56CHAPTER VITHE FIRST CROP
Each day brought much the same tasks at Fairmead until the disc-harrows had rent up the clods, and with a seeder borrowed from a neighbor ten miles away we drilled in the grain. While we worked the air above us was filled with the beat of wings, as in skeins, wedges, and crescents the wild fowl, varying from the tiny butter-duck to the brant goose and stately crane, went by on their long journey from the bayous by the sunny gulf to the newly thawn tundra mosses beside the Polar Sea. Legion by legion they came up from the south and passed, though some folded their weary pinions to rest on the way, and for a few short weeks every sloo was dotted with their plumage. Then they went on, and we knew we should see no more of them until the first blasts of winter brought them south again. All this appealed to our sporting instincts, but time was precious then, and though I glanced longingly at Harry’s double-barrel, I did not lift it from the wall. Every moment had its duties, and the thought of the mortgage held us to our task.
Then there followed an interlude of building and well-digging, when we sank down some thirty feet or so, and rammed the shaft sides with nigger-head stones, while occasionally some of our scattered neighbors rode twenty miles to lend us assistance. Meantime, a tender flush of emerald crept across the crackling sod, and the birches unfolded their tiny leaves until the bluff shimmered with tender verdure silver inlaid, while the jack-rabbits, which had not as yet57wholly put off their winter robes of ermine, scurried, piebald and mottled, through its shadows. Then, while the wheat grew taller, and the air warmer every day, the prairie assumed an evanescent beauty which it presently put off again, for the flush faded from the grasses, and only the birch bluff remained for a refuge filled with cool neutral shadow in a sun-parched land. It was now time for the hay cutting, and we drove the rusty mower here and there across the dazzling plain, upon which willow grove and bluff stood cut off from the levels beneath by glancing vapor, like islands rising out of a shimmering sea. On much of it the grasses grew only to a few inches in length, and we had therefore to seek winter food for our beasts in each dried-up sloo, where they stood sometimes waist-high and even higher. No making was needed; the sun already had done that better than we could, and we merely drove the mower through, after which I went back with the loaded wagon, while Harry rode further out on to the prairie in search of another sloo.
The mosquitoes came down in legions and bit us grievously, until it was necessary to anoint our hair with kerosene. Our dwelling was stifling, so that as a matter of necessity we always cooked outside; but the temperature changed at sundown, and, lying full length on the peppermint-scented hay, we rode home content across the darkening prairie, which faded under the starlight into the semblance of a limitless dusky sea, while the very stillness voiced its own message of infinity. Neither of us would speak at such times. Harry had a turn for emotional sentiment, I knew, but I too could feel that it was good to lie there motionless and silent, and try to grasp its meaning. Then the strained sense of expectancy would fade at the sight of the approaching homestead, or a bronco blundering into a badger-hole would call us back to a work-a-day world.58
Harvest came, and that year there was neither drought nor untimely frost, and our hearts grew light when the binders piled up a splendid crop. Still, when we proposed to prepare a thanksgiving feast for all our neighbors, Jasper, who had ridden over, grinned as he said, “Better lie low and pay off that mortgage. You’re only starting, and they wouldn’t expect it of you. Besides, you’ll have had your fill of cooking before you have finished with the thrashers.”
This proved correct enough, for when the men came in with the thrasher and the homestead vibrated to its hum, others whose harvests were garnered came too, out of good-will, and Harry was cooking and baking all day long. Sometimes for hours together they kept me busy beheading and plucking fowls—we turned a steam jet on them from the engine to make the feathers come off; and it amused me to wonder what Alice would think if she saw me sitting, flecked all over with down, among the feathers, or Harry standing grimed with dust and soot, peeling potatoes by the bucketful beside his field kitchen. When the thrashers departed our larder and our henhouse were empty, and the grocery bill long; but we were only sorry that we could not entertain them more royally, for the men who worked for money at so much the bushel and the men who worked for friendship vied with one another in their labor, and there was no one among them but rejoiced at our success.
Wheat was in good demand at remunerative prices that year, and I remember the day we hauled the last load to the elevators. Winter had set in early, and wrapped in long skin coats we tramped beside the wagons across the waste of crackling sod, while the steam from the horses rose like smoke into the nipping air. We started long before the wondrous green and crimson dawn, for it was nearly a twelve hours’ journey to the railway town. We reached it finally, after a tiresome ride; and then for two59hours we waited shivering among kicking and biting teams under the gaunt elevators before we could haul in our wagons, and for perhaps fifteen minutes there was a great whirring of wheels. Then they were drawn forth empty, and presently we came out of the office with sundry signed papers readily convertible into coin at Winnipeg, and marched exultant to the hotel, scarcely feeling the frozen earth beneath us in spite of our weariness. No spirituous liquor might be sold there, but for once we meant to enjoy an ample meal which we had not cooked ourselves, served on clean plates and a real white tablecloth.
It was a simple banquet, but we felt like feasting kings, and though since then we have both sat at meat among railroad magnates, deputations from Ottawa, and others great in the land, we never enjoyed one like it. Harry, forgetting he was in Western Canada, tried to slip a silver half-dollar into the waitress’ hand, who dropped it on the floor, perhaps because in that region wages are such that the hireling is neither dependent on nor looks for a stranger’s generosity. I stooped to raise the coin and hand it her, and then started as for the first time our eyes met, while a wave of color suffused the face of the girl who stepped backward, for it was Minnie Lee.
“Harry,” I said, stretching out my hand to her. “This is the lady I told you about. You remember the letter. Now go along, and settle matters with the proprietor. Sit down, Minnie, I want to talk to you. Tell me how you came here, and why you left England, won’t you?”
The girl had lost her pink-and-white prettiness. Her face was pale, and she was thinner than before, while there was a hard, defiant look in her eyes. Besides, she seemed ill at ease and startled when I drew out a chair for her, and I too was singularly ill at ease. We had the long room to ourselves, however, for on the prairie meals are served at a60definite hour, and usually despatched in ten minutes or so. Few men there waste time lounging over the table.
“I hardly knew you, Ralph—you have changed so much,” she said, and I only nodded, for I was impatient to hear her story; and she had surely changed far more than I. The Minnie I used to know was characterized by a love of mischief and childish vanity, but the present one wore rather the air of a woman with some knowledge of life’s tragedy.
“It’s almost an old story now,” she said bitterly. “Father had a craze for religion, mother was always sighing, and there was no peace at home for me. Then I met Tom Fletcher again—you remember him—and when he took me to concerts and dances I felt at last that I had begun to live. The endless drudgery in the mill, the little house in the smoky street, and the weary chapel three times each Sunday, were crushing the life out of me. You understand—you once told me you felt it all, and you went out in search of fortune; but what can a woman do? Still, I dare not tell father. All gaiety was an invention of the devil, according to him. We were married before the registrar—Tom had reasons. I cannot tell you them; but we were married,” and she held up a thin finger adorned by a wedding-ring.
I remembered Fletcher as a good-looking clerk with a taste for betting and fanciful dress, who had been discharged from the Orb mill for inattention to his duties, and I wondered that Minnie should have chosen him from among her many other admirers of more sterling character.
“I said nothing to any one,” she continued. “Tom was disappointed about something on which he had counted. He’d got into trouble over his accounts, too. There had been a scene with father, who said I was a child of the devil, and when Tom told me there was false accusation against him, and nobody must know we were going, we slipped away61quietly. I was too angered to write to father, and it might have put the police on Tom. Tom was innocent, he said. We had very little money, work was hardly to be had—and our child died soon after we settled in Winnipeg.”
“Go on,” I said gently, and she clenched her hands with a gesture that expressed fierce resentment as well as sorrow as she added:
“The poor little innocent thing had no chance for its life—we were short of even bare necessities, for Tom could pick up only a few dollars now and then—and I think that all that was good in me died with it. So when he found work watching the heater of a store a few hours each night, and the wages would not keep two, I had to go out and earn my bread here—and I sometimes wish I had never been born.”
I made no answer for a space. There was nothing I could say that might soften such trouble as was stamped on her face; although I remembered having heard Jasper say that a weight clerk was wanted at the new elevator further down the line. Then, blundering as usual, I said:
“Do you know, Minnie, they blame me at home for bringing you out here, and I heard that your father had sworn to be revenged upon me?”
There was sullen fury in the girl’s eyes—she was very young after all—but she kept herself in hand, and answered bitterly:
“It was like their lying tongues. Envy and malice, and always some one’s character to be taken away. No; it was Tom—and Tom, God help us both, has lost his head and drinks too much when he can. But I must not keep you, Ralph Lorimer, and henceforward you have nothing to do with me.”
A voice called “Minnie,” and I had only time to say, “Perhaps I can find some better work for him; and you62will write home and tell them the truth for your own and my sake, won’t you?” before she hurried away.
Then Harry and I walked down to the freight-siding, where the big box cars hauled out ready from under the elevators were waiting. Two huge locomotives were presently coupled on, there followed a clanging of bells, and we watched the twinkling tail-lights grow dimmer across the prairie. Part of our harvest, we knew, was on board that train, starting on the first stage of its long journey to fill with finest flour the many hungry mouths that were waiting for it in the old land we had left behind. The lights died out in a hollow far away on the prairie’s rim, and Harry slipped his arm through mine, perhaps because his heart was full. With much anxiety, ceaseless toil, and the denying ourselves of every petty luxury, we had called that good grain forth from the prairie, and the sale of it meant at least one year free from care.
Before we turned away, straight as the crow flies a cavalcade came clattering up out of the silent prairie, while, after a jingle of harness, merry clear-pitched voices filled the station, and something within me stirred at the sound. There was no trace of Western accent here, though the prairie accent is rarely unpleasant, for these were riders from Carrington who spoke pure English, and were proud of it. Two, with a certain courtliness which also was foreign to that district, helped an elderly lady down from a light carriage luxuriously hung on springs, which must have been built specially at the cost of many dollars, and the rest led their well-groomed horses toward the store stables, or strolled beside the track jesting with one another. None of them wore the skin coats of the settlers. Some were robed in furs, and others in soft-lined deerskin, gaily fringed by Blackfoot squaws, which became them; but except for this they were of the British type most often met with gripping63the hot double-barrel when the pheasants sweep clattering athwart the wood, or sitting intent and eager with tight hand on the rein outside the fox cover.
Still, no one could say they had suffered by their translation to a new country, which was chiefly due to Colonel Carrington. He had been successful hitherto at wheat-growing on an extensive scale, and though few of the settlers liked him they could not help admiring the bold far-seeing way in which he speculated on the chances of the weather, or hedged against a risky wheat crop by purchasing western horses. Still, not content with building up the finest property thereabout, he aspired to rule over a British settlement, and each time that he visited the old country at regular intervals several young Englishmen of good family and apparently ample means returning with him commenced breaking virgin prairie. They were not all a success as farmers, the settlers said, and there were occasional rumors of revolt; but if they had their differences with the grim autocrat they kept them loyally to themselves, and never spoke in public of their leader save with respect. Now it was evident that his daughter was expected; they had come to escort her home in state, and no princess could have desired a finer bodyguard. They were the pick of the old country’s well-born youth when they came out, and now they had grown to a splendid manhood in the wide spaces of the prairie.
Though they answered our greetings with good fellowship, I am afraid we regarded them a little enviously, for the value of some of their horses would have sown us a crop, and even Harry seemed unkempt beside them. We lived and dressed very plainly at Fairmead that year. Then amid a grinding of brakes, with lights flashing, a long train rolled in, and the group stood, fur cap in hand, about the platform of a car from which a dainty figure looked down at them.64It was Grace Carrington, and as I stood a little apart from the rest my heart leaped at the sight of her. Yet, either from bashfulness or foolish pride, I would not move a step nearer.
“What a picture!” said Harry softly. “A princess of the prairie and her subjects doing homage to her! Ralph, I say, you must not stare at the girl like that. But, by Jove, she’s smiling this way—yes, she is really beckoning you!”
It was true, for a stripling who wore his deerskin jacket as though it were the dolman of a cavalry officer strode forward, and inclining his head said:
“If you are Mr. Lorimer, Miss Carrington desires to speak with you.”
For some reason I drew Harry with me. It may have been that I felt the company of a comrade of my own kind would be comforting in that assembly; and then I forgot everything as, fixing her bright eyes on me, Grace held out her hand.
“It was kind of you to meet me, and this is an unexpected pleasure,” she said. “You must come over to Carrington and tell me where you have settled. Oh stay, Raymond, this is Mr. Lorimer—he was kind to me in England, and I want you to invite him to your approaching festivities. You will come, won’t you, and bring your friend—very pleased to see you Mr. Lorraine, too; then I shall have an opportunity for talking with you.”
“Delighted, of course, to please you,” said a tall bronzed man of maturer years, bowing. “Met Mr. Lorimer already; pulled my wagon up most kindly when the team was stalled in a ravine. If I’d known you were from the old country would have ridden over already to ask you.”
Further introductions followed, all effected in a queenly way, and with a last pleasant glance toward us Grace moved toward the carriage, while I fancied that some of the65younger among her bodyguard regarded us jealously. Harry and I stood silent until the cavalcade vanished into the dimness, and then, while the last beat of hoofs died away, the blood surged through every artery as he said:
“Wasn’t she splendid! When she held out her hand to me I felt that I ought to go down on one knee and kiss it, and all that kind of thing, you know. Ralph, you stalked up like a bear; must have been dazed by too much brightness, because you never even raised your hat. Well, one can understand it; but I think some of the others would have liked to cut your big solid throat for you.”
Harry was both enthusiastic and impressionable, though I did not think so then, and the whole scene could scarcely have lasted five minutes, but it filled my mind for days afterward, and I can recall it clearly still.
66CHAPTER VIIHARVEST HOME
It was a bitter night when Harry and I rode into the red glow of light that beat out through the windows of Lone Hollow, the furthest outlying farm of the Carrington group, where, now that the last bushel of his wheat had been sold in Winnipeg, Raymond Lyle was celebrating a bounteous harvest. Round about it, drawn up in ranks, stood vehicles—or rigs, as we call them—of every kind, for it seemed as if the whole country-side had driven in. Most of them were of better make than those we and the majority of the poorer settlers used, and it was hard not to covet when we managed to find a stall for our beasts.
When one has wasted precious time that in the whole season can scarcely be made up again, by riding behind oxen at the exhilarating pace of some two miles an hour, or hauling in grain with half-tamed horses which jib at every hill, it is easy to realize the advantages of an efficient team, and any of those we saw in the Lone Hollow stables would have saved us many dollars each year. Even in the West the poor man is handicapped from the beginning, and must trust to ready invention and lengthened hours of labor to make up for the shortcomings of indifferent tools.
Lyle, who had heard the trampling of hoofs, met us at the door. “It was kind of you to come, and I hope you will enjoy yourselves,” he said. “We have tried to make things homely, but, as you know, this isn’t England.”
We shook off our wrappings and entered the long lamp-lit67hall, partly dazed by the sudden glare and warmth after the intense cold. It certainly was different from anything I had seen at home, for here in place of paint and gilding the decoration was in harmony with the country, bizarre and bountiful, with a beauty that was distinctly its own. Few oat-heads grown from English furrows might compare with the pale golden tassels that drooped in graceful festoons from the wall, while among the ruddier wheat-ears and bearded barley, antelope heads peeped out beside the great horns of caribou which the owner of Lone Hollow had shot in the muskegs of the north. Rifles and bright double-bitted axes of much the same pattern as those with which our forbears hewed through Norman mail caught the light of the polished brass lamps and flashed upon the wainscot, while even an odd cross-cut saw had been skillfully impressed into the scheme of ornamentation. But there was nothing pinchbeck or tawdry about them. Whirled high by sinewy hands, or clenched in hard brown fingers while a steady eye stared down the barrel, that a bridge might span a ravine where no bridge had been, or venison help to cut down the grocery bill and leave the more for the breaking of virgin soil, that steel had played its part in the opening up of a wide country. Yet, the suggestion of strict utility even enhanced its effectiveness, and I remembered with a smile the trophies of weapons stamped out by the gross in Birmingham which I had seen adorning our suburban villas at home.
The majority of the guests were English—one could see that at a glance, and the mother country had small reason to be ashamed of her outland sons. The clear skin showed through the snow-blink’s tan, and the eyes were bright with a steadfastness that comes from gazing into wide distance. Sun, wind, and snow, the dust of parched earth and the stinging smoke of the drifts, had played their part in hardening68them, but still, a little deeper in color, a little stronger in limb, they were the same men one finds dwelling in many an English home. Standing beside a great open hearth, on which to aid the stove a huge pile of birch logs crackled joyously, the representative of an alien race drew a cunning bow across the strings of a dingy violin. He sprang from Gallic stock, a descendant of the oldcoureurswho for two centuries wandered in search of furs across the wilderness, even as far as the northern barrens, before the Briton came to farm. It was a waltz he played—at least, that was the time; but the music seemed filled with the sighing of limitless pines, and the air was probably known in France three hundred years ago. Still, weather-beaten men, and fair women who were considerably less numerous, swept light-heartedly round to it, and when, declining refreshment then, we found a corner, Harry and I sat staring with all our eyes at the scene before us.
After the monotonous labor of the past two years the swish of light dresses and the rhythmic patter of feet, with the merry faces and joyous laughter, moved me strangely. All this seemed to belong to a different world from the one in which we had been living, and I wondered whether any of those dainty daughters of Carrington would deign to dance with me. They might have been transplanted like English roses from some walled garden at home, and their refined beauty had grown to a fuller blossom on the prairie. Still, I knew they would have faded in the dry heat of the dwellings in an Eastern town.
“How do those French-Canadians learn to play like that?” said Harry. “No one taught them; inherited it, I suppose. I know that air; it’s very old, and he’s taking liberties with it masterfully; now it’s like the cypress singing in the big coulée. Of course, it wasn’t learned in one generation, but why does a waltz of that kind unsettle one69so, with a suggestion of ancient sorrow sighing through its gladness? But I’m forgetting, and vaporing again. We are ox-drivers, you and I.”
I nodded silently, for I had not the gift of ready speech, and it was Harry who most often put my thoughts into words for me. Then I grew intent as he said:
“There she is. Who!—Miss Carrington—is there any one else to look at when she is in the room?”
Grace floated past us dressed as I had somewhere seen her before and could not recall it, though the memory puzzled me. Neither do I know what she wore, beyond that the fabric’s color was of the ruddy gold one sees among the stems of ripening grain, while wheat ears nestled between her neck and shoulder, and rustled like barley rippling to the breeze, as with the music embodied in each movement of her form she whirled by us on Ormond’s arm. He looked as he did when I last saw him, placidly good-humored, with the eyeglass dangling this time loosely by its cord.
Then I drew in my breath as the music ceased, and Raymond Lyle approached us, saying: “As usual, men are at a discount, but you have not had a dance, and most of the others have. Come, and I’ll find you partners. Ah, if you are not tired, Miss Carrington, will you take pity on an old friend of yours? I have many duties, and you will excuse me.”
He withdrew quickly, and Grace smiled. “One must never be too tired to dance with an old friend at a prairie feast,” she said, running her pencil through the initials on a program which had traveled several hundred miles from Winnipeg. Then I felt uncomfortable, for I guessed the letters R. L. represented my host, who had good-naturedly made way for me. It was a kindly thought, but Raymond Lyle, who was a confirmed bachelor living under his self-willed sister’s wing, had evidently guessed my interest and70remembered the incident of the jibbing team. It was a square dance, and Harry with a laughing damsel formed myvis-à-vis, but having eyes only for my partner I saw little but a moving mixture of soft colors and embroidered deerskin, for some of the men were dressed in prairie fashion. I felt her warm breath on my neck, the shapely form yielding to my arm, and it was small wonder that I lost myself in the glamour of it, until with the crash of a final chord from the piano the music stopped.
“And you have not danced for four years!” she said as I led her through the press. “Well, it has all come back to you, and out here there is so much more than dancing for a man to do. Yes, you may put down another, there toward the end, and fill in the next one two. I have been looking forward to a quiet talk with you.”
I was left alone with pulses throbbing. There was very little in what she said, but her face showed a kindly interest in our doings, and it was no small thing that the heiress of Carrington should place me on the level of an old friend. Harry was chatting merrily with his late partner, who seemed amused at him, and this was not surprising, for Harry’s honest heart was somewhat strangely united with a silver tongue, and all women took kindly to him. I found other partners and he did the same, so it was some time before we met again, and I remember remarking that all this gaiety and brightness seemed unreal after our quarters at Fairmead, and ended somewhat lamely:
“I suppose it’s out of mere pity she danced with me. As you said, we are of the soil, earthy, and a princess of the prairie is far beyond our sphere. Yet she seemed genuinely pleased to see me. If it were even you, Harry!”
He laughed as he pointed to a large mirror draped in cypress, saying, “Look into that. You are slow at understanding certain matters, Ralph. Not seen the whole of71your noble self in a glass for two years? Neither have I. And it hasn’t dawned upon you that you came out in the transition stage—a grub, or shall we say a chrysalis? No, don’t wrinkle your forehead; it’s only an allegory. Now you have come out of the chrysalis—see?”
Part of this was certainly true, for at Coombs’ we had the broken half of a hand-glass to make our simple toilet, and at Fairmead a whole one of some four inches diameter which cost two bits, tin-backed, at the store, and I remember saying that it was an extravagance. Now I stared into the long glass, standing erect in my one gala garment of fringed deerskin.
“A little too bull-necked,” Harry remarked smiling, “but, except for Raymond Lyle, the stiffest-framed man in the room. Solid and slow from shoulders to ankles; head—shall we say that of a gladiator, or a prize-fighter? Good gracious, Ralph, remember you’re in a ball room, not trying on your trousseau.”
His remarks were not exactly flattering, but for the first time I felt glad to stand a strong man among those who had other advantages behind them, though I fumed inwardly when presently I heard Harry’s partner say:
“What a curious man your friend is! I saw him standing before the big glass actually admiring himself.”
And Harry had the mendacity to assure her that this was a favorite habit of mine.
Afterward I chatted for a time with the giver of the feast. We had much in common, for he was a stalwart plainly spoken man whose chief concern was the improvement of his holding, and from what he said it was clear that taking season by season his bank account increased but little, while he mentioned that several of his neighbors lost a certain sum yearly. There are two ways of farming in the West, and it seemed that after all Harry and I had chosen72the better, the creeping on from acre to acre, living frugally, and doing oneself whatever is needed, then investing each dollar hardly saved in better implements.
Nevertheless, I saw that the men of Carrington who followed the other plan, spending and hiring freely, were doing a good work for the country, because even if they lost a small sum each year most of them could afford it, and their expenses would have been much greater at home. They helped to maintain a demand for good horses and the product of clever workmen’s skill; they supported the storekeepers of the wooden towns; and the poorer settlers could always earn a few dollars by working for them. So it dawned upon me that it is well for the nation that some are content to take their pleasure, as these men did, in an occupation that brought them small profit, sinking their surplus funds for the benefit of those who will follow them. Neither does the mother country lose, because she reaps the fruit of their labors in the shape of cheap and wholesome food.
At last the conversation drifted around to the founder of Carrington.
“An austere man,” said Lyle, “and he’s somewhat different from the rest of us—ready to gather in wherever he can, very hard to get ahead of at a deal; but if he is keen it’s all for the sake of his daughter. There are two things Carrington is proud of, one is this settlement, and the other his heiress. He’s not exactly an attractive personage, but there are whispers that some painful incident in her mother’s life soured him, and one learns to respect him. His word is better than most other men’s bond, and if his will is like cast iron his very determination often saves trouble in the end.”
Silence succeeded, for bold chords of music held the assembly still, and I saw Harry seated at the piano, which apparently had escaped serious damage in its long transit73across the prairie. This was a surprise, for I had not suspected Harry of musical proficiency. There was power in his fingers, hardened as they were, and when the ringing prelude to an English ballad filled the room more than his partner felt that he could call up a response to his own spirit from the soul of the instrument. The lad beside him also sang well, perhaps because he was young and sentiment was strong within him, but sturdy labor under the open heaven seems inimical to the development of hypercritical cynicism, and the men who at home would probably have applauded that song with an indulgent smile listened with kindling eyes and then made the long room ring with their bravos. Here, far away from the land that bred them, they were Britons still, and proud of their birthright.
Then Grace Carrington sang, and I would have given years of my life for Harry’s skill, which seemed a bond between them as she smiled gratefully upon him. The words were simple, as became the work of a master who loved the open, and the music flowed with them like the ripple of a glancing water; so a deeper silence settled upon all, and I was back in England where a sparkling beck leaped out from the furze of Lingdale and sped in flashing shallows under the yellow fern, while somewhere beyond the singer’s voice I could almost hear the alders talking to the breeze. When it ceased the sound grew louder, but it was only a bitter blast that came from the icy Pole moaning about the homestead of Lone Hollow.
Raymond Lyle stepped forward to express the wish of the rest, and Grace bent her fair head to confer with Harry, who nodded gravely, after which she stood still, while a stately prelude that was curiously familiar awoke old memories. Then the words came, and from the lips of others they might have seemed presumptuous or out of place, but Grace Carrington delivered them as though they were a74message which must be hearkened to, and there was an expectant hush when the first line, “A sower went forth sowing,” rang clearly forth. Later some of those about me breathed harder, and I saw that big Raymond’s eyes were hazy, while one hard brown hand was clenched upon his knee, as in sinking cadence we heard again, “Within a hallowed acre He sows yet other grain.”
Then after the last note died away and there was only the moaning of the wind, he said simply, “Thank you, Miss Carrington. I am glad you sang it at the Lone Hollow harvest home.”
“I would never have played it here for any one else,” said Harry presently. “These things are not to be undertaken casually, but she—well, I felt they had to listen, and I did the best that was in me. I think it was her clean-hearted simplicity.”
It was some time afterward when I led Grace out and spent a blissful ten minutes swinging through the mazes of a prairie dance, before we found a nook under dark spruce branches from the big coulée, where Grace listened with interest while I told her of our experiences in the Dominion. The background of somber sprays enhanced her fair beauty, and her dress, which, though there was azure about it, was of much the same color, melted into the festoon of wheat stalks below. The French-Canadian was playing another of his weird waltzes, and it may have been this that reminded me, for now I remembered how I had seen her so before.
“You will not laugh, I hope, when I tell you that all this seems familiar,” I said hesitatingly. “Sometimes in a strange country one comes upon a scene that one knows perfectly, and we feel that, perhaps in dreams, we have seen it all before. Why it is so, I cannot tell, but once in fancy I saw you with a dress exactly like the one you are wearing75now, and the tall wheat behind you. Of course, it sounds ridiculous, but, as Harry says, we do not know everything, and you believe me, don’t you?”
Grace’s face grew suddenly grave, and there was a heightened color in it as she answered: “Your friend is a philosopher, besides a fine musician, and I quite believe you. I have had such experiences—but I think these fancies, if fancies they are, are best forgotten. Still, tell me, did you dream or imagine anything more?”
“Yes,” I said, still puzzled as a dim memory came back, “I saw your father too. He seemed in trouble, and I was concerned in it. This I think was on the prairie, but there were tall pines too; while across the whole dream picture drove an alternate haze of dust and snow.”
Grace shivered as though the relation troubled her, and was silent until she said with a smile:
“It must be that ghostly music. Louis of Sapin Rouge has missed his vocation. We will talk no more of it. You once did me a kindness; I wonder whether you would repeat it.”
“I would go to the world’s end,” I commenced hotly, but stopped abashed as she checked me with a gesture, though I fancied that she did not seem so displeased at my boldness as she might have been. Then she answered, smiling:
“I thought you were too staid and sensible for such speeches, and they hardly become you, because of course you do not mean it. It is nothing very serious. There are signs of bad weather, and my aunt is not strong, so, as Miss Lyle presses us, we shall stay here until to-morrow noon, and I want you to ride over and tell my father. He might grow uneasy about me—and for some reason I feel uneasy about him, while, as he has been ailing lately, I should not like for him to venture across the prairie. It seems76unfair to ask you, but you are young and strong; and I should like you to meet him. He has his peculiarities, so our neighbors say, but he has ever been a most indulgent parent to me, and he can be a very firm friend. You will do this, as a favor, won’t you?”
She gave me her hand as she rose, and, mastering a senseless desire to do more than this, I bowed over it and hurried away, feeling that hers was the favor granted, for Ormond and many others would gladly have ridden fifty miles through a blizzard to do her bidding. It was for this reason that I made my excuses to our host quietly, and Harry laughed as he said: “I’ll ride over with the others for you when the dance is finished, but that won’t be until nearly dawn. The length of these prairie festivities is equaled only by their rarity. But beware, Ralph. You are a poor wheat-grower, and too much of those bright eyes is not good for you.”
I was glad of the skin coat and fur cap before I even reached the stables, and Jasper’s horse made trouble when I led him out. He knew the signs of the weather and desired to stay there, because they were not promising. Now, though winter is almost Arctic in that region, the snow-fall is capricious and generally much lighter than that further east, though it can come down in earnest now and then. Thus, swept by the wind, the grass was bare on the levels, or nearly so, and there was no passage for steel runners, while our poor wagon, which would have carried us much more snugly swathed in wrappings, had broken down, as when wanted it usually did. So, shivering to the backbone, I swung myself into the saddle and hardened my heart to face the bitter ride.
77CHAPTER VIIIHELD UP
It was very dark. The wind had the coldness of death in it, and when the lights of Lone Hollow had faded behind the obscurity closed round me like a thick curtain. Still, trusting to an instinctive sense of direction men acquire in that land, I pushed on for the big coulée—one of those deep ravines that fissure the prairie and much resemble a railway cutting. This one was larger than the rest, and Carrington Manor stood near one end of it. The horse evidently had little liking for the journey, and did his best to shorten it, while I had hard work to keep my mittened hands from freezing as we swept onward through the night.
In places a thin carpet of snow-dust muffled the beat of hoofs, and there was no sound but the mournful shrilling of the wind, which emphasized the great emptiness and sense of desolation until I almost felt that I had ridden out of our busy life into primeval chaos. We are inclined to be superstitious on the prairie, which is not greatly to be wondered at. Fifty yards from the lighted homestead in wintertime there is only an overpowering loneliness, where Death with his ally the Frost King reigns supreme; while, living closer to nature, we learn that there are even yet many mysteries, and man plays but a small part in the business of the universe. Still, for a time the warmth within me kept out the frost; for Grace Carrington’s hand had rested in mine, and I understood how the thought of service sustains78the Northwest troopers in their lonely vigil. They served the nation, but I was serving Grace.
Presently even this consolation grew fainter, and the spell of the white wilderness oppressed my spirits; for the air was filled with warning, and I knew that heavy snow was not far off. Sometimes very silently a dim shadow flitted past, and the horse started, snorting as he quickened his pace with the white steam whirling behind him. It may have been a coyote, or perhaps a timber wolf; for though the antelope had departed south, the settlers said that both from the bush of the Saskatchewan and beyond the Cypress hills the lean and grizzled beasts had come down into the prairie. Nevertheless, their noiseless passage harmonized with the surroundings; and at last I grew thankful for a slight drowsiness which blunted the imagination. But there were other riders out on the waste that night, and, with one hand on the slung rifle, I reined in the horse as three white-sprinkled figures came up at a gallop. Generally, as far as anything human is concerned, the prairie is as safe at midnight, if not safer, than a street in London town; but because game is plentiful there is generally a gun in the wagon, and when the settlers ride out they often carry a rifle at their back.
“Halt!” cried a voice I recognized; and there was a jingle of steel as two skin-wrapped troopers of the Northwest Police wheeled their horses on either side of me, while another, who spoke with authority, grasped my bridle. Even in that darkness I could see the ready carbines, and, knowing what manner of men these riders were, I was glad I could meet them peaceably.
“Your name and business,” said the voice of Sergeant Macfarlane; and a disappointed laugh followed my reply as that worthy added, “Then if ye have no’ been raiding Coombs lately ye can pass, friend. Seen no one on the79prairie? I’m sorry. Four cattle-lifting rustlers held up Clearwater Creek, and we’re going south for the next post to head them off from the boundary. Well, time is precious. A fair journey til ye. It’s a very bitter night, and snowing beyond.”
With a faint clatter they vanished again; and I did not envy them their long ride to the next post, with a blizzard brewing. When his work is over or the snow comes down the settler may sleep snugly and sound, or lounge in tranquil contentment beside the twinkling stove, while, as the price of his security, the Northwest Police, snatching sometimes a few hours’ rest under the gray cloud in a trench of snow, and sometimes riding a grim race with death, keep watch and ward over the vast territories. We do not rear desperadoes on the prairie, though some few are sent to us. Neither do they take root and flourish among us, because ours is a hard country and there are not many men in it worth robbing. However, there had been trouble over the border when the rich Cattle Barons strove to crowd out the poor man, and the hardest hit among the latter, with murderous Winchesters, lay in wait for the oppressor. I do not know the wrongs and rights of the whole question; neither were details of every skirmish published by the American press; but cruel things were done by each side, and it took a strong force of United States cavalry to restore order. Then broken men who had lost their livelihood, and some with a price upon their heads, made their name a terror on both sides of the frontier and kept the troopers busy.
So I was glad that those particular outlaws had journeyed south, and was even more pleased when I reached the coulée, for the cold was increasing and the ride had grown inexpressibly dreary. It was warmer down in the hollow among the trees, but so black that it was the horse rather80than I that avoided them, while now and then a branch lashed my forehead like a whip. There were cypress among them resembling solid masses of gloom, and the wind howled weirdly; but at last I blundered up the winding trail into sight of Carrington Manor. The big log-and-frame-built house was dark and silent, and though I knew that at least the majority of its inhabitants were at Lone Hollow the sight depressed me. Then, just as we drew clear of the trees, I checked the horse, for, silhouetted blackly against the sky, a single mounted figure kept watch over it. Perhaps it was instinctive caution, or it may have been that Grace’s uneasiness had infected me, but I led Jasper’s horse back into the coulée and hitched him to a tree, then, unslinging the rifle, stood still shivering as I watched the figure.
There was something sinister about it, and it might have been frozen stiff but for a faint rattle as the horse moved its head, while once I caught a rigid line across the saddle which suspiciously resembled a rifle. Then, recalling what Sergeant Macfarlane had said, I knew that while the police rode hot-foot toward the boundary the rustlers had doubled on their tracks to hold up Carrington Manor. It also struck me that as the main trail ran straight across the prairie the watcher knew nothing about the bridle-path through the coulée. In any case, it was plainly my duty to reach the homestead and render assistance if I could.
I made sure that the Winchester cylinder was filled with cartridges by pressing back the slide, and then I crept cautiously, with the dark trees for a background, toward the building, observing as I did so that the latter rendered the scout invisible to any one approaching by the direct trail. Then, stooping low, I crossed the bare space which divided me from the house, trusting that a humming bullet might not overtake me, and reached it safely with a heart that beat at twice its usual speed. It is one thing to face danger81in hot blood, but it is quite another and much more unpleasant matter to slink through the darkness wondering whether a foe one cannot see is following each movement with a rifle. Neither is there any chance of hitting back in such cases; for it is my opinion, from watching a stricken deer, that at short ranges the blow comes almost simultaneously as the optic nerve records the flash and before the ear has caught the explosion. All this I considered as I flattened myself against the wall—for I was by no means braver than my fellows—and presently, yard by yard, wormed myself along it until I passed a corner.
There a light shone out across the snow from a window, and I am perfectly willing to admit that I crawled toward it on hands and knees, for angry voices now reached me, and I knew that if I raised myself and the watcher had changed his position he could see me. I reached the sill at last with the rifle clenched in one mittened hand; and while I debated on my next procedure I heard Colonel Carrington say slowly and fiercely:
“I will neither sign nor tell you!”
Then, reflecting that while one can always see into a lighted room those inside it cannot see out, I determined to risk the scout’s vigilance, and raised my head cautiously, for it was plain that something quite unusual went on inside. I looked into a kind of ante-room on one side of the entrance, which the ruler of Carrington used as an office or study. He sat in a basket chair with a frown on his face and disdain in his eyes, while a burly man muffled in wrappings leaned on the table opposite him, holding a rifle, the muzzle of which was turned toward the Colonel’s breast. But there was no sign of fear about him, and I had heard the settlers say that nothing living could make Colonel Carrington flinch. An open check-book and some note-paper lay beside an inkstand on the table, and another armed82ruffian stood near the stove. The door of the hall close by stood partly open, and their voices were audible through it.
“I guess it’s quite simple, but you make us tired,” the latter said. “You’ll tell us where the chest is, and just fill in that check, with a letter vouching for the bearer and explaining why you want so much in a hurry. Then, as I said before, you’ll ride south with us a day or two while we arrange for cashing it, after which we’ll let you go safely, on our honor.”
Colonel Carrington laughed sardonically, and I could fancy his thin lips curling under the gray mustache before he answered:
“I hardly consider that a sufficient guarantee. Again, I will neither sign nor tell you where the chest is. Confusion to you!”
“You’re a hard man,” said the other almost admiringly. “If we’d had you to head us we’d have bluffed off Uncle Sam’s troopers at the Cypress range. Still, we’ve no time for fooling, and if Jim finds the chest without you we’ll risk putting up the price a thousand dollars or so. Jim is tolerably handy at finding things. See here, you have got to sign it, and sign it now, before this Winchester makes a mess of you!”
The Colonel glanced at the rifle coolly, as he answered: “I fail to see what good that would do. My handwriting is peculiar; you couldn’t imitate it, while you would certainly be hanged when the troopers laid hands on you.”
This was incontrovertible logic, and the two outlaws drawing apart conferred with each other softly, while I debated what I should do. The casement was a double one, but I felt sure I could drive a bullet through one of them. Still, even in the circumstances it looked too much like murder, and to this day I have never taken the83life of a man, though occasionally forced into handling one roughly. Before any decision could be arrived at a tramp of feet in the hall showed that somebody approached under a burden.
“Keep the muzzle on him,” said one. “I guess Jim has found the coffer, and we’ll make sure of that. I’ll help him to cinch it on the horse if we can’t open it. Colonel, we’ll have to fine you the further thousand dollars.”
I realized it was high time for me to vacate that position unless I wished the couple to discover me, and so I slipped back into the shadow, just in time, as they strode out carrying something. I watched them vanish into the blackness, heard the scout answer their hail, and then I crawled back swiftly—toward the door this time. A glance through the window in passing showed me that the remaining outlaw stood with his back toward the entrance, and his eyes fixed on the Colonel. The door was half closed when I reached it, and for a moment I stood there shortening my grip on the rifle and gathering my breath; then with a bound I drove it inward, and whirled aloft the butt of the Winchester.
The outlaw twisted round on his heels; but he moved an instant too late, for even as his fingers tightened on the trigger the steel heel-plate descended in the center of his face, and I felt something crunch in under it. He staggered sideways, there was a crash as the rifle exploded harmlessly, and before he could recover I had him by the neck and hurled him half-choked through the door. I had the sense to slam it and slip the bolt home; then, while I stood panting, the Colonel prepared to improve our position.
“Close those shutters and screw down the wing-nut hard,” he said, hanging the lamp close beside the door. “Now, stand here in the shadow. I am much obliged to you, but you should have made certain of that fellow.”84
It was only natural that he should feel resentment; but there was a cold vindictiveness in his tone which made me realize that it was as well for the outlaw that I had not left him in the room. Then he spoke again:
“We have two good weapons; that rascal’s cylinder is charged—I saw him fill it out of my own bandolier, and there is an armory in the other room. They took me by surprise—in Western parlance, got the drop on me. Of course they’ll come back, but all the doors and windows are fast, and we could hear them breaking in, while in this kind of work the risk is with the aggressor.”
A pounding on the door cut him short, and a hoarse, partly muffled voice reached us:
“We’re about sick of fooling, and mean solid business now,” it said. “Open, and be quick about it, before we smash that door down and try moral suasion by roasting both of you.”
“You should have stayed when you were in,” was the ironical answer. “No doubt you have observed the light under the door. Well, the first man across the threshold will get a bullet through him before he even sees us. Haven’t you realized yet that this undertaking is too big for you?”
“Curse him; he’s busted my best teeth in. Hunt round and find something for a battering ram,” cried another voice, but though the assailants had possibly not caught all the answer, they evidently understood the strength of our position, for we heard them moving away.
“Gone to open the chest in the stables; they won’t find much in it,” said Colonel Carrington. “They will try a fresh move next time. Mr. Lorimer, of Fairmead, are you not? I wish to express my obligations again.”
He took it very coolly, as it appeared he took everything, and smiled curiously as, glancing at his watch, he said85half-aloud: “Well, there are worse things than a clean swift ending, and there was a time when I should not have stepped aside to let death pass. But I apologize, Mr. Lorimer, for inflicting such talk on you. Hope we shall be friends if we come out of this safely. The check?—yes, we’ll put it away. It might have saved trouble to sign it, but you see it was her mother’s money, and I only hold it in trust for my daughter. Neither are we as rich as some suppose us to be.”
His grim face relaxed, and his voice sounded different when he spoke of Grace, while a few moments passed before he added:
“It cannot be far from dawn, and there’s not a soul in Carrington except you and myself. Grace took all my people with her to help at Lone Hollow. So, unless you are inclined to stalk them, which I should hardly suggest, as they might be too clever for you, we must await our friends’ arrival and make the best of it.”
I had no inclination whatever to try the stalking. To take a kneeling shot at an unsuspecting man seemed in any circumstances almost a crime; so we sat each with a rifle laid across his knees, and for the first time in two years I tasted excellent tobacco. But the vigil grew trying. The house seemed filled with whispers and mysterious noises. My throat grew dry, and the Colonel laughed when once I moved sharply as a rat scurried behind the wainscot. Neither of us felt inclined to talk, and our eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the door, until at last the lamp seemed to rise and fall with each respiration. Then the Colonel approached the window as though listening, after glancing once more at his watch.
“It must be daybreak, and I hear something,” he said. “There is probably one of them watching, but we must chance it,” and he moved softly toward the door. When86we stood outside the cold of the morning went through me like a knife. Still a rapid beat of horse hoofs rose out of the big coulée, and it was evident that the outlaws had heard them, for we saw two men busy with the horses at the stable door, while two more disappeared behind the bank of sods that walled off the vegetable garden. What their purpose was, unless they meant to check any accession to our strength while their comrades escaped with the coffer, was not apparent. It was blowing strongly now, and the air was thick with falling snow, but I made out two riders who resembled Harry and Ormond coming toward us at a gallop, with another horseman some distance behind. Then a hoarse shout reached us—“Stop right there, and wheel your horses before we plug you!”
I could not see into the hollow beneath the wall because it was some distance off and the snow whirled about it, but I could imagine the Winchester barrel resting on the sods while a steady eye stared through the sights, and knew that neither Ormond nor Harry carried weapons. So I started at a flounder toward them, roaring as I went:
“Go back—for your life, go back!”
They evidently did not hear me, though we were afterwards to hear the reason for an apparent act of madness. Harry was always reckless, and Ormond coolly brave, while as I ran I saw the two horses flying at the wall. A streak of red flame blazed out low down in the snow, a mounted man passed me leading two horses, and I neither knew nor cared whether he noticed me, for I felt suddenly dizzy, wondering whether the bullet had gone home. Neither did I hear any report at all, for my whole attention was concentrated on the black shapes of the riders breast high beyond the wall. Then one beast rose into the air, and I saw Ormond swing a riding crop round backward as though for the sword cut from behind the shoulder. A soft thud87followed, Harry’s horse cleared the sods like a bird, and I blazed off my rifle at a venture toward the hollow as they thundered neck and neck past me. It was clear that empty-handed they had ridden either over or through the foe.
After that events followed too rapidly to leave a clear impression. A pair of half-seen figures which appeared at the other end of the hollow scrambled for the empty saddles, and one seemed to help his companion. Then they vanished into the whirling haze, and Colonel Carrington’s Winchester rapped as he emptied the magazine at the flying foe, while by the time the new arrivals had mastered their excited beasts there was only a narrow circle of prairie shut in by blinding snow.
“Very glad to find you safe, sir,” said Ormond. “We met the Blackfoot who peddles moccasins, and he told us he had seen four men he thought were Stevens’ gang heading for Carrington, so we pushed on as fast as we could. Perhaps if we three went on with rifles we might overtake them.”
Harry looked eager, and I was willing, but Colonel Carrington was wisest:
“You have done gallantly,” he said, “but it would only be throwing lives away. The snow is coming in earnest, and it strikes me they have gone to their account unless they find shelter in a coulée.”
Then they dismounted, and a hired man, who had lagged behind through indifferent horseflesh and no fault of his own, was despatched to prepare breakfast, and it was a merry party that assembled round the table. Even the ruler of Carrington’s grim face relaxed.
“I am glad to make the acquaintance of both of you,” he said. “You will make the best of Carrington I hope for a day or two.”
We were nothing loth, for twenty miles of deepening88snow lay between us and our homestead, where we had little to do, while to complete my satisfaction Grace and her train arrived in the Lone Hollow sleigh early the next morning, and on hearing the story her eyes glistened as she thanked me. “I am so glad I sent you,” she said, “and I feel I owe my father’s safety, perhaps his life, to you. It is a debt I can never repay.”
It was late that afternoon when another sleigh drew up before the Carrington gate, and three white-sheeted troopers lifted a heavy burden out of it. The thing, which seemed a shapeless heap of snow and wrappings, hung limply between them as they carried it into the hall, while it was Sergeant Angus Macfarlane who explained their errand.
“Lay him down there gently, boys,” he said. “No, stand back, Miss Carrington, these kind o’ sights are no for you. We found him in a coulée after yon Blackfoot peddler had told us Stevens had fooled us, and ye’ll mind it’s no that easy to fool the Northwest Police. He’s one o’ the gang, but the poor soul’s got several ribs broken, an’ after lying out through the blizzard I’m thinking he’s near his end. It’s a long ride to the outpost, forbye we have no comforts. Maybe ye’ll take him—ay, I ken he’s a robber, but ye cannot leave him to perish in the snow.”
He flung back the wrappings, and before I could stop her Grace bent down over the drawn white face with the red froth on the lips, while Ormond said quietly:
“Very bad, poor devil! I fancied Robin’s hoofs struck something that yielded when he made a landing. You will take him in if it’s only to oblige me, sir.”
Grace stood upright with tender compassion shining in her wet eyes as she fixed them on the old man.
“I am a woman now, father,” she said, “and I should like to help to cure him if it can be done. We shall do everything possible for him, anyway. Bring him89forward, Sergeant Angus. Geoffrey, you know something of surgery.”
“I don’t make war on dying men. You will do whatever pleases you, Grace,” the ruler of Carrington answered, indifferently.
They carried their burden into another room, and I waited beside the stove, with two faces stamped on my memory. The one was that of the wounded man with its contraction of pain and glassy stare, and the other the countenance of Grace Carrington transfigured for a moment by a great pity that added to its loveliness. Still, the coming of this unexpected guest cast a gloom upon us, and we seldom saw Grace, while Ormond, who seemed to know a little of everything, once said on passing: “I have fixed him up as well as I could, but I think a broken rib has pierced his lung, and he’s sinking rapidly. However, Miss Carrington is doing her best, and he could not have a more efficient nurse.”
It was late in the afternoon when, on tapping at the door in search of tidings, Ormond called me in. The daylight was fading, but I could see the limp, suffering shape on the bed, and Grace sitting near the window, leaning forward as though listening.
“Light-headed at times!” said Ormond; “but he was asking for you. Do you feel any easier now? Here’s another inquirer anxious to hear good news of you.”
The man turned his drawn face toward me, and tried to smile as he said: “I guess you’re very good. Hope you don’t bear malice. You oughtn’t to anyhow—nearly broke my neck when you fired me through the doorway. All in the way of business, and I’m corralled now.”
I bent my head with a friendly gesture, for even I could read death in his face, and the outlaw, glancing toward Grace, added:90
“If I’d known you, Missy, we’d never have held up this homestead. White people all through, and you’re a prairie daisy. What made me do it? Well, I guess that’s a long story, and some of it might scare you. A big man froze me off my land, and some one rebranded my few head of stock. Law! we don’t count much on that; it’s often the biggest rascals corral the offices, and we just laid for them with the rifle. They were too many for us—and this is the end of it.”
Grace moved toward him whispering something I could not catch, but the man smiled feebly, and I heard the grim answer:
“No; I guess it’s rather too late for that. I lived my own way, and I can die that way too. Don’t back down on one’s partners; kind of mean, isn’t it? And if it’s true what you’re saying I’ll just accept my sentence. Going out before the morning; but I sent two of the men who robbed me to perdition first.”
Ormond raised his hand for silence, and again I could hear the shrilling of the bitter wind that was never still. Then he said softly: “You are only exciting him, and had better go,” and with a last glance at Grace’s slender figure stooping beside the bed I went out softly.
It was nearly midnight and a cold creepiness pervaded everything when he joined the rest of us round the stove.
“Gone!” he said simply. “Just clenched his hand and died. There was some fine material wasted in that man. Well, I think he was wronged somehow, and I’m sorry for him.”
We turned away in silence, for a shadow rested upon Carrington, while the outlaw lay in state in the homestead he had helped to rob, until the Northwest Police bore what was left of him away. But before that time we rode back to Fairmead.