"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 drybranches 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. Threeor 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 implyserious 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 dearone 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.
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 sprungup, 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 eyestight 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 tollon 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 expectedhim 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 teachme. 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 sendhim 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 callgrande 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.
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 attiredmuch 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—itjust 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 ofmentioning 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'renot 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'tknow 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.
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 theassembly. 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. "Iheard 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'sfree-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 gaveme 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 sherealized, 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 watchedhim 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."