"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, eatingsomething. 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 itout 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."
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 screwon 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 wayon 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 faras 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 recordcrop." 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, theaverage 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'strail. 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 thestreet 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.
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. Nowhe 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 outfrom 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. Hehad 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 hadbeen 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 movedtoward 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 rememberedwith 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 glancedwith 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."
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 andhis 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 comeover 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 andsmoke. 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 unnecessaryreserve 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 floodof 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 thereaping, 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 hustlinground 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 ofhim 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.