +strikes me that you had better proceed cautiously and avoid anything +that may suggest a too materialistic point of view."</p> + +<p>Thorne made a gesture of comprehensive repudiation.</p> + +<p>"I'm thankful that nobody could call me smugly practical. But, it must +be admitted that, as she is situated, marriage seems to be her only +vocation in this country."</p> + +<p>"If you let her see that you think that, you may as well give up your +project." Mrs. Farquhar hesitated a moment. "Have you ever tried to +formulate what you expect from Alison?"</p> + +<p>Thorne's smile made it evident that he guessed what was in her mind.</p> + +<p>"I can at least tell you what I don't expect. I've no hankering for a +house and domestic comforts—in my experience they're singularly apt to +pall on one. I don't want a woman to mend my clothes and prepare me +tempting meals—that way of looking at the thing strikes one as almost +unthinkable, and there never was a banquet where the fare was half as +good as what you turn out of the blackened spider in the birch bluff. I +want Alison, with her English graces and English prejudices; her only, +and nothing else."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>"That is a sentiment which would no doubt appeal to her; but one has to +be practical; and you would in any case have to do a good deal before +you got her. She couldn't, for instance, dress in flour-bags and live in +the wagon. Nor do I think that Bishop would feel equal to entertaining a +married couple during the winter."</p> + +<p>"The point of all this is that you want to be satisfied that I can give +up my vagabond habits?" suggested Thorne. "Well, I must try to convince +you, though I want to say that it was a willing sacrifice. Haven't I +gone into harness—yoked myself down to a house and land, with a +mortgage on both of them; haven't I slept for several months now under +at least a partly shingled roof? If any more proof is wanted, haven't I +come to terms with Corporal Slaney and given up the excitement of +bluffing the police; and haven't I decided, as far as it's possible for +me, to leave Nevis unmolested? Aren't all these things foreign to my +nature?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar laughed.</p> + +<p>"Mavy," she asked, "do you find living in some degree of comfort, and +devoting your intelligence to a task that will probably pay you, so very +intolerable?"</p> + +<p>Thorne smiled and made a little, confidential gesture.</p> + +<p>"I must confess that I don't find it quite as unpleasant as I had +expected. But you haven't given me your opinion on the point that +concerns me most."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Mrs. Farquhar, with an air of reflection, "while Alison has +naturally not said anything to me on the subject, I don't think you need +consider your case as altogether desperate."</p> + +<p>She smiled at Thorne, who swung himself up into his wagon and drove +away.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">NEVIS'S VISITOR</span></h2> + + +<p>Florence Hunter had lately returned from Toronto and was sitting on the +veranda toward the middle of the afternoon in an unusually thoughtful +mood. Among other reasons for this, there was the fact that she had +spent a good deal of money while she was away, and she was far from sure +that she had received its full value. Most of the people she had met in +Toronto appeared to be endued with irritatingly respectable, +old-fashioned views, and as a result of it they could not be induced to +forget that she was a married woman separated for a few weeks from a +self-sacrificing husband. Indeed, one or two of them went so far as to +condole with her for his absence, and their general attitude imposed on +her an unwelcome restraint. There was certainly one exception, but this +man had no tact, and the lady who stood sponsor for her openly frowned +at his too marked devotion, while some of the others laughed. Florence +at length got rid of him summarily, and then half regretted it when +nobody else aspired to fill his place.</p> + +<p>It had, further, occurred to her in Elcot's absence that he had a number +of strong points, after all. He was quiet and steadfast, not to be moved +from his purpose by anger or cajolery, and though this was sometimes +troublesome, there was no doubt that he was a man who could be relied +upon. She had nothing to fear, except, perhaps, her own imprudence, +while she was in his care.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> Then, although she would hardly have +expected it before she went away, she found the spacious wooden house +pleasantly cool and quiet after the stir and rush of life in the hot +city, and Elcot's unobtrusive regard for her comfort soothing. He never +fussed, but when she wanted anything done he was almost invariably at +hand. She determined to be more gracious to him in the future, for she +was troubled with a slightly uncomfortable feeling that he might have +had something to complain of in this respect in the past.</p> + +<p>On the whole, her thoughts were far from pleasant, and in addition to +this the temperature, which was a good deal higher than usual, had a +depressing effect on her. There was no breeze that afternoon, and the +air was still and heavy; the white prairie flung back a trying light, +even on to the shaded veranda, and she felt restless, captious and +irritable. At length, however, she took up a book and endeavored to +become engrossed in it. She so far succeeded that she did not hear a +buggy drive up, and it was with a start that she straightened herself in +her chair as Nevis walked quietly on to the veranda.</p> + +<p>"I never expected you!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The man smiled in a deprecatory fashion.</p> + +<p>"I heard at the station that you arrived yesterday."</p> + +<p>Florence frowned at this. The inference was too obvious; he evidently +wished to imply that it would have been unnatural had he delayed his +visit.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, "you startled me. Do you generally walk into places +that way—like a pickpocket?"</p> + +<p>Nevis laughed, and when he sat down rather close to her, uninvited, she +favored him with a gaze of careful and undisguised scrutiny. Florence +could be openly rude upon occasion, and though his visits hitherto had +af<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>forded her some satisfaction, she now felt that she would have been +better pleased had he stayed away. He was, as usual, tastefully dressed; +there was no doubt that his clothes became him; but somehow it struck +her that, although she had not realized this earlier, the man looked +cheap, which on consideration seemed the best word for it.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you enjoyed yourself while you were away?" he began.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Florence; "on the whole, I don't think I did."</p> + +<p>She broke off and added irritably:</p> + +<p>"Why do you always come at this time? If you drove over in the evening +you would find Elcot at home."</p> + +<p>She was genuinely provoked by her companion's smile. It so tactlessly +implied that she did not mean what she had said. His signal lack of +delicacy jarred on her now, though she remembered with faint wonder that +she had on previous occasions found a relish in his conversation.</p> + +<p>"Well," he answered, "for one reason, I generally call here when I'm +going to the bluff. It's convenient to get there for supper."</p> + +<p>Florence was annoyed at the opening words. The hint that there was a +stronger reason which he had not mentioned was so crude that it savored +of mere impertinence. Somehow she felt disappointed in the man. She had, +as she realized at length, expected clever compliments from him, firmly +finished, subtle boldness that would be just sufficiently apparent to +convey a pleasurable thrill, and, with the latter exception, a wholly +respectful homage. As to what he had expected she was far from clear, +but that was a point of much less account. The polish, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>ever, seemed +suddenly to have been rubbed off him, and there was nothing into which +she cared to look beneath. Even Elcot would have been capable of +something more skilful than his too familiar inanities. What had brought +about this change in the way she regarded him she did not know, but +there was no doubt that she felt all at once disillusioned. She was in +her caprices essentially variable.</p> + +<p>"Your supper is evidently a matter of importance to you," she said.</p> + +<p>Nevis looked at her sharply.</p> + +<p>"Not more than it is to most other men. In return, I wonder if I might +point out that you don't seem quite as amiable as usual to-day?"</p> + +<p>Florence laughed.</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, I'm not. Nobody could feel very pleasant at this +temperature; and I'm disappointed—with several things." She leaned back +languidly in her chair with an air of weariness. "When that happens it's +a relief to be disagreeable to anybody who comes along. Besides, you're +not in the least entertaining this afternoon."</p> + +<p>There was something in her manner that stung the man, and he ventured +upon an impertinence.</p> + +<p>"I suppose that means that Elcot hasn't proved amenable, as usual; but +it's a little rough on me that I should have to meet the bill after a +long and scorching drive."</p> + +<p>Florence laughed again, scornfully.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she retorted, "is accustomed to carrying his own load, and on +occasion other people's too, which is a weakness with which I'd never +credit you. Besides, if he'd traveled for a week to see me he wouldn't +think of reminding me of it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>"You seem inclined to drag his virtues out and parade them to-day."</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that the man was going too far, and that led Florence +to wonder whether he could be driven into going any farther.</p> + +<p>"That," she replied, "would be quite unnecessary in Elcot's case. In +fact, his virtues have an almost exasperating habit of meeting you in +the face, which is no doubt why it's rather pleasant to get away from +them—occasionally."</p> + +<p>"You prefer something different on the off-days?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Florence answered reflectively, "I like a change; but it must be +admitted that I invariably feel an increased respect for Elcot after +it."</p> + +<p>Nevis winced at this. She had made it clear that it was his part to +amuse her at irregular intervals and enhance her husband's finer +qualities by the contrast. It was not, however, one that appealed to +him, and he had a vindictive temper. As it happened, she presently gave +him an opportunity for indulging it.</p> + +<p>"I wish I'd never gone to Toronto," she said petulantly.</p> + +<p>"Considering everything, that's quite a pity," Nevis pointed out. "The +visit probably cost you a good deal of money; and"—he added this with a +grim suggestiveness—"wheat is steadily going down."</p> + +<p>Florence gazed at him with a hardening face. He evidently meant it as a +reminder that she owed him money. The man was becoming intolerable.</p> + +<p>"Is it?" she asked indifferently. "In any case, I shall no doubt manage +to meet my debts when they fall due."</p> + +<p>Nevis had reasons for believing that it would be more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> difficult than +she seemed to anticipate, but he talked about something else, and then, +finding that his companion did not favor him with very much attention, +he took his leave. When he was getting into his buggy Hunter came up and +stopped him.</p> + +<p>"I'm rather busy, but I can spare you a few minutes if it's necessary," +he said.</p> + +<p>Nevis looked at him with a provocative smile.</p> + +<p>"It isn't," he answered. "It was your wife I came to see; she entrusted +me with the arranging of a little matter."</p> + +<p>He gathered up the reins, and added, as though to explain his departure:</p> + +<p>"There are several things I want to get through with at the bluff this +evening."</p> + +<p>"Then I won't try to keep you."</p> + +<p>Hunter walked up on the veranda and, leaning on the balustrade, looked +at his wife.</p> + +<p>"You have had a deal of some kind with that man?"</p> + +<p>A flush of anger swept into Florence's cheek.</p> + +<p>"He told you that?" she exclaimed; and then added, with a harsh laugh, +"As it happens, he was quite correct."</p> + +<p>Hunter stood still with an expressionless face for a moment or two, +apparently waiting in case she had anything else to say; and then, with +a gesture which might have meant anything, he moved away along the +veranda. Florence's conscience accused her when he disappeared into the +house; but she was most clearly sensible that she was now a little +afraid of Nevis and disposed to hate him. However, she lay quietly in +her basket-chair until word was brought her that supper was ready.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>Two or three days later Nevis sat late one night in his office at the +railroad settlement. It was situated at the back of his implement store, +on the ground floor of a very ugly wooden building which had a false +front that rose a little beyond the ridge of roof. One door opened +directly on to the prairie; the other led into the store, from which +there exuded a pungent smell of paint and varnish. A nickeled lamp hung +over Nevis's head, and the little room was unpleasantly hot, so hot, +indeed, that he sat in his shirt-sleeves before a table littered with +papers. Not far away a small safe stood open. This contained further +papers tied up in several bundles and neatly endorsed. There was nothing +else in the room except a few shelves filled with account books; and +there was no covering on the floor. Nevis, like most commercial men in +the small western towns, wasted very little money on superfluous +accessories. He found that he could employ it much more profitably.</p> + +<p>He had, as it happened, a troublesome matter to decide on, and seeing no +way out of the difficulties which complicated it, he rose at length, +and, lighting a cigar, opened the outer door and stood leaning against +it. It was cooler there, and he noticed that the night was unusually +dark. The stream of light that flowed out past him, forcing up his +figure in a sharp, black silhouette, only intensified the thick +obscurity in which it was almost immediately lost. It was also very +still, and he could hear his white shirt crackle at each slight movement +of the hand that held the cigar. Everybody in the little wooden town +was, he surmised, already asleep, though he knew that a west-bound train +would stop there in half an hour or so.</p> + +<p>He did not know how long he remained in the doorway,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> but by degrees the +stillness became oppressive, and at last he started as a sound rose +suddenly out of the darkness. It was a faint, metallic rattle, and he +leaned forward a little, listening in strained attention. The noise was +so unexpected that it jarred on him.</p> + +<p>Then he recollected that some of his neighbors were addicted to dumping +empty provision cans and similar refuse into a clump of willows which +straggled close up to the back of the town not far away, and he decided +that one of them had fallen down or rolled over. After that he went back +to his table, leaving the door open for the sake of coolness, and he was +once more occupied with his papers when he heard a sharp knocking at the +front of the store. Pushing his chair back he took out his watch. +Somebody who was going west by the train that was almost due apparently +desired to see him, though it seemed a curious thing that the man had +not called earlier. He rose and entered the store, where he fell against +the projecting handle of a plow in the darkness. This ruffled his +temper, and he spent some time impatiently fumbling for and undoing the +fastenings of the outer door. Then he flung it open somewhat violently, +and strode out into the darkness. There was, so far as he could see, +nobody in the vicinity, and when, moving forward a few paces he called +out, he got no answer.</p> + +<p>Feeling slightly uneasy as well as astonished, he stood still for, +perhaps, a minute, gazing about him. He could dimly see the houses +across the street, with the tall false fronts of one or two cutting +black against the sky, but there was not a light in any of them, and +there was certainly no sound of footsteps. He was neither a nervous nor +a fanciful man, and it scarcely seemed possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> that his ears had +deceived him. Swinging around suddenly, he went back into the store and +fastened the outer door before he reentered his office. The door at the +back of the office and the safe stood open just as he had left them. +Crossing the room he looked into the safe.</p> + +<p>As a rule, a man's possessions are as secure in a small prairie town as +they would be in, for example, London or Montreal, but Nevis seldom kept +much money in his safe. He usually made his collections after harvest, +and remitted the proceeds to a bank in Winnipeg. A small iron cash-box, +however, occupied one shelf, and it was at once evident that this had +not been touched, which seemed to prove that nobody with dishonest +intentions had entered the place in his absence. This was satisfactory, +but a few moments later it struck him that one of the bundles of +docketed papers was not lying exactly where he had last placed it. He +could not be quite sure of this, though he was methodical in his habits, +and he took the bundle up and examined it. The tape around it was +securely tied and the papers did not seem to have been disturbed. +Besides this, they were in no sense marketable securities.</p> + +<p>He laid them down again and closed the safe. Then, locking the outer +door behind him, he proceeded through the silent town toward the track. +As he did so the clanging of a locomotive bell broke through a +slackening clatter of wheels, and when after a smart run he reached the +station, hot and somewhat breathless, the lights of the long train were +just sliding out of it. He strode up to the agent, who stood in the +doorway of his office shack with a lantern in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Did anybody get on board?" he asked.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>"No," replied the agent. "Nobody got off, either. Did you expect to +catch up any one?"</p> + +<p>"I fancied somebody called at the store a few minutes ago. It occurred +to me that the man might want to leave some message and had forgotten it +until he was going to catch the train."</p> + +<p>"I guess it must have been a delusion," remarked the agent.</p> + +<p>Nevis had almost arrived at the same conclusion. He waited a few +minutes, and then they walked back together through the settlement. The +agent left him outside the store, above which he had a room, and +dismissing the matter from his mind he went tranquilly to sleep half an +hour later.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THE MORTGAGE DEED</span></h2> + + +<p>Alison was sitting alone in the general living-room of the Farquhar +homestead about an hour after breakfast when she laid down her sewing +with a start as a man whom she had not heard approaching suddenly +appeared in the doorway. He stood there, looking at her with what she +felt was a very suspicious curiosity, and there was no doubt that his +appearance was decidedly against him. His clothing, which had been +rudely patched with cotton flour-bags, was old and stained with soil; +his face was hard and grim; and she grew apprehensive under his fixed +scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"Where's the rest of you?" he asked after an unpleasant silence of a few +moments.</p> + +<p>Alison felt that it would be singularly injudicious to inform him, and +while she hesitated, wondering what to answer, he strode into the room +and fell heavily into the nearest chair.</p> + +<p>"You'll excuse me," he apologized. "I'm played out."</p> + +<p>The signs of weariness were plain on him, and Alison became a little +reassured. After all, she remembered, there was nothing of very much +value in the homestead; and she had never as yet had any reason to fear +the men she had come across upon the prairie. In fact, though one had +wanted to marry her offhand, their general conduct compared very +favorably with that of one or two whom she had met in English cities.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>"Have you come far?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"From the railroad—on my feet," answered the man. "I left it about +midnight two nights ago, and since then I've only had a morsel of food." +Then he smiled at her. "You haven't told me yet where Harry Farquhar and +his wife have gone."</p> + +<p>It was clear that he had already satisfied himself that they were out, +and Alison reluctantly admitted it.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Farquhar has driven over to the bluff," she said. "She took her +husband with her, but she was to drop him at the ravine where the +birches are. He wanted to cut some poles."</p> + +<p>The look of annoyance in the man's face further reassured her, as it +implied that he regretted Farquhar's absence almost as much as she had +done a few moments earlier.</p> + +<p>"It's a sure thing I can't wait till they come back, and the trouble is +I can't make Mrs. Calvert's place without a rest, either."</p> + +<p>He paused and gazed searchingly at Alison.</p> + +<p>"You're Miss Leigh, aren't you? I guess you could be trusted; I've heard +of you."</p> + +<p>Alison's astonishment was evident, and he smiled.</p> + +<p>"It's quite likely," he added dryly, "that you've heard of me. My name's +Jake Winthrop."</p> + +<p>Alison sat very still, and it was a moment or two before she spoke.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Breakfast, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. Then, as Farquhar's out, +there's a piece of paper I'd like to give you. Guess it would be safer +out of my hands; the police troopers are after me."</p> + +<p>Alison set the kettle and frying-pan on the stove. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> was +compassionate by nature, and the man looked very jaded and weary. When +she sat down again he handed her a rather bulky folded paper which +appeared to be some kind of legal document.</p> + +<p>"What am I to do with this?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"You can give it to Farquhar, or keep it and hide it," said the man. "I +guess the last would be wisest. Nobody would figure you had the thing, +and I can't give it to Lucy, because Nevis would sure get after her."</p> + +<p>"Is it very important?"</p> + +<p>"It might be. I can't go and ask a lawyer now. Guess the man would feel +it was his duty to put Slaney on my trail, and I couldn't go near the +settlement in daylight without doing the same. Anyway, it's my mortgage +deed, and I have a notion that it might give me a pull on Nevis if the +troopers get me. If I'm right, he'll be mighty anxious to get it back +again."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," returned Alison. "If he was afraid of your using +it against him, he wouldn't have given it to you at all."</p> + +<p>Winthrop grinned.</p> + +<p>"He didn't. I got him out of his office late at night and crept in for +it. I knew where he kept the thing because I'd seen him put it in his +safe."</p> + +<p>Alison was far from pleased with this confession, but while she +considered it another point occurred to her.</p> + +<p>"But don't people generally get a duplicate of a paper of this kind?" +she asked.</p> + +<p>"I had one, but Nevis wanted me to do something that didn't seem quite +what we had agreed on, and I went over with the deed to show him he was +wrong. He said I'd better leave it, and somehow or other I could never +get it out of his hands again."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>"Ah," said Alison softly, "I think I wouldn't mind helping you against +that man. But you must tell me exactly what you mean to do."</p> + +<p>"I'm going across to see Lucy—and out West somewhere after that. If I +can get away, and strike anything that will pay me, it's quite likely +that I'll leave Nevis alone. If I can't, or there's a reason for it +later, I'll write you, and Farquhar or Thorne could take the deed to a +lawyer and see if he could get at Nevis with it. In the meanwhile it +would be wiser if you just hid the thing away. If Farquhar knows nothing +about it, I guess it would save him trouble."</p> + +<p>Alison did not answer for a moment or two. She felt that she was acting +imprudently in allowing herself to be drawn into the affair, but she was +sorry for the man. He was a friend of Thorne's, and that counted for a +good deal in his favor. In addition to this, the idea of playing a part, +and possibly a leading part, in something of the nature of a complicated +drama appealed to her, and there was, half formulated at the back of her +mind, the desire to prove to Thorne just what she was capable of.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said at length, "you may leave it with me."</p> + +<p>Then she set about getting him a meal, and a little while later he +limped wearily away. He left her with the impression that it would be +wise of Nevis to abandon his pursuit of him, for there was something in +the man's manner which indicated that he might prove dangerous if +pressed too hard. The morning had slipped away before she could get the +thought of him out of her mind.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile, he was plodding across the white wilderness under a +scorching sun. The atmosphere was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> crystallinely clear, and an almost +intolerable brightness flooded the wide levels. A birch bluff miles away +was etched in clean-cut tracery upon the horizon, but though the weary +man kept his eyes sharply open he felt reasonably safe from observation, +which it seemed desirable to avoid. He did not believe that any of the +scattered farmers would betray him, even if some pressure should be put +upon them with the view of extracting information, but it was clear that +they would be better able to evade any attempts Nevis or Slaney might +make to entrap them into some incautious admission if they had none to +impart. Winthrop based this decision on the fact that a man certainly +cannot tell what he does not know.</p> + +<p>It was consoling to remember that the wide, open prairie is by no means +a bad place to hide in. A mounted figure or a team and wagon shows up +for a vast distance against the skyline, while a few grass tussocks less +than a foot in height will effectually conceal a man who lies down among +them with the outline of his body broken by the blades from anybody +passing within two or three hundred yards of him. Winthrop was aware, +however, that it would be different if he attempted to run away; and +once he dropped like a stone when a buggy rose unexpectedly out of a +ravine. The man who drove it was an acquaintance of his, but he seemed +to gaze right at the spot where Winthrop was stretched out without +seeing him. The latter was not disturbed again, but he cast rather +dubious glances round him as he resumed his march. There was another +long journey in front of him that night, and he did not like the signs +of the weather. It struck him as ominously clear.</p> + +<p>He was, as it happened, not the only person who no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>ticed this, for other +people who had at different times suffered severely in pocket from the +vagaries of the climate had arrived at much the same opinion that +afternoon, with more or less uneasiness according to their temperament. +The wheat was everywhere standing tall and green, and the season had +been on the whole so propitious that from bitter experience they almost +expected a change. As the small cultivator has discovered, the simile of +a beneficent nature is a singularly misleading one, for the stern truth +was proclaimed in ages long ago that man must toil with painful effort +for the bread he eats, and must subdue the earth before he can render it +fruitful. In the new West he has made himself many big machines, +including the great gang-plows that rip their multiple furrows through +the prairie soil, but he still lies defenseless against the fickle +elements.</p> + +<p>Elcot Hunter, at least, was anxious that night as he sat in the general +living-room of his homestead opposite his wife. She was not greatly +interested in the book she held, and she glanced at him now and then as +he sat poring over a newspaper which was noted for its crop and market +reports. They afforded Hunter very little satisfaction, for they made it +clear that the West would produce enough wheat that season to flood an +already lifeless market.</p> + +<p>The windows of the room were open wide, and the smell of sun-baked soil +damped by the heavy dew came in with the sound made by the movements of +a restless horse or two. The fall of hoofs appeared unusually distinct. +The wooden house, which had lain baking under a scorching sun all day, +was still very hot, but the faint puffs of air which flowed in were +delightfully cool, and at length Florence, who was very lightly clad, +shiv<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>ered as one that was stronger than the rest lifted a sheet of +Hunter's paper.</p> + +<p>"It is positively getting cold," she remarked.</p> + +<p>"Cold?" returned Hunter. "I wouldn't call it that."</p> + +<p>He resumed his reading, and three or four minutes had slipped by when +Florence turned to him with irritation in her manner.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you anything to say, Elcot?" she broke out. "Are those crop +statistics so very fascinating?"</p> + +<p>Hunter looked up at her with a rather grim smile. She lay in a low cane +chair beneath the lamp, with her figure falling into long sweeping +lines, attired in costly fripperies lately purchased in the East, but +there was not the least doubt that they became her. Indeed, with the +satiny whiteness of her neck and arms half revealed beneath the gauzy +draperies, and her hair gleaming lustrously about a face that had been +carefully shielded from the ravages of the weather, she seemed strangely +out of place in the primitively furnished room of a western homestead. +The man noticed it, as he had done on other occasions, with a pang of +regret. There had been a time when he had expected her to rejoice in his +successes and console him in his defeats, and it had hurt when she had +made it clear that any reference to his occupation only irritated her. +He had got over that, as he had borne other troubles, with an +uncomplaining quietness, and, though she had never suspected this, he +had often felt sorry for her. Still, he was a man of somewhat unyielding +character, and there was occasionally friction when he did what he +considered most fitting, in spite of her protests.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said in answer to her question, "they have, anyway, some +interest to a farmer who has a good deal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> at stake." He threw the paper +down. "Things in general aren't very promising, and I may be rather +tightly fixed after the harvest. I seem to have been spending a great +deal of money lately."</p> + +<p>Florence felt guilty. After all, as she was the principal cause of his +expenses, it was generous of him to put it as he had done. Indeed, she +decided to make a confession about the loan from Nevis sometime when he +appeared to be in an unusually favorable mood.</p> + +<p>"You have a splendid crop, haven't you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"The trouble is that I may not get much for it, and a wheat crop is +never quite safe until it's thrashed out. I'm uncertain about the +weather."</p> + +<p>"The aneroid has gone up; I looked at it."</p> + +<p>"It's gone up too much and too suddenly," said Hunter. "That sometimes +means a bad outbreak from the north."</p> + +<p>Florence was moved by a sudden impulse. The man was bronzed and +toughened by labor, but there was, as she had noticed since she came +home, a jaded look in his face.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she asked, "do you think I oughtn't to have gone away?"</p> + +<p>The man seemed to consider this.</p> + +<p>"No," he answered, "I don't think that, so long as you were able to +manage it with the little help I could give you." He paused a moment, +and looked puzzled, for there was a suspicion of heightened color in +Florence's face. "On the whole, I'm glad you went, if you enjoyed the +visit."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem very sure. Wasn't it rather dull for you here?"</p> + +<p>It was, so far as he could remember, the first time she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> had displayed +any interest on this point, and he smiled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I had the place to look after, as usual. It's fortunate that it +occupies a good deal of my attention."</p> + +<p>Florence leaned forward suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Elcot, won't you tell me exactly how much you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>It was a moment or two before Hunter answered.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said gravely, "since you have suggested it, perhaps I better +had, though it means the dragging in of questions we've talked over +quite often already. I took up farming because I couldn't stand the +cities and it seemed the thing I was most fitted for. On that point I +haven't changed my opinions. Where I did wrong was in marrying you." He +checked her with a lifted hand as she was about to speak. "If you had +never met me, you would probably have taken the next man with means who +came along."</p> + +<p>"Yes," admitted Florence, meeting his gaze. "I think that's true. Having +gone so far, hadn't you better proceed?"</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to look at it from your standpoint; I've never been sorry on +my own account."</p> + +<p>Florence laughed in a strained fashion.</p> + +<p>"That's a little difficult to believe. Still, one must do you the +justice to own that you have, at least, never mentioned your regrets."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I've often mentioned my expectations either. That's one +reason I'm speaking now. You seem—approachable—to-night."</p> + +<p>"I suppose they were not fulfilled?"</p> + +<p>"If they were not, it was my own fault. I took you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> out of the +environment you were suited to and content with."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't," Florence declared sharply. "Things were horribly unpleasant +to me then. I was struggling desperately to earn a living, and had to +put up with a good deal from most disagreeable people."</p> + +<p>Again a faint, grim smile crept into her husband's eyes.</p> + +<p>"After all, perfect candor is a little painful now and then; but let me +go on. At least, I brought you into an environment with which you were +not content. The kind of life I led was irksome to you; you could not +help me in it; even to hear me talk of what I did each day was +burdensome to you. I couldn't speak of my plans for the future, or the +difficulties that must be met and faced continually. For a while I felt +it badly."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Florence acknowledged, "it must have been hard on you, Elcot."</p> + +<p>"It could be borne, but there was another side of the matter. It was +clear that you were longing for company, stir, gaiety—and I could not +give them to you. As I've often said, I'm not rich enough to make a mark +in any of the cities, unless I went into business, for which I've +neither the training nor inclination, and most of my money is sunk in +the land here. It's difficult to sell a farm of this size for anything +like its value unless wheat is dear. Besides, the friends you would wish +to make wouldn't take to me. That is certain; I lived among people of +their description before I met you. I couldn't in any way have helped +you to make yourself a leading place in the only kind of society that +would satisfy you. All this has stood between us—no doubt it was +unavoidable—but it made the troubles I could share with no one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> a +little worse to bear, and my few successes of less account to me. After +all, since I could, at least, send you to the cities now and then, it +was fortunate that I had my farm." He stopped a moment and added +deprecatingly: "Whether you will be able to get away next winter is more +than I know. As I said, the outlook is far from promising in the +meanwhile."</p> + +<p>Florence did not answer immediately. At last, she could clearly grasp +the man's point of view. Indeed, she realized that during the few years +they had lived together she had taken all he had to offer and had given +practically nothing in return. She felt almost impelled to tell him that +her last visit to the cities had brought her very little pleasure, and +that she would be willing to spend the next winter with him at the +lonely homestead; but she could not do so. A surrender of any kind was +difficult to her, and she had by degrees built up a barrier of reserve +between them that could not immediately be thrown down. Besides, there +was in the background the memory of Nevis's loan.</p> + +<p>"Things may look better by and by," she said lamely.</p> + +<p>Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, and it seemed to Florence that +the room grew perceptibly colder, while once or twice a little puff of +air struck with a sudden chill upon her face. Then there was a sharp +drumming, which ceased again abruptly, upon the shingled roof, and she +followed Hunter when he strode out on the veranda. An impenetrable +darkness now overhung most of the sky, and there was a wild beat of +hoofs as three or four invisible horses dashed across the paddock. +Florence knew that the beasts were young, and understood that they were +valuable. Her husband moved toward the steps.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>"I'll put them into the stable, or, if I can't manage that, turn them +out on the prairie," he said. "I'm afraid of the new fence. They're not +accustomed to it yet, and there are two barbed strands in it."</p> + +<p>"Take one of the hired men with you," Florence called after him, but he +made no answer, and the next moment a mad beat of hoofs once more broke +out as the uneasy horses galloped furiously back across the fenced-in +space.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX<br /> +<span class="smalltext">HAIL</span></h2> + + +<p>The air had grown very still again when Florence leaned on the veranda +balustrade, gazing into the darkness, which was now intense. The brief +shower of heavy rain had wet the grass, and waves of warm moisture +charged with an odor like that of a hothouse seemed to flow about her +and recede again, leaving her almost shivering in her gauzy dress, for +between whiles it was by contrast strangely cold. She could hear Hunter +calling to the horses, which apparently broke away from him now and then +in short, savage rushes, but she could see nothing of him or them. +Presently the sharp cries of one of the hired men broke in, and +Florence, who felt her nerves tingling, became conscious of an +unpleasant tension.</p> + +<p>Then for a second, or part of it, the figures of moving men and beasts +became visible, etched hard and black against an overwhelming +brightness, as a blaze of lightning smote the prairie. The glare of it +was dazzling, and when it vanished Florence was left gripping the +balustrade, bewildered and wrapped in an intolerable darkness. After +that a drumming of hoofs and a hoarse cry broke upon her ears, but both +were drowned and lost in a deafening crash of thunder. It rolled far +back into the distance in great reverberations, and while her light +skirt fluttered about her in an icy draught another sound emerged from +them as they died away.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>It grew nearer and louder in a persistent, portentous crescendo, for at +first it suggested the galloping of a squadron of horse, then a +regiment, and at length the furious approach of a division of cavalry. +Holding fast to the balustrade, she could even imagine that there were +mingled with it the crash of jolting wheels and a clamor of wild voices +as of a host behind pressing onward to the onslaught. The din was +scarcely drowned by a tremendous rumbling that twice filled the air; and +there was forced upon her a vague perception of the fact that it was a +very real attack upon the things that enabled her to have the ease she +loved. Wheat and cattle, stables and homestead must, it almost seemed, +go down, and there were, as sole and pitiful defense, two men somewhere +out in the darkness exposed to the outbreak of elemental fury. There was +now no sign of her husband or his companion. It was quite impossible to +hear any sound they made, and she stood quivering, until, loosing her +hold of the balustrade with an effort, she ran down the steps.</p> + +<p>"Elcot!" she cried.</p> + +<p>No answer reached her. She knew it was useless to call, but an +overmastering fear came upon her as she remembered the mad flight of the +terrified horses, and she ran on a few paces over the wet grass, crying +out again. Then she was beaten back, gasping, with her hands raised in a +futile attempt to shield her face and her dress driven flat against her, +as a merciless shower of ice broke out of the darkness. It swept the +veranda like the storm of lead from a volley, only it did not cease; +crashing upon the balustrade and lashing the front of the house, while +the very building seemed to rock in the savage blast. She staggered back +before it, too dazed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> and bewildered to notice where she was going, +until she struck the wall and cowered against the boards. There was a +narrow roof above her, but it did not keep off much of the wind-driven +hail, and she could not be sure that the whole of it was now standing. +The veranda was wrapped in darkness, for the lamp had blown out.</p> + +<p>She never remembered how long she stood there. For a time, every sense +was concentrated on an effort to shelter her face from the hail which +fell upon her thinly covered arms and shoulders like a scourge of +knotted wire. Then, faint and breathless, she crept forward toward where +she supposed the door must be, and staggered into the unlighted room. +She struck a chair, and sank into it, to sit shivering and listening +appalled to the cataclysm of sound.</p> + +<p>Then a terror which had been driven out of her mind for the last few +minutes crept back. Elcot was out amid the rush of hurtling ice; and she +knew him well enough to feel certain that he would stay in the paddock +until the horses were secured. She could picture him trying to guide the +maddened beasts out between the slip-rails, heading them off from the +perilous fence they rushed down upon at a terror-stricken gallop, or, +perhaps, lying upon the hail-swept grass with a broken limb. It was +horrible to contemplate, and she became conscious of a torturing anxiety +concerning the safety of the man for whose comfort she had scarcely +spared a thought since she married him.</p> + +<p>Though it was difficult, she contrived to shut the door and window, and +to relight the lamp, and then she glanced round the room. Elcot's paper +had fallen to pieces and had been scattered here and there, while a +long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> pile of hail lay melting on the floor. She could understand now +why she felt bruised all over except where the fullness of her dress had +protected her, for she had never seen hail like this in England. The +jagged lumps were of all shapes, and most of them seemed the size of +hazelnuts. Then she became conscious that her hair was streaming about +her face and that her dress clung saturated to her limbs. This, however, +appeared of no moment, for her anxiety about her husband was becoming +intolerable.</p> + +<p>Nerving herself for an effort, she moved toward the door. It was flung +back upon her when she lifted the latch, and she staggered beneath the +blow. Then, panting hard, she forced it to again and went back limply to +her chair. It was utterly impossible for her to face that hail. She had +the will to do so, and she was no coward, but the flesh she had pampered +and shielded failed her, which was in no way astonishing. Wheat-growers, +herders, police troopers, and, unfortunately, patient women learn that +the body must be sternly brought into subjection to the mind by long +repression before one can face wind-driven ice, snow-laden blizzard, or +the awful cold which now and then descends upon the vast spaces of +western Canada.</p> + +<p>In a few more minutes the uproar subsided. The drumming on the walls and +roof suddenly ceased and the wind no longer buffeted the house. The +tumult receded in gradations of sinking sound, until at last there was +silence, except for the drip from the veranda eaves. It was shortly +broken by quick footsteps and Florence turned toward the door as Hunter +came in.</p> + +<p>His face showed where the hail had beaten it, for his hat had gone; the +water ran from him, and one hand was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> bleeding. He looked limp and +exhausted, but what struck her most was the sternness of his expression.</p> + +<p>"Are you hurt?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Hunter glanced down at his reddened hand.</p> + +<p>"Nothing to speak of. I got a rip from the fence somehow, and one leg's +a little stiff; one of the horses must have kicked me. Guess I'll know +more about it to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"And the horses?"</p> + +<p>"We managed to get them out. But what were you doing outside? Your dress +is dripping."</p> + +<p>Florence hesitated. It seemed extraordinary that while she had seldom +felt the least diffidence in dealing as appeared expedient with any of +the men she had known, she was unable to inform her husband that she had +been driven into the storm by anxiety for his safety; but somehow she +could not get the words out. She recognized that it had never occurred +to him that she could have been actuated by any motive of this kind, +though she was forced to own that, considering everything, this was no +more than natural. The thought brought a half-bitter smile into her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"I was on the steps when the hail began, and I could scarcely get back +into the house," she said. "Can it have done very much harm?"</p> + +<p>Hunter made a gesture of dejection.</p> + +<p>"That's a point I'm most afraid to investigate, and it can't be done +to-night. In the meanwhile, hadn't you better get those wet things off?"</p> + +<p>His preoccupied manner indicated that he was in no mood for +conversation, and Florence left him standing moodily still. It was some +minutes before he felt chilly and went upstairs to change his clothes, +but he came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> back almost immediately and took some papers and a couple +of account books from a bureau. After this he lighted his pipe and sat +down to make copious extracts, with a view to discovering how he stood. +He had no great trouble in ascertaining his liabilities, for he was a +methodical man, but it was different when he came to consider what he +had to set off against them. He had counted on his wheat crop to leave +him a certain surplus, but it now seemed unfortunately probable that +there would be no harvest at all that year. Admitting this, he busied +himself with figures in an attempt to discover how far it might be +possible to convert what promised to be a crushing disaster into a +temporary defeat, and several hours slipped by before any means of doing +so occurred to him. His expenses had been unusually heavy, there were +many points to consider and balance against each other, and a gray light +was breaking low down on the rim of the prairie when at length he rose +and thrust the books back into the bureau. The night's labor had at +least convinced him that if he were to hold his own during the next +twelve months it could be only by persistent effort and stern economy, +and he had misgivings as to how his wife would regard the prospect of +the latter.</p> + +<p>On going out on to the veranda a few minutes later he was astonished to +hear footsteps behind him, and when he turned and waited Florence came +out of the doorway.</p> + +<p>"I heard you moving and I came down," she said. "Are you going to look +at the wheat?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Hunter. "I'm afraid there won't be very much of it to +see."</p> + +<p>The light was growing a little clearer and Florence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> noticed the +weariness of his face. He seemed to hold himself slackly and she had +never seen him fall into that dejected attitude. The man was, however, +physically jaded, for a day of severe labor had preceded the struggle in +the paddock and the hours he had spent in anxious thought, and he had, +as he was quite aware, a heavy blow to face.</p> + +<p>"May I go with you?" she asked hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>The question was not encouraging, nor was his manner, and Florence felt +reluctant to explain that her request had been prompted by a desire to +share his troubles. She was conscious that a statement to this effect +would probably appear somewhat astonishing, as she had never offered to +do anything of the kind hitherto.</p> + +<p>"If you must have a reason, I'm as anxious to see what damage the hail +has done as you are. It can't very well affect you without affecting +me."</p> + +<p>"Yes," agreed Hunter, "that's undoubtedly the case. I'm afraid you'll +have to put up with me and the homestead for the next twelve months. +It's quite likely that there'll be very few new dresses, either."</p> + +<p>Florence endeavored to keep her patience. It was not often that she felt +in a penitent mood, and he did not seem disposed to make it any easier +for her.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose new dresses are a matter of vital importance to me?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"Well," answered Hunter, "since you put the question, several things +almost lead me to believe it."</p> + +<p>He turned abruptly toward the steps.</p> + +<p>"If you are coming with me, we may as well go along."</p> + +<p>They crossed the wet paddock together, and now and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> then Florence +glanced covertly at her husband's face. It was set and anxious, but +there was no sign of surrender in it. She had, however, not expected to +see the latter, for she knew that Elcot was one who could, when occasion +demanded it, make a very stubborn fight.</p> + +<p>At length they stopped and stood looking out across what at sunset had +been a vast sea of tall, green wheat. Now it had gone down, parts of it +as before the knife of a reaper, while the rest lay crushed and flung +this way and that, as though an army had marched through it. Lush blades +and half-formed ears were smashed into the mire and the odd clusters of +battered stalks that stood leaning above the tangled chaos only served +to heighten the suggestion of widespread ruin.</p> + +<p>Florence watched her husband, but she did not care to speak, for there +are times when expressions of sympathy are superfluous. When he walked +slowly forward along the edge of the grain she followed him, without +noticing that her thin shoes were saturated and her light skirt was +trailing in the harsh wet grass. The ground rose slightly, and stopping +when they reached the highest point he answered her inquiring glance.</p> + +<p>"It looks pretty bad," he said. "Some of it—a very little—may fill out +and ripen and we might get the binders through it, but the thing's going +to be difficult."</p> + +<p>"Will this hit you very hard, Elcot?"</p> + +<p>Hunter turned and looked at her with gravely searching eyes, and she +shrank from his gaze while a warmth crept into her face.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she broke out indignantly, "I'm not thinking—now—of what I might +have to do without. Still, I suppose it was only natural that you should +suspect it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>The man's gesture seemed to imply that this was after all a matter of +minor importance, and it jarred on her.</p> + +<p>"Well," he answered, "I guess I can weather the trouble, though it will +mean a long, stiff pull and a general whittling down of expenses. I +spent most of last night figuring on the latter, and I've got my plans +worked out, though it was troublesome to see where I was to begin."</p> + +<p>Florence's heart smote her. Her allowance was a liberal one, but she +knew it would only be when every other expedient had failed that he +would think of touching that. It would have been a relief to tell him he +could begin with it, but she remembered Nevis's loan. The thought of +that loan was becoming a burden, and she felt that it must be wiped off +somehow at any cost.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she sympathized, "it must have been difficult. You don't spend +much money unnecessarily, Elcot."</p> + +<p>He did not answer, and she glanced at his hands, which were hard and +roughened like those of a workman. There was an untended red gash which +the fence had made across the back of one. Another glance at his +clothing carried her a little farther along the same line of thought, +for his garments were old and shabby and faded by the weather.</p> + +<p>"Anyway," he said, apparently without having heeded her last +observation, "I'm thankful I have no debts just now."</p> + +<p>It was an unconscious thrust, but Florence winced, for it wounded her, +and she began to see how Nevis had with deliberate purpose strengthened +the barrier between her and her husband. What was more, she determined +that the man should regret it. Why she had ever encouraged him she did +not know, but there was no doubt that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> was anxious to get rid of him +now. She would have made an open confession about the loan then and +there, but the time was singularly inopportune. It was out of the +question that she should add to her husband's anxiety.</p> + +<p>"After all, it doesn't often hail," she encouraged him. "Another good +year will set you straight again."</p> + +<p>The man seemed lost in thought, but he looked up when she spoke.</p> + +<p>"We can make a bid for it," he replied. "I must have bigger and newer +machines. Like most of the rest, I've been too afraid of launching out +and have clung to old-fashioned means. There will have to be a change +and a clearance before next season."</p> + +<p>It was very matter-of-fact, but Florence knew him well enough to realize +what it implied. Defeat could not crush him; it only nerved him to a +more resolute fight, for which he meant to equip himself at any +sacrifice with more efficient weapons. Again she was conscious of a +growing respect for him.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I have been a drag on you, Elcot, but in this case you can +count upon my doing—what I can."</p> + +<p>He scarcely seemed to hear her, and she realized with a trace of bitter +amusement that her assurance did not appear of any particular +consequence to him.</p> + +<p>"I have teams enough," he continued, picking up the course of thought +where he had broken off. "Anyway, one should get something for the old +machines."</p> + +<p>Florence set her lips as they turned back toward the house. This was a +matter in which she evidently did not count; but there was no doubt that +in the light of past events the man's attitude was justified. It would +be necessary to prove that he was wrong, and, with Nevis's loan still to +be met, that promised to be difficult.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>"Elcot," she said, "I don't think I've told you yet how sorry I am."</p> + +<p>He looked at her in a manner which implied that his mind was still busy +with his plans.</p> + +<p>"Yes—of course," he replied.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI<br /> +<span class="smalltext">A POINT OF HONOR</span></h2> + + +<p>Florence Hunter sat in her wagon in front of the grocery store at +Graham's Bluff waiting until the man who kept it should bring out +various goods she had ordered. Though a fresh breeze swept the +surrounding prairie the little town was very hot, and it looked +singularly unattractive with the dust blowing through its one unpaved +street. In one place a gaily striped shade, which flapped and fluttered +in the wind, had been stretched above the window of an ambitious store; +but with this exception the unlovely wooden buildings boldly fronted the +weather, with the sun-glare on their thin, rent boarding and the roofing +shingles crackling overhead, as they had done when they had borne the +scourge of snow-laden gales and the almost Arctic frost. They were +square and squat, as destitute, most of them, of paint as they were of +any attempt at adornment; and in hot weather the newer ones were +permeated with a pungent, resinous smell.</p> + +<p>Where Florence sat, however, the odors that flowed out of the store were +more diffuse, for the fragrance of perspiring cheese was mingled with +that of pork which had gained flavor and lost its stiffness in the heat, +and the aroma of what was sold as coffee at Graham's Bluff. Florence, +indeed, had been glad to escape from the store, which resembled an oven +with savory cooking going on, though after all it was not a great deal +better in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> wagon. The dust was beginning to gather in the folds of +her dainty dress, the wind plucked at her veil, and the fierce sun smote +her face.</p> + +<p>On the whole, she was displeased with things in general and inclined to +regret that she had driven into the settlement, which she had done in a +fit of compunction. Hitherto she had contented herself with sending the +storekeeper an order for goods to be supplied, without any attempt to +investigate his charges, but now, with Elcot's harvest ruined it had +appeared her duty to consider carefully the subject of housekeeping +accounts. She rather resented the fact that her first experiment had +proved unpleasant, for she had shrunk from the sight of the slabs of +half-melted pork flung down for her inspection, and having hitherto +shopped only in England and eastern Canada she had found the naïve +abruptness of the western storekeeper somewhat hard on her temper. +Retail dealers in the prairie settlements seldom defer to their +customers. If the latter do not like their goods or charges they are +generally favored with a hint that they would better go somewhere else, +and there is an end of the matter. It really did not look as if much +encouragement was held out to those who aspired to cultivate the +domestic virtues. At length the storekeeper appeared with several large +packages.</p> + +<p>"You want to cover this one up; it's the butter," he cautioned. "Guess +you're going to have some trouble in keeping it in the wagon if the sun +gets on to it. Better bring a big can next time, same as your hired man +does."</p> + +<p>The warning was justified, because when the inexperienced customer +brings nothing to put it in, butter is usually retailed in light baskets +made of wood, in spite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> of the fact that it is addicted to running out +of them in the heat of the day. The man next deposited a heavy cotton +bag in the wagon, and while a thin cloud of flour which followed its +fall descended upon Florence he laid his hands on the wheel and looked +at her confidentially.</p> + +<p>"I guess if your husband meant to let up on that creamery scheme you +would have heard of it," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Florence; "I don't think he has any intention of doing +so."</p> + +<p>The man made a sign of assent.</p> + +<p>"That's just what I was telling the boys last night. There were two or +three of them from Traverse staying at the hotel, and when we got to +talking about the hail they allowed that he'd have to cut the creamery +plan out. I said that when Elcot Hunter took a thing up he stayed with +it until he put it through."</p> + +<p>His words had their effect on Florence. This, it seemed, was what the +men who dealt with Elcot thought of him. After a few more general +observations about the creamery her companion went back into his store, +and as he did so Nevis came out of a house near by. He stopped beside +her team.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you were in the settlement," he said, and his manner +implied that had he been acquainted with the fact he would have sought +her out.</p> + +<p>Florence glanced at him sharply as she gathered up the reins. The man +seemed disposed to be more amiable than he had shown himself on the last +occasion, but she now cherished two strong grievances against him. He +had cunningly saddled her with a debt which was becoming horribly +embarrassing, and he had given her husband a hint that she had dealings +of some kind with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> him. As the latter course was, on the face of it, +clearly not calculated to earn her gratitude, she surmised that he must +have had some ulterior object in adopting it.</p> + +<p>"I've been buying stores," she answered indifferently.</p> + +<p>"That's a new departure, isn't it?" Nevis suggested. "You generally +contented yourself with sending in for them."</p> + +<p>Florence did not like his tone, and he seemed suspiciously well informed +about her habits. This indicated that he had been making inquiries about +her, and she naturally resented it. She disregarded the speech, however.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you're here on business?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Nevis, and there was something significant in his +manner; "I thought it wiser to look up my clients after the hail we had +two nights ago. It's going to make things very tight for many of the +prairie farmers."</p> + +<p>"And a disaster naturally brings you on the field. Rather like the +vultures, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>She was about to drive on, but Nevis suddenly laid his hand on the rein.</p> + +<p>"I think you ought to give me a minute or two, if only to answer that," +he said with a laugh. "You compared me to a pickpocket not long ago, and +I'm not prepared to own that you have chosen a very fortunate simile +now."</p> + +<p>"No? After the fact you mentioned it struck me as rather apposite; but I +may have been wrong. The point's hardly worth discussing, and I'm going +on to the hotel."</p> + +<p>She had expected him to take the hint and drop the rein, but he showed +no intention of doing so, and it sud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>denly dawned on her that he meant +to keep her talking as long as possible. Everybody in the settlement who +cared to look out could see them, and she had no doubt that the women in +the place were keenly observant. It almost seemed as if he wished the +fact that they had a good deal to say to each other to attract +attention, with the idea that this might serve to give him a further +hold on her. It was an opposite policy to the one he had pursued when +she had driven him across the prairie some time ago, but the man had +become bolder and more aggressive since then.</p> + +<p>"Will you let that rein go?" she asked directly.</p> + +<p>Nevis did not comply, and though he made a gesture of deprecation the +look in his eyes warned her that he meant to let her feel his power.</p> + +<p>"Won't you give me an opportunity for convincing you that I'm not like +the vultures first? You see, they gather round the carrion, and I don't +suppose you would care to apply that term to the farmers in our +vicinity. Most of them aren't more than moribund yet."</p> + +<p>It struck Florence that he was indifferent as to whether she took +offense at this or not; and he was undoubtedly determined to stick fast +to the rein. There were already one or two loungers watching them, and, +if he persisted, she could not start the team without some highly +undesirable display of force. The man, she fancied, realized this, and +an angry warmth crept into her face. Then, somewhat to her relief, she +saw Thorne strolling down the street behind her companion. He wore a +battered, wide gray hat, a blue shirt which hung open at the neck, duck +trousers and long boots, and though he was freely sprinkled with dust he +looked distinctly picturesque. What was more to the purpose, he seemed +to be regard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>ing Nevis with suspicion, and she knew that he was a man of +quick resource. In any case, the situation was becoming intolerable, and +she flashed a quick glance at him. She fancied that he would understand +it as an intimation that he was wanted, and the expectation was +justified, for although she had never been gracious to him he approached +a little faster. In the meanwhile Nevis, who had seen nothing of all +this, talked on.</p> + +<p>"There are, of course," he added, "people who are prejudiced against me; +but on the other hand I have set a good many of the small farmers on +their feet again."</p> + +<p>"Presumably you made them pay for it?"</p> + +<p>The man had no opportunity for answering this, for just then Thorne's +hand fell heavily upon his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"You here, Nevis?" he cried.</p> + +<p>Nevis dropped the rein as he swung around and Florence wasted no time in +starting her team. As the wagon jolted away down the rutted street +Nevis, standing still, somewhat flushed in face, gazed at Thorne.</p> + +<p>"Well," he demanded, "what do you want?"</p> + +<p>Thorne leaned against the front of the store with sardonic amusement in +his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he replied, "it merely occurred to me that Mrs. Hunter wished to +drive on. I thought I'd better point it out to you."</p> + +<p>Nevis glanced at him savagely and then strode away, which was, indeed, +all that he could do. An altercation would serve no useful purpose, and +his antagonist was notoriously quick at repartee.</p> + +<p>Thorne proceeded toward the wooden hotel and crossing the veranda he +entered a long roughly boarded room, where he found Alison and Mrs. +Farquhar as well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> as Florence Hunter waiting for supper. Mrs. Farquhar +told him that supper would be served to them before the regular +customers came in for theirs. They chatted a while and then a young lad +appeared in the doorway and stopped hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry if I'm intruding," he apologized. "I meant to have supper +with the boys, and Symonds didn't tell me there was anybody in the +room."</p> + +<p>Thorne turned to Mrs. Farquhar, and she smiled.</p> + +<p>"Then unless you would prefer to take it with the boys, Dave, there's no +reason why you should run away," he said.</p> + +<p>He led the lad toward Alison when Mrs. Farquhar had spoken to him.</p> + +<p>"I think you will remember him, Miss Leigh. He's the young man who +boiled the fowls whole at the raising."</p> + +<p>Alison laughed and shook hands with him, but after a word or two with +her he looked at Thorne significantly and moved a few paces toward the +door.</p> + +<p>"Did you know that Winthrop was in the neighborhood?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>Alison still stood near them and Thorne fancied that she started +slightly, which implied that she had overheard, though why the news +should cause her concern was far from clear to him.</p> + +<p>"I didn't," he said sharply. "It's a little difficult to believe it now. +You're quite sure?"</p> + +<p>"I saw him," the lad persisted. "I was riding here along the trail and +I'd come to the ravine. It's quite likely the birches had hidden me, for +when I came out of them he was sitting on the edge of the sloo on the +south side, near enough for me to recognize him, eating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> something. The +next moment he rolled over into the grass and vanished."</p> + +<p>"Then you didn't speak to him?"</p> + +<p>"He was too quick. It looked as if he didn't want me to see him, and I +rode on. I had to call at Forrester's and I found Corporal Slaney there. +One or two things he said made it clear that he hadn't the faintest +notion that Winthrop was within a mile or two of him."</p> + +<p>He was apparently about to add something further when Thorne looked at +him warningly. They were standing near the entrance, the approach to +which led through the veranda, and the next moment Nevis walked into the +room.</p> + +<p>"Have you been picking up interesting news?" he asked. "I believe I +caught Winthrop's name."</p> + +<p>It was spoken sharply, in the expectation, Thorne fancied, that his +companion, taken off his guard, would blurt out some fresh information; +but the lad turned toward Nevis with an air of cold resentment.</p> + +<p>"I was talking to Mr. Thorne," he replied.</p> + +<p>Nevis laughed, though Thorne noticed that he did not do it easily.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I'm sorry if I interrupted you."</p> + +<p>Then he turned toward the others as if he had just noticed them.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know that Symonds had placed the room at your disposal; I've +no doubt that will excuse me."</p> + +<p>Nobody invited him to remain, but he withdrew gracefully, and when he +had gone Thorne led the lad out on to the veranda. It was unoccupied, +but as it stood some little height above the ground he walked to the +edge of it and looked over before he spoke.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>"Now, Dave, I want you to tell me one or two things as clearly as you +can."</p> + +<p>The lad answered his questions, and in a minute or two Thorne nodded as +if satisfied. Then he pointed to the room.</p> + +<p>"Go in and talk to Mrs. Farquhar. Keep clear of Nevis, and ride home as +soon as you can after supper. If you feel compelled to mention the +thing, there's no reason why you shouldn't to-morrow. It won't do much +harm then."</p> + +<p>He went down the steps and along the street, and when he came back some +time later he found Alison waiting for him on the veranda.</p> + +<p>"So you heard what Dave told me? I thought you did," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Alison. "The question is whether Nevis heard him too."</p> + +<p>"He certainly heard part, but there are one or two things he can't very +well know. For instance, it was Slaney's intention to ride in to the +railroad as soon as he'd had supper."</p> + +<p>"Forrester's place must be at least two leagues from here," commented +Alison.</p> + +<p>"About that," Thorne agreed with a smile. "It's far enough to make it +exceedingly probable that anybody who started from this settlement when +he'd had his supper would only get there after Winthrop had gone."</p> + +<p>"But Nevis might send a messenger immediately."</p> + +<p>Thorne shook his head.</p> + +<p>"It strikes me as very unlikely that he'd get any one to go. There are +only one or two horses in the place, and I've been round to see the men +to whom they belong."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>Alison's eyes sparkled approvingly.</p> + +<p>"But suppose he goes himself?"</p> + +<p>"He won't until after supper. Nevis is not the man to deny himself +unless it seems absolutely necessary, and he'll naturally assume that +Slaney is spending the night with Forrester. But there's a certain +probability of his setting out immediately after the meal."</p> + +<p>"And what are you going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>Thorne's expression became regretful.</p> + +<p>"I'm very much afraid I can't do anything. You see, +the—arrangement—with Corporal Slaney stands in the way."</p> + +<p>"You never thought that Winthrop would come back here when you made it," +Alison suggested.</p> + +<p>"No," acknowledged Thorne; "the point is that the corporal didn't +either."</p> + +<p>Alison appeared to reflect, and he watched her with quiet amusement.</p> + +<p>"I've changed my mind about Winthrop," she told him at length. "I want +him to get away."</p> + +<p>Thorne made no answer, and she continued:</p> + +<p>"Lucy Calvert is, no doubt, a good deal more anxious than I am that he +should escape, and it would be only natural if you wished to earn her +thanks. I think she could be very nice, and her eyes are wonderfully +blue."</p> + +<p>Thorne met her inquiring gaze with one of contemplative scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"Yours," he said, "are usually delightfully still and gray—like a pool +on a moorland stream at home under a faintly clouded sky; but now and +then they gleam with a golden light as the water does when the sun comes +through."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>His companion hastily abandoned that line of attack. His defense was too +vigorous for her to follow it up.</p> + +<p>"You feel that your hands are absolutely tied by the hint you gave +Slaney that afternoon?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"That's how it strikes me," Thorne declared. "In this case I'm afraid +I'll have to stand aside and content myself with looking on."</p> + +<p>"But haven't you already made it difficult for Nevis to get a +messenger?"</p> + +<p>"I've certainly given a couple of men a hint that I'd rather they didn't +do any errand of his to-night. That may have been going too far—I can't +tell." He paused and laughed softly. "Except when it's a case of selling +patent medicines, I'm not a casuist."</p> + +<p>Alison realized his point of view and in several ways it appealed to +her. He had treated the matter humorously, but, though so little had +been said by either of the men, it was clear that he felt he had pledged +himself to Slaney, and was not to be moved.</p> + +<p>"Well," she urged, "somebody must stop Nevis from driving over to +Forrester's."</p> + +<p>"It would be very desirable," Thorne admitted dryly. "The most annoying +thing is that it could have been managed with very little trouble."</p> + +<p>"How?" Alison asked with assumed indifference.</p> + +<p>Thorne, suspecting nothing, fell into the trap.</p> + +<p>"Nevis's hired buggy is a rather rickety affair. It wouldn't astonish +anybody if, when he wished to start, there was a bolt short."</p> + +<p>A look of satisfaction flashed into Alison's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then he will certainly have to put up with any trouble the absence of +that bolt is capable of causing. As there doesn't seem to be any other +way, I'll pull it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> out myself. Your scruples won't compel you to forbid +me?"</p> + +<p>The man expostulated, but she was quietly determined.</p> + +<p>"If you won't tell me what to do, I'll get Dave," she laughed. "I've no +doubt he'd be willing to help me."</p> + +<p>Thorne thought it highly undesirable that they should take a third +person into their confidence, and he reluctantly yielded.</p> + +<p>"Then," he advised, "it would be wiser to set about it while the boys +are getting supper; there'll be nobody about the back of the hotel then. +In the meanwhile, we'd better go in again and talk to the others."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">ALISON SPOILS HER GLOVES</span></h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar and her friends had finished supper, and the men who got +their meals there were trooping into the hotel, when Alison found Thorne +waiting on the veranda.</p> + +<p>"You're ready, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"I've no intention of keeping you waiting, anyway," Thorne replied.</p> + +<p>Alison looked at him with a hint of sharpness.</p> + +<p>"If you would very much rather stay here, why should you come at all? +Now that you have told me what to do, it really isn't necessary."</p> + +<p>Thorne smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "on the whole, it strikes me as advisable."</p> + +<p>He walked down the steps with her, and, sauntering a few yards along the +street, they turned down an opening between the houses and stopped at +the back of the hotel. There were only two windows in that part of the +building, and the rude wooden stable would shield anybody standing close +beneath one side of it from observation. Several gigs stood there to +wait until their owners were ready to drive back to their outlying +farms, and behind them the gray-white prairie ran back into the +distance, empty and unbroken except for the riband of rutted trail. +There was no sound from the hotel, for the average Westerner eats in +silent, strenu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>ous haste, and the two could hear only the movements of a +restless horse in the stable.</p> + +<p>Alison walked up to a somewhat dilapidated buggy and inspected it +dubiously.</p> + +<p>"This must be the one, and I suppose that's the bolt," she said. "There +seems to be a big nut beneath it, and I don't quite see how I'm to get +it off. Would your scruples prevent your making any suggestion?"</p> + +<p>Thorne appeared to consider, though there was a twinkle in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I might go so far as to point out that if you went into the stable you +would find a spanner on the ledge behind the door. It's an instrument +that's made for screwing off nuts with."</p> + +<p>Alison disappeared into the stable and came back with the spanner in her +hand. Thorne noticed that she had put on a pair of rather shabby light +gloves, with the object, he supposed, of protecting her fingers. +Stooping down behind the buggy she stretched out an arm beneath the +seat, and became desperately busy, to judge from the tapping and +clinking she made. Then she straightened herself and looked up at him, +hot and a trifle flushed.</p> + +<p>"It won't go on to the nut," she complained. "Is it quite out of the +question that you should help me?"</p> + +<p>She saw the constraint in his face, and was pleased with it. She did not +wish the man to break his pledge, and it is probable that she would have +refused his assistance; but she was, on the other hand, very human in +most respects, and she greatly desired to ascertain how strong the +temptation to help her was.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, you might try turning the screw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> on the spanner a +little," he advised. "It will make the opening wider."</p> + +<p>She did so, and had no more difficulty on that point, but the bolt was +rusty and the nut very stiff. While she struggled with it there was a +sound of footsteps, and Thorne, moving suddenly forward, snatched the +tool from her.</p> + +<p>"Stay there until I make it possible for you to slip away!" he whispered +sharply; then he stepped swiftly back a few paces and leaned against a +wagon with the spanner in his hand.</p> + +<p>He had scarcely done so when a man came out of the opening between the +houses, and Alison felt her heart throb unpleasantly fast. If the +newcomer should look around toward the stables it seemed impossible that +he should fail to notice Thorne. The latter, however, stood quietly +still, with his shoulders resting against the wagon wheel, and the +spanner in full view in front of him. The other man drew abreast of +them, but he did not look around, and Alison gasped with relief when he +vanished behind one of the neighboring buildings.</p> + +<p>Then she turned impulsively to her companion.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "you meant him to see you!"</p> + +<p>Thorne raised his hand in expostulation.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you better get the thing out before somebody else comes along?"</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that he was right in this, and Alison attacked the +nut again. In two or three more minutes she moved away from the buggy +with the bolt in her hand.</p> + +<p>"What had I better do with it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I might suggest dropping it into a thick clump of grass. If you don't +mind, we'll stroll out a little way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> on the prairie. There's too much +dust to be pleasant blowing down the street."</p> + +<p>They had left the wooden buildings some distance behind when Alison next +spoke to him.</p> + +<p>"That was a generous thing you did just now."</p> + +<p>Thorne looked confused, but he made no attempt to evade an answer.</p> + +<p>"It was necessary."</p> + +<p>"If the man had seen you with the spanner, Corporal Slaney would, no +doubt, have heard of it afterward. That would have hurt you?"</p> + +<p>"It certainly wouldn't have pleased me."</p> + +<p>"Then why did you do what you did?"</p> + +<p>"I think I have just told you."</p> + +<p>"You said it was necessary," replied Alison, looking at him with eyes +which just then had what he thought a very wonderful light in them. "You +haven't convinced me that it wasn't—rather fine of you."</p> + +<p>Thorne was manifestly more embarrassed, and embarrassment of any kind +was somewhat unusual with him.</p> + +<p>"Then," he said, "you compel me to try. If we had remained standing as +we did when the man first came out from behind the houses and he had +noticed you, it's exceedingly probable that he would have noticed me. +Even if he hadn't, it's almost certain that several people must have +seen you leave the hotel in my company. They wouldn't have had much +trouble in figuring out the thing."</p> + +<p>"Of course!" exclaimed Alison, a little astonished that this had not +occurred to her earlier. Then her face grew suddenly warm. "You mean +they would have recognized that I was acting—on your instructions?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>Thorne looked at her with a disconcerting steadiness.</p> + +<p>"You haven't quite grasped the most important fact yet. They would have +wondered how I was able to get you to do it—in other words, what gave +me such a hold on you. The trouble is that there's an explanation that +would naturally suggest itself."</p> + +<p>"Yes," murmured Alison, with her eyes turned away from him; "that would +have been unpleasant—for both of us."</p> + +<p>Thorne did not quite know what to make of the pause, though he had a +shadowy idea that it somehow rendered her assertion less positive, and +left the point open to doubt. In any case, it set his heart beating +fast, and he had some trouble in holding himself in hand. Outwardly, +however, he was graver than usual.</p> + +<p>"Well," he added, "I didn't think it desirable in several ways. You see, +a pedler is, after all, a person of no account in this part of Canada. +He has no particular interest in the fortune of the country; he doesn't +help its progress; his calling benefits nobody."</p> + +<p>"But you are a farmer now," protested Alison, glancing at him covertly.</p> + +<p>"Strictly on probation. In fact, there's very little doubt that my new +venture is generally regarded as a harmless eccentricity. It will be +some time before my neighbors realize that I'm capable of anything +that's not connected with an amusing frolic." He stopped a moment, and +smiled at her. "On the whole, I can't reasonably blame them. My +situation's a very precarious one; a frozen crop would break me."</p> + +<p>Alison wondered what the drift of these observations could be, for she +imagined that he must have had some particular purpose in saying so +much. It was, so far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> as her experience went, a very unusual thing for a +man to confess that he was an object of amusement to his neighbors, or +that there was a probability of his failing to make his mark in his +profession.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she suggested, to help him out, "you're not content with +such a state of things?"</p> + +<p>"That is just the point. It's my intention to alter it as soon as +possible, and a bonanza harvest this year would go a long way toward +setting me on my feet. In the meanwhile, it seems only fitting that I +should put up with popular opinion, and try to bear in mind my +disabilities."</p> + +<p>He was far from explicit, but explicitness was, after all, not what +Alison desired, and she fancied she understood him. It had not been +without a sufficient reason that he had, to his friends' astonishment, +turned farmer, and now he meant to wait until he had made a success of +it, and had shown that he could hold his own with the best of them, +before going any farther. This naturally suggested the question as to +what he meant to do then, and she fancied that she could supply the +answer. She had already confessed to herself that she liked the man, and +this was sufficient for the time being.</p> + +<p>"I heard that your wheat escaped, as Farquhar's did."</p> + +<p>Thorne, glancing at her, surmised that this was a lead, and that he was +not expected to pursue the previous subject.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "I'm thankful to say it did. Most of the grain a few +miles to the west of us was blotted out, including Hunter's—I'm sorry +for him. The storm seems to have traveled straight down into Dakota, +destroying everything in its path. My place lay just outside it, and at +present everything promises a record<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> crop." He broke off, and glanced +down at her hands. "Have you noticed your glove?"</p> + +<p>Alison held it up and displayed a large rusty stain across the palm and +part of the back of it.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered; "I did that getting the bolt out, and I'm rather +vexed about it. Mrs. Farquhar will, no doubt, notice the stain, and I +don't feel anxious to explain how it was done."</p> + +<p>"Then you'll have to take the glove off," advised Thorne.</p> + +<p>Alison smiled.</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure that simple expedient would get over the difficulty. Of +course, I might leave them behind altogether." Then she shook her head. +"No; the person who found them would see the stain and guess whose they +were. I don't think that would do, either."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't," Thorne agreed.</p> + +<p>Then they began to talk of something else, and presently they turned +back together toward the hotel. When they reached it, Florence Hunter +and Mrs. Farquhar were sitting on the veranda, while two or three men +occupied the lower steps, and another group lounged about near them, +pipe in hand. A few minutes later Nevis appeared striding down the +street with his lips set and some signs of temper. He stopped in front +of the hotel, and Alison glanced at Thorne significantly when he turned +to the lounging men.</p> + +<p>"You folks seem mighty prosperous in spite of the hail," he sneered. "I +can't find a man in this town who's open to earn a couple of dollars."</p> + +<p>Some of them grinned, but none made any answer. His tone was offensive, +in the first place, and, while nobody is overburdened with riches on the +prairie, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> average Westerner has his own ideas as to what is +becoming.</p> + +<p>Nevis signed to one of them.</p> + +<p>"Get my buggy, Bill!"</p> + +<p>The man hesitated, and though he strolled off toward the stables, +Nevis's sharpness cost him several minutes' unnecessary delay. +Eventually the buggy was brought out, and nobody said anything when +Nevis got in and flicked the horse smartly with a whip, though the tilt +of the seat must have been evident to most of the lookers-on. Alison +touched Thorne's arm.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you better call to him?" she suggested.</p> + +<p>The next moment the warning was rendered unnecessary, for there was a +crash, and the seat of the buggy collapsed. Nevis lurched violently +forward, but he managed to recover his balance and pull up the horse. +Then he swung himself down, and after crawling under the vehicle, stood +up with a frowning face while the loungers began to gather about him.</p> + +<p>"There's a bolt out. I didn't notice it when I drove up," he grumbled. +"It's three-eighths by the hole, I think. Ask Bill if he's got anything +of the kind in the stable."</p> + +<p>Bill, who had been standing near, sauntered away, and it was at least +five minutes before he came back, empty-handed.</p> + +<p>"I've nothing that will fit," he announced.</p> + +<p>"Then go in and see if they've got one at the hardware store," ordered +Nevis. "I ought to have thought of that earlier."</p> + +<p>Bill was away a long while this time, and when he returned he held up an +unusually long bolt for inspection.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>"Guess it won't be any use," he said. "Thread doesn't go far enough to +let the nut to the plate."</p> + +<p>"Then what in thunder did you bring it for?" Nevis asked with rising +anger.</p> + +<p>Alison looked at Thorne and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Have you been giving that man a hint?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"No," answered Thorne, smiling; "it would have been wasted in any case. +Nevis has succeeded in riling him. He couldn't have managed the thing +better if I had prompted him."</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile Bill languidly affected to consider Nevis's question.</p> + +<p>"I guess I wanted to be quite sure it wouldn't fit," he replied at +length. "If it doesn't, I could see if he has got a shorter one in +another package."</p> + +<p>Nevis flung out his arms in savage expostulation.</p> + +<p>"Well," he cried, "I've never yet struck anybody quite as thick as you. +Couldn't you have brought the shorter one along?"</p> + +<p>"Those bolts," Bill answered solemnly, "don't run many to the dollar, +and I'd a kind of notion I might find a big nut or some washers I could +fill up with in the stables."</p> + +<p>"No," snapped Nevis; "you have wasted time enough! If it won't do, take +the thing back into the store and ask Bevan to cut the thread farther +along it!"</p> + +<p>Bill strolled away at a particularly leisurely gait, and Thorne took out +his watch.</p> + +<p>"It's highly probable that Slaney will have left Forrester's before our +friend gets off," he said. "In that case, it will no doubt be noon +to-morrow before the police make their first attempt to get on +Winthrop's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> trail. I wonder whether anybody except Dave can have seen +him."</p> + +<p>"I did," Alison told him; "the morning before the hail."</p> + +<p>Thorne turned toward her with a start.</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"At the homestead. Farquhar and his wife were out."</p> + +<p>"What brought Winthrop there?"</p> + +<p>"That," smiled Alison, "I may tell you some day, but not just now. I +wonder what has kept him in the neighborhood?"</p> + +<p>"It's easily figured out. He'd head for Mrs. Calvert's, and probably +stay an hour or two there; then he'd go on to Brayton's place—they're +friends—at night. Jardine's would be his next call, and he'd be +striking west away from the larger settlements when Dave came across +him."</p> + +<p>This struck Alison as probable, but just then Bill came out of the store +again.</p> + +<p>"Beavan hasn't anything shorter, and he's doing up his accounts. He +can't cut threads on bolts, anyway," he announced. "It's Pete who does +that kind of thing for him."</p> + +<p>Judging from his face, it cost Nevis a determined effort to check an +outbreak of fury.</p> + +<p>"Then where in thunder is Pete?" he shouted.</p> + +<p>It appeared that the man had gone home to supper, and a quarter of an +hour passed before he came upon the scene. Then it took him quite as +long to operate on the bolt and fit it in the buggy, and Nevis's face +was very hot and red when he flung himself into the vehicle. He used the +whip savagely, and there was some derisive applause and laughter when +the horse went down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> street at a gallop with the buggy jolting +dangerously in the ruts behind it.</p> + +<p>Thorne descended the steps and disappeared. When he came back Mrs. +Farquhar's wagon was being brought out, and he walked up to Alison with +a parcel in his hand.</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, "that's the best way of hiding the stain."</p> + +<p>Alison opened the parcel, and was conscious of a curious thrill, in +which pleasure and embarrassment were mingled, when she found a pair of +gloves inside. It was the first gift he had made her.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she murmured. "They fit me, too. How did you guess the +size?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," laughed Thorne, "it was very simple. I just asked for the smallest +pair they had in the store."</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Farquhar came up, and he helped her and Alison into the +wagon.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">AN UNEXPECTED DISASTER</span></h2> + + +<p>Several weeks had slipped away since the evening Nevis drove out of +Graham's Bluff in search of Corporal Slaney, and there had been no news +of Winthrop, when Thorne plodded across the prairie beside his team, +hauling in a load of dressed lumber for the new creamery. Hunter had +contracted with him to convey the necessary material from the railroad, +and in the interval between sowing and reaping Thorne had found the +arrangement a profitable one. He had a use for every dollar he could +raise, and all through the heat of the summer he had worked double +tides.</p> + +<p>It was blazing hot that afternoon, and the wide plain lay scorching +under a pitiless glare. Thorne was not sorry when the Farquhar homestead +with its encircling sea of wheat took shape ahead. The trail led past +it, and, though time was precious to him then, he felt that he could put +up with an hour or two's delay in case Mrs. Farquhar invited him to wait +for supper. It was now a fortnight since he had seen Alison.</p> + +<p>The wooden buildings rose very slowly, though he several times urged the +jaded horses. They had made a long haul that day, and the man, who had +trudged at their head since early morning, was almost as weary. On the +odd days that they had spent in the stable he had toiled arduously on +his house and half-finished barn, beginning with the dawn and ceasing at +dark. Now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> he was grimed with dust and dripping with perspiration, and a +tantalizing cloud of flies hovered over him. All this was a decided +change from driving a few hours daily in a lightly loaded wagon, but +what at first had appeared an almost unexplainable liking for the +constant effort had grown upon him. He would not have abandoned it now +had that course been open to him.</p> + +<p>By degrees the sea of grain grew nearer, its edge rising in a clean-cut +ridge above the flat white sweep of dazzling plain. It had changed from +green to pale yellow in the past few weeks, but there were here and +there vivid coppery gleams in it. It promised a bounteous yield when +thrashing was over, and he thought of his own splendid crop with the +clean pride of accomplishment. Then he noticed that a buggy was +approaching from the opposite direction, and when he reached the +homestead a man in white shirt and store clothes had just pulled up his +horse. He shook hands with Thorne, who had already recognized him as a +dealer in implements and general farming supplies from the railroad +settlement.</p> + +<p>"Glad I met you. It will save my going on to your place," he said.</p> + +<p>Thorne noticed that the man, who was usually optimistic and cheerful, +looked depressed.</p> + +<p>"Did you want to see me about something, Grantly?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes. To cut it short, I'm going out of business."</p> + +<p>The full significance of this announcement did not immediately dawn upon +Thorne.</p> + +<p>"I expect most of the boys will regret it as much as I do," he said. +"One could rely on anything sent out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> from your store, and there's no +doubt that you have always treated us liberally."</p> + +<p>"That's just the trouble. I've been too blamed easy with some of you. If +I'd kept a tighter hand on the folks who owed me money it's quite likely +I'd have been able to meet my bills."</p> + +<p>"Is it as bad as that?" Thorne inquired with genuine sympathy.</p> + +<p>Grantly turned to Farquhar, who had joined them in the meanwhile.</p> + +<p>"The fact is, things have been going against me the last three years. +Nevis has been steadily cutting into my trade; but I held on somehow, +expecting that a record harvest or a high market would put me straight. +I'd have been able to get some of my money in again then. In the +meanwhile I was getting behind with the makers who supplied me, and now +one or two of them have pulled me up; I guess it was the hail that +decided them. It's a private compromise, but the point is that Nevis +takes over my liabilities."</p> + +<p>Thorne's face suddenly hardened, and Farquhar looked grave.</p> + +<p>"It's bad news," said the latter. "Is he paying cash?"</p> + +<p>"Part," Grantly answered. "The rest in bills. He has Brand, of Winnipeg, +behind him, and he's good enough. In fact, I believe the man has been +backing Nevis right along." He turned to Thorne. "Anyway, I've got to +give the store up, and you'll have Nevis for a creditor instead of me. +That's really what brought me over. The note you gave me calls for a +good many dollars and it's due very soon."</p> + +<p>Thorne endeavored to brace himself after the blow, which had been as +unexpected as it was heavy. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> had obtained all his implements and most +of the materials he required for his house-building from Grantly, giving +him a claim upon his possessions as security, in addition to a promise +to pay at a date by which harvest was usually over; but owing to an +exceptionally cold spring, harvest was late that year.</p> + +<p>"It was understood that you wouldn't press me if I should be a few weeks +behind," he reminded him.</p> + +<p>"That's quite right," Grantly assented. "The trouble is that it was only +a verbal promise, and it won't count for much with Nevis. He's been +after you for some time, and I guess he'll stick to the date on the +note. If you're not ready with the money he'll break you."</p> + +<p>Farquhar made a sign of concurrence.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it's very probable. What are you going to do about it, +Mavy?"</p> + +<p>Thorne stood silent for almost a minute, and the bronze faded a little +in his face, which was very grim.</p> + +<p>"That note will have to be met. You told Grantly I was to be relied +upon, and I'm not going back on you. It's not my intention to let Nevis +do what he likes with me, either. In a general way, I'd have gone to +Hunter, and I've no doubt that he would have financed me; but that's +quite out of the question now. He has all the trouble he's fit to stand +on his hands already."</p> + +<p>"A sure thing," Farquhar agreed.</p> + +<p>"Well," Thorne added, "the oats are about ripe, and though I'd rather +they had stood another week or so, I'll put the binder into them at +sunup to-morrow. The wheat should be nearly ready by the time I'm +through, and I'll hire the help I could have borrowed if I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> been +able to wait a while. I'll have to let up on the haulage contract and +work right on, almost without stopping, until I can get the thrashers +in; but I'll put the crop on the market before the note is due!"</p> + +<p>"You couldn't do it, Mavy, if you worked all night."</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed in a harsh fashion.</p> + +<p>"Just wait and see! It has to be done! In the meanwhile, please make my +excuses to Mrs. Farquhar for not calling. I must be getting on."</p> + +<p>"You can't do anything to-night," Farquhar objected.</p> + +<p>"I can ride over to Hall's and get back to my place by sunup with his +team."</p> + +<p>He called to his horses, and with a creaking of suddenly tightened +harness the wagon jolted on, but as he passed the door of the homestead +Alison came out. Thorne stopped, while the team slowly plodded forward, +and it seemed to her that there was a striking change in the man. +Nothing in his manner suggested that he had ever regarded life as a +frolic and taken his part in it with careless gaiety. His eyes were very +grave and there was a look she had never seen in them before, while his +face seemed to have set in sharper lines. He looked strangely determined +and forceful; almost, as she thought of it, dominant.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter? You are in some trouble?" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Thorne simply. "Farquhar will no doubt explain the thing. +There's a very tough fight in front of me. I don't think I could have +undertaken it six months ago." He spread out his hands. "It's +unthinkable that I should be beaten!"</p> + +<p>Alison felt strangely stirred by something in his voice.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>"Then," she urged, "you will have to win! You must; I want you to!"</p> + +<p>Thorne looked at her with a gleam in his eyes that set her heart +throbbing painfully fast.</p> + +<p>"Now," he laughed, "the thing seems almost easy!"</p> + +<p>He turned away after his wagon, and Alison waited until Farquhar came up +with Grantly.</p> + +<p>"What has Thorne undertaken?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Farquhar smiled.</p> + +<p>"I'll try to tell you after supper. In the meanwhile, I can only say +that he seems determined on breaking himself up by attempting a task +that in my opinion is beyond the power of any man on the prairie."</p> + +<p>He went into the house with Grantly, and it was an hour or two later +before Alison was able to form a fairly accurate idea of the situation. +Then her heart grew very soft toward Thorne, and she thought of him with +a sense of pride. It was for her sake he had braced himself for this +most unequal fight, and she knew that he meant to win.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile Thorne was urging on his team, and dusk was closing in +when he flung down the lumber from his wagon. After that, he drove +through the soft darkness for two or three hours, and finally roused an +outlying neighbor from his well-earned slumber. The man, descending, +roundly abused him, but became a little mollified when he heard his +story.</p> + +<p>"The thing surely can't be done, and just now you can't count on much +help, either. The Ontario boys are only just starting West, and the +first of them will be snapped up before they get to Brandon. Anyway, +I'll come along with you and do what I can." He moved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> toward a +cupboard. "If you left Farquhar's when you said, you couldn't have got +your supper."</p> + +<p>"Now that you mention it," laughed Thorne, "I don't think I did."</p> + +<p>His friend set food before him, and an hour later they drove off in the +darkness, leaving Thorne's jaded team behind them. Eventually they +reached his homestead in the early dawn, and Thorne, who had been on +foot most of the time since sunrise on the previous morning, sat down +wearily on the stoop and took out his pipe while he looked about him. +Eager as he was to get to work, he could not begin just yet, for the +night had been clear and cold, and the grain was dripping with the heavy +dew.</p> + +<p>He had his back to the house, which was at last almost ready for +habitation, but the half-finished barn and the rude sod stable rose +before him blackly against the growing light. Beyond these, the sweep of +grain stretched back, a darker patch on the shadowy prairie, with +another dusky oblong just discernible on the short grass some distance +away. Determined as he was, his heart sank as he gazed at them. He had +undertaken a task that looked utterly beyond his powers.</p> + +<p>Had he been content to begin on his hundred-and-sixty-acre holding on +the scale usual in the case of men with scanty means, he would probably +have had no great trouble in harvesting all the crop he could have +raised; but he had seen enough during his journeyings up and down the +prairie to convince him that there was remarkably little to be made in +this fashion. As a result he had staked boldly, breaking practically all +his land, with hired assistance and the most modern implements that +could be purchased, though this necessitated the borrow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>ing of money. He +had, in addition, secured the use of a neighboring holding, part of +which had been under grain before, from a man who had worked it long +enough to secure his patent and had then discovered that he could earn +considerably more as a subcontractor on a new branch railroad.</p> + +<p>In consequence of this, Thorne had a large crop to garner, and very +little time in which to do it, for he was convinced that Nevis would +press for payment immediately the note was due. It could not be met +until the grain was thrashed and sold, and he realized that any delay +would place him in the power of a man who would not fail to make the +utmost use of the opportunity. Besides this, it would render it +impossible for him to obtain any further loans, and he scarcely expected +to finance his operations unassisted for some time yet. It was only +Hunter's guarantee that had made the venture possible, and there was no +doubt in his mind that unless he could satisfy Nevis's claim his career +as a farmer would terminate abruptly before the next month was over.</p> + +<p>Then he recalled the months of determined labor he had expended upon the +house and holding, the noonday heat in which he had toiled, and the +chilly dawns when he had gone out, aching all over after a very +insufficient sleep, to begin his task again. Sixteen and often eighteen +hours comprised his working day, and out of them he had spared very few +minutes for cookery. His clothes had gone unmended, and it must be +confessed that he had not infrequently slept in them when he was too +weary to take them off, and that they were by no means regularly washed. +In fact, once or twice when he was about to drive over to the Farquhar +homestead he remembered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> with a slight shock that it was several days +since he had made any attempt worth mentioning at a toilet. In the +meanwhile, he had grown leaner and harder and browner, while there had +by degrees crept into his face that curious look which one may see now +and then in the faces of monks, highly trained athletes, and even of +those who unconsciously practise asceticism from love of a calling that +makes stern demands on them; a look which, though it does not always +suggest the final triumph of the mind over the body, is never a +characteristic of full-fed, ease-loving men. His eyes were strikingly +clear and unwavering, his weather-darkened skin was singularly clean, +and his whole face had grown, as it were, refined, though the man was as +quickly moved to anger, impatience, or laughter as he had always been. +It would seem that a good many purely human impulses usually survive the +partial subjugation of the flesh, which is, after all, no doubt +fortunate.</p> + +<p>He rose stiffly, damp with the dew, when he had smoked one pipe out, and +gazed toward where the sun was rising fiery red above the rim of the +prairie. His expression was very resolute.</p> + +<p>"A low dawn, Hall; we'll have all the heat we want by noon," he +commented. "The oats will be drying by the time we're ready with the +team. If you'll look after them I'll oil the binder."</p> + +<p>His companion grinned.</p> + +<p>"It strikes me the first thing is to set the stove going. Guess if I'm +going to get on a record hustle I want my breakfast."</p> + +<p>Thorne frowned impatiently, but he carried an armful of birch billets +into the house, and when half an hour later he called in his companion, +the latter glanced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> with undisguised disgust at the provisions on the +table and the contents of the frying-pan.</p> + +<p>"Well," he ejaculated, "if you can raise steam on that kind of truck, I +most certainly can't. The first of the boys who drives by to the +settlement is going to bring us out something fit to eat, if I have to +pay for it."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with this?" Thorne asked indifferently.</p> + +<p>Hall raised a fragment of half-raw pork upon his fork.</p> + +<p>"It would be wasting time to tell you, if you can't smell it," he +retorted.</p> + +<p>Then he took up a block of bread and banged it down on the table.</p> + +<p>"Not a crack in it! You want to bake some more and sell it to the +railroad for locomotive brakes."</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed.</p> + +<p>"Send for anything you like. Hunter's hired man will probably be going +in."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV<br /> +<span class="smalltext">LUCY GOES TO THE RESCUE</span></h2> + + +<p>About four o'clock in the afternoon of the day following the beginning +of his harvest, Thorne sat heavy-eyed in the saddle of a binder which +three horses hauled along the edge of the grain. He had been at work +since sunrise, except for a brief rest at midday, and he was wondering +whether the team could hold out until nightfall. The binder had not +quite reached its present efficiency then, and the traction was heavy. +It was fiercely hot, and there was only the faintest breeze, while a +thin cloud of dust that made his eyes smart and crept into his nostrils +eddied about him. The whirling wooden arms of the machine flashed in the +midst of it as they flung out the sheaves, and there was a sharp clash +and tinkle as the knife rasped through the tall oat stalks.</p> + +<p>As he neared a corner, driving wearily, he turned and glanced back along +the rows of piled-up sheaves which stood blazing with light down the +belt of gleaming stubble. The latter was narrow, for although it was the +result of two days' determined labor, he had somehow accomplished less +than he had anticipated. Half the time he had spent, turn about with +Hall, in the saddle and the rest gathering up the tossed-out sheaves in +the wake of the machine. It was desirable to keep pace with the binder, +though the task is one that is beyond the strength of a single man in a +heavy crop, and it was only by toiling with a savage persistency that he +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> his companion had partially accomplished it. Now, however, his +heart sank as he looked round at the sea of grain.</p> + +<p>It rose in a great oblong, glowing with tints of ochre, silvery gray and +cadmium, relieved here and there by coppery flashes and delicate +pencilings of warm sienna, and over it there hung a cloudless vault of +blue. It looked very large, and there was another oblong yet unbroken +some distance away. Thorne's head ached, and his eyes ached, and his +back hurt him at each jolt of the machine. He had been almost worn-out +when he began the task, and since then he had lain down for only a few +hours, and then had not been able to sleep.</p> + +<p>Beyond the grain, the prairie stretched away, intolerably white in the +sun-glare, to the horizon. Thorne fancied that he had seen a moving +object upon it some time earlier. The machine had, however, engrossed +most of his attention, and he was not sure. He reached the turning and +was proceeding away from the house when a voice hailed him, and as he +pulled up the team Lucy Calvert appeared.</p> + +<p>"What brought you over?" he asked in dull astonishment.</p> + +<p>Lucy smiled coquettishly.</p> + +<p>"It's generally allowed that you and I are friends. Anyway, if you'd +rather, I can go home again."</p> + +<p>Thorne looked at her with drawn-down brows. He was worn-out, his brain +was heavy, and he did not feel equal to any attempt at repartee.</p> + +<p>"You had better stop for supper first," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"I guess I'm going to," Lucy laughed. "Still, you won't want it for two +hours yet, and it looks as if there's something to be done in the +meanwhile. I didn't come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> over for supper or to talk to you; I met +Farquhar on the prairie, and he told me all about the thing."</p> + +<p>She turned and pointed to a row of sheaves which were still lying prone.</p> + +<p>"Why haven't you got those on end? Where's Hall?"</p> + +<p>"Gone over to his place for my team."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Lucy, "you can get off that machine right now and set the +sheaves up while I drive. I'll stay on until it's too dark to see, and +come round again first thing in the morning. We don't expect to get our +binders in for a week yet."</p> + +<p>Thorne was touched, and his face made it plain. He needed assistance +badly, and did not know where to obtain it, for his friends whose crops +the hail had spared were either beginning their own harvest or preparing +for it. Besides, there was not the slightest doubt that Lucy was +capable.</p> + +<p>"Get down right away!" she ordered laughingly. "I don't want thanks +from—you."</p> + +<p>Thorne was never sure afterward whether he attempted to offer her any, +but he set to work among the sheaves when she took her place in the +saddle and the binder went clinking and clashing on again. In spite of +his efforts, it drew farther and farther away, though he toiled in +half-breathless haste and the perspiration dripped from him. As he was +facing then, the sun beat upon his back and shoulders intolerably hot. +At length, when the shadows of the stooked sheaves had lengthened across +the crackling stubble in which he floundered, Lucy stopped her team a +moment and looked back at him.</p> + +<p>"I'll unyoke them at the corner and get supper," she said. "You get into +the shade there and lie down and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> smoke. If I see you move before I call +you, I'll go home again."</p> + +<p>She drove away before he could protest, but it was, after all, a relief +to obey her, and flinging himself down with his back to a cluster of the +sheaves, he took out his pipe. It was a little cooler there, and his +eyes were closing when a summons reached him across the grain. Getting +up with an effort, he walked toward the house, and was hazily astonished +when he entered it. Exactly what Lucy had done he could not tell, but +the place looked different. For the first time it seemed comfortably +habitable. There was a cloth, which was a thing he did not possess, on +the table, and his simple crockery, which shone absolutely white, and +his indurated ware made a neat display. The provisions laid out on it +looked tempting, too; in fact, he did not think that Hall could have +found any fault with them, and it presently struck him that they +included articles which he did not remember purchasing.</p> + +<p>He sat down when Lucy told him to, and it was pleasant to find what he +required ready at hand, instead of having to walk backward and forward +between the table and the stove. He did not remember what she said, but +they both laughed every now and then, and after the meal was over he was +content to sit still a while when she bade him. The presence of the girl +somehow changed the whole aspect of the room; but he was conscious of a +regret that it was she and not another who occupied the place opposite +him across his table. It was not Lucy Calvert he had often pictured +sitting there. At length he pointed through the doorway to the grain.</p> + +<p>"Lucy," he said, "that crop doesn't look by any means as hard to reap as +it did an hour ago."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>"I guess it's the supper," Lucy suggested cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's that exactly, though there's no doubt it's the best +meal I've had for a considerable time."</p> + +<p>Lucy leaned back in her chair.</p> + +<p>"Well," she observed, "it's company you want, and it's quite nice being +here. You and I kind of hit it, don't we, Mavy?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. We always did," Thorne assented, though there was a hint of +astonishment in his tone.</p> + +<p>"Then if you'll get rid of Hall—send him off again for something—I'll +get supper for you the next two or three evenings."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why he should be done out of his share," protested Thorne +cautiously. He felt that Lucy was more gracious than there was any +occasion for.</p> + +<p>"Don't you, Mavy?" she asked, with lifted brows. "Now, I've a notion +that anybody else would kind of spoil things."</p> + +<p>Until lately Thorne had seldom shrunk from any harmless gallantry, but +he did not respond just then with the readiness which the girl seemed to +expect.</p> + +<p>"It's a relief to hear you say it," he declared. "I'm afraid I'm a dull +companion to-night."</p> + +<p>Lucy nodded sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"Well," she replied, "I have seen you brighter, but you're anxious and +played out. Sit nice and still for half an hour while I talk to you."</p> + +<p>"I ought to be stooking those sheaves," Thorne answered dubiously.</p> + +<p>"You can do it by and by," Lucy urged. "It won't be dark for quite a +while yet."</p> + +<p>She adroitly led him on to talk, and presently bade him light his pipe. +He had always hated any unnecessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> reserve and ceremony, and by +degrees his natural gaiety once more asserted itself. At length, when +they were both laughing over a narrative of his, he stretched his arm +out across the table and it happened by merest accident that their hands +met. Lucy did not draw hers away; she looked up at him with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Mavy," she teased, "I wonder what Miss Leigh would say if she could see +you."</p> + +<p>Thorne straightened himself somewhat hastily in his chair. Nothing in +the shape of a tactful answer occurred to him, and he grew uneasy under +his companion's smile.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see her walk right in just now?" she persisted.</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that this would not have afforded the man the +slightest pleasure, but he could not admit it.</p> + +<p>"It's scarcely likely to happen," he evaded awkwardly.</p> + +<p>Then to his relief Lucy laughed.</p> + +<p>"Mavy, I've sure got you fixed. The curious thing is they allow at the +settlement that you could most talk the head off any of the boys."</p> + +<p>"I really don't see what satisfaction you expected it to afford you," +Thorne rejoined.</p> + +<p>"I guessed it would help to put Nevis out of your mind. I'd an idea you +wanted cheering up—and I felt a little like that myself."</p> + +<p>The girl's manner changed abruptly as she rose, and there was only +concern in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she added softly, "where Jake is and what he is doing now."</p> + +<p>Thorne felt that he had been favored with a hint.</p> + +<p>"You haven't heard from him?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>"He hasn't sent a line; it wouldn't have been safe. It's kind of +wearing, Mavy."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," sympathized Thorne. "But it's most unlikely that the +troopers will get him."</p> + +<p>Lucy, without answering this, went out, and when they reached the binder +Thorne turned to her with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Lucy," he said, "I don't quite understand yet what possessed you a +little while ago."</p> + +<p>"Did you never feel so worried that it was kind of soothing to do +something mad?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I have once or twice," Thorne confessed. "On the other hand, +my experience wouldn't justify me in advising other people to indulge in +outbreaks of the kind. Suppose I'd been—we'll say equal to the +occasion?"</p> + +<p>Lucy laughed, but there was a snap in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then," she retorted, "it's a sure thing you would never have tried to +be equal to it again. Anyway, I didn't feel anxious about you. You +looked real amusing, Mavy."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I did. Still, I don't quite think you need have pointed it +out."</p> + +<p>They set to work after this, Lucy guiding the team along the edge of the +grain and Thorne stooping among the sheaves in the wake of the machine. +They were thus engaged, oblivious to everything but their task, when +Mrs. Farquhar reined in her team close beside them, and Alison gazed +with somewhat confused sensations at the pair.</p> + +<p>Lucy had obviously made her dress herself, of the cheapest kind of +print, but it was light in hue, as was her big hat, and in addition to +falling in with the flood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> of vivid color through which she moved it +flowed about her in becoming lines, and when she pulled up her horses +and turned partly toward the wagon her pose was expressive of a curious +virile grace. Behind her, straight-cut along its paler upper edge, where +the feathery tassels of the oats shone with a silvery luster against the +cold blue of the sky, the yellow grain glowed in the warm evening light. +The glaring vermilion paint on the binder added to the general effect, +and it occurred to Alison that the girl, with her brown face and hands +and the signs of a splendid vitality plain upon her, was very much in +harmony with her surroundings. The lean figure of the man stooping among +the sheaves, lightly clad in blue that had lost its harshness by long +exposure to the weather, formed a fit and necessary complement of the +picture.</p> + +<p>They were, Alison recognized, engaged upon humanity's most natural and +beneficent task, and as she remembered how she had seen that soil lying +waste, covered only with the harsh wild grasses, in the early spring, it +was borne in upon her that there could be no greater reward than the +bounteous harvest for man's arduous toil. Then she became troubled by a +vague perception of the fact that this breaking of the wilderness and +rendering the good soil fruitful was one of the sternest and most real +tests of man's efficiency. Meretricious graces, paltry accomplishments, +and the pretenses of civilization availed one nothing here. The only +things that counted were the elemental qualities: slow endurance, faith +that held fast through all the vagaries of the weather, and the power of +toughened muscle that might ache but must in spite of that yield due +obedience to the will. Alison regarded Lucy, who could play her part in +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> reaping, with a troubled feeling that was not far from envy.</p> + +<p>Then Thorne looked up, partly dazzled with the level sunrays in his +eyes, and walked toward the wagon. When he stopped beside it Mrs. +Farquhar greeted him.</p> + +<p>"We have been across to Shafter's place," she explained. "Harry asked me +to drive round and see how you were getting on. He'll try to send you +over his hired man in a day or two."</p> + +<p>Thorne pointed to the rows of stooked sheaves.</p> + +<p>"Thanks; I haven't done as much as I should have liked. Hall has gone +back for my other team, and if it hadn't been for Lucy I'd have been a +good deal farther behind."</p> + +<p>"How much has she cut?" Mrs. Farquhar asked.</p> + +<p>Thorne was quite aware that an answer would fix the time the girl had +spent with him. Before he could speak, however, Lucy had approached the +wagon and she broke in.</p> + +<p>"I guess Mrs. Shafter would give you supper?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar said that she had done so, and Lucy smiled.</p> + +<p>"That's going to save some trouble. Mavy and I had ours together most an +hour ago and the stove's out by now."</p> + +<p>Thorne imagined that this intimation, which struck him as a trifle +superfluous, was made with a deliberate purpose; but one of the binder +horses, tormented by the flies, began to kick just then, and he turned +away to quiet it, while Lucy, who stood beside the wagon, smiled +provocatively at Alison.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to excuse Mavy—he's been hustling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> round since sunup, and +he's played out," she said. "Still, you needn't get anxious. I'll look +after him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar laughed, while Alison's attitude grew distinctly prim. She +considered that in taking her anxiety for granted and alluding to it +openly Lucy had gone too far. She also felt inclined to resent the +girl's last consolatory assurance.</p> + +<p>"Can I drive you home?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired. "I suppose you will be +going soon, and it won't make a very big round."</p> + +<p>"No," replied Lucy decisively, "you needn't trouble. I've a horse here, +and I guess Mavy's not going to make love to me. For one thing, he's too +busy. Besides, I want to cut round that other side before I go."</p> + +<p>"Then I suppose we had better not keep you," said Mrs. Farquhar.</p> + +<p>She waved her hand to Thorne and drove away, and when they had left the +oats behind she turned to Alison.</p> + +<p>"Lucy," she observed, "is now and then a little outspoken, but I'm +curious as to what she meant when she said that Thorne was not likely to +make love to her. Of course, the thing's improbable, anyway, but she +spoke as if he had been offered an opportunity."</p> + +<p>Alison's face flushed with anger.</p> + +<p>"Leaving the fact that she's to marry Winthrop out of the question, the +girl must have some self-respect. She would surely never go so far as +you suggest."</p> + +<p>"Well," smiled her companion, "she might go far enough to place Thorne +in an embarrassing position, purely for the sake of the amusement she +might derive from it. In fact, when I remember how she laughed, I'm far +from sure that she didn't do something of the kind."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>Alison sat silent for a minute or two. There was no doubt that she was +very angry with Lucy, but she was also troubled by other sensations, +among which was a certain envy of the girl's capacity for work that was +held of high account in that country. Thorne's attitude and his weary +face as he toiled among the sheaves had been very suggestive. He was, +she knew, hard-pressed, engaged in a desperate grapple with a task that +was generally admitted to be beyond his strength, and she could only +stand aside and watch his efforts with wholly ineffective sympathy.</p> + +<p>Then she became conscious that Mrs. Farquhar was glancing at her +curiously.</p> + +<p>"I feel humiliated to-night!" she broke out. "There's so little that +seems of the least use to anybody here that I can do; and my abilities +scarcely got me food and shelter in England. Isn't it almost a crime +that they teach so many of us only fripperies? Were we only made to be +taken care of and petted?"</p> + +<p>Her companion smiled.</p> + +<p>"If it's any consolation, I may point out that we haven't found you +useless at the Farquhar homestead, and I can't see why you shouldn't be +just as useful presiding over a place of your own. After all, since you +raise the question what you were made for, that seems to be the usual +destiny, and I haven't found it an unpleasant or ignoble one."</p> + +<p>She broke off, and for a minute or two the jolting of the wagon rendered +further conversation out of the question.</p> + +<p>"There's another point," she added presently; "it's my opinion that an +encouraging word from you would do more to brace Mavy for the work in +front of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> him than the offer of half a dozen binders and teams."</p> + +<p>Alison made no answer, and they drove on in silence across the waste, +which was beginning to grow dim and shadowy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THE ONLY MEANS</span></h2> + + +<p>Alison sat one afternoon in the shadow of a pile of sheaves in +Farquhar's harvest field. She had a little leisure, and it was +unpleasantly hot in the wooden house. There was some sewing in her hand, +but even in the shade the light was trying and she leaned back languidly +among the warm straw with half-closed eyes. Two men were talking some +distance behind her as they pitched up the rustling sheaves, and the +tramp of horses' feet among the stubble and the rattle of a binder which +she knew Farquhar was driving drew steadily nearer. Presently another +beat of hoofs broke in, and a minute or two later Hall rode past, +looking very hot, apparently without seeing her. Then the rattle of the +binder ceased and she heard the newcomer greet Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"If you've got one of those bent-end-spanners you could let me have I'd +be glad," he said. "I've mislaid mine somehow, and there's a loose nut I +can't get at making trouble on my binder."</p> + +<p>Farquhar sent his hired man for one and Hall referred to the grain.</p> + +<p>"So you have made a start. Looks quite a heavy crop. Good and ripe, too, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"We put the binder in yesterday," answered Farquhar. "I'd have done it +earlier only that I sent Pete over to Thorne's place for a few days +after you left him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>"I was kind of sorry I had to leave. He's surely going to be beaten. I +looked in on him yesterday."</p> + +<p>Alison became suddenly intent. She drew her light skirt closer about +her, for she did not wish it to catch the men's eyes and betray her, as +she thought it probable that they would speak to each other unreservedly +and she would hear the actual truth about Thorne. When she had +questioned Farquhar he had answered her in general terms, avoiding any +very definite particulars, and she now strained her ears to catch his +reply to Hall.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid of it after what Pete told me," he said. "I would have +helped him more if I could have managed it, but I can't let a big crop +like this stand over when I've bills to meet."</p> + +<p>"That," declared Hall, "is just how I'm fixed, though I stayed with him +as long as I could. The trouble is that he hasn't been able to hire a +man since I left him. There seem to be mighty few of the Ontario boys +coming in this season, and so far they've been snapped up farther back +along the line."</p> + +<p>"Has he tried any of the men who had their crops hailed out west of the +creek?"</p> + +<p>"They cleared as soon as they saw they had no harvest left. Most of them +are out track-grading on the branch line, and I heard the rest went +East. Mavy's surely up against it; he was figuring last evening that +even if the weather held he'd be most a month behind."</p> + +<p>"Then I'm afraid he'll have to give the place up. Nevis will come down +on him the day that payment's due."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't he raise the money somehow, for a month?" Hall inquired.</p> + +<p>"It's scarcely likely. I can't lend him any, with wheat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> at present +figure, and Hunter, who has already guaranteed him a thousand dollars, +is very tightly fixed. Besides Mavy couldn't expect anything more from +him. It wouldn't be much use going to a bank, either. With the bottom +dropping out of the market they're getting scared of wheat, and he has +nothing to offer them but a crop that isn't reaped, with Grantly's note +calling for most of it."</p> + +<p>"Then I guess he has just got to quit. Hunter would no doubt have lent +him a binder and a couple of hired men, but he has them busy trying to +straighten up his hailed crop and cut patches of it."</p> + +<p>"It's a pity," Farquhar assented in a regretful voice. "It will hurt +Mavy to give the place up."</p> + +<p>The man arrived with the spanner and Alison heard Hall ride away. When +the clash and rattle of the binder began again she lay still for a long +time beneath the sheaves. The men's conversation had made it clear that +Thorne would shortly be involved in disaster, and that alone was painful +news, though by comparison with another aspect of the matter it was of +minor importance. The man loved her, and it was for that reason he had +undertaken this most unfortunate farming venture. Everybody seemed to +know it, though he had never told her what was in his mind, and she had +been content to wait. Now, however, she had no doubt that she loved him, +and he would, it seemed, shortly go away and vanish altogether beyond +her reach—at least, unless something should very promptly be done. She +knew he would not claim her while he was an outcast and a ruined man.</p> + +<p>She closed one hand tight and a flush crept into her face as she made up +her mind on one point, and she was thankful while she did so that she +was on the Canadian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> prairie, where the thing seemed easier than it +would have done in England. In that new land time-honored prejudices and +hampering traditions did not seem to count. Men and women outgrew them +there and obeyed the impulses of human nature, which were, after all, +elemental and existent long before the invention of what were, perhaps, +in the more complex society of other lands, necessary fetters. Thorne, +the pedler, farmer, railroad hand, or whatever he might become, should +at least know that she loved him and decide with that knowledge before +him whether he would go away.</p> + +<p>Then, growing a little more collected, she considered the second point. +Though Hall and Farquhar had cast considerable doubt upon his ability to +help, there was just a possibility that Hunter might hold out a hand, +and she would stoop to beg for any favor that might be shown her lover. +This latter decision, however, she prudently determined to keep from +Thorne in the meanwhile.</p> + +<p>By and by she walked quietly back to the house and busied herself as +usual, though late in the afternoon she asked Mrs. Farquhar for a horse +and the buggy. Her employer did not trouble her with any questions as to +why she wanted them, though she favored her with a glance of unobtrusive +but very keen scrutiny, and soon after supper the hired man brought the +buggy to the door. Then Alison came out from her room, where she had +spent some time carefully comparing the two or three dresses she had +clung to when she had parted with the rest in Winnipeg, one after +another. She had attired herself in the one that became her best, for +she felt that there must be nothing wanting in the gift she meant to +offer her lover. She recognized that this was what her intention +amounted to. What other women did with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> more reserve, veiling their +advances in disguises which were after all so flimsy that nobody except +those who wished could be deceived, she would do with imperious +openness.</p> + +<p>The days were now rapidly growing shorter, and when she reached Thorne's +homestead the sun hung low above the verge of the great white plain. The +man was not in sight, which struck her as strange, as there would be +light enough to work for some time yet, but she was not astonished that +he had evidently not heard her approach, because she had driven slowly +for the last mile, almost repenting of her rashness and wondering +whether she should not turn and go back again. Once she had set about +it, the thing she had undertaken appeared increasingly difficult. +Indeed, she knew that had the man been less severely pressed nothing +would have driven her into the action she contemplated. It was only the +fact that he was face to face with disaster, beaten down, desperate, +that warranted the sacrifice of her reserve and pride.</p> + +<p>Getting down at length, she left the horse, which was a quiet one, and +walked toward the house. The door stood open when she reached it, and +looking in she saw the man sitting at a table, on which there lay a +strip of paper covered with figures. His face was worn and set, and +every line of his slack pose was expressive of dejection. He did not +immediately see her, and a deep pity overwhelmed her and helped to sweep +away her doubts and hesitation as she glanced round the room. It was +growing shadowy, but it looked horribly comfortless, and the few dishes +that were still scattered about the table bore the remnants of a +singularly uninviting meal. There was a portion of a loaf, blackened +outside, sad and damp within; butter that had liquefied and partly +con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>gealed again in discolored streaks; a morsel of half-cooked pork +reposing in solid fat; and a can of flavored syrup, black with flies. +She wondered how any one coming back oppressed with anxiety from a day +of exhausting toil could eat such fare. Then she noticed a small heap of +tattered garments, which he evidently had no leisure to mend, lying on +the floor, and while it brought her no sense of repulsion, the sight of +them further troubled her. These were things which jarred on the +beneficent, home-making instincts which suddenly awoke within her +nature, and they moved her to a compassionate longing to care for and +shelter the lonely man.</p> + +<p>Then he looked up and saw her, and she flushed at the swift elation in +his face, which, however, almost immediately grew hard again. It was as +though he had yielded for a moment to some pleasurable impulse, and had +then, with an effort, repressed it and resumed his self-control.</p> + +<p>"Come in," he invited, rising with outstretched hand, and she suddenly +recalled how she had last crossed that threshold in his company. There +had been careless laughter in his eyes then, he had moved and spoken +with a joyous optimism, and now there was plain upon him the stamp of +defeat. Even physically the man looked different.</p> + +<p>She sat down when he drew her out a chair, but he remained standing, +leaning with one hand on the table.</p> + +<p>"Is Mrs. Farquhar outside?"</p> + +<p>"No; I drove across alone."</p> + +<p>He looked at her with a hint of astonishment and something that +suggested a natural curiosity as to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> cause for the visit, which she +now found it insuperably difficult to explain.</p> + +<p>"You haven't been at work this evening?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Thorne. "I rode in to the railroad early yesterday and +I've just got back after calling at two or three farms west of the +creek. It seemed possible that I might be able to hire a couple of men +I'd wired for back along the line, but I found that somebody else had +got hold of them at another station. As a matter of fact, I had expected +it."</p> + +<p>"Then you must have made the journey almost without a rest!"</p> + +<p>"Volador's dead played out," answered Thorne. "I had to do something, +though it seemed pretty useless in any case."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Alison exclaimed softly; "then you mean to go on?"</p> + +<p>"Until I'm turned out, which will no doubt happen very shortly."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that will hurt you?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her for a moment with his face awry and signs of a sternly +repressed longing in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered, "it will hurt me more than anything I could have had +to face. In fact, the thought of it has been almost unbearable; but it's +now clear that I shall have to go through with it."</p> + +<p>This was satisfactory to Alison in some respects, and she was quick to +sympathize.</p> + +<p>"It must be very hard to give up the farm on which you have spent so +much earnest work."</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Thorne, with something in his tone that suggested +half-contemptuous indifference to the sacrifice; "it won't be easy to +give up even the farm."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>Then for the first time it occurred to him that there was an unusual +hint of strain in her manner, and that he had never seen her dressed in +the same fashion before. She did not look daintier, for daintiness was +not quite the quality he would have ascribed to her, but more highly +cultivated, farther beyond the reach of a ruined farmer, though there +was a strange softness—it almost seemed tenderness—shining in her +eyes. He gripped the table hard and his face grew stern as he gazed at +her. He felt that it was almost impossible that he would ever have the +strength to let her go.</p> + +<p>"What will you do then?" she asked with what seemed a merciless +persistency.</p> + +<p>"Go away," declared Thorne. "Strike west and vanish out of sight. I've +no doubt somebody will hire me to load up railroad ballast or herd +cattle." He smiled at her harshly. "After all, it will be a relief to my +few friends. They may be a little sorry—but my absence will save their +making excuses for me."</p> + +<p>Alison looked up at him steadily, though there was a flush of color in +her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"You must be just to them," she said. "Why should they invent +excuses—when you have made such a fight with so much against you? +Besides, you are wrong when you say they might be—a little sorry. Can +you believe that it would be easy to let you go away?"</p> + +<p>Thorne frowned as he met her gaze. He did not know what to make of this, +but there was a suggestiveness in her voice that was almost too much for +him.</p> + +<p>"Is there any one who would have much difficulty in doing that?" he +asked with a quietness that cost him a determined effort.</p> + +<p>"Yes," murmured Alison, with suddenly lowered eyes;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> "there is at least +one person who would feel it dreadfully."</p> + +<p>He gazed at her, straining to cling to the resolution that had almost +deserted him, though his face was firmly set.</p> + +<p>"It is quite true," she added, with flaming cheeks. "I must say it. I +mean myself."</p> + +<p>He drew back a pace and stood very still, as though afraid to trust +himself.</p> + +<p>"Don't make it all unbearable!" he cried at length. "There's only one +course open to me. It's hard enough already."</p> + +<p>Alison faced him with a new steadiness.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she exclaimed, "you can only look at it from your point of +view—can't you understand yet that there is another? If you had meant +to go away you should have gone—some time ago."</p> + +<p>Thorne closed his hands firmly.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you are right; but I believed that I might make a success of +this farming venture."</p> + +<p>The girl laughed with open scorn.</p> + +<p>"Dare you believe that would have mattered so very much to me? Do you +think I didn't know why you turned farmer, and why you have since then +done things that none of your neighbors would have been capable of?"</p> + +<p>"It seemed necessary," explained Thorne, still with the same expressive +quietness. "I did so because I wanted you, and that is exactly what +makes defeat so bitter now."</p> + +<p>"And you imagined that you had hidden your motive? Can you believe that +a man could change his whole mode of life and take up a burden he had +carefully avoided, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> you have done, without having the woman on whose +account he did it understand why? Are we so blind or utterly foolish? +Don't you know that our perceptions and intuitions are twice as keen as +yours?"</p> + +<p>"Then you understood what my object was all along—and it didn't strike +you as absurd and impossible?"</p> + +<p>Alison smiled at him.</p> + +<p>"Why should it seem absurd that I should love you, Mavy?"</p> + +<p>He came no nearer, but stood still, looking at her with elation and +trouble curiously mingled in his face, and she realized that the fight +was but half won. He had of late sloughed off his wayward carelessness +and she knew that there had always been a depth of resolute character +beneath it. He was a man who would do what he felt was the fitting +thing, even though it hurt him.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, speaking slowly in a tense voice, "ever since I first +saw you I longed that this should come about. It was what I worked for, +and nothing would have been too hard that brought me nearer you, but +it's almost a cruelty that I should have succeeded—now."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Alison, bracing herself for another effort, for the strain +was beginning to tell. "Is what you have won of no value to you?"</p> + +<p>Thorne spread out his hands as if in desperation.</p> + +<p>"It is because it is so precious that I shrink from involving you in the +disaster that is hanging over me. I am a ruined, discredited man, and in +a few more weeks I will be driven out of my homestead without a dollar. +It will be three or four years at least before I can struggle to my feet +again."</p> + +<p>"Is that so very dreadful, Mavy?" Alison smiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> "I almost think that +in the things that count the most many of you are, after all, more bound +by traditions than we are. Your wildest flight was the driving about the +prairie with a load of patent medicines, and now your imagination is +bounded by a homestead and household comforts. You could teach a woman +to love you, and then go away, driven by some fantastic point of honor, +because you could not realize that her views might be wider than yours."</p> + +<p>"I could hardly suppose that you would care to live in a wagon."</p> + +<p>"I did it once—and it was not so very dreadful. I really think, if it +were needful, I could do it again."</p> + +<p>She leaned forward toward him.</p> + +<p>"It would be very much worse, Mavy, if you went away and left me +behind."</p> + +<p>At length he came toward her and seized both her hands.</p> + +<p>"Dear," he cried, "I have tried to do what I felt I ought—and now I'm +not sorry that I find I'm not strong enough. I can't tell you how I want +you—but I'm afraid you could not face what you would have to bear with +me."</p> + +<p>"Try!" said Alison simply.</p> + +<p>He drew her to him with an exultant laugh.</p> + +<p>"I've done what I could, and it seems I've failed. Now let Nevis turn me +out and I'll almost thank him. After all, there are many worse places +than a camp beside the wagon in the birch bluff."</p> + +<p>Alison was not at all convinced that it would end in that, and indeed +she did not mean it to if she could help it; but in another moment she +felt his arms about her and his lips hot upon her face, and it was half +an hour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> later when they left the homestead together. The sun had +dipped, and the vast dim plain stretched away before them under a vault +of fading blue, but she drove very slowly while Thorne walked beside the +buggy for almost a league.</p> + +<p>As a result of this, it was very late when she reached the homestead, +and she was relieved when Mrs. Farquhar came out alone as she got down. +The light fell upon the girl's face as she approached the doorway, and +her companion flashed a smiling glance at her.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you have been to Thorne's place?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Alison quietly. "I am going to marry him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farquhar kissed her.</p> + +<p>"It's very good news. Still, from what I know of Mavy and how he's +situated, I'm a little astonished that you were able to arrange it."</p> + +<p>"Why do you put it that way?" Alison asked with a start.</p> + +<p>Her companion laughed.</p> + +<p>"My dear, I'm only glad that you had sense enough not to let him go. +That man would be afraid of even a cold air blowing on you. Anyway, you +have got the one husband I would most gladly have given you to."</p> + +<p>Then she drew Alison into the house and called to Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"Harry, take the horse in, and it isn't necessary for you to hurry +back."</p> + +<p>She drew Alison out a chair and sat down close beside her.</p> + +<p>"The first thing you have to do is to drive over and see Florence +Hunter. Her husband's the only person who can pull Mavy out of this +trouble."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>"I had thought of that."</p> + +<p>"I believe it's necessary. We can't let Mavy be turned out now, and if +he won't ask a favor of a man who would grant it willingly if he could, +somebody must do it for him."</p> + +<p>Then she laid her hand caressingly on the girl's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I haven't been so pleased for a very long while. Keep a good courage. +We'll find some means of outwitting Nevis."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI<br /> +<span class="smalltext">OPEN CONFESSION</span></h2> + + +<p>It was about the middle of the afternoon when Alison reached the Hunter +homestead, and she was slightly astonished when, on inquiring for +Florence, a maid informed her that the latter was busy and could not be +with her for some minutes. Alison had imagined from what she had seen on +previous visits that in the warm weather Florence invariably spent her +afternoons reclining in a canvas chair on the veranda. A couple of +chairs stood on it when she arrived, and after the maid had gone she +drew one back into the shadow, and sitting down looked out across the +great stretch of grain in front of the house.</p> + +<p>All round the edge of it there were scattered men and teams, but they +were moving very slowly, and almost every minute the clatter of one or +another of the binders ceased and she saw stooping figures busy in front +of the machine. Though she could not make out exactly what they were +doing, the state of the harvest-field seemed to explain why the delays +were unavoidable. Great patches of the wheat lay prone; the part that +stood upright looked tangled and torn, and there were wide stretches +from which it had partially disappeared, leaving only ragged stubble +mixed with crumpled straw. Alison had, however, seen other crops that +had been wholly wiped out by the scourging hail. She waited about a +quarter of an hour before Florence appeared, looking rather hot and +dressed with unusual plainness.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>"You'll have to excuse me for keeping you, but I'm glad you came," she +said. "I've been busy since seven o'clock this morning, and now that +I've a little leisure it's a relief to sit down."</p> + +<p>A gleam of amusement crept into Alison's eyes, and her companion +evidently noticed it.</p> + +<p>"It is rather a novelty in my case," she laughed. "On the other hand, +there's no doubt that the exertion is necessary. The waste that has been +going on in this homestead is positively alarming."</p> + +<p>It cost Alison an effort to preserve a becoming gravity. Florence, who +had presided over the place for several years, spoke as if the fact she +mentioned, which had been patent to those who visited her for a +considerable time, had only dawned upon her very recently.</p> + +<p>"You are trying to set things straight?" she suggested.</p> + +<p>"It threatens to prove a difficult task, but I'm making the attempt +while I feel equal to it; and there's a certain interest even in looking +into household accounts. For instance, I had an idea this morning that +promised to save me three or four dollars a month, but when I mentioned +it to Elcot he only grinned. There are one or two respects in which I'm +afraid he's a little extravagant."</p> + +<p>Alison laughed outright. The idea that Florence, who had hitherto +squandered money with both hands, should trouble herself about the +saving of three dollars and complain of her self-denying husband's +extravagance was irresistibly amusing.</p> + +<p>"When did the desire to investigate affairs first get hold of you?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"I believe that it was when I came back from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> Toronto," answered +Florence thoughtfully. "Afterward we had the hail, and it became clear +at once that there would have to be some cutting down of our expenses." +Her face grew suddenly anxious as she glanced toward the grain. "That," +she added, "ought to explain why the subject's an interesting one to +me."</p> + +<p>Alison was somewhat puzzled. There were signs of a change in her +companion, who hitherto had, so far at least as she had noticed, taken +only a very casual interest in her husband's affairs.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied, "it does. I was very sorry when I heard about it."</p> + +<p>Florence made a little abrupt gesture, as though in dismissal of the +topic.</p> + +<p>"What brought you over? You haven't been very often."</p> + +<p>It was difficult to answer offhand, and Alison proceeded circuitously.</p> + +<p>"You and I were pretty good friends in England, weren't we?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," assented Florence. "You stood by me when your mother turned +against me, and I've always had an idea that you suffered for it. We'll +admit the fact. What comes next?"</p> + +<p>Her manner was abrupt, but that was not infrequently the case, and +Alison, who was fighting for her lover, was not readily daunted.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, "I have never troubled you for any favors in return."</p> + +<p>Florence regarded her in a rather curious fashion.</p> + +<p>"No," she admitted, "you haven't. You made no claim on me, as, perhaps, +you were entitled to do, when you first came out here. In fact, I have +once or twice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> felt slightly vexed with you because you went to Mrs. +Farquhar."</p> + +<p>Alison smiled as she remembered that her companion had not shown the +least desire to prevent her doing the thing she now resented.</p> + +<p>"Then there's a favor that I must ask at last; but first of all I'd +better tell you that I'm going to marry Leslie Thorne."</p> + +<p>"Mavy Thorne!" Florence gazed at her in open wonder. "I heard a whisper +or two that seemed to point to the possibility of your doing something +of the kind, but I resolutely refused to believe it."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>Florence laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, in half a dozen ways it's ludicrous. If you really mean it, you are +as absurd as he is."</p> + +<p>Alison rose with an air of quiet dignity.</p> + +<p>"If you are quite convinced of that, there is nothing more to be said. +You couldn't expect me to appreciate your attitude."</p> + +<p>Her companion laid a restraining hand on her arm as she was about to +move away.</p> + +<p>"Sit down! If I vexed you, I'm sorry; but you really shouldn't be so +quick in temper. Besides, you shouldn't have flung the news at me in +that startling fashion. After all, I've no doubt he has something to +recommend him. Most of them have a few good qualities which now and then +become evident when you don't expect them."</p> + +<p>She paused and looked up at Alison with a smile in which there was a +hint of tenderness.</p> + +<p>"For instance, it has been dawning on me of late that there's a good +deal that's rather nice in Elcot. Now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> try to be reasonable, and tell me +what the trouble is."</p> + +<p>Alison's indignation dissipated. It was, after all, difficult to be +angry with Florence, and she supplied her with a brief account of how +Thorne was situated. Her companion listened with more interest than she +had fancied her capable of displaying, and when Alison stopped she made +a sign of comprehension.</p> + +<p>"You want me to ask Elcot to send him over some of our men? I wish I +could—I almost feel I owe you that—but it's difficult. Elcot's trying +desperately to save the remnant of his crop. He has been very badly +hit."</p> + +<p>Alison sat silent in tense anxiety. She could not urge Florence to do +anything that would clearly be to her husband's detriment, and she did +not see how Hunter could help Thorne without neglecting his own harvest. +Then her companion turned to her again.</p> + +<p>"I quite realize that Thorne will be turned out unless he clears off the +loan, but you haven't mentioned the name of the creditor who wishes to +ruin him."</p> + +<p>"It's Nevis."</p> + +<p>An ominous sparkle crept into Florence's eyes, and her face grew hard.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll try to explain it all to Elcot to-night, and if he can drive +off Nevis by any means that won't cost him too great a sacrifice I think +you can count on its being done."</p> + +<p>Alison felt inclined to wonder why the mention of Nevis's part in the +affair had had such an effect on her companion, but that, after all, did +not seem a very important point, and when she drove away half an hour +later she was in an exultant mood. When she had gone, Florence +supervised the preparations for the men's sup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>per, and after the meal +was over she stopped Hunter as he was going out again through the +veranda.</p> + +<p>"If you can wait for a few minutes I have something to tell you," she +said. "To begin with, Alison Leigh is going to marry Thorne."</p> + +<p>Hunter did not look much astonished.</p> + +<p>"I think Mavy has made a wise choice, but I'm very much afraid there's +trouble in front of them," he said.</p> + +<p>"That," returned Florence, "is exactly what I meant to speak about. +Alison was here this afternoon, and she mentioned it to me. I want to +save them as much as I can."</p> + +<p>Hunter's face remained expressionless. It was the first time, so far as +he could remember, that Florence had concerned herself about any other +person's difficulties.</p> + +<p>"Well," he asked gravely, "how do you propose to set about it?"</p> + +<p>"In the first place, I thought I'd mention it to you."</p> + +<p>A dry smile crept into Hunter's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then you'd better give me all the particulars in your possession. I +have some idea as to the cause of the trouble, but I haven't been over +to Mavy's place for some time, and he has sent no word to me."</p> + +<p>Florence told him what she knew, and when she had finished he gazed at +her reflectively.</p> + +<p>"You want me to send him all the men and binders I can spare? That's the +only useful course."</p> + +<p>Florence hesitated, and when she spoke her manner was unusually +diffident.</p> + +<p>"I feel it's rather shabby to promise a favor and then hand on the work +to you, but in this case I'm helpless. I should like you to get Thorne +out of his trouble, if it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> only on Alison's account; but on the other +hand I don't want you to increase your own difficulties by sending men +away. You stand first with me."</p> + +<p>Hunter made no allusion to the last assurance.</p> + +<p>"It seems very likely that what the boys are now doing will in the end +come to much the same thing as changing a dollar and getting about +ninety cents back for it, which naturally prevents me from feeling that +I would be making very much of a sacrifice in discontinuing the +operation."</p> + +<p>"I don't quite understand how that could be. Even if the hail has almost +spoiled the crop, you have the men, and it won't cost you any more if +you keep them busy saving as much of it as is possible."</p> + +<p>"That," explained Hunter, "is partly why I'm doing so, and the other +reason is that I must have something that will keep me occupied just +now. On the other hand, before I can get anything for the wheat it must +be thrashed and hauled in to the elevators. Now, thrashing is usually +done by contract—at so much the bushel—in this country, and I've +reason to believe that the thrasher boys will charge me considerably +more than the average rate. Considering the state of the crop, they'll +have to do a great deal of work for a very little wheat. Besides, that +little's damaged and would bring less than the market price, which is a +particularly low one this year. Then there's the cost of haulage, which +is an item, because it would entail keeping the hired men on, and I've +the option of paying them off as soon as harvest's over."</p> + +<p>"In short," said Florence in a troubled voice, "it would probably be +more profitable to let the whole crop rot as it stands."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>"I'm afraid that's the case," Hunter agreed.</p> + +<p>Florence sat silent for almost a minute watching him covertly. It once +more struck her that he looked very jaded, and she was touched by the +weariness in his face. Then, though the occasion seemed most +inopportune, she was carried away by a sudden impulse which compelled +her to mention Nevis's loan.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she blurted out, "I have made things worse for you all +along—and now there's another trouble I have brought upon you."</p> + +<p>For a minute or two she poured out disjointed sentences, and though the +man listened gravely, almost unmoved in face, she found the making of +that confession about the most difficult thing she had ever done.</p> + +<p>"How much did you borrow?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>She told him; and raising himself a little from his leaning posture he +looked down upon her with an embarrassing quietness.</p> + +<p>"I was half afraid there might be something of that kind in the +background," he said at length. "There's one point I must raise. +Presumably, you wouldn't allow a man who was to all intents and purposes +a stranger to lend you money?"</p> + +<p>He spoke as if the matter were open to doubt, and Florence found the +situation rapidly becoming intolerable, but it was to her credit that +she recognized that half-measures would be useless then.</p> + +<p>"No," she acknowledged.</p> + +<p>"Then I must ask exactly what kind of interest you took in the man, and +how far your acquaintance with him went?"</p> + +<p>Florence's face burned, but she roused herself to answer him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>"He was amusing," she said slowly, picking her words. "He came here once +or twice when you were out, and on a few occasions I met him by accident +on the prairie and at the settlement. I suppose I was—pleasant—to him, +but nobody could have called it more than that. Then there was a change +in his attitude."</p> + +<p>"It was to be expected," Hunter interposed dryly. "Do you wish me to +understand that you were astonished?"</p> + +<p>Florence rose and turned on him with hot anger in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" she exclaimed, "I was astonished and—you must believe +it—horribly mortified! He tried to make me feel that I was in his +power!"</p> + +<p>She paused and clenched one hand tight before she cried:</p> + +<p>"What can I do to convince you? I hate the man! I want you to crush and +humble him!"</p> + +<p>Hunter greeted this outbreak with a smile, but he made no answer; and +growing calmer in a few moments she looked at him again.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do about it, Elcot?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, those two notes of yours must be paid when they +fall due. After that I shall act—as appears advisable."</p> + +<p>Florence sat down with relief in her face.</p> + +<p>"Raising the money will be another difficulty," she said. "I will give +up my allowance until it is paid off."</p> + +<p>"That," replied Hunter, with undiminished dryness, "will no doubt have +to be done."</p> + +<p>He turned away from her and leaned heavily on the balustrade for a +minute or two, apparently watching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> the hired men toiling among his +ruined wheat. Then he slowly looked around again.</p> + +<p>"Well," he observed, "I'm glad you have told me about the thing; but I'm +somewhat surprised that you didn't realize that you could have disarmed +Nevis—and freed yourself—by mentioning it earlier."</p> + +<p>"I was ashamed—though there was in one sense no reason why I should be. +It would have looked—so suggestive."</p> + +<p>Hunter interrupted her with a little bitter laugh.</p> + +<p>"No; when I asked you what interest you took in Nevis it wasn't quite +what I meant. I merely thought your answer might throw some light on his +views, which I wanted to be sure of. You are too dispassionate, and too +much alive to your own benefit, to make much of a sacrifice for the sake +of any man."</p> + +<p>Florence winced at this, but she rose and laid her hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"Try me, Elcot," she begged. "I know I'm fond of ease and +luxury—perhaps it's because I had so little of them before I married +you, but now you must give me nothing for the next twelve months. Cut +the household expenses down by half and send everybody but one maid +away."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you'll have to be prepared for something of the kind," +replied Hunter quietly. "In the meanwhile, I'll take the boys and the +binders over to Thorne's place in the morning."</p> + +<p>He moved away toward his ruined crop without another word, but Florence +did not resent the attitude he had adopted. Indeed, his uncompromising +directness had appealed to her in his favor. When, soon after their +marriage, she had by various means made it plain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> that he was expected +to keep his distance and leave her largely to her own devices it had +been a relief that he had fallen in with her views without protest, +though it had been evident that it had grievously hurt him. Then his +forbearance and apparent content with the situation had by degrees grown +galling, and now, when at last he seemed inclined to assert himself, she +was not displeased. It had, as she had admitted to Alison, begun to dawn +on her that she had somehow never recognized her husband's good +qualities, and that there were unexpected possibilities in the simple +farmer. Besides this, she was seized with a fit of wholly genuine +penitence.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile Hunter climbed into the seat of a binder which he drove +slowly through the tangled grain, and Florence, still lingering on the +veranda, noticed the carefulness with which he and his men stooked the +sheaves of wheat which might never be sold. The rows of black shadows +behind them lengthened rapidly, until at last they coalesced and the +stubble lay dim, while the western face of the grain along which the +binders crept alone glowed with a coppery radiance as the red sun +dipped. Then a wonderful exhilarating coolness crept into the air, and +there was a stillness not apparent earlier through which the clash and +clatter of the machines rang harshly distinct. They moved on with the +bent figures which grew dimmer toiling behind them for another +half-hour, and then while the others trooped off to the stables Hunter +walked slowly toward the house. Florence noticed the suggestive +slackness of his bearing and her heart smote her, for she knew it was +not mere physical weariness which had crushed the vigor out of the man. +When he came up the steps she turned to him.</p> + +<p>"Is the wheat looking no better?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>"No," answered Hunter simply; "It's looking worse. I'm going in to write +a letter—to the bank."</p> + +<p>He strode on and disappeared into the house, but Florence, who presently +saw a light stream out from one of the windows, sat still, though the +dew was getting heavy and it was chilly now.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">A HELPING HAND</span></h2> + + +<p>Lucy Calvert came over as often as she was able; but at length she was +compelled to discontinue her visits to Thorne. Soon after she had done +so, there was a welcome change in the almost torrid weather, and grass +and grain lay still under a faintly clouded sky when he toiled among the +sheaves one clear, cool afternoon. The binder which flung them out moved +along the edge of the oats in front of him, and another man was busy +among the crackling stubble a pace or two behind, for a neighbor had +driven across to help him on the previous evening, and the station-agent +had at last sent him out a man from the railroad settlement. They had +been at work since early morning, but each time Thorne glanced at the +oblong of standing grain he realized more clearly the futility of what +he was doing.</p> + +<p>The belt of knee-high stubble, which shone, a sweep of warm ochre +tinting, against the white and gray of the parched grass beyond it, was +widening steadily as the crop went down before the binder, but he had a +good deal yet to cut, and there was another oblong of untouched grain +running back from a deserted wooden shack some distance away. Thorne had +followed the custom of the country, sowing oats on the newly broken land +and wheat on that which had been worked before, though in the latter +case he had agreed to pay a share of the proceeds to the owner of the +soil. He had secured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> an option of purchasing this second holding, but +it was quite out of the question that he should exercise it now, and a +very simple calculation convinced him that at his present rate of +progress less than half the crop would be ready when Grantly's note fell +due.</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that his activity was illogical, as it was obvious +that the result of every hour's strenuous labor would only be to put so +much more money into Nevis's pocket, but he could not force himself to +give up the fight until the last moment. He still clung to a faint +expectation that something might transpire to lessen the odds against +him. He admitted that there was nothing to warrant this view, but in +spite of it he toiled on savagely, and the stooked sheaves rose before +him in lengthening golden ranks as he floundered with bowed shoulders +and busy arms through the crackling stubble. The soil beneath the straw +was dry and parched, and the dust which rose from it crept into his eyes +and nostrils. Now and then he gasped, but he worked on with no +slackening of effort, for that part of the crop was heavy and the +sheaves were falling thick and fast in the wake of the machine. At +length, however, it stopped at a corner, and Thorne straightened his +aching back when the man who drove it got down.</p> + +<p>"She wants a drop of oil," he explained, and looking round him pointed +out across the prairie. "Seems as if Shafter was through with his +harvest, and I guess he has to sell. Some of the storekeepers have been +putting the screw on him."</p> + +<p>Thorne gazed toward the spot he indicated and saw two or three teams and +wagons etched upon the horizon where a low rise ran up to meet the sky. +They were so far off that they appeared stationary, and it was only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> +when one of the binder's arms hid the first of them a moment or two +later that he could see they moved. Then as he watched the others a hot +fit of resentment and envy came upon him. It was clear that Shafter, who +had plowed unusually early, had cut and thrashed his grain, for stacking +is seldom attempted in that country, where very few farmers have any +money in hand and storekeepers generally look for payment once the crop +is in. In the latter case it is put on the market as soon as possible, +though now and then the last of it is hauled in on the bob-sleds across +the snow. Shafter, at least, could clear off his liabilities, and though +Thorne did not grudge the man this satisfaction, the sight of his loaded +wagons crawling slowly to the elevators was bitter to him. He could have +done what Shafter was doing, and so escaped from Nevis's clutches, had +he only been allowed a little longer time.</p> + +<p>"When you're through with that oiling, we'll get on," he said harshly.</p> + +<p>His companion made no answer, but climbed into the saddle and the binder +moved steadily along the edge of the grain until they came to the second +corner. Turning it, the driver looked out across a stretch of prairie +which a birch bluff on one hand of them had previously hidden. Then he +pulled up his team excitedly.</p> + +<p>"Mavy!" he cried, "there's quite a lot of teams back yonder to the +eastward, beyond the creek!"</p> + +<p>Thorne sprang up on the binder, for where he had been standing a cluster +of sheaves obscured his view. He saw that there undoubtedly were horses +on the sweep of grass in the distance. What was more, they were moving +in his direction.</p> + +<p>"There's one wagon," declared his second companion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> "I can't quite make +out the other things. If there was hay in the sloos still I'd say they +were mowers."</p> + +<p>Thorne's heart seemed suddenly to leap, and the man in the saddle of the +machine burst into a hoarse laugh.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "nobody would figure you'd been farming, unless you use +the scythe down in Ontario. They're sure binders!"</p> + +<p>He turned and smote Thorne encouragingly upon the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Mavy, it's the Hunter crowd! Guess you're going to have no trouble +getting your crop in now!"</p> + +<p>Thorne got down and leaned against the wheel of the binder. His face had +grown paler than usual, and he felt almost limp with the relief which +was too great for him to express. It was several moments before he broke +the silence.</p> + +<p>"They can't be here for a while. I think I'll have a smoke."</p> + +<p>His companion nodded sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"That's what you want, Mavy. Then you'll be fresh for a hustle; and +we'll have to move quite lively to keep ahead of the Hunter boys. +Hunter's no use for slouches and he knows how to speed up the crowd he +hires."</p> + +<p>He called to his horses, and the other man fell to work behind him when +the machine clattered on, but Thorne sat down among the sheaves. He +could now allow himself a brief relaxation, and for once his grip was +nerveless, for his heart was overfull. His cares had suddenly vanished, +and there was, he almost thought, victory in front of him. He had some +trouble in shredding the tobacco to fill his pipe, and when the +operation was accomplished he lay resting on one elbow watching the +teams draw nearer with a satisfaction which came near to over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>whelming +him. By the time he had smoked the pipe out, however, he had grown a +little calmer, and rousing himself he stood up and walked out upon the +prairie to meet the newcomers. Hunter was driving a wagon in front of +them and he stopped his team when he was a few yards away.</p> + +<p>"We'll soon clean that crop up," he declared cheerily when Thorne had +clambered to the seat beside him. "I've brought the smartest of the boys +and the newest machines along."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," Thorne replied simply. "Just now I can't say anything more, +except that in one way I'm sorry you were able to come."</p> + +<p>Hunter's face grew suddenly grave.</p> + +<p>"I can believe it, Mavy. Had things been different it's quite likely I'd +have had to keep the boys at home; I was only sure that I was throwing +my time away yesterday. Anyway, I'm thankful that one hailed crop won't +clean me out."</p> + +<p>He dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand.</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact," he added, "though I'd probably come in any case, +it was really Mrs. Hunter who sent me along."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Hunter!" ejaculated Thorne in what afterward occurred to him was +very tactless astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Sure!" laughed his companion. "She had a visitor shortly before she +spoke to me about it, which may have had something to do with the thing, +but the possibility of the notion's having struck Miss Leigh first +wasn't any reason why I shouldn't come across. Mavy, it's my opinion +that you're a very lucky man."</p> + +<p>"It's mine, too," Thorne answered with a light in his eyes. "Still, I +almost felt ashamed to admit it half an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> hour ago. The outlook seemed +very black to me just then."</p> + +<p>Hunter made a sign of comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "from what I've seen of her, I don't think Miss Leigh +would have fallen in with your point of view, though it was a very +natural one. It strikes me there's a good deal of courage and a capacity +for making the most of things in that girl. Anyway, there ought to be +considerably fewer difficulties in front of both of you when we get this +crop in; and that brings up another matter. The thrashers are leaving +Shafter's for Tom Jordan's place to-morrow. Hadn't you better write to +them right away and arrange for them to come along as soon as we're +ready?"</p> + +<p>Thorne recognized that this would be judicious, particularly as he +expected that a neighbor who had spoken to him that morning would pass +close by in the next hour or two. The man, who lived near Jordan, would, +he felt confident, undertake to hand on the letter. A few minutes later +he got down and entered his dwelling while Hunter drove on toward the +grain. He found, however, that his ink had almost dried up, and when he +sat down to write it was difficult to fix his thoughts on what he had to +say. The relief he had experienced a little while ago had been great +enough partly to bewilder him, and some time had passed before he +produced a fairly intelligible letter. Putting it into his pocket, he +went out again, and stopped a moment or two just outside the threshold +with a sense of exultation that sent an almost painful thrill through +him as he saw that Hunter had already got to work.</p> + +<p>Plodding teams and machines, marshaled in careful order, were advancing +in echelon through the grain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> which melted away before them. Behind +each, bowed, bare-armed figures set up the flung-out sheaves, which rose +in ranks that now lengthened reassuringly fast. The still air was filled +with the sounds of a strenuous activity; the crackle of the stubble, the +rasp and tinkle of the knives, and the rustle of falling grain. Already +there was a wide gap, which extended while he gazed at it, bitten out of +one corner of the golden oblong. Along its indented edges the arms of +the binders whirled and gleamed, half-buried in yellow straw, through +which, as most of them were new, he caught odd glimpses of streaks of +flaring vermilion and harshest green, while the dull blue garments and +bronzed skin of the men who moved on stooping showed against the sweep +of ochre and coppery hues. It was a medley of vivid color and a blending +of stirring sound, and the jaded man forgot his aches and weariness as +he gazed. The crop he had despaired of reaping was falling fast before +his eyes.</p> + +<p>Then he saw that his own team was leading, and there was only one figure +struggling with the sheaves behind it. In another moment it became +apparent that the man in the saddle was waving to him, and he set off at +a run. When he reached the grain one of his companions glanced at him +reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"See where that binder's got?" he grumbled. "We went in first, but +though I've most pulled my arms off they're crowding right on top of us +with the next Hunter team. Do you want the boys to put it on us that we +can't keep ahead of them?"</p> + +<p>Thorne saw that the team of the following binder was very close behind, +and that a wide strip of stubble strewed with fallen sheaves, which had +accumulated in his ab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>sence, divided him and his companion from the +machine that belonged to him.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said with a cheerful laugh, "there's a good deal to pull up, +but it has to be done."</p> + +<p>They set about it vigorously, and drew away foot by foot from the men +behind. Thorne had toiled hard before, but now he felt that he could do +half as much again. After all, the grim courage of the forlorn hope +provides a feebler animus than the thrill of victory. At length, +however, his companion turned to him with a gasping expostulation.</p> + +<p>"I guess you have me beat," he exclaimed. "We'll hook Jim off the binder +and put you on instead. I'll own up I'd rather have him along with me +just now."</p> + +<p>They made the change, and Thorne contrived to drive a little faster than +the other man had done. Hunter's men could not let him draw too far +ahead, and everywhere the effort grew tenser still. Nobody objected +when, as the supper hour drew near, Hunter said that since the days were +shortening fast they would go on until dark fell before they made the +meal, instead of working afterward. Still, as the time slipped by, a man +here and there drew his belt tighter or stopped a moment to straighten +his aching back, and by degrees the horses moved more and more slowly +amid the falling grain. The clatter of the binders grew less insistent, +there were halts to oil or tighten something now and then; and at last, +when all the great plain was growing dim, it was with relief that the +men desisted when Hunter called to them. He and Thorne loosed their +teams, and the latter looked uneasy when they walked toward the house +together.</p> + +<p>"There's a thing that only struck me a few minutes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> ago, and I'm rather +troubled about it," he confessed. "The boys have worked hard enough +already without being set to making flapjacks and cooking their supper, +while I really don't know how I'm to tide over breakfast to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Hunter laughed.</p> + +<p>"That's not going to prove much of a difficulty, particularly as it's +one Mrs. Hunter has provided for. As it happens, Hall looked in on us +last night, and I gathered that he hadn't a very high opinion of your +cookery and catering."</p> + +<p>A minute or two later they came out from behind the barn into view of +the house and Thorne saw that a bountiful meal was already spread out on +the grass in front of it. A man, whose absence he had not noticed, was +carrying a kettle and a frying-pan out of the doorway. It was the climax +of a day of unexpected happenings and vanishing troubles, and when he +looked at Hunter he found it difficult to speak. The latter, however, +laughed.</p> + +<p>"Mavy," he said, "you sit right down yonder. Supper's ready, and the +boys are waiting."</p> + +<p>Thorne took his place among the others, who ate in such determined +fashion that in a very few minutes there was nothing left of the meal. +Then two or three of them gathered up the plates, and the others, lying +down on the grass, took out their pipes. In the meanwhile it had grown +almost dark, though a few pale streaks of saffron and green lingered low +upon the prairie's western verge. The long rows of sheaves stood out +dimly upon the stubble, but the standing crop had faded into a blurred +and shadowy mass, one edge of which alone showed with a certain +distinctness above the sweep of the darkening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> plain. Near the house, +however, a little fire which somebody had lighted—probably because +there was not room for all the cooking utensils on Thorne's +stove—burned redly between the two birch logs, and its flickering glow +wavered across the recumbent figures of the men.</p> + +<p>Some of them lay propped up on one elbow, some had stretched themselves +out full-length among the grass, and now and then a brown face or +uncovered bronzed arm stood out in the uncertain radiance and vanished +again. The men spoke in low voices, lazily, wearied with the day's toil, +though at irregular intervals a hoarse laugh broke out, and once or +twice the howl of a coyote came up faint and hollow out of the waste of +prairie. A little apart from the others, Thorne and Hunter sat with +their shoulders against the front of the house, talking quietly.</p> + +<p>"I'll see you through with the hauling in," Hunter promised. "We'll +start right away as soon as the thrashers can give us a load, and in my +opinion you should have a reasonable surplus after clearing off Nevis's +claim."</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Thorne with deep but languid content; "it looks almost +as if another moderately good harvest would wipe out my last obligation +and set me solidly on my feet. Once I'm free of Nevis, I don't +anticipate any trouble with the other men. So long as they get their +interest they'll hold me up for their own sakes."</p> + +<p>"That's how it strikes me," Hunter agreed. "They don't run their +business on Nevis's lines; which reminds me that I picked up a little +information that suggested that he might have to make a change, when I +was over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> at Brandon a week or two ago. I may say that as I had reasons +for believing that the man hadn't a great deal of money of his own I've +been rather astonished at the way he has gone on from one thing to +another during the last few years, until Farquhar told me something +which seemed to supply the explanation. He got it from Grantly, who +declares that Brand, of Winnipeg, has been backing Nevis all along. +Well, I spent an evening with one of the big milling people in Brandon, +and he told me it was generally believed that Brand has been severely +hit by the fall in wheat. It turns out that he and a few others were at +the bottom of the late rally, which, however, only made things worse for +them. The point is that if Brand is getting shaky he'll probably call in +any money he has supplied to Nevis."</p> + +<p>"Nobody would be sorry if he pulled him down altogether."</p> + +<p>"It's almost too much to expect," replied Hunter, dismissing the subject +with a wave of his hand. "By the way, I had a look round your house +after supper, and it's my opinion that you only want a wagon-load of +dressed lumber and a couple of carpenters for two or three days to make +the place quite comfortable. A few simple furnishings won't cost you +much, and you can, of course, add to them as you go on."</p> + +<p>Thorne realized that this statement covered a question, and he smiled in +a manner that indicated unalloyed satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"I intend to consult with Alison about ordering them as soon as the +thrashing's over."</p> + +<p>His companion rose and stretched himself.</p> + +<p>"Well," he yawned, "if we're to start at sunup we had better get off to +rest."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>He turned to the others.</p> + +<p>"You'll find your blankets in the wagon, boys, and you can camp in the +house. If you're particular about a soft bed there's hay in the barn."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THE RECKONING</span></h2> + + +<p>Thorne's last load of wheat had been hauled in, and he had duly met his +obligations, when he drove into Graham's Bluff early one evening. The +days were rapidly getting shorter, and though it was not yet dark there +was a chill in the air, and here and there a light blinked in the window +of a store. Odd groups of loiterers stood about the sidewalk or strolled +along the rutted street, for it was Saturday evening, and now that +harvest was generally over the outlying farmers had driven in to +purchase provisions or to gather any news that might be had, in +accordance with their usual custom. It was about their only relaxation, +and of late a supplementary mail arrived on Saturdays, which was another +excuse for the visit.</p> + +<p>Thorne was in an unusually optimistic mood. He had left his troubles +behind him, there was an alluring prospect opening out ahead, and he +expected to meet Alison and Mrs. Farquhar at the hotel. Besides, he had +driven fast, and the swift motion had stirred his blood. He answered +with a cheerful laugh when some of the loungers called to him. As he +drove by one corner Corporal Slaney raised a greeting hand, and Thorne, +wondering what he was doing there, waved his whip. It was, as a rule, +only when he had some particular business on hand that the corporal was +seen at Graham's Bluff. Supper had been over some time when Thorne +stopped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> his team at the back of the hotel, and getting down handed it +over to a man who came out from the stable.</p> + +<p>"Has the mail-carrier got in yet, Bill?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No; he's most an hour behind his usual time. Guess you're late, too. +They've cleared the tables quite a while ago."</p> + +<p>"I got supper with Forrester as I came along. I suppose you haven't any +idea as to what has brought Slaney over?"</p> + +<p>Bill grinned.</p> + +<p>"It is my opinion that's about the one thing Slaney's not going to +explain, though he was in the stable talking, and I saw him looking kind +of curious at Lucy Calvert. She's in town, and so is Mrs. Hunter. She +came in alone, but somebody told me that Hunter had ridden round by +Hall's place and would be along by and by."</p> + +<p>"Are there any of my other friends about?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know if you'd call Nevis one, but he's in the hotel; when I +last saw him he looked powerful mad. Mrs. Hunter had pulled up before +the dry-goods store when he walked up and started to talk to her. I +don't know what she said to him, but it kind of struck me she'd have +liked to lay into him with the whip, and Nevis came back across the road +mighty quick. After that Mrs. Farquhar drove in with Miss Leigh and left +word that you were to wait at the hotel."</p> + +<p>Bill paused a moment and grinned at Thorne mischievously.</p> + +<p>"Guess they didn't want you trailing round after them in the dry-goods +store. Looks as if they'd been buying quite a lot, for it's most half an +hour since they went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> in. The lawyer man who came to see Miss Leigh has +gone off up the street."</p> + +<p>"The lawyer man!" exclaimed Thorne in some astonishment, for, though he +could guess what Alison was buying, the last piece of news roused his +interest.</p> + +<p>"Parsons—from somewhere down the line. He has been in the settlement +once or twice lately. Wanted to know where Miss Leigh was, and when +she'd be back again."</p> + +<p>Thorne, without asking any more questions, walked round to the front of +the hotel, where he found Nevis talking to several farmers on the +veranda. He was inclined to think the man had not noticed his arrival, +and sitting down he took out his pipe without greeting him. He had +treated Nevis to a somewhat forcible expression of opinion when he had +met Grantly's note a few days earlier, and they had by no means parted +on friendly terms. Soon after he sat down Symonds, the hotel-keeper, +came out on the veranda.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to stay here to-night, Mr. Nevis?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Nevis. "I didn't intend to when I drove in, but I think I'll +stop over until Monday morning. I'll drive on to Hunter's place after +breakfast then."</p> + +<p>Thorne, remembering what Bill had told him, wondered how far Nevis's +meeting with Mrs. Hunter might explain his change of mind. He could +think of no very definite reason that would warrant the conjecture, but +a stream of light from the room behind the veranda fell on the man's +face and its expression suggested vindictive malice. Just then two or +three newcomers strolled on to the veranda, and a teamster, who had been +sitting at the farther side of it, moved toward Nevis.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>"What do you want to go to Hunter's for?" he asked bluntly. "You and he +haven't had any dealings since he beat you out of the creamery."</p> + +<p>Thorne watched Nevis closely, and imagined that the ominous look in his +face grew plainer still.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, with a jarring laugh, "Mrs. Hunter is a customer of +mine."</p> + +<p>There was a murmur of astonishment and the men gathered round the +speaker, evidently in the expectation of hearing something more.</p> + +<p>"Is that a cold fact?" one of them inquired.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," answered Nevis; and Thorne joined the group.</p> + +<p>"Even if it is, this isn't the place to discuss it!" he broke in. +"Perhaps I'd better mention that if Hunter isn't in town already he will +be very soon."</p> + +<p>Nevis looked around at him, and Thorne fancied that the man, who was +evidently filled with savage resentment, intended, with some vindictive +purpose, to take the gathering group of bystanders into his confidence. +Several more men were ascending the steps.</p> + +<p>"Have you any reason to doubt what I'm saying?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Well," drawled Thorne, "there's your general character, for one thing."</p> + +<p>Some of the others laughed, but it occurred to Thorne that his +interference had not been particularly tactful when one of them asked a +question.</p> + +<p>"Are you telling us that Hunter, who has plenty of money, lets his wife +go borrowing from people like you?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say that he lets her," Nevis retorted mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>ingly. "I've the +best of reasons, however, for being certain that she does so."</p> + +<p>There was an awkward silence, which indicated that all who had heard it +grasped the full significance of the last statement. Nevis smiled as he +glanced round at them.</p> + +<p>"You mean he doesn't know anything about it?" somebody exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"If you insist, that's about the size of it," Nevis answered. "Since her +husband cuts down her allowance to the last dollar, it's not an +altogether unnatural thing that Mrs. Hunter should borrow from her +friends without mentioning it to him."</p> + +<p>The speech was offensive on the face of it, but there was in addition +something in the man's manner which endued it with a gross +suggestiveness. It implied that he could furnish a reason why the woman +should have no hesitation in borrowing from him. Thorne stood still +fuming. He recognized that an altercation with Nevis would in all +probability only provide the latter with an opportunity for making +further undesirable insinuations.</p> + +<p>Just then, however, the group suddenly fell apart and another man strode +across the veranda. He carried a riding-quirt, and his face showed white +and set in the stream of light.</p> + +<p>"It's a malicious lie!"</p> + +<p>He raised the plaited quirt, and the hotel-keeper flung himself in front +of Nevis.</p> + +<p>"Stop there!" he cried. "Hold on, Hunter!"</p> + +<p>Thorne, springing forward, grasped his friend's arm. He felt it his duty +to restrain him, though it was one that he undertook most reluctantly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>"Thrashing him wouldn't be an answer," he insisted. "After what he has +just said, it would be very much better if you gave us your account of +the thing."</p> + +<p>There was a murmur of approval from the assembly. The men had heard the +accusation cunningly conveyed, and although the prospect of a +sensational climax in which the riding-quirt should figure appealed to +them, they felt it only fitting that they should also hear it proved or +withdrawn.</p> + +<p>"I'll do that—first," consented Hunter, very grimly. "I have just this +to say. I'm perfectly aware that Mrs. Hunter borrowed from this man on +two occasions, and to bear it out I'll state the fact that the loans +fall due on Tuesday."</p> + +<p>Nevis made no attempt to deny it, and one of the bystanders spoke.</p> + +<p>"We can let it go at that, boys; Nevis said he was going over to +Hunter's place on Monday."</p> + +<p>"In that case," continued Hunter, "he will have the notes my wife gave +him in his pocket. I'll mention what the amounts are, and afterward ask +Nevis to produce the papers, and Symonds will tell you if I'm correct."</p> + +<p>"Then if he doesn't want us to strip him he had better trot them out!" +cried another man.</p> + +<p>Nevis, who saw no help for it, produced two papers, which the +hotel-keeper seized. The latter made a sign of agreement when Hunter +spoke again.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he confirmed; "you have given the figures right."</p> + +<p>Hunter once more turned to the waiting men.</p> + +<p>"I think I've made out my case. Are you convinced that he's a dangerous +liar, boys?"</p> + +<p>There were cries of assent.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>"Lay into the hog with the quirt!" somebody added.</p> + +<p>Thorne chuckled at the sight of Nevis's face. It was suffused with blood +and dark with baffled malevolence. The man evidently recognized that he +was discredited and would get no further hearing now. It occurred to +Thorne, however, that his friend had succeeded better than he could +reasonably have expected, for, after all, he had not disproved the fact +that his wife had, in the first place at least, borrowed the money +without his knowledge. The others, he thought, had not noticed that +point.</p> + +<p>Then Hunter raised his hand for silence.</p> + +<p>"I'll ask Symonds and Thorne to come into the room with Nevis and me," +he said. "I want a table to write at, for one thing."</p> + +<p>It did not look as if Nevis were particularly anxious to accompany them, +but Symonds, who was a powerful man, hustled him forward, and Thorne +took his place with his back to the door to keep out the others, who +seemed desirous of following them. Hunter, sitting down at a table, +wrote out a check and pocketed the papers Nevis gave him in exchange for +it. Then he rose and took up the strongly plaited quirt.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, addressing Nevis, "I'll ask you to walk out on to the +veranda and inform our friends outside that you wish to express your +regret for the malicious statements you have lately made, and that you +declare they were completely unjustified."</p> + +<p>"I'll see you damned first!" muttered Nevis with a dangerous glitter in +his eyes.</p> + +<p>The events of the next few moments were sudden and confusing, and Thorne +was never able to arrange them clearly in his mind. It speedily became +evident,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> however, that the equity of his cause does not necessarily +render a man either invincible or invulnerable. Nevis, although a person +of somewhat lethargic physical habits, appeared when forced to action +sufficiently vigorous, and Hunter was hampered by the quirt to which he +persistently clung. Though he managed to use it once or twice it was a +serious handicap when they came to grips. In the meanwhile, the dust +flew up from the uncovered floor and obscured the view of the men on the +veranda, who crowded about the window and clamored furiously to get in. +Then in the midst of the turmoil the lamp went out and Thorne felt a +hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Let them out!" the hotel-keeper cried.</p> + +<p>As Thorne was forcibly driven away from the door, it swung open and a +man sprang out on to the veranda with another close behind, while +confused cries went up.</p> + +<p>"Head him off from the stairway!"</p> + +<p>"Leave them to it!"</p> + +<p>"Get a light!"</p> + +<p>In a few moments, Bill pushed through the crowd with a lantern in his +hand, but before he crossed the veranda another light sprang up again in +the room and streamed out through the door and window. It fell upon the +waiting men and the two dominant figures in the narrow clear space in +front of them—Nevis, standing still, looking about him savagely with a +darkly suffused face, and Hunter, gripping his quirt, very quiet and +very grim. He was, however, breathing heavily, and signs of the conflict +were plain on both of them.</p> + +<p>There was an impressive silence, and everybody stood tensely expectant, +until it was suddenly broken by a murmur and a movement of those nearest +the steps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> They drew back, and Mrs. Farquhar and Mrs. Hunter, with +Alison and Lucy Calvert, came up on the veranda. Moving forward a few +paces they stopped in very natural surprise, and the stillness grew +deeper when Hunter suddenly flung down his quirt. This was a change in +the situation which nobody had anticipated.</p> + +<p>Then a cry rose sharply from somewhere below.</p> + +<p>"Miss Leigh! Get back there! Let me up!"</p> + +<p>It was followed by a shout from the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Winthrop!"</p> + +<p>The next moment a man came scrambling up the steps. He was hot and dusty +and apparently in desperate haste, but to Thorne's astonishment he ran +toward Alison. As he did so, Nevis sprang toward the veranda rails.</p> + +<p>"Slaney!" he shouted.</p> + +<p>He was still almost breathless from the struggle, and it scarcely seemed +possible that his hoarse voice would carry far, but Winthrop turning +suddenly, grabbed up a shotgun that lay on a chair. One of the outlying +farmers had brought it with him, for there were duck about just then.</p> + +<p>"Call out again and I'll plug you sure!" he threatened, and the look in +his face suggested that he fully meant it. "You've hounded me from place +to place up and down the prairie; you've got my money, more than you +lent, and that wouldn't satisfy you. Two weeks ago I was working quietly +when you put the blamed police on my trail again. Now I guess I've got +you, and we're going to straighten things."</p> + +<p>He broke off as Lucy stepped forward and laid her hand on the gun, and +Thorne noticed that she placed it with deliberate purpose over the +muzzle.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>"Let me have it, Jake! The boys will see that he doesn't call out."</p> + +<p>There was a murmur of assent from the crowd, and Thorne seized +Winthrop's arm.</p> + +<p>"What do you want Miss Leigh for, anyway?" Lucy asked Winthrop.</p> + +<p>The instinct which had prompted the question seemed so natural to Thorne +that, strung up and intent as he was, he smiled; but just then Winthrop +lowered the gun and turned to Alison.</p> + +<p>"Have you got that mortgage deed and shown it to the lawyer man?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"It's here," said Alison. "Mr. Parsons is in the settlement; I expect to +see him in the next few minutes."</p> + +<p>It struck Thorne that Nevis started, but before any of those most +concerned could speak there was a rapid thud of horse-hoofs approaching +down the street. Then a man on the steps cried out:</p> + +<p>"Here's Slaney and a trooper! You've got to quit, Jake!"</p> + +<p>Winthrop plunged into the lighted room and the door closed behind him +with a crash; a moment or two later another door banged somewhere below +and the men poured tumultuously down the steps. Lucy followed them, and +almost immediately the veranda was deserted except for Thorne and Alison +and Hunter, who remained there with his wife, though he did not speak to +her. Mrs. Farquhar had apparently been hustled down the steps by the +others in their haste, and Nevis had also vanished. Nobody had noticed +what became of him in the confusion that succeeded Winthrop's flight.</p> + +<p>The thud of hoofs, which had ceased for a moment, almost immediately +began again. Once the corporal's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> voice rose sharply, and then there +were disconnected cries, a sound of running feet, and a clamor that +rapidly receded down the street. When it grew very faint Thorne turned +to Alison.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you got something to explain?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"It's very simple," said Alison. "Winthrop gave me his mortgage deed +some time ago; he said it would be wiser not to hand it to Lucy. Nevis +had got it from him by an excuse, but he crept into his office for it +late one night. I understand it proves that Nevis hadn't an indisputable +claim to the cattle he sold. About a fortnight ago, Winthrop wrote to me +that the police were on his trail again and I was to show the deed to a +lawyer and see if it would clear him. I don't know why he came here, +unless it was because the troopers had cut off any other means of escape +and he fancied some of his friends would hide him; and it's also +possible that he took the risk of being arrested because of his anxiety +to find out what the lawyer thought."</p> + +<p>Thorne nodded.</p> + +<p>"That probably accounts for it; though there are still one or two points +which are far from clear."</p> + +<p>A few minutes later, a distant clamor broke out again, and by degrees +confused voices and a sound of footsteps drew nearer. Then while Thorne +and Alison leaned over the balustrade a crowd poured past in front of +the hotel with a mounted figure showing above the shoulders of those +about it. Thorne looked round at the girl.</p> + +<p>"They've got him at last," he said.</p> + +<p>Hunter crossed the veranda and drew him into the adjoining room, and +Alison was left alone with Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> Hunter. The latter said nothing to her +and she sat silent for some time until the lawyer walked up the steps.</p> + +<p>"I was told that I should find Miss Leigh here."</p> + +<p>Alison said that was her name, and the man, drawing a chair forward, sat +down opposite her.</p> + +<p>"I understand that you have Winthrop's mortgage deed in your possession. +He now desires you to hand it to me."</p> + +<p>"I shall be very glad to get rid of it," declared Alison, taking the +document out of a pocket in her light jacket. "Will you be able to get +him off with it?"</p> + +<p>"That's a matter on which I can't very well express an opinion until I +have read the deed and had a talk with Winthrop. I've no doubt you have +heard that he has just been arrested while endeavoring to escape, but I +contrived to get a word or two with him and Corporal Slaney. The latter +considers it advisable to get his prisoner out of the settlement as soon +as possible, and I understand he means to spend the night at a homestead +a few miles away. He has promised me an opportunity for speaking to +Winthrop when he gets there."</p> + +<p>"I should very much like to hear what you decide," Alison informed him.</p> + +<p>The lawyer rose.</p> + +<p>"It's probable that I may find it necessary to make a few inquiries in +connection with the affair, and I have another piece of business which +will keep me a day or two in the neighborhood. If Winthrop has no +objections, I could no doubt call on you at the Farquhar homestead on +Monday."</p> + +<p>Alison thanked him, and soon after he withdrew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> Hunter came out of the +hotel with Thorne. Alison accompanied Thorne down to the street in +search of Mrs. Farquhar. Then Hunter turned toward his wife.</p> + +<p>"If you have nothing more to do here, we may as well be getting home," +he said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="newchapter"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX<br /> +<span class="smalltext">THE NEW OUTLOOK</span></h2> + + +<p>It was unusually dark when Florence Hunter drove out of the settlement +with her husband riding beside the wagon, and the roughness of the trail +made conversation difficult. Florence was, on the whole, glad of this, +because, although she felt that there was a good deal to be said, she +could not express herself befittingly while her attention was +concentrated on the team. Besides, she wanted to see the man and watch +his face when she spoke to him.</p> + +<p>She was accordingly content that he should ride in silence except for an +occasional disconnected observation about the horses or the trail, to +which she merely made a casual answer. It was late when they reached the +homestead, and though a light or two was burning nobody seemed to be +about, which was, however, only what she had expected. Hunter led the +horses away toward the stables, and entering the house she sat down to +wait for him somewhat anxiously, though she realized that the +possibility of his being angry would not have troubled her a little +while ago.</p> + +<p>He came in at length and stood looking down at her. Now that the light +was better than it had been on the veranda of the hotel, she noticed +that his lips were cut and that there was a bruise above one cheekbone. +His jacket was also torn and there was no doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> that, taking it all +round, his appearance was far from reputable. That, however, did not +trouble her, for she had seen enough at the hotel to realize that the +man had been injured while fighting in her cause. Still, she was wise +enough not to begin by pitying him.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she said, "I want you to tell me exactly what happened at the +settlement."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't arrived at the beginning of it," the man replied. "I had a +talk with Thorne afterward, however, and he confirmed my conclusion that +Nevis had been informing anybody who cared to hear that you were in the +habit of borrowing money from him. This was objectionable in itself, but +he added in my hearing that I knew nothing about your action, and the +way in which he said it was insufferable."</p> + +<p>Florence's face flushed.</p> + +<p>"What did you do about it?"</p> + +<p>"First of all, I denied the most damaging statement—that I knew nothing +about the thing. It seemed necessary to prove the contrary, which I did, +though I had to admit the borrowing."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"I paid off the loans."</p> + +<p>Hunter paused, and taking out two strips of paper threw them on the +table.</p> + +<p>"Here are your notes. I feel compelled to say that unless you get my +consent beforehand you must never incur a liability of the kind again."</p> + +<p>"I shall never wish to," Florence answered penitently. "We'll talk about +that afterward; I want you to go on. You haven't told me the whole of it +yet."</p> + +<p>"What do you expect to hear?"</p> + +<p>Florence's eyes flashed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>"I should like to hear that you had thrashed the man until he could +scarcely stand!"</p> + +<p>Her husband's face relaxed into a grim smile.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm afraid I didn't go as far as that, though it wasn't because +the desire to do so failed me. As it happens, there's a good deal more +courage in the fellow than I ever gave him credit for, and it's +unfortunate that virtuous indignation doesn't make up for an inequality +in muscular weight." He stopped a moment and laughed outright. "Still, I +believe I got in once or twice with the quirt, which is consoling to +remember, and I dare say I should have left another mark or two on him +if the lamp hadn't suddenly been put out. On taxing Symonds with it +afterward, he admitted that he was afraid his wife would make trouble if +the room should be wrecked."</p> + +<p>"Would it please you, Elcot, if I were to say that I'm very proud of +that cut on your lip—though I'm horribly ashamed of being the cause of +it? In any case, it's the simple truth."</p> + +<p>"We'll take it for granted," replied Hunter, looking at her searchingly. +"The trouble is that this matter has forced on a crisis. It's evident +that our relations can't remain as they are just now."</p> + +<p>"You don't find them satisfactory?"</p> + +<p>"No." Hunter broke into a harsh laugh. "I don't know how I have borne +with them as long as I have, though I've resolutely tried to fall in +with your point of view. Anyway, I can't go on living with, and at the +same time utterly apart from, you. It might have been possible if I had +never been fond of you."</p> + +<p>"Nobody could have blamed you if you had grown out of that regard for +me," Florence suggested.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>"The difficulty is that I haven't done so," Hunter declared more +quietly, though there was still a trace of harshness in his tone. "As +you imply, it's perhaps unreasonable of me, but there the fact is. The +question is, What am I going to do?"</p> + +<p>Florence stretched out her hands and her voice was very soft.</p> + +<p>"Elcot," she murmured, "I really must have tried your patience very hard +now and then, but just now I'm glad you find this state of things +unbearable. Would it be very difficult to go back a few years and begin +again—differently?"</p> + +<p>The man moved nearer her and then stopped, hesitating.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," he answered slowly, "there are respects in which I can't +change. To begin with, I don't see how I am to provide for you as I +should like if I abandon the life you chafe at and give up the farm. I +have told you this often; but, even if it stands between us, it's a +truth that must still be faced."</p> + +<p>Florence rose and laid her hands in his.</p> + +<p>"Then it's fortunate that a change is not impossible to me—in fact, I +think I've changed a good deal already. It rather hurt me, Elcot, that +you didn't seem to notice it."</p> + +<p>The man stooped and kissed her.</p> + +<p>"I noticed it," he said; "but I was almost afraid."</p> + +<p>"Afraid it wouldn't last?" Florence reproached him. "Well, I suppose +that is not so very astonishing—but I think this change will go on, and +grow greater steadily. Anyway, I want it to."</p> + +<p>Then she drew away from him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>"You're rather a reserved person, Elcot, and it will no doubt be a +relief to you if we become severely practical. Besides, I want to show +you how determined I am. Now that you have paid off my debts, we'll get +out the account-books, and you shall decide how I'm to carry on the +homestead."</p> + +<p>Hunter laughed.</p> + +<p>"No accounts to-night. It's beginning to strike me that both of us might +have been happier if I hadn't thought about them so much. After all, I +dare say it isn't wise to give economic questions the foremost place."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Florence, "it's a pity it has taken you so long to learn +that truth. I suppose I'm fond of money—at least, I'm fond of the +things I used to fancy it could buy, but by degrees I found out that it +can't buy those that are really worth the most. Now it almost looks as +if I could get them at home—without any cost."</p> + +<p>She paused while she sat down, and then once more she smiled up at him.</p> + +<p>"Well," she continued, "I'll probably embarrass you if I go on in this +strain—you seem to get uneasy when you venture ever so little out of +your shell. For a change, you can read me the paper you brought from the +settlement, and I won't grumble if it's about the markets and the price +of wheat."</p> + +<p>Hunter took up the paper. He was, where his deeper feelings were +concerned, a singularly reticent man, which was, perhaps, an excuse for +Florence and one explanation of the coldness that had grown up between +them. Now he felt that there was to be a change, and because the +prospect brought him a fervent satisfaction he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> refrained from speaking +of it. He had, however, scarcely opened the paper when he started.</p> + +<p>"Here's a piece of striking news!" he exclaimed. "Brand, of Winnipeg, +has gone down—a disastrous smash. The fall in wheat has broken him. It +appears that his liabilities are enormous, and there's practically +nothing to meet them with."</p> + +<p>He laid down the paper.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he added, "if Nevis could have heard of it before he left +the settlement—though I think he must have done so, for the mail was +already in. Anyway, when I was getting your team Bill told me that the +man had driven off a few minutes earlier as fast as he could go."</p> + +<p>"But how could the failure in Winnipeg affect Nevis?"</p> + +<p>"Brand has been backing him, finding him the money to carry on his +business, and now that he has gone under it may pull him down. The +creditors will at once try to call in all outstanding loans, and I +expect Nevis has his money so scattered that he can't immediately get +hold of it. It's possible that the failure may drive him out of this +part of the country."</p> + +<p>They talked over the matter at some length, and the man was slightly +astonished at the acumen his wife displayed. When at last he rose, it +was with a deep content. He felt that a vista of happier days was +opening up before them both.</p> + +<p>On the following Monday he drove over to the Farquhar homestead, where +Thorne was already waiting to hear what the lawyer had to tell. The +latter, however, did not arrive until the evening, and Farquhar took him +into the general-room where the others were sitting.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>"You can, of course, speak to Miss Leigh privately, if you prefer," he +said. "On the other hand, we are all of us acquaintances of Winthrop's, +and, what is as much to the purpose, nobody you see here is very fond of +Nevis."</p> + +<p>Parsons smiled.</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, I have Winthrop's permission to tell his friends +anything they desire to learn, and he mentioned you and Mr. Thorne +particularly. To begin with, I must excuse myself for the delay, but I +found it necessary to go on to the railroad to meet Sergeant Williamson, +and I had to call at Mrs. Calvert's. To proceed, after considering +Winthrop's mortgage deed, it's my opinion that if he can substantiate +his statements he has no cause for serious anxiety about the result in +the event of his being brought to trial."</p> + +<p>"It would be difficult to get over the fact that he sold the cattle," +contested Farquhar.</p> + +<p>"It would be impossible," Parsons corrected him. "Still, there's very +little doubt that Nevis went farther than the homestead laws permit, and +while our friend would very likely be found guilty of the offense +there's so much to mitigate it that I'm inclined to believe it would be +regarded very leniently. In fact, it's scarcely reasonable to suppose +that Nevis would have proceeded to extremities unless he had counted on +being able to retain possession of the mortgage deed."</p> + +<p>"But couldn't he have been compelled to produce it in court?" Thorne +inquired.</p> + +<p>"Yes; if Winthrop had been ably represented. It must, however, be borne +in mind that he has no great education, and he would probably not have +set out matters clearly to any one who undertook to plead for him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> He +admits that he never thought of the mortgage deed until somebody +suggested that he should try to recover it. Besides this, I'm inclined +to fancy that Nevis was influenced by the fact that what appears to be a +simple police case based upon an indisputable act—in this case the +selling of the cattle—is apt to be rather casually handled by the +court."</p> + +<p>"Then you believe he will get off?"</p> + +<p>"It's by no means certain yet that he will be tried."</p> + +<p>They heard the announcement with varying astonishment, and Parsons +continued.</p> + +<p>"I endeavored to impress the views I have laid before you on Sergeant +Williamson," he explained. "The matter, of course, does not rest with +him, but he has come over to make inquiries, and what he has to say will +be listened to. I also pointed out to him that one would expect the +police case to break down if the man who had instituted it was either +absent or reluctant to press it." He stopped a moment and looked round +with a confidential air. "You have heard that Brand, of Winnipeg, has +failed disastrously? There are reasons for believing that Nevis is +involved in his fall; in any case, his office is closed, and it is known +that he left the settlement, presumably for Winnipeg, by the last +Montreal express."</p> + +<p>There was only satisfaction in the faces of those who heard him. Then +Mrs. Farquhar broke the silence.</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether you could add anything to the last piece of +information?"</p> + +<p>"Well," smiled Parsons, "prediction is generally dangerous, and in my +case it would be unprofessional, but I may confess that from one or two +things I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> gathered I shouldn't be greatly astonished if Nevis failed to +come back again."</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed outright.</p> + +<p>"After that," he said, "we'll take the thing for granted, and I haven't +the least hesitation in declaring that it's a great relief to hear it."</p> + +<p>Then the group broke up, and Alison strolled out with Thorne across the +prairie. A half-moon hung above its eastern rim, and the great sweep of +grass ran back into the dim distance faintly touched with the pale +silvery light. It fell upon the girl's face when at length she stopped +and stood looking about her with the man's hand on her shoulder. A long +rise of ground, so slight as to be almost imperceptible, had cut off the +lights of the house, and they stood alone in the empty waste surrounded +by a deep stillness.</p> + +<p>"It seems such a little while since I first saw the prairie, and I +shrank from it then," she said. "It looked so bare and grim and utterly +forbidding."</p> + +<p>"And now?" Thorne prompted her.</p> + +<p>Alison laughed, a little, happy laugh.</p> + +<p>"Now its harshness has vanished and it has grown beautiful. When it lies +under the moonlight it is steeped in glamour and mystery. Even the tiny +grasses make elfin music when everything is still. I came out at sunrise +this morning when a faint breeze got up and listened to them."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Thorne softly, "it is only a few who can hear that music +at all, and those, I think, must have it in their hearts already. It is +a sign that you belong to the wilderness and it has laid its claim on +you."</p> + +<p>Alison smiled.</p> + +<p>"Now that I have learned to know it, a fondness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> for the wilderness has +crept into my blood; but, after all, your views are narrow; you don't go +quite far enough. I think one could sometimes hear the music I spoke of +in the noisy cities. Only, as you say, it must be in one's heart +already."</p> + +<p>Thorne looked down at her with a glow in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Ours are in unison."</p> + +<p>"No," protested Alison, smilingly, "I think we should not benefit if +that were possible. The most we can look for is a complex harmony. In +the strain humanity raises there must be many different notes and many +different parts."</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed rather strangely as, with a little instinctive movement, +he straightened himself.</p> + +<p>"But the same insistent throb in all that is worth listening to."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" murmured the girl; "then you recognized the note of unrest and +endeavor, though you tried to shut your ears?"</p> + +<p>"Now I know I heard it in crowded places; in the pounding of the forges, +and the rumble of the mills. I've heard it a little plainer in the wash +beneath the liner's bows and the din the Pacific express made crossing +the silent prairie with the Empress mails. Still, as you suggested, I +wouldn't grasp its message until one night I sat in the bluff and heard +the birch twigs whispering while you rested in the wagon. Then I knew I +was an idler and a trifler; one who stood aside while the others took +their fill of the joys and pains of life."</p> + +<p>Alison glanced up at him.</p> + +<p>"Then you were awake that night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I sat beneath a tree, and I don't know how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> often I smoked my pipe +out, but my mouth was parched at sunrise, and there was a new purpose +growing into shape at the bottom of my mind. You see, I realized that I +must fall into line and toil like the rest if I wanted you."</p> + +<p>"But you had seen me for only two or three days!"</p> + +<p>Thorne laughed softly.</p> + +<p>"I think if I had seen you for only an hour it would have had the same +result. Anyway, I tried farming, and—though I was very nearly +beaten—you can see what I have made of it."</p> + +<p>He stooped a little toward her.</p> + +<p>"The house is almost ready, dear, and I want you to drive in to the +railroad with me to-morrow. A man from Winnipeg will be at the hotel +then, and I should like you to choose what you think is needed from his +lists of furnishings."</p> + +<p>Alison looked down, for she was conscious of a warmth in her cheeks. "If +you will come over early, I'll be ready."</p> + +<p>Thorne drew her hand within his arm and they moved on slowly in the +faint moonlight that etherealized the plain.</p> + +<p>"It is a marvelous night!" he exclaimed. "The wilderness gripped me when +I came out, but I don't think I ever realized how wonderful it is as I +do just now. And there are people who can see in it only an empty, +wind-swept land!"</p> + +<p>He drew her impulsively to him.</p> + +<p>"Still, there are excuses for them. Only part of the glamour is in the +prairie. The rest of it is due to the supreme good fortune that has +fallen to me."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>"You are very sure of that?" murmured Alison.</p> + +<p>"Yes," declared Thorne, with resolute decisiveness, "it's a certainty +that will only grow deeper as the years roll on!"</p> + + +<p class="theend">THE END</p> + +<hr class="wide" /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the +original edition have been corrected.</p> + +<p>In Chapter I, "a rather hazardout undertaking" was changed to "a rather +hazardous undertaking".</p> + +<p>In Chapter VI, "when the storekeper appeared on the scene" was changed +to "when the storekeeper appeared on the scene".</p> + +<p>In Chapter X, a missing quotation mark was added after "he's no doubt +ready for an outbreak."</p> + +<p>In Chapter XI, "it might he desirable to let Volador" was changed to "it +might be desirable to let Volador".</p> + +<p>In Chapter XII, "in which case it will, no doubt, he adopted" was +changed to "in which case it will, no doubt, be adopted".</p> + +<p>In Chapter XIX, "when he strode out on the verenda" was changed to "when +he strode out on the veranda", and "dubious glances round him at he +resumed his march" was changed to "dubious glances round him as he +resumed his march".</p> + +<p>Chapter XXVII, <span class="smcap">A Helping Hand</span>, was mislabeled +"Chapter XXVI" originally.</p> + +<p>In Chapter XXIX, "there the fact it" was changed to "there the fact is".</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Prairie Courtship, by Harold Bindloss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP *** + +***** This file should be named 38723-h.htm or 38723-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/2/38723/ + +Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +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: A Prairie Courtship + +Author: Harold Bindloss + +Release Date: January 31, 2012 [EBook #38723] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP *** + + + + +Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP + +BY HAROLD BINDLOSS + +AUTHOR OF "MASTERS OF THE WHEAT-LANDS," +"WINSTON OF THE PRAIRIE," "LORIMER OF +THE NORTHWEST," "ALTON OF SOMASCO," +"THURSTON OF ORCHARD VALLEY," ETC. + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN +LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + +COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + +PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TITLE "ALISON'S ADVENTURE" + + +[Illustration: FAS Co September, 1911] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. A COLD WELCOME 3 + II. MAVERICK THORNE 17 + III. THE CAMP IN THE BLUFF 32 + IV. THE FARQUHAR HOMESTEAD 47 + V. THORNE GIVES ADVICE 59 + VI. THORNE CONTEMPLATES A CHANGE 72 + VII. A USEFUL FRIEND 86 + VIII. A FIT OF TEMPER 99 + IX. THE RAISING 110 + X. THORNE RESENTS REPROOF 123 + XI. AN ESCAPADE 135 + XII. HUNTER MAKES AN ENEMY 145 + XIII. NEVIS PICKS UP A CLUE 157 + XIV. WINTHROP'S LETTER 167 + XV. ON THE TRAIL 179 + XVI. CORPORAL SLANEY'S DEFEAT 189 + XVII. A COMPROMISE 199 + XVIII. NEVIS'S VISITOR 209 + XIX. THE MORTGAGE DEED 219 + XX. HAIL 231 + XXI. A POINT OF HONOR 242 + XXII. ALISON SPOILS HER GLOVES 254 + XXIII. AN UNEXPECTED DISASTER 265 + XXIV. LUCY GOES TO THE RESCUE 275 + XXV. THE ONLY MEANS 287 + XXVI. OPEN CONFESSION 300 + XXVII. A HELPING HAND 312 + XXVIII. THE RECKONING 324 + XXIX. THE NEW OUTLOOK 337 + + + + +A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A COLD WELCOME + + +It was falling dusk and the long emigrant train was clattering, +close-packed with its load of somewhat frowsy humanity, through the last +of the pine forest which rolls westward north of the Great Lakes toward +the wide, bare levels of Manitoba, when Alison Leigh stood on the +platform of a lurching car. A bitter wind eddied about her, for it was +early in the Canadian spring, and there were still shattered fangs of +ice in the slacker pools of the rivers. Now and then a shower of cinders +that rattled upon the roof whirled down about her and the jolting brass +rail to which she clung was unpleasantly greasy, but the air was, at +least, gloriously fresh out there and she shrank from the vitiated +atmosphere of the stove-heated car. She had learned during the past few +years that it is not wise for a young woman who must earn her living to +be fastidious, but one has to face a good many unpleasantnesses when +traveling Colonist in a crowded train. + +A gray sky without a break in it hung low above the ragged spires of the +pines; the river the track skirted, and presently crossed upon a wooden +bridge, shone in the gathering shadow with a wan, chill gleam; and the +bare rocky ridges that flitted by now and then looked grim and +forbidding. Indeed, it was a singularly desolate landscape, with no +touch of human life in it, and Alison shivered as she gazed at it with a +somewhat heavy heart and weary eyes. Her head ached from want of sleep +and several days of continuous jolting; she was physically worn out, and +her courage was slipping away from her. She knew that she would need the +latter, for she was beginning to realize that it was a rather hazardous +undertaking for a delicately brought up girl of twenty-four to set out +to seek her fortune in western Canada. + +Leaning upon the greasy rails, she recalled the events which had led her +to decide on this course, or, to be more accurate, which had forced it +on her. Until three years ago, she had led a sheltered life, and then +her father, dying suddenly, had left his affairs involved. This she knew +now had been the fault of her aspiring mother, who had spent his by no +means large income in an attempt to win a prominent position in +second-rate smart society, and had succeeded to the extent of marrying +her other daughter well. The latter, however, had displayed very little +eagerness to offer financial assistance in the crisis which had followed +her father's death. + +In the end Mrs. Leigh was found a scantily paid appointment as secretary +of a woman's club, while Alison was left to shift for herself, and it +came as a shock to the girl to discover that her few capabilities were +apparently of no practical use to anybody. She could paint and could +play the violin indifferently well, but she had not the gift of +imparting to others even the little she knew. A graceful manner and a +nicely modulated voice appeared to possess no market value, and the +unpalatable truth that nothing she had been taught was likely to prove +more than a drawback in the struggle for existence was promptly forced +on her. + +She faced it with a certain courage, however, for her defects were the +results of her upbringing and not inherent in her nature, and she +forthwith sought a remedy. In spite of her mother's protests, her +sister's husband was induced to send her for a few months' training to a +business school, and when she left the latter there followed a +three-years' experience which was in some respects as painful as it was +varied. + +Her handwriting did not please the crabbed scientist who first engaged +her as amanuensis. Her second employer favored her with personal +compliments which were worse to bear than his predecessor's sarcastic +censure; and she had afterward drifted from occupation to occupation, +sinking on each occasion a little lower in the social scale. In the +meanwhile her prosperous sister's manner became steadily chillier; her +few influential friends appeared desirous of forgetting her; and at last +she formed the desperate resolution of going out to Canada. Nobody, +however, objected to this, and her brother-in-law, who was engaged in +commerce, sent her a very small check with significant readiness, and by +some means secured her a position as typist and stenographer in the +service of a business firm in Winnipeg. + +For the last three days she had lived on canned fruit and crackers in +the train, not because she liked that diet, but because the charges at +the dining-stations were beyond her means. She had now five dollars and +a few cents in her little shabby purse. That, however, did not much +trouble her, for she would reach Winnipeg on the morrow, and she +supposed that she would begin her new duties immediately. She was +wondering with some misgivings what her employers would be like, when a +girl of about her own age appeared in the doorway of the vestibule. + +"Aren't you coming in? It's getting late, and I'm almost asleep," she +said. + +Alison turned, and with inward repugnance followed her into the long +car. It was brilliantly lighted by big oil lamps, and it was undoubtedly +warm, for there was a stove in the vestibule, but the frowsy odors that +greeted her were almost overwhelming after the fresh night air. An aisle +ran down the middle of the car, and already men and women and peevish +children were retiring to rest. There was very little attempt at +privacy, and a few wholly unabashed aliens were partially disrobing +wherever they could find room for the operation. Some lay down upon +boards pulled forward between two seats, some upon little platforms that +let down by chains from the roof, and the car was filled with the +complaining of tired children and a drowsy murmur of voices in many +languages. + +Alison sat down and glanced round at the passengers who had not yet +retired. In one corner were three young Scandinavian girls, fresh-faced +and tow-haired, of innocent and wholesome appearance, going out, as they +had unblushingly informed her in broken English, to look for husbands +among the prairie farmers. She was afterward to learn that such +marriages not infrequently turned out well. Opposite them sat a young +Englishman with a hollow face and chest, who could not stand his native +climate, and had been married, so Alison had heard, to the delicate girl +beside him the day before he sailed. They were going to Brandon on the +prairie, and had not the faintest notion what they would do when they +got there. + +Close by were a group of big, blonde Lithuanians, hardened by toil, in +odoriferous garments; a black-haired Pole; a Jewess whose beauty had run +to fatness; and her greasy, ferret-eyed husband. Farther on a burly +Englishman, who had evidently laid in alcoholic refreshment farther back +down the line, was crooning a maudlin song. There was, however, an +interruption presently, for a man's head was thrust out from behind a +curtain which hung between the roof and one of the platforms above. + +"Let up!" he said. + +The song rose a little louder in response, and a voice with a western +intonation broke in. + +"Throw a boot at the hog!" + +"No, sir," replied the man above; "he might keep it; and I guess they're +most used to heaving bottles where he comes from." + +The words were followed by a scuffling sound which seemed to indicate +that the speaker was fumbling about the shelf for something, and then he +added: + +"This will have to do. Are you going to sleep down there, sonny?" + +The Englishman paused to inform anybody who cared to listen that he +would go to sleep when he wanted and that it would take a train-load of +Canadians like the questioner, whose personal appearance he alluded to +in vitriolic terms, to prevent him from singing when he desired; after +which he resumed the maudlin ditty. Immediately there was a rustle of +snapping leaves, as a volume of the detective literature that is +commonly peddled on the trains went hurtling across the car. It struck +the woodwork behind the singer with a vicious thud, and he stood up +unsteadily. + +"Now," he said, "I mean to show you what comes of insulting me." + +He moved forward a pace or two, fell against a seat in an attempt to +avoid a toddling child, and, grabbing at his disturber's platform, +endeavored to clamber up to it. The chains rattled, and it seemed that +the light boards were bodily coming down when he felt with one hand +behind the curtain, part of which he rent from its fastenings. Then his +hand reappeared clutching a stockinged foot, and a bronzed-faced man in +shirt and trousers dropped from a neighboring resting-place. + +"You get out!" thundered the Englishman. "Teach you to be civil when +I've done with him. Gimme time, and I'll settle the lot of you, and the +sausages"--he presumably meant the Lithuanians--"afterward." + +The man above contrived to kick him in the face with his unembarrassed +foot, but he held on persistently to the other, and a general fracas +appeared imminent when the conductor strode into the car. The latter had +very little in common with the average English railway guard, for he was +a sharp-tongued, domineering autocrat, like most of his kind. + +"Now," he demanded, "what's this circus about?" + +The Englishman informed him that he had been insulted, and firmly +intended to wipe it out in blood. The conductor looked at him with a +faint grim smile. + +"Go right back to your berth, and sleep it off," he advised. + +He stood still, collectedly resolute, clothed with authority, and the +Englishman hesitated. He had doubtless pluck enough, and his blood was +up, but he had also the innate, ingrained capacity for obedience to duly +constituted power, which is not as a rule a characteristic of the +Westerner. Then the conductor spoke again: + +"Get a move on! I'll dump you off into the bush if you try to make +trouble here." + +It proved sufficient. The singer let the captive foot go and turned +away; and when the conductor left, peace had settled down upon the +clattering car. The little incident had, however, an unpleasant effect +on Alison, for this was not the kind of thing to which she had been +accustomed. It was a moment or two before she turned to her companion. + +"I shall be very glad to get off the train to-morrow, Milly--and I +suppose you will be quite as pleased," she said. + +The girl blushed. She was young and pretty in a homely fashion, and had +informed Alison, who had made her acquaintance on the steamer, that she +was to be married to a young Englishman on her arrival at Winnipeg. + +"Yes," she replied; "Jim will be there waiting; I got a telegram at +Montreal. It's four years since I've seen him." + +The words were simple, but there was something in the speaker's voice +and eyes which stirred Alison to half-conscious envy. It was not that +marriage in the abstract had any attraction for her, for the thought of +it rather jarred on her temperament, and it was, perhaps, not altogether +astonishing that she had of late been brought into contact chiefly with +the seamy side of the masculine character. Still, lonely and cast +adrift as she was, she envied this girl who had somebody to take her +troubles upon his shoulders and shelter her, and she was faintly stirred +by her evident tenderness for the man. + +"Four years!" she said reflectively. "It's a very long time." + +"Oh," declared Milly, "it wouldn't matter if it had been a dozen now. +He's the same--only a little handsomer in his last picture. Except for +that, he hasn't changed a bit--I read you some of his letters on the +steamer." + +Alison could not help a smile. The girl's upbringing had clearly been +very different from her own, and the extracts from Jim's letters had +chiefly appealed to her sense of the ludicrous; but now she felt that +his badly expressed devotion rang true, and her smile slowly faded. It +must, she admitted, be something to know that through the four years, +which had apparently been ones of constant stress and toil, the man's +affection had never wavered, and that his every effort had been inspired +by the thought that the result of it would bring his sweetheart in +England so much nearer him, until at last, as the time grew rapidly +shorter, he had, as he said, worked half the night to make the rude +prairie homestead more fit for her. + +"I suppose he wasn't rich when he went out?" + +"No," replied Milly. "Jim had nothing until an uncle died and left him +three or four hundred pounds. When he came and told me of it I made him +go." + +"You made him go?" exclaimed Alison, wondering. + +"Of course! There was no chance for him in England; I couldn't keep him, +just to have him near me--always poor--and I knew that whatever he did +in Canada he would be true to me. The poor boy had trouble. His first +crop was frozen, and his plow oxen died--I think I told you he has a +little farm three or four days' ride back from the railroad." The girl's +face colored again. "I sold one or two things I had--a little gold watch +and a locket--and sent him the money. I wouldn't tell him how I got it, +but he said it saved him." + +Alison sat silent for the next moment or two. She was touched by her +companion's words and the tenderness in her eyes. Alison's upbringing +had in some respects not been a good one, for she had been taught to +shut her eyes to the realities of life, and to believe that the smooth +things it had to offer were, though they must now and then be schemed +for, hers by right. It was only the last three years that had given her +comprehension and sympathy, and in spite of the clearer insight she had +gained during that time, it seemed strange to her that this girl with +her homely prettiness and still more homely speech and manners should be +capable of such unfaltering fidelity to the man she had sent to Canada, +and still more strange that she should ever have inspired him with a +passion which had given him power to break down, or endurance patiently +to undermine, the barriers that stood between them. Alison had yet to +learn a good deal about the capacities of the English rank and file, +which become most manifest where they are given free scope in a new and +fertile field. + +"Well," she said, conscious of the lameness of the speech, "I believe +you will be happy." + +Milly smiled compassionately, as though this expression of opinion was +quite superfluous; and then with a tact which Alison had scarcely +expected she changed the subject. + +"I've talked too much about myself. You told me you had something to do +when you got to Winnipeg?" + +"Yes," was the answer; "I'm to begin at once as correspondent in a big +hardware business." + +"You have no friends there?" + +"No," replied Alison; "I haven't a friend in Canada, except, perhaps, +one who married a western wheat-grower two or three years ago, and I'm +not sure that she would be pleased to see me. As it happens, my mother +was once or twice, I am afraid, a little rude to her." + +It was a rather inadequate description of the persecution of an +inoffensive girl who had for a time been treated on a more or less +friendly footing and made use of by a certain circle of suburban society +interested in parochial philanthropy in which Mrs. Leigh had aspired to +rule supreme. Florence Ashton had been tolerated, in spite of the fact +that she earned her living, until an eloquent curate whose means were +supposed to be ample happened to cast approving eyes on her, when +pressure was judicially brought to bear. The girl had made a plucky +fight, but the odds against her were overwhelmingly heavy, and the +curate, it seemed, had not quite made up his mind. In any case, she was +vanquished, and tactfully forced out of a guild which paid her a very +small stipend for certain services; and eventually she married a +Canadian who had come over on a brief visit to the old country. How +Florence had managed it, Alison, who fancied that the phrase was in this +case justifiable, did not exactly know, but she had reasons for +believing that the girl had really liked the curate and would not +readily forgive her mother. + +"Well," said Milly, "if ever you want a friend you must come to Jim and +me; and, after all, you may want one some day." She paused, and glanced +at Alison critically. "Of course, so many girls have to work nowadays, +but you don't look like it, somehow." + +This was true. Although Alison's attire was a little faded and shabby, +its fit was irreproachable, and nobody could have found fault with the +color scheme. She possessed, without being unduly conscious of it, an +artistic taste and a natural grace of carriage which enabled her to wear +almost anything so that it became her. In addition to this, she was, +besides being attractive in face and feature, endued with a certain +tranquillity of manner which suggested to the discerning that she had +once held her own in high places. It was deceptive to this extent that, +after all, the places had been only very moderately elevated. + +"I'm afraid that's rather a drawback than anything else," she said in +reference to Milly's last observation. "But it's a little while since +you told me that you were sleepy." + +They climbed up to two adjoining shelves they drew down from the roof, +and though this entailed a rather undignified scramble, Alison wished +that her companion had refrained from a confused giggle. Then they +closed the curtains they had hired, and lay down, to sleep if possible, +on the very thin mattresses the railway company supplies to Colonist +passengers for a consideration. An attempt at disrobing would not have +been advisable, but, after all, a large proportion of the occupants of +the car were probably more or less addicted to sleeping in their +clothes. + +There was a change when Alison descended early in the morning, in order +at least to dabble her hands and face in cold water, which would not +have been possible a little later. Even first-class Pullman passengers +have, as a rule, something to put up with if they desire to be clean, +and Colonist travelers are not expected to be endued with any particular +sense of delicacy or seemliness. As a matter of fact, a good many of +them have not the faintest idea of it. It was chiefly for this reason +that Alison retired to the car platform after hasty ablutions, and, +though it was very cold, she stayed there until the rest had risen. + +The long train had run out of the forest in the night, and was now +speeding over a vast white level which lay soft and quaggy in the +sunshine, for the snow had lately gone. Here and there odd groves of +birches went streaming by, but for the most part there were only +leafless willow copses about the gleaming strips of water which she +afterward learned were sloos. In between, the white waste ran back, +bleached by the winter, to the far horizon. It looked strangely +desolate, for there was scarcely a house on it, but, at least, the sun +was shining, and it was the first brightness she had seen in the land of +the clear skies. + +Most of the passengers were partly dressed, for which she was thankful, +when she went back into the car; and after one or two of them had kept +her waiting she was at length permitted to set on the stove the tin +kettle which was the joint property of herself and her companion. Then +they made tea, and after eating the last of their crackers and emptying +the fruit can, they set themselves to wait with as much patience as +possible until the train reached Winnipeg. + +The sun had disappeared, and a fine rain was falling when at last the +long cars came clanking into the station amid the doleful tolling of the +locomotive bell. Alison, stepping down from the platform, noticed a man +in a long fur coat and a wide soft hat running toward the car. Then +there was a cry and an outbreak of strained laughter, and she saw him +lift her companion down and hold her unabashed in his arms. After that +Milly seized her by the shoulder. + +"This is Jim," she announced. "Miss Alison Leigh. I told her that if +ever she wanted a home out here she was to come to us." + +The man, who had a pleasant, bronzed face, laughed and held out his +hand. + +"If you're a friend of Milly's we'll take you now," he said. "She ought +to have one bridesmaid, anyway. Come along and stay with her until you +get used to the country." + +Milly blushed and giggled, but it was evident that she seconded the +invitation, and once more Alison was touched. The offer was frank and +spontaneous, and she fancied that the man meant it. She explained, +however, that she was beginning work on the morrow; and Jim, giving her +his address, presently turned away with Milly. + +After that Alison felt very desolate as she stood alone amid the swarm +of frowsy aliens who poured out from the train. The station was cold and +sloppy; everything was strange and unfamiliar. There was a new +intonation in the voices she heard, and even the dress of the citizens +who scurried by her was different in details from that to which she had +been accustomed. In the meanwhile Jim and Milly had disappeared, and as +she had been told that the railroad people would take care of her +baggage until she produced her check, she decided to proceed at once to +her employers' establishment and inform them of her arrival. + +A man of whom she made inquiries gave her a few hasty directions, and +walking out of the station she presently boarded a street-car and was +carried through the city until she alighted in front of a big hardware +store. Being sent to an office at the back of it she noticed that the +smart clerk looked at her in a curious fashion when she asked for the +manager by name. + +"He's not here," he said. "Won't be back again." + +Alison leaned against the counter with a sudden presage of disaster. + +"How is that?" she asked. + +"Company went under a few days ago. Creditors selling the stock up. I'm +acting for the liquidator." + +Alison felt physically dizzy, but she contrived to ask another question +or two, and then went out, utterly cast down and desperate, into the +steadily falling rain. She was alone in the big western city, with very +little money in her purse and no idea as to what she should do. + +She stood still for several minutes until she remembered having heard +that accommodation of an elementary kind was provided in buildings near +the station where emigrants just arrived could live for a time, at +least, free of charge, though they must provide their own food. As she +knew that every cent was precious now, she turned back on foot along the +miry street. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MAVERICK THORNE + + +Alison slept soundly that night. The blow had been so heavy and +unexpected that it had deadened her sensibility, and kindly nature had +her way. Besides, the very hard berth she occupied was at least still, +and she was not kept awake by the distressful vibration that had +disturbed her in the Colonist car. Awakening refreshed in the morning, +she sallied out to purchase provisions for the day, and was unpleasantly +astonished at the cost of them. She had yet to learn that a dollar goes +a very little way in a country where rents and wages are high. + +Returning to the emigrant quarters which were provided with a +cooking-stove, she made a frugal breakfast, and then after a +conversation with an official who gave her all the information in his +power, she spent the day offering her services at stores and hotels and +offices up and down the city. Nobody, however, seemed to want her. It +was, she learned, a time of general bad trade, for the wheat harvest, on +which that city largely depends, had failed the previous year. + +Day followed day with much the same result, until Alison, who never +looked back upon them afterward without a shiver, had at last parted +with most of her slender stock of garments to one of the Jew dealers who +then occupied a row of rickety wooden shacks near the station at +Winnipeg. He gave her remarkably little for them; and one night she sat +down dejectedly in the emigrant quarters to grapple with the crisis. By +and by a girl who had traveled in the same car and had spoken to her now +and then sat down beside her. + +"Nothing yet?" she asked. + +"No," said Alison wearily; "I have heard of nothing that I could turn my +hands to." + +"Then," advised her companion, "you'll just have to do the same as the +rest of us. You're almost as good-looking as I am." She lowered her +voice a little. "I dare say you have noticed that those Norwegians have +gone?" + +Alison had noticed that, and also that two or three lean and wiry men +with faces almost blackened by exposure to the frost had been hanging +about the emigrant quarters for a day or two preceding the disappearance +of the girls. The blood crept into her cheeks as she remembered it, but +her companion laughed, somewhat harshly. + +"Oh," she explained, "they're married and gone off to farm; but what I +want to tell you is that I'm going to follow their example to-morrow. +It's quite straight. We're to be married in the morning. He says he's +got a nice house, and he looks as if he'd treat me decently." She laid +her hand on Alison's arm, and seemed to hesitate. "A neighbor, another +farmer, came in with him--and he hasn't found anybody yet." + +Alison shrank from her, white in face now, with an almost intolerable +sense of disgust, but in another moment or two the blood surged into her +cheeks, and her companion made a half-ashamed gesture. + +"Oh, well," she said, "I think you're foolish, but I won't say any more +about it. Besides, I had only a minute or two. Charley's waiting in the +street for me now." + +She withdrew somewhat hastily, and Alison sat still, almost too troubled +to be capable of indignation, forcing herself to think. One thing was +becoming clear; she must escape from Winnipeg before the unpleasant +suggestion was made to her again, perhaps by some man in person, and go +on farther West. After all, she had one friend, the one her mother had +persecuted, living somewhere within reach of a station which she had +discovered was situated about three hundred miles down the line, and +Florence might take her in, for a time at least. She decided to set out +and try to find her the next day. Rising with sudden determination, she +walked across to the station to make inquiries about the train, and as +she reached it a man strode up to her. It was evident that he meant to +speak, and as there was just then no official to whom she could appeal, +she drew herself up and faced him resolutely. He was a young man, neatly +dressed in store clothes, though he did not look like an inhabitant of +the city, and he had what she could not help admitting was a pleasant +expression. + +"You're Miss Leigh," he said, taking off his wide gray hat, and his +intonation betrayed him to be an Englishman. + +"How did you learn my name?" Alison asked chillingly. + +"I made inquiries," he confessed. "The fact is, I asked Miss Carstairs +to get me an introduction, and to tell the truth I wasn't very much +astonished when she said you wouldn't hear of it." + +Alison recognized now that the man was the one her companion had alluded +to as her prospective husband's neighbor, and for a moment she felt +that she could have struck him. That feeling, however, passed. There was +a hint of deference in his attitude; he met the one indignant glance she +flashed at him, which was somehow reassuring, and since she could not +run away ignominiously she stood her ground. + +"That's why I thought I'd make an attempt to plead my cause in person," +he added. + +"What do you want?" Alison asked in desperation, though she was quite +aware that this was giving him a lead. + +The man's gesture seemed to beseech her forbearance. + +"I'm afraid it will sound rather alarming, but in the first place I'd +better--clear the ground. The plain truth is that I want a wife." + +"Oh," cried Alison, "how dare you say this to me!" + +"Well," he answered quietly, "the fact that I expected you to look at it +in that way was one of the things that influenced me. A self-respecting +girl with any delicacy of feeling would naturally resent it; but I'm not +sure yet that it's altogether an insult I'm offering you. Let me own +that I've been here some little time, and that I've spent a good deal of +it in watching you." He raised his hand as he saw the indignation in her +eyes. "Give me a minute or two, and then if you think it justified you +can be angry. I want to say just this. We live in a pretty primitive +fashion on our hundred-and-sixty-acre holdings out on the prairie, and +conventions don't count for much with us. What is more to the purpose, +we are forced to make some irregular venture of this kind if we think of +marrying. Now, I have a comparatively decent place about two hundred +miles from here, and my wife would not have to work as hard as you would +certainly have to do in a hotel or store. That's to begin with. To go +on, I don't think I've ever been unkind to any one or any thing, and, +though it must seem a horrible piece of assurance, I said the day I saw +you get out of the train that you were the girl for me. I would do what +I could, everything I could, to make things smooth for you." + +Alison felt that, strange as it seemed, she could believe him. The man +did not look as if he would be unkind to any one. What was more, he was +apparently a man of some education. + +"Now," he added, "what I should like to do is this. I'd find you +quarters in a decent boarding-house, and just call and take you round to +show you the city for an hour or two each afternoon. I'd try to satisfy +you as to--we'll say my mode of life and character, and you could, +perhaps, form some idea of me. I don't want to form any idea of +you--I've done that already. Then if my offer appears as repugnant as +I'm afraid it does now, I'd try to take my dismissal in good part; and I +think I could find you a post in a creamery on the prairie, if you would +care for it." + +He broke off, and Alison wondered at herself while he stood watching her +anxiously. Her anger and disgust had gone. She could see the ludicrous +aspect of the situation, but that was not her clearest impression, for +she felt that this most unconventional stranger was, after all, a man +one could have confidence in. Still, she had not the least intention of +marrying him. + +"Thank you," she said quietly. "What you suggest is, however, quite out +of the question." + +The man's face fell, and she felt, extraordinary as it seemed, almost +sorry that she had been compelled to hurt him; but once more he took off +his soft hat. + +"Well," he said, "I suppose I must accept that, and--though I don't know +if it's a compliment--I shall go back alone. There's just another +matter. If you have any knowledge of business I could have you made +clerk at the creamery." + +Urgent as her need was, Alison would not entertain the proposal. She +felt that it would be equally impossible to accept a favor from or to +live near him. + +"No," she replied; "it is generous of you, but I am going West +to-morrow." + +The man, saying nothing further, turned away, and she thought of him +long afterward with a feeling of half-amused good-will. It was the first +offer of marriage she had ever had, made in a deserted, half-lighted +station by a man to whom she had never spoken until that evening. She +was to learn, however, that the strangeness of any event naturally +depends very largely on what one has been accustomed to, and that one +meets with many things which at least appear remarkable when one +ventures out of the beaten track. + +She went on with the west-bound train the next afternoon, and early in +the morning alighted at a wayside station which consisted of one wooden +shanty and a big water-tank. A cluster of little frame houses stood +beneath the huge bulk of two grain elevators beyond the unfenced track, +which ran straight as the crow flies across a bare, white waste of +prairie. As the train sped out along this and grew smaller and smaller +Alison stood forlornly beside the half-empty trunk which contained the +remnant of her few possessions. She had then just two dollars in her +pocket. It was a raw, cold morning, for spring was unusually late that +year, and a bitter wind swept across the desolate waste. In a minute or +two the station-agent came out of the shanty and looked at her with +obvious curiosity. + +"I guess you've got off at the right place?" he said in a manner which +made the words seem less of a statement than an inquiry. + +Alison asked him if he knew a Mr. Hunter who lived near Graham's Bluff, +and how it was possible to reach his homestead. + +"I know Hunter, but the Bluff is quite a way from here," the man +replied. "The boys drive in now and then, and a freighter goes through +with a wagon about once a fortnight." + +He saw the girl's face fall, and added, as though something had suddenly +struck him: + +"There's a man in the settlement who said he was going that way to-day +or to-morrow, and it's quite likely that he'd drive you over. Guess you +had better ask for Maverick Thorne at the hotel." + +Alison thanked him and, crossing the track, made for the rude frame +building he indicated. Her thin boots were very muddy before she reached +it, for there was no semblance of a street and the space between the +houses and elevators was torn up and deeply rutted by wagon wheels. She +now understood why a high plank sidewalk usually ran, as she had +noticed, along the front of the buildings in the smaller prairie towns. + +It was with a good deal of diffidence that she walked into the hotel and +entered a long and very barely furnished room which just then was +occupied by a group of men. + +Several of them wore ordinary city clothes and were, she supposed, +clerks or storekeepers in the little town; but the rest had +weather-darkened faces and their garments were flecked with sun-dried +mire and stained with soil, while the dilapidated skin coats thrown down +here and there evidently belonged to them. Some were just finishing +breakfast and the others stood lighting their pipes about a big rusty +stove. The place reeked of the smell of cooking and tobacco smoke, and +looked very comfortless with its uncovered walls and roughly boarded +floor. There was, however, no bar in it, and it was consoling to see a +very neat maid gathering up the plates. + +"Is Mr. Maverick Thorne here just now?" she asked the girl. + +She was unpleasantly conscious that the men had gazed at her with some +astonishment when she walked in, and it was clear that they had heard +her inquiry, because several of them smiled. + +"Quit talking, Mavy. Here's a lady asking for you," said one, and a man +who had been surrounded by a laughing group moved toward her. + +She glanced at him apprehensively, for after her recent experience she +was signally shy of seeking a favor from any of his kind. He was a tall +man, bronzed and somewhat lean, as most of the inhabitants of the +prairie seemed to be, and the state of his attire was not calculated to +impress a stranger in his favor. His long boots were caked with mire and +the fur was coming off the battered cap he held in one hand; his blue +duck trousers were rent at one knee and a very old jacket hung over his +coarse blue shirt. Still, his face was reassuring and he had whimsical +brown eyes. + +"Mr. Thorne?" she said. + +The man made her a respectful inclination, which was not what she had +expected. + +"At your command," he replied. + +She stood silent a moment or two, hesitating, and he watched her +unobtrusively. He saw a jaded girl in a badly creased and somewhat +shabby dress who nevertheless had an air of refinement about her which +he immediately recognized. Her face was delicately pretty and cleanly +cut, though it was weary and a little anxious then, and she had fine +hazel eyes. Still, the red-lipped mouth was somehow determined and there +was a hint of decision of character in the way she looked at him from +under straight-drawn brows. Her hair, as much as he could see of it, was +neither brown nor golden, but of a shade between, and he decided that +the contrast between the warm color in her cheeks and the creamy +whiteness of the rest of her face was a little more marked than usual, +as indeed it was, for Alison was troubled with a very natural +embarrassment just then. + +"I want to go to Graham's Bluff," she said. "The man at the station told +me that you were driving there." + +He did not answer immediately, and she awaited his reply in tense +anxiety. It was evident that she could not stay where she was, even if +she had been possessed of the means to pay for such rude accommodation +as the place provided, which was not the case. In the meanwhile it +occurred to the man that she looked very forlorn in the big, bare room, +and something in her expression appealed to him. He was, as it happened, +a compassionate person. + +"Well," he replied, "I could take you, though as I've a round to make it +will be quite a long drive. I had thought of starting this afternoon, +but we had perhaps better get off in the next hour or so." + +He turned to the girl who was gathering up the plates. + +"Won't you try to get this lady some breakfast, Kristine?" + +The girl said that she would see what she could do, but Alison was not +aware until afterward that it was only due to the fact that the man was +a favorite in the place that food was presently set before her. The +average Westerner gets through his breakfast in about ten minutes; and +as a rule the traveler who arrives at a prairie hotel a few minutes +after a meal is over must wait with what patience he can command until +the next is ready. + +In any case, Alison was astonished when porridge and maple syrup, a thin +hard steak and a great bowl of potatoes, besides strong green tea and a +dish of desiccated apricots stewed down to pulp, were laid in front of +her. It was most unlike an English breakfast, but she was to learn that +there is very little difference between any of the three daily meals +served in that country. Its inhabitants, who rise for the most part at +sunup, do not require to be tempted by dainties, which is fortunate, +since they could not by any means obtain them, and in a land where the +liquor prohibition laws are generally applied and men work twelve and +fourteen hours daily, morning appetizers are quite unnecessary. + +In the meanwhile Thorne and his companions had disappeared, for which +Alison was thankful, though they left an acrid reek of tobacco smoke +behind them; but when Kristine presently demanded fifty cents she +realized with a fresh pang of anxiety that she had now just a dollar and +a half in her possession, and she scarcely dared contemplate what might +happen if Florence Hunter should not be disposed to welcome her. Besides +this, there was the unpleasant possibility that the man might expect +more than she could pay him for driving her to Graham's Bluff, and it +was with some misgivings that she rose when he appeared an hour later to +intimate that the team was ready. + +Going out with him she saw two rough-coated horses apparently +endeavoring to kick in the front of a high, four-wheeled vehicle, until +they desisted and backed it violently into the side of the hotel. There +are various rigs, as they term them--buckboards, sulkies and the humble +bob-sleds--in use in that country, but the favorite one is the narrow, +general-purpose wagon mounted on tall slender wheels, which will carry a +moderate load though light enough to go reasonably fast. + +Thorne helped Alison up, and as he swung himself into the vehicle +several loungers hurled laughing questions at him. + +"Aren't you going to trade that man the gramophone? You'd get him sure +in half an hour," called one. + +"Webster wants a tonic that will fix his wooden leg," cried another; and +a third suggested that a Chinaman in the vicinity was open to purchase +some hair-restorer. Alison did not know then that, probably because he +wears only one tail of it, a Chinaman's hair usually grows without the +least assistance three feet long. + +Thorne smiled at them and then, calling to Kristine, who was standing +near the door, he leaned down and handed her a bottle which he took from +an open case. + +"I guess you haven't much use for anything of this kind, but that elixir +will make your cheeks bloom like peaches if you rub it in," he informed +her. "I sold some round Stanbury down the line not long ago and there +wasn't an unmarried girl near the place when I next came along." + +"There was only two before, and one of them was cross-eyed," said a +grinning man. + +Thorne, without answering this, told Alison to hold fast and flicked the +horses with the whip. They plunged forward at a mad gallop, scattering +clods of half-dried mud, and the wagon bounced violently into and out of +the ruts. It seemed to leap into the air when the wheels struck the +rails as they crossed the track, and then Thorne's arms grew rigid and +there was a further kicking and plunging as he pulled the team up +outside the little station shed. A man who appeared from within +condescended to hand Alison's light trunk up, which she did not know +then was a very great favor, and in another moment or two they were +flying out across the white waste of prairie. + +It ran dead level, like a frozen sea, to where it met the crystalline +blueness that hung over it, for the grasses which had lain for months in +the grip of the iron frost shone in the sunlight a pale silvery gray. +There was not a trail of smoke or a house on it, only here and there a +formless blur that was in reality a bluff of straggling birches or a +clump of willows, and, to complete the illusion, when Alison looked +around by and by, the houses had sunk down beneath the rim and only the +bulk of the wheat elevators rose up like island crags against the sky. + +It was, however, warm at last, and a wonderful fresh breeze which had +the quality of an elixir in it rippled the whitened grass. Alison felt +her heart grow lighter. The vast plain was certainly desolate, but it +had lost its forbidding grimness. It had no limit or boundary; one felt +free out there and cares and apprehensions melted in the sunshine that +flooded it. She began to understand why she had seen no pinched and +pallid faces in this new land. Its inhabitants laughed whole-heartedly, +looked one in the eyes, and walked with a quick, jaunty swing. They +seemed alert, self-confident, optimistic and quaintly whimsical. It was +hard to believe there was not some nook in it that she could fill. + +In the meanwhile she was becoming more reassured about her companion. +She decided that his age was twenty-six and that he had a pleasant face. +His eyes were clear and brown and steady, his nose and lips clearly cut, +and there was a suggestive cleanness about his deeply bronzed skin which +was the result of a simple and wholesome life led out in the wind and +the sun. Alison was puzzled, however, by something in both his manner +and his voice that hinted at a careful upbringing and intelligence. It +certainly was not in keeping with his clothes or his profession, which +was apparently that of a pedler. She had already noticed the nerve and +coolness with which he controlled the half-broken team. + +"I'm afraid you started before you were quite ready," she said at +length. + +The man laughed. + +"I might have planted a gramophone on to one of the boys and a few +bottles of general-purpose specifics among the rest. They are"--his eyes +twinkled humorously--"quite harmless. Anyway, I've no doubt I can unload +them on to somebody next time. So far, at least, I haven't any rivals in +this neighborhood." + +"Then you sell things?" + +"Anything to anybody. If I haven't got what the buyer wants I promise to +bring it next journey, or bewilder him with an oration until he gives +me a dollar for something he has no possible use for. That, however, +isn't a thing you can do very frequently, which is why some folks in my +profession fail disastrously. They can't realize that if you sell a man +what he doesn't want too often he's apt to turn out with a club on the +next occasion." He paused and sighed whimsically. "If I hadn't been +troubled with a conscience I could have been running a store by now. +That is, it must be added, if I had wanted to." + +"You find a conscience handicaps you?" Alison inquired, for she was half +amused and half interested in him. + +"I'm afraid it does. For instance, I came across a man with a badly +sprained wrist the other day and he offered me two dollars for anything +that would cure it. Now it would have been singularly easy to have +affixed a different label to my unrivaled peach-bloom cosmetic and have +supplied him with a sure-to-heal embrocation. As it was, I got my supper +at his place and recommended cold-water bandages. There was another man +I cured of a broken leg, and I resisted the temptation to brace him up +with hair-restorer." + +"What remedy did you use for the broken leg?" + +"Splints," said Thorne dryly, "after I'd set it." + +"But isn't that a difficult thing? How did you know how to go about it?" + +"Oh, I'd seen it done." + +"On the prairie?" + +"No," replied Thorne, with a rather curious smile; "in an Edinburgh +hospital." + +Something in his manner warned her that it might not be judicious to +pursue her inquiries any further, though she was, without exactly +knowing why, a little curious upon the point. It occurred to her that if +he had been a patient in the hospital the injured man would in all +probability not have been treated in his sight, while it seemed somewhat +strange that he should now be peddling patent medicines in Canada had he +been qualifying for his diploma. He, however, said nothing more, and +they drove on in silence for a while. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE CAMP IN THE BLUFF + + +They stopped in a thin grove of birches at midday for a meal which +Thorne prepared, and it was late in the afternoon when Alison, who ached +with the jolting, asked if Graham's Bluff was very much farther. It +struck her that the fact that she had not made the inquiry earlier said +a good deal for her companion's conversational powers. + +"Oh, yes," he answered casually, "it's most of thirty miles." + +Alison started with dismay. + +"But--" she said and stopped, for it was evident that her misgivings +could not very well be expressed. + +"We're not going through to-night," Thorne explained. "The team have had +about enough already, and there's a farmer ahead who'll take us in. If +we reach the Bluff by to-morrow afternoon it will be as much as one +could expect." + +Alison did not care to ask whether the farmer was married, though as +there seemed to be singularly few women in the country she was afraid +that it was scarcely probable. There was, however, no doubt that she +must face the unusual and somewhat embarrassing situation. + +"I had no idea it was a two days' drive," she said. + +"It's possible to get through in the same day if you start early," +Thorne replied. "I've a call to make, however, which is taking me a good +many miles off the direct trail. Anyway, if you hadn't come with me you +would have had to wait a week at the hotel." + +"Do you know Mrs. Hunter?" + +"Well," answered Thorne with a certain dryness, "we are certainly +acquainted. When you use the other term in England it to some extent +implies that you could be regarded as a friend of the person mentioned." + +"I wonder whether you like her?" Alison was conscious that the speech +was not a very judicious one. + +Thorne's eyes twinkled in a way that she had noticed already. + +"I must confess that I liked her better when she first came to Canada. +She hadn't begun to remodel arrangements at her husband's homestead +then. Hunter, I understand, came into some money shortly before he +married her, and--" he paused with a little laugh--"most of my friends +are poor." + +This was not very definite, but it tended to confirm the misgivings +concerning her reception which already troubled Alison. She noticed the +tact with which the man had refrained from making any inquiries as to +her business with Mrs. Hunter. Indeed, he said nothing for the next +half-hour, and then, as they reached the crest of a low rise, he pointed +to a cluster of what seemed to be ridiculously small buildings on the +wide plain below. + +"That's as far as we'll go to-night," he said. + +The buildings rapidly grew into clearer shape, until Alison recognized +that one was a diminutive frame house which looked as though it had been +made for dolls to live in. It rose abruptly from the prairie, without +sheltering tree or fence or garden; but near it there was a pile of +straw and two shapeless structures, which seemed to be composed of soil +or sods. Behind them the vast sweep of silvery gray grass was broken by +a narrow strip of ochre-tinted stubble. + +Presently they reached the lonely homestead and a neatly dressed woman +with hard, red hands and a worn face appeared in the doorway when Thorne +helped Alison down. The girl felt sincerely pleased to see her. + +"I've no doubt you'll take my companion, who's going on toward the Bluff +to-morrow, in for the night and let me camp in the barn," said Thorne. +"Is Tom anywhere around? I want to see him about a horse he talked of +selling." + +The woman said that he had gone off to borrow a team of oxen and would +not be back until the next day, and then she led Alison into a little +roughly match-boarded room with an uncovered floor and very little +furniture except the big stove in the middle of it. A child was toddling +about the floor and another, a very little girl, lay with a flushed face +in a canvas chair. The woman asked Alison no questions, but set about +getting supper ready, and after a while Thorne, who had apparently been +putting up the team, came in. As he did so the child in the chair held +out her hands to him. + +"Candies, Mavy," she cried. "Got some candies for me?" + +Thorne picked her up and sat down with her on his knee, and taking a +parcel out of his pocket he unwrapped and handed some of its contents to +her. While she munched the sweetmeats he glanced at her mother +interrogatively. + +"Yes," declared the woman, "I'm right glad you came. She's been like +this three or four days. I don't know what to do with her, or what's the +matter." + +Thorne looked down at the child before he turned toward his hostess. + +"Well," he said, "I have at least a notion. A little feverish, for one +thing." + +He asked a question or two, and then held the child out to her mother. + +"Will you take her while I get a draught mixed? I'm not sure that she'll +sit down again in her chair." + +The child bore this out, for she would neither sit alone nor go to her +mother. + +"If Mavy goes out I sure go along with him," she persisted. + +The man got rid of her with some difficulty and, going out to where his +wagon stood, he came back with a little brass-strapped box in his hand. +He asked for some water and disappeared into an adjoining room, out of +which there presently rose the clink of glass and a slight rattling. +Then he called the woman, who gave the child to Alison, and when she +came back somewhat relieved in face she laid out the supper. It much +resembled the breakfast Alison had made at the hotel, only that strips +of untempting salt pork were substituted for the hard steak. + +An hour or two later she was given a very rude bunk filled with straw +and a couple of blankets in an unoccupied room, and being tired out, she +slept soundly. Lying still when she awakened early the next morning she +heard the woman moving about the adjoining room until the outer door +opened and a man whose voice she recognized as Thorne's came in. + +"I'll go through and look at the kiddie, if I may," he said. + +Alison heard him cross the room, and when he came back his hostess +evidently walked toward the outer door of the house with him. + +"You'll have to be careful of her for a few days, but if you give her +the stuff I left as I told you, she'll cause you no trouble then," he +said. "I'm sorry I didn't see Tom, but we'll have to get on after +breakfast." + +"What am I to give you for the medicine?" the woman asked. + +Alison, who listened unabashed, heard Thorne's laugh. + +"Breakfast," he answered; "that will put us square. I've been selling +gramophones and little mirrors by the dozen right along the line, and +when I've struck a streak of that kind I don't rob my friends." + +Though she did not know exactly why, Alison had expected such an answer, +and she remembered with a curious feeling that he had said his friends +were poor. She heard the woman thank him, and then a flush crept into +her face, for she certainly had not expected the next question. + +"Are you going to quit the peddling and take up a quarter-section with +the girl?" + +"No," laughed Thorne; "I don't know where you got that idea." + +"She's your kind," replied his hostess, and this appeared significant to +Alison. "I've seen folks like her back in Montreal." + +"It's quite likely," said Thorne. "She's going to Mrs. Hunter." + +"Mrs. Hunter? Why didn't they send for her? What's her name?" + +"I haven't a notion. She walked into Brown's hotel yesterday looking +played out and anxious, and said somebody had told her I was going to +the Bluff. As I felt sorry for her I started at once." + +"Well," responded the woman, "I guess you couldn't help it. It's just +the kind of thing you would do." + +Thorne apparently went out after this and Alison lay still for a time +while her hostess clattered about the room. She was troubled by what she +had heard, for although she recognized that she had need of it, there +was something unpleasant in the fact that she was indebted to this +stranger's charity. He had confessed that he was sorry for her. Rising a +little later she breakfasted with the others, and then, when Thorne went +out to harness his team, she diffidently asked the woman what she owed +her. + +"Nothing," was the uncompromising reply. + +"But--" Alison began, and the woman checked her. + +"We're not running a hotel. You can stop right now." + +Alison realized that expostulation would be useless, and this, as a +matter of fact, was in one respect a relief to her, for just then there +were but two silver coins in her possession. A few minutes later Thorne +helped her into the wagon and they drove away. + +The prairie was flooded with sunlight, and it was no longer monotonously +level. It stretched away before her in long, billowy rises, which dipped +again to vast shallow hollows when the team plodded over the crest of +them, and here and there little specks of flowers peeped out among the +whitened grass or there was a faint sprinkling of tender green. The air +was cool yet, and exhilarating as wine. Alison, refreshed by her sound +sleep, rejoiced in it, and it was some time before she spoke to her +companion. + +"I felt slightly embarrassed," she said. "That woman would let me pay +nothing for my entertainment. She can't have very much, either." + +"She hasn't," replied Thorne. "Her husband had his crop hailed out last +fall. Still, you see, that kind of thing is a custom of the country. +They're a hospitable people, and, in a general way, when you are in need +of a kindness, you're most likely to get it from people who are as hard +up as you are." He paused with a whimsical smile. "One can't logically +feel hurt at the other kind for standing aside or shutting their eyes, +but when they proceed to point out that if you had only emulated their +virtues you would be equally prosperous, it becomes exasperating, +especially as it isn't true. So far as my observation goes, it isn't the +practice of the stricter virtues that leads to riches." + +"Why didn't you say your experience?" Alison inquired. "It's the usual +word." + +"It would suggest that I had tried the thing, and I'm afraid that I've +only watched other people. To get knowledge that way is considerably +easier. But I presume I was taking too much for granted in supposing +that you had--any reason for agreeing with my previous observation." + +Alison felt that this was a question delicately put, so that if it +pleased her she could avoid a definite reply. She did not in the least +resent it, and something urged her to take this stranger into her +confidence. + +"If you mean that I don't know what it is to be poor you are wrong," she +confessed. "At the present moment I'm unpleasantly close to the end of +my resources." + +"But you said that you were going to Mrs. Hunter's." + +"I don't know whether she will take me in. I shouldn't be astonished if +she didn't." + +The man saw the warmth in her face and looked at her thoughtfully. + +"Well," he said, "you have courage, and that goes quite a way out here. +I don't think you need be unduly anxious, in any case." + +He flicked the team with his whip and by and by they reached a +straggling birch bluff on the crest of a steeper slope. A rutted trail +led between the trees, and as the team moved a little faster down the +dip the wagon jolted sharply. Then one of the beasts stumbled, plunged, +and recovered itself again, and Thorne, seizing Alison's arm as she was +almost flung from her seat, pulled them up and swung himself down. +Looking over the side she saw him stoop and lift one of the horse's +feet. It was a few minutes before he came back again. + +"A badger hole," he explained. "Volador fell into it. An accident of +that kind makes trouble now and then." + +He drove slowly for the next few miles, but, so far as Alison noticed, +the horse showed no sign of injury, and it was midday when they stopped +for a meal beside a creek which wound through a deep hollow. On setting +out again, however, the horse began to flag and Thorne, who got down +once or twice in the meanwhile, was driving at a walking pace when they +reached a birch bluff larger than the last one. He pulled the team up +and springing to the ground looked at Alison a few minutes later. + +"Volador's going very lame," he said. "It would be cruelty to drive him +much farther." + +Alison was conscious of a shock of dismay. Sitting in the wagon on the +crest of the rise she could look down across the birches upon a vast +sweep of prairie, and there was no sign of a house anywhere on it. It +almost seemed as if she must spend the night in the bluff. + +"What is to be done?" she asked. + +"Can you ride?" + +Alison said she had never tried, and the man's expression hinted that +the expedient he had suggested was out of the question. + +"Do you think you could walk sixteen miles?" he asked. + +"I'm afraid I couldn't," Alison confessed, though if the feat had +appeared within her powers she would gladly have attempted it. + +"Then you'll have to camp here in the wagon, though I can fix it up +quite comfortably." + +He held up his hand. + +"You may as well get down, and we'll set about making supper." + +She was glad that he spoke without any sign of diffidence or hesitation, +which would have suggested that he expected her to be embarrassed by the +situation, though this was undoubtedly the case. It seemed to her that +his manner implied the possession of a certain amount of tact and +delicacy. For all that, she looked out across the prairie with her face +turned away from him when she reached the ground. + +"Now," he said presently, handing down a big box, "if you will open that +and fill the kettle at the creek down there among the trees, I'll bring +some branches to make a fire." + +She moved away with the kettle, and when she came back the horses had +disappeared and she could hear the thud of her companion's ax some +distance away in the bush. When he reappeared with an armful of dry +branches she had laid out a frying-pan, an enameled plate or two, a bag +of flour, a big piece of bacon, which, however, seemed to be termed pork +in that country, and a paper package of desiccated apples. She was +looking at them somewhat helplessly, for she knew very little about +cooking. Thorne made a fire between two birches which he hewed down for +the purpose, and laid several strips of pork in the frying-pan, which +she heard him call a spider. These he presently emptied out on to a +plate laid near the fire, after which he poured some water into a basin +partly filled with flour. + +"Flapjacks are the usual standby in camp," he informed her. "If I'd +known we would be held up here I'd have soaked those apples. Do you mind +sprinkling this flour with a pinch or two of the yeast-powder in yonder +tin, though it's a thing a sour-dough would never come down to." + +"A sour-dough?" inquired Alison, doing as he requested. + +"An old-timer," explained Thorne, who splashed himself rather freely as +he proceeded to beat up the flour and water. "Sour-dough has much the +same significance as unleavened bread, only that our pioneers kept on +eating it more or less regularly in the land of promise. For all that, I +wouldn't wish for better bread than the kind still made with a +preparation of sour potatoes and boiled-down hops stirred in with the +flour. In this operation, however, the great thing is to whip fast +enough." + +He splashed another white smear upon his jacket, and rubbed it with his +hand before he poured some of the mixture into the hot spider, out of +which he presently shook what appeared to be a very light pancake. +Three or four more followed in quick succession, and then he poured +water on to the green tea and handed Alison a plate containing two +flapjacks and some pork. She found them palatable. Even the desiccated +apples, which from want of soaking were somewhat leathery, did not come +amiss, and the flavor of the wood smoke failed to spoil the strong green +tea. Then Thorne poured a little hot water over the plates, and as there +was no vessel that would hold them, she overruled his objections when +she volunteered to go down and wash them thoroughly in the creek. When +she came back she found that he had made up a clear fire and spread out +a blanket as a seat for her. + +"You are satisfied now?" he asked. + +Alison smiled. She was astonished to find herself so much at ease with +him. + +"Yes," she answered; "I felt that I could at least wash the plates. In a +way, it wasn't altogether my fault that I could do nothing else. You +see, I was never taught to cook." + +"Isn't that rather a pity?" Thorne suggested. + +"It's more," said Alison with what was in her case unusual warmth. "It's +an injustice. Still, there are thousands of us brought up in that way +yonder, and when some unexpected thing brings disaster we are left to +wonder what use we are to anybody. I suppose," she added, "the answer +must be--none." + +Thorne expressed no opinion on this point, but presently took out his +pipe. + +"You won't mind?" he asked. "I suppose they taught you something?" + +"Yes," answered Alison; "accomplishments. I can play and sing +indifferently, and paint simple landscapes if there are no figures in +them--because figures imply serious study. I can follow a French +conversation if they don't speak fast, and read Italian with a +dictionary. Before any of these things will bring a girl in sixpence she +must do them excellently, and they seem very unlikely to be of the least +service in this part of Canada." + +She was angry with herself for the outbreak as soon as she had spoken, +as it seemed absurd that she should supply a stranger with these +personal details; but the longing to utter some protest against the +half-education which had been merely a handicap during the last three +bitter years was too much for her. Thorne, however, made a sign of +sympathetic comprehension. + +"Yes," he assented, "that kind of thing's rather a pity. Did you never +learn anything--practical?" + +"Shorthand," replied Alison. "I can generally, though not always, read +what I've written, if it hasn't exceeded about eighty words a minute. +Then I can type about two-thirds as fast as one really ought to, and can +keep simple accounts so long as neatness is not insisted on. I naturally +had to learn all this after I left home. It seems to me that to bring up +English girls in such a way is downright cruelty." + +Thorne laughed. + +"It's not remarkably different in our case. There's a man in a town not +far along the line who used to shine at the Oxford Union and is now +uncommonly glad to earn a few dollars by his talents as an auctioneer; +that's how they estimate oratory on the prairie. There's another who +devoted most of his time at Cambridge to physical culture, and as the +result of it he gets pretty steady employment on the railroad track as a +ballast shoveler." + +Then he changed his tone. + +"Have you any idea as to what you will do if you don't stay with Mrs. +Hunter?" + +"No," confessed Alison, somewhat ruefully. + +"Well," said Thorne, "as I believe I mentioned, I don't think you need +worry about the matter. It's very probable that some of the small +wheat-growers' wives would be glad to have you." + +"But I can't even sew decently." + +The man's eyes twinkled. + +"In a general way, they're too busy to be fastidious." + +There was silence for a little after this and Alison cast one or two +swift unobtrusive glances at her companion, who lay smoking opposite her +on the other side of the fire. The sun now hung low above the great +white waste and the red light streamed in upon them both between the +leafless birches. Again she decided that he had a pleasant face and, +what was more, in spite of his attire, his whole personality seemed to +suggest a clean and wholesome virility. + +She had seen that he could be gentle, in the sick child's case, and she +suspected that he could be generous, but there was something about him +that also hinted at force. Then she remembered some of the men with whom +she had been brought into unpleasant contact in the cities--many who +bore the unmistakable mark of the beast, the cheap swagger of others, +and the inane attempts at gallantries which some of the rest indulged +in. They were not all like that, she realized; there were true men +everywhere; but now that her first shrinking from the grim and lonely +land was lessening it seemed to her that it had, in some respects at +least, a more bracing influence on those who lived in it than that other +still very dear one on which she had turned her back. Then she realized +that she was, after all, appraising its inhabitants by a single +specimen. She had yet to learn that they are now and then a little too +aggressively proud of themselves in western Canada, though it must be +said that the boaster is usually ready to pour out the sweat of tensest +effort with ax and saw or ox-team to prove his vaunting warranted. + +After a while the sun dipped and it grew chilly as dusk crept up from +the hazy east across the leagues of grass. Thorne brought her another +blanket to lay over her shoulders, and lying down again relighted his +pipe. There was not a breath of wind, and though she could hear the +knee-hobbled horses moving every now and then the silence became +impressive. She felt impelled to break it presently, for it seemed to +her that casual conversation would lessen the probability of the +somewhat unusual situation having too marked an effect on either of +them. + +"How is it that you have so many provisions in your wagon?" she asked. + +Thorne laughed. + +"I live in it all summer." + +"And you drive about selling things? Is it very remunerative?" + +"No," admitted Thorne dryly; "I can't say that it is; but, you see, I +like it. I'm afraid that I've a rooted objection to staying in one place +very long, and while I can get a meal and the few things I need by +selling an odd bottle of cosmetic, a gramophone, or a mirror, I'm +content." He made a humorous gesture. "That's the kind of man I am." + +Then he stood up. + +"It's getting rather late and you'll find the wagon fixed up ready. If +you hear a doleful howling you needn't be alarmed. It will only be the +coyotes." + +He disappeared into the shadows and Alison turned away toward the +wagon. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FARQUHAR HOMESTEAD + + +When she reached the wagon Alison found it covered by a heavy waterproof +sheet which was stretched across a pole. Loose hay had been strewn +between a row of wooden cases and one side of the vehicle and the space +beneath the sheeted roof was filled with a faint aromatic odor, which +she afterward learned was the smell of the wild peppermint that grows in +the prairie grass. When she had spread one blanket on the hay the couch +felt seductively soft, and she sank into it contentedly. Tired as she +was, however, she did not go to sleep immediately, for it was the first +night she had ever spent in the open, and for a time the strangeness of +her surroundings reacted on her. + +The front of the tent was open, and resting on one elbow she could see +the sinking fires still burning red among the leafless trees, and the +pale wisps of smoke that drifted among their spectral stems. At the foot +of the slope there was a wan gleam of water and beyond that in turn the +prairie rolled away, vast and dim and shadowy, with a silver half-moon +hanging low above its eastern rim. To one who had lived in the cities, +as she had done, the silence was at first so deep as to be almost +overwhelming, but by degrees she became conscious that it was broken by +tiny sounds. There was a very faint, elfin tinkle of running water, a +whispering of grasses that bent to the little cold breeze which had just +sprung up, and the softest, caressing rustle of the lace-like birch +twigs. Then, as the moon rose higher the vast sweep of wilderness and +sky gathered depth of color and became a wonderful nocturne in blue and +silver. + +In the meanwhile a pleasant warmth was creeping through her wearied body +and she began to wonder with a sense of compunction how many blankets +Thorne possessed, and where he was. It was at least certain that he was +nowhere near the fire, for she had carefully satisfied herself on that +point. Then a wild, drawn-out howl drifted up to her across the faintly +gleaming prairie and she started and held her breath, until she +remembered that Thorne had said there was no reason why she should be +alarmed if she heard a coyote. He was, she felt, a man one could +believe. The beast did not howl again, but she continued to think of her +companion as her eyes grew heavy. There was no doubt that he had a +pleasant voice and a handsome face. Then her eyes closed altogether and +her yielding elbow slipped down among the hay. + +The sun was where the moon had been when she opened her eyes again. +Climbing down from the wagon she saw no sign of Thorne. A bucket filled +with very cold water, however, stood beneath a tree, where she did not +remember having noticed it on the previous evening, and a towel hung +close by. A few minutes later she took down the towel and glanced at it +dubiously. It was by no means overclean and she wondered with misgivings +what the man did with it. It seemed within the bounds of possibility +that he dried the plates on it and, what was worse, that he might do so +again. In the meanwhile, however, the hair on her forehead was dripping +and the water was trickling down her neck, so she shut her eyes tight +and applied the towel, after which she concealed it carefully in the +wagon. + +A quarter of an hour later Thorne appeared and she was relieved upon one +point at least. Whether he had slept with blankets or without them, he +did not look cold, and his appearance indeed suggested that he had been +in the neighboring creek. She was astonished to notice that he had +brushed himself carefully and had sewed up the rent in the knee of his +overalls. Clothes-brushes, she correctly supposed, were scarce on the +Canadian prairie, but it seemed probable that he would require a brush +of some kind to clean his horses. + +"If you wouldn't mind laying out breakfast I'll make a fire and catch +the team," he said. "It's a glorious morning; but once the winter's over +we have a good many of them here." + +"Yes," assented Alison; "everything is so delightfully fresh." + +His eyes rested on her for a moment and she was unpleasantly conscious +that her dress was badly creased and crumpled as well as shabby; but he +did not seem to notice this. + +"That," he said, "is what struck me a minute or two ago." + +He busied himself about the fire, and when he strode away through the +bluff in search of the horses she heard him singing softly to himself. +She recognized the aria, and wondered a little, for it was not one that +could be considered as popular music. + +They had breakfast when he came back and both laughed when she prepared +the flapjacks under his direction. She felt no restraint in this +stranger's company. Indeed, she was conscious of a pleasant sense of +camaraderie, which seemed the best name for it, though she had hired +him to drive her to Mrs. Hunter's and was very uncertain as to whether +she could pay him. + +He harnessed the team when the meal was over and explained that although +Volador was still lame they might contrive to reach Graham's Bluff at +sundown by proceeding by easy stages, and Alison tactfully led him on to +talk about himself as they drove away. Though there were one or two +points on which he was reserved, he displayed very little diffidence, +which, however, is a quality not often met with among the inhabitants of +western Canada. + +"Well," he said with an air of whimsical reflection in answer to one +question, "I suppose my chief complaint is an excess of individuality. +They beat it out of you with clubs in England, unless you're +rich--really rich--when you can, of course, do anything. On the other +hand, the man who is merely stodgily prosperous is hampered by more +rules than anybody else. This is, I must explain, another notion I've +arrived at by observation and not from experience." + +"One supposes that a certain amount of uniformity and subordination is +necessary to progress," commented Alison. + +"Oh, yes," agreed Thorne; "that's the trouble. Progress marches with +massed battalions and makes so much dust that it's not always able to +see where it's going. Perhaps it's that or the bewildering change of +leaders that renders so much countermarching unavoidable." + +"Then you prefer to act with the vedettes and skirmishers?" + +"No," said Thorne; "not that exactly. Some of us are more like the +camp-followers. We collect our toll on the booty and when that's too +difficult we live on the country. After all, mine's an ancient if not a +very respectable calling. There were always pilgrims, minstrels and +pedlers." + +"It can't be a luxurious life." + +Thorne looked amused. + +"Are you quite sure you didn't mean a useful one?" + +Alison felt uncomfortable, because this idea had been in her mind. + +"I'll answer the question, anyway," continued Thorne. "These people and +those in the wheat-growing lands across the frontier work twelve and +fourteen hours every day. It's always the same unceasing toil with +them--they have no diversions. We go round and carry the news from place +to place, tell them the latest stories, and now and then sing to them. +We don't tax them too much either--a supper when they're poor--a dollar +for a mirror or a bottle of elixir, which it must be confessed most of +them have no possible use for." + +"Did you never do anything else?" Alison inquired; "that is, in Canada?" + +"Oh, yes," replied her companion. "I was clerk in an implement store +which I walked out of at its proprietor's request after an attack of +injudicious candor. You see, a rather big farmer came in one day and +spent most of the morning examining our seeders and pointing out their +defects. Then he inquired why we had the assurance to demand so much for +our implement when he could buy a very much better one several dollars +cheaper. I asked him if he was sure of that, and when he said he was I +suggested that it would be considerably wiser to go right away and buy +it instead of wasting his time and mine. The proprietor desired to know +how we expected him to make a living if we talked to customers like +that, and I pointed out that we couldn't do so anyway by answering +insane questions." + +Alison laughed delightedly. She felt that this was not mere rodomontade, +but that the man was perfectly capable of doing as he had said. + +"Had you any more experiences of the same kind?" she asked. + +"I was shortly afterward projected out of a wheat broker's office." + +"Projected?" + +Thorne grinned. + +"I believe that describes it. You see, they were three to one; but I +took part of the office fittings along with me. I must own that I lost +my temper and insulted them." + +"But why did you do so?" + +"Well," answered Thorne reflectively, "I like the Colonial, and +especially the Westerner, though he's rather fond of insisting on his +superiority over the rest of mankind. One gets used to this, but it now +and then grows galling when he compares himself with the folks who come +out from the old country. On the day in question the trouble arose from +a repetition of the usual formula that if it wasn't for the ocean they'd +have the whole scum of Europe coming over. I, however, shook hands with +the man who said it not long afterward, and he told me that after I had +gone, which was how he expressed it, they sat down and laughed until +they ached, thinking what the wheat broker, who was out on business, +would say when he saw his office." + +Alison was genuinely amused and she ventured another question. + +"Did you leave your situations in England in the same fashion?" + +The man's face darkened for a moment. + +"As it happened, I hadn't any." + +Alison turned the conversation into what promised to be a safer channel, +and they drove along very slowly all morning. When they set out again +after a lengthy stop at noon Thorne asked her if she would mind walking +for a while, as Volador was becoming very lame. He added that he would +make for an outlying homestead, where they would find entertainment, +instead of Graham's Bluff, and that they should reach Mrs. Hunter's on +the following day. + +It was six o'clock in the evening when they arrived at a frame house +which stood, roofed with cedar shingles, in the shelter of a big birch +bluff. There was a very rude sod-built stable, a small log barn, and a +great pile of straw, which appeared to be hollow inside and used as a +store of some kind. A middle-aged man with a good-humored look met them +at the door, and his wife greeted Alison in a kindly fashion when Thorne +explained the cause of their visit. Indeed, Alison was pleased with the +woman's face and manner, though, like many of the small wheat-growers' +wives, she looked a little worn and faded. Though the men toil +strenuously on the newly broken prairie, the heavier burden not +infrequently falls to the woman's share. + +Farquhar, their host, went out to work after supper but came back a +little before dusk, and when they sat out on the stoop together, Thorne +got his banjo and sang twice at Mrs. Farquhar's request; once some +amusing jingle he had heard in Winnipeg, and afterward "Mandalay." + +The song was not new to Alison, but she fancied that she had never heard +it rendered as Maverick Thorne sang it then. It was not his voice, +though that was a fine one, but the knowledge that had given him power +of expression, which held her tense and still. This man knew and had +indulged in and probably suffered for the longing for something that was +strange and different from all that his experience had touched before. +He was one of the free-lances who could not sit snugly at home; and in +her heart Alison sympathized with him. + +She had never seen the glowing, sensuous East and South, but the new +West lay open before her in all its clean, pristine virility. A vast +sweep of sky that was duskily purple eastward stretched overhead, a +wonderful crystalline bluish green, until it changed far off on the +grassland's rim to a streak of smoky red. Under it the prairie rolled +back like a great silent sea. There was something that set the blood +stirring in the dew-chilled air, and the faint smell of the wood smoke +and the calling of the wild fowl on a distant sloo intensified the sense +of the new and unfamiliar. One could be free in that wide land, she +felt; and as she thought of the customs, castes, and conventions to +which one must submit at home, she wondered whether they were needed +guides and guards or mere cramping fetters. They seemed to have none of +them in western Canada. + +She said "Thank you!" when Thorne laid down his banjo, and felt that the +spoken word had its limits, though she was careful not to look at him +directly just then, and soon afterward she retired. This house was +larger and much better furnished than the one she had last slept in, +though she supposed that it would have looked singularly comfortless and +almost empty in England. There was, for one thing, neither a curtain at +a window nor a carpet on the floor. + +When she joined the others at breakfast the next morning her host +informed Thorne that if they could wait until noon he could lend him a +horse to replace the lame Volador. He had, he explained, sent his hired +man off with a team on the previous day for a plow which was being +repaired by a smith who lived at a distance, and he had some work for +the second pair that morning. The men went out together when breakfast +was over, and Mrs. Farquhar sat down opposite Alison after she had +cleared the table. + +"Thorne tells me you are going to Mrs. Hunter's, though you don't know +yet whether you will stay with her or not," she said. + +It occurred to Alison that this was a tactful way of expressing it, +though she was not sure that the delicacy was altogether Thorne's, for +she had no doubt that her hostess had once been accustomed to a much +smoother life in the Canadian cities. + +"No," she replied, "I really can't tell until I get there." + +"Then, in case you don't decide to stay, we should be glad to have you +here." + +Alison was astonished, but in spite of her usual outward calm there was +a vein of impulsiveness in her, and she leaned forward in her chair. + +"I don't suppose you know that I am quite useless at any kind of +housework," she said. "I can't wash things, I can't cook, and I can +scarcely sew." + +Mrs. Farquhar smiled. + +"When I first came out here from Toronto it was much the same with me, +and there was nobody to teach me. It's fortunate that men are not very +fastidious in this part of Canada. In any case I had, perhaps, better +mention that while I would be glad to pay you at the usual rate and you +would be required to help, you would live with us as one of the family. +I want a companion. With my husband at work from sunup until dark, it's +often lonely here. Besides, the arrangement would give you an +opportunity for learning a little and finding out how you like the +country." + +Alison thought hard for a few moments. What she was offered was a +situation as a servant, but she decided that it would be more pleasant +here than she supposed it must generally be in England. She felt +inclined to like this woman, and her husband's manner was reassuring. +There was no doubt that they would treat her well. + +"I'm afraid that in a little while you would be sorry you had suggested +it," she said. + +"The question is, would you like to try?" + +"I'm quite sure of that," declared Alison impulsively. "I don't suppose +you know what it is to be offered a resting-place when you arrive, +feeling very friendless and forlorn, in a new country." + +Mrs. Farquhar smiled. + +"Then if you don't care to stay with Mrs. Hunter you must come straight +back here. It would, perhaps, be better if you went to her in the first +instance." + +"But don't you want any references?" + +"I don't think I do. In this case, your face is sufficient, and from +experience we don't attach any great importance to vouchers of the other +kind. Harry sometimes says that when a man is found to be insufferable +in the old country they give him a walletful of letters of introduction, +crediting him with all the virtues, and send him out to us. Besides, +even if you were really quite dreadful, your friends wouldn't go back on +you when I wrote to them." + +Alison laughed, and as the hired man appeared at noon with Farquhar's +team she drove away with Thorne soon after dinner. When they had left +the house behind she turned to him. + +"You have been talking about me to Mrs. Farquhar," she said. + +"Yes," admitted Thorne with a smile, "I must confess that I have. Is +there any reason why you should be angry?" + +"I'm not," Alison informed him. "But why did you do it?" + +"I'm far from sure that you will like Mrs. Hunter. In fact, I'd be a +little astonished if you did; and if you were a relative of mine I'd try +to make you stay with Mrs. Farquhar." + +"I wonder whether that means that Mrs. Hunter doesn't like you?" + +Thorne laughed good-humoredly. + +"Oh, I'm much too insignificant a person to count either way. Mrs. +Hunter is what you might call _grande dame_." + +"Have you any of them in western Canada?" + +"Well," answered Thorne, with an air of whimsical reflection, "there are +certainly not many, and in spite of it the country gets along pretty +well. We have, however, quite a few women of excellent education and +manners who don't seem to mind making their children's dresses and +washing their husband's clothes. Anyway, if she's at home, you can form +your own opinion of Florence Hunter in an hour or two." + +"Is she often away?" + +"Not infrequently. Every now and then she goes off to Winnipeg, Toronto, +or Montreal." + +"But what about her husband? Can he leave his farm?" + +"Hunter," Thorne replied dryly, "invariably stays at home." + +His manner made it clear that he intended to say no more on that +subject, and they talked about other matters while the wagon jolted on +across the sunlit prairie. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THORNE GIVES ADVICE + +It was early in the evening when they drove into sight of the Hunter +homestead, and as they approached it Alison glanced about her with some +curiosity. Long rows of clods out of which rose a tangle of withered +grass tussocks stretched across the foreground. Thorne told her that +this was the breaking, land won from the prairie too late for sowing in +the previous year. Farther on, they skirted another stretch of more +friable and cleaner clods, shattered and mellowed by the frost, and then +they came to a space of charred stubble. Beyond that, a waste of yellow +straw stood almost knee-high, and Thorne said that as the latter had no +value on the prairie it was generally burned off to clear the ground for +the following crop. He added that wheat was usually grown on the same +land for several years without any attempt at fertilization. + +Alison, however, knew nothing of farming, and it was the house at which +she gazed with most interest. It stood not far from a broad shallow lake +with a thin birch bluff on one side of it, a commodious two-storied +building with a wide veranda. It was apparently built of wood, but its +severity of outline was relieved by gaily picked-out scroll-work and +lattice shutters; and in front of the entrance somebody had attempted to +make a garden. The stables and barns behind it were new frame buildings, +and there were wire fences stretching back from these. After her +experience of the last few days, Alison had not expected to see anything +like it in western Canada. + +Then she began to wonder whether Florence Hunter's life in the West had +made much change in her. She recollected her as a pretty but rather +pallid girl, with a manner a little too suggestive of self-confidence, +and a look of calculating tenacity in her eyes. Alison had continued to +treat her as a friend after she had incurred the hostility of Mrs. +Leigh, but she realized that it was chiefly Florence's courage and +resourcefulness that had impressed her, and not her other qualities. She +had not seen Florence's husband. + +A few minutes later Thorne drove up to the front of the house, and +Alison saw a woman, who hitherto had been hidden by one of the pillars, +lying in a canvas chair on the veranda with a book in her hand. The +sunlight that streamed in upon her called up fiery gleams in her red +hair and shimmered on her long dress of soft, filmy green. Alison +promptly decided that the latter had come from New York or Montreal. +There was no doubt that Florence Hunter's appearance was striking, +though her expression even in repose seemed to indicate a dissatisfied, +exacting temperament. At length she heard the rattle of wheels, for she +rose. + +"Alison, by all that's wonderful!" she cried. + +There was astonishment in the exclamation, but Alison could not convince +herself that there was any great pleasure, and it was with a certain +sense of constraint that she permitted Thorne to help her down. He +walked with her up to the veranda, and acknowledged Mrs. Hunter's casual +greeting by lifting his hat. + +"Sit down," said the latter to Alison, pointing to another chair. "Where +have you sprung from?" + +"From Winnipeg. I came out to earn my living, and nobody seemed to want +me there." + +Florence laughed. + +"You earn your living! It's clear that something very extraordinary must +have happened; but we'll talk of that after supper. So you decided to +come to me?" + +It was, Alison realized, merely a question and nothing more. + +"I'm afraid I was a little presumptuous," she replied. "There is, of +course, no reason why you should have me." + +Her companion looked at her with a curious smile. + +"You are still in the habit of saying things of that kind? I suppose it +runs in the family." + +Alison winced, for she remembered that her mother could on occasion be +painfully rude. + +"You haven't said anything to convince me that I was wrong." + +"Was it necessary?" Florence asked languidly. "I was never very +effusive, as you ought to know. Of course, you'll stay here as long as +it pleases you." + +The invitation was clear enough, but there was no warmth in it; and +Alison was relieved when a man came up the steps. He was rather short in +stature, and there was nothing striking in his appearance. He had a +quiet brown face and very brown hands, and he had evidently been +working, for he wore long boots, a coarse blue shirt, and blue duck +overalls. He shook hands with Thorne cordially, and then turned toward +Alison. + +"My husband," said Florence. "Miss Leigh, Elcot; I used to know her in +England. She has just arrived." + +Alison noticed that Hunter favored her with a glance of grave scrutiny, +but he did not seem in the least astonished, nor did he glance at his +wife. This indicated that he was in the habit of accepting without +question anything that the latter did. Then he held out his hand. + +"I'm very glad to see you, and we'll try to make you comfortable," he +said with a smile which softened the girl's heart toward him. Then he +turned to his wife. + +"Is supper ready? I want to haul in another load of wood before it's +dark." + +"It should have been ready now. I don't know what they're doing inside," +was the careless reply. + +It occurred to Alison that her hostess might have gone to see, but she +was half annoyed with Thorne when she noticed his badly dissembled grin. +Then Hunter inquired if she had had a comfortable journey. + +"Not very," she answered. "You see, I traveled Colonist." + +"How dreadful!" Florence exclaimed. + +Her husband smiled at Alison. + +"It depends," he said. "It's good enough if you can wait until after the +steamboat train. I used to travel that way myself once upon a time; I +had to do it then." + +"Elcot," his wife explained, "is one of the most economically minded men +living. He grudges every dollar unless it's for new implements." + +Hunter did not contradict her. He and Thorne left the veranda, and soon +after they returned from leading the team to the stable, a trim maid +appeared to announce that supper was ready. Hunter led Alison into a big +and very simply furnished room. A long table ran down one side, and half +a dozen men attired much as Hunter was took their places about the +uncovered lower half of it. There was a cloth on the upper portion, with +a gap of several feet between its margin and the nearest of the +teamsters' seats. It occurred to Alison, who had been told that the +hired man generally ate with his employer on the prairie, that this +compromise was rather pitiful, though she did not know that Hunter had +once or twice had words with his wife on the question. As the meal, +which was bountiful, proceeded, he now and then spoke to the men; but +Florence confined her attention to Alison, until at length she addressed +Thorne. + +"To what do we owe the pleasure of seeing you?" she inquired. + +"In the first place, I came to bring Miss Leigh; she hired me." + +Thorne laid a very slight stress upon the hired. It seemed to indicate +that he recognized his station in relation to a guest of the house, and +Alison felt a little uncomfortable. For one thing, though that did not +quite account for her uneasiness, she remembered that she had not paid +him. + +"Then," he added, "I called in the usual course of business. I have for +disposal a few tablets of very excellent English soap, a case of +peach-bloom cosmetic, and one or two other requisites of the kind." + +Alison regretted that she laughed, but she felt that Florence's attitude +toward the man had rendered the thrust admissible, and she saw a faint +smile in Hunter's eyes. Her hostess, however, was equal to the occasion. + +"If they're not as rubbishy as usual, I'll buy a few things and give +them to the maids. Is that the whole of your stock?" + +"I've a box of new gramophone records." + +Florence looked at her husband, and Alison fancied that she had noticed +and meant to punish him for his smile. + +"You'll buy them, Elcot." + +"You haven't tried the other lot," Hunter protested. "Besides, the +instrument seemed to have contracted bronchitis when I last had it out." + +"It will do to amuse the boys when the nights get dark," replied +Florence. Then she turned to Alison. "One could hardly get a dollar out +of him with a lever." + +"Doesn't it depend on the kind of lever you use?" Alison asked. + +Thorne grinned, but Florence answered unhesitatingly. + +"Oh, in the case of the average man it doesn't matter, so long as it's +strong enough and you have a fulcrum. We'll admit that the type can be +generous, but it's only when it throws a reflected luster on themselves. +Otherwise judicious pressure is necessary." + +"Are you going to camp with us to-night?" Hunter asked Thorne. + +"No," answered the latter. "I have some business at the Bluff, and I +want to get off again early to-morrow." + +In a few more minutes the teamsters rose, and Hunter, making excuses to +Alison, went out with them. Florence looked after them, and then turned +to the girl with a disdainful lifting of her brows. + +"Cormorants," she commented. "They've been very slow to-night. Eight +minutes is about their usual limit. I don't think they even look at +their food--it just goes down. I have once or twice suggested to Elcot +that he is wasting his money by giving them the things he does. It's +difficult, though, to make him listen to reason." + +Alison said nothing, and after a while Florence rose. + +"We'll have a talk on the veranda while they clear away." + +She pointed to a chair when they reached the veranda, and then sank +languidly into one close by. + +"Tell me all about it," she said. + +It was not a pleasant task to Alison, for it entailed the mention of her +father's death and an account of the difficulties that had followed, but +she spoke for a few minutes, and her companion casually expressed her +sympathy. + +"I can understand why you came out," she added with a bitter laugh. +"When I first met you I was earning just enough to keep me on the border +line between respectability and--the other thing--that is by the +exercise of the most unpleasant self-denial. What I should have done +without the extra twelve pounds your mother's guild paid me for playing +the piano twice a week at the working girls' club I don't like to think. +That is why I made no complaint when they added to my duties the +teaching of a class on another evening and the collecting of the +subscriptions to the sewing society. Your mother, I heard, informed the +committee that in her opinion twelve pounds was a good deal too much, +and I believe she added that such a rate of payment was apt to make a +young woman of my class far too independent." + +Alison's cheeks burned, for she knew that Florence had been correctly +informed; but she had no thought of mentioning that she had +expostulated with her mother on the subject. + +"Well," said Florence, "it was not your fault, and I'm sorry for you. I +suppose you had--difficulties--with some of your employers? No doubt one +or two of them tried to make love to you?" + +Alison made a little gesture of disgust. + +"Oh," laughed Florence, "I know. You probably flared out at the +offender, and either got your work found fault with or lost your +situation. I didn't. After all, a smile costs nothing, though it's a +little difficult now and then. In my case, it led to shorter hours, +higher wages, an occasional Saturday afternoon trip to the country. I +got what I could, and in due time it was generally easy to turn round +upon and get rid of the provider. Still, it was just a little +humiliating with a certain type of man, and it was a relief when Elcot +took me out of it. I try to remember that I owe him that when he gets +unusually wearisome, though one must do him the justice to admit that he +never refers to it." + +Alison sat silent, shrinking from her companion. She had faced a good +many unpleasant things during the past few years, but they had wrought +but little change in her nature. The part her hostess had played would +have been a wholly hateful one to her. + +"Where did you come across Thorne?" Florence asked. + +Alison told her, and she looked thoughtful. + +"When was that? I supposed you had come straight from the station." + +"Four days ago," answered Alison unhesitatingly, though she would have +much preferred not to mention it. + +"Four days! And you have been driving round the country since then with +Thorne?" + +Alison felt her face grow hot, but her answer was clear and sharp. + +"Of course; I couldn't help it. We should have been here earlier, only a +horse went lame. In any case, after what you have told me, I cannot see +why you should adopt that tone." + +Florence raised her brows. + +"My dear," she said, "I was a working woman of no account in England +when I first met you--but things are rather different now. It doesn't +exactly please me that a guest of mine should indulge in an escapade of +this description. Doesn't it strike you as hardly fitting?" + +Hunter, who had come up the steps unobserved, stopped beside them just +then. + +"Rubbish!" he said curtly. "It was unavoidable. I've had a talk with +Leslie; he told me exactly what delayed him." + +Florence waved her hand. + +"Oh," she replied, "let it go at that. I couldn't resist the temptation +of sticking a pin or two into Alison. What has brought you back?" + +"We broke the wagon pole. It didn't seem worth while to put in a new one +to-night." + +He moved away and left them, and Alison turned to her companion. + +"Did he mean Mr. Thorne by Leslie?" + +"Of course." + +"But isn't his name Maverick?" + +"Did you call him that?" + +"I can't remember, though I suppose I must have done so. Some of the +others certainly did." + +Florence looked amused. + +"I suppose you haven't an idea what a maverick is?" + +Alison said that she had none at all, and her companion proceeded to +inform her. + +"It's a steer that won't feed and follow tamely with the herd, but goes +off or gets wild and smashes things, and generally does what's least +desirable. As you have spent some days with him you will no doubt +understand why they have fixed the name on Thorne." + +Alison glanced at her with a sparkle in her eyes. + +"I can only say this. I have met a few men one could look up to--after +all, there are good people in the world--but I haven't yet come across +one who showed more tact and considerate thoughtfulness than Maverick +Thorne." + +Florence was evidently amused at this--indeed, to be sardonically amused +at something seemed her favorite pose. + +"I shouldn't like to disturb that kind of optimism--and here he is; I'll +leave you to talk to him. As it happens, Elcot looks rather grumpy, and +the mail-carrier has just brought out a sheaf of my bills from Winnipeg +which he hasn't seen yet." + +She sailed away with a rustle of elaborate draperies, and Thorne sat +down. + +"I'm going on to the bluff in half an hour," he informed her. + +Alison was conscious of a certain hesitation, but there was something to +be said. + +"How much do I owe you?" she asked. + +"Half a dollar." + +Alison flushed. + +"Why didn't you say four or five dollars?" + +"Since you evidently mean to insist on an answer, there are several +reasons for my modesty. For one thing, you would have to borrow the +money from Mrs. Hunter, which I don't think you would like to do. For +another, if you were a Canadian I'd say--nothing--but as you're not used +to the country yet you wouldn't care to accept a favor from a stranger." + +"But it would be a favor in any case." + +"Then you can get rid of the obligation by giving me half a dollar." + +The girl looked at him sharply as she laid the silver coin in his hand, +but he met her gaze with a whimsical smile. + +"Thank you," he said. "I suppose you are going back to Mrs. Farquhar?" + +"Yes," replied Alison impulsively. "I believe I am; but I may wait for a +few days." + +"I think you're wise. You wouldn't find things very pleasant here." + +"Why?" + +"If you'll permit me to mention it, you're too pretty." + +Alison straightened herself suddenly in her chair. + +"You don't like Mrs. Hunter, but does that justify you in saying what +you have? You can't mean that she would be--jealous?" + +"That's exactly what I do mean." + +He saw the angry color mantle in the face of the girl, and raised his +hand in expostulation. + +"Wait a little; I want to explain. First of all, she wouldn't have the +slightest cause for jealousy. You're not the kind to give her one, and +Elcot Hunter is one of the best and straightest men I know. In fact, +that's partly what is troubling me." + +"Why should it trouble you?" Alison interrupted. + +Thorne appeared to reflect, and, indignant with his presumption as she +was, the girl admitted that he did it very well. + +"If you urge me for a precise answer, I'm afraid I'll have to confess +that I don't quite know. Anyway, because Hunter is the sort of man I +have described, he'd try to make things pleasant for you, and there's no +doubt that his wife would resent it. Whether she's fond of him at all, +or not, I naturally can't say, but she expects him to be entirely at her +beck and call, and I don't think she'd tolerate any little courtesies he +might show you." + +Alison sat silent for a moment or two when he stopped, looking at him +with perplexed eyes, though she felt that he was right. + +"It's curious, isn't it?" she said at length. "Florence must have had a +very unpleasant time in England, where she had to practise the strictest +self-denial. One would have thought it would have made her content and +compassionate now that she has everything that she could wish for." + +"No," responded Thorne, "in a way, it's natural. That kind of life often +has the opposite effect. Those who lead it have so much to put up with +that if once they escape it makes them determined never even to +contemplate doing the least thing they don't like again." + +"Oh," declared Alison impulsively, "I shouldn't care to think that." + +"Well," said Thorne, with unmoved gravity, "I don't know whether you +have had as much to face as you say that she has, though one or two +things seem to suggest it, but it certainly hasn't spoiled you." + +Then he rose. + +"As I want to reach the bluff to-night, I'll get my team harnessed." + +Alison watched him go down the steps with a somewhat perplexing sense of +regret. She had met the man only four days ago, but she felt that she +was parting from a friend. + +A few minutes later Florence Hunter called her into the house; and she +stayed with her a week before she went to Mrs. Farquhar. She admitted +that Florence had given her no particular cause for leaving, but she at +least made no objections when Alison acquainted her with her decision. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THORNE CONTEMPLATES A CHANGE + + +Alison had spent a few days with Mrs. Farquhar without finding the least +reason to regret the choice she had made, when one evening Farquhar +helped her and his wife into his wagon in front of the little hotel at +Graham's Bluff, where he had passed the last half-hour in conversation +with an implement dealer. When they had taken their places he drove +cautiously down the wide, unpaved street, which was seamed with ruts. On +either side of it, straggling and singularly unpicturesque frame houses, +destitute of paint or any attempt at adornment, rose abruptly from the +prairie, though here and there the usual plank sidewalk ran along the +front of them. Alison was convinced that she had rarely seen a more +uninteresting place, though she had discovered that its inhabitants were +not only quite satisfied with it, but firmly believed in its roseate +future. This seemed somewhat curious, as a number of them had come there +from the cities, but she did not know then that the optimistic assurance +with which they were endued is common in the West, and that it is, as a +rule, in due time justified. + +Turning a corner, they came out into a wider space from which a riband +of rutted trail led out into the wilderness. Farquhar pulled up his +team. Close in front of them, a crowd had gathered about a wagon, and a +man who stood upon a box in it seemed to be addressing the assembly. +Alison could not see his face, and his voice was, for the most part, +drowned by bursts of laughter, but he was waving his hands to emphasize +his remarks, and this and his general attitude reminded her of the +itinerant auctioneers she had now and then seen in the market-place of +an English provincial town, though the crowd and the surroundings were +in this case very different. + +The prairie, which was dusty white, stretched back to the soft red glow +of the far horizon, and overhead there was a wonderful blue +transparency. The light was still sharp, and the figures of the men +stood out with a curious distinctness. Most of them were picturesque in +wide, gray hats and long boots, with blue shirt and jacket hanging loose +above the rather tight, dust-smeared trousers, though there were some +who wore black hats and spruce store clothes. These, however, looked +very much out of place. + +"Thorne's pitching it to the boys in great style to-night," chuckled +Farquhar. "We'll get a little nearer; I like to hear him when he has a +good head of steam up." + +He started the team, but Alison was sensible of a slight shock of +displeasure. She was aware that Thorne sold things, because he had told +her so, but she had never seen him actively engaged in his profession, +and this kind of thing seemed extremely undignified. She had got rid of +a good many prejudices during the past few years, and was, for that +matter, in due time to discard some more; but it hurt her to see a +friend of hers--and she admitted that she regarded him as such--playing +the part of mountebank to amuse the inhabitants of a forlorn prairie +town. + +Farquhar drew up his team again presently. Alison fancied that Mrs. +Farquhar was watching her, and she fixed her eyes upon the crowd and +Thorne. His remarks were received with uproarious laughter, but she was +quick to notice that there was nothing in what he said that any one +could reasonably take exception to. + +Presently there was an interruption, for a man in white shirt and store +clothing pushed forward through the crowd, with another, who was big and +lank and hard-faced, and wore old blue duck, following close behind him. + +"Now," exclaimed Farquhar expectantly, "we're going to have some fun. +That's Sergeant, the storekeeper, who sells drugs and things, and he's +been on Mavy's trail for quite a while. So far, Mavy has generally +talked him down, but to-night he's got a backer. Custer has the +reputation of being a bad man, and it's generally supposed that he owes +Sergeant a good deal of money." + +"Hadn't we better drive on if there's likely to be any trouble?" +suggested his wife. + +Farquhar said that Thorne would probably prove a match for his opponents +without provoking actual hostilities, and added that they could go on +later if it seemed advisable. Alison laughed when a hoarse burst of +merriment followed the orator's last sally. + +"It was really witty," she said. "In fact, it's all clever. I wonder how +he learned to talk like that." + +Mrs. Farquhar smiled. + +"It's probably in the blood. I believe one of his close relatives is a +bishop." + +"It doesn't quite follow," objected Farquhar. "I heard one of them, an +English one, in Montreal, who wasn't a patch on Mavy. Anyway, if you +want to hold the boys here you have to be clever." + +Then a protesting voice broke in upon Thorne's flowing periods. + +"Boys," it said, "that man has played you for suckers 'bout long enough, +and this kind of thing is rough on every decent storekeeper in the town. +We're making the place grow; we're always willing to make a deal when +you have anything to sell; and we're generally open to supply you with +better goods than he keeps, at a lower figure." + +"In my case," Thorne pointed out, "you get amusing tales and sound +advice thrown in. You can at any time consult me about anything, from +the best way to make your hair curl to the easiest means of getting rid +of the mortgage man, which in most cases is to pay his bill." + +"I could tell 'way funnier tales than you do when I was asleep," +interrupted the storekeeper's friend. + +Thorne disregarded this. + +"I've nothing to urge against the storekeepers, boys. They're useful to +the community--it's possible that they're more useful than I am--but it +doesn't seem quite fitting to hold them up as deserving objects of your +compassion. If you have any doubt on that point you have only to look at +their clothes. I don't like to be personal, but since there are two men +here from whom I don't expect very much delicacy, I feel inclined to +wonder whether that is a brass watch and guard Mr. Sergeant is wearing." + +"No, sir," snapped the other, who was evidently too disturbed in temper +to notice the simple trap, "it's English gold. Cost me most of a +hundred and twenty dollars in Winnipeg." + +Thorne waved his hand. + +"That's the point, boys. Mine, which was made in Connecticut, cost five. +I think you can see the inference. If you don't, I should like you to +ask him where he got the hundred and twenty dollars." + +There was applauding laughter, for the men were quite aware that they +had furnished it, but Thorne proceeded: + +"It's likely that I could buy things of that kind, and keep as smart a +team as our friend does, if I struck you for the interest he charges on +your held-over accounts." + +"That's quite right!" somebody cried. "They don't want no pity. They've +got bonds on half our farms. Guess the usual interest's blamed robbery." + +Once more the storekeeper lifted up his voice. + +"You wouldn't call it that, if you'd ever tried to collect it. You stand +out of your money until harvest's in, and then when you drive round the +homestead's empty, and somebody's written on the door, 'Sorry I couldn't +pack the house off.'" + +This was followed by further laughter, for, as Farquhar explained to +Alison, pack signifies the transporting of one's possessions, usually +upon the owner's back, in most of western Canada, and the notice thus +implies that the defaulting farmer had judiciously removed himself and +everything of value except his dwelling, before the arrival of his +creditor. + +"You could shut down on the land, anyway," retorted one man. + +"Could I?" Sergeant inquired savagely. "When it's free-grant land, and +the man hadn't broke enough to get his patent?" + +The crowd, encouraged by a word or two from Thorne, seemed disposed to +drift off into a disquisition on the homestead laws, but Sergeant pulled +them up. + +"We'll keep to the point," he said. "When you buy your drugs at my store +you get just what you ask for with the maker's label stuck fast on it. +Maverick keeps loose ones, and if you ask him to cure your liver it's +quite likely that he'll give you hair-restorer." + +Farquhar chuckled. + +"I'm afraid there's some truth in that," he admitted. "Still, it's to +Mavy's credit that when the case is serious he generally prescribes a +visit to the nearest doctor." + +In the meanwhile the storekeeper had secured the attention of the +assembly. + +"What I said, I'll prove!" he added vehemently. "Get up and tell them +how he played you, Custer." + +His companion waved his hand. + +"I'll do that, in the first place, and when I've got through I'll do a +little more. I went to Maverick most two weeks ago when my stomach was +sour, and he gives me a bottle for a dollar." + +"He's perfectly correct so far, except that he hasn't produced the +dollar yet," Thorne assented. "I should like to point out that I can +cure the kind of sourness he said it was every time, but I can't do very +much when the trouble's in the man's sour nature. You took that stuff I +gave you the day you got it, Custer?" + +"I did. I was powerful sick next morning." + +He turned to the crowd, speaking in a tragic voice. + +"Boys, he'd run out of the cure I wanted and gave me the first bottle +handy, with a wrong label on. I've no use for a man who doses you with +stuff that makes your inside feel like it was growing wool." + +There were delighted cries at this, but Custer appeared perfectly +serious, and Thorne looked down at him. + +"No," he drawled, "in your case it would grow bristles." + +The laugh was with him now, but it was a moment or two before Custer, +who was evidently slow of comprehension, quite grasped the nature of the +compliment which had been paid him. The term hog is a particularly +offensive one in that country. Then he proceeded to clamber up into the +wagon, and Thorne addressed those among his listeners who stood nearest +it. + +"Hold on to him just a moment," he cried, and two men did as he +directed. "I merely want to point out that our friend has supplied the +explanation of the trouble--he said he was sick the next morning. Well, +as my internal cure is a powerful one, there are instructions on every +bottle to take a tablespoonful every six hours, which would have carried +him on for several days. It's clear that he felt better after one dose, +which encouraged him to take the lot for the next one." + +"He has probably hit it," commented Farquhar. "They do it now and then." + +"Now," continued Thorne to the men below, "you can let Mr. Custer go. If +it's the only thing that will satisfy him, I'll get down." + +"You'll get down sure," bawled Custer. "If you're not out when I'm +ready, I'll pitch you." + +Farquhar started his team. + +"I've no doubt Sergeant had the thing fixed beforehand, but I'm +inclined to fancy that Custer will be sorry before he's through. Anyway, +we'll get on." + +He had driven only a few yards when his wife looked at him with a smile. + +"Was it a very great self-denial, Harry?" + +"Since you ask the question, I'm afraid it was," laughed Farquhar. + +"Then I won't mind very much if you get down and see that they don't +impose on Mavy--I mean too many of them. I don't want him to get hurt if +it can be prevented." + +Farquhar swung himself over the side of the wagon. + +"It's hardly probable. The boys like Mavy, but, as Sergeant has one or +two toughs among the crowd, I'll go along." + +Mrs. Farquhar smiled at Alison as she drove on. + +"One mustn't expect too much," she said. "After all, if he comes home +with a swollen face it will be in a good cause." + +Alison made no comment. She was slightly disgusted, and her pride was +somewhat hurt. She had made a friend of this man, perhaps, she thought, +too readily, and the fact that he had laid himself out to amuse the +crowd and had, as the result of it, been drawn into a discreditable +brawl was far from pleasant. She was compelled to confess on reflection +that he could not very well have avoided the latter, but it was equally +clear that he had not even attempted it. Indeed, she had noticed that he +jumped down from his wagon with a suspicious alacrity. + +Half an hour later a fast team overtook them and Farquhar alighted from +a two-seated vehicle. He smiled at his wife as he sat down beside her. + +"There was very little trouble," he announced. "Mavy's friends kept the +toughs off, and I believe he'll sell out everything he has in his +wagon." + +"And Custer?" + +"I don't think he can see quite as well as he could an hour ago--as one +result," replied Farquhar dryly. + +Then he flicked the team, and they drove on faster into the dusk that +was creeping up across the prairie. + +The next morning Alison was standing in the sunshine outside the house +when Thorne drove into sight from behind the barn which cut off the view +of one strip of prairie. He got down from his wagon and appeared +disconcerted when he saw the girl, who fancied that she understood the +reason, for he had a discolored bruise on one cheek and a lump on his +forehead. + +"I want a few words with Farquhar," he explained. "I saw him at the +settlement last night, but I couldn't get hold of him." + +"No," returned Alison disdainfully, "you were too busy." Then something +impelled her to add, "You don't seem a very great deal the worse for +your exploit." + +Thorne leaned against the side of the wagon, though she noticed that he +first pulled the brim of his soft hat lower down over his face. + +"That fact doesn't seem to cause you much satisfaction," he observed. + +"Why should it?" + +"We'll let that pass. On the other hand, there's just as little reason +why you should be displeased with me." + +"Are you sure that I am displeased?" inquired Alison, suspecting his +intention of leading her up to some definite expression of indignation. +This would, as she realized, be tantamount to the betrayal of a greater +interest in his doings than she was prepared to show. + +"Your appearance suggested it; but we'll call it disgusted, if you +like," he retorted with amusement in his eyes. + +It occurred to Alison that as he had evidently taken her resentment for +granted it might after all be wiser to prove it justifiable. + +"Then," she said, "a scene of the kind you figured in last night is +naturally repugnant to any one not accustomed to it." + +"Did it jar on Mrs. Farquhar?" + +"No," Alison admitted, "I don't think it did." + +"Then she's not accustomed to such scenes either. Rows of any kind +really aren't very common in western Canada--but she seems to have more +comprehension than you have." + +This was turning the tables with a vengeance, and Alison was a trifle +disconcerted, for instead of standing on his defense the man had +unexpectedly proceeded to attack. + +"Do you care to explain that?" she asked. + +"I'll try," Thorne replied genially. "Perhaps because she's married, +Mrs. Farquhar seems to understand that there are occasions when a man is +driven into doing things he has an aversion for. In a way, it's to his +credit when he recognizes that the alternative is out of the question. +Can you get hold of that?" + +"I'm not sure. You see, you suggest that there may be an alternative." + +"It's often the case. The difficulty is that now and then the +consequences of choosing it are a good deal worse than the other +thing." + +Alison could grasp the gist of this. There was something to be said for +the resolution that could boldly grapple with a crisis as soon as it +arose, instead of seeking the readiest means of escape from it. + +"Now," added Thorne, "I was quite sure when the storekeeper appeared on +the scene that he had hired the biggest tough in the settlement to make +trouble for me. Of course I could have backed down, or at least I could +have tried it, but the result would naturally have been to make the +opposition more determined on the next occasion. It seemed wiser to face +the situation then and there." + +Again Alison felt that he was right, and she shifted her point of +attack. + +"You wish to assure me that it was with very great reluctance you jumped +down from your wagon last night?" + +Thorne laughed softly. + +"No," he acknowledged; "if one must be honest, I can't go quite so far +as that." + +The girl was a little astonished at herself. In spite of his last +confession her disgust--though she felt that was not the right +word--with his conduct had greatly lessened, and she was conscious of a +certain curiosity about his sensations during the incident. + +"You were not in the least afraid?" she asked. + +"No; but, after all, that's no great admission. You see, with most of us +what we call courage is largely the result of experience. Now, I knew I +was a match for Sergeant's tough. The man is big, but he has only a hazy +notion when to lead off and how to parry." + +"How did you know that--from experience?" + +"Oh, no," returned Thorne, smiling. "I once watched him endeavoring to +convince another man that he was utterly wrong in maintaining that the +country derived the least benefit from the liquor prohibition laws. He +succeeded because the other man didn't know any more than he did." + +Alison laughed. + +"After all, I don't think the subject is of very great interest. I +wonder why you went to so much trouble to explain the thing to me." + +The man gazed at her a moment in somewhat natural astonishment and then +he took off his wide hat ceremoniously, though as a smile crept into his +eyes she could not be sure whether it was done in seriousness or +whimsically. In any case, he spoiled the effect by remembering his +bruised face and hastily clapping it on again. + +"May I say that I should like to retain your favorable opinion if it's +possible?" he replied, and leaving his team plucking at the grass he +turned away and entered the house. As it happened, Farquhar had just +come in for dinner, which was not quite ready, and Thorne sat down +opposite him. + +"If your wife has no objections, I want you to do me a favor, Harry," he +said. + +His host expressed his readiness, but Mrs. Farquhar looked at him +inquiringly. + +"It's just this," he explained. "You deal with Grantly at the railroad +settlement, and it's possible that he may not have formed a very +accurate opinion of my character. In fact, I shouldn't wonder if odd +things the boys have said have prejudiced him against me." + +"It's quite likely," Farquhar admitted with a grin. + +"Then I want you to assure him that I'm a perfectly responsible and +reliable person." + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed outright. + +"Aren't you asking rather more than Harry could consistently do?" + +"Well," Thorne replied thoughtfully, "it might serve the purpose if he +told Grantly that I generally paid my bills. I don't ask him to +guarantee my account or back my draft. It wouldn't be reasonable." + +"It wouldn't," assented Mrs. Farquhar with uncompromising decision. "Are +you going to make some new venture?" + +"I have a hazy notion that I might take up a quarter-section and turn +farmer." + +His hostess flashed a significant glance at her husband, who smiled. + +"But why?" + +"If you don't get your crop hailed out, droughted, or frozen, you can +now and then pick up a few dollars that way," Thorne explained. +"Besides, a farmer is a person of acknowledged status on the prairie." + +"Have you any other reasons--more convincing ones?" + +Thorne regarded his hostess with undiminished gravity. + +"If I have, they may appear by and by--when, for instance, I've doubled +my holding and raised a record crop on three hundred and twenty acres." + +"It isn't done in a day," warned Farquhar. + +"It depends on how you begin; and commencing with a tent, a span of +oxen, and one breaker-plow doesn't appeal to me. I want a couple of +horse teams, the latest implements and the best seed I can get my hands +on." + +"I guess my word alone won't induce Grantly to let you have them--still, +I'll do what I can." + +Thorne spread out his hands. + +"If anything more is wanted Hunter will be given an opportunity for +supplying it. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't distribute my +favors." + +"And when does the rash experiment begin?" + +Thorne straightened himself in his chair. + +"It won't be an experiment. If I take hold, which isn't quite certain +yet, I'll stay with the thing." + +Then he broke into his usual careless laugh. + +"I'll take a long drive round all the outlying settlements and work off +a last frolic first." + +"Yes," observed his hostess, "the carnival before Lent." + +After that she proceeded to lay out dinner and they let the subject +drop, but Alison, who entered the room just then, wondered why Mrs. +Farquhar flashed a searching glance at her. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A USEFUL FRIEND + + +Thorne drove away after dinner and, for it must be admitted that he +preferred other people's cookery to his own, he contrived to reach the +Hunter homestead just as supper was being laid out one evening some days +later. During the meal he announced his intention of staying all night, +but he did not explain what had brought him there until he sat with his +host and hostess on the veranda while dusk crept up across the prairie. +He felt inclined to wonder why Mrs. Hunter had favored them with her +company, for he supposed that it was not altogether for the sake of +enjoying the cool evening air. This surmise, as it happened, was quite +correct. She had another purpose in her mind, for since Alison's visit +she had taken a certain interest in the man. + +"Is there anything keeping you about the bluff?" she asked at length. "I +hear you have been in the neighborhood several days." + +"Four," said Thorne, "if one must be precise. For one thing, there +seemed to be a good demand for gramophones; for another, I wanted a talk +with Elcot, and somebody said he was in at the railroad yesterday." + +"I suppose you want to borrow a team from him again?" + +"No," Thorne replied tranquilly; "in this case my object is to borrow +money--or, at least, I want to raise it in such a way that if I don't +meet my obligations your husband will be liable." + +He turned toward his host. + +"Do you think you could guarantee me to the extent of, say, a thousand +dollars?" + +"If it's merely a question of ability, I believe I could. Whether it +would be judicious is quite another matter. What are you going to do +with the money?" + +Thorne explained his purpose much as he had done to Farquhar and Hunter +listened with quiet amusement. + +"The whim might last a month, and then there'd probably be an auction of +your stock and implements, and we would get word that you had gone off +on the trail again," he said. "A quiet life wouldn't suit you. You tried +it once with Bishop and it's generally understood that you turned his +house inside out one day during the winter you spent with him." + +"There's just a little truth in that," Thorne confessed. "Bishop's a +nice man, but he has the most exasperating ways, and one would need more +patience than I have to stand them. Try to imagine it--three months of +improving conversation and undeviating regularity. Breakfast to the +minute; the kettle to stand always on the same spot on the stove; the +potato pan on another. Your boots must be put in exactly the same +corner." + +"It's unthinkable," laughed Mrs. Hunter. "We once had him here for a day +or two. But what was the particular cause of trouble?" + +Her husband smiled. + +"House cleaning, I believe. Bishop undertakes it systematically once a +month in the winter." + +"Oftener," interjected Thorne. "That is, when the temperature's high +enough for him to wash the floor." + +"It wasn't high enough on the day in question," Hunter proceeded; "but I +understand that he insisted on putting his furniture outside so that he +could brush the place thoroughly, and Thorne told him to get the door +open and stand carefully clear." + +"Well?" Mrs. Hunter prompted. + +"Thorne fired the things, you see, as quick as he could lift them; first +the chairs and table, then the whole outfit of plates and cups and pots +and pans. When he got half-way through, Bishop, who was horror-struck, +made a protest. Thorne told him he would have the things put out, and +out they were going." + +Mrs. Hunter laughed and addressed her guest. + +"Did you get a bump on your forehead on that occasion? Still, I suppose +one could manage it by falling out of a wagon." + +"I didn't," replied Thorne. "For any further particulars about this one +I'm afraid you must apply at the settlement; but it seems to me that the +subject I'm most anxious to talk about is being tactfully avoided." + +"When you have so many friends up and down the prairie, why did you come +to Elcot?" + +"Your husband," explained Thorne unblushingly, "has the most money. Each +will, however, be provided with an opportunity for contributing +according to his ability. I'll borrow a team from one and a plow from +another; the man who can't spare either can lend me a mower. In addition +to this I'll have to arrange a second loan." + +"Do you mean to stay with it?" Hunter asked. + +"Give me a show and I'll convince you," Thorne assured him with a sudden +intentness in his eyes. "I'm dead serious now." + +Hunter looked at him quietly for a minute or two before he answered. + +"Then," he said, "I'll guarantee you for a thousand dollars, payable +after harvest." + +Thorne thanked him and presently strolled away to get something out of +his wagon. When he disappeared Florence turned to her husband. + +"Elcot," she protested, "you are going to throw every dollar of that +money away." + +"I'm far from sure of it," returned Hunter quietly. + +"In any case, it's only a few days since you told me you couldn't face +the expense when I said that I wanted to spend a month in Toronto this +spring." + +"I should like to point out that you spent a good deal of the winter in +Montreal." + +"Would you expect me to live here altogether?" + +Hunter made a gesture of weariness. + +"I did expect something of that kind once upon a time; I'm sorry you +have made it clear that I was wrong." + +Florence favored him with a mocking smile. + +"After all, you have stood it rather well. It's only during the last few +months you have been getting bitter; but that's beside the question. Why +are you so willing to waste on that man the money you can't spare for +me?" + +"To begin with, I'm by no means certain that I'll have to pay it. +There's good stuff in him, and I want to give him an opportunity for +becoming a useful citizen. In the next place, the line must be drawn +somewhere, and the crop I'm putting in wouldn't stand the cost of a +spring in Toronto, if it's to be anything like the winter in Montreal." + +Florence saw that he meant it and changed the subject, for there were +times when she realized that it was not advisable to drive her husband +too far. After a while he strolled away toward the stables in search of +Thorne, and a few minutes later they sat down together on the summit of +a low rise. Hunter lighted his pipe and, resting one elbow in the grass, +lay smoking thoughtfully for a while before he spoke to his companion. + +"Mavy," he said, "you are going to do what would be the wisest thing in +the case of the average man--but I'm not wholly sure it would be that in +yours. After all, there's a good deal to be said for the life you lead." + +"It will hurt a little to give it up," Thorne acknowledged. "But isn't +there something to be said for--the other kind?" + +Hunter pointed with his pipe to where the rise ran into the birches. + +"I spent my first summer as a farmer in a tent yonder, and in several +ways it was the happiest one I've ever known. I couldn't cook, and as a +rule when I unyoked my oxen after the day's work I was too played out to +light a fire. I lived on messes that would probably kill me now, and my +clothes went to bits before the summer was half-way through, but I was +bubbling over with aspirations and a whole-hearted optimism then. I had +scarcely a dollar, but I had what seemed better--an unwavering belief in +the future. It was just as good then to lie down, healthily tired, and +listen to the little leaves whispering in the cool of the dusk as it was +to get up with the dawn without a care, fit and ready for what must be +done." + +"Oh, yes," assented Thorne, "I know. They never cast a stove in a +foundry that would give you the same warmth as the red fire in the birch +bluff, and the finest tea that goes to Russia wouldn't taste as good as +what you drink flavored with wood smoke out of a blackened can. Then +there's the empty prairie with the long trail leading on to something +you feel will be better still beyond the horizon. Silence, space, +liberty. How they get hold of you!" + +"Then, what do you expect instead of them when you give them up?" + +"It strikes me that you should be able to tell me." + +Hunter smiled in a rather weary fashion and glanced back toward his +house. + +"Well," he said, "I've a place that's generally supposed to be the +smartest one within sixty miles, and some status in the country, +whatever it may be worth--my wife sees to that. The Grits would make me +a leader if I cared for politics." + +"Then why don't you? Your wife would like it." + +"I think you ought to know. We both escaped from the cities, and while +you drive your wagon I follow the plow. Men like you and I have nothing +to do with wire-pullers' tricks, juggling committees, and shouting +crowds. It's my part to make a little more wheat grow." + +Thorne looked at him with a thoughtful face. + +"I wonder," he said, "why you want to prevent me from doing the same?" + +"I don't. I only want to warn you that if you make a success of it you +can't own a house and land and teams without facing the cost." + +"And that is?" + +"Unconditional surrender. In a little while they'll own you. It's +probable that you'll add a wife to them, and then, unless she's a woman +of unusual courage, you'll find yourself shackled down to half the +formulas you have run away from." + +"Still, you get something in return." + +"Yes," assented Hunter slowly. "I'm optimist enough to believe that--but +it's an elusive quantity. I suppose it depends largely on what you +expect." + +He stood up and emptied his pipe. + +"It's getting late and I have to start again at six to-morrow." + +They went back to the house together and Thorne drove away early the +next morning. Soon after midday Hunter set out for Graham's Bluff, where +he had some business. When he had gone Florence carried a bundle of +papers out to a little table placed in the shadow on the veranda, and +sitting down before it looked at them with a frown. Most of them were +bills, which she had once half thought of showing to her husband, though +she had not done so, chiefly because the bankbook which she had recently +sent up to be balanced revealed the fact that there was then just eighty +dollars standing to her credit. As Florence seldom filled in the +counterfoils of the checks she drew, this information had been a painful +shock to her. It was evident that she had spent a good deal more money +in Montreal than she had supposed, and that she could not pay the bills, +and there was no doubt that her husband would be signally displeased. + +As a rule he was very patient. She was willing to own that, though she +now and then did so with a certain illogical irritation at his +complacency; but when it was a question of money he could be inflexible. +He had, however, treated her liberally, and to save her the necessity +of applying to him he paid so many dollars into her bank twice a year +and within that limit left her to control the domestic expenses as she +pleased. This, indeed, was what chiefly troubled her, for there should +have been enough to her credit to carry her on until harvest, when the +next payment would be made. This, however, was unfortunately not the +case. There was no doubt that she had to grapple with a financial +crisis. + +She added up the bills several times and signally failed to make them +any less, though it was now perfectly clear that it would not be +advisable to show them to her husband. Thrusting them aside, she leaned +back in her chair and presently decided, with the renewal of an existing +grievance, that the situation was the result of Elcot's absurd retiring +habits. If he would only go about with her now and then, or bring a few +smart people out in the summer, she might be able to take pleasure in +less costly diversions and, to some extent at least, avoid extravagance. +On the other hand, however, there were, as she had already realized, one +or two reasons why it seemed just as well that Elcot should stay at +home. He now looked very much like a farmer, though he had not been +reared as one, and she fancied that his rather grim reserve, which was +broken now and then by attacks of sardonic candor, was scarcely likely +to be appreciated in the world she visited. As a matter of fact, his own +relatives with whom she sometimes stayed were in the habit of smiling +significantly when they mentioned him. He had, it seemed, flung up +excellent prospects when, in spite of his family's protests, he went +West with very inadequate means as a prairie farmer. That he had +succeeded was, she understood, largely due to the fact that an eccentric +relative who agreed with him had subsequently died and left him a few +hundred dollars. + +In the meanwhile these reflections brought her no nearer a solution of +the difficulty. There was a big deficit, and she had no idea how she was +to meet it. Then she remembered that when she was married Elcot had +among other things settled a certain strip of land on her. He had failed +to interest her in its management, though she was pleased to receive the +proceeds of its cultivation, which he handed her after each harvest. +They were sowing again now, and she had heard that it was possible to +sell a crop, or at least to raise money on it in some way, beforehand. +She determined to question Nevis, who carried on a general business at +the railroad settlement, about the matter when he next drove over, which +he had said he would probably do during the next day or two. He might +even turn up that afternoon and, as Elcot was out of the way, she wished +he would. He was a man of prepossessing appearance and easy manners, and +he had now and then paid her a deferential homage which was not +unpleasant. Indeed, she had once or twice contrasted him with Elcot, and +the comparison had not been altogether in the latter's favor. + +Half an hour later he drove up in a light buggy and handed the horse +over to one of the teamsters. Then he walked up on the veranda, where +Florence was still sitting with the bills before her. Turning around +when he had greeted her, he pointed to the plodding teams which moved +down the long furrows that ran back from the house. + +"I didn't see Elcot at work with the boys as I drove by," he said. + +"He is away and probably will not be back until after supper." + +"I'm sorry I can't wait so long," Nevis replied, taking the chair to +which she pointed. "Anyway, it isn't a matter of much importance, and +I'll try to call again." + +Florence sent for some tea, though it is seldom that refreshments of any +kind are provided between the regular meals on the prairie, and then +leaned back in her chair watching him while he sat with his cup in his +hand. He was, as she had decided on other occasions, a well-favored man, +dark-haired and dark-eyed, and, as usual, he was artistically dressed. +The hat he had laid on a neighboring chair was a genuine Panama, such as +Mexican half-breeds spend months in weaving; his rather tight, +light-colored clothes were excellently cut; and once more it struck her +with a sense of injury that it was a pity Elcot insisted on attiring +himself as his teamsters did. + +"I had half expected to find you gone," he said; "you mentioned a visit +to Toronto when I last saw you. After all, if your husband can spare +you, it must be nice to get away. You must feel that you are rather +wasted here." + +This was a point on which Florence was convinced already and she did not +in the least object to his mentioning it. + +"Elcot," she replied dryly, "has his farm." + +"Well," responded Nevis, "I'm glad you haven't gone. The rest of us can +badly spare the one bright light which shines upon our primitive +obscurity." + +His hostess did not check him. The man was usually rather daring, and +she seldom resented a speech of this kind, no matter from whom it came. + +"In any case, I am not going," she informed him. "That"--she pointed to +the bundle of papers--"is the reason." + +"Bills? Permit me." + +Before she could prevent it he took them up and flicked them over. Then +he turned and looked at her with a smile in his dark eyes. + +"On examination of them I'm inclined to think the reason's a good one." + +Florence recognized that he had ventured further in the last few minutes +than Elcot would have done in a month before he married her, and, though +she was not greatly displeased, she changed the subject, for a time. + +"What did you want to see my husband about?" she asked. + +"I'm anxious to disarm his opposition to the part I feel like taking in +the Bluff Creamery scheme. I'm willing to back the experiment on +reasonable terms, but I understand that Elcot's dubious about permitting +it; and Thorne has been advising the boys to have nothing to do with me. +Rough on a man who's ready to finance them, isn't it?" + +Florence did not care whether it was rough or not. Except that she would +have liked to spend double her husband's income, financial questions +seldom interested her. + +"I suppose you wish to do it to encourage them--out of philanthropy?" +she suggested with a yawn. + +Nevis laughed good-humoredly. + +"You can put that question to your husband or Thorne. I'm willing to +confess that in these affairs I'm out for business pure and simple, +though that doesn't prevent my taking an interest in my friends' +difficulties now and then." He tapped the bills with his fingers. "You +are at present short of three hundred dollars?" + +"I'm short of nine hundred," corrected Florence with candor. + +The next question was difficult. In fact, it was one that could not well +be put directly, and the man's voice became judiciously sympathetic. + +"Wheat sold badly last fall, and Elcot has, no doubt, his share of +worries?" he suggested. "You naturally wouldn't like to add to them?" + +They looked at each other and Florence was quite aware that he would go +a little farther as soon as he had ascertained whether she had any +intention of mentioning the deficit to her husband. She also recognized +that the fact that she had drawn his attention to the bills would make +this seem improbable. + +"I'm not sure that I'm so unselfish," she said with a laugh. "In any +case, I'm independent; I don't care to bother other people with my +troubles." + +The man leaned forward, looking at her as though begging a favor. + +"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that such a course might be a +little rough on some of them. Do you never make an exception?" + +"I haven't done so yet." + +"Then," said Nevis eagerly, "if you'll try it in this instance I'll tell +you what I'll do. The thing's in my line of business and I'll find those +nine hundred dollars for you." + +Florence sat silent, watching him for a few moments. She meant to agree, +and though she quite realized that general opinion would have regarded +this as tantamount to placing herself in the man's power, that did not +trouble her. She had never yet been in any man's power and she did not +intend to be. + +"Well," she consented at length; "but it mustn't be a favor." + +Nevis tactfully declared that it could be done on a purely business +footing, with which object he suggested, after a few judicious +questions, that she should give him an order for the delivery of so many +bushels of wheat after harvest, which she did. That the document was +most informal and merely scribbled on a half-sheet of note-paper did not +seem to concern him. Then he wrote her out a check. + +"I don't mind saying that I'm going to make eight per cent. out of you, +which is enough to content me," he explained. "You see, I never let an +opportunity go by." + +Florence made no comment. Whether or not he would continue to be content +with the mere interest on the money was a question with which she would +be competent to deal when it arose. + +In a few minutes he prepared to take his departure. He bowed over her +hand in a manner that was not common on the prairie, and she watched him +with a meaning smile when he drove away. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A FIT OF TEMPER + + +It was two days later that Nevis led his worn-out horse up the side of +one of the deep ravines which every here and there wind through the +prairie. It was then about the middle of the afternoon and almost +unpleasantly hot in the sheltered hollow. The crest of it shut out the +wind that swept the open levels, and the sunshine struck down between +the birches, which were just then unfolding lace-like streamers of tiny +leaves. There were no other trees except the willows wrapped in a bright +emerald flush along the banks of a little creek. + +Nevis felt unpleasantly weary. Although a man of fine proportions, he +did not care for physical exertion and avoided it as far as possible; +but the commercial instinct was strong in him and he had driven a long +way in pursuit of money during the last few days. It was supposed that +he picked up a good deal of it in the most unlikely as well as the more +obvious places, for he was troubled by few scruples and was endued with +the faculty of getting money. He was a young man, evidently of excellent +education, though nobody seemed to know where he had received it or +where he came from. Beginning as an implement dealer and general +mortgage broker on a humble scale two or three years earlier, he had +extended his field of operations rapidly. + +It appears to be an unfortunate fact that the grip of the money-lender +is firmly fastened on the small agriculturalist in many countries, and, +strange to say, perhaps more particularly in those where the soil he +tills is his own. In the new wheat-lands of the West the possessions of +the small farmers and ranchers on both sides of the frontier are as a +rule mortgaged to the hilt, or at least they were a few years ago. They +lived, and no more, for when the seasons vouchsafed them a bountiful +harvest, storekeeper, land agency man, or mortgage jobber usually swept +the proceeds into his coffer. It must, nevertheless, be said that many a +man would be forced to abandon the struggle after an untimely frost in +fall without the money-lender's help, and that the latter has often to +face a serious hazard which varies with the weather. + +Nevis was half-way up the slope when his jaded horse refused to go on, +and he sat down on a fallen birch, wondering where he could borrow +another one or, if this were not possible, how he could reach the +settlement. He was then, he supposed, eight or nine miles from the +nearest farm, and it seemed very probable that even if he succeeded in +reaching it every horse would be engaged in plowing. He had no +provisions with him, and he had eaten nothing since breakfast that +morning. He was unpleasantly conscious of this fact, for he usually +lived well. + +A few minutes later a drumming of hoofs fell across the birches from the +plain above, and he saw a team swing over the brink of the declivity. +For a moment or two the horses disappeared among the trees, but by the +rapid beat of hoofs which mingled with the rattle of wheels they seemed +to be coming down at a gallop. Nevis was aware that the prairie farmers +as a rule wasted very little time in breaking young horses, but +harnessed them to plow or wagon as soon as they were amenable to any +control at all. + +As the team above broke out furiously from among the trees a hoarse +shout reached him directing him to pull his buggy clear; but he decided +to let it stay exactly where it was. He fancied that the driver, who +could not get by, could stop his team if he made a determined effort, +and this surmise proved correct, for a minute or two later Thorne, +braced backward on the driving-seat, looked down at him with a wrathful +face. + +"What did you stop me for? Couldn't you get out of the way?" he asked. + +"Why were you driving at that breakneck pace?" + +"A jack-rabbit bolted right under Volador's feet. I'll get on again if +you'll move your buggy." + +Nevis sat still. + +"Are you open to earn a few dollars?" + +"It depends," replied Thorne, "on what I'm expected to do and whom +they're coming from." + +"I'm anxious to get hold of somebody who'll drive me to the settlement. +This horse is played out." + +"In that case I'm not open. I'm too busy." + +"I'll give you your own price for your time. It will probably pay you +better than--selling mirrors." + +Thorne noticed the half-contemptuous stress upon the last words. + +"You should have been content with the reason I offered," he retorted. +"As you were not, I'll give you another; I'm not a very particular +person, but I shouldn't like to touch your money." + +Nevis stood up with a laugh of half-veiled malevolence. + +"Do you think that kind of thing is wise?" + +"I haven't troubled to ask myself the question. I've never been +remarkably prudent, and when I saw that you meant to hold me up my first +impulse was to drive smash into your buggy. It was only out of regard +for the horses that I didn't do so." + +"Is there any particular reason for this gratuitous insolence?" + +"There are two," explained Thorne. "In the first place, I don't like +being stopped on an open trail; and in the next, I've spent the last few +days borrowing things for a friend of mine whom you pitched out on to +the prairie with his wife and child." + +Nevis smiled. + +"I might have guessed it was something of that kind. You're rudimentary +and haven't the crudest notion of what you have up against you. It would +be about as sensible for one of your horses to start kicking because it +didn't like your style of driving." + +"That," returned Thorne, "is just where you're wrong. I've no complaint +against human nature in general or the way this country's run. My +dislikes are concentrated on a few particularly obnoxious people who +live in it, of whom you're one. You're a discredit even to the +profession which you follow." + +"It's not as dangerous to the people I deal with as yours is," Nevis +retorted. + +"We'll let that pass. I've already stopped here talking with you longer +than I care about. Will you pull your buggy out of the way?" + +Nevis felt a strong inclination to let the buggy remain where it stood. +It was galling to be spoken to in that fashion by a wandering pedler, +and even more annoying to be left stranded nine miles from anywhere +with a worn-out horse; but a glance at the lean, determined face of the +man on the driving-seat of the wagon decided him, and he drew his rig +aside. Then Thorne looked down again. + +"There's one thing you can do, and that's to unyoke the beast and hobble +it, and then strike for Taylor's on your feet," he advised. "The walk +will probably do you good, if only by convincing you that it doesn't pay +to drive a horse to the verge of exhaustion." + +He swung his whip, and the team plunged forward down the declivity with +the wagon jolting and rattling behind them. Two or three hours later he +pulled up in front of Farquhar's homestead, where, as he informed its +owner, he meant to stay the night; and when the dusk was closing in he +sat with the others on the stoop. + +"Did you meet anybody on the trail?" Mrs. Farquhar asked. + +"Nevis," answered Thorne genially. "I believe I insulted him. Anyway, I +meant to, but he's tough in the hide, and I'm half afraid I wasn't quite +up to my usual form." + +"But why did you want to insult him?" + +"Well," replied Thorne, with an air of reflection, "I think it was his +clothes that irritated me." + +"His clothes?" Alison broke in. + +Thorne turned to her with a smile. + +"Yes," he said; "unreasonable, isn't it? Still, you see, the man was so +immaculately neat, from his tie, which was a marvel, to his very elegant +pointed shoes. I dare say he'll find them most uncomfortable before he +has walked nine miles in them." + +"But why should that annoy you?" + +"If you mean the thought of his limping across the prairie for miles +and getting very hot and dusty, it certainly didn't. If you mean his +apparel, too much neatness always acts as a red rag on me, and in this +case the manner in which he was got up seemed symbolical. It hinted that +only the best of everything would content him, and that he meant to get +it, no matter what it cost anybody else. There was his horse, for +instance, played out, foul with dust, and thirsty--with a creek close +by. He'd driven the poor brute almost to death the last few days sooner +than cut out a single visit to any one he wanted to see about the +creamery." + +"We have got to head him off that scheme," declared Farquhar; and his +wife joined in again. + +"Haven't you some other grievance against him?" + +"If another one is needed, there's Langton's case," answered Thorne. +"The man's a crank, of course, which is partly why I like him, and he +has some eccentric notions about farming; but he has paid Nevis his +interest for quite a while, besides buying everything he used from him +at double prices, and now the first time the money's not forthcoming +he's sold up. Nevis turned him out, with his wife still ailing, and the +child." + +Mrs. Farquhar started with a flush of indignation in her face. + +"It's the first I've heard of it. Why didn't you send us word?" + +"Langton's rather out of your district, and the boys have fixed him up. +They got a few things together, and he's camped in a tent on Government +land. I believe they're going to build him a sod and birchpole house." + +"I suppose," interjected Farquhar, "you were somewhere about?" + +"That's certain," laughed his wife. "Who went round and got the tent and +the other things you mentioned, Mavy?" + +Thorne smiled. + +"As soon as they heard of it, the boys brought them in." + +Alison cast a quick glance at him. He was quite devoid of +self-consciousness, and it was evident that he took the thing lightly; +but she fancied that there were strong chivalrous impulses in this +humorous vagabond which would on due occasion lead him to ride a +reckless tilt against overwhelming odds in the cause of the helpless and +oppressed. Her heart warmed toward him, as it had done once or twice +before, but she said nothing, and it became evident that Mrs. Farquhar +shared the thought that was in her mind. + +"Mavy," she cautioned, "I'm afraid you'll get yourself hurt some day by +doing more than is wise or needful. Nobody could find fault with you for +helping Langton, but you should have stopped at that. Insulting men like +Nevis just because they dress well, or for other reasons, is apt to lead +to trouble." + +Then Farquhar broke in, and Alison recognized that he meant to follow +his wife's lead. + +"It was Langton's misfortune that he wouldn't fall into line," he said. +"If he had, he wouldn't have been forced to borrow money from Nevis. For +instance, what has the electrical tension in the atmosphere he used to +fret about to do with one's harrowing, anyway, unless it brings down +rain, and why must he cut his prairie hay two or three weeks after all +his neighbors have theirs in?" + +"He says he likes it thoroughly ripened," Thorne answered with a laugh. +"Still, I can't see why a man should be hounded down because he won't do +exactly what everybody else does. What do you think, Miss Leigh?" + +"It's rather a pity, but I'm afraid men of that kind generally have to +pay," replied Alison. "That is, unless they're very strong and +fortunate, and then they lead. What was supposed to be a craze of theirs +becomes a desirable custom, and the others humbly copy them." + +"And if the others won't?" questioned Farquhar. + +"Even then, it's perhaps just as well there are a few men with the +courage of their convictions who will couch the lance in the face of any +opposition that can be brought against them, and ride right home. There +must be something in their fancies, and the stir they make clears the +air. Stagnation's unwholesome." + +Mrs. Farquhar regarded her severely. + +"You shouldn't encourage him. It's quite superfluous. He'd charge a +locomotive any day with pleasure," she said. + +"Well," laughed Thorne, "you will no doubt be consoled to hear that I've +come into line. There are now one hundred and sixty acres of virgin +prairie recorded in my name, and I believe a carload of sawed lumber and +general fixings will arrive at the station in the next few days. When +they do, I'll borrow your wagon and hired man to haul them out, though +I'll have to camp in a tent until I get my first crop in." + +Farquhar and his wife looked astonished, and both laughed when he +gravely reproached them for not believing that he would carry out the +project which he had already mentioned. Then the two men strolled away +toward the barn together, and Alison was left with Mrs. Farquhar. The +prairie was wrapped in shadow now, and a half-moon was rising above its +eastern rim. It was very still, and there was a wonderful freshness in +the chilly air. Looking out upon the vast sweep of dusky grass, it +seemed to Alison that this wide country gave one clearness of vision and +breadth of character. + +"Does Thorne really mean to turn farmer?" she asked at length. + +"It looks as if he does," answered Mrs. Farquhar. "Why shouldn't he?" + +"I can't think of any reason," replied Alison. "Still, it isn't what I +should have anticipated. What can have influenced him?" + +"I have a suspicion that he means to get married. He couldn't expect his +wife to set up housekeeping in a wagon, though, for that matter, I don't +know whether he lives in the vehicle or camps on the ground beside it." + +Alison knew, however, and on the whole she was glad that it was too dark +for her companion to see her face clearly. It was, for no very +ostensible reason, not exactly pleasant to think of Thorne's getting +married at all. The idea of his being willing to contemplate marriage, +so to speak, in the abstract, as the men who went to Winnipeg for their +wives did, was repugnant to her, and the alternative possibility that he +had somebody in particular in view already afforded her no great +consolation. + +"I suppose he wouldn't have very much trouble if that was his idea," she +said with a trace of disdain. + +"No," responded Mrs. Farquhar; "there would be very little trouble in +Leslie Thorne's case. Whatever that man may lack it won't be the love of +women." + +It occurred to Alison that there was truth in this. She could even +confess that the man's light-hearted manner, his whimsical generosity +and his daring appealed to her. + +"He doesn't seem to get on very well with Florence Hunter," she said +reflectively. + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed. + +"I think I may tell you a secret which Mavy has never guessed. He could +have got on a good deal better with Mrs. Hunter had he been anxious to, +and she hasn't forgiven him because he didn't realize it." + +Alison started, and a warmth crept into her face, but her hostess +proceeded: + +"I don't mean very much by that. Mrs. Hunter merely wished +to--annex--him; to command his respectful homage, which he was quite +ready to pay her as Elcot's wife, though that wasn't quite what she +intended. There's an unpleasant streak in that woman's nature." + +Alison sat silent a moment or two, for she was forced to confess that +this sounded correct. + +"But Florence can have no complaint against her husband," she objected. +"He seems to indulge her and treat her generously." + +"That's half the trouble," was the answer. "Some day she'll wear his +patience out, and then he'll take the other way--and they'll get on +better afterward. However, that's a matter that doesn't concern us." She +paused a moment, with a smile. "Anyway, I'm glad you decided to come to +me." + +"Thank you," said Alison quietly. + +She had never regretted her choice. The work she had undertaken was +certainly not what she had expected to do when she came to Canada, and +she smiled as she remembered the indignation her mother had expressed +concerning it in her last letter; but her duties were not unpleasant, +and she was growing fond of the unassuming but very sensible people with +whom she dwelt. Their view was narrowed by no prejudices, and they +disdained pretense; they toiled with cheerful courage and were as +cheerfully willing to hold out an open hand to the stranger and the +unfortunate. The latter fact was once more made evident when Farquhar, +followed by Thorne, strolled up to the door. + +"I think I'll start off at sunup and drive over to see how Langton's +getting on," he said. "I couldn't very well be back the same night, but +you'll have Miss Leigh with you." + +"Of course," assented his wife, smiling. "It was only yesterday that you +declared you didn't know how you were going to get through with the +sowing. I suppose you'll want to take a few things along with you?" + +Thorne produced a strip of paper and handed it to her. + +"I can't always trust my memory," he explained. + +They went into the house, where a light was already burning, and Mrs. +Farquhar glanced at the paper with a smile. + +"Well," she said, "I suppose I can manage to let you have about half of +what you ask for." Then she turned to Alison. "As soon as he mentioned +the matter I expected this." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE RAISING + + +One afternoon when the prairie was flooded with sunshine and sprinkled +with a flush of tender green, Farquhar drove his wife and Alison up to +Thorne's new holding. A tent with loose curtain flapping in the breeze +stood on a slight rise, with sundry piles of boards and framed timber +lying on the grass about it, while Thorne and a young lad stood beside a +fire above which a four-gallon coal-oil can hung boiling. His face was +smutted and there was grime on his hands; while near him smoke was +issuing from a beehive-shaped mass of soil which Mrs. Farquhar informed +Alison was an earth oven. + +The girl waited behind a few moments when her companions greeted Thorne, +looking about her with some curiosity. An oblong of shattered clods, +almost hidden by the fresh green blades of oats, stretched across the +foreground, and beyond it there was the usual vast sweep of grass. On +one side of the plowed land, however, a thin birch bluff in full leaf +straggled up the rise, and a little creek of clear water wound through a +deep hollow not far away. The situation, she decided, was an attractive +one. Then she glanced at the piles of timber, which seemed to be +arranged in carefully planned order, and surmised from the quantity of +sawdust strewed among the grass that a good deal of work had been done +on it by somebody. There was also a row of birch logs, evidently +obtained from the bluff, with notches cut in them, and a heap of thin +strips of wood which had a sweet resinous smell. These were red-cedar +roofing shingles from British Columbia. + +Alison strolled forward and joined the group about the fire. + +"It will be a couple of hours yet before the boys turn up; and, +considering everything, it's just as well," Thorne was explaining. +"Still, the bread ought to be ready, and I'd be glad if somebody would +get it out to cool. I want the oven for the chickens." + +"Where are they?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired. + +Thorne suddenly stooped over the big coal-oil can. + +"I was almost forgetting them; they're here. Dave should have fished +them out some time ago." + +Alison glanced into the improvised cauldron and saw to her astonishment +what looked like a mass of bedraggled fowls. + +"Oh," she cried, "have you boiled them with their feathers on?" + +"Well," replied Thorne, somewhat ruefully, "I certainly didn't mean to. +In fact, I put them in to bring their feathers off, though I've hitherto +generally done it beneath the blow-down valve of a thrashing engine." + +He turned to his young companion. + +"Be quick! Fish them out!" + +The lad did it with a strip of shingle, and when a number of dripping +birds were strewed upon the grass Alison was more astonished still. + +"Where have their heads gone?" she exclaimed. + +"I'll leave Dave to tell you that; I believe it's his first attempt at +dressing fowls," chuckled Thorne. "I just sent his employer word that I +wanted chickens, and this is how they were brought." + +The lad colored, for he was very young. + +"Jackson drove off as soon as he'd told Stepney and me to get them," he +explained. "We're both of us just out from Toronto, and we didn't know +how to set about the thing." He paused and looked at Alison. "I don't +mind admitting that neither of us enjoyed it, but it had to be done." + +"I must add that he told me he made Stepney use the ax," laughed Thorne. + +"I had to hold them, anyway--and that wasn't very much better," retorted +the lad. + +Thorne turned to Farquhar. + +"You'll have to pluck; I dare say Mrs. Farquhar and Miss Leigh will get +out the bread and what crockery there is. The boys will probably bring +some plates and things along with them; that is, if they're wise." + +He moved away and Alison sat down on the grass and laughed. + +"I believe he can cook better than I can, but he's primitive in some +respects," she commented. "Shall we all have to use the same things if +the boys don't bring the cups?" + +"Oh, no," Mrs. Farquhar assured her. "He'll no doubt provide a few old +fruit cans. Anyway, you must not expect too much of him. He has been +working his fingers off for the last six weeks, and as there has been +moonlight lately it's very probable that he has cut himself down to an +hour or two's sleep. Perhaps you haven't noticed that it shows on him." + +As a matter of fact, Alison had done so. She had seen very little of +Thorne for the last few weeks, and now it struck her that his face was +leaner and browner than it had been and that there were signs of tension +in his eyes. Then she glanced at the strip of plowed land and the piles +of timber. + +"Has he done all that?" she asked. + +"Most of it, anyway. Some of the boys helped him when they could, which +wasn't very often. I believe he has done about twice as much as Harry +considered possible. I've an idea that Mavy is going to open his +neighbors' eyes." + +Alison glanced at the empty prairie and wondered where the neighbors +lived; but just them Mrs. Farquhar called her to the oven, which she +opened with a spade, and they raked out several big and somewhat +blackened loaves. After that, they proceeded to the tent and busied +themselves laying out the provisions it contained. + +It was an hour or two later when the guests arrived in dusty rigs of +various kinds and different stages of decrepitude, and Alison noticed +that those who were accompanied by their wives and daughters also +brought baskets with them. They were evidently acquainted with the +limitations of bachelor housekeeping. For the most part, however, the +new arrivals were young men, deeply bronzed and wiry, though one, whom +they seemed to regard as leader, had a lined face and grizzled hair. He +gathered them round him when the horses had been unyoked and tethered. + +"Boys," he said, "you haven't come here just for fun, though you're +going to get that later. In the first place you have to earn your +supper." He turned to Thorne. "Will you send us to our places and tell +us what to do?" + +"No," replied Thorne; "I'd rather leave the thing to the best man on +the ground. I'll take my orders from him and stand in among the crowd." + +The elder man made a sign of acquiescence, for he now knew where he +stood and etiquette was satisfied. He and Thorne walked round and +examined the piles of timber. Then he sent the men to their places; one +with a hammer here, two or three with long, steel-shod poles there, +another with a saw at a corner, and the rest spread out in a row. + +"Now," he directed, "if you're ready we'll get the house on end. The +girls are watching you!" + +They went at the work with a rush, and the little oblong marked out upon +the prairie sod became alive with toiling figures. Tall birch posts rose +as by magic, with struggling men thrusting with the long pike-poles +beneath them; stringers, plates and ties seemed to fly into place; and +Alison, sitting on the grass with Mrs. Farquhar, wondered as the +skeleton of the house grew moment by moment before her eyes. She had +never thought it possible that a dwelling could be built in a night; but +the men were clearly on their mettle, and they worked with an almost +bewildering activity. They were on the ground one minute, hauling +ponderous masses of timber, and the next climbing among the framing; +were standing with one foot on a slender beam, or crawling along another +on hands and knees. There was a constant thudding of ax-heads on wooden +pegs, a sharper ringing of hammers on heavy nails; curt orders broke +through the clatter of boards and the persistent crunch of saws. Still, +there seemed to be no confusion. Each man knew exactly what to do, for, +though houses are by no means invariably raised in this fashion on the +prairie, some of the men had learned their work in the bush of +Michigan, and some in Ontario. When the hammers clattered more furiously +and the skeleton became partly clothed, there were cries of +encouragement from the women. + +"Jake will have that plate pinned down before your spikes are in!" +called one. + +"Are you going to let the boys from across the creek get ahead of you?" +protested another. + +A third ran forward with both hands full of nails. + +"They're catching you up!" she shouted. "Get them in! I can't have the +laugh put on my man." + +Husband, sweetheart and brother responded gallantly, and the pace became +faster still, until at length Thorne shouted and waved his hand. + +"We're through. It's time to quit," he said. "You've done 'most twice as +much as I ever figured on your getting in to-night." + +They had worked willingly, but it was evident that most of them were as +willing to stop. Hammers, saws, and axes were flung together, and the +men stood in groups, hot and gasping, in the early dusk. Thorne walked +up to their leader. + +"I can only say 'Thank you!' though that doesn't go far enough," he +said. "What makes the thing seem more to me is that I haven't the least +call on one of you." + +There was a murmur of denial and then they waited until he turned to +Mrs. Farquhar, though he addressed the company generally. + +"Now," he invited, "I'll ask you to come in and look at my place." + +He moved on ahead with Mrs. Farquhar, while the others fell in behind; +but it seemed that the selection he had made did not satisfy all of +them, for there was a laugh when somebody cried: + +"She has got a good man already! It isn't a square deal!" + +Then, and how it came about Alison was never sure, though she had a +suspicion that her employer must have connived at it, Mrs. Farquhar +either moved or was quietly pushed aside, and she and Thorne were left +to cross the threshold together at the head of the company. This +appeared to please his guests, for there was further laughter when +another voice cried: + +"It's the first time. Didn't they teach you manners in the old country, +Mavy? What's the matter with giving her your arm?" + +Alison was conscious of a certain embarrassment, but she moved on +quietly and shot one swift glance at Thorne. He was looking up at the +beams above him, of which she was glad, for she was wondering whether +the others attached any particular significance to the fact that she was +the first woman to enter his new house with him. Dismissing the question +as troublesome, she glanced about her and saw the roof framing cutting +black against the soft blue of the night overhead. The house, she +supposed, would eventually contain four rooms, two on the ground floor +and two above, and though only the principal supports had been placed in +position yet, she once more wondered how the man and his companions had +accomplished so much. + +"What you have done is really astonishing!" she exclaimed. "I suppose +you had everything ready, but even then you are not a carpenter or a +builder." + +Thorne laughed. + +"The fact that I can sell patent medicines to people who haven't the +least use for them ought to be a guaranty of my ability to do anything +in reason." + +"He's not quite right," interposed Farquhar, appearing from behind them. +"In a general way, the man who's smart at business is good at nothing +else. Most of those who are couldn't hammer a nail in. Anyway, Mavy +hasn't the least bit of the true commercial instinct in him." + +"Haven't I?" Thorne appealed to Mrs. Farquhar. "Is there another man +round here who could start off for a month's drive and sell out most of +a wagonload of mirrors and gramophones?" + +"No," laughed Mrs. Farquhar; "I don't think there is; but that's not +quite the point. The proof of commercial ability lies not in the sales +but in the margin after them, and you never seemed to get much richer by +your efforts. You don't sell your things because you're a smart business +man, but because the boys like you." + +The rest had evidently heard her, for there were cries of assent, and +Alison was conscious of a little thrill of sympathy when Thorne turned +to his other guests. + +"I should be a proud man if I were quite convinced that that is right." + +They assured him of it, and there was no doubt about their sincerity. A +few minutes later they trooped out again, when somebody announced that +supper was ready. There were neither chairs nor tables, and though the +dew was falling they sat down on the grass, while a full moon that had +sailed half-way up the heavens poured down a silver light on them. The +crockery proved insufficient, and husbands and wives or sweethearts +shared each other's cups, but they made an astonishing feast, for the +inhabitants of that land eat with the same strenuous vigor with which +they work and live. + +In the meanwhile Alison became interested in watching the women. They +were not very numerous, and one and all were dressed in garments that +were obviously the work of their own fingers. They were not bronzed like +the men, and even in the moonlight it struck her that their faces lacked +the delicate bloom of the average Englishwoman's skin. Their hands were +hard, and in most cases reddened; but for all that there was a +brightness in their eyes and an optimistic cheerfulness in their manner +which she fancied would hardly have characterized such an assembly in +the old country. + +Then she noticed that one young woman sat at Thorne's side not far away, +and that they seemed to be talking confidentially. She could not be sure +that they had not one cup between them, and this possibility irritated +her. The girl, she confessed, was not ungraceful, although slighter and +generally straighter in figure than most young Englishwomen, and she had +rather fine hair. It shone lustrously in the moonlight, and there were +golden gleams in it. There was also no doubt that she had fine eyes. +Alison could think of no reason why Thorne should not talk to whom he +liked, but she was, in spite of this, not pleased with what she had +noticed. + +After a while somebody tuned a fiddle, and when they began dancing on +the grass, Alison realized that most of them danced very well. Thorne +led her out once, but he seemed preoccupied, and soon afterward he and +the girl she had already noticed once more drew apart from the rest. +Alison watched them sitting out two dances in the shadow of the house, +and she felt curious as to what they had to say to each other. As a +matter of fact, Thorne was looking at his companion very thoughtfully +just then. + +"Lucy," he said, "I'm afraid what Jake has done is going to get him into +trouble." + +"I tried to make him see that, but he said as they'd seized his +homestead he couldn't stay here, and he allowed that, one way or +another, he'd paid off all he owed," the girl replied. "Nevis put up all +kinds of charges on him and bled him dry the past few years." + +"Of course he did," assented Thorne. "Still, that's not likely to count +for a great deal in his favor. The trouble is that they could jail him +for selling off those cattle after he got notice of foreclosure. What +made him do it?" + +Lucy looked down. + +"You may not have heard that we were to have been married most three +years ago, but my father said Jake must wipe off his mortgage first. +When he died he left us nothing but the teams and implements, and mother +and I tried to run the place with a hired man, but we've been going back +ever since, and Jake was getting deeper in debt all the while." + +Thorne made a sign of sympathy. + +"Now that Nevis has shut down on him, I suppose he's going away to work +on the new branch line until he can get hold of another place farther +West and send for you." + +"Yes," returned Lucy slowly, "now you understand the thing, or, anyway, +most of it. Only--" and she looked up at him with appealing eyes--"Jake +hasn't got very far yet, and we had word that the police troopers are +out after him." + +"Where is he?" + +Lucy turned and pointed toward the bluff. + +"Yonder." + +Thorne started, but he sat still again, rather grim in face, and his +companion went on: + +"He hasn't a horse. He got out in a hurry with no provisions, and if he +went into the settlement for some it would put the troopers on to his +trail." She laid a hand on Thorne's arm. "Mavy, you're sure not going to +let them get him." + +"If I'd a grain of sense that's just what I would do; as I haven't, I +suppose I must try to get him off. Well, it would be better for several +reasons that Jake shouldn't see me, but if you'll stuff a basket with +eatables I'll quietly drive a horse round toward the bluff. While you're +getting the things together I'll have another dance." + +He led out a flushed matron, and when at length he left her breathless, +only Alison and one other person saw him slip away over the edge of the +hollow through which the creek flowed. There was something in the way he +moved that aroused Alison's curiosity, and she walked forward a few +yards until she reached the crest of the slope, from which she saw him +saddle one of the two hobbled horses that browsed apart from the rest. +She wondered why he did so, but it was some relief to notice that the +girl he had spoken to was not with him, and when he moved on again +toward the bluff she turned back to where the others were. + +He reappeared a few minutes later and claimed a dance, which she gave +him, and some time had passed when a drumming of hoofs grew rapidly +louder and two shadowy figures materialized out of the prairie. Then +the music stopped as a couple of mounted police drew bridle in front of +the astonished guests. One who carried a carbine across his saddle threw +up his hand commandingly. + +"Is Jake Winthrop here?" he asked. + +"No," answered Thorne, who strode forward; "he certainly is not, +Corporal Slaney." + +"Have you seen him to-night?" + +"I haven't," was the quiet answer. + +"Then," said the corporal, "you may be surprised to hear that he was +seen heading for this bluff two or three hours ago, and that we struck +his trail where he crossed the creek not a mile back." + +He turned in his saddle and looked at the others. + +"Can you give me any information?" + +Their faces were clear in the moonlight, and Alison felt that they at +least had nothing to conceal; but the corporal did not look quite +satisfied with the assurances they offered him. Addressing two or three, +one after another, he interrogated them sharply. + +"I'll have to trouble you to lead up your horses, boys," he said at +length. + +They did it with some grumbling, and when the corporal was convinced +that not a beast was missing, he turned to Thorne. + +"You keep a team here, don't you?" + +"Oh, yes," replied Thorne carelessly, though he had dreaded this +question. + +The corporal swung round and looked at his companion, who had quietly +slipped away for a few minutes when they first rode in. + +"There's one beast hobbled by the creek," announced the trooper. "I can +see no sign of the other." + +The corporal looked at Thorne. + +"Do you feel like making any explanation?" + +"No. If you have anything against me I'll leave you to prove it." + +The corporal then turned to one of the guests. + +"You rode in. Where did you put your saddle?" + +"On the ground with the rest." + +"Can you produce it?" + +"No," admitted the man; "I may as well allow that I can't, if the +trooper has been round counting them." + +The corporal looked at him steadily. + +"Well," he said, "what we have to do first of all is to pick up +Winthrop's trail. It's quite likely we'll have a word for Thorne and you +later." + +He spoke to his companion and they rode out across the prairie. When +they disappeared, Thorne called to the fiddler to strike up another +tune, and the dance went on again. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THORNE RESENTS REPROOF + + +Farquhar was sitting with his wife and Alison on the stoop in the cool +of the evening a week or two after the house-raising, when Thorne rode +up out of the prairie, leading a second horse. He tethered the two +beasts to a fence before he approached the house, and Alison noticed +that he looked very lean and jaded. He sat down wearily and flung off +his hat when he had greeted the party. + +"I've come to borrow your mower, Farquhar," he announced. "I suppose I +may as well get some hay in." + +"You don't seem very sure about it," remarked Farquhar. + +"As a matter of fact, I'm not enthusiastic about cutting that hay. I've +been putting in sixteen hours a day lately, and I expect I'm getting a +little stale. Among other things, I'd got most of the shingles on the +house when one of the boys came along and told me I'd fixed them wrong. +Then the police have been round again worrying me." + +"Have you got your horse back?" asked Mrs. Farquhar. + +"Yes," replied Thorne, with a soft laugh. "It was found near the +railroad a day or two after it disappeared, and a friend of mine sent it +along. I understand, however, that Corporal Slaney has failed to pick up +Winthrop's trail." + +Mrs. Farquhar regarded him severely. + +"Why did you mix yourself up in that affair?" + +"The thing rather appealed to me," declared Thorne. "I believe Jake was +justified ethically; and anybody who takes a way that's not the +recognized one has my sympathy." + +"Now you've reached the point," Farquhar laughed. "On the whole, the +fact you mention is unfortunate." + +"I'm not sure," Thorne answered moodily. "Plodding along the lauded +beaten track now and then palls on one, and it isn't the least bit +easier than the other. Anyway, I only did what I had to; Lucy said she +had counted on me." + +This last confession, which he seemed to make in a moment of +forgetfulness, stirred Alison to a sense of irritation that astonished +her a little. + +"Were you compelled to help a defaulting debtor escape?" she demanded. +"I understand that is what Winthrop is." + +"If you knew the whole story you would hardly call him that," Thorne +retorted with an indignant sparkle in his eyes. + +"But he borrowed money on his cattle, among other things, didn't he, and +then sold them, and ran away when the man who lent it to him wanted it +back?" + +"He did," Thorne assented with some dryness. "I'm sorry I must confess +it, because a baldly correct statement of the kind you have just made +which leaves out all extenuating details is often a most misleading +thing." + +"How can a statement of fact be misleading?" + +Farquhar smiled and Thorne made a grimace. + +"The aspect of any fact varies with one's point of view. You evidently +can't get away from the conventional one." + +Alison was growing angry, though subsequent reflection convinced her +that this was not due to his last observation. She had sympathized with +his attitude when he had in the first instance mentioned his dislike of +Nevis; and his willingness to side with the injured against the +oppressor had certainly pleased her. In the abstract, it appeared wholly +commendable; but, in particular, that it should have led him to take up +the cause of a girl against whom for no very clear reason she felt +prejudiced was a different thing. + +"Well," she responded, "it has by degrees become evident to society in +general that it can only look at certain matters in a certain way; and +if you insist on doing the opposite, you must expect to get into +trouble. I'm not sure you don't deserve it, too." + +"That," returned Thorne, grimly, "is their idea in England, and I must +do them the justice to own that they act up to it. I had, however, +expected a little more liberality--from you. Anyway, I'm not in the +least sorry for what I've done." + +He rose and turned toward his host. + +"Hadn't we better get that mower, Farquhar?" + +They strolled away, Thorne leading his team, and Mrs. Farquhar laughed. + +"Mavy's very young in some respects. I'm almost afraid you have +succeeded in setting him off again." + +"Is the last remark warranted?" + +Mrs. Farquhar nodded. + +"He has been sticking to what he probably finds a very uninteresting +task with a patience I hardly thought was in him. Just now he's no doubt +ready for an outbreak." + +"An outbreak?" + +"I'll say a frolic. It won't be anything very shocking, though I should +expect it to be distinctly original." + +Alison made a sign of impatience. + +"Isn't it absurd that he should fly off in this unbalanced fashion +because of a few words?" + +"One mustn't expect perfection; and it wasn't altogether what you +said--that merely fired the train. Mavy has been going steady for an +unusual time, and as a rule it doesn't take a great deal to drive him +into some piece of rashness. For instance, he was quite willing to +involve himself in trouble with the police at a word from Lucy Calvert." + +She fancied from Alison's expression that this was where the grievance +lay, but the girl made no comment, and they sat silent for a while until +Farquhar came back alone. + +"Mavy's gone off with the mower--he wouldn't come back," he explained. +"In fact he seemed a little out of temper." + +Farquhar was correct in this surmise. Thorne was somewhat erratic by +nature, and any insistence on the strictly conventional point of view, +even when it was backed by sound sense, usually acted upon him as a red +rag. After all, he could not help his nature, and he had been reared in +an atmosphere of straight-laced respectability which had imposed on him +an intolerable restraint. What was, perhaps, more to the purpose, he had +been demanding too much of his bodily strength during the last two +months, and had been living in a Spartan fashion on badly cooked and +very irregular meals, until at length his nervous system began to feel +the strain. That being so, he felt himself justified in resenting +Alison's censorious attitude; though it was not the mere fact that she +had disagreed with what he had done that he found most irritating. It +was, he knew, because she had disappointed him. He had regarded her as a +broad-minded, clear-sighted girl, emancipated from the petty prejudices +and traditions which were the bane of most young Englishwomen, and now +he had discovered that she was as exasperatingly narrow as the rest of +them. + +It was late when he reached his homestead, and after sleeping a few +hours he rose with the dawn, and lighting a fire, left the kettle to +boil while he clambered to the roof to nail on cedar shingles. He could +not, however, get them to lie as he wanted them, and, being very dry, +they split every now and then as he drove in the nails. Besides this, it +was difficult to work upon the narrow rafters, and when at length he +descended for breakfast he found that the fire had gone out in the +meanwhile. He surveyed it and the kettle disgustedly, with brows drawn +down; and then, restraining a strong desire to fling the vessel into the +birches, he sat down and fished out of the congealed fat in the +frying-pan a piece of cold pork left over from the previous day. This, +with a piece of bread that had acquired a rocky texture from being left +uncovered, formed his breakfast, and when he had eaten it he went back +moodily to the roof. He had for some time in a most determined manner +concentrated his energies on a task generally regarded as a commendable +one in that country, but there was no doubt whatever that it was +beginning to pall on him. + +He lay up on the rafters for several hours with a hot sun blazing down +on his neck and shoulders while he nailed on shingles; but in spite of +every effort, things would go wrong. Nails slipped through his fingers; +he dropped his hammer and had to climb down for it; while every now and +then a shingle he had just secured rent from top to bottom. Finally, in +a state of exasperation, he struck a vicious blow at a nail which had +evaded his previous attacks, and hit his thumb instead. This was the +climax, and he savagely hurled the hammer as far as he could throw it +out upon the prairie. Then he swung himself down, and, walking +resolutely to his tent, dragged out a box containing about a dozen small +cheap mirrors. There were a few gramophone records in another box; and +after putting both cases, a blanket or two and a bag of flour into his +wagon, he drove away across the sweep of grass at a gallop. The horses, +which had done nothing worth mentioning for the last few weeks, seemed +as pleased with the change as he did. + +The next morning a man who was passing Farquhar's homestead pulled up +his team to deliver its owner a note. + +"Mavy sent you this," he said with a grin. "Guess he's out on the trail +again. He had the boys sitting up half last night at the Bluff Hotel." + +Farquhar read the note, which was curt. + +"Thanks for the mower. Better go for it if you want the thing," it ran. +"I'm off for a change of air, and haven't the least notion when I'm +coming back. I've discovered that one has to get seasoned to a quiet +life." + +Going back into the house, he handed the note to his wife, who was +sitting with Alison at breakfast, and she gave it to the girl in turn +when she had read it. + +"It's too bad, though I must say I expected it," she remarked, regarding +her with reproachful eyes. + +"If he has a singularly unbalanced nature, can I help it?" Alison +asked. + +Her companion appeared to consider. + +"I don't know which to be most vexed with; you or Lucy. He would be +quietly cutting prairie hay now if you had both left him alone." + +Farquhar watched them with a smile. + +"Mavy," he observed, "will in all probability require a good deal of +breaking in; but that's no reason why one should despair of him. I've +known a young horse turn out an excellent hauler and go steady as a rock +in double harness, after in the first place kicking in the whole front +of the wagon." + +"Why double harness?" his wife inquired with a twinkle in her eyes. + +"Well," replied Farquhar, "perhaps I was anticipating things." + +He lounged out, and Alison went on with her breakfast with an +expressionless face, though Mrs. Farquhar noticed that she seemed +preoccupied after that. + +Three or four days later Thorne sat on the veranda of a little wooden +hotel after supper. A couple of men lounged near him smoking, and in +front of them a double row of unpicturesque frame-houses straggled +beside the trail that led straight as the crow flies into a waste of +prairie. + +"I've had a notion that Jake Winthrop would look in here," Thorne +remarked presently. + +One of his companions glanced round toward the house, but there did not +seem to be anybody within hearing just then. + +"He did," he confided. "Baxter once worked with him on the railroad, and +Jake crawled up to the back of his shack at night. Baxter gave him a +different hat and a jacket." + +"That's quite right," said the other man. "I figured the troopers would +know what he was wearing. I drove him quite a piece toward the railroad +early in the morning, and I've a notion he got off with a freight-train +that was taking a crowd of boys from down East to do something farther +on up the track. If he did, he must have jumped off quietly when they +stopped to let the Pacific express by. Next thing, two or three troopers +turned up, and I guess they heard about the train and wired up the line; +but they haven't got Winthrop yet. Corporal Slaney, who sent two of them +south, is in the settlement now. He's plumb sure that Jake's hanging +round here waiting to make a break for the U. S. boundary." + +"What had he on when he first struck you?" Thorne inquired. + +Baxter told him, and he laughed. + +"Then," he declared, "Slaney's trailing a man with an old black plug hat +and a brown duck jacket; the latter would certainly fix him, as blue's +much more common. Now if he saw that man riding south at night he'd +probably call off the troopers, and they'd work the trail right down to +the frontier. As they wouldn't get their man, they'd no doubt give the +thing up, deciding he'd already slipped across." + +"But how's he going to see him, when Jake's up the track?" + +"It strikes me there ought to be a black plug hat and a brown duck +jacket somewhere in this settlement," drawled Thorne. "I'll leave you to +find them." + +A light broke in upon his companions, and they laughed; but one of them +pointed out that Thorne might find himself unpleasantly situated if +Corporal Slaney overtook him. Thorne, however, smiled at this. + +"I've been driving easy the last few days, and it's hardly likely the +police have a horse that could run Volador down," he said. "Besides, if +he should press me too hard, I could lose my man somehow in the big +bluff on the mountain." + +They agreed with this, and proceeded to elaborate a workable scheme. +Suddenly Baxter turned to Thorne, as though a thought had just struck +him. + +"Why do you want to do it?" he asked. "Jake Winthrop wasn't a partner of +yours." + +Thorne broke into a whimsical smile. Now that he endeavored to analyze +his reasons calmly, he was conscious that none of them appeared +sufficient to warrant any action at all on his part. He was only certain +that he disliked Nevis, and that an anxious girl had not long ago looked +at him with an appeal in her eyes. + +"Since you ask me the question, I don't quite know," he confessed. + +Baxter laughed, and turned to his comrade. + +"He's a daisy, sure. Anyway, I'll look round for a hat and jacket like +the one I burned. You get him a saddle, Murray." + +Thorne left them presently and drove away toward a ravine some miles +from the settlement, and soon after he started Baxter saddled a horse +and rode out to an outlying farm. In the meanwhile Corporal Slaney +sauntered into the general room of the hotel, where Murray and several +others were then sitting smoking. There was a box of crackers, a +soda-water fountain, and a bottle of some highly colored syrup on one +table, but that was all the refreshment the place provided. + +Seating himself in a corner, the corporal sat unobtrusively listening to +the conversation, which Murray presently turned into a particular +channel for his especial benefit. It was a hot evening, and he sat +astride a bench, clad only in blue shirt and trousers, with a glass of +soda-water in front of him and a pipe in his hand. A big tin lamp burned +unsteadily above him, for all the doors and windows were open, and a hot +smell of dust and baked earth flowed into the room. The walls were +formed of badly rent boards, and there was as usual no covering on the +roughly laid floor. + +"As I've often said," he observed, "the police will never get another +man like old Sergeant Mackintyre. He ran his man down right away every +time." + +Slaney pricked his ears, and another of them broke in: + +"Mackintyre would have had Jake Winthrop jailed quite a while ago. The +boys aren't up to trailing now." + +"Seems to me they didn't want Winthrop much," drawled Murray. "They went +prowling round the homesteads, worrying folks who didn't know anything +about him, while he hit the trail for the frontier." + +A third man turned to Slaney. + +"Didn't you send two of the boys off Dakota way, Corporal?" + +"We did," answered Slaney shortly. "That's about all I'm open to tell +you." + +"Two troopers couldn't cover a great deal of prairie," remarked another. +"Guess he might have slipped through between them; that is, if he's not +hanging round here somewhere waiting for a chance to break away." + +Murray saw the gleam in the corporal's eyes, and he broke in again. + +"Now," he said, "when you think of it, that's quite likely, after all. +There's three or four big bluffs a man could hide in, and if he was +stuck for a horse he wouldn't care to try the open. If he lay by a while +he might fix it up with somebody to bring him one. Of course, he might +have got away up the track, but they'd wire on to watch the stations. +Didn't you do that, Corporal?" + +"We did," Slaney answered. + +Murray turned to the others. + +"Then, one would allow that Winthrop couldn't have cleared by train. If +he'd done that, they'd sure have got him." He paused, and, hearing a +beat of hoofs, added thoughtfully, "It looks mighty like he was still in +the neighborhood." + +Something in Slaney's expression suggested that he shared this opinion; +but the drumming of hoofs was growing louder, and a man strolled toward +the doorway. + +"It's Baxter," he announced. + +A few minutes later Baxter came in, flushed and dusty, and helped +himself at the soda-water fountain before he turned to the others with a +cracker in his hand. + +"It's powerful warm, boys, and I've had a ride for nothing," he informed +them. "Been over to Lorton's place and he wasn't in." + +"He's at Cricklewood's," said Murray. "If you'd waited a little you +would have met him on the trail." + +"I didn't, anyway," was Baxter's indifferent reply; "I only met a +stranger." + +Corporal Slaney had no reason to suspect that the brief conversation +which had followed Baxter's arrival had been carefully prearranged for +his benefit. + +"Where did you meet that stranger?" he asked. + +"About two miles east of the bluff." + +"Did you speak to him?" + +Baxter smiled. + +"I didn't; he didn't give me a chance. He was going south as fast as his +horse could lay hoofs to the ground." + +"What was he like? Did you see him clearly?" + +"Well," drawled Baxter, "it's only a half-moon, and the man wasn't very +close, but I think he'd a black plug hat. As most of us wear gray ones, +that kind of struck me. I've a notion that his overall jacket was +brown." + +He sat down as Slaney vanished through the open door. In a few moments +there was a clatter of hoofs, and the men crowding about the entrance +saw a mounted figure riding at a gallop down the unpaved street. Then +Murray looked at his comrade with a grin. + +"Must have had his horse saddled ready," he chuckled. "We've fixed the +thing." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AN ESCAPADE + + +The night was still and clear when Thorne rode out of the ravine, in the +hollow of which he had left his wagon and one hobbled horse. Reaching +the level, he drew bridle and sat still in his saddle for a minute or +two looking about him. The dew was settling heavily on the short, wiry +grass, which shone faintly in the elusive light, with patches of darker +color where his horse's hoofs had passed. Ahead, the prairie rolled +away, a vast dimly lighted plain, to the soft dusky grayness which +obscured the horizon, and he knew that somewhere beyond the dip of the +latter stood the mountain, a broken stretch of higher ground covered +with birches and willows, where if Corporal Slaney held on so long he +must endeavor to evade him. + +Volador seemed fit and fresh, for which he was thankful, for it was +nearly twenty miles to the mountain, and he was, after all, a little +uncertain about the speed of the policeman's horse, though the +appearance of the beast, which he had seen in the hotel stable, did not +suggest any great powers in this respect. It was, however, not the one +Slaney usually rode, which he fancied might, perhaps, be significant. At +length he leaned down and patted Volador's neck. + +"You'll have to go to-night, old boy," he said. + +The beast responded to his voice and a shake of the bridle, and they set +off southward at a trot. The moon already hung rather low in the +western sky, and he calculated that in another couple of hours it would +have dipped beneath the grassland's rim. By then he should reach the +mountain, and the darkness would be in his favor if he had not already +outdistanced his pursuer. It was in a singularly buoyant mood that he +rode quietly on, and it was reluctantly that he checked the horse which +once or twice attempted to gallop. After the last few months of prosaic +and unremitting toil, the prospect of a mad night ride, and the zest of +the hazard attached to it, proved strangely exhilarating to one of his +temperament. He admitted that, as Winthrop was not a particular friend +of his, there was no reason why he should have undertaken the thing at +all; but he remembered the appeal in Lucy Calvert's eyes, and that and +the lust of a frolic was sufficient for him. There are men of his kind +who, in their hearts, at least, never grow old. + +He had covered two or three miles when he saw a mounted man following +the trail to the settlement, and he rode on across the trail with a wave +of his hat. He did not feel inclined for conversation, and everything +had already been arranged. The mounted figure presently sank out of +sight again, and he pulled Volador up to a slow walk. He would give +Baxter half an hour to reach the settlement and put Slaney on his trail, +and there was no use in wasting his horse's strength in the meanwhile. + +It was nearly an hour later, and he was riding slowly, a lonely, moving +speck in the center of a great level waste whose boundaries steadily +receded before him, when a faint drumming of hoofs came out of the +silence. Then he pulled Volador up altogether, and sat still, +listening, for a while, until he felt sure that his pursuer, who was +apparently riding hard, would hear him. He did not wish the man to draw +too close, but it would, on the other hand, serve no purpose if he rode +south unless Slaney followed him. It seemed only reasonable to suppose +that once the police decided that Winthrop had got safely away to Dakota +they would abandon the search for him in western Canada. + +Then something in the sound, which was rapidly growing louder, struck +him as curious, and he listened more closely with a frown, for it was +now becoming evident that instead of one pursuer he had two to deal +with, which was certainly not what he had desired or expected. Touching +Volador with his heels, he let him go, and for five or six minutes they +fled south at a fast gallop with a thud of hoofs on sun-baked sod +ringing far behind them. Then he pulled the horse up with a struggle, +and listened again. He was at length certain that the police had heard +him and were following as fast as possible. There was no cover until he +reached the mountain; nothing but an open wilderness, unbroken by even a +ravine or a clump of willows, and he must ride. + +Once more he let Volador go, and the cool night air streamed past him, +whipping his hot face and bringing the blood to it, while long billowy +rises came back to him, looking in the uncertain moonlight like the vast +undulations of a glassy sea underrun by the swell of a distant gale. +Each time he swung over the gradual crest of one, a rhythmic staccato +drumming became sharply audible, and sank again as he dipped into the +great grassy hollows. Volador seemed fresh still, which was consoling, +for there was no doubt that the sound of the pursuit was as clear as it +had been. This was a fresh surprise. + +Half an hour passed, and they swung out upon a wide, high level, where +for the first time he twisted in his saddle and looked behind him. He +could see, rather more plainly than he cared about, two dim figures, +spread out well apart on the verge of the plateau, and it was evident +that they were not dropping behind. It would, he recognized, lead to +unpleasant complications if they overtook him. He raised a quirt he had +borrowed, but, reflecting, he let his arm drop again. After all, it +might be desirable to let Volador keep a little in hand. Then he glanced +to the westward, and was pleased to see that the moon was rapidly +nearing the rim of the plain. It would be dark when he reached the +mountain. + +Volador was flagging a little when at length they swept up the slope of +another rise. On crossing the top of this Thorne was conscious of a +difference in the drumming of hoofs behind. One of the pursuers was +clearly falling back, which was satisfactory, though he fancied that the +other man was still holding his own. Then he saw away in front of him a +blurred mass with an uneven crest which cut dimly black against the sky. +It stretched broad across his course, and he struck Volador with the +quirt, for he recognized it as the mountain, and knew that he must ride +in earnest now. A mounted man would make a good deal of noise descending +the ravines which seamed it and smashing through the undergrowth beneath +the birches, and it was desirable that he should reach their shelter +well ahead of the troopers. + +The horse responded gallantly, but the beat of hoofs which he longed to +get away from grew no fainter, and when five minutes had flown by he +plied the quirt again. He was very hot, and somewhat anxious, but the +moon was now near the verge of the prairie. It was large and red, and +already the light was failing, though a long black shadow still fled +beside him across the dewy grass. + +At last he fancied he was drawing ahead, and a mad fit came upon him as +they went flying down a rugged and broken slope to a water-course, while +the mountain rose higher and blacker ahead. Stones clattered and rattled +under them, clouds of light soil flew up, and then there was a great +splashing as the horse plunged through the creek. After that the pace +grew slower as they faced the ascent; and he swung low in the saddle +when they sped in among the birches. A branch struck him in the face and +swept his hat away, but it had done its work and he decided that he was +better rid of it. + +A semblance of a trail that dipped into hollows and swung over rises led +through the mountain, though as a rule any one riding south skirted +this. Thorne had already decided that he must leave it somewhere as +quietly as possible and let Corporal Slaney go by. He could not hear the +trooper now, and this was reassuring, for he would have to stop soon and +he did not wish his pursuer to notice that the noise in front of him had +suddenly ceased. + +Two or three minutes later, however, the sound he was beginning to dread +once more reached him, breaking in upon the crackle of dry sticks under +his horse's hoofs and the crash he made as he now and then blundered +into a brake or thicket. It was very dark in the bluff; he could +scarcely see the spectral trunks of the flitting trees, and to pick the +way or avoid the obstacles around which the trail here and there twisted +was out of the question. He faced the hazards as they came and rode +savagely; but the thud of pursuing hoofs and the smashing and crackling +which mingled with it sounded very close when he reached the brink of a +ravine which he understood it was almost impossible to descend on +horseback. To dismount would, however, as he realized, entail his +capture; and setting his lips tight he drove the failing horse at the +almost precipitous gully. They plunged down with soil and stones sliding +and rattling after them, splashed into a creek, and were half-way up the +opposite side when a second clatter of falling stones was followed by a +heavy downward rush of loosened soil. Then there was a dull thud and +afterward a curiously impressive silence. + +Thorne pulled up his badly blown horse and, twisting in his saddle, +looked back across the ravine. He could see nothing but a shadowy mass +of trees which stood out dimly against a strip of soft blue sky. He +could feel his heart beating, and the deep silence troubled him. Indeed, +it was with difficulty that he refrained from shouting to the fallen +man, but he reflected that as he had now and then spoken to Slaney, the +latter would probably recognize his voice. Then he heard the man get up, +and the sounds which followed indicated that he was urging his horse to +rise. Thorne once more tapped Volador with his quirt. + +A hoarse cry rang after him, commanding him to stop, but this was on the +whole a consolation, for it did not seem likely that Slaney was badly +hurt if he could shout, and Thorne rode on with a laugh. He scarcely +supposed the policeman's horse would be fit for much after a heavy fall, +but there was another trooper somewhere behind who might turn up at any +moment. He purposely rode through a brake or two in order that the +crackle of undergrowth might make it clear that he was going on, and +then, when some time had passed and there was no sign of any pursuit, he +turned sharply off the trail and headed into the bush. It soon became +necessary to dismount and lead his horse, and finally he looped the +bridle round a branch and sat down wearily. + +He fancied that half an hour had passed when he heard an increasing +sound which suggested that two mounted men were riding cautiously along +the trail some distance away. He could hear an occasional sharp snapping +of rotten branches and the crash of trodden undergrowth as well as the +beat of hoofs. Listening carefully, he decided that the riders were +pushing straight on, and he was sure of it later, when the sound began +to die away. He sat still, however, for almost another hour, and then +succeeded with some difficulty in finding the trail. Following it back +until it led him out of the mountain, he stripped off his duck jacket +and flung it where anybody who passed that way could not well help +seeing it, and then he took out a soft gray hat he had carried rolled up +in his belt. Clad in blue shirt and trousers, he rode on slowly into the +prairie. The dawn found him some miles from the mountain and at least as +far from any trail, in the open waste. Reaching a ravine, he lay down at +the bottom of it beside a creek and ate the breakfast he had brought +with him, while Volador cropped the grass. Then he went quietly to +sleep. + +It was midday when he awakened, and falling dusk when he eventually +reached the ravine near the settlement, where he had left his wagon and +the other horse. There was nothing to suggest that anybody had visited +the place in his absence, and after making an excellent supper he lay +down again inside the vehicle with a sigh of content. Everything had +gone satisfactorily, and it was most unlikely that Winthrop would be +further troubled by the police. He did not know much about the +extradition laws, but it was generally believed that when a man once got +across the frontier the troopers contented themselves with notifying the +authorities and nothing further was heard of the matter, unless the +fugitive were guilty of some very serious offense. A good deal of the +boundary then ran through an empty wilderness, and it was difficult to +trace any one who managed to reach the settlements on its southern side. +Indeed, it was seldom that a determined attempt was made. + +Early on the following morning Thorne set out for his holding, and on +the day after he got there he set about cutting prairie hay. As a rule, +nobody sows artificial grasses when taking up new land, but as some +fodder for the teams is required it is generally cut in a dried-up sloo +where the water gathers in the thaw. In such places the grass grows +tall, and as it rapidly ripens and whitens in the sun all the farmer +need do is to cut it and carry it home. + +Thorne was stripped to shirt and trousers, besides being grimed all over +with dust, when looking around for a moment he saw Mrs. Farquhar and +Alison in a wagon not far away. A black cloud of flies hovered about his +head and followed his plodding horses, while a thick haze of dust rose +from the grass that went down before the clanging mower. He stopped, +however, and looked around with a tranquil smile when Mrs. Farquhar +pulled up her team. + +"You seem astonished to see me," he said. + +Mrs. Farquhar turned and pointed to the long rows of fallen grass. + +"I'm certainly astonished to see all that hay down." + +"I wonder," quizzed Thorne, "if you intended that to be complimentary. +You see, I rather cling to the idea that I can do as much as other +people when I'm forced to it." + +"You must have had the team out at sunup and have made the most of every +minute since," laughed Mrs. Farquhar. + +"It looks like it, unless I had them out the previous evening." + +"You hadn't," declared Alison, and her companion broke in again. + +"She is quite right. You were not here yesterday. It was partly to +satisfy her curiosity that Harry drove round to see." + +Thorne fancied that Alison was not exactly pleased with this statement, +but she made no attempt to contradict it. + +"What strikes me most," she said, "is the fact that you look as if you +had never been away." + +"That," returned Thorne, "is the impression I wished to give people. Now +that I've had my frolic, I want to forget it. It's a natural desire. On +the whole, I'm sorry you took the trouble to ascertain that I've just +come back." + +"The question is, what have you been doing while you were absent?" asked +Mrs. Farquhar severely. + +"Selling things most of the time. It's another example of what you can +do if you try. I'd given up half a case of tarnished mirrors as quite +unsalable, and somehow or other I got rid of every one of them." + +"Anything else?" + +"Well," replied Thorne with a thoughtful air, "I had a rather pleasant +ride. In fact, I feel so braced up by the whole trip that I expect I +shall be able to go on steadily for another few months, at least." + +"And then?" Alison inquired. + +Thorne looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes. + +"Oh," he said, "if any of my friends make too persistent attempts to +reform me it's quite possible I shall go off on the trail again." + +"I don't think you need anticipate any further trouble of that kind," +Alison assured him. + +Thorne turned to Mrs. Farquhar. + +"May I drive over to supper to-morrow evening? I'd like a talk with +Harry--among other things." + +"Of course," responded Mrs. Farquhar. "As a matter of fact, though I +don't suppose it would have much result, I should like a talk with you. +In the meanwhile we'll get on. It wouldn't be considerate to keep you +back when you're seized by a fit of sensible activity." + +She drove away with the clang of the mower following her and a few +minutes later she smiled at Alison. + +"He's very far from perfect, and that's probably why he has so many +friends," she observed. "I should very much like to hear an unvarnished +account of all his doings since he went away." + +Alison, though she would not confess it, was sensible of a similar +curiosity. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HUNTER MAKES AN ENEMY + + +The committee of the new creamery scheme were sitting in a room of the +Graham's Bluff Hotel one evening after supper when Nevis laid his plan +for the financing of the project before them. He had come there at their +invitation for that purpose, and when he finished speaking they looked +at one another with uncertainty in their faces. There were six of them, +including Hunter, the chairman; prairie farmers who had been chosen by +their neighbors to decide on a means of raising the necessary capital. +All of them owned a few head of stock, for they were beginning to raise +cattle as well as wheat in that district, and one or two more fortunate +than their companions had an odd thousand dollars to their credit at the +bank, which was a somewhat unusual thing in the case of men of their +calling. The venture they contemplated would not have been justified +now, for the Government has lately erected creameries where there is a +reasonable demand for them. In a few moments Nevis, a little astonished +at his companions' silence, spoke again. + +"You have heard my views, gentlemen," he said. "I'm prepared to find you +half the money on the terms laid down. It remains for you to decide +whether you will bring my scheme before the next meeting--in which case +it will, no doubt, be adopted." + +Still nobody said anything and he leaned on the back of a chair with a +strip of paper in one hand, watching them out of keen, dark eyes. As +usual, he was almost too neatly dressed in light, tight-fitting clothes, +and this and his white, soft-skinned hands emphasized the contrast +between him and his audience. Among the latter were one or two men of +liberal education, but their faces, like those of the others, were +darkened by exposure to stinging frosts and scorching sun and their +hands were hard and brown. They looked what they were, men who lived +very plainly and spent their days in unremitting toil. Two, indeed, wore +old, soil-stained jackets over their coarse blue shirts, and there was +no attempt at elegance in the attire of the others. + +Hunter, whose appearance was wholly inconspicuous, sat at the head of +the table with a quiet face, waiting for somebody to speak, though the +reticence of his companions did not astonish him. Nevis was a power in +that district, and Hunter had grounds for believing that three of those +present were in his debt. This made it reasonably evident that they +would not care to offend a man who was generally understood to be an +exacting creditor. Hunter had their case in his mind when at length he +spoke. + +"Mr. Nevis's scheme seems perfectly clear, on the face of it, and we +have now to make up our minds whether we'll support it or not. If none +of you have any questions to put we'll ask him to excuse us for a few +minutes while we consider the matter and vote on it. I would suggest a +ballot--to be decided by a simple majority." + +A gleam which Hunter noticed crept into Nevis's eyes and hinted that the +suggestion did not meet with his approval. It is possible he had +expected that some of the men would not care to vote against him +openly. + +"That," said one briefly, "strikes me as the squarest way; I'll second +the proposition." + +"Well," assented Nevis, "I won't embarrass you if you want to talk it +over. You can send for me when you want me. I'll go down for a smoke." + +There was less reserve when he withdrew, and they discussed his plan +guardedly without arriving at any decision until Hunter laid six little +strips of paper and a pencil on the table. + +"We'll vote on the scheme--the words for or against will be sufficient +without your names," he said. + +Each wrote on a scrap of paper and flung it into a hat in turn, but two +of them, it was noticeable, hesitated for a moment or so. Then Hunter +shook out the papers and counted them. + +"It's even--three for and three against," he announced. "Since that's +the case I'll exercise my chairman's option. It's against." + +There was satisfaction in some of the faces and in the others +uncertainty, which, however, scarcely suggested much regret. Then they +decided on Hunter's recommendation to raise what capital they could +among their friends, even if they had to content themselves with a +smaller outlay. Nevis, who was called in, heard the result with an easy +indifference. + +"Well," he said, "I can't complain. There was a risk in the thing, +anyway, and I guess you know what you want best." + +He went out again, and soon afterward the meeting broke up; but Hunter, +who remained after the others had gone, was not astonished when Nevis +presently strolled into the room. He sat down opposite Hunter and +lighted a cigar. + +"I suppose I have you to thank for this," he began. + +"You mean the choosing of the alternative scheme? How did you find out +that you owed it to me?" + +It was a difficult question, put with a disconcerting quietness. As it +happened, none of the committee had informed Nevis that the matter had +been decided by the chairman's vote, and he was naturally reluctant to +admit that three of them were under his influence. + +"I didn't find out," he answered. "I assumed it." + +"On what grounds?" + +This was still more troublesome to parry, as it appeared quite possible +to Nevis that if he furnished Hunter with a hint of the truth the latter +would find means of getting rid of men who might under pressure be +tempted to betray the confidence of their comrades. He was beginning to +realize that the plain, brown-faced farmer with the unwavering eyes was +a match for him, which was a fact he had not suspected hitherto, though +he had been acquainted with him for some time. Then Hunter smiled +significantly. + +"We'll let it pass," he said. "I don't mind admitting that you were +correct in your surmise. The thing turned upon my vote and I gave it +against your scheme. What follows?" + +It was not a conciliatory answer, but it at least furnished Nevis with +the lead he desired. + +"Your decision isn't quite final yet," he declared. "You have to report +it to a general meeting, and a good deal will depend on whether you +merely lay your views before those present or urge them upon them. Now, +as my proposition isn't an unreasonable one, I'll ask you right out +what your objections to it are?" + +"I haven't any--to the scheme. As you say, it's reasonable, and it would +save our raising a good deal of money." + +Nevis was not particularly sensitive, but something in his companion's +manner brought the blood to his cheek. + +"Then you object to me--personally. Will you explain why?" + +"Since you insist," replied Hunter. "To begin with, we propose to start +the creamery for the benefit of the stock-raising farmers in this +district, and several things lead me to believe that if you once get +your grip on the management it will in process of time be run for your +benefit exclusively. That is one reason I voted against your scheme, and +I'm rather glad the decision rested with me, because"--he paused a +moment--"I, at least, don't owe you any money." + +Nevis with difficulty repressed a start at this. If Hunter was not in +his debt his wife undoubtedly was, and something might be made of the +fact by and by. In the meanwhile he was keenly anxious to secure an +interest in the creamery. Once he could manage it, he apprehended no +insuperable difficulty in obtaining control; but he could not get the +necessary footing in the face of Hunter's opposition. + +"It strikes me we're only working around the point and shifting ground," +he said. "What makes you believe I don't mean to act straight?" + +"What happened in Langton's and Winthrop's case?" + +Nevis sat silent a moment or two. There was a vein of vindictiveness in +him, but he was avaricious first of all, and he could generally keep his +resentment in the background when it was a question of money. + +"Are you a friend of either of them?" he asked. + +"Not exactly; but I took a certain interest in Winthrop--I liked the +man. In fact, I helped him out of a tight place once or twice, and might +have done it again, only that I realized the one result would be to put +a few more dollars into your pocket. That"--and Hunter smiled--"didn't +seem worth while." + +"It was a straight deal; I lent him the money at the usual interest. He +couldn't have got it cheaper from anybody else." + +Hunter looked at him in a curious manner and Nevis wondered somewhat +uneasily how much this farmer knew. He had been correct as far as he had +gone, but he had, as he recognized, left one opening for attack when he +had foreclosed on Winthrop's stock and homestead. There are exemption +laws in parts of Canada which to some extent protect the small farmer's +possessions from seizure for debt unless he has actually mortgaged them. +Winthrop had done this, but the mortgage was not a heavy one, and Nevis +had afterward lent him further money, with the deliberate intention of +breaking him. When the value of the possessions pledged greatly exceeds +what has been advanced on them, which is generally the case, it is now +and then profitable to foreclose, even though any excess above the loan +realized at the sale must ostensibly be handed to the borrower. There, +are, however, means of preventing him from getting very much of it, and +though the process is sometimes risky this did not count for much with +Nevis. + +"Well," said Hunter quietly, "I'm not sure that what you tell me has any +bearing on the matter." + +This might mean anything or nothing, and Nevis, determining to force an +issue, leaned forward confidentially. + +"Let's face the point," he replied. "I want a share in this creamery--I +can make it pay. There's only you who really counts against me. I may as +well own it. Now, can't we come to terms somehow? I merely want you to +abandon your opposition, and you would have no difficulty in preventing +my doing anything that appeared against the stockholders' interests." + +"I've already made up my mind that it would be safer to keep you out of +it." + +"That's your last word?" + +"Yes. I don't mean to be offensive. It's a matter of business." + +His companion took up his hat. He had failed, as indeed he had half +expected to do, but he bade Hunter good-evening tranquilly and went out +with strong resentment in his heart. Henceforward he meant to adopt an +aggressive policy, and the farmer who had thwarted him must stand upon +his guard. This decision, however, was largely prompted by business +reasons, for Nevis had now no doubt that Hunter, who was looked up to as +a leader by his neighbors, would use his influence against him in other +matters besides the creamery scheme unless something could be done to +embarrass or discredit him. The farmer, he thought, was open to attack +in two ways--through his wife and through the defaulting debtor he had +befriended. + +When Hunter walked out of the hotel a few minutes afterward he also was +thinking of Winthrop. He found Thorne harnessing his team. + +"Did Winthrop ever show you his mortgage deed or any other papers +relating to his deal with Nevis?" he asked. + +"No," answered Thorne; "I was only in his place three or four times. Why +do you ask?" + +"There's a point in connection with it that occurs to me; but I dare say +he took them with him." + +Hunter paused and flashed a quick glance at his companion. + +"Do you know where he is?" + +"I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't want to, though it's possible +that I could find out. The trouble is that if I made inquiries it might +set other people--Nevis, for instance--on his trail." + +"Yes," assented Hunter, "there's a good deal in that. On the whole, it +might be wiser if you kept carefully clear of the thing, particularly if +Corporal Slaney feels inclined to move any further in the matter. Well, +as I've a long drive before me I must be getting on." + +He turned away toward the stables and Thorne grinned cheerfully. He had +a respect for the astuteness of this quiet, steady-eyed farmer, and he +was disposed to fancy that Nevis would share it before the struggle +which he forecasted was over. What was more, he was quite ready to act +in any way as Hunter's ally, and he believed that between them they +could give the plotter something to think about. + +It was getting dark when Hunter reached home and found his wife waiting +for him in the general living room. She was evidently a little out of +temper. + +"You are very late," she said. "I suppose you have been to one of those +creamery meetings again?" + +Hunter sat down where the lamplight fell upon his face, and there was a +trace of weariness in it. + +"Yes," he answered; "I had to go. On the whole, I'm glad I did." + +"A crisis of some kind? You haven't been increasing your interest in the +scheme?" + +"No," replied Hunter with a smile; "not in money, anyway. You will, no +doubt, be pleased to hear it." + +"I am," retorted Florence. "If you had been ready to give those people +anything they asked for it wouldn't have been flattering. You're not +remarkably generous where I'm concerned." + +Hunter made a gesture of protest. + +"I'm not giving them anything at all. Once we make it a success I can +get back the money I'm putting into the undertaking at any time; and if +I don't I expect every bit of it to earn me something." + +He looked around at her directly, for he knew where the grievance lay. + +"That's a very different matter from handing you a big check for your +expenses in Toronto or Montreal." + +"Oh, yes," pouted Florence; "the latter would give me pleasure." + +She paused and there was a sudden change in her expression. + +"Elcot," she added, "can't you realize that now and then you can lay out +money without getting anything back for it, and yet find that it pays +you well?" + +The man looked at her hesitatingly. He knew what this question meant and +he was half disposed to yield. Living simply and toiling hard, he had +treated her generously in comparison with his means, which, after all, +were not large; but he remembered that he had yielded rather often of +late and that each concession had merely led to a fresh demand. + +"There's a limit, Flo," he said. "Still, if three hundred dollars will +meet the case I might stretch a point. I suppose you are determined on +that visit to Toronto?" + +The woman knew that any further attempt to win him round would fail, +and, this being so, it seemed a pity to waste energy on him. The three +hundred dollars would by no means suffice for the purpose. This in +itself was unpleasant, but in the fact that he could not be induced to +make what appeared to be a small sacrifice for her pleasure there lay an +extra sting. It was, perhaps, a pity that she had of late given him +small cause for suspecting anything of the kind. + +"It would be better than nothing," she said coldly, and then leaned back +in her chair in a sudden fit of impatience with him and the whole +situation. + +"I sometimes wonder how I stand with you!" she exclaimed. + +"First," declared the man, and he spoke the simple truth; but +unfortunately he was not wise enough to content himself with the brief +assurance. "Still," he added, "I have other duties." + +"To Maverick Thorne, and Winthrop, and everybody in the district +generally!" + +"Well," replied Hunter, with the hint of weariness creeping back into +his expression, "I suppose that more or less fits the case. You have all +along been first with me, and I think I have done what I could to please +you--and done it willingly. Still, there are these others--I owe them +something. When I came here, a poor man, they held out their hands to +me; one lent me a team, another, when I had no mower, cut and carried in +my hay, and some came over night after night to build my log barn. I +think I should have gone under if it hadn't been for them." He looked up +at his wife with resolute eyes. "Now that I can pay them back without, +in all probability, its costing me a dollar I'm at least going to try." + +Florence's lips set scornfully. She had no liking for the surrounding +farmers. They were, in her estimation, mere unlettered toilers--simple, +unimaginative, brown-faced men who thought about nothing but the seasons +and the price of wheat. What was, perhaps, as much to the purpose, she +had a suspicion that most of them were not greatly impressed in her +favor. Now her husband was, it seemed, anxious to waste his means for +their benefit. + +"Elcot," she asked abruptly, "has it never occurred to you that you +could make more of your life than you are doing here?" + +Hunter faced the question humorously. + +"It would be astonishing if it hadn't, since you have suggested it more +than once, but the answer is in the negative. This place is paying +pretty well, and my means would certainly not keep us in Winnipeg, +Toronto or Montreal; anyway, not in the comfort with which, after all, +you have been surrounded. Of course, I might, for instance, try to run a +store, but it doesn't strike me that this would be of much benefit to +you. Would the kind of people you like welcome you as readily if your +husband were retailing hats or groceries in the neighborhood?" + +Florence knew that it was most improbable, though she would not confess +it. Instead, she decided to see if it were possible to irritate him. + +"After all," she retorted, "there is no great difference between a +storekeeper and a farmer. All my city friends know what you are, and I +can find no fault with the way they treat me." + +Hunter laughed as he glanced down at his hard brown hands and dusty +attire. + +"The point is that in your case the farmer husband does not put in an +appearance. It might be different if he did." + +Florence looked at him in silence for a moment or two. Though he had +been to the creamery meeting he was very plainly dressed; his bronzed +face and battered nails told their own tale of arduous toil in the open, +and there was no doubt that he looked a prairie farmer. Yet he was, as +she realized now and then, well favored in a way; a man who might have +made his mark in a different station, widely read and quietly forceful. +Indeed, his inflexibility on certain points, though it sometimes angered +her, compelled her deference. + +"Oh," she cried at length, "it doesn't cost you much self-denial to stay +behind. It's easy for you to be content. You like this life." + +"Yes," returned Hunter quietly; "I'm thankful that I do. It's what I was +made for. However, I don't wish to force too much of it on you, and so +I'll give you a check for the three hundred dollars." + +He crossed the room and, opening a desk, sat down at it for a minute or +two. Then he came back and laid a strip of paper on the table in front +of Florence. + +"After all," she conceded, "as I was away a good deal of last winter, +it's rather liberal, Elcot." + +Hunter, without answering her, went quietly out. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +NEVIS PICKS UP A CLUE + + +A week had slipped by since the meeting of the creamery committee and it +was about the middle of the afternoon when Nevis lay, cigar in hand, in +the shadow of a straggling bluff. It was pleasantly cool there and +scorching sunshine beat down upon the prairie, across which he had +plodded during the last half hour, and he had still some miles to go +before he could reach the farm at which he expected to borrow a team. He +was not fond of walking, but the man who had driven him out from the +settlement, being in haste to reach Graham's Bluff, had set him down +some distance from the homestead he desired to visit. Nevis found it +advisable to look his clients up every now and then and see how they +were getting on. This enabled him to sell to those who were not too +deeply in his debt implements and stores at top prices, and to put +judicious pressure upon the ones whose payments had fallen behind. + +He was, however, thinking of Hunter as he lay full length among the +grass with a frown on his face. It seemed desirable to let the man who +had deprived him of what looked like a promising opportunity for lining +his pockets feel that it would be wiser to refrain from interfering with +his affairs in future, and he fancied that if Winthrop, whom Hunter had +confessed to befriending, should be brought to trial it would convey a +useful hint. This course was also advisable for other reasons. It must +be admitted that the bondholder does not always come out on top, +especially in bad seasons, and Nevis had already decided that the arrest +of Winthrop would serve as a warning to any of his neighbors who might +feel tempted to evade their liabilities in a similar fashion. He was +still on the absconder's trail, though as yet it had not led him very +far. + +By and by he heard a soft beat of hoofs and a rattle of wheels, and +looking up was pleased to see Mrs. Hunter drive around a corner of the +bluff. He had of late been conscious of a growing delight in her +company, and, what was almost as much to the purpose, he had partly +thought out a plan of attacking her husband through her. He had, +however, too much tact to force himself on her, and he lay still, +apparently unobservant of her approach until she pulled up the horse. + +"What are you doing here?" she asked. + +"Resting," replied Nevis, rising to his feet. "I'm going across to +Jordan's place. Walking's no doubt healthy, but I'm afraid I'm not fond +of it." + +He waited to see whether she would take the hint, which he had made as +plain as possible, and as he did so a gleam crept into his eyes. +Florence had an eye for color and an artistic taste in dress, and she +was attired then in filmy draperies of a faint, shimmering green--the +color of clear sea-water rippling over sand. They suggested the fine +contour of her form and emphasized the shifting tones of burnished +copper in her hair and the clearness of her eyes. What she saw in his +expression did not appear, but she smiled at him. + +"Then if you will get in I can drive you part of the way," she said +graciously. + +Nevis did not wait for a second invitation and she turned to him when he +had taken his place at her side. + +"You haven't come back to call on us." + +"No," responded Nevis; "I saw your husband at one of the creamery +meetings and I'm sorry to own there were one or two matters upon which +we couldn't agree." + +He watched her to see how she would receive this, but she laughed. + +"I'm not responsible for all Elcot's opinions, and I must do him the +justice to say that he seldom attempts to force them on me. For all +that, I shouldn't wonder if he were right." + +Nevis was far too astute to disparage the man he did not like openly to +his wife, so he made a sign of assent. + +"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "it's possible that he was. In one sense, +he generally is. Elcot's what one might call altruistic; he has a finer +perception of ethical right than the rest of us, and one could fancy it +occasionally makes difficulties for him. Indeed, it's bound to when he +rubs against ordinary mortals who're content to look out for what's +going to benefit them." + +His companion recognized the truth of this, and, as he had expected, it +irritated her. Deep down in her nature there was a hidden respect for +the quiet, resolute man who, though he seldom proclaimed them, lived in +what she now and then considered too strict compliance with his +principles. He recognized his duty toward her and had discharged it, in +most respects, with a conscientious thoroughness; but that accomplished, +he had also recognized his duty to others, and had unwaveringly insisted +on fulfilling this in turn. There, as Nevis had cunningly suggested, lay +the grievance. It would have been more pleasant for her, and--she +confessed this--in many little ways also for him, had she stood alone +in his eyes, instead of merely standing first. There was a marked and +often inconvenient distinction between the two things. Now and then his +point of view appealed to her, but more often her pride received a jar +and she thought of him bitterly when he befriended his neighbors, as she +tried to convince herself, at her expense. She could, she felt, have +loved the man, and perhaps have made an unconditional surrender to him, +but he must first be hers altogether and think of nobody else. + +Then Nevis interrupted her thoughts with a veiled purpose, and once more +touched the tender spot. + +"Most of the boys think a good deal of Elcot, and I guess it's natural. +He has given quite a few of them a lift now and then. There's Winthrop +and Thorne, for instance--he guaranteed Maverick for a thousand dollars, +somebody told me--and now he's putting a good deal more into this +creamery scheme. From experience of their habits, I should say he must +find that kind of thing expensive now and then. Perhaps, if one might +suggest it, that is why he lives as plainly as he does. In a way, it's +rather fine of him, though it wouldn't appeal to me." + +There was no doubt that any self-denial on her husband's part in which +she might be compelled to share did not appeal to Florence either, but +she noticed the tact with which Nevis had refrained from supporting his +statement by a reference to his loan or the unpaid bills. + +"Well," she declared, "I, at least, believe in getting the most one can +out of life." + +"That," said Nevis, "is my own idea, and it leads up to the question why +you haven't gone away yet? Have your husband's benefactions made it +impossible?" + +He had at last attained his object. Florence had longed for the visit, +and had resented the fact that Elcot had not been willing to indulge her +in it at any cost. He had certainly given her a check, but, while +Toronto is a cheaper place than Montreal, three hundred dollars will not +go very far in any Canadian city, at least when one is satisfied with +only the best that is obtainable. + +"They have certainly helped," she replied curtly. + +Nevis recognized that she would not have admitted this had she not been +disposed to treat him on a confidential footing, and it was clear that +the indignation she had displayed in her answer was directed against her +husband and had not been occasioned by his presumption. + +"Then," he suggested, "if you really wish to go, there's a way in which +it could be managed; though it's an act of self-sacrifice on my part to +further such an object." + +Florence swallowed the last suggestion and looked at him sharply. + +"You mean?" + +"I could find you the money--on the same terms as the last." He added +the explanation hastily lest her pride should take alarm. + +There was silence for a moment, and during it Florence's resentment +against her husband grew stronger. She was anxious for the visit, but +had he been poor she would have given it up more or less willingly. +That, however, was not the case, for, as her companion had cunningly +hinted, he was at least rich enough to bestow his favors on men like +Winthrop, the absconder, and the pedler Thorne. Now she blamed him for +driving her into borrowing from the man at her side. + +"I should be glad to have it on those conditions," she said at length. + +She pulled up the horse presently while Nevis took out a fountain-pen +and his pocketbook, and when she drove on again she held a check of his +in her hand. Twenty minutes later he looked around at her as the horse +plodded more slowly up a slight rise. + +"I think I'll get out here," he said. "It's only half a mile to Jordan's +place; you can see the house from the top." + +There was not a great deal in the words, but Florence grasped their +hidden significance. They conveyed a delicate suggestion that it might +not be desirable for her to be seen in his company, and she was quite +aware that to fall in with it would imply that there was already +something in their relations that must be kept concealed from their +neighbors' gaze. For a moment she felt inclined to insist on driving him +up to the homestead door, and then the feel of his check in her hand +restrained her. She stopped the horse and smiled when he got down. + +"Thank you again," she said. + +"That's a little superfluous," returned the man. "It's a business deal; +but if you can spare a few minutes when you are in Toronto you might +manage to write a line. After all, I can, perhaps, ask that much." + +"I won't promise," Florence laughed. "Still, it's possible that I may +make the effort." + +She drove away and Nevis climbed the rise feeling very well satisfied. +He had got a firmer hold on Hunter now and he meant to break ground for +the next attack by picking up Winthrop's trail. In this also, fortune +favored him, for when he drew up his hired rig outside Farquhar's house +on the following evening he found that both he and his wife were out. +Alison was in, however, and when she said that they would probably reach +home shortly he got down and sat a while talking with her on the stoop, +which in the summer frequently serves the purpose of a drawing-room at a +prairie homestead. Alison had met him once or twice before and was +sensible of a slight dislike toward the man, though she could not deny +that he was an amusing companion. By and by a girl drove along the trail +two or three hundred yards away in a wagon, and he gazed rather hard at +her. + +"She recognized you, didn't she?" he questioned. "I can't quite fix +her." + +"Lucy Calvert," Alison informed him. + +"It's rather curious that I haven't seen her before, as I should +certainly have remembered it, though I had once or twice a deal with her +father." + +Alison was conscious of a slight irritation, which, indeed, any +reference to the girl in question usually aroused in her. + +"Then," she said, "if Lucy has any say in the matter you are scarcely +likely to do any further business with the family." + +Nevis raised his eyebrows. + +"I wonder what you mean?" + +"Only that it's generally supposed Miss Calvert was to have married +Winthrop. Whether she still intends to do so is more than I know." + +She was puzzled by the sudden intentness of the man's face and for no +particular cause half regretted the speech. + +"It's the first time I've heard of it," he said thoughtfully. Then he +smiled. "Anyway, she can't be very wise if she's anxious to marry him." + +Alison, who had watched him closely, fancied that his smile was meant to +cover his interest in the information she had given him. She also +noticed how quickly he changed the subject, and they talked about other +matters until at last, as Farquhar did not make his appearance, he stood +up. + +"I'll look in another time," he told her. "It's getting late, and I'm +due at the bluff to-night." + +Soon after he had driven away Farquhar turned up with his wife and +Thorne, and Alison noticed the frown on the latter's face when she +informed Mrs. Farquhar of Nevis's visit. + +"I'm astonished that you have him here at all," he broke out. + +"Why shouldn't I?" his hostess asked. + +"That question," returned Thorne, "strikes me as a little superfluous, +considering that he's an utterly unscrupulous, scoundrelly vampire. +Still, I dare say you can forgive him a good deal for the sake of his +appearance." + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed. + +"The last, I suppose, is after all his chief offense." + +Alison saw that this shot had reached its mark by the way Thorne drew +down his brows. The man, as she had heard, had a quick temper, but she +was not displeased that he should obviously resent the fact that Nevis +had spent half an hour in her company. Then, remembering that Winthrop +was a friend of Thorne's, she felt a little guilty, and when later on +they all sauntered out across the prairie, she drew him aside. + +"There's something I think I should mention," she said. "I told Nevis +that Miss Calvert was to have married Winthrop. He seemed unusually +interested." + +Thorne started and looked hard at her. + +"What on earth made you do that?" he asked sharply. "Did he lead up to +it?" + +"No," replied Alison with some reluctance, "I don't think he did. So far +as I can remember, I volunteered the information." + +There was no doubt about the man's displeasure. + +"He certainly would be interested, and I'm very much afraid you have +made trouble. But you haven't told me why you did it." + +"I spoke on the spur of the moment--without thinking." + +"Without thinking clearly," Thorne corrected. "For all that, it's +possible you had a kind of subconscious motive. You can't deny that you +are prejudiced against Winthrop." + +Alison was sensible of a certain relief, and she smiled at him. The man +had shown some insight, but he had not gone quite far enough in his +surmises, for it was not Winthrop but Lucy Calvert against whom she was +prejudiced. + +"What have I done?" she asked. "If it's any harm, I'm sorry." + +Her companion's face relaxed. He never cherished his anger long. + +"Well," he explained, "I'm afraid you have put Nevis on Winthrop's +trail, though the thing's not certain. After all, it's possible that +there's another reason for his interest." + +"And that is?" + +"He's a man with a weakness for pretty faces, which will probably get +him into trouble by and by, though he's generally supposed to be a +clever--philanderer. It's not quite the thing to abuse any one you +don't like when he's absent, but in spite of that I can't help saying +that he's absolutely unprincipled and should be avoided by every +self-respecting woman." + +Again Alison smiled. He had spoken strongly, though he had carefully +picked his words, and she had little difficulty in following the +workings of his mind, which on the whole were amusing. He had meant the +speech as a warning to her. + +"I suppose Miss Calvert could be called good-looking?" she suggested. + +"That," answered Thorne, with a trace of sharpness, "is not quite the +point. She's a girl who has a good deal to contend with and is making a +very plucky fight. Whether she's wise in being as fond of Winthrop as +she seems to be is another matter; one that doesn't concern us. Anyway, +she has difficulties enough without it. It's not easy for two women to +make a living out of a farm of the kind they're running when it's +burdened with a heavy debt." + +Alison could forgive him a good deal for his chivalrous pity, though the +fact that it was Lucy Calvert who had excited it still somewhat +irritated her. It seemed, however, that he had a little more to say. + +"In any case," he added, "I'm glad you told me." + +Then he turned back toward the others and she had no opportunity for +further speech with him. She noticed, however, that he seemed unusually +thoughtful during the rest of the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +WINTHROP'S LETTER + + +After breakfast the next morning Alison sat sewing in a thoughtful mood. +She now genuinely regretted having given Nevis the information about +Lucy Calvert, and in addition to this Thorne's reserve on the previous +evening somewhat troubled her. He had not thought fit to tell her what +he meant to do, but she was convinced that he would do something, and +the most obvious course would be to warn Lucy against any attempt which +Nevis might make to trace her lover. It was possible that the man might +cunningly entrap her into some admission that would be of assistance to +him. On the other hand, Alison realized that Thorne's task was not so +simple as it appeared on the face of it. Though quick-witted, he was, +she suspected, by no means subtle, and she supposed that he would find +it difficult to put Lucy on her guard without betraying the part that +she had played in the matter. She was quite sure that nothing would +induce him to let this become apparent. + +It was, however, necessary that Lucy should be warned as soon as +possible, and Alison decided that as she was the one who had made the +trouble it was she who should set it right. This would be only an act of +justice, besides which it would give her an opportunity for forming a +clearer opinion of Lucy than she had as yet been able to do. As the +result of it all, she obtained Mrs. Farquhar's permission to visit the +Calvert homestead, which was not very far away, during the afternoon. + +In the meanwhile Nevis had been considering how he could best make use +of the information she had supplied him, and his mind was still occupied +with the question when he drove across the prairie that afternoon. It +was a fiercely hot day, and the wide grassland, which had turned dusty +white again, was flooded with dazzling light. The usual invigorating +breeze was still, and Nevis's horse had fallen to a walk, pursued by a +cloud of flies, when he made out the mail-carrier plodding slowly down +the rut-marked trail in front of him. Nevis was quite aware that a +prairie mail-carrier is usually more or less acquainted with the affairs +of every farmer in the district he visits, and he pulled up when he +overtook him. + +"What's the matter with your horse?" he asked. "Isn't it stipulated that +you should keep one?" + +"That's so," assented the man. "The trouble is that you can't get a +horse that won't go lame on a round like this. I had to leave him at +Stretton's an hour ago." + +"Going far?" Nevis asked. + +"Round by Mrs. Calvert's to the ravine." + +Nevis decided that he was fortunate, but he carefully concealed any sign +of satisfaction. + +"I can give you a lift as far as the first place, if you like to get +in." + +The man was glad to do so, and Nevis presently handed him a cigar. + +"Do you get letters for all the farms every round?" + +"No," replied his companion; "I'm quite glad I don't; guess I'd use up +two horses if I did. It saves me a league or two when I can cut out some +of my visits." + +"Yes," agreed Nevis, who had a purpose in pursuing the topic. "One can +understand that. It's the people back from the trail who will give you +most trouble. It must be a morning's ride to Boyton's or Walthew's; and +Mrs. Calvert's is almost as much off your round. Do you have to go there +often?" + +The question was asked casually, with no show of interest, and the +mail-carrier evidently suspected nothing. + +"Most every trip the last few weeks," he replied. + +Nevis felt that the scent was getting hot. He made a sign of sympathy. + +"That's rough on you; anyway, if you have to pack out any weight," he +said. "Some of these people get a good many implement catalogues and +circulars from Winnipeg, no doubt?" + +"In Mrs. Calvert's case it's one blamed letter takes me most a league +off the trail." + +Nevis asked no more questions; they did not seem necessary. He had +discovered that somebody wrote to Mrs. Calvert or her daughter once a +week, and he had no trouble in deciding who it must be. He also +remembered that letters bore postmarks, and he had a strong desire to +ascertain where Winthrop was then located. + +"If you like, I'll hand that letter in," he offered. "I'm calling on +Mrs. Calvert anyway, and you can go straight to the next place if you +give it to me." + +The man hesitated a moment, and then shook his head. + +"I'm sorry it can't be done," he said. "It's safer to stick to the +regulations, and then if you have any trouble nobody can turn round on +you." + +Nevis was too wise to urge the point, though he meant, if it could by +any means be managed, to get the letter into his hands. + +"Well," he assented, "I guess you're right in that." + +They drove on to the Calvert homestead, which was rudely built of birch +logs sawed in a neighboring bluff, and Nevis sprang down first when an +elderly woman with a careworn face appeared in the doorway. The +mail-carrier, who followed him more slowly, stood still a moment +fumbling in his bag until the woman spoke to him. + +"Got something to-day, Steve?" + +"I've got it all right," was the answer. "Letter for Lucy. The trouble +is to find the thing." + +Nevis, standing nearer the house, waited until the man took out an +envelope. Then he stretched out his hand, as though willing to save him +the trouble of walking up to the door, but the mail-carrier either did +not notice the action or was too punctilious in the execution of his +duty to deliver the letter to him. + +"Here it is, Mrs. Calvert," he said. "Thank you, Mr. Nevis." + +He strode away and Nevis turned to the woman with a smile. + +"May I come in?" he asked. "I'll leave the horse here; he'll stand +quietly." + +Mrs. Calvert made no objections, though he noticed that she laid the +envelope on a table across the room when he sat down. + +"It's two or three years since I was in this house," he began. + +"Three," corrected the woman. + +"I suppose it is," acknowledged Nevis, who seemed to reflect. "I got on +with your husband pleasantly, and I'm sorry in several ways that our +connection has been broken off. I don't think the thing was any fault of +mine." + +Mrs. Calvert did not answer at once. Winthrop was not a great favorite +of hers, and although she had made no attempt to turn Lucy against him +she had on the other hand not altogether sympathized with the latter's +views concerning her present visitor. She remembered that her husband +had liked the man, and there was no doubt that the goods he supplied +were of excellent quality. Nevis was certainly not scrupulous, and he +had treated some of those who dealt with him with harshness, but he at +least never descended to any petty trickery over the sale of a machine. +For one thing, he was too clever; he recognized that it was not worth +his while. + +"Well," he added, "I don't like for old friends to leave me, and I +decided to look you up again. Will you want a new binder or a back-set +plow this fall?" + +"We'll want a binder," answered his hostess, who was a woman of somewhat +yielding nature. "Still, I guess we'll get it from Grantly." + +"His things are good enough, though he stands out for the top price," +responded Nevis, who was too wise to disparage openly a rival's goods. +"Just now, however, I'm rather loaded up, and the orders aren't coming +along, so I'm making a special cut. I'll knock an extra four dollars off +the list figure for the binder, and wait for the money until you have +hauled in your wheat." + +Nobody would have suspected that he did not care in the least whether he +secured the order or not, or that he had long ago decided that any +business he was likely to do with the woman was not worth his attention. +She, however, appeared to consider the offer. + +"It's cheap, and that's a fact," she said. "It's most a pity I can't buy +the thing from you." + +"I suppose that trouble over Winthrop has turned Miss Calvert against +me?" + +"You have got it," was the answer. "Lucy's mad with you. She runs this +place, and she deals with Grantly." + +This was the lead Nevis had been waiting for, and he seized upon it. + +"If she's about, I'd like a talk with her. I might reason her out of her +prejudice against me." + +"It wouldn't be easy. She drove over to the bluff, but she should be +back at any time now." + +Nevis had no particular desire to see Miss Calvert, but he had made up +his mind to wait for an opportunity to examine the postmark on the +letter, if it could be managed. Taking a catalogue out of his pocket, he +proceeded to talk about the machines and implements described in it, +until at length there was a rattle of wheels outside and, somewhat to +his astonishment, Alison walked in. He rose when she greeted Mrs. +Calvert, and noticed that there was something which suggested hostility +in her eyes when for a moment she let them rest on him. + +"Farquhar's hired man brought me; he's going to Bagshaw's place," she +announced. "I came over to see Lucy, but she seems to be out." + +Mrs. Calvert asked her to wait a little, and when she was seated Nevis +sat down again. Alison, however, noticed that he had now moved to +another chair which was nearer the table than the one he had previously +occupied, and she wondered whether he could have had any particular +motive for changing his place. Then, leaning one elbow on the table, she +looked around the room. + +There was only one window in it, for even with double casements it is +difficult enough to keep a small prairie homestead warm in winter, and +the place was somewhat shadowy. The log walls were uncovered, and she +could see the chinking of moss and clay which had been driven into the +crevices in them; and there was, as usual, nothing on the very roughly +boarded floor. One bright ray of sunshine, however, streamed in, and +fell dazzlingly across the table, upon which an apparently unopened +letter lay. The white envelope which caught the light seized her +attention, and she remembered that the mail-carrier visited the district +that day. As Lucy Calvert was not in, it was reasonable to suppose that +the letter was addressed to her, which would explain why her mother had +not opened it, and this supposition carried her a little farther. The +most likely person to write to the girl was her lover, and Alison was +almost sure that it was a man who had inscribed the address on the +envelope. By and by she saw Nevis glance at the square of paper in what +did not appear to be an altogether casual fashion, and the half-formed +idea in her mind grew into definite shape. There was a reason why he +should be interested in the letter, and she decided to sit him out. She +opened a conversation with Mrs. Calvert, and some time had slipped away +when a distant rattle of wheels rose out of the prairie. Nevis, rising, +addressed his hostess. + +"I guess that's Miss Calvert, and as there's a point or two about our +binder which I believe I forgot to mention, I'd like to explain the +thing before she turns up," he said. "I want to get on again as soon as +possible after I've had a word with her. No doubt Miss Leigh will excuse +us for a minute." + +He moved forward toward the table with what appeared to be a photograph +of some harvesting machinery in his hand, and as he did so Alison, who +remembered that they had been laughing and speaking rather loudly during +the last three or four minutes, fancied she heard a footstep outside the +open window. She was, however, not quite sure of this, and she watched +the man with every sense strung up as he approached her hostess. It +struck her that his object was to get near enough to see the writing or +the postmark on the envelope, which would probably be impossible after +Lucy arrived. + +Leaning forward a little, she rested one arm farther on the table, which +was covered with a light cloth, and drew the latter toward her with a +slight movement of her elbow until a wider strip of it overhung the +edge. She could not warn her hostess in the hearing of the man, when she +had only suspicion to act on, but she was determined that he should not +discover Winthrop's whereabouts if she could help it. Nevis's eyes, as +she noticed, were fixed on the envelope, but he was evidently still too +far off to read the postmark, and she waited another moment, watching +him with mingled disgust and anger at the means he used. + +In the meanwhile it was clear that Mrs. Calvert had no suspicion of what +was going forward, for there was nothing to show that Alison's heart was +beating a good deal faster than it generally did, or that the man was +conscious of a vindictive satisfaction. His approach had been ostensibly +careless, and there was only a faintly suggestive hardness in his eyes. +The girl sat very still, and if her face was a little more intent than +usual her hostess did not notice it. + +Alison fancied that she heard a sound outside the window again, but she +paid no heed to it, and as Nevis was about to lay his hand on the table +and lean over it she moved her elbow sharply. The next moment the cloth +slid down into a heap on the floor, and the letter disappeared. + +Nevis closed one hand viciously, but he opened it again immediately as +he turned to Alison. The man was quick, and held himself well in hand, +and she felt a certain satisfaction in outwitting him, for it was clear +that he had not suspected her of having any motive for jerking the cloth +off. + +"Am I accountable for the accident?" he asked. + +"No," replied Alison; "it was my fault." + +The danger, however, was not quite over. Alison quietly felt with one +little, lightly shod foot beneath the cloth, part of which had caught +and rested on her dress. Her shoe touched something that seemed harder +than the soft fabric, and she contrived to draw it toward her. + +"You knocked a letter off the table," said Nevis. "It must have fallen +somewhere near. Permit me." + +He stooped to pick up the cloth, and Alison saw that Mrs. Calvert was at +last uneasy. It was obvious that she did not wish Nevis to lay his hands +on the envelope. He raised the cloth, and after a glance beneath it +moved a pace or two and shook it vigorously, but nothing fell out, and +Alison quietly pushed back her chair. + +"It's here beneath my skirt." + +She picked it up and handed it to Mrs. Calvert, who laid it on a shelf +across the room. After that there was a moment's silence, during which +the two women looked at each other curiously, while Nevis, whose face +was expressionless, looked at them both. Then the awkward stillness was +broken by the entrance of Thorne. Ignoring Nevis completely, he turned +to Mrs. Calvert with a smile. + +"I don't know whether I need an excuse for this visit, but it occurred +to me that I could drive Miss Leigh home," he explained. "I was hauling +in logs for Gillow when Farquhar's hired man came along and told me he'd +brought Miss Leigh over but wasn't sure when he could come back for her. +Lucy will be here in a minute." + +He leaned on a chair, talking about the wheat crop, until the rattle of +wheels, which had been growing louder, stopped, when he moved toward the +door, saying that he would help Lucy with the team. It was some time +before he reappeared with her, and then the girl turned imperiously to +Nevis. + +"You here!" she exclaimed. "What do you want?" + +"I was trying to sell your mother a binder," Nevis answered blandly. + +Lucy, standing very straight, looked at him with a snap in her eyes. + +"Then I guess you're wasting time. While there are implements to be had +anywhere between here and Winnipeg we'll buy none from you." + +Nevis favored her with a single swift glance, and then took up his hat. + +"In that case I may as well get on again. I dare say your mother and +Miss Leigh will excuse me." + +He did not offer to shake hands with either of them, which may have been +due to the fact that Mrs. Calvert's face was now hard and suspicious, +and Alison carefully looked away from him. There was, also, a gleam of +ironical amusement, which probably had some effect, in Thorne's eyes. +Soon after he disappeared, Mrs. Calvert asked Thorne to come out and +look at a mower which she said the hired man had had some trouble with, +and when they left the room Lucy leaned back in her chair with her eyes +fixed on Alison in a significant manner. They were of a clear blue, and +Alison admitted that, with the somewhat unusual color in her cheeks and +the light on her mass of gleaming hair, the girl was aggressively +pretty. + +"I'm glad they've gone--I guess I have to thank you for what you did," +she said. "It was right smart, and I'm not sure my mother caught on to +the thing." + +"How did you know?" Alison asked in rather disturbed astonishment. + +Lucy laughed. + +"Mavy saw you through the window. The mail-carrier told him Nevis was +here, and it was quite easy to figure what he was after. That's why Mavy +hitched his team behind the willows and crept up quiet to see what was +going on, so he could spoil his game, but he left it to you when he saw +that you were on to it. Said he felt quite sure you could fix the man." + +Alison remembered the footstep at the window, but she was curious about +another aspect of the matter. + +"Why did he tell you?" she asked. + +Lucy's manner changed, and there was a hint of hardness in her +expression. + +"Well," she answered, "perhaps he wanted me to know what you had done, +and, anyway, he had to put me on my guard. Still, though Mavy's quick, +they're none of them very smart after all, and there was a point that +didn't seem to strike him. He wasn't clear as to why Nevis would try to +pick up Jake's trail through me." + +The last words were flung sharply at the listener, and Alison made a +gesture of appeal. + +"Of course," she returned, "he wouldn't tell you that." + +"No," declared Lucy; "nothing would have got it out of him. That's the +kind of man he is." She paused a moment. "What made you send Nevis after +me?" + +"It was done without thinking. I couldn't foresee that it might make +trouble. I was sorry afterward; I am sorry now." + +Her companion looked at her with disconcerting steadiness. + +"We'll let it go at that. There's just this to say--you haven't any +reason to be afraid of me. I don't know a straighter man than Mavy +Thorne--but I don't want him! Jake's quite enough for me, and there's +trouble in front of him, with Nevis on his trail." + +It cost Alison an effort to retain a befitting composure. This +plain-speaking girl had obviously taken a good deal for granted, but +Alison was uneasily conscious that she had certainly arrived at the +truth. It was a relief to her when Mrs. Calvert and Thorne presently +entered the room together. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ON THE TRAIL + + +Nevis was not, as a rule, easily turned aside when he had taken a task +in hand, and his failure at the Calvert homestead only made him more +determined to run Winthrop down. Besides, he had not failed altogether, +for he had at least caught a glimpse of the stamp on the letter, and he +had no doubt that it was a Canadian one. There was an appreciable +difference in the design and color of the American stamps. This +indicated that in all probability Winthrop was still in Canada, in which +case there would be no difficulty in arresting him once his whereabouts +could be discovered. The tracing of the latter promised to be less easy, +but Nevis set about it, and shortly afterward fortune once more favored +him. + +His business was an extensive one; he had money laid out here and there +over a wide stretch of country, and he had already discovered that it +required a good deal of watching. As a matter of fact, the latter was +advisable, for some of the men to whom he lent it were addicted to +disappearing without leaving any address or intimation as to what they +had done with the movable portion of their hypothecated possessions. It +is true that they generally had repaid Nevis a large part of his loan, +as well as an exorbitant interest for a considerable time, but then had +abandoned the struggle in despair. From his point of view, however, +neither fact had any particular bearing on the matter. He expected a +good deal more than the value of a hundred cents when he laid down a +dollar. + +One night a week or two after he called on Mrs. Calvert, he strolled out +on to the platform of a train that had been run on to a lonely +side-track beside a galvanized iron shed and a big water-tank. He was +leaning on the rails, when the conductor came out of the vestibule +behind him. + +"We're not scheduled to stop," he commented. + +"No, sir," replied the conductor. "Guess the company had once a notion +of making a station here, but they cut it out. It's used as a +section-depot and side-track, and now and then a freight pulls up for +water. There's a soft spring here, and you can't get good water right +along the line. Any kind won't do in a locomotive boiler." + +The man was unusually loquacious for a western railroad hand, and Nevis, +who had been glancing out at the shadowy sweep of prairie, amid which +the straight track lost itself, felt inclined to talk. + +"But what's holding us up?" he asked. + +"Montreal express. She's on the next section, and it's quite a long one. +They side-track everything to let her through." + +A thought took shape in Nevis's mind. The point that suggested itself +appeared at least worth attention, and he asked a question: + +"Would a wire to anybody in the district be sent to the station ahead?" + +The conductor said that it would, and added that the man in charge of +the place where they were then stopping was called up only in case of +necessity to hold a train on the side-track. He explained that although +the instruments clicked out any message sent right along the circuit +the operators, as a rule, listened only when they got their particular +signal. This had a certain significance to Nevis. + +"Is there often a freight-train waiting here when you come along?" he +asked. + +"That's so," said his companion. "We take the section if the Atlantic +flyer's late, and they have to cut out the pick-up freight if she's in +front of us. When she was standing yonder one night a little while back +I saw what struck me as quite a curious thing. Just as we struck the +tail switches a man dropped off a caboose coupled on behind the +freight-cars; it was good clear moonlight, and I watched him. He kept +the train between him and the shack behind you, and started out over the +prairie as fast as he could. Then we ran in behind the freight-cars, but +as soon as we were clear the engineer pulled them out, and as I looked +back the man dropped into the grass like a stone. Bill, who runs this +place, was standing outside his shack, and that may have had something +to do with it." + +"It sounds strange," commented Nevis. "Can you remember when it was?" + +The conductor contrived to do so, and Nevis was not astonished when he +heard the date. He decided that it would be wise to compare his +conclusion with any views his companion might have about the matter. + +"It's possible it was only one of the boys stealing a ride," he +suggested. + +"In that case he needn't have been so scared of Bill," was the answer. +"It's most unlikely he'd have got out on the prairie after him. Strikes +me the man was mighty anxious nobody should see him. Anyway, I thought +no more about the thing, and only remembered it to-night." + +Just then the scream of a whistle came ringing up the track, and the +conductor pointed to a fan-shaped blaze of brightness which swept up out +of the prairie. + +"The express; I'll have to get along. We'll be off in two or three +minutes now." + +Nevis lighted a cigar as soon as he was left alone, and by the time the +great express had flashed by with a clash and clatter he felt convinced +that Corporal Slaney had erred in assuming that Winthrop had escaped +across the frontier. Having arrived at this decision, he strolled back +into the lighted car as the train crept out across the switches on to +the waste of prairie. He had now something to act upon. + +In the meanwhile, a weary man, dressed in somewhat ragged duck, sat one +evening outside a tent pitched in the hollow of a prairie coulee, with a +letter in his hand. His attitude was suggestive of dejection, but he +clenched the paper in hard, brown fingers, and there was an ominous look +in his weather-darkened face. It was careworn, though he was young, and +his general appearance and expression seemed to indicate that he was a +simple man who had borne a burden too heavy for him, until at last he +had revolted in desperation against the intolerable load. + +A new branch line crept along the side of the shallow coulee, which +wound deviously across the great white sea of grass, and the trestles of +a half-finished bridge rose, a gaunt skeleton of timber, above the creek +that flowed through the valley. A cluster of tents and a galvanized iron +shack, with a funnel projecting above it, crowned the crest of a +neighboring ridge, and a murmur of voices and laughter rose faintly +from the groups of men who lay about them. Winthrop, however, had +pitched his camp a little distance from the others, so as to be nearer +his work, which consisted in removing the soil from the side of the +coulee to make room for the road-bed. He had obtained a team from a +neighboring rancher, and a satisfactory rate of payment from the +railroad contractor. Indeed, during the last few weeks he had almost +fancied that he was at last leaving his troubles behind him, and then +that afternoon another blow had suddenly fallen. The letter from Lucy +Calvert contained the disturbing news that Nevis, who seemed to have +discovered that he had not left Canada, was still in pursuit of him. + +Presently two of his comrades from the camp strolled up to his tent and +stretched themselves out on the harsh, white grass in front of it. They +were attired as he was, and they had toiled hard under a scorching sun +all day handling heavy rails, but one was a man of excellent education, +and the other had owned a wheat farm until the frost had reaped his crop +and ruined him. + +"You're looking blue to-night," commented the latter. + +"Well," acknowledged Winthrop grimly, "there's a reason. I've put quite +a lot of work in on that road-bed the last few weeks, but the trouble is +I won't get a dollar unless I stay with it and keep up to specification +until next pay-day." + +"Of course!" said the man who had spoken. "Why should you want to quit?" + +Winthrop glanced at the letter. + +"I've had a warning. Guess I'll have to pull out again sudden one of +these days." + +There was silence for a few moments after this. The men had gone on +well together, and within certain limits the toilers in a track-grading +camp make friends rapidly, but for all that there are unwritten rules of +etiquette in such places, and questions on some points are apt to be +resented. + +Still, Winthrop's face was troubled, and his expression hinted that it +might be a consolation to take somebody into his confidence. + +"Creditors?" one of his companions ventured to suggest. + +"You've hit it first time, Drakesford. Bondholder who's been bleeding me +quite a few years now. Raked in what I made each harvest--left me not +quite enough to live on--until I began to see that I'd have to work a +lifetime to get clear of him. When I knocked a little off the debt one +good year he piled up something else on me. Then I was short last +payment, and he shut down on my farm." + +Drakesford turned to his companion. + +"Ever hear anything like that before, Watson?" + +There was a trace of dryness in the other man's smile. + +"I have," he answered; "it's not quite new on the prairie. One or two of +the boys I know have been through that mill." + +He turned toward Winthrop. + +"How did the blamed insect first get hold of you?" + +"I'd a notion of getting married, and meant to raise a record crop. Went +along to the blood-sucker, who was quite willing to back me, and took +out a mortgage. Pledged him all the place and stock for what he let me +have." + +"Probably a third of its value," interposed Drakesford. + +"About that," Winthrop agreed. "A big crop might have cleared me then, +but we had frost that year, and he commenced to play me. Made me insure +stock and homestead in his company--and I guess he stuck me over that. +Then I had to buy implements and any stores he sold from him, at about +twice the usual figure; and one way or another the debt kept piling up." + +"Couldn't you have gone short in your payments before it got too big, +and let him sell the place?" suggested Drakesford. "In that case, +anything over and above what he advanced would have had to be refunded +to you. Still, the man you dealt with would probably have provided for +that difficulty." + +Watson grinned. + +"A sure thing! He wouldn't shut down until it was a year when wheat was +cheap and farms were bringing mighty little. Then he'd sell him up and +buy the place in through a dummy, 'way down beneath its value. After +that he'd rent it out until wheat went up and he'd get twice what he +gave for it from some sucker." + +It is possible that the farmer had arrived at something very near the +truth, but his companion, who still seemed thoughtful, looked at +Winthrop. + +"When you got notice of foreclosure I suppose you cleared out and left +him the place," he said. "How does that give him a hold on you?" + +"I sold the team and stock first," replied Winthrop grimly. "He sent the +police after me." + +The man made a sign of comprehension. + +"Naturally! But haven't you got some homestead exemption laws in this +part of the country?" + +"They don't apply to mortgaged property," Watson broke in. Then he +looked up sharply. "But, I guess you've hit it. The debt secured by +mortgage wasn't a big one, and the man piled up more on to it afterward. +The law would exempt from seizure on that." + +Winthrop considered this moodily. + +"Well," he answered at length, "suppose you're right. Who's going to +take up my case, and where am I to get the money to put up a fight? The +only lawyer in the district wouldn't act against the bondholder, and I +couldn't get at my mortgage deed anyway. It's in the man's hands, and I +haven't a copy. I got out with the price of a few beasts, and left the +rest to him." He paused, and clenched a big, brown hand. "If he's wise +he'll be content with that, and quit; but you can't satisfy that man. +He's got my farm; he's made my life bitter; brought three years of +trouble on the girl I meant to marry; and now he's after me again. Seems +to me I've laid down under it about long enough!" + +He broke off and sat silent a while, gazing out across the prairie +toward where the red glow of sunset burned far off on the lonely +grassland's rim. Iron shack and clustered tents stood out against it +sharply now, and the faint sound of voices that came up through the +still, clear air seemed to jar on the man. + +"They can laugh," he complained. "I could, once." + +Then Watson changed the subject. + +"Butler had a notion he'd try a shot or two to-morrow where the road +goes through the rise, and he sent some giant-powder along. He wants you +to clinch the detonators on the fuses and put them in." + +Now dynamite is not often used in prairie railroading, but Winthrop had +once handled it in another part of the country, and had mentioned the +fact to a foreman who was disposed to experiment with it. + +"It's no use in that loose stuff," he pointed out. + +"Butler wants to try it," answered Watson. "There's no reason why you +shouldn't let him. I dumped the magazine he sent you in the coulee. I +didn't want to lie about smoking too near the detonators." + +He walked away a little distance and came back with a case, out of which +Winthrop took what looked like several yellow wax candles. Then he cut +off three or four pieces of fuse, and carefully pinched down a big +copper cap on the end of each of them. These he inserted into different +sticks of the semi-plastic giant-powder in turn, and his companions drew +a little away from him as he did so. It was getting dark now, but they +could still see his face, and it was very hard and grim. It impressed +them unpleasantly as they watched him handle the yellow rolls which +contained imprisoned within them such tremendous powers. Giant-powder is +a somewhat unstable product, as Winthrop knew from experience and the +other two had heard, and in case of a premature explosion there was very +little doubt as to what the fate of the party would be. Annihilation in +its most literal sense was the only word that would describe it, for +there was force enough in those yellow sticks to transform material +flesh and blood into unsubstantial gases. The fulminate in the +detonators he cautiously imbedded was even more terrible, and sitting +with his bent form outlined darkly against the shadowy waste of grass, +he looked curiously sinister. He finished his task at last and handed +one of them the magazine. + +"Shouldn't there be another stick?" Watson asked. "Have you left it in +the grass?" + +"You can look," said Winthrop curtly, as he moved aside. + +Watson glanced round the place where he had been sitting. + +"I can't see it, anyway. I dare say I couldn't have brought another one, +after all." + +He moved away with Drakesford and looked at the latter when they were +some distance from the tent. + +"It's curious about that stick," he observed. "I'm not convinced yet +that I've got as many as I brought with me." + +"Why should he want to keep one?" his companion asked. + +"I don't know," Watson confessed. "But there was something in his face +that didn't please me." + +"Yes," agreed Drakesford; "I've once or twice seen overdriven men look +like that, and so far as I can remember there was trouble afterward." + +They said nothing further, and while they proceeded along the crest of +the coulee Winthrop, still sitting beside his tent, took a stick of +giant-powder from his pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +CORPORAL SLANEY'S DEFEAT + + +The sun had just dipped, and there was a wonderful invigorating coolness +in the dew-chilled air. Winthrop sat in the cook-shed which was built +against the back of the iron store-shack. Outside, as he could see +through the doorway, the prairie ran back, a vast gray-white stretch, to +the horizon, beneath as vast a sweep of green transparency. The little +shed, however, was growing shadowy, and a red twinkle showed through the +front of the stove in which the sinking fire was still burning. + +The cook was somewhere outside talking with the boys, and Winthrop, who +wished to beg a cotton flour-bag from him to use in mending his clothes, +sat quietly smoking while he waited until he should come back. He felt +no inclination to join the others, for he had grown anxious and morose +since Lucy's warning had reached him a week or two earlier. He was quite +aware that there was some danger in remaining at his work, but pay-day +was approaching and he meant at least to wait until he could collect the +money due him. After that he would disappear again if anything +transpired to render it necessary. Just then Watson looked into the +shed. + +"I guess you'd better come right out," he said hurriedly. "There are two +strangers riding into camp." + +Winthrop was on his feet in a moment, and the haste with which he rose +betrayed his anxiety. Going out, he ran forward until he could obtain an +uninterrupted view of the plain. The waste of grass was growing dim, +but two mounted figures showed up black on it. Watson indicated them +with outstretched hand. + +"Notice anything interesting about them?" + +"Yes," Winthrop answered grimly; "they ride like police troopers." + +"That's just how it seemed to me," exclaimed Drakesford. "They're coming +from southward, and if they'd left the trunk line soon after the +Vancouver train came in they would get here about now. They could have +borrowed horses from the rancher near the station." + +Winthrop watched them steadily before he spoke. + +"They're troopers, sure," he said at length. "The short one looks like +Corporal Slaney, who's out after me; and they'll be in before I could +catch either of my horses. I turned them out in the soft grass some way +back in the coulee." + +"You have got to do something," declared Watson, "and do it right now!" + +Winthrop glanced out across the great, level plain, and his face grew +set. + +"They'd sure search the coulee, and, except for that, there isn't cover +for a coyote for a league or two. It won't be dark for half an hour yet, +and they'd ride me down in three or four minutes in the open." + +This was obvious, and silence followed until Winthrop spoke again. + +"I haven't a gun of any kind." + +"That's fortunate," said Drakesford. "What do you want a gun for, +anyway? Plugging one of the troopers wouldn't help you." + +In the meanwhile, the mounted figures were rapidly drawing nearer. The +three men stood tensely watching them until Winthrop suddenly swung +round toward his companions. + +"You can tell them where my tent is, and they'll waste some minutes +going there. That's all I want you to do." + +Watson looked at him inquiringly, but he made a sign of impatience. + +"I'm going back to the cook-shed. You can't help any. Keep out of this +trouble." + +Moving away from them, he disappeared into the shadowy interior of the +shed, and his companions waited until the rest of the men came running +up as the police rode in. The latter asked a few questions which Watson +answered truthfully, and then they rode off toward Winthrop's tent. +Presently one dismounted trooper reappeared, and proceeded to search the +other tents, amid ironical banter and a few protests. This took him some +time, and darkness was not far off when he reached the iron shack, the +door of which was unusually difficult to open, though Watson, who had +visited it in the meanwhile, could have explained the cause of it. Then +the other trooper came back, and led both horses out upon the prairie. +Leaving them there, he joined his comrade, who addressed the men. + +"Boys," he said, "we're holding a warrant for your partner, and we've +got to have him." + +"Nobody's stopping you," one of them answered. "We haven't a place to +hide him in unless he's crawled down a gopher-hole." + +As a gopher is smaller than an ordinary squirrel, the point of this was +evident, and while a laugh went up the policemen conferred together in +front of the iron shack; then, after looking in, they walked around to +the back of it. They had no doubt already noticed the cook-shed, but as +it was very small and the door stood partly open, it appeared a most +unpromising place for the fugitive to seek refuge. Now, however, they +moved close to it, and Winthrop, sitting back in the shadow, became +dimly visible. + +"Come out! We've got you!" one trooper cried. + +The man did not move, but he had something in his hand, which was +stretched out toward the stove. One of the pot-holes in the top of the +stove was open, and a faint glow shone upon the object he held clenched +in his fingers. It bore, as Corporal Slaney noticed, no resemblance to a +pistol. + +"Come out!" he repeated. "There's no use in making trouble." + +Winthrop laughed in a jarring fashion. + +"I guess I'll stay a while right where I am." + +Then he raised his voice. + +"If you're wise you'll wait outside, Corporal." + +Slaney stood still just outside the door, peering into the shed; and the +trooper behind him had his carbine ready. + +"Don't be foolish, Jake. We've got you sure," he called. + +He moved a pace nearer, and Winthrop leaned forward a little farther +over the pot-hole. + +"See what this is?" he inquired, glancing down at the object in his +hand. + +"It's not a gun, anyway," said the trooper to his superior. + +"It's a stick of giant-powder. There's a detonator in it and an inch or +two of fuse. As soon as you're inside the door I drop it in the stove." + +Slaney promptly recoiled a yard or two. Having had some experience in +dealing with men driven to extremities, he knew that Winthrop's warning +was not empty bluff. There was something in the man's voice that +convinced him that he meant what he said. For the next few moments he +and the trooper stood irresolutely still, wondering what they should do, +while the motionless figure quietly watched them through the doorway. +The corporal was by no means timid or overcautious, and had Winthrop +held a pistol it is highly probable that he would have attempted to rush +him. Except in the hands of a master of it, the short-barreled weapon is +singularly unreliable, and shots fired by a man disturbed by fear or +anger as a rule go wide; but the stick of dynamite meant certain death. +Slaney had not the nerve to face that, and, besides, as he rightfully +reflected, it would serve no purpose except to nip in the bud the career +of a promising police officer. Then Winthrop spoke again. + +"You'll have to haul off this time, Corporal. Letting this thing drop is +quicker than shooting, even if you had me covered." + +"We could plug you from a distance through the shack," Slaney pointed +out. + +"That's so," Winthrop assented calmly; "I guess you could; but I'm not +sure your bosses would thank you for doing it." + +There was, as the corporal recognized, some truth in this. The police +would be held blameless for shooting down a fugitive who refused to +surrender, but after all the exploit would not count to their credit +unless the man were a desperado guilty of some particularly serious +offense. It was their business to capture the person for whom they had a +warrant. + +Drawing back a little farther, the corporal conferred with the trooper, +who suggested several ways of getting over the difficulty, none of +which, however, appeared altogether practicable. For one thing, he said, +they could wait, sleeping in turn, until from utter weariness Winthrop's +vigilance relaxed; but that, it was evident, would most likely take more +time than they could spare. They could also seek the assistance of the +trackgraders and arrange with them to make a diversion while they crept +up unobserved. Against this there was, however, as the corporal pointed +out, the probability that the men were more or less in sympathy with the +fugitive, and that as a result any assistance they might be commanded to +render could not be depended on. He added that he would rather wait for +daylight, and then, if it should be absolutely necessary, fire into the +shed. + +In the meantime Watson was discussing the affair with Drakesford. + +"That man has some kind of plan in his mind, though I can't tell you +what it is," he declared. "Anyway, it would be better that the troopers +hadn't their horses handy in case he gets out in the dark and makes a +break for the prairie." + +"They're back behind the tents," observed Drakesford, pointedly. + +"Picketed," grinned Watson. "They should have knee-hobbled them. A horse +will now and then pull a picket out when the soil's light." + +It was too dark to see his companion's face clearly, but Drakesford +appeared to smile in a manner that suggested comprehension, and they +strolled a little nearer the corporal, who had just sent for the cook. +The corporal explained that he had ridden a long way since his dinner, +and asked for a can of coffee and some eatables, and the cook proceeded +dubiously toward the shed. He came back empty-handed in a minute or two. + +"I can't get you anything," he said. "The man you're after won't let me +in." + +The corporal expressed his feelings somewhat freely, but the cook +grinned. + +"You want to be reasonable," he protested. "How do you expect me to get +in, when he's holding off the two of you, and you've got arms?" + +Watson touched his companion's shoulder. + +"It's my opinion that our friend would better get out to-night," he +whispered. "The boys are holding off in the meanwhile, but if they can't +get their breakfast there'll probably be trouble." + +Drakesford agreed with this, and shortly afterward he proceeded +circuitously toward the troopers' horses. + +In the meanwhile, Slaney and his subordinate sat down on the grass well +apart from each other and about sixty yards from the cook-shed, and, +rolling their blankets about them, prepared to spend the night as +comfortably as possible. It was not very dark, though there was no moon, +and a slight haze, which promised an increased obscurity, was now +creeping across the sky. They could see the black shape of the shed, and +it was evident that nobody could slip out from it without their +observation; and they had their carbines handy. Slaney would have crept +up a little nearer, only that he felt it desirable to keep outside the +striking range of the giant-powder, in case Winthrop happened to get +drowsy and drop it in the stove. + +After a while the track-graders, who had sat among the grass smoking and +watching the troopers, began to drift away to their sleeping-quarters. +The drama was interesting, but they had no part in it, and they would +certainly have to rise soon after sunup to a long day's arduous toil. In +the meanwhile, their attitude could best be described as reluctantly +neutral. There were a few toughs among them who had no doubt sufficient +reason for not loving a policeman of any kind, but the rest recognized +the inadvisability of any interference with constituted authority. On +the other hand, though they did not know the rights or wrongs of the +matter, the desperate, cold-blooded courage of the hard-pressed man +appealed to them, and they decided that Corporal Slaney need not look +for any effective assistance which it might be in their power to render. +Most of them were simple men who lived and toiled in the open, and, as +is usual with their kind, their sympathies were with the weaker party. + +In an hour or two the last of them had vanished, and if a few still +watched outside their tents there was, at least, nothing that suggested +their presence to Corporal Slaney. He lay resting on one elbow, with his +eyes fixed on the shed, while a little chilly breeze set the dry grasses +rustling about him. It was now slightly darker than it usually is on the +prairie in summer-time, for the haze had gradually spread across most of +the sky. The tents had faded almost out of sight, though the black shape +of the shack remained, and now and then, when the breeze sank away, the +silence grew almost oppressive. Once the corporal started as he heard a +sound in the shed, but he sank down again when he recognized the clatter +and rattle that succeeded it. Winthrop, who evidently did not mean to +neglect any precaution, was, he decided, putting more fuel into the +stove. After that the howl of a coyote came faintly up the breeze, which +grew stronger, and the low murmur of the grasses began once more. + +A pearly light was growing clearer on the eastern rim of the prairie +when at length Slaney, damp with the dew, rose to his feet with a shiver +and softly called the trooper, who announced that he had heard nothing +suspicious during the night. After a brief parley they crept up +cautiously a little nearer the shed, but there was, so far as they could +make out, no sign of life within. Indeed, the stillness was becoming +suspicious. Moving nearer still, they could look into part of the shed +through the open door, and, for the light was getting clearer, it became +evident that Winthrop was no longer sitting beside the stove. This was +encouraging, because it looked as if he had fallen asleep. + +Making a short detour, so as to keep to one side of the entrance, they +crept up closer, with faces set and hearts beating a good deal faster +than usual; but there was no sound except a faint crackle, apparently +from the stove. Then Slaney lay down in the grass and crawled up to the +doorway, where he rose and suddenly sprang into the shed. The next +moment his voice rang out hoarse with anger, for the place was empty. He +waited until the trooper joined him, and then pointed to a little door +in the back of the larger building. + +"That explains the thing!" he exclaimed. "You looked round the shack?" + +"I did," the trooper admitted, and added, somewhat tactlessly, "so did +you." + +Slaney frowned at this reminder, but it was evident that a discussion as +to whose fault it was that Winthrop had got away would in no way assist +them in his capture, and they proceeded into the larger building, where +they had no trouble in finding an explanation of his escape. + +Men working on the prairie or in the bush of Canada are usually boarded +by their employers at a weekly charge, and there were a good many of +them engaged on the track. As a result of it, the iron shack was partly +filled with provisions, and when Slaney and the trooper entered by the +front they had seen a pile of cases and flour-bags apparently built up +against one wall. It was, however, growing dark then, and neither of +them had noticed that there was a narrow space behind the provisions +which had been left to facilitate the entrance of the cook. Winthrop, it +was clear, had slipped out through it in the darkness, and the shack had +prevented either of the watchers from seeing him crawl away across the +prairie. It occurred to Slaney that from the position of the tents it +was scarcely likely he had got away quite unnoticed, but he had reasons +for believing that it would be difficult to elicit any reliable +information on that point from the man's comrades. + +There was only one thing to be done, and that was to mount as soon as +possible and endeavor to pick up the fugitive's trail; but when they +reached the spot where they had left their horses there was no sign of +them, and it was half an hour before the trooper came upon them some +distance up the coulee. Slaney was quite convinced that neither of the +beasts had succeeded in dragging the picket out of the ground +unassisted, but this was a thing he could not prove; and when the cook +had supplied them with a hastily prepared breakfast he and the trooper +rode away across the prairie. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A COMPROMISE + + +Thorne was driving Alison home from Graham's Bluff one afternoon about a +week after Winthrop's escape when a couple of horsemen became visible on +the crest of a low rise. The girl glanced at them from under her white +parasol, which shone dazzlingly in the fierce sunlight, and then fixed +her eyes on her companion. + +"They're coming this way, aren't they?" she asked. + +"They seem to be," replied Thorne. "One of them looks like the corporal, +and I shouldn't wonder if he wanted a word with me." + +He saw the girl's slight start, but was not greatly flattered, as he +could not be sure whether it resulted from concern on his behalf or mere +annoyance. He knew what she thought of Winthrop. + +"There's no cause for alarm," he added with a laugh. "I haven't done +anything particularly unlawful for some time." + +He had half expected Alison to explain that she was not alarmed at all, +but she disappointed him, and he wondered whether there was any +significance in this. He had already discovered that she did not +invariably reveal exactly what she felt. + +"What can he want?" she asked. + +"It probably concerns Winthrop. I don't think I told you that they +almost caught him a little while ago, though he got away again." + +"You didn't. Was that because you were afraid you could not trust me?" + +A tinge of deeper color crept into her companion's face, and she decided +rightly that this was due to displeasure. In the encounters which were +not altogether infrequent between them she now and then delivered a +galling thrust, but this, he thought, was striking below the guard. + +"What a question, Miss Leigh!" + +"It wouldn't have been unnatural if you had considered it wiser to be +reticent. What happened on the last occasion would have justified it." + +"If you are referring to Nevis's visit to Mrs. Calvert, I should be +quite willing to leave you to outwit him again. The way you secured the +letter was masterly. Still, in view of the opinions you expressed about +Winthrop, I don't understand why you did it, and, so far as I can +remember, you haven't explained the thing." + +"I meant his visit to the Farquhar homestead when I told him about Lucy; +but I'll try to answer you. For one reason, I wanted to make amends for +my previous--rashness." + +Alison paused at the word, as she remembered that Lucy had suggested +that what she now termed rashness was jealousy. + +"Well," laughed Thorne, "you were certainly rash, but I feel inclined to +wonder whether you were anything else. Your hesitation just now +was--significant." + +Alison recognized that she had a quick-witted antagonist. + +"I believe I have already admitted that I was prejudiced against +Winthrop." + +"That," returned Thorne, "is, perhaps, from your point of view, no more +than natural. In fact, I'm not sure I could say he was right in +everything he has done." He paused a moment. "But, I shouldn't like to +think that your prejudice extends to Lucy." + +Alison had not expected this, and she wondered with some resentment +exactly what he meant to imply. + +"Of course," he added, "some of her ideas and some of the things she +says might jar on you, but that doesn't count for very much, after all. +The girl's staunch all through, and the way she has stuck to Winthrop in +his trouble and the way she has run the farm would compel the respect of +any one who understood what she has had to put up with." + +Alison wondered whether he wished to reassure her concerning Lucy's +devotion to her lover, which, as she remembered, the girl herself had +already done; but she scarcely fancied that he would adopt such a course +as this. It would, at least, be very much out of harmony with his usual +conduct. + +"I venture to believe that Lucy and I will be good friends in the +future," she said. + +Slaney and the trooper were now rapidly approaching, and a minute or two +later Thorne pulled up and turned to the corporal, who reined in his +horse close beside the wagon. + +"You have something to say to me?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied Slaney; "it's this: Do you know where Jake Winthrop is?" + +"No," answered Thorne; "on the whole, I'm glad I don't. What's more, I +haven't the least suspicion." + +They looked at each other steadily, and it struck Alison that the little +gesture Slaney made was a striking testimonial to her companion's +character. It indicated that the corporal had no hesitation in taking +the word of the man with whom he was at variance. Though she and Thorne +occupied the same seat they were far enough apart for her to see his +face, and as he sat with his broad hat tilted back, smiling down at +Slaney, she recognized that in spite of the old blue duck he wore there +was a virile grace in every line of his figure. In addition to this, by +contrast with the smartly uniformed corporal, he looked, as she felt it +could most fittingly be described, thoroughbred, and there was something +in his half-whimsical manner that curiously pleased her. + +"I guess you heard what happened up the track?" Slaney next inquired. + +"I did. Rather amusing in some respects, wasn't it? I understand that +you and the trooper sat out most of the night watching an empty shack." + +"Well," asserted Slaney grimly, "there was nothing very amusing about +the giant-powder. I tell you the man meant to drop it into the fire." + +"From what I know of Winthrop, I'm inclined to believe he did. In fact, +in my opinion, it would be considerably wiser of Nevis if he left that +man alone. I'm not sure he has a very good case against him, anyway; +though, of course, that's no concern of yours or mine. You can't pick up +his trail?" + +"That's a cold fact," declared the corporal. "I guess you wouldn't mind +getting down and walking along a few yards with me?" + +"It's not worth while. I've no objections to Miss Leigh's hearing what +you have to say, and I'm afraid Volador wouldn't stand unless I kept the +reins. The flies are bothering him, and he doesn't seem quite easy when +you're in the neighborhood." Thorne paused and laughed. "In a way, +that's not astonishing." + +Slaney disregarded the last observation. + +"Then," he said, "I'm not the man to make useless trouble--anyway, +unless it's going to give me a shove up toward promotion--but you're +worrying me. The fact is, wherever I pick up Winthrop's trail I strike +yours too. Now there was a night some while back when we ran one of you +down close to the frontier." + +Thorne saw Alison glance sharply at the corporal, and he smiled. + +"Why should I ride for the frontier with the police after me?" + +"That's what I don't exactly know, but I have my views. I want to say +that we picked up a black plug hat when we were coming back along the +trail. The point is that the thing was new. Then we found a brown duck +jacket with a tear in it, but I figured the tear had been made quite +lately." + +"I don't think you could prove very much from that." + +"Well," said Slaney, "I could try. It would look bad if I put the other +matter of the horse Winthrop found near your homestead alongside it. Now +I'll ask you right out--Are you going to mix yourself up with Jake's +affairs any more?" + +"In return, I'd like to hear whether you have any notion of carrying +your investigations further?" Thorne parried. + +They looked rather hard at each other, and then Slaney smiled. + +"I guess it will depend a good deal on your answer; that is, unless +Nevis gets hold of the thing." + +"Then it's my intention to drop Jake Winthrop now. There's very little +probability of his wanting any further assistance that I could render +him." + +"Well, let it go at that," replied Slaney simply. "I guess it will save +you trouble. Good-day to you." + +He rode away, and Alison turned to her companion when they drove on +again. + +"One could have imagined that you and the corporal were making a +bargain," she suggested. + +Thorne laughed. + +"Well," he admitted, "I'm afraid it was quite illegal, but it amounted +to something very much like that. The bargain, however, is only a +provisional one. If Nevis chances on the truth, he may upset it by +forcing Slaney's hand." + +"But, after all, you gave each other only a vague hint. It would be +difficult even to reproach the corporal if, as you say, he went back on +it." + +"Oh, yes," assented Thorne dryly. "Still, I haven't the least reason for +believing that probable." + +Alison made no comment, though the attitude of both men appealed to her. +They were enemies in some respects, and yet once the indefinite +understanding had been arrived at neither seemed to have the slightest +fear that the other would violate it. They were, she remembered, men who +lived in the open, who broke and rode wild horses, and who faced +exposure and strenuous toil. Why this should be conducive to reliability +of character was not very clear, but it apparently had that result. Then +she remembered what the corporal had mentioned. + +"You have been doing something to help Winthrop to escape since the +night you let him have the horse?" + +Thorne admitted it, and when she pressed him for the story he told it +whimsically; but this time Alison felt no anger. A few plain words +spoken by Lucy Calvert had obviated that, for it was now quite clear +that the man had been prompted by mere chivalrous pity and lust of +excitement, and had no desire to win the girl's favor. + +"That was splendid!" she exclaimed. + +Thorne smiled, though he looked at her in a somewhat curious fashion. +Then at her request he related how Winthrop had held off the police. As +it happened, he could tell a story with dramatic force, and both the +brief narratives had their effect on Alison. She had imagination, and +could picture the man who now sat beside her smashing furiously through +the tangled bluff in the blackness of the night, and the other sitting +grimly resolute beside the stove with the stick of giant-powder in his +hand. After all, they were, she realized, the doings of primitive men; +but charity that did not stop to count the cost, and steadfast, +unflinching valor, were rudimentary too, and all the progress of a +complex civilization had evolved nothing finer. Man could add nothing to +them. They were perfect gifts to him, though there was reason for +believing that they were not distributed broadcast. + +Then they chatted about other matters, and Alison was almost sorry when +the Farquhar homestead and its barns and stables rose, girt about with a +sweep of tall green wheat, out of the prairie. Thorne stayed for supper, +and he was standing beside his team with Farquhar an hour afterward when +the latter suddenly made an excuse and moved away as his wife came out +of the doorway. Thorne grinned at this, and there was still a gleam of +amusement in his eyes when his hostess stopped beside him. He indicated +the retreating Farquhar with a wave of his hand. + +"Harry remembered that he'd want the wagon to-morrow, and there's a bolt +loose," he explained. "It didn't seem to occur to him until he noticed +you. I suppose one could call it a coincidence." + +"Have you any different ideas on the subject?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired. + +"Since you ask the question, it looks rather like collusion." + +"Well," laughed Mrs. Farquhar, "I certainly wanted a little talk with +you. To begin with, I should like to point out that we have had a good +deal of your company lately." + +"That's a fact. Perhaps I'd better say that quite apart from the +pleasure of spending an evening with you and Harry there's another +reason." + +"The thing has been perfectly obvious for some time; indeed, it has had +my serious consideration. You see, I hold myself responsible for Alison +to some extent." + +"You feel that you stand _in loco parentis_--I believe that's the +correct phrase--but in one way it doesn't seem to apply. Nobody would +believe you were old enough to be her mother." + +Mrs. Farquhar glanced at him in half-amused impatience, but his manner +swiftly changed. + +"It's my intention to marry Alison as soon as things permit," he added. +"Anyway, that is what I should like to do, but whether I'll ever get any +farther is, of course, another matter. It's one on which I'd be glad to +have your opinion; and that suggests a question. Can my views have been +perfectly obvious to Alison?" + +His companion looked thoughtful. + +"That's a little difficult to answer; though I feel inclined to say that +they certainly ought to have been. On the other hand, it's possible +that she may believe you merely saw in her what we'll call an +intellectual equal--somebody you would have more in common with than you +would, for example, with Lucy. This seems the more likely because I +don't think that marriage in itself has any great attraction for her. +Indeed, I'm inclined to fancy that it was rather a shock to her to +discover how it is regarded by some people in this country. It's +unfortunate that she fell in with one hasty suitor who was anxious to +marry her offhand immediately on her arrival. That being the case, it +strikes me that you had better proceed cautiously and avoid anything +that may suggest a too materialistic point of view." + +Thorne made a gesture of comprehensive repudiation. + +"I'm thankful that nobody could call me smugly practical. But, it must +be admitted that, as she is situated, marriage seems to be her only +vocation in this country." + +"If you let her see that you think that, you may as well give up your +project." Mrs. Farquhar hesitated a moment. "Have you ever tried to +formulate what you expect from Alison?" + +Thorne's smile made it evident that he guessed what was in her mind. + +"I can at least tell you what I don't expect. I've no hankering for a +house and domestic comforts--in my experience they're singularly apt to +pall on one. I don't want a woman to mend my clothes and prepare me +tempting meals--that way of looking at the thing strikes one as almost +unthinkable, and there never was a banquet where the fare was half as +good as what you turn out of the blackened spider in the birch bluff. I +want Alison, with her English graces and English prejudices; her only, +and nothing else." + +"That is a sentiment which would no doubt appeal to her; but one has to +be practical; and you would in any case have to do a good deal before +you got her. She couldn't, for instance, dress in flour-bags and live in +the wagon. Nor do I think that Bishop would feel equal to entertaining a +married couple during the winter." + +"The point of all this is that you want to be satisfied that I can give +up my vagabond habits?" suggested Thorne. "Well, I must try to convince +you, though I want to say that it was a willing sacrifice. Haven't I +gone into harness--yoked myself down to a house and land, with a +mortgage on both of them; haven't I slept for several months now under +at least a partly shingled roof? If any more proof is wanted, haven't I +come to terms with Corporal Slaney and given up the excitement of +bluffing the police; and haven't I decided, as far as it's possible for +me, to leave Nevis unmolested? Aren't all these things foreign to my +nature?" + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed. + +"Mavy," she asked, "do you find living in some degree of comfort, and +devoting your intelligence to a task that will probably pay you, so very +intolerable?" + +Thorne smiled and made a little, confidential gesture. + +"I must confess that I don't find it quite as unpleasant as I had +expected. But you haven't given me your opinion on the point that +concerns me most." + +"Then," said Mrs. Farquhar, with an air of reflection, "while Alison has +naturally not said anything to me on the subject, I don't think you need +consider your case as altogether desperate." + +She smiled at Thorne, who swung himself up into his wagon and drove +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +NEVIS'S VISITOR + + +Florence Hunter had lately returned from Toronto and was sitting on the +veranda toward the middle of the afternoon in an unusually thoughtful +mood. Among other reasons for this, there was the fact that she had +spent a good deal of money while she was away, and she was far from sure +that she had received its full value. Most of the people she had met in +Toronto appeared to be endued with irritatingly respectable, +old-fashioned views, and as a result of it they could not be induced to +forget that she was a married woman separated for a few weeks from a +self-sacrificing husband. Indeed, one or two of them went so far as to +condole with her for his absence, and their general attitude imposed on +her an unwelcome restraint. There was certainly one exception, but this +man had no tact, and the lady who stood sponsor for her openly frowned +at his too marked devotion, while some of the others laughed. Florence +at length got rid of him summarily, and then half regretted it when +nobody else aspired to fill his place. + +It had, further, occurred to her in Elcot's absence that he had a number +of strong points, after all. He was quiet and steadfast, not to be moved +from his purpose by anger or cajolery, and though this was sometimes +troublesome, there was no doubt that he was a man who could be relied +upon. She had nothing to fear, except, perhaps, her own imprudence, +while she was in his care. Then, although she would hardly have +expected it before she went away, she found the spacious wooden house +pleasantly cool and quiet after the stir and rush of life in the hot +city, and Elcot's unobtrusive regard for her comfort soothing. He never +fussed, but when she wanted anything done he was almost invariably at +hand. She determined to be more gracious to him in the future, for she +was troubled with a slightly uncomfortable feeling that he might have +had something to complain of in this respect in the past. + +On the whole, her thoughts were far from pleasant, and in addition to +this the temperature, which was a good deal higher than usual, had a +depressing effect on her. There was no breeze that afternoon, and the +air was still and heavy; the white prairie flung back a trying light, +even on to the shaded veranda, and she felt restless, captious and +irritable. At length, however, she took up a book and endeavored to +become engrossed in it. She so far succeeded that she did not hear a +buggy drive up, and it was with a start that she straightened herself in +her chair as Nevis walked quietly on to the veranda. + +"I never expected you!" she exclaimed. + +The man smiled in a deprecatory fashion. + +"I heard at the station that you arrived yesterday." + +Florence frowned at this. The inference was too obvious; he evidently +wished to imply that it would have been unnatural had he delayed his +visit. + +"Well," she said, "you startled me. Do you generally walk into places +that way--like a pickpocket?" + +Nevis laughed, and when he sat down rather close to her, uninvited, she +favored him with a gaze of careful and undisguised scrutiny. Florence +could be openly rude upon occasion, and though his visits hitherto had +afforded her some satisfaction, she now felt that she would have been +better pleased had he stayed away. He was, as usual, tastefully dressed; +there was no doubt that his clothes became him; but somehow it struck +her that, although she had not realized this earlier, the man looked +cheap, which on consideration seemed the best word for it. + +"I suppose you enjoyed yourself while you were away?" he began. + +"No," replied Florence; "on the whole, I don't think I did." + +She broke off and added irritably: + +"Why do you always come at this time? If you drove over in the evening +you would find Elcot at home." + +She was genuinely provoked by her companion's smile. It so tactlessly +implied that she did not mean what she had said. His signal lack of +delicacy jarred on her now, though she remembered with faint wonder that +she had on previous occasions found a relish in his conversation. + +"Well," he answered, "for one reason, I generally call here when I'm +going to the bluff. It's convenient to get there for supper." + +Florence was annoyed at the opening words. The hint that there was a +stronger reason which he had not mentioned was so crude that it savored +of mere impertinence. Somehow she felt disappointed in the man. She had, +as she realized at length, expected clever compliments from him, firmly +finished, subtle boldness that would be just sufficiently apparent to +convey a pleasurable thrill, and, with the latter exception, a wholly +respectful homage. As to what he had expected she was far from clear, +but that was a point of much less account. The polish, however, seemed +suddenly to have been rubbed off him, and there was nothing into which +she cared to look beneath. Even Elcot would have been capable of +something more skilful than his too familiar inanities. What had brought +about this change in the way she regarded him she did not know, but +there was no doubt that she felt all at once disillusioned. She was in +her caprices essentially variable. + +"Your supper is evidently a matter of importance to you," she said. + +Nevis looked at her sharply. + +"Not more than it is to most other men. In return, I wonder if I might +point out that you don't seem quite as amiable as usual to-day?" + +Florence laughed. + +"As a matter of fact, I'm not. Nobody could feel very pleasant at this +temperature; and I'm disappointed--with several things." She leaned back +languidly in her chair with an air of weariness. "When that happens it's +a relief to be disagreeable to anybody who comes along. Besides, you're +not in the least entertaining this afternoon." + +There was something in her manner that stung the man, and he ventured +upon an impertinence. + +"I suppose that means that Elcot hasn't proved amenable, as usual; but +it's a little rough on me that I should have to meet the bill after a +long and scorching drive." + +Florence laughed again, scornfully. + +"Elcot," she retorted, "is accustomed to carrying his own load, and on +occasion other people's too, which is a weakness with which I'd never +credit you. Besides, if he'd traveled for a week to see me he wouldn't +think of reminding me of it." + +"You seem inclined to drag his virtues out and parade them to-day." + +There was no doubt that the man was going too far, and that led Florence +to wonder whether he could be driven into going any farther. + +"That," she replied, "would be quite unnecessary in Elcot's case. In +fact, his virtues have an almost exasperating habit of meeting you in +the face, which is no doubt why it's rather pleasant to get away from +them--occasionally." + +"You prefer something different on the off-days?" + +"Yes," Florence answered reflectively, "I like a change; but it must be +admitted that I invariably feel an increased respect for Elcot after +it." + +Nevis winced at this. She had made it clear that it was his part to +amuse her at irregular intervals and enhance her husband's finer +qualities by the contrast. It was not, however, one that appealed to +him, and he had a vindictive temper. As it happened, she presently gave +him an opportunity for indulging it. + +"I wish I'd never gone to Toronto," she said petulantly. + +"Considering everything, that's quite a pity," Nevis pointed out. "The +visit probably cost you a good deal of money; and"--he added this with a +grim suggestiveness--"wheat is steadily going down." + +Florence gazed at him with a hardening face. He evidently meant it as a +reminder that she owed him money. The man was becoming intolerable. + +"Is it?" she asked indifferently. "In any case, I shall no doubt manage +to meet my debts when they fall due." + +Nevis had reasons for believing that it would be more difficult than +she seemed to anticipate, but he talked about something else, and then, +finding that his companion did not favor him with very much attention, +he took his leave. When he was getting into his buggy Hunter came up and +stopped him. + +"I'm rather busy, but I can spare you a few minutes if it's necessary," +he said. + +Nevis looked at him with a provocative smile. + +"It isn't," he answered. "It was your wife I came to see; she entrusted +me with the arranging of a little matter." + +He gathered up the reins, and added, as though to explain his departure: + +"There are several things I want to get through with at the bluff this +evening." + +"Then I won't try to keep you." + +Hunter walked up on the veranda and, leaning on the balustrade, looked +at his wife. + +"You have had a deal of some kind with that man?" + +A flush of anger swept into Florence's cheek. + +"He told you that?" she exclaimed; and then added, with a harsh laugh, +"As it happens, he was quite correct." + +Hunter stood still with an expressionless face for a moment or two, +apparently waiting in case she had anything else to say; and then, with +a gesture which might have meant anything, he moved away along the +veranda. Florence's conscience accused her when he disappeared into the +house; but she was most clearly sensible that she was now a little +afraid of Nevis and disposed to hate him. However, she lay quietly in +her basket-chair until word was brought her that supper was ready. + +Two or three days later Nevis sat late one night in his office at the +railroad settlement. It was situated at the back of his implement store, +on the ground floor of a very ugly wooden building which had a false +front that rose a little beyond the ridge of roof. One door opened +directly on to the prairie; the other led into the store, from which +there exuded a pungent smell of paint and varnish. A nickeled lamp hung +over Nevis's head, and the little room was unpleasantly hot, so hot, +indeed, that he sat in his shirt-sleeves before a table littered with +papers. Not far away a small safe stood open. This contained further +papers tied up in several bundles and neatly endorsed. There was nothing +else in the room except a few shelves filled with account books; and +there was no covering on the floor. Nevis, like most commercial men in +the small western towns, wasted very little money on superfluous +accessories. He found that he could employ it much more profitably. + +He had, as it happened, a troublesome matter to decide on, and seeing no +way out of the difficulties which complicated it, he rose at length, +and, lighting a cigar, opened the outer door and stood leaning against +it. It was cooler there, and he noticed that the night was unusually +dark. The stream of light that flowed out past him, forcing up his +figure in a sharp, black silhouette, only intensified the thick +obscurity in which it was almost immediately lost. It was also very +still, and he could hear his white shirt crackle at each slight movement +of the hand that held the cigar. Everybody in the little wooden town +was, he surmised, already asleep, though he knew that a west-bound train +would stop there in half an hour or so. + +He did not know how long he remained in the doorway, but by degrees the +stillness became oppressive, and at last he started as a sound rose +suddenly out of the darkness. It was a faint, metallic rattle, and he +leaned forward a little, listening in strained attention. The noise was +so unexpected that it jarred on him. + +Then he recollected that some of his neighbors were addicted to dumping +empty provision cans and similar refuse into a clump of willows which +straggled close up to the back of the town not far away, and he decided +that one of them had fallen down or rolled over. After that he went back +to his table, leaving the door open for the sake of coolness, and he was +once more occupied with his papers when he heard a sharp knocking at the +front of the store. Pushing his chair back he took out his watch. +Somebody who was going west by the train that was almost due apparently +desired to see him, though it seemed a curious thing that the man had +not called earlier. He rose and entered the store, where he fell against +the projecting handle of a plow in the darkness. This ruffled his +temper, and he spent some time impatiently fumbling for and undoing the +fastenings of the outer door. Then he flung it open somewhat violently, +and strode out into the darkness. There was, so far as he could see, +nobody in the vicinity, and when, moving forward a few paces he called +out, he got no answer. + +Feeling slightly uneasy as well as astonished, he stood still for, +perhaps, a minute, gazing about him. He could dimly see the houses +across the street, with the tall false fronts of one or two cutting +black against the sky, but there was not a light in any of them, and +there was certainly no sound of footsteps. He was neither a nervous nor +a fanciful man, and it scarcely seemed possible that his ears had +deceived him. Swinging around suddenly, he went back into the store and +fastened the outer door before he reentered his office. The door at the +back of the office and the safe stood open just as he had left them. +Crossing the room he looked into the safe. + +As a rule, a man's possessions are as secure in a small prairie town as +they would be in, for example, London or Montreal, but Nevis seldom kept +much money in his safe. He usually made his collections after harvest, +and remitted the proceeds to a bank in Winnipeg. A small iron cash-box, +however, occupied one shelf, and it was at once evident that this had +not been touched, which seemed to prove that nobody with dishonest +intentions had entered the place in his absence. This was satisfactory, +but a few moments later it struck him that one of the bundles of +docketed papers was not lying exactly where he had last placed it. He +could not be quite sure of this, though he was methodical in his habits, +and he took the bundle up and examined it. The tape around it was +securely tied and the papers did not seem to have been disturbed. +Besides this, they were in no sense marketable securities. + +He laid them down again and closed the safe. Then, locking the outer +door behind him, he proceeded through the silent town toward the track. +As he did so the clanging of a locomotive bell broke through a +slackening clatter of wheels, and when after a smart run he reached the +station, hot and somewhat breathless, the lights of the long train were +just sliding out of it. He strode up to the agent, who stood in the +doorway of his office shack with a lantern in his hand. + +"Did anybody get on board?" he asked. + +"No," replied the agent. "Nobody got off, either. Did you expect to +catch up any one?" + +"I fancied somebody called at the store a few minutes ago. It occurred +to me that the man might want to leave some message and had forgotten it +until he was going to catch the train." + +"I guess it must have been a delusion," remarked the agent. + +Nevis had almost arrived at the same conclusion. He waited a few +minutes, and then they walked back together through the settlement. The +agent left him outside the store, above which he had a room, and +dismissing the matter from his mind he went tranquilly to sleep half an +hour later. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE MORTGAGE DEED + + +Alison was sitting alone in the general living-room of the Farquhar +homestead about an hour after breakfast when she laid down her sewing +with a start as a man whom she had not heard approaching suddenly +appeared in the doorway. He stood there, looking at her with what she +felt was a very suspicious curiosity, and there was no doubt that his +appearance was decidedly against him. His clothing, which had been +rudely patched with cotton flour-bags, was old and stained with soil; +his face was hard and grim; and she grew apprehensive under his fixed +scrutiny. + +"Where's the rest of you?" he asked after an unpleasant silence of a few +moments. + +Alison felt that it would be singularly injudicious to inform him, and +while she hesitated, wondering what to answer, he strode into the room +and fell heavily into the nearest chair. + +"You'll excuse me," he apologized. "I'm played out." + +The signs of weariness were plain on him, and Alison became a little +reassured. After all, she remembered, there was nothing of very much +value in the homestead; and she had never as yet had any reason to fear +the men she had come across upon the prairie. In fact, though one had +wanted to marry her offhand, their general conduct compared very +favorably with that of one or two whom she had met in English cities. + +"Have you come far?" she asked. + +"From the railroad--on my feet," answered the man. "I left it about +midnight two nights ago, and since then I've only had a morsel of food." +Then he smiled at her. "You haven't told me yet where Harry Farquhar and +his wife have gone." + +It was clear that he had already satisfied himself that they were out, +and Alison reluctantly admitted it. + +"Mrs. Farquhar has driven over to the bluff," she said. "She took her +husband with her, but she was to drop him at the ravine where the +birches are. He wanted to cut some poles." + +The look of annoyance in the man's face further reassured her, as it +implied that he regretted Farquhar's absence almost as much as she had +done a few moments earlier. + +"It's a sure thing I can't wait till they come back, and the trouble is +I can't make Mrs. Calvert's place without a rest, either." + +He paused and gazed searchingly at Alison. + +"You're Miss Leigh, aren't you? I guess you could be trusted; I've heard +of you." + +Alison's astonishment was evident, and he smiled. + +"It's quite likely," he added dryly, "that you've heard of me. My name's +Jake Winthrop." + +Alison sat very still, and it was a moment or two before she spoke. + +"What do you want?" she asked. + +"Breakfast, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. Then, as Farquhar's out, +there's a piece of paper I'd like to give you. Guess it would be safer +out of my hands; the police troopers are after me." + +Alison set the kettle and frying-pan on the stove. She was +compassionate by nature, and the man looked very jaded and weary. When +she sat down again he handed her a rather bulky folded paper which +appeared to be some kind of legal document. + +"What am I to do with this?" she asked. + +"You can give it to Farquhar, or keep it and hide it," said the man. "I +guess the last would be wisest. Nobody would figure you had the thing, +and I can't give it to Lucy, because Nevis would sure get after her." + +"Is it very important?" + +"It might be. I can't go and ask a lawyer now. Guess the man would feel +it was his duty to put Slaney on my trail, and I couldn't go near the +settlement in daylight without doing the same. Anyway, it's my mortgage +deed, and I have a notion that it might give me a pull on Nevis if the +troopers get me. If I'm right, he'll be mighty anxious to get it back +again." + +"I don't understand," returned Alison. "If he was afraid of your using +it against him, he wouldn't have given it to you at all." + +Winthrop grinned. + +"He didn't. I got him out of his office late at night and crept in for +it. I knew where he kept the thing because I'd seen him put it in his +safe." + +Alison was far from pleased with this confession, but while she +considered it another point occurred to her. + +"But don't people generally get a duplicate of a paper of this kind?" +she asked. + +"I had one, but Nevis wanted me to do something that didn't seem quite +what we had agreed on, and I went over with the deed to show him he was +wrong. He said I'd better leave it, and somehow or other I could never +get it out of his hands again." + +"Ah," said Alison softly, "I think I wouldn't mind helping you against +that man. But you must tell me exactly what you mean to do." + +"I'm going across to see Lucy--and out West somewhere after that. If I +can get away, and strike anything that will pay me, it's quite likely +that I'll leave Nevis alone. If I can't, or there's a reason for it +later, I'll write you, and Farquhar or Thorne could take the deed to a +lawyer and see if he could get at Nevis with it. In the meanwhile it +would be wiser if you just hid the thing away. If Farquhar knows nothing +about it, I guess it would save him trouble." + +Alison did not answer for a moment or two. She felt that she was acting +imprudently in allowing herself to be drawn into the affair, but she was +sorry for the man. He was a friend of Thorne's, and that counted for a +good deal in his favor. In addition to this, the idea of playing a part, +and possibly a leading part, in something of the nature of a complicated +drama appealed to her, and there was, half formulated at the back of her +mind, the desire to prove to Thorne just what she was capable of. + +"Well," she said at length, "you may leave it with me." + +Then she set about getting him a meal, and a little while later he +limped wearily away. He left her with the impression that it would be +wise of Nevis to abandon his pursuit of him, for there was something in +the man's manner which indicated that he might prove dangerous if +pressed too hard. The morning had slipped away before she could get the +thought of him out of her mind. + +In the meanwhile, he was plodding across the white wilderness under a +scorching sun. The atmosphere was crystallinely clear, and an almost +intolerable brightness flooded the wide levels. A birch bluff miles away +was etched in clean-cut tracery upon the horizon, but though the weary +man kept his eyes sharply open he felt reasonably safe from observation, +which it seemed desirable to avoid. He did not believe that any of the +scattered farmers would betray him, even if some pressure should be put +upon them with the view of extracting information, but it was clear that +they would be better able to evade any attempts Nevis or Slaney might +make to entrap them into some incautious admission if they had none to +impart. Winthrop based this decision on the fact that a man certainly +cannot tell what he does not know. + +It was consoling to remember that the wide, open prairie is by no means +a bad place to hide in. A mounted figure or a team and wagon shows up +for a vast distance against the skyline, while a few grass tussocks less +than a foot in height will effectually conceal a man who lies down among +them with the outline of his body broken by the blades from anybody +passing within two or three hundred yards of him. Winthrop was aware, +however, that it would be different if he attempted to run away; and +once he dropped like a stone when a buggy rose unexpectedly out of a +ravine. The man who drove it was an acquaintance of his, but he seemed +to gaze right at the spot where Winthrop was stretched out without +seeing him. The latter was not disturbed again, but he cast rather +dubious glances round him as he resumed his march. There was another +long journey in front of him that night, and he did not like the signs +of the weather. It struck him as ominously clear. + +He was, as it happened, not the only person who noticed this, for other +people who had at different times suffered severely in pocket from the +vagaries of the climate had arrived at much the same opinion that +afternoon, with more or less uneasiness according to their temperament. +The wheat was everywhere standing tall and green, and the season had +been on the whole so propitious that from bitter experience they almost +expected a change. As the small cultivator has discovered, the simile of +a beneficent nature is a singularly misleading one, for the stern truth +was proclaimed in ages long ago that man must toil with painful effort +for the bread he eats, and must subdue the earth before he can render it +fruitful. In the new West he has made himself many big machines, +including the great gang-plows that rip their multiple furrows through +the prairie soil, but he still lies defenseless against the fickle +elements. + +Elcot Hunter, at least, was anxious that night as he sat in the general +living-room of his homestead opposite his wife. She was not greatly +interested in the book she held, and she glanced at him now and then as +he sat poring over a newspaper which was noted for its crop and market +reports. They afforded Hunter very little satisfaction, for they made it +clear that the West would produce enough wheat that season to flood an +already lifeless market. + +The windows of the room were open wide, and the smell of sun-baked soil +damped by the heavy dew came in with the sound made by the movements of +a restless horse or two. The fall of hoofs appeared unusually distinct. +The wooden house, which had lain baking under a scorching sun all day, +was still very hot, but the faint puffs of air which flowed in were +delightfully cool, and at length Florence, who was very lightly clad, +shivered as one that was stronger than the rest lifted a sheet of +Hunter's paper. + +"It is positively getting cold," she remarked. + +"Cold?" returned Hunter. "I wouldn't call it that." + +He resumed his reading, and three or four minutes had slipped by when +Florence turned to him with irritation in her manner. + +"Haven't you anything to say, Elcot?" she broke out. "Are those crop +statistics so very fascinating?" + +Hunter looked up at her with a rather grim smile. She lay in a low cane +chair beneath the lamp, with her figure falling into long sweeping +lines, attired in costly fripperies lately purchased in the East, but +there was not the least doubt that they became her. Indeed, with the +satiny whiteness of her neck and arms half revealed beneath the gauzy +draperies, and her hair gleaming lustrously about a face that had been +carefully shielded from the ravages of the weather, she seemed strangely +out of place in the primitively furnished room of a western homestead. +The man noticed it, as he had done on other occasions, with a pang of +regret. There had been a time when he had expected her to rejoice in his +successes and console him in his defeats, and it had hurt when she had +made it clear that any reference to his occupation only irritated her. +He had got over that, as he had borne other troubles, with an +uncomplaining quietness, and, though she had never suspected this, he +had often felt sorry for her. Still, he was a man of somewhat unyielding +character, and there was occasionally friction when he did what he +considered most fitting, in spite of her protests. + +"Well," he said in answer to her question, "they have, anyway, some +interest to a farmer who has a good deal at stake." He threw the paper +down. "Things in general aren't very promising, and I may be rather +tightly fixed after the harvest. I seem to have been spending a great +deal of money lately." + +Florence felt guilty. After all, as she was the principal cause of his +expenses, it was generous of him to put it as he had done. Indeed, she +decided to make a confession about the loan from Nevis sometime when he +appeared to be in an unusually favorable mood. + +"You have a splendid crop, haven't you?" she asked. + +"The trouble is that I may not get much for it, and a wheat crop is +never quite safe until it's thrashed out. I'm uncertain about the +weather." + +"The aneroid has gone up; I looked at it." + +"It's gone up too much and too suddenly," said Hunter. "That sometimes +means a bad outbreak from the north." + +Florence was moved by a sudden impulse. The man was bronzed and +toughened by labor, but there was, as she had noticed since she came +home, a jaded look in his face. + +"Elcot," she asked, "do you think I oughtn't to have gone away?" + +The man seemed to consider this. + +"No," he answered, "I don't think that, so long as you were able to +manage it with the little help I could give you." He paused a moment, +and looked puzzled, for there was a suspicion of heightened color in +Florence's face. "On the whole, I'm glad you went, if you enjoyed the +visit." + +"You don't seem very sure. Wasn't it rather dull for you here?" + +It was, so far as he could remember, the first time she had displayed +any interest on this point, and he smiled. + +"Oh, I had the place to look after, as usual. It's fortunate that it +occupies a good deal of my attention." + +Florence leaned forward suddenly. + +"Elcot, won't you tell me exactly how much you mean by that?" + +It was a moment or two before Hunter answered. + +"Well," he said gravely, "since you have suggested it, perhaps I better +had, though it means the dragging in of questions we've talked over +quite often already. I took up farming because I couldn't stand the +cities and it seemed the thing I was most fitted for. On that point I +haven't changed my opinions. Where I did wrong was in marrying you." He +checked her with a lifted hand as she was about to speak. "If you had +never met me, you would probably have taken the next man with means who +came along." + +"Yes," admitted Florence, meeting his gaze. "I think that's true. Having +gone so far, hadn't you better proceed?" + +"I'm trying to look at it from your standpoint; I've never been sorry on +my own account." + +Florence laughed in a strained fashion. + +"That's a little difficult to believe. Still, one must do you the +justice to own that you have, at least, never mentioned your regrets." + +"I don't think I've often mentioned my expectations either. That's one +reason I'm speaking now. You seem--approachable--to-night." + +"I suppose they were not fulfilled?" + +"If they were not, it was my own fault. I took you out of the +environment you were suited to and content with." + +"I wasn't," Florence declared sharply. "Things were horribly unpleasant +to me then. I was struggling desperately to earn a living, and had to +put up with a good deal from most disagreeable people." + +Again a faint, grim smile crept into her husband's eyes. + +"After all, perfect candor is a little painful now and then; but let me +go on. At least, I brought you into an environment with which you were +not content. The kind of life I led was irksome to you; you could not +help me in it; even to hear me talk of what I did each day was +burdensome to you. I couldn't speak of my plans for the future, or the +difficulties that must be met and faced continually. For a while I felt +it badly." + +"Yes," Florence acknowledged, "it must have been hard on you, Elcot." + +"It could be borne, but there was another side of the matter. It was +clear that you were longing for company, stir, gaiety--and I could not +give them to you. As I've often said, I'm not rich enough to make a mark +in any of the cities, unless I went into business, for which I've +neither the training nor inclination, and most of my money is sunk in +the land here. It's difficult to sell a farm of this size for anything +like its value unless wheat is dear. Besides, the friends you would wish +to make wouldn't take to me. That is certain; I lived among people of +their description before I met you. I couldn't in any way have helped +you to make yourself a leading place in the only kind of society that +would satisfy you. All this has stood between us--no doubt it was +unavoidable--but it made the troubles I could share with no one a +little worse to bear, and my few successes of less account to me. After +all, since I could, at least, send you to the cities now and then, it +was fortunate that I had my farm." He stopped a moment and added +deprecatingly: "Whether you will be able to get away next winter is more +than I know. As I said, the outlook is far from promising in the +meanwhile." + +Florence did not answer immediately. At last, she could clearly grasp +the man's point of view. Indeed, she realized that during the few years +they had lived together she had taken all he had to offer and had given +practically nothing in return. She felt almost impelled to tell him that +her last visit to the cities had brought her very little pleasure, and +that she would be willing to spend the next winter with him at the +lonely homestead; but she could not do so. A surrender of any kind was +difficult to her, and she had by degrees built up a barrier of reserve +between them that could not immediately be thrown down. Besides, there +was in the background the memory of Nevis's loan. + +"Things may look better by and by," she said lamely. + +Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, and it seemed to Florence that +the room grew perceptibly colder, while once or twice a little puff of +air struck with a sudden chill upon her face. Then there was a sharp +drumming, which ceased again abruptly, upon the shingled roof, and she +followed Hunter when he strode out on the veranda. An impenetrable +darkness now overhung most of the sky, and there was a wild beat of +hoofs as three or four invisible horses dashed across the paddock. +Florence knew that the beasts were young, and understood that they were +valuable. Her husband moved toward the steps. + +"I'll put them into the stable, or, if I can't manage that, turn them +out on the prairie," he said. "I'm afraid of the new fence. They're not +accustomed to it yet, and there are two barbed strands in it." + +"Take one of the hired men with you," Florence called after him, but he +made no answer, and the next moment a mad beat of hoofs once more broke +out as the uneasy horses galloped furiously back across the fenced-in +space. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +HAIL + + +The air had grown very still again when Florence leaned on the veranda +balustrade, gazing into the darkness, which was now intense. The brief +shower of heavy rain had wet the grass, and waves of warm moisture +charged with an odor like that of a hothouse seemed to flow about her +and recede again, leaving her almost shivering in her gauzy dress, for +between whiles it was by contrast strangely cold. She could hear Hunter +calling to the horses, which apparently broke away from him now and then +in short, savage rushes, but she could see nothing of him or them. +Presently the sharp cries of one of the hired men broke in, and +Florence, who felt her nerves tingling, became conscious of an +unpleasant tension. + +Then for a second, or part of it, the figures of moving men and beasts +became visible, etched hard and black against an overwhelming +brightness, as a blaze of lightning smote the prairie. The glare of it +was dazzling, and when it vanished Florence was left gripping the +balustrade, bewildered and wrapped in an intolerable darkness. After +that a drumming of hoofs and a hoarse cry broke upon her ears, but both +were drowned and lost in a deafening crash of thunder. It rolled far +back into the distance in great reverberations, and while her light +skirt fluttered about her in an icy draught another sound emerged from +them as they died away. + +It grew nearer and louder in a persistent, portentous crescendo, for at +first it suggested the galloping of a squadron of horse, then a +regiment, and at length the furious approach of a division of cavalry. +Holding fast to the balustrade, she could even imagine that there were +mingled with it the crash of jolting wheels and a clamor of wild voices +as of a host behind pressing onward to the onslaught. The din was +scarcely drowned by a tremendous rumbling that twice filled the air; and +there was forced upon her a vague perception of the fact that it was a +very real attack upon the things that enabled her to have the ease she +loved. Wheat and cattle, stables and homestead must, it almost seemed, +go down, and there were, as sole and pitiful defense, two men somewhere +out in the darkness exposed to the outbreak of elemental fury. There was +now no sign of her husband or his companion. It was quite impossible to +hear any sound they made, and she stood quivering, until, loosing her +hold of the balustrade with an effort, she ran down the steps. + +"Elcot!" she cried. + +No answer reached her. She knew it was useless to call, but an +overmastering fear came upon her as she remembered the mad flight of the +terrified horses, and she ran on a few paces over the wet grass, crying +out again. Then she was beaten back, gasping, with her hands raised in a +futile attempt to shield her face and her dress driven flat against her, +as a merciless shower of ice broke out of the darkness. It swept the +veranda like the storm of lead from a volley, only it did not cease; +crashing upon the balustrade and lashing the front of the house, while +the very building seemed to rock in the savage blast. She staggered back +before it, too dazed and bewildered to notice where she was going, +until she struck the wall and cowered against the boards. There was a +narrow roof above her, but it did not keep off much of the wind-driven +hail, and she could not be sure that the whole of it was now standing. +The veranda was wrapped in darkness, for the lamp had blown out. + +She never remembered how long she stood there. For a time, every sense +was concentrated on an effort to shelter her face from the hail which +fell upon her thinly covered arms and shoulders like a scourge of +knotted wire. Then, faint and breathless, she crept forward toward where +she supposed the door must be, and staggered into the unlighted room. +She struck a chair, and sank into it, to sit shivering and listening +appalled to the cataclysm of sound. + +Then a terror which had been driven out of her mind for the last few +minutes crept back. Elcot was out amid the rush of hurtling ice; and she +knew him well enough to feel certain that he would stay in the paddock +until the horses were secured. She could picture him trying to guide the +maddened beasts out between the slip-rails, heading them off from the +perilous fence they rushed down upon at a terror-stricken gallop, or, +perhaps, lying upon the hail-swept grass with a broken limb. It was +horrible to contemplate, and she became conscious of a torturing anxiety +concerning the safety of the man for whose comfort she had scarcely +spared a thought since she married him. + +Though it was difficult, she contrived to shut the door and window, and +to relight the lamp, and then she glanced round the room. Elcot's paper +had fallen to pieces and had been scattered here and there, while a +long pile of hail lay melting on the floor. She could understand now +why she felt bruised all over except where the fullness of her dress had +protected her, for she had never seen hail like this in England. The +jagged lumps were of all shapes, and most of them seemed the size of +hazelnuts. Then she became conscious that her hair was streaming about +her face and that her dress clung saturated to her limbs. This, however, +appeared of no moment, for her anxiety about her husband was becoming +intolerable. + +Nerving herself for an effort, she moved toward the door. It was flung +back upon her when she lifted the latch, and she staggered beneath the +blow. Then, panting hard, she forced it to again and went back limply to +her chair. It was utterly impossible for her to face that hail. She had +the will to do so, and she was no coward, but the flesh she had pampered +and shielded failed her, which was in no way astonishing. Wheat-growers, +herders, police troopers, and, unfortunately, patient women learn that +the body must be sternly brought into subjection to the mind by long +repression before one can face wind-driven ice, snow-laden blizzard, or +the awful cold which now and then descends upon the vast spaces of +western Canada. + +In a few more minutes the uproar subsided. The drumming on the walls and +roof suddenly ceased and the wind no longer buffeted the house. The +tumult receded in gradations of sinking sound, until at last there was +silence, except for the drip from the veranda eaves. It was shortly +broken by quick footsteps and Florence turned toward the door as Hunter +came in. + +His face showed where the hail had beaten it, for his hat had gone; the +water ran from him, and one hand was bleeding. He looked limp and +exhausted, but what struck her most was the sternness of his expression. + +"Are you hurt?" she asked. + +Hunter glanced down at his reddened hand. + +"Nothing to speak of. I got a rip from the fence somehow, and one leg's +a little stiff; one of the horses must have kicked me. Guess I'll know +more about it to-morrow." + +"And the horses?" + +"We managed to get them out. But what were you doing outside? Your dress +is dripping." + +Florence hesitated. It seemed extraordinary that while she had seldom +felt the least diffidence in dealing as appeared expedient with any of +the men she had known, she was unable to inform her husband that she had +been driven into the storm by anxiety for his safety; but somehow she +could not get the words out. She recognized that it had never occurred +to him that she could have been actuated by any motive of this kind, +though she was forced to own that, considering everything, this was no +more than natural. The thought brought a half-bitter smile into her +eyes. + +"I was on the steps when the hail began, and I could scarcely get back +into the house," she said. "Can it have done very much harm?" + +Hunter made a gesture of dejection. + +"That's a point I'm most afraid to investigate, and it can't be done +to-night. In the meanwhile, hadn't you better get those wet things off?" + +His preoccupied manner indicated that he was in no mood for +conversation, and Florence left him standing moodily still. It was some +minutes before he felt chilly and went upstairs to change his clothes, +but he came back almost immediately and took some papers and a couple +of account books from a bureau. After this he lighted his pipe and sat +down to make copious extracts, with a view to discovering how he stood. +He had no great trouble in ascertaining his liabilities, for he was a +methodical man, but it was different when he came to consider what he +had to set off against them. He had counted on his wheat crop to leave +him a certain surplus, but it now seemed unfortunately probable that +there would be no harvest at all that year. Admitting this, he busied +himself with figures in an attempt to discover how far it might be +possible to convert what promised to be a crushing disaster into a +temporary defeat, and several hours slipped by before any means of doing +so occurred to him. His expenses had been unusually heavy, there were +many points to consider and balance against each other, and a gray light +was breaking low down on the rim of the prairie when at length he rose +and thrust the books back into the bureau. The night's labor had at +least convinced him that if he were to hold his own during the next +twelve months it could be only by persistent effort and stern economy, +and he had misgivings as to how his wife would regard the prospect of +the latter. + +On going out on to the veranda a few minutes later he was astonished to +hear footsteps behind him, and when he turned and waited Florence came +out of the doorway. + +"I heard you moving and I came down," she said. "Are you going to look +at the wheat?" + +"Yes," replied Hunter. "I'm afraid there won't be very much of it to +see." + +The light was growing a little clearer and Florence noticed the +weariness of his face. He seemed to hold himself slackly and she had +never seen him fall into that dejected attitude. The man was, however, +physically jaded, for a day of severe labor had preceded the struggle in +the paddock and the hours he had spent in anxious thought, and he had, +as he was quite aware, a heavy blow to face. + +"May I go with you?" she asked hesitatingly. + +"Why?" + +The question was not encouraging, nor was his manner, and Florence felt +reluctant to explain that her request had been prompted by a desire to +share his troubles. She was conscious that a statement to this effect +would probably appear somewhat astonishing, as she had never offered to +do anything of the kind hitherto. + +"If you must have a reason, I'm as anxious to see what damage the hail +has done as you are. It can't very well affect you without affecting +me." + +"Yes," agreed Hunter, "that's undoubtedly the case. I'm afraid you'll +have to put up with me and the homestead for the next twelve months. +It's quite likely that there'll be very few new dresses, either." + +Florence endeavored to keep her patience. It was not often that she felt +in a penitent mood, and he did not seem disposed to make it any easier +for her. + +"Do you suppose new dresses are a matter of vital importance to me?" she +asked. + +"Well," answered Hunter, "since you put the question, several things +almost lead me to believe it." + +He turned abruptly toward the steps. + +"If you are coming with me, we may as well go along." + +They crossed the wet paddock together, and now and then Florence +glanced covertly at her husband's face. It was set and anxious, but +there was no sign of surrender in it. She had, however, not expected to +see the latter, for she knew that Elcot was one who could, when occasion +demanded it, make a very stubborn fight. + +At length they stopped and stood looking out across what at sunset had +been a vast sea of tall, green wheat. Now it had gone down, parts of it +as before the knife of a reaper, while the rest lay crushed and flung +this way and that, as though an army had marched through it. Lush blades +and half-formed ears were smashed into the mire and the odd clusters of +battered stalks that stood leaning above the tangled chaos only served +to heighten the suggestion of widespread ruin. + +Florence watched her husband, but she did not care to speak, for there +are times when expressions of sympathy are superfluous. When he walked +slowly forward along the edge of the grain she followed him, without +noticing that her thin shoes were saturated and her light skirt was +trailing in the harsh wet grass. The ground rose slightly, and stopping +when they reached the highest point he answered her inquiring glance. + +"It looks pretty bad," he said. "Some of it--a very little--may fill out +and ripen and we might get the binders through it, but the thing's going +to be difficult." + +"Will this hit you very hard, Elcot?" + +Hunter turned and looked at her with gravely searching eyes, and she +shrank from his gaze while a warmth crept into her face. + +"Oh," she broke out indignantly, "I'm not thinking--now--of what I might +have to do without. Still, I suppose it was only natural that you should +suspect it." + +The man's gesture seemed to imply that this was after all a matter of +minor importance, and it jarred on her. + +"Well," he answered, "I guess I can weather the trouble, though it will +mean a long, stiff pull and a general whittling down of expenses. I +spent most of last night figuring on the latter, and I've got my plans +worked out, though it was troublesome to see where I was to begin." + +Florence's heart smote her. Her allowance was a liberal one, but she +knew it would only be when every other expedient had failed that he +would think of touching that. It would have been a relief to tell him he +could begin with it, but she remembered Nevis's loan. The thought of +that loan was becoming a burden, and she felt that it must be wiped off +somehow at any cost. + +"Yes," she sympathized, "it must have been difficult. You don't spend +much money unnecessarily, Elcot." + +He did not answer, and she glanced at his hands, which were hard and +roughened like those of a workman. There was an untended red gash which +the fence had made across the back of one. Another glance at his +clothing carried her a little farther along the same line of thought, +for his garments were old and shabby and faded by the weather. + +"Anyway," he said, apparently without having heeded her last +observation, "I'm thankful I have no debts just now." + +It was an unconscious thrust, but Florence winced, for it wounded her, +and she began to see how Nevis had with deliberate purpose strengthened +the barrier between her and her husband. What was more, she determined +that the man should regret it. Why she had ever encouraged him she did +not know, but there was no doubt that she was anxious to get rid of him +now. She would have made an open confession about the loan then and +there, but the time was singularly inopportune. It was out of the +question that she should add to her husband's anxiety. + +"After all, it doesn't often hail," she encouraged him. "Another good +year will set you straight again." + +The man seemed lost in thought, but he looked up when she spoke. + +"We can make a bid for it," he replied. "I must have bigger and newer +machines. Like most of the rest, I've been too afraid of launching out +and have clung to old-fashioned means. There will have to be a change +and a clearance before next season." + +It was very matter-of-fact, but Florence knew him well enough to realize +what it implied. Defeat could not crush him; it only nerved him to a +more resolute fight, for which he meant to equip himself at any +sacrifice with more efficient weapons. Again she was conscious of a +growing respect for him. + +"I'm afraid I have been a drag on you, Elcot, but in this case you can +count upon my doing--what I can." + +He scarcely seemed to hear her, and she realized with a trace of bitter +amusement that her assurance did not appear of any particular +consequence to him. + +"I have teams enough," he continued, picking up the course of thought +where he had broken off. "Anyway, one should get something for the old +machines." + +Florence set her lips as they turned back toward the house. This was a +matter in which she evidently did not count; but there was no doubt that +in the light of past events the man's attitude was justified. It would +be necessary to prove that he was wrong, and, with Nevis's loan still to +be met, that promised to be difficult. + +"Elcot," she said, "I don't think I've told you yet how sorry I am." + +He looked at her in a manner which implied that his mind was still busy +with his plans. + +"Yes--of course," he replied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A POINT OF HONOR + + +Florence Hunter sat in her wagon in front of the grocery store at +Graham's Bluff waiting until the man who kept it should bring out +various goods she had ordered. Though a fresh breeze swept the +surrounding prairie the little town was very hot, and it looked +singularly unattractive with the dust blowing through its one unpaved +street. In one place a gaily striped shade, which flapped and fluttered +in the wind, had been stretched above the window of an ambitious store; +but with this exception the unlovely wooden buildings boldly fronted the +weather, with the sun-glare on their thin, rent boarding and the roofing +shingles crackling overhead, as they had done when they had borne the +scourge of snow-laden gales and the almost Arctic frost. They were +square and squat, as destitute, most of them, of paint as they were of +any attempt at adornment; and in hot weather the newer ones were +permeated with a pungent, resinous smell. + +Where Florence sat, however, the odors that flowed out of the store were +more diffuse, for the fragrance of perspiring cheese was mingled with +that of pork which had gained flavor and lost its stiffness in the heat, +and the aroma of what was sold as coffee at Graham's Bluff. Florence, +indeed, had been glad to escape from the store, which resembled an oven +with savory cooking going on, though after all it was not a great deal +better in the wagon. The dust was beginning to gather in the folds of +her dainty dress, the wind plucked at her veil, and the fierce sun smote +her face. + +On the whole, she was displeased with things in general and inclined to +regret that she had driven into the settlement, which she had done in a +fit of compunction. Hitherto she had contented herself with sending the +storekeeper an order for goods to be supplied, without any attempt to +investigate his charges, but now, with Elcot's harvest ruined it had +appeared her duty to consider carefully the subject of housekeeping +accounts. She rather resented the fact that her first experiment had +proved unpleasant, for she had shrunk from the sight of the slabs of +half-melted pork flung down for her inspection, and having hitherto +shopped only in England and eastern Canada she had found the naive +abruptness of the western storekeeper somewhat hard on her temper. +Retail dealers in the prairie settlements seldom defer to their +customers. If the latter do not like their goods or charges they are +generally favored with a hint that they would better go somewhere else, +and there is an end of the matter. It really did not look as if much +encouragement was held out to those who aspired to cultivate the +domestic virtues. At length the storekeeper appeared with several large +packages. + +"You want to cover this one up; it's the butter," he cautioned. "Guess +you're going to have some trouble in keeping it in the wagon if the sun +gets on to it. Better bring a big can next time, same as your hired man +does." + +The warning was justified, because when the inexperienced customer +brings nothing to put it in, butter is usually retailed in light baskets +made of wood, in spite of the fact that it is addicted to running out +of them in the heat of the day. The man next deposited a heavy cotton +bag in the wagon, and while a thin cloud of flour which followed its +fall descended upon Florence he laid his hands on the wheel and looked +at her confidentially. + +"I guess if your husband meant to let up on that creamery scheme you +would have heard of it," he suggested. + +"Yes," replied Florence; "I don't think he has any intention of doing +so." + +The man made a sign of assent. + +"That's just what I was telling the boys last night. There were two or +three of them from Traverse staying at the hotel, and when we got to +talking about the hail they allowed that he'd have to cut the creamery +plan out. I said that when Elcot Hunter took a thing up he stayed with +it until he put it through." + +His words had their effect on Florence. This, it seemed, was what the +men who dealt with Elcot thought of him. After a few more general +observations about the creamery her companion went back into his store, +and as he did so Nevis came out of a house near by. He stopped beside +her team. + +"I didn't know you were in the settlement," he said, and his manner +implied that had he been acquainted with the fact he would have sought +her out. + +Florence glanced at him sharply as she gathered up the reins. The man +seemed disposed to be more amiable than he had shown himself on the last +occasion, but she now cherished two strong grievances against him. He +had cunningly saddled her with a debt which was becoming horribly +embarrassing, and he had given her husband a hint that she had dealings +of some kind with him. As the latter course was, on the face of it, +clearly not calculated to earn her gratitude, she surmised that he must +have had some ulterior object in adopting it. + +"I've been buying stores," she answered indifferently. + +"That's a new departure, isn't it?" Nevis suggested. "You generally +contented yourself with sending in for them." + +Florence did not like his tone, and he seemed suspiciously well informed +about her habits. This indicated that he had been making inquiries about +her, and she naturally resented it. She disregarded the speech, however. + +"I suppose you're here on business?" + +"Yes," answered Nevis, and there was something significant in his +manner; "I thought it wiser to look up my clients after the hail we had +two nights ago. It's going to make things very tight for many of the +prairie farmers." + +"And a disaster naturally brings you on the field. Rather like the +vultures, isn't it?" + +She was about to drive on, but Nevis suddenly laid his hand on the rein. + +"I think you ought to give me a minute or two, if only to answer that," +he said with a laugh. "You compared me to a pickpocket not long ago, and +I'm not prepared to own that you have chosen a very fortunate simile +now." + +"No? After the fact you mentioned it struck me as rather apposite; but I +may have been wrong. The point's hardly worth discussing, and I'm going +on to the hotel." + +She had expected him to take the hint and drop the rein, but he showed +no intention of doing so, and it suddenly dawned on her that he meant +to keep her talking as long as possible. Everybody in the settlement who +cared to look out could see them, and she had no doubt that the women in +the place were keenly observant. It almost seemed as if he wished the +fact that they had a good deal to say to each other to attract +attention, with the idea that this might serve to give him a further +hold on her. It was an opposite policy to the one he had pursued when +she had driven him across the prairie some time ago, but the man had +become bolder and more aggressive since then. + +"Will you let that rein go?" she asked directly. + +Nevis did not comply, and though he made a gesture of deprecation the +look in his eyes warned her that he meant to let her feel his power. + +"Won't you give me an opportunity for convincing you that I'm not like +the vultures first? You see, they gather round the carrion, and I don't +suppose you would care to apply that term to the farmers in our +vicinity. Most of them aren't more than moribund yet." + +It struck Florence that he was indifferent as to whether she took +offense at this or not; and he was undoubtedly determined to stick fast +to the rein. There were already one or two loungers watching them, and, +if he persisted, she could not start the team without some highly +undesirable display of force. The man, she fancied, realized this, and +an angry warmth crept into her face. Then, somewhat to her relief, she +saw Thorne strolling down the street behind her companion. He wore a +battered, wide gray hat, a blue shirt which hung open at the neck, duck +trousers and long boots, and though he was freely sprinkled with dust he +looked distinctly picturesque. What was more to the purpose, he seemed +to be regarding Nevis with suspicion, and she knew that he was a man of +quick resource. In any case, the situation was becoming intolerable, and +she flashed a quick glance at him. She fancied that he would understand +it as an intimation that he was wanted, and the expectation was +justified, for although she had never been gracious to him he approached +a little faster. In the meanwhile Nevis, who had seen nothing of all +this, talked on. + +"There are, of course," he added, "people who are prejudiced against me; +but on the other hand I have set a good many of the small farmers on +their feet again." + +"Presumably you made them pay for it?" + +The man had no opportunity for answering this, for just then Thorne's +hand fell heavily upon his shoulder. + +"You here, Nevis?" he cried. + +Nevis dropped the rein as he swung around and Florence wasted no time in +starting her team. As the wagon jolted away down the rutted street +Nevis, standing still, somewhat flushed in face, gazed at Thorne. + +"Well," he demanded, "what do you want?" + +Thorne leaned against the front of the store with sardonic amusement in +his eyes. + +"Oh," he replied, "it merely occurred to me that Mrs. Hunter wished to +drive on. I thought I'd better point it out to you." + +Nevis glanced at him savagely and then strode away, which was, indeed, +all that he could do. An altercation would serve no useful purpose, and +his antagonist was notoriously quick at repartee. + +Thorne proceeded toward the wooden hotel and crossing the veranda he +entered a long roughly boarded room, where he found Alison and Mrs. +Farquhar as well as Florence Hunter waiting for supper. Mrs. Farquhar +told him that supper would be served to them before the regular +customers came in for theirs. They chatted a while and then a young lad +appeared in the doorway and stopped hesitatingly. + +"I'm sorry if I'm intruding," he apologized. "I meant to have supper +with the boys, and Symonds didn't tell me there was anybody in the +room." + +Thorne turned to Mrs. Farquhar, and she smiled. + +"Then unless you would prefer to take it with the boys, Dave, there's no +reason why you should run away," he said. + +He led the lad toward Alison when Mrs. Farquhar had spoken to him. + +"I think you will remember him, Miss Leigh. He's the young man who +boiled the fowls whole at the raising." + +Alison laughed and shook hands with him, but after a word or two with +her he looked at Thorne significantly and moved a few paces toward the +door. + +"Did you know that Winthrop was in the neighborhood?" he whispered. + +Alison still stood near them and Thorne fancied that she started +slightly, which implied that she had overheard, though why the news +should cause her concern was far from clear to him. + +"I didn't," he said sharply. "It's a little difficult to believe it now. +You're quite sure?" + +"I saw him," the lad persisted. "I was riding here along the trail and +I'd come to the ravine. It's quite likely the birches had hidden me, for +when I came out of them he was sitting on the edge of the sloo on the +south side, near enough for me to recognize him, eating something. The +next moment he rolled over into the grass and vanished." + +"Then you didn't speak to him?" + +"He was too quick. It looked as if he didn't want me to see him, and I +rode on. I had to call at Forrester's and I found Corporal Slaney there. +One or two things he said made it clear that he hadn't the faintest +notion that Winthrop was within a mile or two of him." + +He was apparently about to add something further when Thorne looked at +him warningly. They were standing near the entrance, the approach to +which led through the veranda, and the next moment Nevis walked into the +room. + +"Have you been picking up interesting news?" he asked. "I believe I +caught Winthrop's name." + +It was spoken sharply, in the expectation, Thorne fancied, that his +companion, taken off his guard, would blurt out some fresh information; +but the lad turned toward Nevis with an air of cold resentment. + +"I was talking to Mr. Thorne," he replied. + +Nevis laughed, though Thorne noticed that he did not do it easily. + +"Well," he said, "I'm sorry if I interrupted you." + +Then he turned toward the others as if he had just noticed them. + +"I didn't know that Symonds had placed the room at your disposal; I've +no doubt that will excuse me." + +Nobody invited him to remain, but he withdrew gracefully, and when he +had gone Thorne led the lad out on to the veranda. It was unoccupied, +but as it stood some little height above the ground he walked to the +edge of it and looked over before he spoke. + +"Now, Dave, I want you to tell me one or two things as clearly as you +can." + +The lad answered his questions, and in a minute or two Thorne nodded as +if satisfied. Then he pointed to the room. + +"Go in and talk to Mrs. Farquhar. Keep clear of Nevis, and ride home as +soon as you can after supper. If you feel compelled to mention the +thing, there's no reason why you shouldn't to-morrow. It won't do much +harm then." + +He went down the steps and along the street, and when he came back some +time later he found Alison waiting for him on the veranda. + +"So you heard what Dave told me? I thought you did," he said. + +"Yes," assented Alison. "The question is whether Nevis heard him too." + +"He certainly heard part, but there are one or two things he can't very +well know. For instance, it was Slaney's intention to ride in to the +railroad as soon as he'd had supper." + +"Forrester's place must be at least two leagues from here," commented +Alison. + +"About that," Thorne agreed with a smile. "It's far enough to make it +exceedingly probable that anybody who started from this settlement when +he'd had his supper would only get there after Winthrop had gone." + +"But Nevis might send a messenger immediately." + +Thorne shook his head. + +"It strikes me as very unlikely that he'd get any one to go. There are +only one or two horses in the place, and I've been round to see the men +to whom they belong." + +Alison's eyes sparkled approvingly. + +"But suppose he goes himself?" + +"He won't until after supper. Nevis is not the man to deny himself +unless it seems absolutely necessary, and he'll naturally assume that +Slaney is spending the night with Forrester. But there's a certain +probability of his setting out immediately after the meal." + +"And what are you going to do about it?" + +Thorne's expression became regretful. + +"I'm very much afraid I can't do anything. You see, +the--arrangement--with Corporal Slaney stands in the way." + +"You never thought that Winthrop would come back here when you made it," +Alison suggested. + +"No," acknowledged Thorne; "the point is that the corporal didn't +either." + +Alison appeared to reflect, and he watched her with quiet amusement. + +"I've changed my mind about Winthrop," she told him at length. "I want +him to get away." + +Thorne made no answer, and she continued: + +"Lucy Calvert is, no doubt, a good deal more anxious than I am that he +should escape, and it would be only natural if you wished to earn her +thanks. I think she could be very nice, and her eyes are wonderfully +blue." + +Thorne met her inquiring gaze with one of contemplative scrutiny. + +"Yours," he said, "are usually delightfully still and gray--like a pool +on a moorland stream at home under a faintly clouded sky; but now and +then they gleam with a golden light as the water does when the sun comes +through." + +His companion hastily abandoned that line of attack. His defense was too +vigorous for her to follow it up. + +"You feel that your hands are absolutely tied by the hint you gave +Slaney that afternoon?" she asked. + +"That's how it strikes me," Thorne declared. "In this case I'm afraid +I'll have to stand aside and content myself with looking on." + +"But haven't you already made it difficult for Nevis to get a +messenger?" + +"I've certainly given a couple of men a hint that I'd rather they didn't +do any errand of his to-night. That may have been going too far--I can't +tell." He paused and laughed softly. "Except when it's a case of selling +patent medicines, I'm not a casuist." + +Alison realized his point of view and in several ways it appealed to +her. He had treated the matter humorously, but, though so little had +been said by either of the men, it was clear that he felt he had pledged +himself to Slaney, and was not to be moved. + +"Well," she urged, "somebody must stop Nevis from driving over to +Forrester's." + +"It would be very desirable," Thorne admitted dryly. "The most annoying +thing is that it could have been managed with very little trouble." + +"How?" Alison asked with assumed indifference. + +Thorne, suspecting nothing, fell into the trap. + +"Nevis's hired buggy is a rather rickety affair. It wouldn't astonish +anybody if, when he wished to start, there was a bolt short." + +A look of satisfaction flashed into Alison's eyes. + +"Then he will certainly have to put up with any trouble the absence of +that bolt is capable of causing. As there doesn't seem to be any other +way, I'll pull it out myself. Your scruples won't compel you to forbid +me?" + +The man expostulated, but she was quietly determined. + +"If you won't tell me what to do, I'll get Dave," she laughed. "I've no +doubt he'd be willing to help me." + +Thorne thought it highly undesirable that they should take a third +person into their confidence, and he reluctantly yielded. + +"Then," he advised, "it would be wiser to set about it while the boys +are getting supper; there'll be nobody about the back of the hotel then. +In the meanwhile, we'd better go in again and talk to the others." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +ALISON SPOILS HER GLOVES + + +Mrs. Farquhar and her friends had finished supper, and the men who got +their meals there were trooping into the hotel, when Alison found Thorne +waiting on the veranda. + +"You're ready, I suppose?" + +"I've no intention of keeping you waiting, anyway," Thorne replied. + +Alison looked at him with a hint of sharpness. + +"If you would very much rather stay here, why should you come at all? +Now that you have told me what to do, it really isn't necessary." + +Thorne smiled. + +"Well," he said, "on the whole, it strikes me as advisable." + +He walked down the steps with her, and, sauntering a few yards along the +street, they turned down an opening between the houses and stopped at +the back of the hotel. There were only two windows in that part of the +building, and the rude wooden stable would shield anybody standing close +beneath one side of it from observation. Several gigs stood there to +wait until their owners were ready to drive back to their outlying +farms, and behind them the gray-white prairie ran back into the +distance, empty and unbroken except for the riband of rutted trail. +There was no sound from the hotel, for the average Westerner eats in +silent, strenuous haste, and the two could hear only the movements of a +restless horse in the stable. + +Alison walked up to a somewhat dilapidated buggy and inspected it +dubiously. + +"This must be the one, and I suppose that's the bolt," she said. "There +seems to be a big nut beneath it, and I don't quite see how I'm to get +it off. Would your scruples prevent your making any suggestion?" + +Thorne appeared to consider, though there was a twinkle in his eyes. + +"I might go so far as to point out that if you went into the stable you +would find a spanner on the ledge behind the door. It's an instrument +that's made for screwing off nuts with." + +Alison disappeared into the stable and came back with the spanner in her +hand. Thorne noticed that she had put on a pair of rather shabby light +gloves, with the object, he supposed, of protecting her fingers. +Stooping down behind the buggy she stretched out an arm beneath the +seat, and became desperately busy, to judge from the tapping and +clinking she made. Then she straightened herself and looked up at him, +hot and a trifle flushed. + +"It won't go on to the nut," she complained. "Is it quite out of the +question that you should help me?" + +She saw the constraint in his face, and was pleased with it. She did not +wish the man to break his pledge, and it is probable that she would have +refused his assistance; but she was, on the other hand, very human in +most respects, and she greatly desired to ascertain how strong the +temptation to help her was. + +"In the first place, you might try turning the screw on the spanner a +little," he advised. "It will make the opening wider." + +She did so, and had no more difficulty on that point, but the bolt was +rusty and the nut very stiff. While she struggled with it there was a +sound of footsteps, and Thorne, moving suddenly forward, snatched the +tool from her. + +"Stay there until I make it possible for you to slip away!" he whispered +sharply; then he stepped swiftly back a few paces and leaned against a +wagon with the spanner in his hand. + +He had scarcely done so when a man came out of the opening between the +houses, and Alison felt her heart throb unpleasantly fast. If the +newcomer should look around toward the stables it seemed impossible that +he should fail to notice Thorne. The latter, however, stood quietly +still, with his shoulders resting against the wagon wheel, and the +spanner in full view in front of him. The other man drew abreast of +them, but he did not look around, and Alison gasped with relief when he +vanished behind one of the neighboring buildings. + +Then she turned impulsively to her companion. + +"Oh," she cried, "you meant him to see you!" + +Thorne raised his hand in expostulation. + +"Hadn't you better get the thing out before somebody else comes along?" + +There was no doubt that he was right in this, and Alison attacked the +nut again. In two or three more minutes she moved away from the buggy +with the bolt in her hand. + +"What had I better do with it?" she asked. + +"I might suggest dropping it into a thick clump of grass. If you don't +mind, we'll stroll out a little way on the prairie. There's too much +dust to be pleasant blowing down the street." + +They had left the wooden buildings some distance behind when Alison next +spoke to him. + +"That was a generous thing you did just now." + +Thorne looked confused, but he made no attempt to evade an answer. + +"It was necessary." + +"If the man had seen you with the spanner, Corporal Slaney would, no +doubt, have heard of it afterward. That would have hurt you?" + +"It certainly wouldn't have pleased me." + +"Then why did you do what you did?" + +"I think I have just told you." + +"You said it was necessary," replied Alison, looking at him with eyes +which just then had what he thought a very wonderful light in them. "You +haven't convinced me that it wasn't--rather fine of you." + +Thorne was manifestly more embarrassed, and embarrassment of any kind +was somewhat unusual with him. + +"Then," he said, "you compel me to try. If we had remained standing as +we did when the man first came out from behind the houses and he had +noticed you, it's exceedingly probable that he would have noticed me. +Even if he hadn't, it's almost certain that several people must have +seen you leave the hotel in my company. They wouldn't have had much +trouble in figuring out the thing." + +"Of course!" exclaimed Alison, a little astonished that this had not +occurred to her earlier. Then her face grew suddenly warm. "You mean +they would have recognized that I was acting--on your instructions?" + +Thorne looked at her with a disconcerting steadiness. + +"You haven't quite grasped the most important fact yet. They would have +wondered how I was able to get you to do it--in other words, what gave +me such a hold on you. The trouble is that there's an explanation that +would naturally suggest itself." + +"Yes," murmured Alison, with her eyes turned away from him; "that would +have been unpleasant--for both of us." + +Thorne did not quite know what to make of the pause, though he had a +shadowy idea that it somehow rendered her assertion less positive, and +left the point open to doubt. In any case, it set his heart beating +fast, and he had some trouble in holding himself in hand. Outwardly, +however, he was graver than usual. + +"Well," he added, "I didn't think it desirable in several ways. You see, +a pedler is, after all, a person of no account in this part of Canada. +He has no particular interest in the fortune of the country; he doesn't +help its progress; his calling benefits nobody." + +"But you are a farmer now," protested Alison, glancing at him covertly. + +"Strictly on probation. In fact, there's very little doubt that my new +venture is generally regarded as a harmless eccentricity. It will be +some time before my neighbors realize that I'm capable of anything +that's not connected with an amusing frolic." He stopped a moment, and +smiled at her. "On the whole, I can't reasonably blame them. My +situation's a very precarious one; a frozen crop would break me." + +Alison wondered what the drift of these observations could be, for she +imagined that he must have had some particular purpose in saying so +much. It was, so far as her experience went, a very unusual thing for a +man to confess that he was an object of amusement to his neighbors, or +that there was a probability of his failing to make his mark in his +profession. + +"I suppose," she suggested, to help him out, "you're not content with +such a state of things?" + +"That is just the point. It's my intention to alter it as soon as +possible, and a bonanza harvest this year would go a long way toward +setting me on my feet. In the meanwhile, it seems only fitting that I +should put up with popular opinion, and try to bear in mind my +disabilities." + +He was far from explicit, but explicitness was, after all, not what +Alison desired, and she fancied she understood him. It had not been +without a sufficient reason that he had, to his friends' astonishment, +turned farmer, and now he meant to wait until he had made a success of +it, and had shown that he could hold his own with the best of them, +before going any farther. This naturally suggested the question as to +what he meant to do then, and she fancied that she could supply the +answer. She had already confessed to herself that she liked the man, and +this was sufficient for the time being. + +"I heard that your wheat escaped, as Farquhar's did." + +Thorne, glancing at her, surmised that this was a lead, and that he was +not expected to pursue the previous subject. + +"Yes," he replied, "I'm thankful to say it did. Most of the grain a few +miles to the west of us was blotted out, including Hunter's--I'm sorry +for him. The storm seems to have traveled straight down into Dakota, +destroying everything in its path. My place lay just outside it, and at +present everything promises a record crop." He broke off, and glanced +down at her hands. "Have you noticed your glove?" + +Alison held it up and displayed a large rusty stain across the palm and +part of the back of it. + +"Yes," she answered; "I did that getting the bolt out, and I'm rather +vexed about it. Mrs. Farquhar will, no doubt, notice the stain, and I +don't feel anxious to explain how it was done." + +"Then you'll have to take the glove off," advised Thorne. + +Alison smiled. + +"I'm not sure that simple expedient would get over the difficulty. Of +course, I might leave them behind altogether." Then she shook her head. +"No; the person who found them would see the stain and guess whose they +were. I don't think that would do, either." + +"It wouldn't," Thorne agreed. + +Then they began to talk of something else, and presently they turned +back together toward the hotel. When they reached it, Florence Hunter +and Mrs. Farquhar were sitting on the veranda, while two or three men +occupied the lower steps, and another group lounged about near them, +pipe in hand. A few minutes later Nevis appeared striding down the +street with his lips set and some signs of temper. He stopped in front +of the hotel, and Alison glanced at Thorne significantly when he turned +to the lounging men. + +"You folks seem mighty prosperous in spite of the hail," he sneered. "I +can't find a man in this town who's open to earn a couple of dollars." + +Some of them grinned, but none made any answer. His tone was offensive, +in the first place, and, while nobody is overburdened with riches on the +prairie, the average Westerner has his own ideas as to what is +becoming. + +Nevis signed to one of them. + +"Get my buggy, Bill!" + +The man hesitated, and though he strolled off toward the stables, +Nevis's sharpness cost him several minutes' unnecessary delay. +Eventually the buggy was brought out, and nobody said anything when +Nevis got in and flicked the horse smartly with a whip, though the tilt +of the seat must have been evident to most of the lookers-on. Alison +touched Thorne's arm. + +"Hadn't you better call to him?" she suggested. + +The next moment the warning was rendered unnecessary, for there was a +crash, and the seat of the buggy collapsed. Nevis lurched violently +forward, but he managed to recover his balance and pull up the horse. +Then he swung himself down, and after crawling under the vehicle, stood +up with a frowning face while the loungers began to gather about him. + +"There's a bolt out. I didn't notice it when I drove up," he grumbled. +"It's three-eighths by the hole, I think. Ask Bill if he's got anything +of the kind in the stable." + +Bill, who had been standing near, sauntered away, and it was at least +five minutes before he came back, empty-handed. + +"I've nothing that will fit," he announced. + +"Then go in and see if they've got one at the hardware store," ordered +Nevis. "I ought to have thought of that earlier." + +Bill was away a long while this time, and when he returned he held up an +unusually long bolt for inspection. + +"Guess it won't be any use," he said. "Thread doesn't go far enough to +let the nut to the plate." + +"Then what in thunder did you bring it for?" Nevis asked with rising +anger. + +Alison looked at Thorne and laughed. + +"Have you been giving that man a hint?" she inquired. + +"No," answered Thorne, smiling; "it would have been wasted in any case. +Nevis has succeeded in riling him. He couldn't have managed the thing +better if I had prompted him." + +In the meanwhile Bill languidly affected to consider Nevis's question. + +"I guess I wanted to be quite sure it wouldn't fit," he replied at +length. "If it doesn't, I could see if he has got a shorter one in +another package." + +Nevis flung out his arms in savage expostulation. + +"Well," he cried, "I've never yet struck anybody quite as thick as you. +Couldn't you have brought the shorter one along?" + +"Those bolts," Bill answered solemnly, "don't run many to the dollar, +and I'd a kind of notion I might find a big nut or some washers I could +fill up with in the stables." + +"No," snapped Nevis; "you have wasted time enough! If it won't do, take +the thing back into the store and ask Bevan to cut the thread farther +along it!" + +Bill strolled away at a particularly leisurely gait, and Thorne took out +his watch. + +"It's highly probable that Slaney will have left Forrester's before our +friend gets off," he said. "In that case, it will no doubt be noon +to-morrow before the police make their first attempt to get on +Winthrop's trail. I wonder whether anybody except Dave can have seen +him." + +"I did," Alison told him; "the morning before the hail." + +Thorne turned toward her with a start. + +"Where?" + +"At the homestead. Farquhar and his wife were out." + +"What brought Winthrop there?" + +"That," smiled Alison, "I may tell you some day, but not just now. I +wonder what has kept him in the neighborhood?" + +"It's easily figured out. He'd head for Mrs. Calvert's, and probably +stay an hour or two there; then he'd go on to Brayton's place--they're +friends--at night. Jardine's would be his next call, and he'd be +striking west away from the larger settlements when Dave came across +him." + +This struck Alison as probable, but just then Bill came out of the store +again. + +"Beavan hasn't anything shorter, and he's doing up his accounts. He +can't cut threads on bolts, anyway," he announced. "It's Pete who does +that kind of thing for him." + +Judging from his face, it cost Nevis a determined effort to check an +outbreak of fury. + +"Then where in thunder is Pete?" he shouted. + +It appeared that the man had gone home to supper, and a quarter of an +hour passed before he came upon the scene. Then it took him quite as +long to operate on the bolt and fit it in the buggy, and Nevis's face +was very hot and red when he flung himself into the vehicle. He used the +whip savagely, and there was some derisive applause and laughter when +the horse went down the street at a gallop with the buggy jolting +dangerously in the ruts behind it. + +Thorne descended the steps and disappeared. When he came back Mrs. +Farquhar's wagon was being brought out, and he walked up to Alison with +a parcel in his hand. + +"I think," he said, "that's the best way of hiding the stain." + +Alison opened the parcel, and was conscious of a curious thrill, in +which pleasure and embarrassment were mingled, when she found a pair of +gloves inside. It was the first gift he had made her. + +"Thank you," she murmured. "They fit me, too. How did you guess the +size?" + +"Oh," laughed Thorne, "it was very simple. I just asked for the smallest +pair they had in the store." + +Then Mrs. Farquhar came up, and he helped her and Alison into the +wagon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AN UNEXPECTED DISASTER + + +Several weeks had slipped away since the evening Nevis drove out of +Graham's Bluff in search of Corporal Slaney, and there had been no news +of Winthrop, when Thorne plodded across the prairie beside his team, +hauling in a load of dressed lumber for the new creamery. Hunter had +contracted with him to convey the necessary material from the railroad, +and in the interval between sowing and reaping Thorne had found the +arrangement a profitable one. He had a use for every dollar he could +raise, and all through the heat of the summer he had worked double +tides. + +It was blazing hot that afternoon, and the wide plain lay scorching +under a pitiless glare. Thorne was not sorry when the Farquhar homestead +with its encircling sea of wheat took shape ahead. The trail led past +it, and, though time was precious to him then, he felt that he could put +up with an hour or two's delay in case Mrs. Farquhar invited him to wait +for supper. It was now a fortnight since he had seen Alison. + +The wooden buildings rose very slowly, though he several times urged the +jaded horses. They had made a long haul that day, and the man, who had +trudged at their head since early morning, was almost as weary. On the +odd days that they had spent in the stable he had toiled arduously on +his house and half-finished barn, beginning with the dawn and ceasing at +dark. Now he was grimed with dust and dripping with perspiration, and a +tantalizing cloud of flies hovered over him. All this was a decided +change from driving a few hours daily in a lightly loaded wagon, but +what at first had appeared an almost unexplainable liking for the +constant effort had grown upon him. He would not have abandoned it now +had that course been open to him. + +By degrees the sea of grain grew nearer, its edge rising in a clean-cut +ridge above the flat white sweep of dazzling plain. It had changed from +green to pale yellow in the past few weeks, but there were here and +there vivid coppery gleams in it. It promised a bounteous yield when +thrashing was over, and he thought of his own splendid crop with the +clean pride of accomplishment. Then he noticed that a buggy was +approaching from the opposite direction, and when he reached the +homestead a man in white shirt and store clothes had just pulled up his +horse. He shook hands with Thorne, who had already recognized him as a +dealer in implements and general farming supplies from the railroad +settlement. + +"Glad I met you. It will save my going on to your place," he said. + +Thorne noticed that the man, who was usually optimistic and cheerful, +looked depressed. + +"Did you want to see me about something, Grantly?" he asked. + +"Yes. To cut it short, I'm going out of business." + +The full significance of this announcement did not immediately dawn upon +Thorne. + +"I expect most of the boys will regret it as much as I do," he said. +"One could rely on anything sent out from your store, and there's no +doubt that you have always treated us liberally." + +"That's just the trouble. I've been too blamed easy with some of you. If +I'd kept a tighter hand on the folks who owed me money it's quite likely +I'd have been able to meet my bills." + +"Is it as bad as that?" Thorne inquired with genuine sympathy. + +Grantly turned to Farquhar, who had joined them in the meanwhile. + +"The fact is, things have been going against me the last three years. +Nevis has been steadily cutting into my trade; but I held on somehow, +expecting that a record harvest or a high market would put me straight. +I'd have been able to get some of my money in again then. In the +meanwhile I was getting behind with the makers who supplied me, and now +one or two of them have pulled me up; I guess it was the hail that +decided them. It's a private compromise, but the point is that Nevis +takes over my liabilities." + +Thorne's face suddenly hardened, and Farquhar looked grave. + +"It's bad news," said the latter. "Is he paying cash?" + +"Part," Grantly answered. "The rest in bills. He has Brand, of Winnipeg, +behind him, and he's good enough. In fact, I believe the man has been +backing Nevis right along." He turned to Thorne. "Anyway, I've got to +give the store up, and you'll have Nevis for a creditor instead of me. +That's really what brought me over. The note you gave me calls for a +good many dollars and it's due very soon." + +Thorne endeavored to brace himself after the blow, which had been as +unexpected as it was heavy. He had obtained all his implements and most +of the materials he required for his house-building from Grantly, giving +him a claim upon his possessions as security, in addition to a promise +to pay at a date by which harvest was usually over; but owing to an +exceptionally cold spring, harvest was late that year. + +"It was understood that you wouldn't press me if I should be a few weeks +behind," he reminded him. + +"That's quite right," Grantly assented. "The trouble is that it was only +a verbal promise, and it won't count for much with Nevis. He's been +after you for some time, and I guess he'll stick to the date on the +note. If you're not ready with the money he'll break you." + +Farquhar made a sign of concurrence. + +"I'm afraid it's very probable. What are you going to do about it, +Mavy?" + +Thorne stood silent for almost a minute, and the bronze faded a little +in his face, which was very grim. + +"That note will have to be met. You told Grantly I was to be relied +upon, and I'm not going back on you. It's not my intention to let Nevis +do what he likes with me, either. In a general way, I'd have gone to +Hunter, and I've no doubt that he would have financed me; but that's +quite out of the question now. He has all the trouble he's fit to stand +on his hands already." + +"A sure thing," Farquhar agreed. + +"Well," Thorne added, "the oats are about ripe, and though I'd rather +they had stood another week or so, I'll put the binder into them at +sunup to-morrow. The wheat should be nearly ready by the time I'm +through, and I'll hire the help I could have borrowed if I had been +able to wait a while. I'll have to let up on the haulage contract and +work right on, almost without stopping, until I can get the thrashers +in; but I'll put the crop on the market before the note is due!" + +"You couldn't do it, Mavy, if you worked all night." + +Thorne laughed in a harsh fashion. + +"Just wait and see! It has to be done! In the meanwhile, please make my +excuses to Mrs. Farquhar for not calling. I must be getting on." + +"You can't do anything to-night," Farquhar objected. + +"I can ride over to Hall's and get back to my place by sunup with his +team." + +He called to his horses, and with a creaking of suddenly tightened +harness the wagon jolted on, but as he passed the door of the homestead +Alison came out. Thorne stopped, while the team slowly plodded forward, +and it seemed to her that there was a striking change in the man. +Nothing in his manner suggested that he had ever regarded life as a +frolic and taken his part in it with careless gaiety. His eyes were very +grave and there was a look she had never seen in them before, while his +face seemed to have set in sharper lines. He looked strangely determined +and forceful; almost, as she thought of it, dominant. + +"What is the matter? You are in some trouble?" she exclaimed. + +"Yes," said Thorne simply. "Farquhar will no doubt explain the thing. +There's a very tough fight in front of me. I don't think I could have +undertaken it six months ago." He spread out his hands. "It's +unthinkable that I should be beaten!" + +Alison felt strangely stirred by something in his voice. + +"Then," she urged, "you will have to win! You must; I want you to!" + +Thorne looked at her with a gleam in his eyes that set her heart +throbbing painfully fast. + +"Now," he laughed, "the thing seems almost easy!" + +He turned away after his wagon, and Alison waited until Farquhar came up +with Grantly. + +"What has Thorne undertaken?" she asked. + +Farquhar smiled. + +"I'll try to tell you after supper. In the meanwhile, I can only say +that he seems determined on breaking himself up by attempting a task +that in my opinion is beyond the power of any man on the prairie." + +He went into the house with Grantly, and it was an hour or two later +before Alison was able to form a fairly accurate idea of the situation. +Then her heart grew very soft toward Thorne, and she thought of him with +a sense of pride. It was for her sake he had braced himself for this +most unequal fight, and she knew that he meant to win. + +In the meanwhile Thorne was urging on his team, and dusk was closing in +when he flung down the lumber from his wagon. After that, he drove +through the soft darkness for two or three hours, and finally roused an +outlying neighbor from his well-earned slumber. The man, descending, +roundly abused him, but became a little mollified when he heard his +story. + +"The thing surely can't be done, and just now you can't count on much +help, either. The Ontario boys are only just starting West, and the +first of them will be snapped up before they get to Brandon. Anyway, +I'll come along with you and do what I can." He moved toward a +cupboard. "If you left Farquhar's when you said, you couldn't have got +your supper." + +"Now that you mention it," laughed Thorne, "I don't think I did." + +His friend set food before him, and an hour later they drove off in the +darkness, leaving Thorne's jaded team behind them. Eventually they +reached his homestead in the early dawn, and Thorne, who had been on +foot most of the time since sunrise on the previous morning, sat down +wearily on the stoop and took out his pipe while he looked about him. +Eager as he was to get to work, he could not begin just yet, for the +night had been clear and cold, and the grain was dripping with the heavy +dew. + +He had his back to the house, which was at last almost ready for +habitation, but the half-finished barn and the rude sod stable rose +before him blackly against the growing light. Beyond these, the sweep of +grain stretched back, a darker patch on the shadowy prairie, with +another dusky oblong just discernible on the short grass some distance +away. Determined as he was, his heart sank as he gazed at them. He had +undertaken a task that looked utterly beyond his powers. + +Had he been content to begin on his hundred-and-sixty-acre holding on +the scale usual in the case of men with scanty means, he would probably +have had no great trouble in harvesting all the crop he could have +raised; but he had seen enough during his journeyings up and down the +prairie to convince him that there was remarkably little to be made in +this fashion. As a result he had staked boldly, breaking practically all +his land, with hired assistance and the most modern implements that +could be purchased, though this necessitated the borrowing of money. He +had, in addition, secured the use of a neighboring holding, part of +which had been under grain before, from a man who had worked it long +enough to secure his patent and had then discovered that he could earn +considerably more as a subcontractor on a new branch railroad. + +In consequence of this, Thorne had a large crop to garner, and very +little time in which to do it, for he was convinced that Nevis would +press for payment immediately the note was due. It could not be met +until the grain was thrashed and sold, and he realized that any delay +would place him in the power of a man who would not fail to make the +utmost use of the opportunity. Besides this, it would render it +impossible for him to obtain any further loans, and he scarcely expected +to finance his operations unassisted for some time yet. It was only +Hunter's guarantee that had made the venture possible, and there was no +doubt in his mind that unless he could satisfy Nevis's claim his career +as a farmer would terminate abruptly before the next month was over. + +Then he recalled the months of determined labor he had expended upon the +house and holding, the noonday heat in which he had toiled, and the +chilly dawns when he had gone out, aching all over after a very +insufficient sleep, to begin his task again. Sixteen and often eighteen +hours comprised his working day, and out of them he had spared very few +minutes for cookery. His clothes had gone unmended, and it must be +confessed that he had not infrequently slept in them when he was too +weary to take them off, and that they were by no means regularly washed. +In fact, once or twice when he was about to drive over to the Farquhar +homestead he remembered with a slight shock that it was several days +since he had made any attempt worth mentioning at a toilet. In the +meanwhile, he had grown leaner and harder and browner, while there had +by degrees crept into his face that curious look which one may see now +and then in the faces of monks, highly trained athletes, and even of +those who unconsciously practise asceticism from love of a calling that +makes stern demands on them; a look which, though it does not always +suggest the final triumph of the mind over the body, is never a +characteristic of full-fed, ease-loving men. His eyes were strikingly +clear and unwavering, his weather-darkened skin was singularly clean, +and his whole face had grown, as it were, refined, though the man was as +quickly moved to anger, impatience, or laughter as he had always been. +It would seem that a good many purely human impulses usually survive the +partial subjugation of the flesh, which is, after all, no doubt +fortunate. + +He rose stiffly, damp with the dew, when he had smoked one pipe out, and +gazed toward where the sun was rising fiery red above the rim of the +prairie. His expression was very resolute. + +"A low dawn, Hall; we'll have all the heat we want by noon," he +commented. "The oats will be drying by the time we're ready with the +team. If you'll look after them I'll oil the binder." + +His companion grinned. + +"It strikes me the first thing is to set the stove going. Guess if I'm +going to get on a record hustle I want my breakfast." + +Thorne frowned impatiently, but he carried an armful of birch billets +into the house, and when half an hour later he called in his companion, +the latter glanced with undisguised disgust at the provisions on the +table and the contents of the frying-pan. + +"Well," he ejaculated, "if you can raise steam on that kind of truck, I +most certainly can't. The first of the boys who drives by to the +settlement is going to bring us out something fit to eat, if I have to +pay for it." + +"What's the matter with this?" Thorne asked indifferently. + +Hall raised a fragment of half-raw pork upon his fork. + +"It would be wasting time to tell you, if you can't smell it," he +retorted. + +Then he took up a block of bread and banged it down on the table. + +"Not a crack in it! You want to bake some more and sell it to the +railroad for locomotive brakes." + +Thorne laughed. + +"Send for anything you like. Hunter's hired man will probably be going +in." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +LUCY GOES TO THE RESCUE + + +About four o'clock in the afternoon of the day following the beginning +of his harvest, Thorne sat heavy-eyed in the saddle of a binder which +three horses hauled along the edge of the grain. He had been at work +since sunrise, except for a brief rest at midday, and he was wondering +whether the team could hold out until nightfall. The binder had not +quite reached its present efficiency then, and the traction was heavy. +It was fiercely hot, and there was only the faintest breeze, while a +thin cloud of dust that made his eyes smart and crept into his nostrils +eddied about him. The whirling wooden arms of the machine flashed in the +midst of it as they flung out the sheaves, and there was a sharp clash +and tinkle as the knife rasped through the tall oat stalks. + +As he neared a corner, driving wearily, he turned and glanced back along +the rows of piled-up sheaves which stood blazing with light down the +belt of gleaming stubble. The latter was narrow, for although it was the +result of two days' determined labor, he had somehow accomplished less +than he had anticipated. Half the time he had spent, turn about with +Hall, in the saddle and the rest gathering up the tossed-out sheaves in +the wake of the machine. It was desirable to keep pace with the binder, +though the task is one that is beyond the strength of a single man in a +heavy crop, and it was only by toiling with a savage persistency that he +and his companion had partially accomplished it. Now, however, his +heart sank as he looked round at the sea of grain. + +It rose in a great oblong, glowing with tints of ochre, silvery gray and +cadmium, relieved here and there by coppery flashes and delicate +pencilings of warm sienna, and over it there hung a cloudless vault of +blue. It looked very large, and there was another oblong yet unbroken +some distance away. Thorne's head ached, and his eyes ached, and his +back hurt him at each jolt of the machine. He had been almost worn-out +when he began the task, and since then he had lain down for only a few +hours, and then had not been able to sleep. + +Beyond the grain, the prairie stretched away, intolerably white in the +sun-glare, to the horizon. Thorne fancied that he had seen a moving +object upon it some time earlier. The machine had, however, engrossed +most of his attention, and he was not sure. He reached the turning and +was proceeding away from the house when a voice hailed him, and as he +pulled up the team Lucy Calvert appeared. + +"What brought you over?" he asked in dull astonishment. + +Lucy smiled coquettishly. + +"It's generally allowed that you and I are friends. Anyway, if you'd +rather, I can go home again." + +Thorne looked at her with drawn-down brows. He was worn-out, his brain +was heavy, and he did not feel equal to any attempt at repartee. + +"You had better stop for supper first," he suggested. + +"I guess I'm going to," Lucy laughed. "Still, you won't want it for two +hours yet, and it looks as if there's something to be done in the +meanwhile. I didn't come over for supper or to talk to you; I met +Farquhar on the prairie, and he told me all about the thing." + +She turned and pointed to a row of sheaves which were still lying prone. + +"Why haven't you got those on end? Where's Hall?" + +"Gone over to his place for my team." + +"Then," said Lucy, "you can get off that machine right now and set the +sheaves up while I drive. I'll stay on until it's too dark to see, and +come round again first thing in the morning. We don't expect to get our +binders in for a week yet." + +Thorne was touched, and his face made it plain. He needed assistance +badly, and did not know where to obtain it, for his friends whose crops +the hail had spared were either beginning their own harvest or preparing +for it. Besides, there was not the slightest doubt that Lucy was +capable. + +"Get down right away!" she ordered laughingly. "I don't want thanks +from--you." + +Thorne was never sure afterward whether he attempted to offer her any, +but he set to work among the sheaves when she took her place in the +saddle and the binder went clinking and clashing on again. In spite of +his efforts, it drew farther and farther away, though he toiled in +half-breathless haste and the perspiration dripped from him. As he was +facing then, the sun beat upon his back and shoulders intolerably hot. +At length, when the shadows of the stooked sheaves had lengthened across +the crackling stubble in which he floundered, Lucy stopped her team a +moment and looked back at him. + +"I'll unyoke them at the corner and get supper," she said. "You get into +the shade there and lie down and smoke. If I see you move before I call +you, I'll go home again." + +She drove away before he could protest, but it was, after all, a relief +to obey her, and flinging himself down with his back to a cluster of the +sheaves, he took out his pipe. It was a little cooler there, and his +eyes were closing when a summons reached him across the grain. Getting +up with an effort, he walked toward the house, and was hazily astonished +when he entered it. Exactly what Lucy had done he could not tell, but +the place looked different. For the first time it seemed comfortably +habitable. There was a cloth, which was a thing he did not possess, on +the table, and his simple crockery, which shone absolutely white, and +his indurated ware made a neat display. The provisions laid out on it +looked tempting, too; in fact, he did not think that Hall could have +found any fault with them, and it presently struck him that they +included articles which he did not remember purchasing. + +He sat down when Lucy told him to, and it was pleasant to find what he +required ready at hand, instead of having to walk backward and forward +between the table and the stove. He did not remember what she said, but +they both laughed every now and then, and after the meal was over he was +content to sit still a while when she bade him. The presence of the girl +somehow changed the whole aspect of the room; but he was conscious of a +regret that it was she and not another who occupied the place opposite +him across his table. It was not Lucy Calvert he had often pictured +sitting there. At length he pointed through the doorway to the grain. + +"Lucy," he said, "that crop doesn't look by any means as hard to reap as +it did an hour ago." + +"I guess it's the supper," Lucy suggested cheerfully. + +"I don't think it's that exactly, though there's no doubt it's the best +meal I've had for a considerable time." + +Lucy leaned back in her chair. + +"Well," she observed, "it's company you want, and it's quite nice being +here. You and I kind of hit it, don't we, Mavy?" + +"Of course. We always did," Thorne assented, though there was a hint of +astonishment in his tone. + +"Then if you'll get rid of Hall--send him off again for something--I'll +get supper for you the next two or three evenings." + +"I don't see why he should be done out of his share," protested Thorne +cautiously. He felt that Lucy was more gracious than there was any +occasion for. + +"Don't you, Mavy?" she asked, with lifted brows. "Now, I've a notion +that anybody else would kind of spoil things." + +Until lately Thorne had seldom shrunk from any harmless gallantry, but +he did not respond just then with the readiness which the girl seemed to +expect. + +"It's a relief to hear you say it," he declared. "I'm afraid I'm a dull +companion to-night." + +Lucy nodded sympathetically. + +"Well," she replied, "I have seen you brighter, but you're anxious and +played out. Sit nice and still for half an hour while I talk to you." + +"I ought to be stooking those sheaves," Thorne answered dubiously. + +"You can do it by and by," Lucy urged. "It won't be dark for quite a +while yet." + +She adroitly led him on to talk, and presently bade him light his pipe. +He had always hated any unnecessary reserve and ceremony, and by +degrees his natural gaiety once more asserted itself. At length, when +they were both laughing over a narrative of his, he stretched his arm +out across the table and it happened by merest accident that their hands +met. Lucy did not draw hers away; she looked up at him with a smile. + +"Mavy," she teased, "I wonder what Miss Leigh would say if she could see +you." + +Thorne straightened himself somewhat hastily in his chair. Nothing in +the shape of a tactful answer occurred to him, and he grew uneasy under +his companion's smile. + +"Would you like to see her walk right in just now?" she persisted. + +There was no doubt that this would not have afforded the man the +slightest pleasure, but he could not admit it. + +"It's scarcely likely to happen," he evaded awkwardly. + +Then to his relief Lucy laughed. + +"Mavy, I've sure got you fixed. The curious thing is they allow at the +settlement that you could most talk the head off any of the boys." + +"I really don't see what satisfaction you expected it to afford you," +Thorne rejoined. + +"I guessed it would help to put Nevis out of your mind. I'd an idea you +wanted cheering up--and I felt a little like that myself." + +The girl's manner changed abruptly as she rose, and there was only +concern in her eyes. + +"I wonder," she added softly, "where Jake is and what he is doing now." + +Thorne felt that he had been favored with a hint. + +"You haven't heard from him?" + +"He hasn't sent a line; it wouldn't have been safe. It's kind of +wearing, Mavy." + +"I'm sorry," sympathized Thorne. "But it's most unlikely that the +troopers will get him." + +Lucy, without answering this, went out, and when they reached the binder +Thorne turned to her with a smile. + +"Lucy," he said, "I don't quite understand yet what possessed you a +little while ago." + +"Did you never feel so worried that it was kind of soothing to do +something mad?" + +"I'm afraid I have once or twice," Thorne confessed. "On the other hand, +my experience wouldn't justify me in advising other people to indulge in +outbreaks of the kind. Suppose I'd been--we'll say equal to the +occasion?" + +Lucy laughed, but there was a snap in her eyes. + +"Then," she retorted, "it's a sure thing you would never have tried to +be equal to it again. Anyway, I didn't feel anxious about you. You +looked real amusing, Mavy." + +"Perhaps I did. Still, I don't quite think you need have pointed it +out." + +They set to work after this, Lucy guiding the team along the edge of the +grain and Thorne stooping among the sheaves in the wake of the machine. +They were thus engaged, oblivious to everything but their task, when +Mrs. Farquhar reined in her team close beside them, and Alison gazed +with somewhat confused sensations at the pair. + +Lucy had obviously made her dress herself, of the cheapest kind of +print, but it was light in hue, as was her big hat, and in addition to +falling in with the flood of vivid color through which she moved it +flowed about her in becoming lines, and when she pulled up her horses +and turned partly toward the wagon her pose was expressive of a curious +virile grace. Behind her, straight-cut along its paler upper edge, where +the feathery tassels of the oats shone with a silvery luster against the +cold blue of the sky, the yellow grain glowed in the warm evening light. +The glaring vermilion paint on the binder added to the general effect, +and it occurred to Alison that the girl, with her brown face and hands +and the signs of a splendid vitality plain upon her, was very much in +harmony with her surroundings. The lean figure of the man stooping among +the sheaves, lightly clad in blue that had lost its harshness by long +exposure to the weather, formed a fit and necessary complement of the +picture. + +They were, Alison recognized, engaged upon humanity's most natural and +beneficent task, and as she remembered how she had seen that soil lying +waste, covered only with the harsh wild grasses, in the early spring, it +was borne in upon her that there could be no greater reward than the +bounteous harvest for man's arduous toil. Then she became troubled by a +vague perception of the fact that this breaking of the wilderness and +rendering the good soil fruitful was one of the sternest and most real +tests of man's efficiency. Meretricious graces, paltry accomplishments, +and the pretenses of civilization availed one nothing here. The only +things that counted were the elemental qualities: slow endurance, faith +that held fast through all the vagaries of the weather, and the power of +toughened muscle that might ache but must in spite of that yield due +obedience to the will. Alison regarded Lucy, who could play her part in +the reaping, with a troubled feeling that was not far from envy. + +Then Thorne looked up, partly dazzled with the level sunrays in his +eyes, and walked toward the wagon. When he stopped beside it Mrs. +Farquhar greeted him. + +"We have been across to Shafter's place," she explained. "Harry asked me +to drive round and see how you were getting on. He'll try to send you +over his hired man in a day or two." + +Thorne pointed to the rows of stooked sheaves. + +"Thanks; I haven't done as much as I should have liked. Hall has gone +back for my other team, and if it hadn't been for Lucy I'd have been a +good deal farther behind." + +"How much has she cut?" Mrs. Farquhar asked. + +Thorne was quite aware that an answer would fix the time the girl had +spent with him. Before he could speak, however, Lucy had approached the +wagon and she broke in. + +"I guess Mrs. Shafter would give you supper?" + +Mrs. Farquhar said that she had done so, and Lucy smiled. + +"That's going to save some trouble. Mavy and I had ours together most an +hour ago and the stove's out by now." + +Thorne imagined that this intimation, which struck him as a trifle +superfluous, was made with a deliberate purpose; but one of the binder +horses, tormented by the flies, began to kick just then, and he turned +away to quiet it, while Lucy, who stood beside the wagon, smiled +provocatively at Alison. + +"You'll have to excuse Mavy--he's been hustling round since sunup, and +he's played out," she said. "Still, you needn't get anxious. I'll look +after him." + +Mrs. Farquhar laughed, while Alison's attitude grew distinctly prim. She +considered that in taking her anxiety for granted and alluding to it +openly Lucy had gone too far. She also felt inclined to resent the +girl's last consolatory assurance. + +"Can I drive you home?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired. "I suppose you will be +going soon, and it won't make a very big round." + +"No," replied Lucy decisively, "you needn't trouble. I've a horse here, +and I guess Mavy's not going to make love to me. For one thing, he's too +busy. Besides, I want to cut round that other side before I go." + +"Then I suppose we had better not keep you," said Mrs. Farquhar. + +She waved her hand to Thorne and drove away, and when they had left the +oats behind she turned to Alison. + +"Lucy," she observed, "is now and then a little outspoken, but I'm +curious as to what she meant when she said that Thorne was not likely to +make love to her. Of course, the thing's improbable, anyway, but she +spoke as if he had been offered an opportunity." + +Alison's face flushed with anger. + +"Leaving the fact that she's to marry Winthrop out of the question, the +girl must have some self-respect. She would surely never go so far as +you suggest." + +"Well," smiled her companion, "she might go far enough to place Thorne +in an embarrassing position, purely for the sake of the amusement she +might derive from it. In fact, when I remember how she laughed, I'm far +from sure that she didn't do something of the kind." + +Alison sat silent for a minute or two. There was no doubt that she was +very angry with Lucy, but she was also troubled by other sensations, +among which was a certain envy of the girl's capacity for work that was +held of high account in that country. Thorne's attitude and his weary +face as he toiled among the sheaves had been very suggestive. He was, +she knew, hard-pressed, engaged in a desperate grapple with a task that +was generally admitted to be beyond his strength, and she could only +stand aside and watch his efforts with wholly ineffective sympathy. + +Then she became conscious that Mrs. Farquhar was glancing at her +curiously. + +"I feel humiliated to-night!" she broke out. "There's so little that +seems of the least use to anybody here that I can do; and my abilities +scarcely got me food and shelter in England. Isn't it almost a crime +that they teach so many of us only fripperies? Were we only made to be +taken care of and petted?" + +Her companion smiled. + +"If it's any consolation, I may point out that we haven't found you +useless at the Farquhar homestead, and I can't see why you shouldn't be +just as useful presiding over a place of your own. After all, since you +raise the question what you were made for, that seems to be the usual +destiny, and I haven't found it an unpleasant or ignoble one." + +She broke off, and for a minute or two the jolting of the wagon rendered +further conversation out of the question. + +"There's another point," she added presently; "it's my opinion that an +encouraging word from you would do more to brace Mavy for the work in +front of him than the offer of half a dozen binders and teams." + +Alison made no answer, and they drove on in silence across the waste, +which was beginning to grow dim and shadowy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ONLY MEANS + + +Alison sat one afternoon in the shadow of a pile of sheaves in +Farquhar's harvest field. She had a little leisure, and it was +unpleasantly hot in the wooden house. There was some sewing in her hand, +but even in the shade the light was trying and she leaned back languidly +among the warm straw with half-closed eyes. Two men were talking some +distance behind her as they pitched up the rustling sheaves, and the +tramp of horses' feet among the stubble and the rattle of a binder which +she knew Farquhar was driving drew steadily nearer. Presently another +beat of hoofs broke in, and a minute or two later Hall rode past, +looking very hot, apparently without seeing her. Then the rattle of the +binder ceased and she heard the newcomer greet Farquhar. + +"If you've got one of those bent-end-spanners you could let me have I'd +be glad," he said. "I've mislaid mine somehow, and there's a loose nut I +can't get at making trouble on my binder." + +Farquhar sent his hired man for one and Hall referred to the grain. + +"So you have made a start. Looks quite a heavy crop. Good and ripe, too, +isn't it?" + +"We put the binder in yesterday," answered Farquhar. "I'd have done it +earlier only that I sent Pete over to Thorne's place for a few days +after you left him." + +"I was kind of sorry I had to leave. He's surely going to be beaten. I +looked in on him yesterday." + +Alison became suddenly intent. She drew her light skirt closer about +her, for she did not wish it to catch the men's eyes and betray her, as +she thought it probable that they would speak to each other unreservedly +and she would hear the actual truth about Thorne. When she had +questioned Farquhar he had answered her in general terms, avoiding any +very definite particulars, and she now strained her ears to catch his +reply to Hall. + +"I was afraid of it after what Pete told me," he said. "I would have +helped him more if I could have managed it, but I can't let a big crop +like this stand over when I've bills to meet." + +"That," declared Hall, "is just how I'm fixed, though I stayed with him +as long as I could. The trouble is that he hasn't been able to hire a +man since I left him. There seem to be mighty few of the Ontario boys +coming in this season, and so far they've been snapped up farther back +along the line." + +"Has he tried any of the men who had their crops hailed out west of the +creek?" + +"They cleared as soon as they saw they had no harvest left. Most of them +are out track-grading on the branch line, and I heard the rest went +East. Mavy's surely up against it; he was figuring last evening that +even if the weather held he'd be most a month behind." + +"Then I'm afraid he'll have to give the place up. Nevis will come down +on him the day that payment's due." + +"Couldn't he raise the money somehow, for a month?" Hall inquired. + +"It's scarcely likely. I can't lend him any, with wheat at present +figure, and Hunter, who has already guaranteed him a thousand dollars, +is very tightly fixed. Besides Mavy couldn't expect anything more from +him. It wouldn't be much use going to a bank, either. With the bottom +dropping out of the market they're getting scared of wheat, and he has +nothing to offer them but a crop that isn't reaped, with Grantly's note +calling for most of it." + +"Then I guess he has just got to quit. Hunter would no doubt have lent +him a binder and a couple of hired men, but he has them busy trying to +straighten up his hailed crop and cut patches of it." + +"It's a pity," Farquhar assented in a regretful voice. "It will hurt +Mavy to give the place up." + +The man arrived with the spanner and Alison heard Hall ride away. When +the clash and rattle of the binder began again she lay still for a long +time beneath the sheaves. The men's conversation had made it clear that +Thorne would shortly be involved in disaster, and that alone was painful +news, though by comparison with another aspect of the matter it was of +minor importance. The man loved her, and it was for that reason he had +undertaken this most unfortunate farming venture. Everybody seemed to +know it, though he had never told her what was in his mind, and she had +been content to wait. Now, however, she had no doubt that she loved him, +and he would, it seemed, shortly go away and vanish altogether beyond +her reach--at least, unless something should very promptly be done. She +knew he would not claim her while he was an outcast and a ruined man. + +She closed one hand tight and a flush crept into her face as she made up +her mind on one point, and she was thankful while she did so that she +was on the Canadian prairie, where the thing seemed easier than it +would have done in England. In that new land time-honored prejudices and +hampering traditions did not seem to count. Men and women outgrew them +there and obeyed the impulses of human nature, which were, after all, +elemental and existent long before the invention of what were, perhaps, +in the more complex society of other lands, necessary fetters. Thorne, +the pedler, farmer, railroad hand, or whatever he might become, should +at least know that she loved him and decide with that knowledge before +him whether he would go away. + +Then, growing a little more collected, she considered the second point. +Though Hall and Farquhar had cast considerable doubt upon his ability to +help, there was just a possibility that Hunter might hold out a hand, +and she would stoop to beg for any favor that might be shown her lover. +This latter decision, however, she prudently determined to keep from +Thorne in the meanwhile. + +By and by she walked quietly back to the house and busied herself as +usual, though late in the afternoon she asked Mrs. Farquhar for a horse +and the buggy. Her employer did not trouble her with any questions as to +why she wanted them, though she favored her with a glance of unobtrusive +but very keen scrutiny, and soon after supper the hired man brought the +buggy to the door. Then Alison came out from her room, where she had +spent some time carefully comparing the two or three dresses she had +clung to when she had parted with the rest in Winnipeg, one after +another. She had attired herself in the one that became her best, for +she felt that there must be nothing wanting in the gift she meant to +offer her lover. She recognized that this was what her intention +amounted to. What other women did with more reserve, veiling their +advances in disguises which were after all so flimsy that nobody except +those who wished could be deceived, she would do with imperious +openness. + +The days were now rapidly growing shorter, and when she reached Thorne's +homestead the sun hung low above the verge of the great white plain. The +man was not in sight, which struck her as strange, as there would be +light enough to work for some time yet, but she was not astonished that +he had evidently not heard her approach, because she had driven slowly +for the last mile, almost repenting of her rashness and wondering +whether she should not turn and go back again. Once she had set about +it, the thing she had undertaken appeared increasingly difficult. +Indeed, she knew that had the man been less severely pressed nothing +would have driven her into the action she contemplated. It was only the +fact that he was face to face with disaster, beaten down, desperate, +that warranted the sacrifice of her reserve and pride. + +Getting down at length, she left the horse, which was a quiet one, and +walked toward the house. The door stood open when she reached it, and +looking in she saw the man sitting at a table, on which there lay a +strip of paper covered with figures. His face was worn and set, and +every line of his slack pose was expressive of dejection. He did not +immediately see her, and a deep pity overwhelmed her and helped to sweep +away her doubts and hesitation as she glanced round the room. It was +growing shadowy, but it looked horribly comfortless, and the few dishes +that were still scattered about the table bore the remnants of a +singularly uninviting meal. There was a portion of a loaf, blackened +outside, sad and damp within; butter that had liquefied and partly +congealed again in discolored streaks; a morsel of half-cooked pork +reposing in solid fat; and a can of flavored syrup, black with flies. +She wondered how any one coming back oppressed with anxiety from a day +of exhausting toil could eat such fare. Then she noticed a small heap of +tattered garments, which he evidently had no leisure to mend, lying on +the floor, and while it brought her no sense of repulsion, the sight of +them further troubled her. These were things which jarred on the +beneficent, home-making instincts which suddenly awoke within her +nature, and they moved her to a compassionate longing to care for and +shelter the lonely man. + +Then he looked up and saw her, and she flushed at the swift elation in +his face, which, however, almost immediately grew hard again. It was as +though he had yielded for a moment to some pleasurable impulse, and had +then, with an effort, repressed it and resumed his self-control. + +"Come in," he invited, rising with outstretched hand, and she suddenly +recalled how she had last crossed that threshold in his company. There +had been careless laughter in his eyes then, he had moved and spoken +with a joyous optimism, and now there was plain upon him the stamp of +defeat. Even physically the man looked different. + +She sat down when he drew her out a chair, but he remained standing, +leaning with one hand on the table. + +"Is Mrs. Farquhar outside?" + +"No; I drove across alone." + +He looked at her with a hint of astonishment and something that +suggested a natural curiosity as to the cause for the visit, which she +now found it insuperably difficult to explain. + +"You haven't been at work this evening?" she asked. + +"No," replied Thorne. "I rode in to the railroad early yesterday and +I've just got back after calling at two or three farms west of the +creek. It seemed possible that I might be able to hire a couple of men +I'd wired for back along the line, but I found that somebody else had +got hold of them at another station. As a matter of fact, I had expected +it." + +"Then you must have made the journey almost without a rest!" + +"Volador's dead played out," answered Thorne. "I had to do something, +though it seemed pretty useless in any case." + +"Ah!" Alison exclaimed softly; "then you mean to go on?" + +"Until I'm turned out, which will no doubt happen very shortly." + +"I suppose that will hurt you?" + +He looked at her for a moment with his face awry and signs of a sternly +repressed longing in his eyes. + +"Yes," he answered, "it will hurt me more than anything I could have had +to face. In fact, the thought of it has been almost unbearable; but it's +now clear that I shall have to go through with it." + +This was satisfactory to Alison in some respects, and she was quick to +sympathize. + +"It must be very hard to give up the farm on which you have spent so +much earnest work." + +"Yes," assented Thorne, with something in his tone that suggested +half-contemptuous indifference to the sacrifice; "it won't be easy to +give up even the farm." + +Then for the first time it occurred to him that there was an unusual +hint of strain in her manner, and that he had never seen her dressed in +the same fashion before. She did not look daintier, for daintiness was +not quite the quality he would have ascribed to her, but more highly +cultivated, farther beyond the reach of a ruined farmer, though there +was a strange softness--it almost seemed tenderness--shining in her +eyes. He gripped the table hard and his face grew stern as he gazed at +her. He felt that it was almost impossible that he would ever have the +strength to let her go. + +"What will you do then?" she asked with what seemed a merciless +persistency. + +"Go away," declared Thorne. "Strike west and vanish out of sight. I've +no doubt somebody will hire me to load up railroad ballast or herd +cattle." He smiled at her harshly. "After all, it will be a relief to my +few friends. They may be a little sorry--but my absence will save their +making excuses for me." + +Alison looked up at him steadily, though there was a flush of color in +her cheeks. + +"You must be just to them," she said. "Why should they invent +excuses--when you have made such a fight with so much against you? +Besides, you are wrong when you say they might be--a little sorry. Can +you believe that it would be easy to let you go away?" + +Thorne frowned as he met her gaze. He did not know what to make of this, +but there was a suggestiveness in her voice that was almost too much for +him. + +"Is there any one who would have much difficulty in doing that?" he +asked with a quietness that cost him a determined effort. + +"Yes," murmured Alison, with suddenly lowered eyes; "there is at least +one person who would feel it dreadfully." + +He gazed at her, straining to cling to the resolution that had almost +deserted him, though his face was firmly set. + +"It is quite true," she added, with flaming cheeks. "I must say it. I +mean myself." + +He drew back a pace and stood very still, as though afraid to trust +himself. + +"Don't make it all unbearable!" he cried at length. "There's only one +course open to me. It's hard enough already." + +Alison faced him with a new steadiness. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "you can only look at it from your point of +view--can't you understand yet that there is another? If you had meant +to go away you should have gone--some time ago." + +Thorne closed his hands firmly. + +"I'm afraid you are right; but I believed that I might make a success of +this farming venture." + +The girl laughed with open scorn. + +"Dare you believe that would have mattered so very much to me? Do you +think I didn't know why you turned farmer, and why you have since then +done things that none of your neighbors would have been capable of?" + +"It seemed necessary," explained Thorne, still with the same expressive +quietness. "I did so because I wanted you, and that is exactly what +makes defeat so bitter now." + +"And you imagined that you had hidden your motive? Can you believe that +a man could change his whole mode of life and take up a burden he had +carefully avoided, as you have done, without having the woman on whose +account he did it understand why? Are we so blind or utterly foolish? +Don't you know that our perceptions and intuitions are twice as keen as +yours?" + +"Then you understood what my object was all along--and it didn't strike +you as absurd and impossible?" + +Alison smiled at him. + +"Why should it seem absurd that I should love you, Mavy?" + +He came no nearer, but stood still, looking at her with elation and +trouble curiously mingled in his face, and she realized that the fight +was but half won. He had of late sloughed off his wayward carelessness +and she knew that there had always been a depth of resolute character +beneath it. He was a man who would do what he felt was the fitting +thing, even though it hurt him. + +"Well," he said, speaking slowly in a tense voice, "ever since I first +saw you I longed that this should come about. It was what I worked for, +and nothing would have been too hard that brought me nearer you, but +it's almost a cruelty that I should have succeeded--now." + +"Why?" asked Alison, bracing herself for another effort, for the strain +was beginning to tell. "Is what you have won of no value to you?" + +Thorne spread out his hands as if in desperation. + +"It is because it is so precious that I shrink from involving you in the +disaster that is hanging over me. I am a ruined, discredited man, and in +a few more weeks I will be driven out of my homestead without a dollar. +It will be three or four years at least before I can struggle to my feet +again." + +"Is that so very dreadful, Mavy?" Alison smiled. "I almost think that +in the things that count the most many of you are, after all, more bound +by traditions than we are. Your wildest flight was the driving about the +prairie with a load of patent medicines, and now your imagination is +bounded by a homestead and household comforts. You could teach a woman +to love you, and then go away, driven by some fantastic point of honor, +because you could not realize that her views might be wider than yours." + +"I could hardly suppose that you would care to live in a wagon." + +"I did it once--and it was not so very dreadful. I really think, if it +were needful, I could do it again." + +She leaned forward toward him. + +"It would be very much worse, Mavy, if you went away and left me +behind." + +At length he came toward her and seized both her hands. + +"Dear," he cried, "I have tried to do what I felt I ought--and now I'm +not sorry that I find I'm not strong enough. I can't tell you how I want +you--but I'm afraid you could not face what you would have to bear with +me." + +"Try!" said Alison simply. + +He drew her to him with an exultant laugh. + +"I've done what I could, and it seems I've failed. Now let Nevis turn me +out and I'll almost thank him. After all, there are many worse places +than a camp beside the wagon in the birch bluff." + +Alison was not at all convinced that it would end in that, and indeed +she did not mean it to if she could help it; but in another moment she +felt his arms about her and his lips hot upon her face, and it was half +an hour later when they left the homestead together. The sun had +dipped, and the vast dim plain stretched away before them under a vault +of fading blue, but she drove very slowly while Thorne walked beside the +buggy for almost a league. + +As a result of this, it was very late when she reached the homestead, +and she was relieved when Mrs. Farquhar came out alone as she got down. +The light fell upon the girl's face as she approached the doorway, and +her companion flashed a smiling glance at her. + +"I suppose you have been to Thorne's place?" + +"Yes," answered Alison quietly. "I am going to marry him." + +Mrs. Farquhar kissed her. + +"It's very good news. Still, from what I know of Mavy and how he's +situated, I'm a little astonished that you were able to arrange it." + +"Why do you put it that way?" Alison asked with a start. + +Her companion laughed. + +"My dear, I'm only glad that you had sense enough not to let him go. +That man would be afraid of even a cold air blowing on you. Anyway, you +have got the one husband I would most gladly have given you to." + +Then she drew Alison into the house and called to Farquhar. + +"Harry, take the horse in, and it isn't necessary for you to hurry +back." + +She drew Alison out a chair and sat down close beside her. + +"The first thing you have to do is to drive over and see Florence +Hunter. Her husband's the only person who can pull Mavy out of this +trouble." + +"I had thought of that." + +"I believe it's necessary. We can't let Mavy be turned out now, and if +he won't ask a favor of a man who would grant it willingly if he could, +somebody must do it for him." + +Then she laid her hand caressingly on the girl's shoulder. + +"I haven't been so pleased for a very long while. Keep a good courage. +We'll find some means of outwitting Nevis." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +OPEN CONFESSION + + +It was about the middle of the afternoon when Alison reached the Hunter +homestead, and she was slightly astonished when, on inquiring for +Florence, a maid informed her that the latter was busy and could not be +with her for some minutes. Alison had imagined from what she had seen on +previous visits that in the warm weather Florence invariably spent her +afternoons reclining in a canvas chair on the veranda. A couple of +chairs stood on it when she arrived, and after the maid had gone she +drew one back into the shadow, and sitting down looked out across the +great stretch of grain in front of the house. + +All round the edge of it there were scattered men and teams, but they +were moving very slowly, and almost every minute the clatter of one or +another of the binders ceased and she saw stooping figures busy in front +of the machine. Though she could not make out exactly what they were +doing, the state of the harvest-field seemed to explain why the delays +were unavoidable. Great patches of the wheat lay prone; the part that +stood upright looked tangled and torn, and there were wide stretches +from which it had partially disappeared, leaving only ragged stubble +mixed with crumpled straw. Alison had, however, seen other crops that +had been wholly wiped out by the scourging hail. She waited about a +quarter of an hour before Florence appeared, looking rather hot and +dressed with unusual plainness. + +"You'll have to excuse me for keeping you, but I'm glad you came," she +said. "I've been busy since seven o'clock this morning, and now that +I've a little leisure it's a relief to sit down." + +A gleam of amusement crept into Alison's eyes, and her companion +evidently noticed it. + +"It is rather a novelty in my case," she laughed. "On the other hand, +there's no doubt that the exertion is necessary. The waste that has been +going on in this homestead is positively alarming." + +It cost Alison an effort to preserve a becoming gravity. Florence, who +had presided over the place for several years, spoke as if the fact she +mentioned, which had been patent to those who visited her for a +considerable time, had only dawned upon her very recently. + +"You are trying to set things straight?" she suggested. + +"It threatens to prove a difficult task, but I'm making the attempt +while I feel equal to it; and there's a certain interest even in looking +into household accounts. For instance, I had an idea this morning that +promised to save me three or four dollars a month, but when I mentioned +it to Elcot he only grinned. There are one or two respects in which I'm +afraid he's a little extravagant." + +Alison laughed outright. The idea that Florence, who had hitherto +squandered money with both hands, should trouble herself about the +saving of three dollars and complain of her self-denying husband's +extravagance was irresistibly amusing. + +"When did the desire to investigate affairs first get hold of you?" she +asked. + +"I believe that it was when I came back from Toronto," answered +Florence thoughtfully. "Afterward we had the hail, and it became clear +at once that there would have to be some cutting down of our expenses." +Her face grew suddenly anxious as she glanced toward the grain. "That," +she added, "ought to explain why the subject's an interesting one to +me." + +Alison was somewhat puzzled. There were signs of a change in her +companion, who hitherto had, so far at least as she had noticed, taken +only a very casual interest in her husband's affairs. + +"Yes," she replied, "it does. I was very sorry when I heard about it." + +Florence made a little abrupt gesture, as though in dismissal of the +topic. + +"What brought you over? You haven't been very often." + +It was difficult to answer offhand, and Alison proceeded circuitously. + +"You and I were pretty good friends in England, weren't we?" + +"Of course," assented Florence. "You stood by me when your mother turned +against me, and I've always had an idea that you suffered for it. We'll +admit the fact. What comes next?" + +Her manner was abrupt, but that was not infrequently the case, and +Alison, who was fighting for her lover, was not readily daunted. + +"Well," she said, "I have never troubled you for any favors in return." + +Florence regarded her in a rather curious fashion. + +"No," she admitted, "you haven't. You made no claim on me, as, perhaps, +you were entitled to do, when you first came out here. In fact, I have +once or twice felt slightly vexed with you because you went to Mrs. +Farquhar." + +Alison smiled as she remembered that her companion had not shown the +least desire to prevent her doing the thing she now resented. + +"Then there's a favor that I must ask at last; but first of all I'd +better tell you that I'm going to marry Leslie Thorne." + +"Mavy Thorne!" Florence gazed at her in open wonder. "I heard a whisper +or two that seemed to point to the possibility of your doing something +of the kind, but I resolutely refused to believe it." + +"Why?" + +Florence laughed. + +"Oh, in half a dozen ways it's ludicrous. If you really mean it, you are +as absurd as he is." + +Alison rose with an air of quiet dignity. + +"If you are quite convinced of that, there is nothing more to be said. +You couldn't expect me to appreciate your attitude." + +Her companion laid a restraining hand on her arm as she was about to +move away. + +"Sit down! If I vexed you, I'm sorry; but you really shouldn't be so +quick in temper. Besides, you shouldn't have flung the news at me in +that startling fashion. After all, I've no doubt he has something to +recommend him. Most of them have a few good qualities which now and then +become evident when you don't expect them." + +She paused and looked up at Alison with a smile in which there was a +hint of tenderness. + +"For instance, it has been dawning on me of late that there's a good +deal that's rather nice in Elcot. Now try to be reasonable, and tell me +what the trouble is." + +Alison's indignation dissipated. It was, after all, difficult to be +angry with Florence, and she supplied her with a brief account of how +Thorne was situated. Her companion listened with more interest than she +had fancied her capable of displaying, and when Alison stopped she made +a sign of comprehension. + +"You want me to ask Elcot to send him over some of our men? I wish I +could--I almost feel I owe you that--but it's difficult. Elcot's trying +desperately to save the remnant of his crop. He has been very badly +hit." + +Alison sat silent in tense anxiety. She could not urge Florence to do +anything that would clearly be to her husband's detriment, and she did +not see how Hunter could help Thorne without neglecting his own harvest. +Then her companion turned to her again. + +"I quite realize that Thorne will be turned out unless he clears off the +loan, but you haven't mentioned the name of the creditor who wishes to +ruin him." + +"It's Nevis." + +An ominous sparkle crept into Florence's eyes, and her face grew hard. + +"Then I'll try to explain it all to Elcot to-night, and if he can drive +off Nevis by any means that won't cost him too great a sacrifice I think +you can count on its being done." + +Alison felt inclined to wonder why the mention of Nevis's part in the +affair had had such an effect on her companion, but that, after all, did +not seem a very important point, and when she drove away half an hour +later she was in an exultant mood. When she had gone, Florence +supervised the preparations for the men's supper, and after the meal +was over she stopped Hunter as he was going out again through the +veranda. + +"If you can wait for a few minutes I have something to tell you," she +said. "To begin with, Alison Leigh is going to marry Thorne." + +Hunter did not look much astonished. + +"I think Mavy has made a wise choice, but I'm very much afraid there's +trouble in front of them," he said. + +"That," returned Florence, "is exactly what I meant to speak about. +Alison was here this afternoon, and she mentioned it to me. I want to +save them as much as I can." + +Hunter's face remained expressionless. It was the first time, so far as +he could remember, that Florence had concerned herself about any other +person's difficulties. + +"Well," he asked gravely, "how do you propose to set about it?" + +"In the first place, I thought I'd mention it to you." + +A dry smile crept into Hunter's eyes. + +"Then you'd better give me all the particulars in your possession. I +have some idea as to the cause of the trouble, but I haven't been over +to Mavy's place for some time, and he has sent no word to me." + +Florence told him what she knew, and when she had finished he gazed at +her reflectively. + +"You want me to send him all the men and binders I can spare? That's the +only useful course." + +Florence hesitated, and when she spoke her manner was unusually +diffident. + +"I feel it's rather shabby to promise a favor and then hand on the work +to you, but in this case I'm helpless. I should like you to get Thorne +out of his trouble, if it's only on Alison's account; but on the other +hand I don't want you to increase your own difficulties by sending men +away. You stand first with me." + +Hunter made no allusion to the last assurance. + +"It seems very likely that what the boys are now doing will in the end +come to much the same thing as changing a dollar and getting about +ninety cents back for it, which naturally prevents me from feeling that +I would be making very much of a sacrifice in discontinuing the +operation." + +"I don't quite understand how that could be. Even if the hail has almost +spoiled the crop, you have the men, and it won't cost you any more if +you keep them busy saving as much of it as is possible." + +"That," explained Hunter, "is partly why I'm doing so, and the other +reason is that I must have something that will keep me occupied just +now. On the other hand, before I can get anything for the wheat it must +be thrashed and hauled in to the elevators. Now, thrashing is usually +done by contract--at so much the bushel--in this country, and I've +reason to believe that the thrasher boys will charge me considerably +more than the average rate. Considering the state of the crop, they'll +have to do a great deal of work for a very little wheat. Besides, that +little's damaged and would bring less than the market price, which is a +particularly low one this year. Then there's the cost of haulage, which +is an item, because it would entail keeping the hired men on, and I've +the option of paying them off as soon as harvest's over." + +"In short," said Florence in a troubled voice, "it would probably be +more profitable to let the whole crop rot as it stands." + +"I'm afraid that's the case," Hunter agreed. + +Florence sat silent for almost a minute watching him covertly. It once +more struck her that he looked very jaded, and she was touched by the +weariness in his face. Then, though the occasion seemed most +inopportune, she was carried away by a sudden impulse which compelled +her to mention Nevis's loan. + +"Elcot," she blurted out, "I have made things worse for you all +along--and now there's another trouble I have brought upon you." + +For a minute or two she poured out disjointed sentences, and though the +man listened gravely, almost unmoved in face, she found the making of +that confession about the most difficult thing she had ever done. + +"How much did you borrow?" he inquired. + +She told him; and raising himself a little from his leaning posture he +looked down upon her with an embarrassing quietness. + +"I was half afraid there might be something of that kind in the +background," he said at length. "There's one point I must raise. +Presumably, you wouldn't allow a man who was to all intents and purposes +a stranger to lend you money?" + +He spoke as if the matter were open to doubt, and Florence found the +situation rapidly becoming intolerable, but it was to her credit that +she recognized that half-measures would be useless then. + +"No," she acknowledged. + +"Then I must ask exactly what kind of interest you took in the man, and +how far your acquaintance with him went?" + +Florence's face burned, but she roused herself to answer him. + +"He was amusing," she said slowly, picking her words. "He came here once +or twice when you were out, and on a few occasions I met him by accident +on the prairie and at the settlement. I suppose I was--pleasant--to him, +but nobody could have called it more than that. Then there was a change +in his attitude." + +"It was to be expected," Hunter interposed dryly. "Do you wish me to +understand that you were astonished?" + +Florence rose and turned on him with hot anger in her eyes. + +"Yes!" she exclaimed, "I was astonished and--you must believe +it--horribly mortified! He tried to make me feel that I was in his +power!" + +She paused and clenched one hand tight before she cried: + +"What can I do to convince you? I hate the man! I want you to crush and +humble him!" + +Hunter greeted this outbreak with a smile, but he made no answer; and +growing calmer in a few moments she looked at him again. + +"What are you going to do about it, Elcot?" she asked. + +"In the first place, those two notes of yours must be paid when they +fall due. After that I shall act--as appears advisable." + +Florence sat down with relief in her face. + +"Raising the money will be another difficulty," she said. "I will give +up my allowance until it is paid off." + +"That," replied Hunter, with undiminished dryness, "will no doubt have +to be done." + +He turned away from her and leaned heavily on the balustrade for a +minute or two, apparently watching the hired men toiling among his +ruined wheat. Then he slowly looked around again. + +"Well," he observed, "I'm glad you have told me about the thing; but I'm +somewhat surprised that you didn't realize that you could have disarmed +Nevis--and freed yourself--by mentioning it earlier." + +"I was ashamed--though there was in one sense no reason why I should be. +It would have looked--so suggestive." + +Hunter interrupted her with a little bitter laugh. + +"No; when I asked you what interest you took in Nevis it wasn't quite +what I meant. I merely thought your answer might throw some light on his +views, which I wanted to be sure of. You are too dispassionate, and too +much alive to your own benefit, to make much of a sacrifice for the sake +of any man." + +Florence winced at this, but she rose and laid her hand on his arm. + +"Try me, Elcot," she begged. "I know I'm fond of ease and +luxury--perhaps it's because I had so little of them before I married +you, but now you must give me nothing for the next twelve months. Cut +the household expenses down by half and send everybody but one maid +away." + +"I'm afraid you'll have to be prepared for something of the kind," +replied Hunter quietly. "In the meanwhile, I'll take the boys and the +binders over to Thorne's place in the morning." + +He moved away toward his ruined crop without another word, but Florence +did not resent the attitude he had adopted. Indeed, his uncompromising +directness had appealed to her in his favor. When, soon after their +marriage, she had by various means made it plain that he was expected +to keep his distance and leave her largely to her own devices it had +been a relief that he had fallen in with her views without protest, +though it had been evident that it had grievously hurt him. Then his +forbearance and apparent content with the situation had by degrees grown +galling, and now, when at last he seemed inclined to assert himself, she +was not displeased. It had, as she had admitted to Alison, begun to dawn +on her that she had somehow never recognized her husband's good +qualities, and that there were unexpected possibilities in the simple +farmer. Besides this, she was seized with a fit of wholly genuine +penitence. + +In the meanwhile Hunter climbed into the seat of a binder which he drove +slowly through the tangled grain, and Florence, still lingering on the +veranda, noticed the carefulness with which he and his men stooked the +sheaves of wheat which might never be sold. The rows of black shadows +behind them lengthened rapidly, until at last they coalesced and the +stubble lay dim, while the western face of the grain along which the +binders crept alone glowed with a coppery radiance as the red sun +dipped. Then a wonderful exhilarating coolness crept into the air, and +there was a stillness not apparent earlier through which the clash and +clatter of the machines rang harshly distinct. They moved on with the +bent figures which grew dimmer toiling behind them for another +half-hour, and then while the others trooped off to the stables Hunter +walked slowly toward the house. Florence noticed the suggestive +slackness of his bearing and her heart smote her, for she knew it was +not mere physical weariness which had crushed the vigor out of the man. +When he came up the steps she turned to him. + +"Is the wheat looking no better?" + +"No," answered Hunter simply; "It's looking worse. I'm going in to write +a letter--to the bank." + +He strode on and disappeared into the house, but Florence, who presently +saw a light stream out from one of the windows, sat still, though the +dew was getting heavy and it was chilly now. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A HELPING HAND + + +Lucy Calvert came over as often as she was able; but at length she was +compelled to discontinue her visits to Thorne. Soon after she had done +so, there was a welcome change in the almost torrid weather, and grass +and grain lay still under a faintly clouded sky when he toiled among the +sheaves one clear, cool afternoon. The binder which flung them out moved +along the edge of the oats in front of him, and another man was busy +among the crackling stubble a pace or two behind, for a neighbor had +driven across to help him on the previous evening, and the station-agent +had at last sent him out a man from the railroad settlement. They had +been at work since early morning, but each time Thorne glanced at the +oblong of standing grain he realized more clearly the futility of what +he was doing. + +The belt of knee-high stubble, which shone, a sweep of warm ochre +tinting, against the white and gray of the parched grass beyond it, was +widening steadily as the crop went down before the binder, but he had a +good deal yet to cut, and there was another oblong of untouched grain +running back from a deserted wooden shack some distance away. Thorne had +followed the custom of the country, sowing oats on the newly broken land +and wheat on that which had been worked before, though in the latter +case he had agreed to pay a share of the proceeds to the owner of the +soil. He had secured an option of purchasing this second holding, but +it was quite out of the question that he should exercise it now, and a +very simple calculation convinced him that at his present rate of +progress less than half the crop would be ready when Grantly's note fell +due. + +There was no doubt that his activity was illogical, as it was obvious +that the result of every hour's strenuous labor would only be to put so +much more money into Nevis's pocket, but he could not force himself to +give up the fight until the last moment. He still clung to a faint +expectation that something might transpire to lessen the odds against +him. He admitted that there was nothing to warrant this view, but in +spite of it he toiled on savagely, and the stooked sheaves rose before +him in lengthening golden ranks as he floundered with bowed shoulders +and busy arms through the crackling stubble. The soil beneath the straw +was dry and parched, and the dust which rose from it crept into his eyes +and nostrils. Now and then he gasped, but he worked on with no +slackening of effort, for that part of the crop was heavy and the +sheaves were falling thick and fast in the wake of the machine. At +length, however, it stopped at a corner, and Thorne straightened his +aching back when the man who drove it got down. + +"She wants a drop of oil," he explained, and looking round him pointed +out across the prairie. "Seems as if Shafter was through with his +harvest, and I guess he has to sell. Some of the storekeepers have been +putting the screw on him." + +Thorne gazed toward the spot he indicated and saw two or three teams and +wagons etched upon the horizon where a low rise ran up to meet the sky. +They were so far off that they appeared stationary, and it was only +when one of the binder's arms hid the first of them a moment or two +later that he could see they moved. Then as he watched the others a hot +fit of resentment and envy came upon him. It was clear that Shafter, who +had plowed unusually early, had cut and thrashed his grain, for stacking +is seldom attempted in that country, where very few farmers have any +money in hand and storekeepers generally look for payment once the crop +is in. In the latter case it is put on the market as soon as possible, +though now and then the last of it is hauled in on the bob-sleds across +the snow. Shafter, at least, could clear off his liabilities, and though +Thorne did not grudge the man this satisfaction, the sight of his loaded +wagons crawling slowly to the elevators was bitter to him. He could have +done what Shafter was doing, and so escaped from Nevis's clutches, had +he only been allowed a little longer time. + +"When you're through with that oiling, we'll get on," he said harshly. + +His companion made no answer, but climbed into the saddle and the binder +moved steadily along the edge of the grain until they came to the second +corner. Turning it, the driver looked out across a stretch of prairie +which a birch bluff on one hand of them had previously hidden. Then he +pulled up his team excitedly. + +"Mavy!" he cried, "there's quite a lot of teams back yonder to the +eastward, beyond the creek!" + +Thorne sprang up on the binder, for where he had been standing a cluster +of sheaves obscured his view. He saw that there undoubtedly were horses +on the sweep of grass in the distance. What was more, they were moving +in his direction. + +"There's one wagon," declared his second companion. "I can't quite make +out the other things. If there was hay in the sloos still I'd say they +were mowers." + +Thorne's heart seemed suddenly to leap, and the man in the saddle of the +machine burst into a hoarse laugh. + +"Well," he said, "nobody would figure you'd been farming, unless you use +the scythe down in Ontario. They're sure binders!" + +He turned and smote Thorne encouragingly upon the shoulder. + +"Mavy, it's the Hunter crowd! Guess you're going to have no trouble +getting your crop in now!" + +Thorne got down and leaned against the wheel of the binder. His face had +grown paler than usual, and he felt almost limp with the relief which +was too great for him to express. It was several moments before he broke +the silence. + +"They can't be here for a while. I think I'll have a smoke." + +His companion nodded sympathetically. + +"That's what you want, Mavy. Then you'll be fresh for a hustle; and +we'll have to move quite lively to keep ahead of the Hunter boys. +Hunter's no use for slouches and he knows how to speed up the crowd he +hires." + +He called to his horses, and the other man fell to work behind him when +the machine clattered on, but Thorne sat down among the sheaves. He +could now allow himself a brief relaxation, and for once his grip was +nerveless, for his heart was overfull. His cares had suddenly vanished, +and there was, he almost thought, victory in front of him. He had some +trouble in shredding the tobacco to fill his pipe, and when the +operation was accomplished he lay resting on one elbow watching the +teams draw nearer with a satisfaction which came near to overwhelming +him. By the time he had smoked the pipe out, however, he had grown a +little calmer, and rousing himself he stood up and walked out upon the +prairie to meet the newcomers. Hunter was driving a wagon in front of +them and he stopped his team when he was a few yards away. + +"We'll soon clean that crop up," he declared cheerily when Thorne had +clambered to the seat beside him. "I've brought the smartest of the boys +and the newest machines along." + +"Thanks," Thorne replied simply. "Just now I can't say anything more, +except that in one way I'm sorry you were able to come." + +Hunter's face grew suddenly grave. + +"I can believe it, Mavy. Had things been different it's quite likely I'd +have had to keep the boys at home; I was only sure that I was throwing +my time away yesterday. Anyway, I'm thankful that one hailed crop won't +clean me out." + +He dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. + +"As a matter of fact," he added, "though I'd probably come in any case, +it was really Mrs. Hunter who sent me along." + +"Mrs. Hunter!" ejaculated Thorne in what afterward occurred to him was +very tactless astonishment. + +"Sure!" laughed his companion. "She had a visitor shortly before she +spoke to me about it, which may have had something to do with the thing, +but the possibility of the notion's having struck Miss Leigh first +wasn't any reason why I shouldn't come across. Mavy, it's my opinion +that you're a very lucky man." + +"It's mine, too," Thorne answered with a light in his eyes. "Still, I +almost felt ashamed to admit it half an hour ago. The outlook seemed +very black to me just then." + +Hunter made a sign of comprehension. + +"Well," he said, "from what I've seen of her, I don't think Miss Leigh +would have fallen in with your point of view, though it was a very +natural one. It strikes me there's a good deal of courage and a capacity +for making the most of things in that girl. Anyway, there ought to be +considerably fewer difficulties in front of both of you when we get this +crop in; and that brings up another matter. The thrashers are leaving +Shafter's for Tom Jordan's place to-morrow. Hadn't you better write to +them right away and arrange for them to come along as soon as we're +ready?" + +Thorne recognized that this would be judicious, particularly as he +expected that a neighbor who had spoken to him that morning would pass +close by in the next hour or two. The man, who lived near Jordan, would, +he felt confident, undertake to hand on the letter. A few minutes later +he got down and entered his dwelling while Hunter drove on toward the +grain. He found, however, that his ink had almost dried up, and when he +sat down to write it was difficult to fix his thoughts on what he had to +say. The relief he had experienced a little while ago had been great +enough partly to bewilder him, and some time had passed before he +produced a fairly intelligible letter. Putting it into his pocket, he +went out again, and stopped a moment or two just outside the threshold +with a sense of exultation that sent an almost painful thrill through +him as he saw that Hunter had already got to work. + +Plodding teams and machines, marshaled in careful order, were advancing +in echelon through the grain, which melted away before them. Behind +each, bowed, bare-armed figures set up the flung-out sheaves, which rose +in ranks that now lengthened reassuringly fast. The still air was filled +with the sounds of a strenuous activity; the crackle of the stubble, the +rasp and tinkle of the knives, and the rustle of falling grain. Already +there was a wide gap, which extended while he gazed at it, bitten out of +one corner of the golden oblong. Along its indented edges the arms of +the binders whirled and gleamed, half-buried in yellow straw, through +which, as most of them were new, he caught odd glimpses of streaks of +flaring vermilion and harshest green, while the dull blue garments and +bronzed skin of the men who moved on stooping showed against the sweep +of ochre and coppery hues. It was a medley of vivid color and a blending +of stirring sound, and the jaded man forgot his aches and weariness as +he gazed. The crop he had despaired of reaping was falling fast before +his eyes. + +Then he saw that his own team was leading, and there was only one figure +struggling with the sheaves behind it. In another moment it became +apparent that the man in the saddle was waving to him, and he set off at +a run. When he reached the grain one of his companions glanced at him +reproachfully. + +"See where that binder's got?" he grumbled. "We went in first, but +though I've most pulled my arms off they're crowding right on top of us +with the next Hunter team. Do you want the boys to put it on us that we +can't keep ahead of them?" + +Thorne saw that the team of the following binder was very close behind, +and that a wide strip of stubble strewed with fallen sheaves, which had +accumulated in his absence, divided him and his companion from the +machine that belonged to him. + +"Well," he said with a cheerful laugh, "there's a good deal to pull up, +but it has to be done." + +They set about it vigorously, and drew away foot by foot from the men +behind. Thorne had toiled hard before, but now he felt that he could do +half as much again. After all, the grim courage of the forlorn hope +provides a feebler animus than the thrill of victory. At length, +however, his companion turned to him with a gasping expostulation. + +"I guess you have me beat," he exclaimed. "We'll hook Jim off the binder +and put you on instead. I'll own up I'd rather have him along with me +just now." + +They made the change, and Thorne contrived to drive a little faster than +the other man had done. Hunter's men could not let him draw too far +ahead, and everywhere the effort grew tenser still. Nobody objected +when, as the supper hour drew near, Hunter said that since the days were +shortening fast they would go on until dark fell before they made the +meal, instead of working afterward. Still, as the time slipped by, a man +here and there drew his belt tighter or stopped a moment to straighten +his aching back, and by degrees the horses moved more and more slowly +amid the falling grain. The clatter of the binders grew less insistent, +there were halts to oil or tighten something now and then; and at last, +when all the great plain was growing dim, it was with relief that the +men desisted when Hunter called to them. He and Thorne loosed their +teams, and the latter looked uneasy when they walked toward the house +together. + +"There's a thing that only struck me a few minutes ago, and I'm rather +troubled about it," he confessed. "The boys have worked hard enough +already without being set to making flapjacks and cooking their supper, +while I really don't know how I'm to tide over breakfast to-morrow." + +Hunter laughed. + +"That's not going to prove much of a difficulty, particularly as it's +one Mrs. Hunter has provided for. As it happens, Hall looked in on us +last night, and I gathered that he hadn't a very high opinion of your +cookery and catering." + +A minute or two later they came out from behind the barn into view of +the house and Thorne saw that a bountiful meal was already spread out on +the grass in front of it. A man, whose absence he had not noticed, was +carrying a kettle and a frying-pan out of the doorway. It was the climax +of a day of unexpected happenings and vanishing troubles, and when he +looked at Hunter he found it difficult to speak. The latter, however, +laughed. + +"Mavy," he said, "you sit right down yonder. Supper's ready, and the +boys are waiting." + +Thorne took his place among the others, who ate in such determined +fashion that in a very few minutes there was nothing left of the meal. +Then two or three of them gathered up the plates, and the others, lying +down on the grass, took out their pipes. In the meanwhile it had grown +almost dark, though a few pale streaks of saffron and green lingered low +upon the prairie's western verge. The long rows of sheaves stood out +dimly upon the stubble, but the standing crop had faded into a blurred +and shadowy mass, one edge of which alone showed with a certain +distinctness above the sweep of the darkening plain. Near the house, +however, a little fire which somebody had lighted--probably because +there was not room for all the cooking utensils on Thorne's +stove--burned redly between the two birch logs, and its flickering glow +wavered across the recumbent figures of the men. + +Some of them lay propped up on one elbow, some had stretched themselves +out full-length among the grass, and now and then a brown face or +uncovered bronzed arm stood out in the uncertain radiance and vanished +again. The men spoke in low voices, lazily, wearied with the day's toil, +though at irregular intervals a hoarse laugh broke out, and once or +twice the howl of a coyote came up faint and hollow out of the waste of +prairie. A little apart from the others, Thorne and Hunter sat with +their shoulders against the front of the house, talking quietly. + +"I'll see you through with the hauling in," Hunter promised. "We'll +start right away as soon as the thrashers can give us a load, and in my +opinion you should have a reasonable surplus after clearing off Nevis's +claim." + +"Yes," assented Thorne with deep but languid content; "it looks almost +as if another moderately good harvest would wipe out my last obligation +and set me solidly on my feet. Once I'm free of Nevis, I don't +anticipate any trouble with the other men. So long as they get their +interest they'll hold me up for their own sakes." + +"That's how it strikes me," Hunter agreed. "They don't run their +business on Nevis's lines; which reminds me that I picked up a little +information that suggested that he might have to make a change, when I +was over at Brandon a week or two ago. I may say that as I had reasons +for believing that the man hadn't a great deal of money of his own I've +been rather astonished at the way he has gone on from one thing to +another during the last few years, until Farquhar told me something +which seemed to supply the explanation. He got it from Grantly, who +declares that Brand, of Winnipeg, has been backing Nevis all along. +Well, I spent an evening with one of the big milling people in Brandon, +and he told me it was generally believed that Brand has been severely +hit by the fall in wheat. It turns out that he and a few others were at +the bottom of the late rally, which, however, only made things worse for +them. The point is that if Brand is getting shaky he'll probably call in +any money he has supplied to Nevis." + +"Nobody would be sorry if he pulled him down altogether." + +"It's almost too much to expect," replied Hunter, dismissing the subject +with a wave of his hand. "By the way, I had a look round your house +after supper, and it's my opinion that you only want a wagon-load of +dressed lumber and a couple of carpenters for two or three days to make +the place quite comfortable. A few simple furnishings won't cost you +much, and you can, of course, add to them as you go on." + +Thorne realized that this statement covered a question, and he smiled in +a manner that indicated unalloyed satisfaction. + +"I intend to consult with Alison about ordering them as soon as the +thrashing's over." + +His companion rose and stretched himself. + +"Well," he yawned, "if we're to start at sunup we had better get off to +rest." + +He turned to the others. + +"You'll find your blankets in the wagon, boys, and you can camp in the +house. If you're particular about a soft bed there's hay in the barn." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE RECKONING + + +Thorne's last load of wheat had been hauled in, and he had duly met his +obligations, when he drove into Graham's Bluff early one evening. The +days were rapidly getting shorter, and though it was not yet dark there +was a chill in the air, and here and there a light blinked in the window +of a store. Odd groups of loiterers stood about the sidewalk or strolled +along the rutted street, for it was Saturday evening, and now that +harvest was generally over the outlying farmers had driven in to +purchase provisions or to gather any news that might be had, in +accordance with their usual custom. It was about their only relaxation, +and of late a supplementary mail arrived on Saturdays, which was another +excuse for the visit. + +Thorne was in an unusually optimistic mood. He had left his troubles +behind him, there was an alluring prospect opening out ahead, and he +expected to meet Alison and Mrs. Farquhar at the hotel. Besides, he had +driven fast, and the swift motion had stirred his blood. He answered +with a cheerful laugh when some of the loungers called to him. As he +drove by one corner Corporal Slaney raised a greeting hand, and Thorne, +wondering what he was doing there, waved his whip. It was, as a rule, +only when he had some particular business on hand that the corporal was +seen at Graham's Bluff. Supper had been over some time when Thorne +stopped his team at the back of the hotel, and getting down handed it +over to a man who came out from the stable. + +"Has the mail-carrier got in yet, Bill?" he asked. + +"No; he's most an hour behind his usual time. Guess you're late, too. +They've cleared the tables quite a while ago." + +"I got supper with Forrester as I came along. I suppose you haven't any +idea as to what has brought Slaney over?" + +Bill grinned. + +"It is my opinion that's about the one thing Slaney's not going to +explain, though he was in the stable talking, and I saw him looking kind +of curious at Lucy Calvert. She's in town, and so is Mrs. Hunter. She +came in alone, but somebody told me that Hunter had ridden round by +Hall's place and would be along by and by." + +"Are there any of my other friends about?" + +"I don't know if you'd call Nevis one, but he's in the hotel; when I +last saw him he looked powerful mad. Mrs. Hunter had pulled up before +the dry-goods store when he walked up and started to talk to her. I +don't know what she said to him, but it kind of struck me she'd have +liked to lay into him with the whip, and Nevis came back across the road +mighty quick. After that Mrs. Farquhar drove in with Miss Leigh and left +word that you were to wait at the hotel." + +Bill paused a moment and grinned at Thorne mischievously. + +"Guess they didn't want you trailing round after them in the dry-goods +store. Looks as if they'd been buying quite a lot, for it's most half an +hour since they went in. The lawyer man who came to see Miss Leigh has +gone off up the street." + +"The lawyer man!" exclaimed Thorne in some astonishment, for, though he +could guess what Alison was buying, the last piece of news roused his +interest. + +"Parsons--from somewhere down the line. He has been in the settlement +once or twice lately. Wanted to know where Miss Leigh was, and when +she'd be back again." + +Thorne, without asking any more questions, walked round to the front of +the hotel, where he found Nevis talking to several farmers on the +veranda. He was inclined to think the man had not noticed his arrival, +and sitting down he took out his pipe without greeting him. He had +treated Nevis to a somewhat forcible expression of opinion when he had +met Grantly's note a few days earlier, and they had by no means parted +on friendly terms. Soon after he sat down Symonds, the hotel-keeper, +came out on the veranda. + +"Are you going to stay here to-night, Mr. Nevis?" he inquired. + +"Yes," said Nevis. "I didn't intend to when I drove in, but I think I'll +stop over until Monday morning. I'll drive on to Hunter's place after +breakfast then." + +Thorne, remembering what Bill had told him, wondered how far Nevis's +meeting with Mrs. Hunter might explain his change of mind. He could +think of no very definite reason that would warrant the conjecture, but +a stream of light from the room behind the veranda fell on the man's +face and its expression suggested vindictive malice. Just then two or +three newcomers strolled on to the veranda, and a teamster, who had been +sitting at the farther side of it, moved toward Nevis. + +"What do you want to go to Hunter's for?" he asked bluntly. "You and he +haven't had any dealings since he beat you out of the creamery." + +Thorne watched Nevis closely, and imagined that the ominous look in his +face grew plainer still. + +"Well," he said, with a jarring laugh, "Mrs. Hunter is a customer of +mine." + +There was a murmur of astonishment and the men gathered round the +speaker, evidently in the expectation of hearing something more. + +"Is that a cold fact?" one of them inquired. + +"Certainly," answered Nevis; and Thorne joined the group. + +"Even if it is, this isn't the place to discuss it!" he broke in. +"Perhaps I'd better mention that if Hunter isn't in town already he will +be very soon." + +Nevis looked around at him, and Thorne fancied that the man, who was +evidently filled with savage resentment, intended, with some vindictive +purpose, to take the gathering group of bystanders into his confidence. +Several more men were ascending the steps. + +"Have you any reason to doubt what I'm saying?" he asked. + +"Well," drawled Thorne, "there's your general character, for one thing." + +Some of the others laughed, but it occurred to Thorne that his +interference had not been particularly tactful when one of them asked a +question. + +"Are you telling us that Hunter, who has plenty of money, lets his wife +go borrowing from people like you?" + +"I can't say that he lets her," Nevis retorted meaningly. "I've the +best of reasons, however, for being certain that she does so." + +There was an awkward silence, which indicated that all who had heard it +grasped the full significance of the last statement. Nevis smiled as he +glanced round at them. + +"You mean he doesn't know anything about it?" somebody exclaimed. + +"If you insist, that's about the size of it," Nevis answered. "Since her +husband cuts down her allowance to the last dollar, it's not an +altogether unnatural thing that Mrs. Hunter should borrow from her +friends without mentioning it to him." + +The speech was offensive on the face of it, but there was in addition +something in the man's manner which endued it with a gross +suggestiveness. It implied that he could furnish a reason why the woman +should have no hesitation in borrowing from him. Thorne stood still +fuming. He recognized that an altercation with Nevis would in all +probability only provide the latter with an opportunity for making +further undesirable insinuations. + +Just then, however, the group suddenly fell apart and another man strode +across the veranda. He carried a riding-quirt, and his face showed white +and set in the stream of light. + +"It's a malicious lie!" + +He raised the plaited quirt, and the hotel-keeper flung himself in front +of Nevis. + +"Stop there!" he cried. "Hold on, Hunter!" + +Thorne, springing forward, grasped his friend's arm. He felt it his duty +to restrain him, though it was one that he undertook most reluctantly. + +"Thrashing him wouldn't be an answer," he insisted. "After what he has +just said, it would be very much better if you gave us your account of +the thing." + +There was a murmur of approval from the assembly. The men had heard the +accusation cunningly conveyed, and although the prospect of a +sensational climax in which the riding-quirt should figure appealed to +them, they felt it only fitting that they should also hear it proved or +withdrawn. + +"I'll do that--first," consented Hunter, very grimly. "I have just this +to say. I'm perfectly aware that Mrs. Hunter borrowed from this man on +two occasions, and to bear it out I'll state the fact that the loans +fall due on Tuesday." + +Nevis made no attempt to deny it, and one of the bystanders spoke. + +"We can let it go at that, boys; Nevis said he was going over to +Hunter's place on Monday." + +"In that case," continued Hunter, "he will have the notes my wife gave +him in his pocket. I'll mention what the amounts are, and afterward ask +Nevis to produce the papers, and Symonds will tell you if I'm correct." + +"Then if he doesn't want us to strip him he had better trot them out!" +cried another man. + +Nevis, who saw no help for it, produced two papers, which the +hotel-keeper seized. The latter made a sign of agreement when Hunter +spoke again. + +"Yes," he confirmed; "you have given the figures right." + +Hunter once more turned to the waiting men. + +"I think I've made out my case. Are you convinced that he's a dangerous +liar, boys?" + +There were cries of assent. + +"Lay into the hog with the quirt!" somebody added. + +Thorne chuckled at the sight of Nevis's face. It was suffused with blood +and dark with baffled malevolence. The man evidently recognized that he +was discredited and would get no further hearing now. It occurred to +Thorne, however, that his friend had succeeded better than he could +reasonably have expected, for, after all, he had not disproved the fact +that his wife had, in the first place at least, borrowed the money +without his knowledge. The others, he thought, had not noticed that +point. + +Then Hunter raised his hand for silence. + +"I'll ask Symonds and Thorne to come into the room with Nevis and me," +he said. "I want a table to write at, for one thing." + +It did not look as if Nevis were particularly anxious to accompany them, +but Symonds, who was a powerful man, hustled him forward, and Thorne +took his place with his back to the door to keep out the others, who +seemed desirous of following them. Hunter, sitting down at a table, +wrote out a check and pocketed the papers Nevis gave him in exchange for +it. Then he rose and took up the strongly plaited quirt. + +"Now," he said, addressing Nevis, "I'll ask you to walk out on to the +veranda and inform our friends outside that you wish to express your +regret for the malicious statements you have lately made, and that you +declare they were completely unjustified." + +"I'll see you damned first!" muttered Nevis with a dangerous glitter in +his eyes. + +The events of the next few moments were sudden and confusing, and Thorne +was never able to arrange them clearly in his mind. It speedily became +evident, however, that the equity of his cause does not necessarily +render a man either invincible or invulnerable. Nevis, although a person +of somewhat lethargic physical habits, appeared when forced to action +sufficiently vigorous, and Hunter was hampered by the quirt to which he +persistently clung. Though he managed to use it once or twice it was a +serious handicap when they came to grips. In the meanwhile, the dust +flew up from the uncovered floor and obscured the view of the men on the +veranda, who crowded about the window and clamored furiously to get in. +Then in the midst of the turmoil the lamp went out and Thorne felt a +hand on his shoulder. + +"Let them out!" the hotel-keeper cried. + +As Thorne was forcibly driven away from the door, it swung open and a +man sprang out on to the veranda with another close behind, while +confused cries went up. + +"Head him off from the stairway!" + +"Leave them to it!" + +"Get a light!" + +In a few moments, Bill pushed through the crowd with a lantern in his +hand, but before he crossed the veranda another light sprang up again in +the room and streamed out through the door and window. It fell upon the +waiting men and the two dominant figures in the narrow clear space in +front of them--Nevis, standing still, looking about him savagely with a +darkly suffused face, and Hunter, gripping his quirt, very quiet and +very grim. He was, however, breathing heavily, and signs of the conflict +were plain on both of them. + +There was an impressive silence, and everybody stood tensely expectant, +until it was suddenly broken by a murmur and a movement of those nearest +the steps. They drew back, and Mrs. Farquhar and Mrs. Hunter, with +Alison and Lucy Calvert, came up on the veranda. Moving forward a few +paces they stopped in very natural surprise, and the stillness grew +deeper when Hunter suddenly flung down his quirt. This was a change in +the situation which nobody had anticipated. + +Then a cry rose sharply from somewhere below. + +"Miss Leigh! Get back there! Let me up!" + +It was followed by a shout from the crowd. + +"Winthrop!" + +The next moment a man came scrambling up the steps. He was hot and dusty +and apparently in desperate haste, but to Thorne's astonishment he ran +toward Alison. As he did so, Nevis sprang toward the veranda rails. + +"Slaney!" he shouted. + +He was still almost breathless from the struggle, and it scarcely seemed +possible that his hoarse voice would carry far, but Winthrop turning +suddenly, grabbed up a shotgun that lay on a chair. One of the outlying +farmers had brought it with him, for there were duck about just then. + +"Call out again and I'll plug you sure!" he threatened, and the look in +his face suggested that he fully meant it. "You've hounded me from place +to place up and down the prairie; you've got my money, more than you +lent, and that wouldn't satisfy you. Two weeks ago I was working quietly +when you put the blamed police on my trail again. Now I guess I've got +you, and we're going to straighten things." + +He broke off as Lucy stepped forward and laid her hand on the gun, and +Thorne noticed that she placed it with deliberate purpose over the +muzzle. + +"Let me have it, Jake! The boys will see that he doesn't call out." + +There was a murmur of assent from the crowd, and Thorne seized +Winthrop's arm. + +"What do you want Miss Leigh for, anyway?" Lucy asked Winthrop. + +The instinct which had prompted the question seemed so natural to Thorne +that, strung up and intent as he was, he smiled; but just then Winthrop +lowered the gun and turned to Alison. + +"Have you got that mortgage deed and shown it to the lawyer man?" he +asked. + +"It's here," said Alison. "Mr. Parsons is in the settlement; I expect to +see him in the next few minutes." + +It struck Thorne that Nevis started, but before any of those most +concerned could speak there was a rapid thud of horse-hoofs approaching +down the street. Then a man on the steps cried out: + +"Here's Slaney and a trooper! You've got to quit, Jake!" + +Winthrop plunged into the lighted room and the door closed behind him +with a crash; a moment or two later another door banged somewhere below +and the men poured tumultuously down the steps. Lucy followed them, and +almost immediately the veranda was deserted except for Thorne and Alison +and Hunter, who remained there with his wife, though he did not speak to +her. Mrs. Farquhar had apparently been hustled down the steps by the +others in their haste, and Nevis had also vanished. Nobody had noticed +what became of him in the confusion that succeeded Winthrop's flight. + +The thud of hoofs, which had ceased for a moment, almost immediately +began again. Once the corporal's voice rose sharply, and then there +were disconnected cries, a sound of running feet, and a clamor that +rapidly receded down the street. When it grew very faint Thorne turned +to Alison. + +"Haven't you got something to explain?" he asked. + +"It's very simple," said Alison. "Winthrop gave me his mortgage deed +some time ago; he said it would be wiser not to hand it to Lucy. Nevis +had got it from him by an excuse, but he crept into his office for it +late one night. I understand it proves that Nevis hadn't an indisputable +claim to the cattle he sold. About a fortnight ago, Winthrop wrote to me +that the police were on his trail again and I was to show the deed to a +lawyer and see if it would clear him. I don't know why he came here, +unless it was because the troopers had cut off any other means of escape +and he fancied some of his friends would hide him; and it's also +possible that he took the risk of being arrested because of his anxiety +to find out what the lawyer thought." + +Thorne nodded. + +"That probably accounts for it; though there are still one or two points +which are far from clear." + +A few minutes later, a distant clamor broke out again, and by degrees +confused voices and a sound of footsteps drew nearer. Then while Thorne +and Alison leaned over the balustrade a crowd poured past in front of +the hotel with a mounted figure showing above the shoulders of those +about it. Thorne looked round at the girl. + +"They've got him at last," he said. + +Hunter crossed the veranda and drew him into the adjoining room, and +Alison was left alone with Mrs. Hunter. The latter said nothing to her +and she sat silent for some time until the lawyer walked up the steps. + +"I was told that I should find Miss Leigh here." + +Alison said that was her name, and the man, drawing a chair forward, sat +down opposite her. + +"I understand that you have Winthrop's mortgage deed in your possession. +He now desires you to hand it to me." + +"I shall be very glad to get rid of it," declared Alison, taking the +document out of a pocket in her light jacket. "Will you be able to get +him off with it?" + +"That's a matter on which I can't very well express an opinion until I +have read the deed and had a talk with Winthrop. I've no doubt you have +heard that he has just been arrested while endeavoring to escape, but I +contrived to get a word or two with him and Corporal Slaney. The latter +considers it advisable to get his prisoner out of the settlement as soon +as possible, and I understand he means to spend the night at a homestead +a few miles away. He has promised me an opportunity for speaking to +Winthrop when he gets there." + +"I should very much like to hear what you decide," Alison informed him. + +The lawyer rose. + +"It's probable that I may find it necessary to make a few inquiries in +connection with the affair, and I have another piece of business which +will keep me a day or two in the neighborhood. If Winthrop has no +objections, I could no doubt call on you at the Farquhar homestead on +Monday." + +Alison thanked him, and soon after he withdrew Hunter came out of the +hotel with Thorne. Alison accompanied Thorne down to the street in +search of Mrs. Farquhar. Then Hunter turned toward his wife. + +"If you have nothing more to do here, we may as well be getting home," +he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE NEW OUTLOOK + + +It was unusually dark when Florence Hunter drove out of the settlement +with her husband riding beside the wagon, and the roughness of the trail +made conversation difficult. Florence was, on the whole, glad of this, +because, although she felt that there was a good deal to be said, she +could not express herself befittingly while her attention was +concentrated on the team. Besides, she wanted to see the man and watch +his face when she spoke to him. + +She was accordingly content that he should ride in silence except for an +occasional disconnected observation about the horses or the trail, to +which she merely made a casual answer. It was late when they reached the +homestead, and though a light or two was burning nobody seemed to be +about, which was, however, only what she had expected. Hunter led the +horses away toward the stables, and entering the house she sat down to +wait for him somewhat anxiously, though she realized that the +possibility of his being angry would not have troubled her a little +while ago. + +He came in at length and stood looking down at her. Now that the light +was better than it had been on the veranda of the hotel, she noticed +that his lips were cut and that there was a bruise above one cheekbone. +His jacket was also torn and there was no doubt that, taking it all +round, his appearance was far from reputable. That, however, did not +trouble her, for she had seen enough at the hotel to realize that the +man had been injured while fighting in her cause. Still, she was wise +enough not to begin by pitying him. + +"Elcot," she said, "I want you to tell me exactly what happened at the +settlement." + +"I hadn't arrived at the beginning of it," the man replied. "I had a +talk with Thorne afterward, however, and he confirmed my conclusion that +Nevis had been informing anybody who cared to hear that you were in the +habit of borrowing money from him. This was objectionable in itself, but +he added in my hearing that I knew nothing about your action, and the +way in which he said it was insufferable." + +Florence's face flushed. + +"What did you do about it?" + +"First of all, I denied the most damaging statement--that I knew nothing +about the thing. It seemed necessary to prove the contrary, which I did, +though I had to admit the borrowing." + +"And then?" + +"I paid off the loans." + +Hunter paused, and taking out two strips of paper threw them on the +table. + +"Here are your notes. I feel compelled to say that unless you get my +consent beforehand you must never incur a liability of the kind again." + +"I shall never wish to," Florence answered penitently. "We'll talk about +that afterward; I want you to go on. You haven't told me the whole of it +yet." + +"What do you expect to hear?" + +Florence's eyes flashed. + +"I should like to hear that you had thrashed the man until he could +scarcely stand!" + +Her husband's face relaxed into a grim smile. + +"Well, I'm afraid I didn't go as far as that, though it wasn't because +the desire to do so failed me. As it happens, there's a good deal more +courage in the fellow than I ever gave him credit for, and it's +unfortunate that virtuous indignation doesn't make up for an inequality +in muscular weight." He stopped a moment and laughed outright. "Still, I +believe I got in once or twice with the quirt, which is consoling to +remember, and I dare say I should have left another mark or two on him +if the lamp hadn't suddenly been put out. On taxing Symonds with it +afterward, he admitted that he was afraid his wife would make trouble if +the room should be wrecked." + +"Would it please you, Elcot, if I were to say that I'm very proud of +that cut on your lip--though I'm horribly ashamed of being the cause of +it? In any case, it's the simple truth." + +"We'll take it for granted," replied Hunter, looking at her searchingly. +"The trouble is that this matter has forced on a crisis. It's evident +that our relations can't remain as they are just now." + +"You don't find them satisfactory?" + +"No." Hunter broke into a harsh laugh. "I don't know how I have borne +with them as long as I have, though I've resolutely tried to fall in +with your point of view. Anyway, I can't go on living with, and at the +same time utterly apart from, you. It might have been possible if I had +never been fond of you." + +"Nobody could have blamed you if you had grown out of that regard for +me," Florence suggested. + +"The difficulty is that I haven't done so," Hunter declared more +quietly, though there was still a trace of harshness in his tone. "As +you imply, it's perhaps unreasonable of me, but there the fact is. The +question is, What am I going to do?" + +Florence stretched out her hands and her voice was very soft. + +"Elcot," she murmured, "I really must have tried your patience very hard +now and then, but just now I'm glad you find this state of things +unbearable. Would it be very difficult to go back a few years and begin +again--differently?" + +The man moved nearer her and then stopped, hesitating. + +"I'm afraid," he answered slowly, "there are respects in which I can't +change. To begin with, I don't see how I am to provide for you as I +should like if I abandon the life you chafe at and give up the farm. I +have told you this often; but, even if it stands between us, it's a +truth that must still be faced." + +Florence rose and laid her hands in his. + +"Then it's fortunate that a change is not impossible to me--in fact, I +think I've changed a good deal already. It rather hurt me, Elcot, that +you didn't seem to notice it." + +The man stooped and kissed her. + +"I noticed it," he said; "but I was almost afraid." + +"Afraid it wouldn't last?" Florence reproached him. "Well, I suppose +that is not so very astonishing--but I think this change will go on, and +grow greater steadily. Anyway, I want it to." + +Then she drew away from him. + +"You're rather a reserved person, Elcot, and it will no doubt be a +relief to you if we become severely practical. Besides, I want to show +you how determined I am. Now that you have paid off my debts, we'll get +out the account-books, and you shall decide how I'm to carry on the +homestead." + +Hunter laughed. + +"No accounts to-night. It's beginning to strike me that both of us might +have been happier if I hadn't thought about them so much. After all, I +dare say it isn't wise to give economic questions the foremost place." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Florence, "it's a pity it has taken you so long to learn +that truth. I suppose I'm fond of money--at least, I'm fond of the +things I used to fancy it could buy, but by degrees I found out that it +can't buy those that are really worth the most. Now it almost looks as +if I could get them at home--without any cost." + +She paused while she sat down, and then once more she smiled up at him. + +"Well," she continued, "I'll probably embarrass you if I go on in this +strain--you seem to get uneasy when you venture ever so little out of +your shell. For a change, you can read me the paper you brought from the +settlement, and I won't grumble if it's about the markets and the price +of wheat." + +Hunter took up the paper. He was, where his deeper feelings were +concerned, a singularly reticent man, which was, perhaps, an excuse for +Florence and one explanation of the coldness that had grown up between +them. Now he felt that there was to be a change, and because the +prospect brought him a fervent satisfaction he refrained from speaking +of it. He had, however, scarcely opened the paper when he started. + +"Here's a piece of striking news!" he exclaimed. "Brand, of Winnipeg, +has gone down--a disastrous smash. The fall in wheat has broken him. It +appears that his liabilities are enormous, and there's practically +nothing to meet them with." + +He laid down the paper. + +"I wonder," he added, "if Nevis could have heard of it before he left +the settlement--though I think he must have done so, for the mail was +already in. Anyway, when I was getting your team Bill told me that the +man had driven off a few minutes earlier as fast as he could go." + +"But how could the failure in Winnipeg affect Nevis?" + +"Brand has been backing him, finding him the money to carry on his +business, and now that he has gone under it may pull him down. The +creditors will at once try to call in all outstanding loans, and I +expect Nevis has his money so scattered that he can't immediately get +hold of it. It's possible that the failure may drive him out of this +part of the country." + +They talked over the matter at some length, and the man was slightly +astonished at the acumen his wife displayed. When at last he rose, it +was with a deep content. He felt that a vista of happier days was +opening up before them both. + +On the following Monday he drove over to the Farquhar homestead, where +Thorne was already waiting to hear what the lawyer had to tell. The +latter, however, did not arrive until the evening, and Farquhar took him +into the general-room where the others were sitting. + +"You can, of course, speak to Miss Leigh privately, if you prefer," he +said. "On the other hand, we are all of us acquaintances of Winthrop's, +and, what is as much to the purpose, nobody you see here is very fond of +Nevis." + +Parsons smiled. + +"As a matter of fact, I have Winthrop's permission to tell his friends +anything they desire to learn, and he mentioned you and Mr. Thorne +particularly. To begin with, I must excuse myself for the delay, but I +found it necessary to go on to the railroad to meet Sergeant Williamson, +and I had to call at Mrs. Calvert's. To proceed, after considering +Winthrop's mortgage deed, it's my opinion that if he can substantiate +his statements he has no cause for serious anxiety about the result in +the event of his being brought to trial." + +"It would be difficult to get over the fact that he sold the cattle," +contested Farquhar. + +"It would be impossible," Parsons corrected him. "Still, there's very +little doubt that Nevis went farther than the homestead laws permit, and +while our friend would very likely be found guilty of the offense +there's so much to mitigate it that I'm inclined to believe it would be +regarded very leniently. In fact, it's scarcely reasonable to suppose +that Nevis would have proceeded to extremities unless he had counted on +being able to retain possession of the mortgage deed." + +"But couldn't he have been compelled to produce it in court?" Thorne +inquired. + +"Yes; if Winthrop had been ably represented. It must, however, be borne +in mind that he has no great education, and he would probably not have +set out matters clearly to any one who undertook to plead for him. He +admits that he never thought of the mortgage deed until somebody +suggested that he should try to recover it. Besides this, I'm inclined +to fancy that Nevis was influenced by the fact that what appears to be a +simple police case based upon an indisputable act--in this case the +selling of the cattle--is apt to be rather casually handled by the +court." + +"Then you believe he will get off?" + +"It's by no means certain yet that he will be tried." + +They heard the announcement with varying astonishment, and Parsons +continued. + +"I endeavored to impress the views I have laid before you on Sergeant +Williamson," he explained. "The matter, of course, does not rest with +him, but he has come over to make inquiries, and what he has to say will +be listened to. I also pointed out to him that one would expect the +police case to break down if the man who had instituted it was either +absent or reluctant to press it." He stopped a moment and looked round +with a confidential air. "You have heard that Brand, of Winnipeg, has +failed disastrously? There are reasons for believing that Nevis is +involved in his fall; in any case, his office is closed, and it is known +that he left the settlement, presumably for Winnipeg, by the last +Montreal express." + +There was only satisfaction in the faces of those who heard him. Then +Mrs. Farquhar broke the silence. + +"I wonder whether you could add anything to the last piece of +information?" + +"Well," smiled Parsons, "prediction is generally dangerous, and in my +case it would be unprofessional, but I may confess that from one or two +things I gathered I shouldn't be greatly astonished if Nevis failed to +come back again." + +Thorne laughed outright. + +"After that," he said, "we'll take the thing for granted, and I haven't +the least hesitation in declaring that it's a great relief to hear it." + +Then the group broke up, and Alison strolled out with Thorne across the +prairie. A half-moon hung above its eastern rim, and the great sweep of +grass ran back into the dim distance faintly touched with the pale +silvery light. It fell upon the girl's face when at length she stopped +and stood looking about her with the man's hand on her shoulder. A long +rise of ground, so slight as to be almost imperceptible, had cut off the +lights of the house, and they stood alone in the empty waste surrounded +by a deep stillness. + +"It seems such a little while since I first saw the prairie, and I +shrank from it then," she said. "It looked so bare and grim and utterly +forbidding." + +"And now?" Thorne prompted her. + +Alison laughed, a little, happy laugh. + +"Now its harshness has vanished and it has grown beautiful. When it lies +under the moonlight it is steeped in glamour and mystery. Even the tiny +grasses make elfin music when everything is still. I came out at sunrise +this morning when a faint breeze got up and listened to them." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Thorne softly, "it is only a few who can hear that music +at all, and those, I think, must have it in their hearts already. It is +a sign that you belong to the wilderness and it has laid its claim on +you." + +Alison smiled. + +"Now that I have learned to know it, a fondness for the wilderness has +crept into my blood; but, after all, your views are narrow; you don't go +quite far enough. I think one could sometimes hear the music I spoke of +in the noisy cities. Only, as you say, it must be in one's heart +already." + +Thorne looked down at her with a glow in his eyes. + +"Ours are in unison." + +"No," protested Alison, smilingly, "I think we should not benefit if +that were possible. The most we can look for is a complex harmony. In +the strain humanity raises there must be many different notes and many +different parts." + +Thorne laughed rather strangely as, with a little instinctive movement, +he straightened himself. + +"But the same insistent throb in all that is worth listening to." + +"Ah!" murmured the girl; "then you recognized the note of unrest and +endeavor, though you tried to shut your ears?" + +"Now I know I heard it in crowded places; in the pounding of the forges, +and the rumble of the mills. I've heard it a little plainer in the wash +beneath the liner's bows and the din the Pacific express made crossing +the silent prairie with the Empress mails. Still, as you suggested, I +wouldn't grasp its message until one night I sat in the bluff and heard +the birch twigs whispering while you rested in the wagon. Then I knew I +was an idler and a trifler; one who stood aside while the others took +their fill of the joys and pains of life." + +Alison glanced up at him. + +"Then you were awake that night?" + +"Yes; I sat beneath a tree, and I don't know how often I smoked my pipe +out, but my mouth was parched at sunrise, and there was a new purpose +growing into shape at the bottom of my mind. You see, I realized that I +must fall into line and toil like the rest if I wanted you." + +"But you had seen me for only two or three days!" + +Thorne laughed softly. + +"I think if I had seen you for only an hour it would have had the same +result. Anyway, I tried farming, and--though I was very nearly +beaten--you can see what I have made of it." + +He stooped a little toward her. + +"The house is almost ready, dear, and I want you to drive in to the +railroad with me to-morrow. A man from Winnipeg will be at the hotel +then, and I should like you to choose what you think is needed from his +lists of furnishings." + +Alison looked down, for she was conscious of a warmth in her cheeks. "If +you will come over early, I'll be ready." + +Thorne drew her hand within his arm and they moved on slowly in the +faint moonlight that etherealized the plain. + +"It is a marvelous night!" he exclaimed. "The wilderness gripped me when +I came out, but I don't think I ever realized how wonderful it is as I +do just now. And there are people who can see in it only an empty, +wind-swept land!" + +He drew her impulsively to him. + +"Still, there are excuses for them. Only part of the glamour is in the +prairie. The rest of it is due to the supreme good fortune that has +fallen to me." + +"You are very sure of that?" murmured Alison. + +"Yes," declared Thorne, with resolute decisiveness, "it's a certainty +that will only grow deeper as the years roll on!" + + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the +original edition have been corrected. + +In Chapter I, "a rather hazardout undertaking" was changed to "a rather +hazardous undertaking". + +In Chapter VI, "when the storekeper appeared on the scene" was changed +to "when the storekeeper appeared on the scene". + +In Chapter X, a missing quotation mark was added after "he's no doubt +ready for an outbreak." + +In Chapter XI, "it might he desirable to let Volador" was changed to "it +might be desirable to let Volador". + +In Chapter XII, "in which case it will, no doubt, he adopted" was +changed to "in which case it will, no doubt, be adopted". + +In Chapter XIX, "when he strode out on the verenda" was changed to "when +he strode out on the veranda", and "dubious glances round him at he +resumed his march" was changed to "dubious glances round him as he +resumed his march". + +Chapter XXVII, A HELPING HAND, was mislabeled "Chapter XXVI" originally. + +In Chapter XXIX, "there the fact it" was changed to "there the fact is". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Prairie Courtship, by Harold Bindloss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP *** + +***** This file should be named 38723.txt or 38723.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/2/38723/ + +Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +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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