Carrie winced, and felt she could have struck Urmston when she saw the little sardonic smile in his eyes. Her face grew almost colourless with anger, and she closed one hand at her side. Something which had been latent within her was now wholly roused and dominant. She knew that what the man had said was wholly untrue, and that her husband's safety depended then on her. She did not suppose for a moment that he would yield because of anything these men could do, and it was clear that they were desperate men with a bitter grievance against him. They might even kill him, and she resolutely grappled with a numbing fear. She dared not let it master her, for somethingmust be done, and once more she felt that she had only herself to depend upon.
"Charley Leland will make you sorry for that some day," she said.
The man grinned. "It is quite likely he is going to be sorry for himself before we are through with him. Anyway, I don't know any reason why I shouldn't eat his supper. I've ridden most of forty miles to-day trailing him."
He drew the tray upon the table nearer to him, and ate voraciously, while Carrie grew faint with apprehension as she watched him. Urmston, who had taken out a cigar, sat motionless, save that he fumbled with it instead of his watch-chain. The room was once more very still, except for the snapping of the stove and the unpleasant sounds the outlaw made over his meal. Time was flying, and Leland might arrive at any moment now. She feared that the other men were hidden beside the trail through the birch bluff, waiting to waylay him.
Then the outlaw turned to her. "I guess it would be nice to be waited on by a lady, and it might please Charley Leland when he hears of it. I'd like some coffee, and I see the pot here. Bring me the kettle."
Carrie looked at Urmston. At any risk he would surely resent this insult to her. But, though there was a shade more colour than usual in his cheeks, Urmston sat still. Then, in a flash, the inspiration came. With a glance towards the rear door, which led to the kitchen, she rose with the kettle in her hand. The lamp stood upon the table about a yard from the man, but, as he was sitting, a little nearer to her.
"Will you hold out the pot?" she said. "It's scalding hot. Take care of your hand."
The man turned his eyes a moment, and that was enough, for before he looked up again Carrie swung the kettle round, and there was a crash as it struck the lamp. Then there was sudden darkness, out of which rang venomous expletives and howls of pain. Carrie sped towards the second door. She heard the man falling among the chairs behind her, and wasted another moment or two turning the key, which was outside. This cost her an effort, for the lock was rusty from disuse. Then she flitted along the dark corridor, and, opening the kitchen door softly, looked out upon the prairie. There was no moon, and the night was still and dark. She could hear no sound on that side of the homestead.
Slipping out, she crept in quiet haste along the wall, and with wildly beating heart crossed the open space between it and the stable. Nobody, however, attempted to stop her, and in another moment or two she was standing beside the horse which Jake had ready saddled. The animal was fresh and mettlesome, and she lost several precious minutes before she contrived to get into the saddle by scrambling on a mound of sod piled against the outside of the building. Then she struck him viciously with the quirt. One cut was all that was needed, and they were flying out into the darkness at a furious gallop.
She knew that her flight was heard, for shouts rose behind her; but she knew too that her horse was fresh and the outlaws' tired after a hard day's ride. It was also very probable that his comrades had tethered their horses somewhere while they watched the trail, sinceit is usually difficult to keep a prairie broncho quiet very long. All this flashed upon her while the lights of Prospect blinked and vanished as the barns and stables shut them in. With a sigh of relief, she brought the quirt down again.
There were stars in the heavens, but the night was dark, and she could just discern an outlying birch bluff, a shadowy blur against the sky, a mile in front of her. The prairie was rutted deep along the trail by waggon-wheels, and riddled here and there with deadly badger-holes, but these were hazards that must be taken as they came. One thing was sure—the man she had married was in imminent peril, and she alone could deliver him. The fact that Urmston was left behind in the outlaws' hands did not seem to trouble her. Indeed, she scarcely remembered him at all.
She swept on, her light skirt blown about her, her loosened hair whipping her hot face, while a thud of hoofs broke out behind her. The horse's blood was up, too, so she let him go, stretched out at a flying gallop, up low rise and over long level. The birches flashed by, and the open waste lay in front. While nobody riding that pace could find the trail, there was a shallow coulee a league away with stunted birches on the edge of it, which would presently rise for a landmark out of the prairie. Once she glanced over her shoulder. There was only the soft darkness, out of which there came a thumping that seemed to be growing fainter.
She was almost upon the birches when she heard another beat of hoofs in front of her now, and she sent up a breathless cry.
"Charley!" she called, and again in fierce impatience, "Charley!"
For a moment she was conscious of a torturing suspense, and then a man's voice came out of the darkness in answer.
"All right," it said. "I'm coming straight along."
In another few moments a shadowy figure had materialised out of the prairie. She pulled her horse up with a struggle when Leland drew bridle beside her.
"Steady, my dear," he said. "Get your breath and tell me what it is."
Carrie gasped out her news, and the man sat silent a moment or two.
"Urmston's there, and Mrs. Annersly," he said. "I don't think they'll hurt them, but I'd better get on."
Carrie leant out from the saddle, and attempted to touch his bridle as the fidgeting horses pranced side by side.
"No," she said, "you mustn't. I will not have you go. I think they mean to kill you."
Leland appeared to smile. "I guess that contract would be a little too big for them. Still, if Urmston riled them, they might hurt him. The man's a friend of yours."
Carrie laughed somewhat bitterly. "I don't think he will do anything very injudicious. Eveline Annersly's room is just across the house, and she sleeps very soundly."
"They wouldn't hurt her," said Leland, reflectively. "One could count on that. Urmston would be all right, too, if he has sense enough to keep quiet. Now, there are two of Grier's troopers camping in a bluff a league back to watch the trail, and if I could onlybring them up before the rustlers go, we ought to get one or two of them. It's 'most worth while trying. You'll ride round with me?"
Nothing more was said when Carrie signified that she was willing, and they rode on again to where the troopers were. Then with these reinforcements they turned back to Prospect, arriving there when dawn was climbing into the sky. There was no sign of the rustlers, but Urmston stood just outside the door.
"They went soon after Mrs. Leland got away," he said. "I feel that I ought to make excuses for leaving the thing to her, though I'm not sure that there was, in view of the circumstances, any other course open to me."
Leland laughed as he swung himself from the saddle. "That's all right. You did the sensible thing, and nobody's going to blame you," he said. "If you don't mind rousing Jake, we'll get the troopers breakfast before they go away. You know your way to the stables, boys."
Urmston and the troopers disappeared, and Carrie looked down on her husband, who stood, a shadowy figure, beside her stirrup.
"You," she said, with a little soft laugh, "would have found another course."
Leland said nothing, but stretched his arms up, and, when she slipped from the saddle into them, held her there while he kissed her.
It was the middle of a scorching afternoon when Carrie drew her waggon over a low rise and down the long slope to the dried-up sloo. Urmston, riding beside it, sprinkled white with dust, looked uncomfortably hot, and Eveline Annersly, whose face was unpleasantly flushed, tried in vain to shelter herself beneath her parasol in the jolting waggon.
"I am positively melting, and my head aches," she said. "If I had known how hot it was, you would never have got me here, and, if Mrs. Custer will keep me, I am not going back to Prospect to-night. How does your husband work this weather?"
Carrie laughed as she pulled her team up near the sloo. She, at least, looked delightfully fresh and almost cool in her long white dress and big white hat.
"He would probably tell you it is because he has to," she said. "In any event, he seems to be working rather harder than ever."
"It is one of Charley Leland's strong points that he knows when a thing has to be done," and Eveline Annersly glanced at Urmston with a little smile. "There are men who don't, and never will, though theyare sometimes able to shift the consequences on to the shoulders of other people."
Then she turned, and blinked about her with half-dazed eyes. In front of the waggon a haze of dust floated up against the intense blueness of the sky, and under it a belt of tall, harsh grass rustled drily in the scant, hot breeze. Everything seemed white and suffused with brightness. Beyond them, the parched, grey prairie rolled back to the horizon. There was no shade anywhere, nor, so far as the eye could travel, a single speck of green.
"And this is a prairie sloo!" she said. "I had pictured a nice, cool lake where the wild duck swim. Charley is, presumably, haymaking, though I never saw it done this way before."
The dust settled a little, and, with a clashing tinkle, there came out of it three big teams and lurching machines. The grass went down before them crackling harshly, and the horses plodded on with tossing heads and whipping tails amidst a cloud of flies. Men followed behind them heaping the hay in piles, and across the mown strip of sloo more men, almost naked, were flinging the last of the mounds into a waggon. There is no need of turning and winnowing in that country. The one thing necessary is to find grass tall enough to cut, and get it home before the fires do the reaping.
The big machines came nearer with a clash and clatter and gleam of sliding knives, and Leland, swinging his team out from the grass, got down from his driving-seat.
"Where's my jacket, Tom?" he said to the man on the machine behind his.
"I expect it has gone home. You pitched it into the waggon," said Tom Gallwey, who, swinging off his hat as his team went by, plunged into the dust again.
Leland moved forward with a deprecatory gesture as he stopped beside the waggon. He wore a coarse blue shirt and old jean trousers, both of which were smeared with black grease, on which the dust had settled, for one of the mowers had given him trouble that morning. There was dust, too, on his dripping face and bare arms, which were scarred here and there. Still, the thin attire lent a certain grace to his wiry figure, and he appeared the personification of strength and activity. From another point of view, his appearance was, however, distinctly against him, and Carrie fancied she knew what Urmston was thinking, as he sat still in his saddle, immaculate, save for a sprinkling of dust, in neat boots, straw hat, and tweed. The difference between the men would have had its effect upon her once, but now she looked down at Leland with an understanding smile.
"You have been mowing all the time?" she said.
"Since sun-up," and Leland laughed. "I couldn't give the teams more than an hour's rest, either. We have to clean this sloo up by dark."
Carrie glanced at the great belt of grass and wondered how it was to be done.
"It looks out of the question, and it's very hot," she said. "Couldn't you stop a little earlier, for once, and ride over to the Range? Mrs. Custer half expects you at supper."
She evidently wanted him to come, and Leland,who seemed to feel it, glanced back irresolutely at the sloo.
"I'm afraid not," he said. "It's quite a way, and I haven't a horse. The others couldn't get done by dark without me, and we couldn't come back here to-morrow. You'll have to excuse me."
Carrie was displeased, though she would not show it, for she had seen the smile of satisfaction in Urmston's eyes. Appearances, she knew, counted for a good deal with him, as much, in fact, as they had once done with her, and she would sooner he had not been there when the dusty haymaker made it evident that he was unwilling to leave his work, although she had suggested that this would please her.
"I suppose it's necessary?" she said.
Leland appeared to hesitate a moment. "I must get this grass home to-night, but, if it's not too late, I would like you to drive round and pick me up. It would get me back 'most an hour earlier."
Carrie was sensible, with a little annoyance, that Urmston was watching her. "Well," she said, "I can't exactly promise. It will depend upon when Mrs. Custer lets us go."
Just then a light waggon came jolting down the opposite slope, and its driver pulled his team up when it drew even with them.
"I've some letters for Prospect, and you have saved me 'most a league's ride. That counts on a day like this," he said.
Leland caught the packet from him, and handed one or two of the letters to Urmston. The man drove on again. As Carrie's waggon also jolted away, Leland leant against the wheel of the mower, openingthose addressed to him. Gallwey, who was passing, pulled his team up and looked down at him inquiringly.
"Anything of consequence?" he said.
Leland shrugged a weary shoulder. "The usual thing," he said. "The implement man wants his money now, though I understood he was going to wait until harvest. The fellow in Winnipeg can't sell the horses. There's a letter from the bank, too. If I purpose drawing on them further, they'd like something as security. The rest are unpleasantly big accounts from the stores."
Then he thrust the papers into his pocket with a harsh laugh. "I'm not going to straighten things out by standing here, and they want a lot."
He called to his horses, and the mower clashed on again. The dust rose and settled on his face, once more set hard and grim. As he was toiling on, with the perspiration dripping from him, Urmston rode beside Carrie's waggon, exchanging light badinage with her. Carrie was feeling a trifle hurt, but she would not have either of her companions become aware of it. Urmston, she noticed, did not open his letters. After they had been an hour at the Range, he came, with one of them in his hand, into the room where she sat. His face was flushed, and there was an anxious look in his eyes. He glanced round the shadowy room. "Where is Eveline Annersly?" he asked.
Carrie smiled absently, though something in his attitude caused her a slight uneasiness. "Looking at Mrs. Custer's turkeys, I believe," she said. "It shows her good-nature, because I don't think they appeal to her any more than they do to me."
Urmston stood a moment or two as though listening. There was no sound from the buildings outside, and the house was very still. He moved forward closer to her, and leant upon the table, his hand clenched on the letter.
"I have been endeavouring to get rid of that insufferable Custer for the last hour," he said. "There is something I have to tell you."
"Well?" The incisive monosyllable expressed inquiry without encouragement.
"The men I came out with are going on north to Edmonton, and expect me to go with them. In fact, they have been good enough to intimate that they are astonished at my long absence, and it is evident that, if I am to go on with the thing, I must leave Prospect to-day or to-morrow."
"Well," said Carrie, with a disconcerting lack of disquietude, "you couldn't expect them to wait indefinitely."
The man gazed at her in evident astonishment. "Don't you understand? I couldn't get back here from Edmonton."
"That is tolerably evident."
Urmston looked his disappointment, but he roused himself with an effort. "Carrie," he said, "I can't go. You don't wish me to?"
Carrie looked at him steadily, though there was now a faint flush in her cheeks.
"I think it would be better if you told me exactly what you mean by that," she said.
"Is it necessary to ask me? You know that I loved you—and I love you now. If you had been happy I might have hid my feelings—at least, I would havetried—but when I find you with a ploughman husband who could never understand or appreciate you, silence becomes impossible. He cares nothing for you, and neglects you openly."
The girl glanced down at the ring on her finger. "Still," she said, with portentous calm, "thatimplies a good deal."
Urmston grew impatient. "Pshaw!" he said hoarsely, "one goes past conventions. You never loved him in the least. How could you? It would have been preposterous."
"And I once loved you? Well, perhaps I did. But let us be rational. What is all this leading to?"
Her dispassionate quietness should have warned him, but it merely jarred on his fastidiousness. He was not then in a mood for accurate observation.
"Only that I cannot go away," he said. "This summer was meant for us. Leland thinks of nothing, cares for nothing but his farm. He has not even feeling enough to be jealous of you."
"Ah," said Carrie, while the red spot grew plainer in her cheek, "and then? A summer, after all, does not last very long."
The man appeared embarrassed and confused at the girl's hard, insistent tones.
"Go on," she said sharply. "What is to happen when the summer is gone?"
Again Urmston was silent, with the blood in his face. Carrie Leland slowly rose. For a moment she said nothing, but he winced beneath her gaze.
"You do not know?" she said. "Well, I think I can tell you. When I had earned my husband's hate and contempt, you would go back to England. Youwould not even take me with you, and you would certainly go; for what would you do in this country? The life the men here lead would crush you. Of course you realised it before you came to me to-day."
Urmston made a gesture of protest, but she silenced him with a flash from her eyes.
"I have had patience with you, because there was a time when I loved you, but you shall hear me now. If you had shown yourself masterful and willing to risk everything for me, when we were at Barrock-holme, I think I should have gone away with you and forsaken my duty; but you were cautious—and half afraid. You could not even make love boldly. Indeed, I wonder how I ever came to believe in such a feeble thing as you."
"But," said Urmston hoarsely, "you led me on."
Again Carrie silenced him. "Wait," she said. "Did you suppose that if I hated my husband and loved you still, I could have requited all that he has done for me with treachery? Do you think I have no sense of honour or any sense of shame? It was only for one reason I let you go as far as you have done. I wanted to see if there was a spark of courage or generosity in you, because I should have liked to think as well as I could of you. There was none. After the summer you—would have gone away."
She hesitated with a catch of her breath. "Reggie," she said, "do you suppose that, even if you had courage enough to suggest it, anything would induce me to leave my husband because—you—asked me to?"
The man winced again, and his face grew even hotter beneath her gaze.
"You would have done so once," he said, as though nothing else occurred to him.
"And I should have been sorry ever since, even if I had never understood the man I have married. As it is, I would rather be Charley Leland's slave or mistress than your wife."
At last the man's eyes blazed. "You can love that ploughman, that half-tamed brute?"
Carrie laughed softly. "Yes," she said, "I love him. If it is any consolation, I think it was partly you who taught me to."
There was a moment's silence, and then Urmston, who heard footsteps in the hall, swung round as Eveline Annersly came in. She looked at them both with a comprehending smile, for she was shrewd, and their faces made comparatively plain the nature of what had taken place.
"I wonder," she said, "if I am intruding?"
"No," said Carrie. "In fact, I think Reggie would like to say good-bye to you. He is going away to-day."
"Ah," said Eveline Annersly, the twinkle still in her eyes, "I really think that is wise of him. He must be keeping the farming experts waiting. Indeed, I'm not sure it wouldn't have been more considerate if he had gone before."
Urmston said nothing, but went out to make his excuses to Custer. In another half-hour he was riding to the railroad across the prairie. Carrie watched him from the homestead until at last he sank behind the crest of a low rise. Then she went back into the house with a little sigh of relief. Eveline Annersly,who was in the room when she came in, smiled curiously.
"I am not going back to-night. The sun has given me a headache, for one thing," she said. "Besides that, Mrs. Custer insists on keeping me for a day or two. You can drive round for Charley."
"The waggon," said Carrie, "will easily hold three."
Her companion looked at her with twinkling eyes. "I almost think two will be enough to-night."
Carrie made no answer, but did as was suggested. It was about nine o'clock that evening when she pulled her team up beside the sloo. Leland, who had found his jacket and brushed off some of the dust, was standing there beside a pile of prairie hay. There was nobody else in sight. A row of loaded waggons and teams loomed black against the sunset at the edge of the prairie. There was a fond gleam in his eyes as he looked up at Carrie.
"Eveline Annersly is staying all night," she said. "You will be worn out; there is almost a load of the hay left."
Leland looked at the big pile of grass. "We couldn't get that lot up, unfortunately. It's a long way to come back to-morrow."
"Well," said Carrie, merrily, "this waggon must have cost you a good deal, and it is one of the few things about Prospect that has never done anything to warrant its being there. I really don't think a little clean hay would harm it."
Leland appeared astonished. "You are sure you wouldn't mind?" he asked.
"Of course not! I will help you to load it if you will hand me down."
The gleam in Leland's eyes was plainer when he reached up and grasped her hands. Carrie, who remembered what had happened last time, shrank from the caress she half expected. Perhaps Leland realised it with his quick intuition, for he merely swung her down. Then she threw in the hay by the armful while he plied the fork. The soft green radiance that precedes the coming dusk hung above the prairie when he roped the load down securely. It was piled high about the driving-seat of the waggon, making a warm, fragrant resting place, into which he lifted his wife. Then, as the team moved on slowly, he turned and looked at her.
"Thank you, my dear," he said; "that was very kind."
Carrie flushed. "Surely not, when you have so much to do. It saves you a long drive to-morrow, doesn't it? But why were you waiting? I did not promise to come round, and you could have ridden home on one of the waggons. It must be six miles."
"Well," said Leland seriously, "it seemed quite worth while to wait most of the night, even if I'd had to walk in afterwards. I knew Mrs. Annersly meant to stay, and you and I have had only one drive together."
Carrie felt her cheeks grow warm again. Her usual composure had vanished. During that other journey, she had lain half frozen in his arms. There had been snow upon the prairie then, and she had shrunk from him; but it was summer now, and all was different. The hay overhung and projected all about them, so that there was very little room on the driving-seat, and she felt her heart throbbing as she sat pressedclose against his shoulder. Leland said nothing, and the waggon jolted on through the silent night to the tune of horses' hoofs, while the green transparency faded into the dusky blueness of the night.
A deep stillness hung over the prairie, and the stars were high and dim, while the waggon jolted on. Though the team moved slowly, Leland had apparently no wish to hurry them. A clean, aromatic smell of wild peppermint floated about the pair on the driving-seat as the faint dew damped the load behind them. They sat in a hollow of the fragrant grass, and the softness and the warmth of it were pleasant, for, as sometimes happens at that season, the night was almost chill. The other teams had vanished, and they rode on over the vast shadowy levels alone. Every rattle of the harness, every creak of jarring wheels, rang through the silence with a startling distinctness.
Some vague influence in it all reacted upon the girl, and she sat very still, pressed close against Leland's shoulder, content to be there, and almost afraid to speak lest what she should say might rudely break the charm. She knew now what she felt for the man at her side, and remembered what Eveline Annersly had said. It was fit that she should cleave to him, since they were one. Leland finally spoke:
"Urmston did not come back with you."
"No," said Carrie, realising that the crisis was at hand, and yet almost afraid to precipitate it. "He rode in to the railroad."
Leland called to the horses before he spoke again.
"Carrie," he said slowly, "any of your friends are welcome at Prospect, and especially Mrs. Annersly; but I have felt for some little while now that I must ask you why that man is staying here so long."
The girl summoned her self-control with an effort, for she felt she must play the part she had decided on; but she felt her heart beat as she moved a little so that she could look up at her companion. He had moved, too, and though his face showed but vaguely, she could feel that his eyes were fixed upon her.
"The night you would not have Mrs. Heaton here, you said something that made me very angry, though from your point of view you were right," she said. "I think we must understand each other once for all. Do you consider it necessary to remind me of the same thing now?"
"No," said Leland, still quietly, though there was a suggestion of tension in his voice. "I was ashamed of it afterwards; I lost my temper. I know you have too much pride and honesty not to keep your bargain to the letter, and I am not in the least jealous of Urmston. You have my ring upon your hand. How could I be? Still, one has now and then to talk plainly. Urmston is a man who might take much for granted and presume. Your good name is precious to me."
"Thank you for that. You do not know that therewas a time when, if circumstances had been propitious, I would have married Reggie Urmston?"
Leland appeared to smile. "I think I knew that, too."
"And you said nothing when he came here!"
"My dear," said Leland gravely, "I had by that time perfect confidence in you. The clean pride that held you away from me would keep you safe in spite of anything that such a man might do or say."
"Well," said Carrie, with a calm dignity, "he will never come back again. I have sent him away."
She felt the man start, and saw his hands tighten on the reins.
"Carrie," he said, "you will tell me more if you wish; if not, it doesn't matter. There is another thing I want to say. I have often been sorry for you, but I felt that you would not find it quite so hard some day. That is why I waited—I think very patiently—though it was a little hard on me, too. I thought I knew what you must feel—indeed, you showed it to me—and I was horribly afraid that, if I was too hasty, I might lose you."
"And that would have troubled you?"
Leland turned again, and his voice was a trifle hoarse. "My dear, I do not understand these things. I have been too busy to worry about my feelings, but I know that, while I only admired you at Barrock-holme, something else that was different soon took hold of me, and kept on growing stronger the more I saw of you. I think it first gripped me hard the night you told me what you thought of me—though why then I don't know. Now I am sure, at least, that it will never let me go."
Then, his self-restraint failing him, he slipped an arm about her and held her tightly to him. "Carrie," he said harshly, "it is getting too hard for me. Do you know that now and then something almost drives me into taking you into my arms and crushing you into submission? I could do it now—the touch of you almost maddens me. This can't go on. I have felt lately that you were growing kinder and shrank from me less. After all, I am a man and nothing more. How long do you mean to keep me waiting?"
Carrie laughed softly, with a little catch of her breath. "Bend your head a little, Charley," she said, "I have something to tell you."
As he did her bidding, she, stretching up a soft, warm arm round his neck, drew his face down to hers. His hand closed convulsively on her waist.
"Charley," she said again, "it needn't go on any longer than you wish. I don't want it to. I only want you to love me now."
The man laughed almost fiercely in his exultation. For a space she lay crushed and breathless beneath his engirdling arm, with his kisses hot upon her lips. When at last his grasp relaxed, her head, with the big white hat all crushed and crumpled, was still upon his breast. Her cheeks were burning, and her blood ran riot, for she was one who did nothing by half, as she clung to him in an ecstasy of complete and irrevocable surrender. The man broke out into a flood of disjointed, half-coherent, unrestrained words.
"It was worth while waiting—even if I had waited years—though now and then you almost drove me mad," he said. "Your daintiness, your pride, the clean, hard grit that was in you, made me want to take youin my arms and break you and make you yield. Still, I knew, somehow, that was not the way with you, and I held myself in. It was hard—oh, it was hard. The beauty of you, your freshness, your beautiful little hands, even the coldness in your face, set me on fire at times. They were mine, you belonged to me, and yet I would claim nothing that went with your dislike. I wanted you to give them all to me."
Carrie laughed, though there was a little break in her voice. "They are yours, and so am I. Only you must think them precious—and never let me go."
Then she stretched her arm up and slipped it round his neck again. "Charley, at the very first, what was it made you want to marry me?"
"Well," said Leland, with an air of reflection, "haven't you hair as softly dusky as the sky up there, and eyes so deep and clear that one can see the wholesome thoughts down in the depths of them? Haven't you hands and arms that look like alabaster, until one feels the gracious warmth beneath?"
"And a vixenish temper! If I ever show it to you, you must shake me, and shake me hard. There was a time when you did it, and left a blue mark on my shoulder; but I deserved it, and now I wouldn't mind. I would sooner have you shake me every day than never think of me. Still, you haven't told me what I asked you yet."
Leland stooped and kissed the shoulder. "When a man looks at you, he can see a hundred reasons for wanting you, and every one sufficient."
"Still, that was not all. If you do not tell me, I shall ask Aunt Eveline, and I think she knows. Don't you see that we must understand everything to-night?"
"Then it seemed to me it would be a horrible thing to marry you to Aylmer."
Carrie drew her breath in. "Oh," she said, "I always fancied it was that, and I could love you if it was only for saving me from him." Then she broke out into a little soft laugh. "Charley, it was the wrong shoulder you kissed."
"That is very easily set right," and the man bent down again. As he looked up, he called sharply to the horses, and shook the reins.
"I wonder how long we have been waiting here?" he said. "I suppose you haven't noticed that the team has stopped?"
They rode on again, in silence seldom broken, into a land of beatific visions. With a little wistful sense of regret, they saw Prospect at last rise black and shadowy against the big birch bluff. The teamsters, however, had not gone to sleep yet, and Leland, leaving the waggon to one of them, walked silently with Carrie towards the house. He stooped and kissed her as they crossed the threshold.
"From now on, it is home," he said. "I only want to please you, and you must tell me when I fail."
They went in together, and he lighted the big lamp. "You had supper with Mrs. Custer, but that is quite a while ago, and there should be a little fire yet in the cook-shed stove," he said. "Is there anything I can make you?"
Carrie laughed as she took off the big crumpled hat and flung it on the table.
"No," she said, "you will sit still while I see what can be found. It will be my part to cook and bake andwait on you. I almost think, if it were necessary, I could drive a team, too."
They decided it by going into the cook-shed together, and, late as it was, Carrie wasted a good deal of flour attempting to make flap-jacks under her husband's direction, achieving a general disorder that Mrs. Nesbit surveyed with astonishment next morning. But the good soul's astonishment grew when she came upon Carrie setting the table in the big room, at least half an hour before Leland came in for his early breakfast.
"I guess you're not going to want me much longer, and it's hardly likely that Charley Leland will, either," she said.
Carrie's face flushed. "Oh, yes," she said, "you must stay here and teach me everything that a farmer's wife ought to know. I am afraid you will be a long while doing it."
The hard-featured woman smiled at her in a very kindly fashion.
"You're going to find it all worth while," she said.
Carrie set about it that morning, and her sympathy with Mrs. Custer grew stronger with every hour she spent in Mrs. Nesbit's company, for it was evident that there was a great deal a woman could do at Prospect, too. Indeed, although she had already taken a spasmodic interest in the work, what she was taught before evening left her more than a little confused and by no means pleased with herself. It was disconcerting to be brought suddenly face to face with the realities of life and the conviction that things did not run smoothly of themselves. She realised, for the first time, almost with dismay, that, by coldly standingaside while the others toiled, she had made her husband's burden heavier than it need have been. She had, perhaps not altogether unnaturally, fallen into the habit of assuming that it was only fit that all she desired should be obtained for her, and had never inquired about the effort it entailed; but, as this point of view did not seem quite warranted now, she resolved that the future should be different. Finally realising her obligations, she did not shrink from the responsibility.
Eveline Annersly, coming home that evening, found her sitting, deep in thought, by the window of her room, a new softness in her eyes. She drew up a chair close by, and sat looking at her in a shrewd way that the girl appeared to find disconcerting.
"Carrie," she said, "I wonder if you know that you look quite as well in that simple dress as you do in your usual evening one? Still, your hair is a little ruffled. Surely you haven't been rubbing it against somebody's shoulder?"
Carrie Leland blushed crimson, which was somewhat remarkable, as it was a thing she was by no means in the habit of doing.
"Well," she said with a little musical laugh, "there was no reason why I shouldn't. It was my husband's."
Then she rose impulsively, and, drawing up a footstool, sank down beside Eveline Annersly, and slipped an arm about her.
"I think you know," she said. "At least, you have done what you could to bring it about for ever so long. We are friends at last, Charley and I."
"That is pleasant to hear. Still, I'm not sure itwould quite satisfy Charley. Haven't you gone any further?"
Carrie's face was hidden as she replied, in a voice that quavered a bit. "I think we are lovers, too," she murmured.
"Well," said her companion, "if he had known all I do, you might have been that some time ago. In fact, it would have pleased me if he had slapped you occasionally. If you had made him believe what you tried, it is very probable that you would never have forgiven yourself. But I think you ought to be more than lovers."
Feeling a tremor of emotion run through the girl, she stooped and kissed her half-hidden cheek. Carrie looked up.
"Charley is my husband—and all that is worth having to me," she said. "He is sure of it at last. I have told him so."
She sat silent for a minute, and then turned a little and took out a letter.
"It's from Jimmy," she said. "It was among Charley's papers, and he gave it to me when we came home."
"He wants something?" said Mrs. Annersly, drily.
"Yes," and Carrie's voice was quietly contemptuous. "Jimmy, it seems, is in difficulties again. If he hadn't been, he would not have written. Of course, it is only a loan."
"You have a banking account in Winnipeg."
"I have. I owe it to my husband's generosity, and I shall probably want it very soon. Do you suppose that, while Charley is crushed with anxiety and working from dawn to dusk, I would send Jimmy a penny?"
"Well," said Eveline Annersly, reflectively, "I really don't fancy it would be advisable, but this is rather a sudden change on your part. Not long ago you wouldn't let me say a word against anybody at Barrock-holme."
Carrie laughed in a somewhat curious fashion. "Everything has changed. All that is mine I want for Charley, and, while he needs it, there is nothing for anybody else."
She stopped for a moment. "Aunt Eveline, there are my mother's pearls and diamonds, which I think I should have had. I did not like to ask for them, but I always understood they were to come to me when I was married. I don't quite understand why my father never mentioned them."
Mrs. Annersly looked thoughtful. "I am under very much the same impression. In fact, I am almost sure they should have been handed to you. Still, what could you do with them here?"
"I may want them presently."
"In that case you had better write and ask for them very plainly."
Carrie rose, with a determined expression in her face. "Well, I must go down," she said. "Charley will be here in a few minutes. I see the teams coming back from the sloos."
Eveline Annersly sat thoughtfully still. The jewels in question were, she knew, of considerable value. For that very reason, she was far from sure that Carrie could ever have the good-will of anybody at Barrock-holme if she insisted on her rights of possession.
Three weeks had slipped away since the evening Carrie Leland had asked about her mother's jewels, when she and Eveline Annersly once more referred to them as they sat in her room, a little before the supper hour. The window was wide open, and the blaze of sunlight that streamed in fell upon Carrie as she took up a letter from the little table before her.
"Only a line or two to say the casket has been sent," she said, with a half-suppressed sigh. "One could almost fancy they did not care what had become of me at Barrock-holme. I might have passed out of their lives altogether."
"I'm not sure it's so very unusual in the case of a married woman," said her companion, a trifle drily. "Besides, it is quite possible that your father was not exactly pleased at having to give the jewels up. In fact, it may have been particularly inconvenient for him to do so. They are worth a good deal of money."
"Still, they really belong to me."
"Yes," said Eveline Annersly, "they evidently do, or you would not have got them. Of course, it would be a more usual thing for them to have gone to Jimmy's wife when he married, but they were your mother's, and, as you know, they came from herfamily. It was her wish that you should have them, though I was never quite sure it was mentioned in her will. In fact, to be candid, I am a little astonished that you have got them."
Carrie's face flushed.
"Aunt," she said, "I don't like to think of it, and I would not admit it to anybody else, but I felt what you are suggesting when I wrote for them. Still, I would have had them, even at the cost of breaking with them all at Barrock-holme."
"I expected a break. Hadn't you better open the casket?"
"In a few minutes," said Carrie, leaving the room.
She wore a dinner-gown when she returned. Sitting down at the table, she opened the little metal-bound box before her. There was an inner box, and, when she opened that in turn, the sunlight struck a blaze of colour from the contents of the little velvet trays. Carrie looked at them with a curious softness in her eyes. When she turned to her companion, however, there was a lingering wistfulness in her smile.
"I can't resist putting them on—just this once," she said. "I shall probably never do it again."
Her companion watched her gravely as she placed a diamond crescent in her dusky hair, and then hung a string of pearls about her neck. They were exceptionally beautiful, but it was the few rubies that followed them and the gleam of the same stones set in the delicate bracelet the girl clasped on her wrist that roused Eveline Annersly, who had seen them before, to a little gasp of admiration. The blood-red stones shone with a wonderful lustre on the polished whiteness of Carrie's neck and arm.
"They were, of course, never meant for a necklet, and your mother had always intended to have them properly set, but I suppose money was scarce at Barrock-holme then," she said. "You look positively dazzling, but you carry them well, my dear."
Carrie turned to the mirror in front of her, and surveyed herself for a minute with a curious gravity. Then the little wistful look once more crept into her eyes. After all, she had been accustomed to the smoother side of life, and the beauty of the gems appealed to her. She had worn some of them once or twice before, and had seen them stir men's admiration and other women's longing at brilliant functions in the Old Country. She also knew that they became her wonderfully well, and yet it was scarcely likely she would put them on again. Then she heard a little gasp, and, turning suddenly, saw Mrs. Nesbit gazing at her from the doorway in bewildered admiration.
"The boys are coming in. Shall I have the table set for supper?" she said.
"Not yet," said Carrie. "You might ask Mr. Leland to come up. I want him."
Mrs. Nesbit went out, apparently still lost in wonder. Carrie turned to her companion impulsively.
"I should like Charley to see me as I am—for once," she said.
Five minutes later, Eveline Annersly slipped away as Leland came in, dressed in worn and faded jean. He gave a start of astonishment and a look that almost suggested pain when Carrie turned to him. She looked imperial in the long, graceful dress. The diamonds in her dusky hair glinted crystal-clear, andthe rubies gleamed on the polished ivory of her neck; but her eyes were more wonderful than any gem in their depths of tenderness. Then the man saw himself in the mirror, bronzed and hot and dusty, with hard hands and broken nails, and the stain of the soil upon him. Another glance at her, and he turned his eyes away.
"Aren't you pleased?" said Carrie.
Leland turned again, slowly, with a little sigh, one of his brown hands tightly clenched.
"You are beautiful, my dear," he said, "but, if you were old and dressed in rags, you would always be that to me. With those things shining on you, you are wonderful, but it hurts me to see them."
"Why?"
"They make the difference between us too plain. You should wear them always. It was what you were meant for, and, when I married you, I had a notion that I might be able to give you such things some day and take you where other people wear them. Everything, however, is against me now. We may not even keep Prospect, and you are only the wife of a half-ruined prairie farmer."
Carrie held her arms out. "I wouldn't be anything else if I could. You know that, too. Come and kiss me, Charley, and never say anything of the kind again."
The man hesitated, and she guessed that he was thinking of his dusty jean.
"Have I lost my attractiveness that you need asking twice?" she said.
Leland came towards her, and she slipped an arm about his neck, regardless of the costly dress. Takingup his hard, brown hand, she looked tenderly at the broken nails.
"Ah," she said, "it has worked so hard for me. Do you think I don't know why you toil late and early this year, and never spend a cent on anything that is not for my pleasure? I must have cost you a good deal, Charley."
She saw the blood rise into the man's face, and laughed softly. "Oh, I know it all. Once I tried to hate you for it—and now, if it hadn't made it so hard for you, I should be almost glad. Still, Charley, I would do almost anything to make you feel that—it was worth while."
"My dear," said Leland hoarsely, "I have never regretted it, and I would not even if I had to turn teamster and let Prospect go, except for the trouble it would bring you."
Carrie laughed softly. "Still, it will never come to that. This hand is too firm and capable to let anything go, and I fancy I can do something, too. After all, I do not think Mrs. Custer is very much stronger or cleverer than I am."
She pushed him gently away from her. "Now go and get ready for supper. I will be down presently."
Leland went away with glad obedience. When Eveline Annersly came in later, she found Carrie once more attired very plainly, and the casket locked. Her eyes were a trifle hazy, but she looked up with a smile.
"I shall not put them on again, but I do not mind," she said. "They will go to ploughing and harrowing next season. There is something to be done beforehand, and I want you to come in to the railroad station with me to-morrow."
They went down to supper, during which Carrie was unusually talkative. When Eveline Annersly left them after the meal was over, she turned to her husband.
"Charley," she said, "you could get along alone for two or three days, if I went into Winnipeg?"
"I could," said Leland. "Still, I wouldn't like it. But what do you want to go there for?"
"Well," said Carrie, reflectively, "there are two or three things I want, and one or two I have to do—business things at the bank. I had a letter from Barrock-holme, you know. I suppose those bankers are really trustworthy people?"
Leland laughed. "Oh, yes, I think they could be trusted with anything you were likely to put into their hands."
"Well," said Carrie, "perhaps I will tell you what it is by and by. In the meanwhile, since I am going to-morrow, there are several things I have to see to."
Starting next morning with Eveline Annersly, she was on the following day ushered into the manager's room at Leland's bank. The gentleman who sat there appeared a trifle astonished when he saw her, as though he had scarcely expected to see the stamp of refinement and station on Leland's wife. He drew out a chair for her, and urbanely asked what he could do for her. Carrie laid a casket and a small bundle of papers upon the table.
"I think you are acquainted with my husband?" she said.
"Certainly," said the banker. "We have had thepleasure of doing business with Mr. Leland of Prospect for a good many years."
"Then," said Carrie, decisively, "you are on no account to tell him about any business you may do for me—that is, unless I give you permission to do so."
The banker concealed any astonishment he may have felt, merely saying that it was his part to fall in with his clients' wishes. Carrie held out a pass-book.
"I suppose I could have this money any time I wished?" she said.
"Certainly. You have only to write a cheque for it."
Carrie opened a paper, and handed it to him. "I have had it all explained to me, but I am afraid I don't understand it very well," she said. "Until I was married I could get only a little of the money as my trustees gave it to me, and they put the rest into an English bank for me. I have the book here. You will see how much the dividends and interest come to every year."
The banker studied the document carefully. Then he took the pass-book she handed him. "Well," he said, "you can do whatever you like with it now. Quite a sum of money has accumulated."
"I could put it into your bank here?"
"Of course. I should be glad to arrange it for you. You would also get more interest for it than you seem to have done in England."
"Then I want you to do it. You lend people money. I wonder if you could let me have as much now as I would get in the next four or five years. Of course, you would charge me for doing it."
The banker smiled a little, and shook his head as he glanced at the document. "You will excuse mymentioning that the interest on the money involved is only to be paid—to you."
"Ah," said Carrie, "of course, I might die, and then, I remember, it would go back again. Still, that only makes what I want to do more necessary. I suppose I could make over to my husband all the money there is in the English bank and anything else that really belongs to me? That is, I could put it into his account here? You see, I don't want him to know—anything about it for a little while."
The banker reflected. He had done business for years with Leland and considered him a friend. This dainty woman's devotion to her husband appealed to him. He decided that he might, for once, go a little further than was usual from a business point of view. "Well," he said, reflectively, "I think I should wait a little. If you kept the money in your own name, you could hand him as much as you thought advisable at any time it appeared necessary. On the whole, I fancy that would be wiser."
"Why?"
Again the banker pondered. Nobody knew better than he how many of the wheat-growers were near ruin that year, and he had naturally an accurate notion of what would probably happen to Leland when, after harvest, the wheat of the West was thrown train-load by train-load upon a lifeless market.
"I think there are a good many reasons why it is sound advice I am offering you. For one thing, wheat is still going down, you see."
Carrie made a little gesture of comprehension, for financial difficulties had formed a by no means infrequent topic at Barrock-holme. "Yes," she said quietly,"I understand. You will get the money and put it to my name. But there is another thing. Will you please open that casket?"
The man did so, and appeared astonished when he saw its contents. "These things are very beautiful," he said.
"You could lend me part of their value?" asked Carrie, with a little flush in her face.
The man looked thoughtful. The smaller banking houses in the West are usually willing to handle any business they can get, but precious gems are not a commodity with which they are intimately acquainted.
"They would have to be valued, and I fancy that could only be done in Montreal," he said. "After getting an expert's opinion, we could, I think, advance you a reasonable proportion of what he considered them worth. Shall I have it done?"
"Of course," said Carrie, and went out ten minutes later with a sense of satisfaction. She found Eveline Annersly waiting, and smiled as she greeted her. "I have been arranging things, and perhaps I can help Charley, after all. I am afraid he will want it," she said. "Now, if you wouldn't mind very much, we can get the west-bound train this afternoon. I am anxious to get back to Prospect again."
Eveline Annersly would have much preferred to spend that night in a comfortable hotel, instead of in a sleeping-car, but she made no protest. After lunch, they spent an hour or two in the prairie city, waiting until the train came in. Ridged with mazy wires and towering telegraph-poles, and open to all winds, Winnipeg stands at the side of its big, slow river in the midst of a vast sweep of plain. Boastingof few natural attractions, there is the quick throb of life in its streets. As Carrie and her aunt made their way through bustling crowds, past clanging cars, they gradually observed an undertone of slackness in the superficial activity about them. The faces they met were sombre, and there were few who smiled. The lighthearted rush of a Western town was missing. Loungers hung about the newspaper offices, and bands of listless immigrants walked the streets aimlessly. Carrie had heard at Prospect that it was usually difficult in the Northwest to get men enough to do the work, and this air of leisure puzzled her.
There was, however, a reason for this lack of enterprise. Winnipeg lives by its trade in wheat, selling at a profit to the crowded East, and scattering its store-goods broadcast across the prairie. Just then, however, the world appeared to possess a sufficiency of wheat and flour, and the great mills were grinding half-time or less, while it happened frequently that Western farmers, caught by the fall in values, could not meet their bills. When this happens, there is always trouble from the storekeepers and dealers in implements who have supplied them throughout the year. Carrie caught the despondent tone, wondering why she did so, since she felt that it would not have impressed her a little while ago. Perhaps it was because she had then looked upon the toilers with an uncomprehending pity that was half disdain, and she had since gained not only sympathy but appreciation. She stopped outside the newspaper office where a big placard was displayed.
"Smitten Dakota wails," it read. "Crops devastated. Thunder and hail. Ice does the reaping in Minnesota."
"Oh," she said. "I must have a paper."
Eveline Annersly smiled a little. It was between the hours of issue, and the wholesale office did not look inviting, but Carrie went in, and a clerk, who gazed at the very dainty lady with some astonishment, gave her a paper.
"Now," she said, "we will go on to the depôt. I must sit down and read the thing."
By the time she had mastered the gist of it, the big train was rolling out with her amidst a doleful clanging of the locomotive bell. It was momentous enough. The hail, which now and then sweeps the Northwest, had scourged the Dakotas and part of Minnesota, spreading devastation where it went. Meteorologists predicted that the disturbance would probably spread across the frontier. Carrie laid down the paper and glanced out with a little shudder of apprehension at the sliding prairie, into which town and wires and mills were sinking. She was relieved to see that there hung over it a sweep of cloudless blue.
"There are hundreds ruined, and whole crops destroyed," she said. "Perhaps the men who sowed them worked as hard as Charley. It would be dreadful if it came to us."
"I am afraid it would," said Eveline Annersly. "Still, I don't think it would have troubled you when you first came out. That is not so very long ago, is it?"
Carrie smiled. "I think I have grown since then," she said.
A thin crescent moon hung low in the western sky. The prairie was wrapped in silent shadows. Leland stood outside the homestead, with the bridle of an impatient horse in his hand, and talked with his wife. There was only one light in the house behind them, and everything was very still, but Leland knew that two men who could be trusted to keep good watch were wide awake that night. The barrel of a Marlin rifle hung behind his shoulders, glinting fitfully when it caught the light as he moved. Without thinking of what he was doing, he fingered the clip of the sling.
"The moon will be down in half an hour, and it will be quite dark before I cross the ravine near Thorwald's place," he said. "Jim Thorwald is straight, and standing by the law, but none of us are quite sure of all of his boys. Anyway, we don't want anybody to know who's riding to the outpost."
Carrie laid her hand upon his arm. "I suppose you must go, this once at least."
"Of course!" said Leland with a smile. "If I'm wanted, I must go again. The trouble's spreading."
"Then," said Carrie, "why can't they bring more troopers in? Why did you ever have anything to do with it, Charley?"
"It seemed necessary. A man has to hold on to what is his."
Carrie's fingers tightened on his arm. "Perhaps it is so; I suppose it must be; but, after all, I don't think that was your only reason. I mean, when you started the quarrel. No, you needn't turn away. I want you to look at me."
"It's dark, my dear, and I'm glad it is. I don't want to talk of those times, and if it were light enough to see you, I'm afraid it would melt the resolution out of me."
"Still," Carrie persisted, "you know you first quarrelled with the rustlers because you were angry with me."
Leland laughed softly. "Well, perhaps that was the reason, though I would sooner believe it was because I recognised what I owed the State."
"But it is all different—you are not in the least angry with me now?"
The moonlight was very dim, and showed no more than the pale white oval of her face; but Leland felt the appeal in her voice, and knew that it was also in her eyes.
"My dear," he said quietly, "how could I be?"
Carrie lifted her hand and laid it on his shoulder. "Charley, I can't stop you now, but I want you to promise you will not go back again. Do you know that I sit still, shivering, when darkness comes while you are away, trying not to think of what you maybe doing? I daren't think. Can't you understand, Charley, that I have only you?"
Feeling how hard it was to leave her, and fearing that further tenderness from her might weaken his firm purpose, he sought refuge in a frivolous retort.
"There are still a few of your relatives at Barrock-holme," he said.
"They never write me. Perhaps I couldn't expect them to. I thought you knew that I had offended them."
"Offended them?"
Carrie laughed a trifle harshly. "Oh," she said, "it is a wife's duty to take her husband's part; but, after all, that is not the question. I hadn't meant to mention it. It doesn't matter in the least."
"Well," said Leland, "I almost think it does. Anyway, if it worries you. What have you been falling out with them over, Carrie?"
"That is not your business. They don't care about me now, but you do."
Leland had only one free hand, but he slipped it round her waist. She sighed contentedly as she felt his protecting clasp.
"Charley, you will not go back again?" she said once more.
The man drew his arm away. Though she could scarcely see his face, he appeared to be looking down upon her gravely.
"It is a little hard not to do what you ask me straight away, but I think you can understand," he said. "Whatever I went into the thing for, I am in it now. Practically, I'm leader. It is not the Sergeant the boys look to, but me, and I'm not quite sure theywould have kept the thing up if I hadn't worried them into doing it. Still, they'll go on now, and they would only think of two reasons if I backed down. Would you like them to fancy the rustlers had bought me over, or made me afraid of them?"
"Could any one think that?" and Carrie laughed scornfully, though her voice grew suddenly soft again. "It wouldn't matter in the least to me what anybody said."
"Well," said Leland gravely, "I 'most think it would, and I should like it to. Anyway, if I backed down, it would be because I was afraid. In fact, I'm afraid now, though I never used to be. It's a little difficult to tell you this, though you know it, but, when I stirred the boys up, I could not be sure you would ever be what you are to me. It didn't seem likely then, but I made no conditions when the rest stood in with me. Now I think you see I can't go back on them."
Carrie made a little nod of agreement, and, with an effort, repressed a sigh, for she knew that she had failed. Her husband's code was simple, and, perhaps, crude, but it was, at least, inflexible. After all, honour and duty are things well within the comprehension of very simple men. Indeed, it is often the case that, where principles are concerned, the simplest men have the clearest vision.
"Ah," she said, with something like a sob, "then you must go. But stand still a minute, Charley. I want to see if the clip I bought you in the Winnipeg gun-shop is working properly."
Leland smiled as she pressed a little clasp and then, dropping one hand smartly, caught the rifle as the sling fell apart. Carrie had changed suddenly andcuriously. The pride that was in her had awakened, and she was at one with her husband and wholly practical.
"It is ever so much quicker than passing it over your shoulder; and, after all, you must go," she said.
She stretched up her arms and kissed him. When the man had swung himself into the saddle, she looked long after him, with eyes that were hazy. When he became a blur in the distance, she went slowly to the house, head proudly erect. There Eveline Annersly greeted her.
"My dear," she said, "you need not tell me. You have been trying to hold your husband back, and you have failed. The thing was out of the question. You might have known."
Carrie made a little half-wistful gesture, though there was a faint glow in her eyes. "Yes, I did what I could, and now I shall not rest until he comes back again. Still, I think I deserve it, and I'm not sure that I would have him different. I think nothing would change Charley. I used to wonder more than I do now how he, who was born on the prairie, came to have all the real essential things which were not in any of us at Barrock-holme."
Eveline Annersly's eyes sparkled, and her manner was sardonic. "It's not very explicit, but I think I know what you mean. Haven't you lost your faith in the old fetish yet? Men are men—good, bad, and indifferent—the world over, and, though it would be rather nice to believe it, we haven't, and never had, a monopoly in our own class of what you call the essentials. Indeed, I'm not quite sure one couldn't go a little further."
She was standing near the open window, with the light, which was low, some distance away from her. Turning, she drew Carrie within the heavy curtains. "The very old and the very new are apt to meet," she said. "There is an example yonder."
Carrie looked out into the soft moonlight, and saw a mounted figure cut against the sky on the crest of a low rise. It was indistinct and shadowy, but, as she gazed, she twice caught the gleam of the pale cold light on steel, and knew it for the flash of a rifle-barrel.
"Oh," she said, "since I came to this country I have felt it too. That was how the border spears rode out six hundred years ago. . . . Of course, you were right a little while ago. I think the things that are essential must always have been the same—primitive and unchangeable. Faith and courage have always been needed, as they are needed still. After all, we cannot get away from death and toil and pain."
The lonely figure vanished into the night, and, as her companion moved away, Carrie let the curtain fall behind her with a little sigh. "It is getting late, and I can only wait and try to think there is no danger, until he comes back to me. No doubt others have done it, back through all the centuries."