"How far could you walk with a broken leg?" he said. "Do you think I have no sense at all?"
Once more Gallwey appeared to reflect. "One would scarcely fancy you had shown your usual perspicacity to-night. Of course, I'm not saying anything about myself."
Though it was very dark, Leland appeared to glare at him for a moment or two, and then broke out into a little laugh.
"Tom," he said, "you do it very well—so well that once or twice I've found it hard to keep my hands off you before I saw the point of it. You only want an eye-glass to make the thing perfect. Well, I can wait until my turn comes, and you have helped me shake the black fit off."
Gallwey said nothing further as they went back together towards the house, but he was content. He was well acquainted with his comrade's temperament, and knew that his silent, simmering anger was not wholesome for himself, or calculated to make things pleasant for anybody else. Still, a very little thing would usually serve to dissipate it. They overtook the rest on the way to the homestead, and, when they approached the door, which it was necessary for the men to pass, saw that it was open. Carrie, who appeared just outside it, beckoned Leland to her, and then turned to the rest, standing close beside him.
She was now attired in a long dress, almost but not quite an evening gown, that became her well; but Leland was blackened all over, and there were many singed holes in his clothes, wet and smeared with ashes, and part of the wide brim of his hat was missing. The men seemed to notice the contrast between the pair, and there was a little good-humoured laughter. Carrie Leland smiled at them in turn, though she would have borne herself very differently to these rough men a few months ago.
"Are there any of you burnt, boys," she asked.
Several of them admitted that they were, though they said it was nothing to count, and were directed to repair to the kitchen, where Mrs. Nesbit had oil and flour ready. Then Carrie made a little gesture, as though to invite attention.
"Boys," she said. "I can't thank you for what you have done to-night. You see, there are things one really can't thank people for properly, but I think Charley and I would have been ruined if you hadn't been the kind of men you are. Still, it's been a long while since the six o'clock supper, and I expect, if I'd been with you, I should be hungry, too. Of course, in one way, there's nothing quite good enough for you, but we have been busy while you were putting out the fire; so, if you'll go along to the dinner-shed, you'll find Jake and Mrs. Nesbit have done what they can. There is another thing. Nobody need get up until he likes to-morrow. Not a team will leave the stables until after dinner."
Leland turned and looked at her in bewildered astonishment, for nothing had ever delayed work at Prospect at harvest, or, indeed, at any other time, before; and probably because the men understood what he was feeling, there was a great roar of laughter when his wife turned and laid her hand upon his shoulder.
"It is all right, Charley. I mean it," she said.
The rest stood still a minute, gazing at her, not awkwardly, for self-consciousness is rarely a characteristic of the plainsman, but as if they felt that there was something to be said or done. Perhaps her beauty appealed to them, and it is also possible that the offer of a feast had its effect, but her gracious simplicity went considerably further. No one would have more quickly resented condescension than these hard-handed men, who thought themselves, with some reason, the equal of any in the world; but they could recognise the distinction between that and sympathy, and were willing to yield her everything she did not claim. Yet they were a trifle puzzled, for this was not the attitude the cold and silent woman who had come to Prospect had once adopted towards them. Then there was a murmuring among them, until one stood forward with his hat in his hand.
"Madam," he said in excellent accent, "the boys desire me to reply for them, and I must first admit that the thought of a supper appeals to them and me. Perhaps it would be admissible to say that, having had the honour of dismissal from a good many farms between Dakota and Prince Albert, I know a little about prairie rations and cookery, and I would like to testify that, in respect to both, Prospect stands alone. One might also venture to observe, without making any invidious reflections upon Mrs. Nesbit and the somewhat unvarying Jake, that the menuhas become even more attractive lately, for which there is no doubt a sufficient reason."
There was further laughter, and Carrie, who saw the little twinkle in her husband's eyes, felt the blood creep into her cheeks; but the man went on.
"So much for the supper, and it has its interest. Man is usually hungry, especially when he has to work hard enough to satisfy Charley Leland, but I would like Mrs. Leland to understand that we wish her to consider us her devoted servants. Anybody can hire a man. You can buy his labour for so many hours a day, but there must always be a good deal left outside that kind of bargain, and it's all that's left outside we would, on an occasion like this, like to offer Mrs. Leland. In fact, it would not be a great matter to put a fire out every night if it would please her. If you sympathise with these few remarks, will you signify your approbation, boys?"
There was a clamorous shout, and as the men trooped away, Jake's voice rose up.
"Get a big grin on over my cooking, would you?" he said. "It's salt-pork bones and bad beans you're going to get if I can fix it, you hungry hogs!"
Leland laughed, but Carrie felt that his eyes were on her when they went in, and, glancing at him covertly, she saw the little gleam of pride in them.
"They're yours," he said, and she knew he meant the men. "Whatever you want done, you have only to ask them; but it wasn't because of the supper."
The blood crept into Carrie Leland's cheek. "Everybody is very kind to me," she said.
Supper had not long been cleared away on an evening some three weeks after the fire, and the sunlight still streamed into the big general room; but Leland lay somewhat limply in a lounge-chair, which, considering that there was a good deal of the wheat still to be cut, was a somewhat astonishing thing for him to do. His face was paler than usual; indeed, here and there a trace of greyness had crept into the bronze, and his eyes were heavy. But a mass of papers lay on the little table in front of him, and it was evident that he had just been writing. His mail, which had come in two or three hours earlier, had been an unusually large one. Carrie sat not far away, watching him a trifle anxiously. She had been more than a little startled when he came in for supper walking unsteadily.
"You are still looking far from well," she said.
Leland laughed, though his eyes were half closed. "Oh," he said, "I'll be round again to-morrow all right. It was as hot as I ever remember it this afternoon, and each time I came down the long stretch with the binder the sun was on the back of my neck. I just want to sit still a little and cool off."
Carrie shook her head. "You have been working too hard," she said. "Can't you take it a little easier? It surely isn't necessary for you to drive a binder."
"Just now, anyway, I almost think it is. When I'm there the boys can't do less than I do, and I set the pace for every man in the field. There are, you see, quite a few of them, and the little extra effort each one makes counts for a good deal. Besides, I have always worked, and now it would be quite hard to get used to walking round with nothing in my hands, even if I wanted to. Anyway, it won't go on for more than another month or so."
He made a little involuntary gesture of weariness. "I don't think I'll be sorry. It has been getting a little hard lately, and if the market doesn't break me we'll go away when the wheat is in. You would like to go to Montreal or New York for a week or two? We would do all the concerts and theatres."
Carrie felt that she would like it very much indeed, for, after all, life at Prospect had its disadvantages; but she had reasons for not displaying too much eagerness. Finances were straitened, and Leland, in spite of his simple tastes, was apt to be extravagant where she was concerned.
"Of course!" she said. "I mean, if circumstances permitted it, but that depends upon the market, doesn't it? What has it been doing lately?"
Leland took up a circular. "Standing still for a week, and that is rather a curious thing. You see, with the first wheat pouring in, the bears quite often get their own way just now and hammer prices down, but quotations seem to have been quite steady in Chicago the last few days. They've had a bad seasonin Minnesota, and the hail wiped out a good deal of wheat in Dakota. What one or two States can grow doesn't count in itself so much against the world's supply, but it's now and then enough to upset a delicate balance. In Winnipeg the bears made another raid, but they couldn't break the price, and I'm inclined to fancy that all they offered was quietly taken up. The outside men, who like a little deal now and then, aren't all of them babes in the wood."
"I'm afraid I could never quite understand these things," said Carrie.
"In one way it's simple. The world wants so much wheat, though the quantity varies, because there are places where they eat other things when it gets too dear. Now, you can get statistics showing how many million bushels they have raised here and there, and it's evident that, if it's less than usual, it's going to be dearer. On the other hand, if there's more than the world has apparently any use of, the men it belongs to have some trouble in selling it, and values come down. That's the principle, but there are men who make their living by shoving prices up and down, and they're able to do it sometimes against all reason. Now and then they half starve poor folks in Europe, and now and then they ruin farmers in the Western States and this part of Canada. They have millions of dollars behind them, and they're clever at crooked games. Still, it sometimes happens that Nature turns against them, and drowns them in floods of wheat; or, when they're squeezing the life-blood out of the farmers, it strikes men up and down the country that wheat was so cheap it ought to be dearer. Then, if the bears slacken their grip a little, men who like togamble and have the money to spare, send their buying orders in, and the bears find it hard to get the wheat they have pledged themselves to deliver. That sends prices up and up."
"You think that is likely to happen?"
Leland looked very thoughtful. "I can't say. Nobody could. There's one significant thing. Prices are steady, though the wheat is coming in. You'll get considerably more than your two thousand pounds back if they go up. We could have a month in New York then, and you'd go to operas with that crescent glittering in your hair."
Carrie said nothing, for though she had not quite understood all he said, it was sufficiently clear that if prices went down she would never put the crescent on again. She had further reasons, too, for not desiring to discuss that subject. While she sat silent, Gallwey came in, and Leland, taking up a paper, handed it to him.
"That," he said, "is a little idea of mine, and, if we'd had any sense, we would have thought of it earlier. With the new country opening up to the North, the police bosses at Regina have their hands full. They don't want to be worried, and Sergeant Grier seems kind of afraid to admit he can't put the whisky boys down, or to pitch his reports too strong."
Gallwey nodded. "The same thing," he said, "has occurred to me all along. His attitude is comprehensible, and I have a certain sympathy with the folks at the head of the police. To attend to everything, they would want a brigade."
"Well," said Leland, drily, "I have no intention of getting my homestead burnt because it suits anybody's hand, and you'll start round to-morrow and get this petition signed by every responsible man. It's a plain statement of what we have been putting up with, and a delicate hint that there are folks among the Government's opposition who might find the information interesting in case the police bosses do nothing. I almost fancy that ought to put a move on them."
Gallwey smiled a little as he read the document, which, however, was worded with a tactfulness he had scarcely expected from his comrade. Leland's proceedings were, as a rule, rather summary and vigorous than characterised by any particular delicacy.
"I shall be away three or four days, at least," he said.
"Won't that be a little awkward? You are not very well just now."
Leland made a little impatient gesture. "I'll be all right again to-morrow."
His comrade did not contradict him, though he had some doubt upon the subject, and, sitting down, talked about other matters for several minutes, while, when he rose, he contrived to make Carrie understand it was desirable that she should find an excuse for going out soon after him. She did so, and came upon him waiting in the kitchen.
"He persists that there is nothing the matter with him, but I am a little anxious," she said. "You don't think he is looking well?"
Gallwey appeared thoughtful. "I scarcely fancy it is serious, but there is no doubt he has been worrying himself lately and doing a good deal too much. In fact, the strain is telling. Still, I dare say a littlerest would do wonders. Couldn't you keep him in to-morrow?"
"Keep him in!" said Carrie, with a little expostulatory smile.
There was a twinkle in Gallwey's eyes. "It will probably be difficult, but I almost think, in your case, not absolutely impossible."
"Well, I will do what I can. It is rather a pity you have to go away."
The smile grew a trifle plainer in Gallwey's eyes. "As a matter of fact, and, although I am quite aware that there will probably be trouble about it, I am not going. One of the boys will have to ride round with the paper, instead of me. Still, you will have to decide how you can keep your husband in."
He went away and left her to grapple with the question, which, since Leland was a self-willed man, was a somewhat difficult one. It was some little while before there occurred to her a rather primitive device which appeared likely to prove effective. She had, however, not quite realised the inherent obstinacy of her husband's temperament.
It accordingly happened that, when the crippled Jake was busy cleaning up the big general room early next morning, he was astonished to see Leland, attired in airy pyjamas, appear in the doorway. He raised his hand as though in warning, and glanced towards the other door. It occurred to Jake that he did not look well.
"Mrs. Nesbit's not around?" Leland asked.
Jake said she was in the cook-shed just then, and Leland sat down somewhat limply in the nearest chair.
"Slip up into Tom Gallwey's room, and bring me asuit of his clothes, the new ones he goes to the settlement in," he said. "That will square the deal, because I can't help thinking he had a hand in the thing."
"Where's your own?" asked Jake in evident bewilderment.
"That," said Leland, drily, "is just what is worrying me. But you do what I tell you quick before Mrs. Nesbit comes in."
Jake did as he was bidden, for there was a look in Leland's eyes which warned him that further questions would not be advisable; and, when he came back with the clothing, the latter dressed himself hastily, and, slipping out, made his way to the stable. He had some difficulty in putting the harness on the team, and was considerably longer over it than usual; but he managed to lead them out, and had reached the binder with them about the time Carrie and Eveline Annersly entered the room he had quitted. The first thing they saw was a suit of pyjamas lying on the floor, and the elder lady laughed as she turned to Carrie.
"I fancied you would find it a little difficult to keep Charley Leland in against his will," she said.
Carrie, who did not answer her, summoned Jake.
"Where is Mr. Leland?" she asked.
"I guess he's working in the wheat," said the man, with a grin.
Carrie appeared astonished, and Eveline Annersly laughed again. "Charley is a trifle determined, but there are, I almost fancy, lengths to which he would not go. He has probably borrowed someone's clothing."
"Did he leave any message?" asked Carrie, turning to the man.
"No," said Jake, reflectively. "I don't think he did. He wasn't coming back for his breakfast. I was to take it out to him, and he figured Tom Gallwey's store-clothes wouldn't look quite so new by sundown."
He went away, and Eveline Annersly smiled at her companion. "You'll simply have to put up with it," she said. "It really doesn't sound as if he was very ill."
In the meanwhile, Leland, after stopping some twenty minutes for breakfast, climbed into the binder's saddle and drove through the wheat until almost noon. He did not seem to see quite so well as usual, and his head ached almost intolerably. Gallwey's jacket also hampered him, until, tearing it off, he let it fall. It was afterwards found, ripped in several places by the knife and tied up in a sheaf. The day was fiercely hot, and the dust rose thick from crackling stubble and trampled soil, but Leland drove on, swaying now and then in his saddle, the perspiration dripping from him.
It was close upon the dinner hour, and the sun was almost overhead in a cloudless sky, when he approached a turning. The glare from the yellow wheat was dazzling, and the ironwork on the binder almost too hot to touch with the hand, and Leland once more found his sight grow blurred as he strove to turn his team. They did not seem to answer the guidance of the reins, and when the machine, turning short, ran in among the wheat, he raised himself a little as he called to them. That was the last thing he remembered.
The next instant, the man behind him saw him reel and topple from the saddle as the whirling arms came round. He pulled his team up, and, jumping down, ran as for his life; but, most fortunately, Leland's tiredhorses had stopped of their own accord in a pace or two, for, when the other man came up, their driver lay partly across the knife-sheath with his feet among the wheat. What could be seen of his face was darkly flushed, while the sleeve and breast of his dusty shirt were smeared with trickling red. The other man, startled as he was, had, however, sense enough to seize the near horse's head before he shouted to his comrades.
"Lay hold of the wheel, two of you," he said when several of them came running up. "Now get up, somebody, and pull the driving-clutch out. We don't want to saw him open."
He had kept himself in hand, but he gasped with relief when the deadly steel was thrown out of action. Then, still holding the horses, he directed the rest to drag Leland clear. It was a minute later when he pushed the others aside and bent over him. Leland lay limp and still in the dusty stubble, with eyes half closed, and a red trickle dripping into the thirsty soil beneath him. The man, who had seen a good many bad axe-wounds in the Ontario bush, rolled back the breast and sleeve of the torn shirt before he straightened himself and wiped his dripping face.
"I guess he has come off quite fortunate, in one way. There's no big vessel cut, or it would spout," he said. "The first thing to do is to get him out of the sun, and it's not very far to the house."
They picked him up, and four of them carried him to the homestead as gently as they could. At the door they met Carrie. She closed one hand hard, and turned very white when the men, who stopped, stood gasping a little and looking at her stupidly, with theirburden hanging limply between them. Then, while she struggled with a numbing sense of horror, the leader awkwardly took off his hat.
"I guess it's nothing very bad. He's cut in two places, and the binder hit him on the head, but a man of his kind will soon get over that," he said. "Now, I know quite a little about cuts and things, and, if you'll send for Mrs. Nesbit, we'll soon fix him up. Get a move on, boys. Mrs. Leland will show you where to take him."
The words had a bracing effect. Carrie shook off her first terror, and, though she was trembling, went up the stairway in front of them. She was almost afraid to look round at the men, who stumbled noisily with their burden. Still, she felt a little easier when, in the course of half an hour, the Ontario man managed to stop most of the bleeding with a few simple compresses, and to get Leland, who had not opened his eyes yet, into bed. He turned to Carrie, who was standing close by with a tense, white face.
"I guess all he got after he fell off the binder is not going to worry him much, but I don't know what he had before," he said. "It might have been sunstroke, and it might just as well have been something else. He was kind of shaky all the morning. Anyway, I'll tell Tom Gallwey, and he'll send some one of the boys in to the railroad to wire for a doctor."
He went out, and Carrie was left in the darkened room kneeling by her husband's side, while Tom Gallwey drove the fastest team at Prospect furiously across the prairie. He did not send another man, but went himself, and the horses he drove had reason to remember that journey.
Carrie Leland spent two very anxious days before a doctor, from one of the larger settlements down the line, arrived in company with Gallwey, who drove him in from the station. The latter had, during the journey, favoured Gallwey with his professional opinions as to the cause of Leland's illness. As soon as he reached the homestead he was shown into the sick-room. Leland, who had recovered consciousness after the first few hours, submitted to a lengthy examination with a patience which somewhat astonished his comrade, after which the doctor, who asked him a few questions, nodded as though satisfied.
"I have no great fault to find with anything the man did who attended to you in the first place." he said. "In fact, I have seen considerably worse dressings. A bushman, I presume?"
Leland looked at him languidly out of half-closed eyes. "He's not going to be sorry. It would be more to the purpose if you told me what was the matter with me."
"An abrasion on your forehead, and a bruise on the back of your head which should apparently have been sufficient to produce concussion of the brain," the doctor said. "Then your arm is cut half across, and,if the knife hadn't brought up on a bone, you would probably not have survived the wound on your breast. I almost think that is quite enough."
"Anyway, it's not quite what I mean. The cuts will heal. What made me turn dizzy and fall off the binder? I've never had anything of that kind happen to me before."
The doctor smiled drily. "Well," he said, "in similar circumstances you will in all probability have it happen again. It rests with yourself to decide whether you like it. Speaking generally, it's the result of worry and trying to work a good deal harder than it's fit for you to work. To be a little more definite, you have had what one might call incipient sunstroke on the top of it, and, though I don't know how you fell on the binder, the thump you got had its effect upon your brain. That's almost as near as one can get to it in every-day language."
Leland laughed. "The question is, when can I get up?"
"It depends upon yourself. If you lie quite still and don't worry about anything, I will consider the matter, when I come back again."
Leland could extract nothing more definite from him, and, when he went out, Carrie took him into her sitting-room.
"There is nothing to be anxious about," he said. "The surgical aspect of the case is in no way serious, and I'll leave you an antiseptic dressing and mail you some medicine. I don't know when I can get back, but it will be a week, anyway; so, if there is any change that seems to make it advisable, you will wire me from the depôt. What your husband needs isabsolute quiet. He is on no account to be worried about any business."
"I think I can promise that," said Carrie. "Still there are his letters. If I don't give him any, it will certainly make him restless, and, as most of them are about the price of wheat and accounts, I'm afraid they would scarcely be likely to soothe him."
The doctor appeared a trifle uncertain, and flashed a swift glance at Eveline Annersly, who sat not far away. Like most of his profession, he was acquainted with the little shortcomings of human nature, and was quite aware that there are men whose wives would probably be none the happier if supplied with an insight into all their husband's affairs. He was too young to conceal very successfully what he was thinking, and, though he was, perhaps, not altogether conscious of it, he looked to Eveline Annersly for guidance. She said nothing, but there was, he fancied, comprehension and an answer in her little smile.
"Well," he said, "I might suggest that you open them and keep back anything that seems likely to disturb him."
In a few more minutes, Mrs. Nesbit came in to announce that a meal was awaiting him. When he went out, Eveline Annersly smiled again as she glanced at her companion.
"That man is painfully young," she said. "I suppose you are not afraid of opening Charley's letters?"
"No," said Carrie with a little flash in her eyes. "Why should I be?"
"Well," said Eveline Annersly, reflectively, "one would almost fancy that when Jimmy marries, he would sooner his wife did not see everything thatcame for him. It was a letter that first made the trouble between Captain and Ada Heaton. In such cases, it not infrequently is."
Carrie turned upon her with a red spot in her cheek. "You will succeed in making me angry presently. You know there is nothing Charley would keep from me."
"That, I think, is saying a good deal; but, while you are no doubt right, my dear, any one who had only seen you in England would be inclined to wonder what had happened to you lately. If I had suggested anything of the kind once upon a time, you would only have looked at me with chilling disdain, but now a word against Charley Leland brings a flash into your eyes. That, however, is by the way. I wonder if you have heard that Heaton has at last taken proceedings?"
"I haven't. I never hear from home."
"I have had a letter and a paper. The decision was in his favour. There was practically no defence. There couldn't very well have been in face of the disclosures, and, while I had a certain sympathy with Ada at first, I have none now."
Carrie sat silent a minute, a faint flush in her face. Then she suddenly raised her head.
"Aunt," she said, "I suppose you don't know it was about Ada that Charley and I quarrelled? In fact, it was on her account I nearly drove him away from me altogether. In that, too, it seems that I was wrong. I wonder sometimes how he ever forgave me, or why I have so much I never deserved to have at all."
She said nothing further, and went out presently.That afternoon and for several subsequent days, she opened Leland's letters, finding nothing that must be kept back from him. But one evening, however, she sent for Gallwey when he came in from harvesting, and, signing him to sit down, handed him a letter from the Winnipeg broker.
"Will you tell me what you think I ought to do?" she said. "You will see that the man must have an answer."
Gallwey studied the letter carefully for several minutes. When he laid it down, he felt a certain sympathy with Mrs. Leland, though he fancied she would show herself equal to the occasion.
"It's rather unfortunate it should have come just now," she said. "Still, it is here, and I want your views."
Gallwey looked thoughtful. "The thing is rather a big one. As I daresay you know, there are different kinds of wheat, but our hard red is rather a favourite with millers. There is, it seems, a man who, subject to one or two conditions about samples being up to usual grade, is willing to buy about half the crop from Charley at a cent the bushel more than he previously offered. I wonder if you quite grasp the significance of that."
"Prices are rising?"
"Not necessarily, though they are certainly steadier. This man may have orders for some special flour for which our grade of red is preferable, though he could, of course, get other wheat which would, no doubt, do almost as well. Still, prices have, at least, stiffened. It is what is called a rally, and it may lasta week or so, though it is somewhat strange it should happen now, when everybody has wheat to sell."
He stopped a moment. "If you sell this wheat, and prices fall, you will have made an excellent bargain, though the figure doesn't cover expenses. On the contrary, if prices go up, you will have thrown a good deal of money away. You have to bear in mind that it represents about half the crop, which makes it evident that a good deal depends upon a right decision."
"Have you any idea what prices will do?"
Gallwey made a little gesture. "To be frank, I haven't, and I should shrink from mentioning it if I had. There are thousands of people up and down this country trying in vain to reason it out, and I have no doubt that some of the keenest men in the business find the same difficulty. I daren't advise you."
Carrie sat silent for at least a minute, and then looked at him gravely.
"If I sell, we shall not cover expenses; if I hold, we may be ruined altogether or it might pour hundreds of dollars into Charley's bank?"
"Yes," said Gallwey. "That is it exactly."
Again there was silence, and then Carrie looked up with a little sparkle in her eyes. "Charley's not so well to-day, and this would certainly make him ill again. It seems I must not shrink from the responsibility. When he does not know exactly what to do, it is the boldest course that appeals to him. Write the man in Winnipeg that I will not sell a bushel."
Gallwey rose and made her a little inclination. "It shall be done," he said. "I wonder if one might venture to compliment you on your courage?"
Now the thing was decided, Carrie Leland sat still, somewhat limp, and pale in face again.
After that, some ten days passed uneventfully until the doctor came back. He did not appear particularly pleased with Leland's condition, and repeated his instructions about keeping him quiet and undisturbed. He left Carrie anxious, for she could not persuade herself that her husband was looking any better. He was, however, rapidly becoming short in temper, and, soon after the doctor had gone, she had another struggle with him. Entering the room quietly, she found he had raised himself on the pillows and was looking about him.
"If you would tell me where my clothes are, I'd be much obliged," he said. "That man's no good at his business. I'm going to get up."
He made an effort to rise then and there. With some difficulty, Carrie induced him to lie down again. He listened to what she had to say with evident impatience, and then shook his head.
"I'm to keep quiet, and not worry. There's no sense in the thing," he said. "How can I help chafing and fuming when I have to lie here, while everything goes wrong, and nobody will tell me what is being done? I felt a little dizzy just now, or you wouldn't have got me back again, but I'm going to make another attempt to-morrow. You have to remember that when I get up I get better. I've never been tied up like this before, and the only thing that's wrong with me is that I've had a doctor."
Carrie contrived to quiet him, though she did not find it easy. When at last he had gone to sleep shewent out, meeting Gallwey in the hall. He glanced at her with a little sympathetic smile.
"I came upon the doctor riding away," he said. "It appears that Charley has been telling him frankly what he thought of him. I suppose he has been trying to get up again?"
Carrie said he had, and Gallwey appeared to consider.
"Well," he said, "it might, perhaps, help to keep him quiet if you let him know that the appeal to the police authorities has been considered favourably. I met Sergeant Grier, and he told me that they have sent him half a dozen more troopers. He seems tolerably confident that he can lay hands on the rustlers' leaders, though he was in too much haste to tell me how it was to be done. By the way, I'm afraid you will have to get Charley to write a cheque in a day or two. We'll have to pay the Ontario harvesters shortly."
He left her relieved, at least, to hear that Grier saw some prospect of putting the outlaws down, but another couple of weeks had passed before she heard anything more of him or them. In the meanwhile, the Sergeant, as he had indeed expected, met with a good many difficulties. He was supplied with plentiful information concerning the outlaws, but the trouble was that he could not always decide how much of it was meant to be misleading until he had acted upon it. After a week's hard riding, during which his men had very little sleep, he found himself one night with six of them rather more than sixty miles west of Prospect. He had that day surrounded what he had been told was one of the whisky boys' covertsin a big bluff, and "drawn a blank," a thing that had happened once or twice already. The horses were dead weary, the men worn-out, so he decided to camp where he was in a thick growth of willows. A cooking fire was lighted, and when the men had eaten, all but two, who were left to watch the horses, lay down, rolled in their blankets.
It was about an hour before the dawn when Trooper Standish paced up and down on the outskirts of the bluff. He had been in the saddle under a hot sun most of twelve hours the previous day, and now felt more than a little shivery as well as weary. A little breeze came sighing out of the great waste of plain, and the chill of it struck through his thin, damp clothing, in which he had ridden and slept. Trooper Standish was also more than a little drowsy, though he would not have admitted it. In fact, few men are capable of very much, either in the shape of effort or watchfulness, at three o'clock in the morning.
A hundred yards or so behind him, a comrade was standing near the tethered horses, though he might have been very much further away for all Standish could see of him. A thin fringe of willows lay between Standish and the prairie. When he turned a little, he could see the faint glow of the fire, which had not quite gone out, where the bushes were thicker. Though there was a breeze, it had no great strength, and the willows rustled beneath it fitfully with a faint and eery sighing. As it happened, this was a little louder than usual, when Trooper Standish stopped to listen and consider. His duty in such cases was, of course, quite clear, but now that the willows had stopped rustling, there was no sound, and he wasaware that the young trooper who rouses his worn-out comrades without due cause, after a hard day's ride, has usually reason to regret it. Besides this, he remembered that he had not played a very brilliant part in another affair, and he still tingled under the recollection of the others' jibes. Accordingly, he prowled cautiously through the bluff, and then sauntered back towards his comrade.
"I guess you have heard nothing suspicious?" he said.
"No," said the man. "I didn't expect to, anyway."
"You didn't hear me call out, either?"
"I didn't. If you'd made any noise, I would have heard you. Have any of the whisky boys been crawling in on you?"
Trooper Standish gazed hard at the man, who had evidently asked the question ironically. He certainly seemed wide awake, and it occurred to Standish that he might have been half asleep himself, and had only fancied that he called out. He accordingly decided that it might be just as well if he said nothing further about the matter, and he strode away on his round again.
The sun was creeping up above the prairie when one of his comrades, rising to waken the Sergeant, saw a strip of folded paper, of the kind used by the storekeepers for packing, fixed between the branches of a willow close by. Grier took it down, and his face grew intent when he saw that there was a message scribbled across one part of it.
"If you want to do Leland a good turn, get up and ride," it said. "The boys are holding Prospect up to-night."
Then Grier turned to the astonished troopers. "It may be a bluff to put us off the trail," he said. "Leland keeps good watch at Prospect, and has it full of harvesters."
"Well," said one of the others, "I don't quite know. Last time I met one of his teamsters he told me they'd have no use for most of the harvesters in a day or two. He said something, too, about the boys going out to the railroad to haul the new thresher in. I guess that would keep them away three or four days altogether."
Grier looked thoughtful. "Oh, yes," he said. "I've heard that mill's an extra big one, and they were most of a day getting the old one across the ravine. It's quite certain, too, that Leland has a good many friends up and down the country who now and then break prairie or cut hay for him, and, as some of them stand in with the rustlers, too, it's easy to figure why the man who sent us this warning didn't want to show himself. Well, I guess we'll take our chances of being wanted, though the horses are dead played out, and I don't know where to get another within thirty miles. Nobody who can help it is going to let us have a horse at harvest time."
Then he turned sharply. "Who was on horse-guard with Ainger?"
"Standish," said one of the men.
Grier smiled unpleasantly. "Send him along. Then get your fire lighted and look after your horses. We'll start for Prospect when you've had breakfast, but I guess some of you are going to walk a few leagues to-day."
It was about ten o'clock at night, and Carrie was sitting with Eveline Annersly in the big general room at Prospect. Leland, who had been brought downstairs to be further away from the hot roof, lay asleep in another room that opened off the corridor leading to the kitchen. Almost every man attached to the homestead was away. The threshers were expected on the morrow, for throughout that country the wheat is threshed where it stands in the sheaves, and it had always been a difficult matter to convey the mill and engine across the ravine. The thresher now expected was an unusually large one, and Gallwey had set out with most of the teams to assist the men in charge of it. He had, however, promised to come back with some of the boys that night.
Carrie was a little sleepy, for she had borne her part in the stress of work usual in a Western homestead at harvest time; but she had no thought of retiring until Gallwey arrived. Nothing had been heard of the outlaws since the fire, but since most of the harvesters would require to be paid and sent home in a day or two, there was a good deal of money forthe purpose in the house. It seemed that Eveline Annersly was also thinking of it, for presently she looked at her companion with a little smile.
"It is on the whole fortunate my nerves are reasonably good," she said. "It would be singularly inconvenient if Charley's whisky-smuggling friends should visit us to-night. Your bills could, one would fancy, be got rid of more easily than English notes, and I understand there are a good many of them in Charley's room."
Carrie laughed, for she was unwilling to admit she had any apprehensions. She felt that, if she did so, they might become oppressive.
"There are," she said. "A visit to the settlement means two days lost, and Gallwey and I decided to get enough to pay the threshers, too, so as to save another journey. I had expected him back by now."
She rose, and, going out, opened the homestead door. It was a quiet, star-lit night, with no moon in the sky, and the prairie rolled away before her dim and shadowy. Not a sound rose from it. Even the wind was still. As she gazed out across the dusky waste, something in its vastness and silence impressed her as never before. She had grown to love the prairie, but there were times when its desolation reacted almost unpleasantly on her. The homestead, with its barns and stables standing back beneath the stars, seemed so little, an insignificant speck on that great sweep of plain. She roused herself to listen, but no beat of hoofs crept out of the soft darkness, and it was evident that Gallwey was a long way off yet.
Then she turned with a little shiver, and went backinto the house. Crossing the big room, she went down the corridor, and softly opened the door of the room where her husband slept. A lamp was burning dimly, and it showed his quiet face, now a trifle haggard and lined with care. Carrie's eyes grew gentle as she looked at him, for he had been very restless and apparently not so well that day, while it was evident to her that his vigour was coming back to him very slowly. Then, as she turned, her eyes rested on the safe, and again a thrill of apprehension ran through her. She was glad that Gallwey had the key.
She went back to the general room, and, though she had not noticed it so much before, found the stillness oppressive. There was not a sound, and, when her companion turned over a paper, the rustle of it startled her.
"I almost wish I had not let Tom Gallwey go," she said. "Still, it was necessary. The threshers couldn't have got their machine here without the boys."
Eveline Annersly looked up. "I certainly wish he had come back, though I suppose he can't be very long now. He told you ten o'clock, I think. In the meanwhile you might find this account of the wedding at Scaleby Garth interesting."
Carrie held out her hand for the paper, but her attention wandered from the description of the scene in the little English church. She had left the outer door open, and found herself listening for a reassuring beat of hoofs; but nothing disturbed the deep silence of the prairie. Half an hour had passed when she straightened herself suddenly in her chair, with her heart beating fast, and saw that Eveline Annersly's face was intent as she gazed towards the door.
"Oh!" she said. "You heard it, too?"
"Yes," said the elder lady, with a tremor in her voice. "It sounded like a step."
In another moment there was no doubt about it, and Carrie rose with a little catching of her breath as a shadowy figure appeared in the hall. For a moment she stood as though turned to stone, and then suddenly roused herself to action as a man came into the room.
He stopped just inside the threshold, a big, dusty man, with a damp, bronzed face; but, as it happened, it was Eveline Annersly his eyes first rested on. He glanced at her suspiciously, and then swung round as he heard a rattle, just in time to see Carrie snatch down her husband's rifle.
She stood very straight, breathless, and a trifle white in face, but there was something suggestive in the way the rifle lay in her left hand. The man could see that a swift jerk would bring the butt in to her shoulder and the barrel in line with him, while the girl's gaze was also disconcertingly fixed and steady. She had stood now and then just outside the woods at Barrock-holme, with a little 16-bore in her hands, getting her share of the pheasants as they came over. The intruder could shoot well enough himself to realise that when the barrel went up her finger would be clenched upon the trigger. His hand was at his belt, but he kept it there, and for a second or two the pair looked at one another. Then he quietly turned round, which argued courage, and called to somebody outside.
"Come in, boys," he said. "Here's a thing we hadn't quite figured on."
Carrie turned when he did, and in another moment she was standing with her back to the door that led to the corridor, while Eveline Annersly, who gasped, looked at her with horror in her eyes.
"What are you going to do?" she said.
Carrie did not look in her direction. She was watching the outer door, and stood tense and still, but with something in her pose that suggested a readiness for swift, decisive movement. In fact, her attitude vaguely reminded her companion of a bent bow, or a snake half coiled to strike. Her face was set, and there was a portentous glint in her very steady eyes. Her voice was harsh, but impressively quiet.
"If they try to get into Charley's room I am going to kill one of them," she said.
Then two other men came in, and one of them made a little half-whimsical gesture.
"Hadn't you better be reasonable, Mrs. Leland?" he said. "We're not going to hurt you."
"What do you want?" asked the girl.
"Money," said the man who had come in first. "Anyway, that's the first thing. You have plenty of it here. Tom Gallwey brought a big wallet out from the settlement a week ago. They're in the safe in the room behind you, too."
Carrie, nervous and overwrought as she was, decided to temporise. Gallwey could not be long, and he had promised to bring some of the boys home with him.
"Well," she said, in a strained voice, "I haven't the key."
One of the men laughed. "That's not going to worry us. If we can't open it with a stick of giant-powder, we'll take the safe along. It's hardly likely to be a big one."
"Then it's only the money you want?"
Carrie's perceptions had never been keener than they were that night, and she saw one of the others glance at his comrade warningly. She also saw the little vindictive gleam in another man's eyes, and she understood. It was not alone to empty Leland's safe they had come, and he lay sick and helpless in the room where it stood. One other thing was also clear to her, and it was that none of them should go in there at any cost.
"Well," said the outlaw, "if we got the money without unpleasantness, it would help to make things pleasanter for everybody, and we're going to get it, anyway. The only two men about this homestead are held up in the stable, and there are quite a few of us here. I guess you had better let us in to the safe."
Carrie moved a trifle, bringing her left arm, which was aching, further forward. "I think there are two keys belonging to the safe," she said. "I wonder if I could remember where the other one is."
She delayed them at least a minute while she appeared to consider, and then the men evidently lost their patience, for one of them turned angrily to their leader.
"We have no use for so much talking, and want to get ahead," he said. "It's a sure thing they wouldn't leave the place empty any length of time with Leland sick, and I guess you're going to have Gallwey and the boys down on you if you stay here long."
One of his comrades growled approvingly. "Oh," he said, "quit talking. If she hasn't got that key onher, she doesn't know where it is. We'll run in and get hold of her. It's even chances she has nothing in the gun."
It was evident that the suggestion commended itself to all of them, but the trouble was that nobody seemed anxious to put it into execution. Carrie pressed down the magazine slide with one hand. It would, however, only move a very little, and she realised that the magazine was almost full. Then she laughed harshly, and the sound jarred on Eveline Annersly's ears.
"Well," she said, "why don't you come?"
Then she started, and endeavoured to put a further restraint upon herself, for it seemed to her that a very faint drumming sound rose from the prairie. None of the others, however, appeared to hear it. In another moment an inspiration seemed to dawn on one of the men.
"Put the lamp out, and we'll get her easy in the dark," he said.
Eveline Annersly failed to check a little startled cry, but Carrie turned towards the leader of the outlaws very quietly.
"Stop a moment," she said. "You daren't hurt a woman. It would raise all the prairie against you; but, if one of you comes near that lamp, I will certainly shoot him."
The leader made a little gesture, half of admiration and half of anger.
"Now," he said, "we've had 'bout enough talking, and your husband spoiled our game when he brought those troopers in. We know who sent for them. Well, we're lighting out for good after we've cleaned hissafe out, and done one or two other little things. We don't want to hurt you, but we're not going to be held up by a woman. It's your last chance. Do you mean to be reasonable?"
Carrie was white to the lips, for it was perfectly plain that they intended to have a reckoning, before they went, with the man who had driven them out.
"Keep back from the light!" she said.
Then the outlaw made a little half-impatient gesture of resignation. "Well," he said, "you'll have to get hold of her, boys."
They came forward, but, though that would have been wiser, they did not run. Two of them moved crouchingly, and Carrie could not see the third man. Still, they had only made a pace or two when one of them suddenly straightened himself.
"Look out!" he said; "we're going to have trouble now."
Carrie could not see the door behind her open, but Eveline Annersly saw it, and gasped. Then she laughed, a little hoarse laugh that at any other time would have jarred on those who heard it, as Leland appeared in the opening. He was in pyjamas, and his face was white and haggard. One arm, still bound up, hung at his side, but a big pistol glinted in his other hand. One of the outlaws recoiled, but his comrade sprang towards the lamp. Mrs. Annersly saw Carrie's rifle pitched forward, there was a double detonation, two jarring reports so close together that one could scarcely distinguish between them, and the man nearest the light reeled and struck the table before he sank into a huddled heap on the floor. A streak of blue smoke hovered in the middleof the room, and another filmy cloud floated about the inner door, through which Leland presently lurched, gaunt and pale and grim, with a look in his eyes that Eveline Annersly remembered afterwards with horror. He said nothing whatever, but his pistol blazed, and the room resounded with the quick, whip-like reports. Then there was thick darkness as the light went out. So far as Eveline Annersly, who was the only one who remembered anything, could make out, two of the outlaws retreated towards the door, shouting for their comrades; but they did not reach it, for a voice rang sharply outside.
"Hold up!" it said; "we've got you this time sure."
What took place outside did not appear at once, but a few minutes later somebody came in, calling out for Mrs. Leland, and struck a match. It went out, but another man soon appeared, holding up a lamp, the light of which showed Leland leaning upon the table with an arm round his wife, who was laughing hysterically.
"I didn't hit him, I didn't! You fired first!" she said.
"That's all right," said Leland, soothingly. "Anyway, there's a good deal of life in him yet. I'm quite sure I plugged another of them just before the light went out."
Carrie turned half round, glancing towards the man, who was struggling to raise himself from the floor, and then once more clung to Leland with a little cry.
Then Trooper Standish set down the lamp, and Sergeant Grier came forward, while several hot and dusty troopers stood revealed about the door.
"Is there anybody hurt except this man?" he asked.
Leland said there was nobody so far as he knew, and the Sergeant nodded.
"Then I guess you and Mrs. Leland had better light out of this, while we see what can be done for him and another man the boys have outside. I'll come along and tell you about it later."
Leland began to expostulate. "I've been tied up by the leg long enough, and there are one or two things I want to do right now."
The Sergeant, who ignored him, turned to Carrie with a little dry smile.
"Get him back to his bed, Mrs. Leland, as quick as you can, and send your friend away," he said. "You're going to have no more trouble, but this is no place for you."
Carrie seemed to rouse herself, and with some difficulty led her protesting husband away. Half an hour had passed when the Sergeant and Gallwey, who had arrived in the meanwhile, were admitted to Leland's room. He now lay, partly dressed, in a big chair, for nothing that Carrie could do would induce him to go back to bed again. Grier sat down with a little smile, and Carrie looked at him warningly.
"You are not to excite him," she said.
"Excite me!" said Leland. "It's the one thing that has cured me. I'll be going round with the threshers in a day or two."
"Well," said the Sergeant, "it's quite a simple tale. One of your friends, perhaps a boy who'd worked for you, gave us the office at sun-up, and we started as soon as we heard what the rustlers meant to do. It seems, from what one or two of them have admitted,that they knew the game was up when the new troopers came, and meant to get even with you before lighting out."
"How did they know the boys were away, and what in the name of thunder did Gallwey keep them all this while at the ravine for?" Leland broke in.
Grier raised his hand. "You keep still. I'm telling this thing my own way. How the whisky boys found out more than that is one of the points I'm going to inquire into. Well, we started, and before we were half-way most of the horses were dead played out; and though I went round by a ranch, the boys were out driving cattle, and had only two horses in the stable. I guess we led the horses most of the rest of the way, until, when we were a league off, I rode on with one of the boys. Then, coming in quietly, we saw there was something wrong. While we waited for the boys, we fixed things so that we got our hands on four of the gang. Two of them are the bosses, and one of them wants a doctor, as well as the other man with the bullet in his leg. That's about all there is to it. You're not going to have any more trouble with the rustlers."
"Will the man Charley shot get well?" asked Carrie, with tense anxiety.
The Sergeant smiled. "Oh, yes," he said. "He'll be on his way to Regina jail in a day or two."
He went out with Gallwey by-and-bye, and Carrie sat down by her husband, with a little happy laugh.
"Oh," she said, "that's one trouble done with; and, if you won't excite yourself, Charley, I'll tell you something more. Wheat is going up."
There was no longer any fierceness in the sunshine, and the day was cloudless and pleasantly cool when Carrie Leland and Eveline Annersly strolled through the harvest field at the middle of afternoon. The aspect of things had changed since the morning Leland had fallen from his binder, for, though there was a little breeze, the wheat no longer rolled before it in rippling waves. It stood piled in long rows of sheaves that gleamed with bronze and gold in a great sweep of ochre-tinted stubble, beyond which the prairie stretched back, dusty white, to the cold blueness of the northern horizon.
The sheaves were, however, melting fast, for waggons piled high with them moved towards a big machine that showed up dimly against a cloud of smoke and dust in the foreground. A long spout rose high above it, pouring down a golden cascade of straw upon a shapeless mound, and a swarm of half-seen figures toiled amidst the dust. The threshers are usually paid by the bushel in that country, and since they have, as they would say, no use for anything but the latest and most powerful engine and mill, it was only by fierce, persistent effort the men of Prospect kept the big machine fed. Its smoke trail driftedfar down the prairie, and through the deep hum it made there rose the thud of hoofs and the sounds of human activity, which, it seemed to Carrie Leland as she stood in the bright sunshine under the cloudless sky, had a glad, exultant note in them. It stirred her curiously with its vague suggestion of faith that had proved warranted. Once more there had been a fulfilment of the promise made when the waters dried, and, in spite of drought and scourging hail, the harvest had not failed.
"Ah," she said, "it is easy to be an optimist to-day. It is the looking forward when everything appears against one that is difficult; but, when I remember the springtime, I feel I shall never have any reason to be proud of myself again."
Eveline Annersly's eyes twinkled. "I'm not sure the time you mentioned could have been particularly pleasant to Charley, either."
"Still," said Carrie, with a little sigh, "he held fast to his optimism and worked, while I let the gloom of it overmaster me."
"And now, as the result of it, that machine is threshing out I don't know how many thousand bushels of splendid wheat."
Carrie's eyes grew gentle, and there was a little thrill in her voice. "We have both of us ever so much more than the wheat to be thankful for," she said.
Then she changed the subject abruptly. "Aunt, if you want to catch the New York mail, you will have to answer that letter to-night. You know that neither of us wants you to go."
"Would you like to go back to England?"
Carrie looked at the wheat and great sweep ofprairie with glowing eyes. "I think I should be content wherever my husband went. There was a time when I fancied that if we had several good harvests and he sold Prospect, it would be nice to go back with him to the old country, but now I do not know. I seem to have grown since I came out here, and the prairie has, as he would say, got hold of me. It is so big and strenuous, there is so much in this country that is worth doing, and I think Charley is like it in many ways. No, I scarcely fancy he would ever be quite happy in England. But, after all, that is not the question. We want you. Do you feel you must go back again?"
Her companion smiled a little. "I am not altogether sure that I do, but one has to consider a good many things. The house Florence writes about at Cransly is pretty and convenient, and, by sharing expenses, we could live there comfortably enough. Still, you know the life two elderly ladies would lead at Cransly, and after Barrock-holme—and Prospect—there are ways in which it would not appeal to me very strongly."
"Oh, I know," and Carrie laughed. "You would be expected to set everybody a model of propriety, and to rule with the vicar's wife such society as there is in the place. You would have to know the exact shade of graciousness to bestow upon the wife of the local doctor, and how to check the presumptuous advances of the retired tradesman or the daughters of the stranger who settled within your borders. Isn't it all a little small and petty?"
She turned once more to the prairie with a gesture of pride. "Ah," she said, "out here it's only what isessential that comes first. We open our gates to the stranger and give him our best, even when he comes on foot in dusty jean. It's manhood that counts for everything, and Charley and the others are always opening the gates a little wider. We take all who come, the poor and the outcast, and ask no questions. One has only to look round and see what the prairie has made of them. Aunt, I think the greatest thing in human nature is the faith of the optimist. No, I shall stay here, and you will stay with me."
"I think a little would naturally depend upon what Charley wants."
Carrie laughed. "Well," she said, "we will ascertain his views. He is not as a rule very diffident about expressing them."
Tom Gallwey, somewhat lightly dressed, drove up just then in a waggon piled with grain bags.
"Where is Charley?" she asked.
Gallwey smiled. "Lifting four-bushel wheat sacks into a waggon. He has been doing it most of the afternoon, too, and I almost think it would be wise if you looked after him."
He drove on, and Carrie attempted to frown. "Isn't he exasperating?" she said. "The doctor told him he was to take it very easy for at least another month, and he promised me he would do nothing hard."
They went on towards the thresher, walking delicately among the flinty stubble, until they reached the edge of the whirling dust. Overhead the straw was rushing down through a haze of smoke. Below, half-naked men toiled savagely about the big machine. Steam was roaring from the engine, for the threshers were firing recklessly, and the thudding clank of theengine and hum of the clattering mill were almost deafening. There was a constant passing upwards of golden sheaves, a constant downward stream of straw, and the dusty air seemed filled with toiling men and kicking teams.
Then Carrie went forward into the midst of the press, for it was naturally where the activity was fiercest that she expected to find her husband. He was with another harvester pitching up big sacks into a waggon. As a bushel of wheat weighs approximately sixty pounds, it was an occupation that demanded much from the man engaged in it. She touched him on the shoulder, looking at him reproachfully when he swung round and let the bag drop.
"Charley," she said, "you remember your promise?"
The twinkle crept into Leland's eyes. "Oh, yes," he said, "I told you I'd do nothing hard. When you know the trick of it, this thing's quite easy."
It did not appear so to Carrie. "Come away at once," she said. "You are to do no more this afternoon."
Leland made a little whimsical gesture of resignation, but it is possible that he was not altogether sorry; for, though he had recovered rapidly since the affair with the whisky boys, his full strength had not come back, and he had been lifting grain bags for several hours. In any event, he put on his jacket, and, brushing a little of the dust off his person, went away with her. They sat down together with Eveline Annersly, beneath one of the straw-pile granaries that stood in a row amidst the stubble.
"Aunt Eveline is thinking of going away," said Carrie.
Leland started, and there was no doubt that his concern was genuine. "Oh," he said, "the thing's quite out of the question. She told me she was going to stay with us as long as we wanted her."
"I did," said Eveline Annersly. "Still, I really think you can do without me now."
Both Carrie and her husband knew exactly what she meant, but it was the latter who had the courage to admit it.
"Madam—" he began.
Eveline Annersly checked him with a smile. "The title has gone out of fashion, with a few other old-fashioned things you still seem to cling to in the newest West. I do not like it—from you."
Leland made her a bow that included Carrie. "Well," he said, "Aunt Eveline—and that, because of the humanity in it, is, perhaps, a finer title—I'm talking now, and you are going to listen to me. You were kind to me at Barrock-holme, where I was what you call an outsider, and you gave me the greatest thing I ever had, or that ever could come to me. You didn't find it easy. Things were far from promising when you were half-way through, but you stood by me, and now do you think there is anything that would be too much for me to do for you?"
There was a little silence. It was the first time the fact that all three recognised had been put into words, and a faint flush mantled Eveline Annersly's cheeks. Still, her eyes were gentle, and there was no doubt that the bond between the little faded lady, upon whom the stamp of station was plain, and the gaunt prairie farmer, with the hard hands and the bronzed face, sprinkled with the dust of toil, was a wondrousstrong one. In England it would, perhaps, have seemed incomprehensible, an anachronism; but amidst the long rows of sheaves he had called up out of the prairie there was nothing strange in their communion. After all, it is manhood that counts in the new Northwest.
"Well," she said, quietly, "it was a great responsibility, and there were times when I was horribly afraid. Still, events have proved me right, and I think it is the greatest compliment I could pay you when I say that it was to make Carrie safe I did it."
Carrie said nothing, but there was faith and confidence in her eyes when she turned them for a moment upon her husband as he spoke again.
"And now you talk of going away," he said. "Aunt Eveline, we want you here always, both of us. You stood by us through the struggle, for it has been a hard one this year, and now I want you to share in the result of it. Oh, I know, in some ways it's a hard country for a woman brought up like you, but things will be different at Prospect with wheat going up, and there's one great argument you can't get over—what Carrie Leland is content with is sufficient for any woman on this earth."
They had just decided that she was to stay, when Sergeant Grier rode up. He swung himself out of the saddle, and tossed Leland a bundle of papers.
"I got one or two at the settlement, and Custer asked me to hand you the rest," he said. "I guess you'll be glad to see that wheat is jumping up. It seems as if everybody was buying. Still, that wasn't what I came to talk about."
"You don't want me at the trial of the rustlers' friends?" asked Leland, impatiently.
Grier laughed. "I guess we'll fix them without you. It's quite easy to find out things, now the gangs are broken up. I heard from Regina the other day, and the man who got the bullet in his leg is already doing something useful—making roads, I think. The other fellow is going out with the work gang as soon as he's strong enough."