CHAPTER XXIVTHE LANDING
The ice among the inlets on the American side of the North Pacific broke up unusually early when spring came round again, and several weeks before Wyllard had expected it theSelachefloated clear. The crew had suffered little during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept the men busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted the schooner with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of the sailors had been trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used ax and saw to some purpose in their time.
Wyllard was satisfied when they thrashed theSelacheout of the inlet under whole mainsail in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel. He was in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights dropped back astern. He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether Agatha had married Gregory yet. It seemed to him that it was, at least, possible that Agatha was married, for she was one to keep a promise, and it was difficult to believe that Gregory would fail to press his claim. Wyllard’s face grew grim as he thought of it, though this was a thing he had done more or less constantly during the winter. He fancied that he might have ousted Gregory if he had remained at the Range, for perhaps unconsciously Agatha had shown him that she was not quite indifferent to him; but that would have been to involve her in a breach of faith which she would probably always have looked backon with regret. In any case he could not have stayed to press his suit. He knew that he would never forget her, but it was not impossible that she might forget him. He realized also, though this was not by comparison a matter of great consequence, that the Range was scarcely likely to prosper under Gregory’s management, but that could not be helped, and after all he owed Gregory something. It never occurred to him that he was doing an extravagant thing in setting out upon the search that he had undertaken. He felt that the obligation was laid upon him, and, being what he was, he could not shrink from it.
A puff of spray that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and when a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, he helped the others to haul down a reef in the mainsail. That accomplished, he went below and brought out a well-worn chart. TheSelachedrove away to the westwards over a white-flecked sea. This time she carried fresh southerly breezes with her most of the way across the Pacific, and plunged along hove down under the last piece of canvas they dared to set upon her until at last they ran into the fog close in to the Kamtchatkan beaches. Then the wind dropped, and they were baffled by light and fitful breezes, while it became evident that there was ice about.
The day they saw the first big mass of ice gleaming broad across their course on a raw green sea, Dampier got an observation, and they held a brief council in the little cabin that evening. The schooner was hove to then, and lay rolling with banging blocks and thrashing canvas on a sluggish heave of sea.
“Thirty miles off shore,” announced Dampier. “If it had been clear enough we’d have seen the top of the big range quite a way further out to sea. Now, it’s drift ice ahead of us, but it’s quite likely there’s a solid block alongthe beach. Winter holds on a long while in this country. I guess you’re for pushing on as fast as you can?”
Wyllard nodded. “Of course,” he said, “you’ll look for an opening, and work her in as far as possible. Then, if it’s necessary, Charly and I and another man will take the sled and head for the beach across the ice. If there’s a lane anywhere I would, however, probably take the smallest boat. We might haul her a league or two, anyway, on the sled if the ice wasn’t very rough.”
He looked at Charly, who acquiesced.
“Well,” Charly observed simply, “I guess I’ll have to see you through. Now we’ve made a sled for her I’d take the boat, anyway. We’re quite likely to strike a big streak of water when the ice is breaking up.”
“There’s one other course,” declared Dampier; “the sensible one, and that’s to wait until it has gone altogether. Seems to me I ought to mention it, though it’s not likely to appeal to you.”
Wyllard laughed. “From all appearances we might wait a month. I don’t want to stay up here any longer than is strictly necessary.”
“You’ll head north?”
“That’s my intention.”
“Then,” said Dampier, pointing to the chart before them, “as you should make the beach in the next day or two I’ll head for the inlet here. As it’s not very far you won’t have to pack so many provisions along, and I’ll give you, say, three weeks to turn up in. If you don’t, I’ll figure that there’s something wrong, and do what seems advisable.”
They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of the creeping haze, they sailed theSelacheslowly shorewards among the drifting ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretchedgleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard turned in soon afterwards and slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter and there was no occasion for new plans. When morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view.
The schooner lay to with backed fore-staysail tumbling wildly on a dim, gray sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a dingy haze, and there was a low, gray sky to weather. Now and then a fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode up to him.
“I guess you’d better put it off,” he said. “I don’t like the weather; we’ll have wind before long.”
Wyllard smiled, and Dampier made a forceful gesture.
“Then,” he advised, “I’d get on to the ice just as soon as possible. You’re still quite a way off the beach.”
Wyllard shook hands with him. “We should make the inlet in about nine days, and if I don’t turn up in three weeks you’ll know there’s something wrong,” he said. “If there’s no sign of me in another week you can take her home again.”
Dampier, who made no further comment, bade them swing the boat over, and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner.
They gazed at theSelachewith grim faces as they pulled away, and Wyllard, who loosed his oar a moment to wave his fur cap when Dampier stood upon her rail, was glad when a fresher rush of the bitter breeze forced him to fix his attention on his task. The boat was heavily loaded, and the tops of the gray seas splashed unpleasantly close about her gunwale. She was running before them, rising sharply, and dropping down into the hollows, out of sight of all but the schooner’s canvas, and though this made rowing easier, Wyllard was apprehensive of difficulties when he reached the ice.
His misgivings proved warranted, for the ice presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea spouted. There was no doubt as to what would happen if the frail craft was hurled upon that frozen mass, and Wyllard, who was sculling, fancied that before the boat could even reach it, there was a probability of her being swamped in the upheaval where the backwash met the oncoming sea. Charly looked at him dubiously.
“It’s a sure thing we can’t get out there,” Charly observed.
Wyllard nodded. “Then,” he said, “we’ll pull along the edge of it until we find an opening or something to make a lee. The sea’s higher than it seemed to be from the schooner.”
“We’ve got to do it soon,” Charly declared. “There’s more wind not far away.”
Wyllard dipped his oar again, and for an hour they pulled along the edge of the ice, for there were now little frothing white tops on the seas.
It was evident that the wind was freshening, and at times a deluge of icy water slopped in over the gunwale. The men were hampered by their furs, and the stores lying about their feet.
The perspiration dripped from Wyllard when they approached a ragged, jutting point. It did not seem advisable to attempt a landing on that side of it, and when a little snow began to fall he looked at his companions.
“I guess we’ve got to pull her out,” said Charly. “Dampier’s heaving a reef down; he sees what’s working up to windward.”
Wyllard could barely make out the schooner, which had apparently followed them, a blur of dusky canvas against a bank of haze, and then as the boat slid down into a hollow there was nothing but the low-hung, lowering sky. It was evident to him that if they were to make a landing it must be done promptly.
“We’ll pull around the point first, anyway,” he decided.
A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and to handle the boat circumspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice the little craft nearly rolled over with them. It became apparent by degrees that, as they could not have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an egress of some kind around the point, the ragged tongue of which was horribly close to lee of them. When the snow cleared for a minute or two, they saw that Dampier had driven theSelachefurther off the ice. The schooner was hove to now, and there was a black figure high up in her shrouds.
A bitter rush of wind hurled the spray about them, and the boat fell off almost beam-on to the sea, in spite of all that they could do. The icy brine washed intothe boat, and it seemed almost certain that she would swamp or roll over before they could get way on her. Still, pulling desperately, they drove her around the point. Gasping and dripping they made their last effort. A sea rolled up ahead, and as the boat swung up with it Wyllard had a momentary glimpse of an opening not far away. He shouted to his companions, but could not tell whether they heard and understood him, for after that he was conscious only of rowing savagely until another sea broke into the boat and she struck. There was a crash, and she swung clear with the backwash, with all one side smashed in. Then she swung in again just beyond a tongue of ice over which the froth was pouring tumultuously, and the Indian jumped from the bow. He had the painter with him, and for half a minute, standing in the foam, he held the boat somehow, while they hurled a few of the carefully made-up packages that composed her important freight as far on to the ice as possible.
As Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, the disabled boat rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, who drove towards them amid a long wash of foam. They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a sudden haze of snow whirled about them. There was no sign of the schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her. The sea rumbled along the edge of the ice, and they could not tell whether the frozen wall extended as far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke.
“We have got the hand-sled, and some, at least, of thethings,” he said. “The sooner we start for the beach the sooner we’ll get there.”
It was a relief to load the sled, and when that was done they put themselves into the hide traces and set off across the ice. Their traveling was arduous work apart from the hauling of the load, for the ice was rough and broken, and covered for the most part with softening snow. They had only gum-boots with soft hide moccasins under them, for snow-shoes are used only in Eastern Canada, and it takes one a long while to learn to walk on them.
Sometimes the three men sank almost knee-deep, sometimes they slipped and scrambled on uncovered ledges, but they pushed on with the sled bouncing and sliding unevenly behind them, until the afternoon had almost gone.
They set up the wet tent behind a hummock, and crouched inside it upon a ground-sheet, while Charly boiled a kettle on the little oil blast stove. The wind hurled the snow upon the straining canvas, which stood the buffeting. When they had eaten a simple meal Charly put the stove out and the darkness was not broken except when one of them struck a match to light his pipe. They had but one strip of rubber sheeting between them and the snow, for the water had gotten into the sleeping bags. Their clothes dried upon them with the heat of their bodies. They said nothing for a while, and Wyllard was half asleep when Charly spoke.
“I’ve been thinking about that boat,” he remarked. “Though I don’t know that we could have done it, we ought to have tried to pull her out.”
“Why?” asked Wyllard. “She’d have been all to pieces, anyway.
“I’m figuring it out like this. If Dampier wasn’t up in the shrouds when we made the landing he’d sent somebody. We could see him up against the sky, butwe’d be much less clear to him low down with the ice and the surf about us. Besides, it was snowing quite fast then. Well, I don’t know what Dampier saw, but I guess he’d have made out that we hadn’t hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with the wind freshening and it getting thick he’d have to thrash the schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it’s quite likely that he’ll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me that’s going to worry him considerable.”
Wyllard, drowsy as he was, agreed with this view of the matter. He realized that it would have been quite impossible for Dampier to send them any assistance, and it was merely a question whether they should retrace their steps to the edge of the ice next morning and make him some signal. Against this there was the strong probability that he would not run in, if the gale and snow continued, and the fact that it was desirable to make the beach as soon as possible in case the ice broke up before they reached it. What was rather more to the purpose, Wyllard was quietly determined on pushing on.
“It can’t be helped,” he said simply. “We’ll start for the beach as soon as it’s daylight.”
Charly made no answer, and the brawny, dark-skinned Siwash, who spoke English reasonably well, merely grunted. Unless it seemed necessary, he seldom said anything at all. Bred to the sea, and living on the seal and salmon, an additional hazard or two or an extra strain on his tough body did not count for much with him. He had been accustomed to sleep wet through with icy water, and to crouch for hours with numbed hands clenched on the steering-paddle while the long sea canoe scudded furiously over the big combers before bitter gale or driving snow. Wyllard, who rolled over, pulled a wet sleeping-bagacross him, and after that there was silence in the little rocking tent.
Charly’s deductions had been proved correct, for when the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed the ominous blackness to windward, and he knew what it meant. That was why he had hauled down a reef in the schooner’s mainsail, and now kept the vessel out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her around the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in. There was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as theSelachesped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. A blinding haze of snow suddenly shut out everything, and the skipper hastened down to the deck. He stood beside the wheel for several minutes. Gazing forward, he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident that to send Wyllard any assistance was utterly beyond his power. He could have hove to the schooner while he got the bigger boat over, and two men might have pulled towards the ice with the breeze astern of them, but it was perfectly clear that they could have neither made a landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also uncertain whether he and the other man could have brought the schooner round or have gotten more sail off her. He stood still until they heardthe wash of the sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched hand he raised in sign to the helmsman.
“On the wind! Haul lee sheets!” he commanded.
TheSelachecame round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a tense look in the white men’s faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze to lee of her. They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed its shape. They got a boat over, and the two men who went off in her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly’s cap washing up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what that meant.
CHAPTER XXVNEWS OF DISASTER
When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the men, and with difficulty contrived to make a landing on the ice only to find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though Dampier floundered shorewards a mile or two, there was nothing except the shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions. The skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, retained little hope of seeing them again. Dampier waited two days until a strong breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and he then stood out for the open sea, where he hove theSelacheto for a week or so. After that he proceeded northward to the inlet Wyllard and he had agreed to.
Dampier was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days’ march from the schooner, he made a depôt of provisions, and piled a heap of stones beside them. At times, when it was clear, he could see the top of a great range high up against the western sky, but those times were rare. For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain or wrapped in clammy fog.
There was, however, no sign of Wyllard, and at last Dampier, coming back jaded and dejected from anotherfruitless search, after the time agreed upon had expired, shut himself up alone for a couple of hours in the little cabin. He was certain now that Wyllard and his companions had been drowned while attempting to make a landing on the ice, since they would have joined him at the inlet as arranged had this not been the case. The distance was by no means great, and there were no Russian settlements on that part of the coast. The skipper sat very still with a clenched hand upon the little table, balancing conjecture against conjecture, and then regretfully decided that there was only one course open to him. It was dark when he went up on deck again, but the men were sitting smoking about the windlass forward.
“You can heave some of that cable in, boys,” he announced. “We’ll clear out for Vancouver at sun-up.”
The men said nothing, but they shipped the levers, and Dampier went back to the cabin, for the clank of the windlass and the ringing of the cable jarred upon him.
Early next morning theSelachestood out to sea, and once they had left behind them the fog and rain near the coast, she carried fine weather with her across the Pacific. On reaching Vancouver, Dampier had some trouble with the authorities, to whom it was necessary to report the drowning of three of his crew, but he was more fortunate than he expected, and after placing the schooner for sale with a broker, he left the city one evening on the Atlantic train. Three days later he was driving across the prairie towards the Hastings homestead. The members were sitting together in the big general room after supper, when the wagon Dampier had hired swung into sight over the crest of a hill.
It was a still, hot evening, and, as the windows were open wide, a faint beat of hoofs came up across the tall wheat and dusty prairie before the wagon topped the rise.Hastings, who sat in a cane chair near the window, with his pipe in his hand, looked up as he heard it.
“Somebody driving in,” he remarked. “I shouldn’t be astonished if it’s Gregory. He talked about coming over the last time I saw him.”
“If he wants to talk about a deal in wheat, he can stay away,” said Mrs. Hastings sharply. “If all one hears is true, he has lost quite a few of Harry’s dollars on the market lately.”
Hastings looked troubled at this. “I’d sooner think it was his own money he’d thrown away.”
“That’s quite out of the question. He hasn’t any.”
“Well,” said Hastings, with an air of reflection, “I’ll get Sproatly to make inquiries. He’ll probably be along with Winifred this evening, and if he finds that Gregory is getting in rather deep I’ll have a word or two with him. I can’t have him wasting Harry’s money, and, as one of the executors, I have a right to protest.”
Agatha started at the last word. It had an ominous ring, and she fancied that Hastings had noticed the effect on her, for he glanced at her curiously. Turning from him, she rose and walked to the window.
The wheat stretched across the foreground, tall and darkly green, and beyond it the white grass ran back to the hill, which cut sharply against a red and smoky glow. The sun had gone down some time before, and there was an exhilarating coolness in the air. Somehow the sight reminded her of another evening, when she had looked out across the prairie from a seat at Wyllard’s table. Almost a year had passed since then.
The wagon drew nearer down the long slope of the hill, and the beat of hoofs that grew steadily louder in a sharp staccato made the memories clearer. She had heard Dampier riding in the night Wyllard had received his summons,and now she wondered who the approaching stranger was, and what his business could be. She did not know why, but she thought it was not Gregory.
Presently Hastings looked round again. “It’s the team Bramfield hires out at the settlement,” he said. “None of our friends would get him to drive them in. There seem to be two men in the wagon. Bramfield will be one. I can’t make out the other.”
Mrs. Hastings, who was evidently becoming curious about the unexpected guest, went to his side, and they stood watching the wagon until Agatha made an abrupt movement.
“It’s Captain Dampier!” she exclaimed with foreboding in her voice.
She stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the wagon for another moment or two.
“Yes,” he said, and his voice was harsh, “it’s Dampier. The other man’s surely Bramfield. Harry’s not with him.”
He glanced at Agatha, who turned away, and sat down in the nearest chair. She made no comment, and there was an oppressive silence, through which the beat of hoofs and rattle of wheels rang more distinctly.
It seemed a long time before Dampier came in. He shook hands with Agatha and Mrs. Hastings diffidently.
“You remember me?” he asked.
“Of course,” answered Mrs. Hastings, with impatience in her tone. “Where’s Harry?”
The skipper spread a hard hand out, and sat down heavily.
“That,” he said, “is what I have to tell you. He asked me to.”
“He asked you to?” questioned Agatha, and though her voice was strained there was relief in it.
Dampier made a gesture, which seemed to beseech her patience.
“Yes,” he said, “if—anything went wrong—he told me I was to come here to Mrs. Hastings.”
Agatha turned her head away, but Mrs. Hastings saw that she caught her breath before she cried:
“Then something has gone wrong!”
“About as wrong as it could.” Dampier met her gaze gravely. “Wyllard and two other men are drowned.”
He paused as if watching for words that might soften the dire meaning of his message, and Mrs. Hastings saw Agatha shiver. The girl turned slowly around with a drawn white face. It was, however, Hastings who spoke, almost sternly.
“Go on,” he said.
“I’m to tell you all?”
This time it was Agatha who broke in.
“Yes,” she replied, with a steadiness that struck the others as being strained and unnatural, “you must tell us all.”
Dampier, who appeared to shrink from his task, began awkwardly, but he gained coherence and force of expression as he proceeded. He made them understand something of the grim resolution which had animated Wyllard. He pictured, in terse seaman’s words, the little schooner plunging to windward over long phalanxes of icy seas, or crawling white with snow through the blinding fog. His listeners saw the big combers tumbling ready to break short upon the dipping bows, and half-frozen men struggling for dear life with folds of madly thrashing sail. The pictures were necessarily somewhat blurred and hazy, for after all only an epic poet could fittingly describe the things that must be done and borne at sea, and epic poets are not bred in the forecastle. When he reached the lastscene he gained dramatic power, and Agatha’s face grew white and tense. She saw the dim figures pulling the boat through the flying spray beneath the wall of ice.
“We ran her in,” he told them, “with the snow blinding us. It was working up for a heavy blow, and as we’d have to beat her out we couldn’t take sail off her. We stood on until we heard the sea along the edge of the ice, and then there was nothing to do but jam her on the wind and thrash her clear. There was only a plank or two of the boat, an oar, and Charly’s cap, when we came back again!”
“After all, though the boat was smashed, they might have gotten out,” Hastings suggested.
“Well,” said Dampier simply, “it didn’t seem likely. The ice was sharp and ragged, and there was a long wash of sea. A man’s not tough enough to stand much of that kind of hammering.”
Agatha’s face grew whiter, but Dampier went on again.
“Anyway,” he said, “they didn’t turn up at the inlet as we’d fixed, and that decided the thing. If Wyllard had been alive, he surely would have been there.”
“Isn’t it just possible that he might have fallen into the hands of the Russians?” asked Hastings.
“I naturally thought of that, but so far as the chart shows there isn’t a settlement within leagues of the spot. Besides, supposing the Russians had got him, how could I have helped him? They’d have sent him off in the first place to one of the bigger settlements in the South, and if the authorities couldn’t have connected him with any illegal sealing they’d no doubt have managed to send him across to Japan by and by. In that case, he’d have gotten home without any trouble.”
Dampier paused, and it was significant that he turned to Agatha with a deprecatory gesture.
“No,” he added, “there was nothing I could do.”
It was evident that Agatha acquitted him, but she asked a question.
“Captain Dampier,” she said, “had you any expectation of finding those three men when you sailed the second time?”
“No,” acknowledged the bronzed sailor, with an impressive calmness, “I hadn’t any, and I don’t think Wyllard had either. Still, he meant to make quite certain. He felt he had to.”
The skipper gazed at Agatha, and saw comprehension in her eyes.
“Yes,” she observed with an unsteady voice, “and when you have said that, you could say very little more of any man.”
She turned her head away from them, and for a few moments there was a heavy silence in the room. It cost the girl a painful effort to sit still, apparently unmoved, but there was strength in her, and she would not betray her distress. She felt that her grief must be endured bravely. It was almost overwhelming, but there was mingled with it a faint consolatory thrill of pride, for it was clear that the man who had loved her had done a splendid thing. He had given all that had been given him—she knew she would never forget that phrase of his—willingly, and it seemed to her that the traits with which he had been endowed were rare and precious ones. She recognized the steadfast, unflinching courage, and the fine sense of honor which had sent him out on that forlorn hope. Unyielding and undismayed he had gone down to death—she felt sure of that—amid the blinding snow.
Mrs. Hastings set food before Dampier. By and by Sproatly and Winifred arrived and they heard the story. After that Dampier, who had promised to stay with them a day or two, left Wyllard’s friends for an hour.
“It seems to me you’ll naturally want to talk over things,” he said; “if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take a stroll across the prairie.”
He went out, and Hastings looked at each member of the little group with hasty scrutiny.
“Harry’s friends are numerous, but we’re, perhaps, the nearest, and, as Dampier said, we have to consider things,” he observed, speaking with deliberation. “To begin with, there’s a certain possibility that he has escaped, after all.”
He saw the quick movement that Agatha made, and went on more quickly.
“Gregory, of course, has control of the Range until we have proof of Harry’s death, though Wyllard made a proviso that if there was no word of the party within eighteen months after he had sailed, or within six months of the time Dampier had landed him, we could assume it, after which the will he handed me would take effect. This, it is evident, leaves Gregory in charge for some months yet, but it seems to me it’s our duty to see he doesn’t fling away Harry’s property. I’ve reasons for believing that he has been doing it lately.”
He looked at Sproatly, who sat silent a moment or two.
“I’m rather awkwardly placed,” Sproatly remarked. “You see, there’s no doubt that I’m indebted to Gregory.”
Winifred turned to him with impatience in her eyes. “Then,” she said severely, “you certainly shouldn’t have been, and it ought to be quite clear that nobody wishes you to do anything that would hurt him.” She looked at Hastings. “In case the will takes effect, who does the property go to?”
Hastings appeared embarrassed. “That,” he objected, “is a thing I’m not warranted in telling you now.”
A suggestive gleam flashed into Winifred’s eyes, but it vanished and her manner became authoritative when she turned back to Sproatly.
“Jim,” she said, “you will tell Mr. Hastings all you know.”
Sproatly made a gesture of resignation. “After all,” he admitted, “I think it’s necessary. Gregory, as I’ve told you already, put a big mortgage on his place, and, in view of the price of wheat and the state of his crop, it’s evident that he must have had some difficulty in meeting the interest, unless—and one or two things suggest this—he paid it with Harry’s money. Of course, as Harry gave him a share, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t do this so long as he does not overdraw that share. There’s no doubt, however, that he has lost a good deal of money on the wheat market.”
“Has he lost any of Harry’s?” Mrs. Hastings asked.
Sproatly hesitated. “I’m afraid it’s practically certain.”
Winifred broke in. “Yes,” she asserted, “he has lost a great deal. Hamilton knows almost everything that’s going on, and I got it out of him. He’s a friend of Wyllard’s, and seems vexed with Gregory.”
The others did not speak for a moment or two, and then Mrs. Hastings said:
“Most of us don’t keep much in the bank, and that expedition must have cost Harry several thousand dollars. How would Gregory get hold of the money before harvest?”
“Edmonds, who holds his mortgage, would let him have it,” Sproatly explained.
“But wouldn’t he be afraid of Gregory not being able to pay, if the market went against him?”
Sproatly looked thoughtful. “The arrangement Wyllard made with Gregory would, perhaps, give Edmonds a claim upon the Range if Gregory borrowed any money in his name. I almost think that’s what the money-lender isscheming for. The man’s cunning enough for anything. I don’t like him.”
Hastings stood up with an air of resolution. “Yes,” he said, “I’m afraid you’re quite correct. Anyway, I’ll drive over in a day or two, and have a talk with Gregory.”
After that they separated. Hastings strolled away to join Dampier.
Sproatly and Winifred walked out on to the prairie. When they had left the house Sproatly turned to his companion.
“Why did you insist upon my telling them what I did?” he asked.
“Oh!” answered Winifred, “I had several reasons. For one thing, when I first came out feeling very forlorn and friendless, it was Wyllard who sent me to the elevator, and they really treat me very decently.”
“They?” repeated Sproatly with resentment in his face. “If you mean Hamilton, it seems to me that he treats you with an excess of decency that there’s no occasion for.”
Winifred laughed. “In any case, he doesn’t drive me out here every two or three weeks, though”—she glanced at her companion provokingly—“he once or twice suggested that he would like to.”
“I suppose you pointed out his presumption?”
“No,” confessed Winifred with an air of reflection, “I didn’t go quite so far as that. After all, the man is my employer; I had to handle him tactfully.”
“He won’t be your employer a week after the implement people open their new depôt,” returned Sproatly resolutely. “But we’re getting away from the subject. Have you any more reasons for concerning yourself about what Gregory does with Wyllard’s property?”
“I’ve one; I suppose you don’t know who he has left at least a part of it to?”
Sproatly started as an idea crept into his mind.
“I wonder if you’re right,” he said.
“I feel reasonably sure of it.” Winifred smiled. “In fact, that’s partly why I don’t want Gregory to throw any more of Wyllard’s money away. You have done all I expect from you.”
“Then Hastings is to go on with the thing?”
“Hastings,” Winifred assured him, “will fail—just as you would. This is a matter which requires to be handled delicately—and effectively.”
“Then who is going to undertake it?”
Winifred laughed. “Oh,” she answered, “a woman, naturally. I’m going back by and by to have a word or two with Mrs. Hastings.”
CHAPTER XXVITHE RESCUE
Winifred’s suspicions soon were proved correct, for Hastings, who drove over to the Range a day or two after her visit, returned home rather disturbed in temper after what he described as a very unsatisfactory interview with Hawtrey.
“I couldn’t make the man hear reason,” he informed Mrs. Hastings. “In fact, he practically told me that the matter was no concern of mine. I assured him that it concerned me directly as one of the executors of Harry’s will, and I’m afraid I afterwards indulged in a few personalities. I expect that blamed mortgage-broker has got a very strong hold on him.”
Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. “You have never told me anything about the will.”
“If I haven’t, it wasn’t for want of prompting,” returned Hastings dryly. “The will was sealed, and handed to me by Harry on the express understanding that it was not to be opened until we had proof that he was dead or until the six months mentioned had expired. If he turned up it would, of course, be handed back to him. He made me promise solemnly that I would not offer the least hint as to its provisions to anybody.”
Mrs. Hastings indulged in a shrug indicating resignation. “In that case I suppose I must be content, but he might have made an exception of—me. Anyway, I think I see how we can put what appears to be a little necessary pressure upon Gregory.” She turned again to her husbandrather abruptly. “After all, is it worth while for me to trouble about the thing?”
Hastings was taken off his guard. “Yes,” he said decidedly, “if you can put any pressure on Gregory I guess it would be very desirable to do it as soon as possible.”
“Then you think that Harry may turn up, after all?”
“I do,” said Hastings gravely, “I don’t know why. In any case it’s highly desirable that Gregory shouldn’t fling his property away.”
Mrs. Hastings smiled. “Well,” she said, “I’ll think over it. I’ll probably get Agatha to see what she can do in the first place.”
She saw a trace of uncertainty in her husband’s face.
“As you like,” he said. “Something must be done, but on the whole I’d rather you didn’t trouble Agatha about the matter. It would be wiser.”
Mrs. Hastings asked no more questions. She believed that she understood the situation, and she had Agatha’s interests at heart, for she had grown very fond of the girl. There was certainly one slight difficulty in the way of what she meant to do, but she determined to disregard it, though she admitted that it might, cause Agatha some embarrassment afterward. When she found the girl alone, she sat down beside her.
“My dear,” she said, “I wonder if I may ask whether you are quite convinced that Harry is dead?”
She felt that the question was necessary, though it seemed rather a cruel one.
“No,” replied Agatha calmly, “I can’t quite bring myself to believe it.”
“Then, since you heard what Sproatly said, you would be willing to do anything that appeared possible to prevent Gregory throwing Harry’s money away?”
“Yes,” said Agatha, “I have been thinking about it.”A sparkle of disdainful anger showed in her eyes. “Gregory seems to have been acting shamefully.”
“Then as he won’t listen to Allen, we must get Sally to impress that fact on him.”
“Sally?” questioned Agatha in evident astonishment.
Mrs. Hastings smiled. “I don’t think you understand Sally as well as I do. Of course, like the rest of us, she falls a long way short of perfection, and—though it’s a difficult subject—there’s no doubt that her conduct in leading Gregory on while he was still engaged to you was hardly quite correct. After all, however, you owe her something for that.”
“It isn’t very hard to forgive her for it,” confessed Agatha.
“Well, I want you to understand Sally. Right or wrong, she’s fond of Gregory. Of course, I’ve told you this already, but I must try to make it clear how that fact bears upon the business in hand. Sally certainly fought for him, and there’s no doubt that one could find fault with several things she did; but the point is that she’s evidently determined on making the most of him now she has got him. In some respects, at least, she’s absolutely straight—one hundred cents to the dollar is what Allen says of her—and although you might perhaps not have expected this, I believe it would hurt her horribly to feel that Gregory was squandering money that didn’t strictly belong to him.”
“Then you mean to make her understand what he is doing?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Hastings; “I want you to do it. I’ve reasons for believing that your influence would go further with her than mine. For one thing, I fancy she is feeling rather ashamed of herself.”
Agatha looked thoughtful. She had certainly not creditedSally with possessing any fine sense of honor, but she was willing to accept Mrs. Hastings’ assurance.
“The situation,” she pointed out, “is rather a delicate one. You wish to expose Gregory’s conduct to the girl he is going to marry, though, as you admit, the explanation will probably be painful to her. Can’t you understand that the course suggested is a particularly difficult and repugnant one—to me?”
“I’ve no doubt of it,” admitted Mrs. Hastings. “Still, I believe it must be adopted—for several reasons. In the first place, I think that if we can pull Gregory up now we shall save him from involving himself irretrievably. After all, perhaps, you owe him the effort. Then I think that we all owe something to Harry, and we can, at least, endeavor to carry out his wishes. He told what was to be done with his possessions in a will, and he never could have anticipated that Gregory would dissipate them as he is doing.”
The least reason, as she had foreseen, proved convincing to Agatha, and she made a sign of concurrence.
“If you will drive me over I will do what I can,” she promised.
Now that she had succeeded, Mrs. Hastings lost no time, and they set out for the Creighton homestead next day. Soon after they reached the house she contrived that Sally should be left alone with Agatha. The two girls stood outside the house together when Agatha turned to her companion.
“Sally,” she said, “there is something that I must tell you.”
Sally glanced at her face, and then walked forward until the log barn hid them from the house. She sat down upon a pile of straw and motioned to Agatha to take a place beside her.
“Now,” she observed sharply, “you can go on; it’s about Gregory, I suppose.”
Agatha, who found it very difficult to begin, though she had been well primed by Hastings on the previous evening, sat down in the straw, and looked about her for a moment or two. It was a hot afternoon, dazzlingly bright, and almost breathlessly still. In front of her the dark green wheat rolled waist-high, and beyond it the vast sweep of grass stretched back to the sky-line. Far away a team and a wagon slowly moved across the prairie, but that was the only sign of life, and no sound from the house reached them to break the heavy stillness.
She finally nerved herself to the effort, and spoke earnestly for several minutes before she glanced at Sally. It was evident that Sally had understood all that had been said, for she sat very still with a hard, set face.
“Oh!” Sally exclaimed, “if I’d thought you’d come to tell me this because you were vexed with me, I’d know what to do.”
This was what Agatha had dreaded. It certainly looked as if she had come to triumph over her rival’s humiliation, but Sally made it clear that she acquitted her of that intention.
“Still,” said Sally, “I know that wasn’t the reason, and I’m not mad with—you. It hurts”—she made an abrupt movement—“but I know it’s true.”
She turned to Agatha suddenly. “Why did you do it?”
“I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.”
“That was all?” Sally looked at her with incredulous eyes.
“No,” answered Agatha simply, “that was only part. It did not seem right that Gregory should go against Wyllard’s wishes, and gamble the Range away on the wheat market.”
She admitted it without hesitation, for she realized now exactly what had animated her to seek this painful interview. She was fighting Wyllard’s battle, and that fact sustained her.
Sally winced. “Yes” she agreed, “I guess you had to tell me. He was fond of you. One could be proud of that. Harry Wyllard never did anything low down and mean.”
Agatha did not resent her candor. Although this was a thing she would scarcely have credited a little while ago, she saw that the girl felt the contrast between Gregory’s character and that of the man whose place he had taken, and regretted it. Agatha’s eyes became dim with unshed tears.
“Wyllard, they think, is dead,” she said, in a low voice. “You have Gregory still.”
Sally looked at her with unveiled compassion, and Agatha did not shrink from it.
“Yes,” she declared, with a simplicity that became her, “and Gregory must have someone to—take care of him. I must do it if I can.”
There was no doubt that Agatha was stirred. This half-taught girl’s quiet acceptance of the burden that many women must carry made her almost ashamed.
“We will leave it to you,” she said.
It became evident that there was another side to Sally’s character, for her manner changed, and the hardness crept back into her face.
“Well,” she admitted, “I’d ’most been expecting something of this kind when I heard that man Edmonds was going to the Range. He has got a pull on Gregory, but he’s surely not going to feel quite happy when I get hold of him.”
She rose in another moment, and saying nothing further,walked back toward the house, in front of which they came upon Mrs. Hastings. Sally looked at Mrs. Hastings significantly.
“I’m going over to the Range after supper,” she said.
Mrs. Hastings drove away with Agatha. She said little to the girl during the journey, but an hour after they had reached the homestead she slipped quietly into Agatha’s room. She found her reclining in a big chair sobbing bitterly. She sat down close beside her, and laid a hand upon her shoulder.
“I don’t think Sally could have said anything to trouble you like this,” she said.
It was a moment or two before Agatha turned a wet, white face toward her, and saw gentle sympathy in her eyes. There was, she felt, no cause for reticence.
“No,” she said, “it was the contrast between us. She has Gregory.”
Mrs. Hastings showed sympathy and comprehension. “And you have lost Harry—but I think you have not lost him altogether. We do not know that he is dead—but even if it be so, it was all that was finest in him that he offered you. It is yours still.”
She sat silent a moment or two before she went on again.
“My dear, it is, perhaps, cold comfort, and I am not sure that I can make what I feel quite clear. Still, Harry was only human, and it is almost inevitable that, had it all turned out differently, he would have said and done things that would have offended you. Now he has left you a purged and stainless memory—one, I think, which must come very near to the reality. The man who went up there—for an idea, a fantastic point of honor—sloughed off every taint of the baseness that hampers most of us in doing it. It was a man changed and uplifted above allpetty things by a high chivalrous purpose, who made that last grim journey.”
Agatha realized the truth of this. Already Wyllard’s memory had become etherealized, and she treasured it as a very fine and precious thing. Still, though he now wore immortal laurels, that would not content her when all her human nature cried out for his bodily presence. She wanted him, as she had grown to love him, in the warm, erring flesh, and the vague, splendid vision was cold and remote. There was a barrier greater than that of crashing ice and bitter water between them.
“Oh!” she cried, “I have felt that. I try to feel it always—but just now it’s not enough.”
She turned her face away with a bitter sob, and Mrs. Hastings, who stooped and kissed her, went out of the room. The older woman knew that the girl had broken down at last, after months of strain.
It happened that Edmonds, the mortgage-broker, drove over to the Range, and found Hawtrey waiting for him in Wyllard’s room. It was early in the evening, and he could see the hired men busy outside tossing prairie hay from the wagons into the great barn. The men were half-naked and grimed with dust, but Hawtrey, who was dressed in store clothes, evidently had taken no share in their labors. When Edmonds came in he turned to the money-lender with anxiety in his face.
“Well?” he questioned brusquely.
“Market’s a little stiffer,” said Edmonds.
Edmonds sat down and stretched out his hand toward the cigar-box on the table, while Hawtrey waited with very evident impatience.
“Still moving up?” he asked.
Edmonds nodded. “It’s the other folks’ last stand,” hedeclared. “With the wheat ripening as it’s doing, the flood that will pour in before the next two months are out will sweep them off the market. I was half afraid from your note that this little rally had some weight with you, and that as one result of it you meant to cover now.”
“That,” admitted Hawtrey, “was in my mind.”
“Then,” remarked his companion, “it’s a pity.”
Hawtrey leaned upon the table with hesitation in his face and attitude. He had neither the courage nor the steadfastness to make a gambler, and every fluctuation of the market swayed him to and fro. He had a good deal of wheat to deliver by and by, and he could still secure a very desirable margin if he bought in against his sales now. Unfortunately, however, he had once or twice lost heavily in an unexpected rally, and he greatly desired to recoup himself. Then, he had decided, nothing could tempt him to take part in another deal.
“If I hold on and the market stiffens further I’ll be awkwardly fixed,” he declared. “Wyllard made a will, and in a few months I’ll have to hand everything over to his executors. There would naturally be unpleasantness over a serious shortage.”
Edmonds smiled. He had handled his man cleverly, and had now a reasonably secure hold upon him and the Range, but he was far from satisfied. If Hawtrey made a further loss he would in all probability become irretrievably involved.
“Then,” he pointed out, “there’s every reason why you should try to get straight.”
Hawtrey admitted it. “Of course,” he said. “You feel sure I could do it by holding on?”
Edmonds seldom answered such a question. It was apt to lead to unpleasantness afterwards.
“Well,” he said, “Beeman, and Oliphant, and Barstoware operating for a fall. One would fancy that you were safe in doing what they do. When men of their weight sell forward figures go down.”
This was correct, as far as it went, but Edmonds was quite aware that the gentlemen referred to usually played a very deep and obscure game. He had also reasons for believing that they were doing it now. It was, however, evident that Hawtrey’s hesitation was vanishing.
“It’s a big hazard, but I feel greatly tempted to hang on,” he said.
Edmonds, who disregarded his remark, sat smoking quietly. Since he was tolerably certain as to what the result would be, he felt that it was now desirable to let Hawtrey decide for himself, in which case it would be impossible to reproach him afterwards. Wheat, it seemed very probable, would fall still further when the harvest began, but he had reasons for believing that the market would rally first. In that case Hawtrey, who had sold forward largely, would fall altogether into his hands, and he looked forward with very pleasurable anticipation to enforcing his claim upon the Range. In the meanwhile he was unobtrusively watching Hawtrey’s face, and it had become evident that in another moment or two his victim would adopt the course suggested, when there was a rattle of wheels outside. Edmonds, who saw a broncho team and a a wagon appear from behind the barn, realized that he must decide the matter without delay.
“As I want to reach Lander’s before it’s dark I’ll have to get on,” he said carelessly. “If you’ll give me a letter to the broker, I’ll send it to him.”
Next moment a clear voice rose somewhere outside.
“I guess you needn’t worry,” it said, “I’ll go right in.”
Then Sally walked into the room.
Edmonds was disconcerted, but bowed, and then satdown again, quietly determined to wait, for he discovered that there was hostility in the swift glance she flashed at him.
“That’s quite a smart team you were driving, Miss Creighton,” he remarked.
Sally, who disregarded this, turned to Hawtrey.
“What’s he doing here?” she asked.
“He came over on a little matter of business,” answered Hawtrey.
“You have been selling wheat again?”
Hawtrey looked embarrassed, for her manner was not conciliatory. “Well,” he admitted, “I have sold some.”
“Wheat you haven’t got?”
Hawtrey did not answer, and Sally sat down. Her manner suggested that she meant thoroughly to investigate the matter, and Edmonds, who would have greatly preferred to get rid of her, decided that as it appeared impossible he would appeal to her cupidity. The Creightons were grasping folk, and he had heard of her engagement to Hawtrey.
“If you will permit me I’ll try to explain,” he said. “We’ll say that you have reason for believing that wheat will go down and you tell a broker to sell it forward at a price a little below the actual one. If other people do the same it drops faster, and before you have to deliver you can buy it in at less than you sold it at. A great deal of money can be picked up that way.”
“It looks easy,” Sally agreed, with something in her manner which led him to fancy he might win her over. “Of course, prices have been falling. Gregory has been selling down?”
“He has. In fact, there’s already a big margin to his credit,” declared Edmonds unsuspectingly.
“That is, if he bought in now he’d have cleared—several thousand dollars?”
Edmonds told her exactly how much, and then started in sudden consternation with rage in his heart, for she turned to Hawtrey imperiously.
“Then you’ll write your broker to buy in right away,” she said.
There was an awkward silence, during which the two men looked at each other until Edmonds spoke.
“Are you wise in suggesting this, Miss Creighton?” he asked.
Sally laughed harshly. “Oh, yes,” she replied, “it’s a sure thing. And I don’t suggest. I tell him to get it done.”
She turned again to Hawtrey, who sat very still looking at her with a flush in his face. “Take your pen and give him that letter to the broker now.”
There was this in her favor that Hawtrey was to some extent relieved by her persistence. He had not the courage to make a successful speculator, and he had already felt uneasy about the hazard that he would incur by waiting. Besides, although prices had slightly advanced, he could still secure a reasonable margin if he covered his sales. In any case, he did as she bade him, and in another minute or two he handed Edmonds an envelope.
The broker took it from him without protest, for he was one who could face defeat.
“Well,” he said, with a gesture of resignation, “I’ll send the thing on. If Miss Creighton will excuse me, I’ll tell your man to get out my wagon.”
He went out, and Sally turned to Hawtrey with the color in her cheeks and a flash in her eyes.
“It’s Harry Wyllard’s money!” she commented, as she met his glance with flashing eyes.