“Yes,” said Witham—and the girl understood the grimness of his face—“I have.”
“It concerns the fire?”
Witham looked at her curiously. “I would sooner you did not ask me that question, Miss Barrington.”
“I scarcely fancy it is necessary,” said the girl, with a little smile. “Still I have something to tell you, and a favour to ask. Ferris has left Silverdale, and you must never make any attempt to discover what caused the fire.”
“You know?”
“Yes,” said Maud Barrington. “Dane, Macdonald, and Hassal know, too; but you will not ask them, and if you did they would not tell you.”
“I can refuse you nothing,” said Witham with a laugh, though his voice betrayed him. “Still, I want aquid pro quo. Wait until Ferris’s farm is in the sale list, and then take it with the growing crop.”
“I could not. There are reasons,” said the girl.
Witham gazed at her steadily, and a little colour crept to his forehead, but he answered unconcernedly, “They can be over-ridden. It may be the last favour I shall ever ask you.”
“No,” said Maud Barrington. “Anything else you wish, but not that. You must believe, without wondering why, that it is out of the question!”
Witham yielded with a curious little smile. “Well,” he said, “we will let it drop. I ask no questions. You have accepted so much already without understanding it.”
It was Witham’s last afternoon at the Grange, and almost unpleasantly hot, while the man whose vigour had not as yet returned to him was content to lounge in the big window-seat listlessly watching his companion. He had borne the strain of effort long, and the time of his convalescence amidst the tranquility of Silverdale Grange had, with the gracious kindliness of Miss Barrington and her niece, been a revelation to him. There were moments when it brought him bitterness and self-reproach, but these were usually brief, and he made the most of what he knew might never be his again, telling himself that it would at least be something to look back upon.
Maud Barrington sat close by, glancing through the letters a mounted man had brought in, and the fact that his presence put no restraint on her curiously pleased the man. At last, however, she opened a paper and passed it across to him.
“You have been very patient, but no doubt you will find something that will atone for my silence there,” she said.
Witham turned over the journal, and then smiled at her. “Is there anything of moment in your letters?”
“No,” said the girl with a little laugh. “I scarcely think there is—a garden party, a big reception, the visit of a high official, and a description of the latest hat. Still, you know, that is supposed to be enough for us.”
“Then I wonder whether you will find this more interesting. ‘The bears made a determined rally yesterday, and wheat moved back again. There was later in the day a rush to sell, and prices now stand at almost two cents below their lowest level.’”
“Yes,” said Maud Barrington, noticing the sudden intentness of his pallid face. “I do. It is serious news for you?”
“And for you! You see where I have led you. Ill or well, I must start for Winnipeg to-morrow.”
Maud Barrington smiled curiously. “You and I and a handful of others stand alone, but I told you I would not blame you whether we won or lost. Do you know that I am grateful for the glimpses of the realities of life that you have given me?”
Witham felt his pulses throb faster, for the girl’s unabated confidence stirred him, but he looked at her gravely. “I wonder if you realize what you have given me in return? Life as I had seen it was very grim and bare—and now I know what, with a little help, it is possible to make of it.”
“With a little help?” said Maud Barrington.
Witham nodded, and his face, which had grown almost wistful, hardened. “Those who strive in the pit are apt to grow blind to the best—the sweetness and order and all the little graces that mean so much. Even if their eyes are opened, it is usually too late. You see, they lose touch with all that lies beyond the struggle, and without some one to lead them they cannot get back to it. Still, if I talk in this fashion you will laugh at me; but every one has his weakness now and then—and no doubt I shall make up for it at Winnipeg to-morrow. One cannot afford to be fanciful when wheat is two cents down.”
Maud Barrington was not astonished. Tireless in his activities and, more curious still, almost ascetic in his mode of life, the man had already given her glimpses of his inner self and the vague longings that came upon him. He never asked her pity, but she found something pathetic in his attitude, for it seemed he knew that the stress and the turmoil alone could be his. Why this was so, she did not know, but it was with a confidence that could not be shaken now she felt it was through no fault of his. His last words, however, showed her that the mask was on again.
“I scarcely fancy you are well enough, but if you must go, I wonder whether you would do a good turn to Alfreton?” she said. “The lad has been speculating and he seems anxious lately.”
“It is natural that they should all bring their troubles to you.”
Maud Barrington laughed. “I, however, generally pass them on to you.”
A trace of colour crept into the man’s face, and his voice was a trifle hoarse as he said. “Do you know that I would ask nothing better than to take every care you had and bear it for you?”
“Still,” said the girl with a little smile, “that is very evidently out of the question.”
Witham rose, and she saw that one hand was closed as he looked down upon her. Then he turned and stared out at the prairie, but there was something very significant in the rigidity of his attitude, and his face seemed to have grown suddenly careworn when he glanced back at her.
“Of course,” he said quietly. “You see, I have been ill, and a little off my balance lately. That accounts for erratic speeches, though I meant it all. Colonel Barrington is still in Winnipeg?”
“Yes,” said the girl, who was not convinced by the explanation, very quietly. “I am a little anxious about him, too. He sold wheat forward, and I gather from his last letter has not bought it yet. Now, as Alfreton is driving in to-morrow, he could take you.”
Witham was grateful to her, and still more to Miss Barrington, who came in just then; while he did not see the girl again before he departed with Alfreton on the morrow. When they had left Silverdale a league behind, the trail dipped steeply amidst straggling birches to a bridge which spanned the creek in a hollow, and Witham glanced at the winding ascent thoughtfully.
“It has struck me that going round by this place puts another six miles on to your journey to the railroad, and a double team could not pull a big load up,” he said.
The lad nodded. “The creek is a condemned nuisance. We have either to load light when we are hauling grain in and then pitch half the bags off at the bottom and come back for them—while, you know, one man can’t put up many four bushel bags—or keep a man and horses at the ravine until we’re through.”
Witham laughed. “Now, I wonder whether you ever figured how much those little things put up the price of your wheat.”
“This is the only practicable way down,” said the lad. “You can scarcely climb up one side where the ravine’s narrow abreast of Silverdale.”
“Drive round. I want to see it,” said Witham. “Call at Rushforth for a spool of binder twine.”
Half-an-hour later Alfreton pulled the wagon up amidst the birches on the edge of the ravine, which just there sloped steep as a railway cutting, and not very much broader, to the creek. Witham gazed at it, and then handed the twine to the hired man.
“Take that with you, Charley, and get down,” he said. “If you strip your boots off you can wade through the creek.”
“I don’t know that I want to,” said the man.
“Well,” said Witham, “it would please me if you did, as well as cool your feet. Then you could climb up and hold that twine down on the other side.”
The man grinned; and, though Alfreton remembered that he was not usually so tractable with him, proceeded to do Witham’s bidding. When he came back there was a twinkle of comprehension in his eyes; and Witham, who cut off the length of twine, smiled at Alfreton.
“It is,” he said dryly, “only a little idea of mine.”
They drove on, and, reaching Winnipeg next day, went straight to Graham the wheat-broker’s offices. He kept them waiting some time, and in the meanwhile men with intent faces passed hastily in and out through the outer office. Some of them had telegrams or bundles of papers in their hands, and the eyes of all were eager. The corridor rang with footsteps, the murmur of voices seemed to vibrate through the great building; while it seemed to Alfreton there was a suggestion of strain and expectancy in all he heard and saw. Witham, however, sat gravely still, though the lad noticed that his eyes were keener than usual, for the muffled roar of the city, patter of messengers’ feet, ceaseless tinkle of telephone call bells, and whirr of the elevators, each packed with human freight, all stirred him. Hitherto, he had grappled with nature, but now he was to test his judgment against the keenest wits of the cities, and stand or fall by it, in the struggle that was to be waged over the older nation’s food.
At last, however, a clerk signed to them from a doorway, and they found Graham sitting before a littered table. A man sat opposite him with the telephone receiver in his hand.
“Sorry to keep you, but I’ve both hands full just now. Every man in this city is thinking wheat,” he said. “Has he word from Chicago, Thomson?”
“Yes,” said the clerk. “Bears lost hold this morning. General buying!”
Just then the door swung open, and a breathless man came in. “Guess I scared that clerk of yours who wanted to turn me off,” he said. “Heard what Chicago’s doing? Well, you’ve got to buy for me now. They’re going to send her right up into the sky, and it’s ’bout time I got out before the bulls trample the life out of me.”
“Quite sure you can’t wait until to-morrow?” asked Graham.
The man shook his head. “No, sir. When I’ve been selling all along the line! Send off right away, and tell your man on the market to cover every blame sale for me.”
Graham signed to the clerk, and as the telephone bell tinkled, a lad brought in a message. The broker opened it. “‘New York lost advance and recovered it twice in the first hour,’” he read. “‘At present a point or two better. Steady buying in Liverpool.’”
“That,” said the other man, “is quite enough for me. Let me have the contracts as soon as they’re ready.”
He went out, and Graham turned to Witham. “There’s half-a-dozen more of them outside,” he said. “Do you buy or sell?”
Witham laughed. “I want to know which a wise man would do.”
“Well,” said Graham, “I can’t tell you. The bulls rushed wheat up as I wired you, but the other folks got their claws in and worried it down again. Wheat’s anywhere and nowhere all the time, and I’m advising nobody just now. No doubt you’ve formed your own opinion.”
Witham nodded. “It’s the last of the grappled, and the bears aren’t quite beaten yet, but any time the next week or two the decisive turn will come. Then, if they haven’t got out, there’ll be very little left of them.”
“You seem tolerably sure of the thing. Got plenty of confidence in the bulls?”
Witham smiled. “I fancy I know how Western wheat was sown this year better than any statistician of the ring, and it’s not the bulls I’m counting on but those millions of hungry folks in the old country. It’s not New York or Chicago, but Liverpool the spark is coming from.”
“Well,” said Graham, “that’s my notion, too, but I’ve no time for anybody who hasn’t grist for me just now. Still, I’d be glad to come round and take you home to supper if you haven’t the prejudice, which is not unknown at Silverdale, against eating with a man who makes his dollars on the market and didn’t get them given him.”
Witham laughed, and held up a lean brown hand. “All I ever had until less than a year ago I earned with that. I’ll be ready for you.”
He went out with Alfreton, and noticed that the lad ate little at lunch. When the meal was over he glanced at him with a smile through the cigar smoke.
“I think it would do you good to take me into your confidence,” he said.
“Well,” said Alfreton, “it would be a relief to talk, and I feel I could trust you. Still, it’s only fair to tell you I didn’t at the beginning. I was an opinionated ass, you see.”
Witham laughed. “I don’t mind in the least, and we have most of us felt that way.”
“Well,” said the lad, “I was a little short of funds, and proud of myself, and when everybody seemed certain that wheat was going down for ever, I thought I saw my chance of making a little. Now I’ve more wheat than I care to think of to deliver, the market’s against me. If it stiffens any further it will break me; and that’s not all, you see. Things have gone tolerably badly with the folks at home, and I fancy it took a good deal of what should have been the girls’ portion to start me at Silverdale.”
“Then,” said Witham, “it’s no use trying to show you how foolish you’ve been. That is the usual thing, and it’s easy; but what the man in the hole wants to know is the means of getting out again.”
Alfreton smiled ruefully. “I’m tolerably far in. I could just cover at to-day’s prices if I pledged my crop, but it would leave me nothing to go on with and the next advance would swamp the farm.”
“Well,” said Witham quietly, “don’t buy to-day. There’s going to be an advance that will take folks’ breath away, but the time’s not quite ripe yet. You’ll see prices knocked back a little the next day or two, and then you will cover your sales to the last bushel.”
“But are you sure?” asked the lad a trifle hoarsely. “You see, if you’re mistaken, it will mean ruin to me.”
Witham laid his hand on his shoulder. “If I am wrong, I’ll make your losses good.”
Nothing more was said on that subject, but Alfreton’s face grew anxious once more as they went up and down the city. Everybody was talking wheat, which was not astonishing, for that city and the two great provinces to the west of it lived by the trade in grain; and before the afternoon had passed they learned that there had been a persistent advance. The lad’s uneasiness showed itself, but when they went back to the hotel about the supper hour Witham smiled at him.
“You’re feeling sick?” he said. “Still, I don’t fancy you need worry.”
Then Graham appeared and claimed him, and it was next morning when he saw Alfreton again. He was breakfasting with Colonel Barrington and Dane, and Witham noticed that the older man did not appear to have much appetite. When the meal was finished he drew him aside.
“You have covered your sales, sir?” he asked.
“No, sir,” said Barrington. “I have not.”
“Then I wonder if it would be presumption if I asked you a question?”
Barrington looked at him steadily. “To be frank, I fancy it would be better if you did not. I have, of course, only my own folly to blame for believing I could equal your natural aptitude for this risky amusement, which I had, and still have, objections to. I was, however, in need of money, and seeing your success, yielded to the temptation. I am not laying any of the responsibility on you, but am not inclined to listen to more of your suggestions.”
Witham met his gaze without embarrassment. “I am sorry you have been unfortunate, sir.”
Just then Dane joined them. “I sat up late last night in the hope of seeing you,” he said. “Now, I don’t know what to make of the market, but there were one or two fellows who would have bought my estimated crop from me at a figure which would have about covered working expenses. Some of the others who did not know you were coming in, put their affairs in my hands, too.”
“Sell nothing,” said Witham quietly.
It was an hour later when a messenger from Graham found them in the smoking-room, and Colonel Barrington smiled dryly as he tore up the envelope handed him.
“‘Market opened with sellers prevailing. Chicago flat!’” he read.
Dane glanced at Witham somewhat ruefully, but the latter’s eyes were fixed on Colonel Barrington.
“If I had anything to cover I should still wait,” he said.
“That,” said Dane, “is not exactly good news to me.”
“Our turn will come,” said Witham gravely.
That day, and during several which followed it, wheat moved down, and Dane said nothing to Witham about what he felt, though his face grew grimmer as the time went on. Barrington was quietly impassive when they met him, while Alfreton, who saw a way out of his difficulties, was hard to restrain. Witham long afterwards remembered that horrible suspense, but he showed no sign of what he was enduring then, and was only a trifle quieter than usual when he and Alfreton entered Graham’s office one morning. It was busier than ever, while the men who hastened in and out seemed to reveal by attitude and voice that they felt something was going to happen.
“In sellers’ favour!” said the broker. “Everybody with a few dollars is hammering prices one way or the other. Nothing but wheat is heard of in this city. Well, we’ll simmer down when the turn comes, and though I’m piling up dollars, I’ll be thankful. Hallo, Thomson, anything going on now?”
“Chicago buying,” said the clerk. “Now it’s Liverpool! Sellers holding off. Wanting a two-eights more the cental.”
The telephone bell tinkled again, and there was a trace of excitement in the face of the man who answered it.
“Walthew has got news ahead of us,” he said. “Chicago bears caved in. Buying orders from Liverpool broke them. Got it there strong.”
Witham tapped Alfreton’s shoulder. “Now is the time. Tell him to buy,” he said. “We’ll wait outside until you’ve put this deal through, Graham.”
It was twenty minutes before Graham came out to them. “I’ll let you have your contracts, Mr. Alfreton, and my man on the market just fixed them in time,” he said. “They’re up a penny on the cental in Liverpool now, and nobody will sell, while here in Winnipeg they’re falling over each other to buy. Never had such a circus since the trade began.”
Alfreton, who seemed to quiver, turned to his companion, and then forgot what he had to tell him. Witham had straightened himself and his eyes were shining, while the lad was puzzled by his face. Still, save for the little tremor in it, his voice was very quiet.
“It has come at last,” he said. “Two farms would not have covered your losses, Alfreton, if you had waited until to-morrrow. Have supper with us Graham—if you like it, lakes of champagne.”
“I want my head, but I’ll come,” said Graham, with a curious smile. “I don’t know that it wouldn’t pay me to hire yours just now.”
Then Witham turned suddenly, and running down the stairway shook the man awaiting him by the arm.
“The flood’s with us now,” he said. “Find Colonel Barrington, and make him cover everything before he’s ruined. Dane, you and I, and a few others, will see the dollars rolling into Silverdale.”
Dane found Barrington, who listened with a grim smile to what he had to tell him.
“The words are yours, Dane, but that is all,” he said. “Wheat will go down again, and I do not know that I am grateful to Courthorne.”
Dane dare urge nothing further, and spent the rest of that day wandering up and down the city, in a state of blissful content, with Alfreton and Witham. One of them had turned his losses into a small profit, and the other two, who had, hoping almost against hope, sown when others had feared to plough, saw that the harvest would repay them beyond their wildest expectations. They heard nothing but predictions of higher prices everywhere, and the busy city seemed to throb with exultation. The turn had come, and there was hope for the vast wheat lands it throve upon.
Graham had much to tell them when they sat down to the somewhat elaborate meal Witham termed supper that night, and he nodded approvingly when Dane held out his glass of champagne and touched his comrade’s.
“I’m not fond of speeches, Courthorne, and I fancy our tastes are the same,” he said. “Still, I can’t let this great night pass without greeting you as the man who has saved not a few of us at Silverdale. We were in a very tight place before you came, and we are with you when you want us from this time, soul and body, and all our possessions.” Alfreton’s eyes glistened, and his hand shook a little as he touched the rim of Witham’s goblet.
“There are folks in the old country who will bless you when they know,” he said. “You’ll forget it, though I can’t, that I was once against you.”
Witham nodded to them gravely, and when the glasses were empty shook hands with the three.
“We have put up a good fight, and I think we shall win; but, while you will understand me better by-and-by what you have offered me almost hurts,” he said.
“What we have given is yours. We don’t take it back,” said Dane.
Witham smiled, though there was a wistfulness in his eyes as he saw the faint bewilderment in his companions’ faces.
“Well,” he said slowly, “you can do a little for me now. Colonel Barrington was right when he set his face against speculation, and it was only because I saw dollars were badly needed at Silverdale, and the one means of getting them, I made my deal. Still, if we are to succeed as farmers we must market our wheat as cheaply as our rivals, and we want a new bridge on the level. Now, I got a drawing of one and estimates for British Columbia stringers, yesterday, while the birches in the ravine will give us what else we want. I’ll build a bridge myself, but it will cheapen the wheat-hauling to everybody, and you might like to help me.”
Dane glanced at the drawing laid before him, but Alfreton spoke first. “One hundred dollars. I’m only a small man, but I wish it was five,” he said.
“I’ll make it that much, and see the others do their share,” said Dane, and then glanced at the broker with a curious smile.
“How does he do it—this and other things? He was never a business man!”
Graham nodded. “He can’t help it. It was born in him. You and I can figure and plan, but Courthorne is different—the right thing comes to him. I knew, the first night I saw him, you had got the man you wanted at Silverdale.”
Then Witham stood up, wineglass in hand. “I am obliged to you, but I fancy this has gone far enough,” he said. “There is one man who has done more for you than I could ever do. Prosperity is a good thing, but you at least know what he has aimed at stands high above that. May you have the head of the Silverdale community long with you!”
The prairie lay dim and shadowy in the creeping dusk when Witham sat on a redwood stringer near the head of his partly-finished bridge. There was no sound from the hollow behind him but the faint gurgle of the creek and the almost imperceptible vibration of countless minute wings. The birches which climbed the slope to it wound away sinuously, a black wall on either hand, and the prairie lying grey and still stretched back into the silence in front of him. Here and there a smouldering fire showed dully red on the brink of the ravine, but the tired men who had lighted them were already wrapped in heavy slumber.
The prairie hay was gathered, harvest had not come, and for the last few weeks Witham, with his hired men from the bush of Ontario, had toiled at the bridge with a tireless persistency which had somewhat astonished the gentlemen farmers of Silverdale. They, however, rode over every now and then, and most cheerfully rendered what assistance they could, until it was time to return for tennis or a shooting sweepstake, and Witham thanked them gravely, even when he and his Ontario axemen found it necessary to do the work again. He could have told nobody why he had undertaken to build the bridge, which could be of no use to him, but he was in a measure prompted by instincts born in him; for he was one of the Englishmen who, with a dim recognition of the primeval charge to subdue the earth and render it fruitful, gravitate to the newer lands, and usually leave their mark upon them. He had also a half-defined notion that it would be something he could leave behind in reparation, that the men of Silverdale might remember the stranger who had imposed on them more leniently, while in the strain of the mental struggle strenuous occupation was a necessity to him.
A bundle of papers it was now too dim to see lay beside him, clammy with the dew, and he sat bareheaded, a pipe which had gone out in his hand, staring across the prairie with an ironical smile in his eyes. He had planned boldly and striven tirelessly, and now the fee he could not take would surely be tendered him. Wheat was growing dearer every day, and such crops as he had sown had not been seen at Silverdale. Still, the man, who had had few compunctions before he met Maud Barrington, knew now that in a little while he must leave all he had painfully achieved behind. What he would do then he did not know, for only one fact seemed certain—in another four months, or less, he would have turned his back on Silverdale.
Presently, however, the sound of horse-hoofs caught his ears, and he stood up when a mounted figure rose out of the prairie. The moon had just swung up, round and coppery, from behind a rise, and when horse and rider cut black and sharp against it his pulses throbbed faster and a little flush crept into his face, for he knew every line of the figure in the saddle. Some minutes had passed when Maud Barrington rode slowly to the head of the bridge, and pulled up her horse at the sight of him.
The moon, turning silver now, shone behind her head, and a tress of hair sparkled beneath her wide hat, while the man had a glimpse of the gleaming whiteness of rounded cheek and neck. Her face he could not see, but shapely shoulders, curve of waist, and sweeping line of the light habit were forced up as in a daguerreotype, and as the girl sat still looking down on him, slender, lissom, dainty, etherealized almost by the brightening radiance, she seemed to him a visionary complement of the harmonies of the night. It also appeared wiser to think of her as such than a being of flesh and blood whom he had wildly ventured to long for, and he almost regretted when her first words dispelled the illusion.
“It is dreadfully late,” she said. “Pluto went very lame soon after I left Macdonald’s, and I knew if I went back for another horse he would have insisted on riding home with me. I had slipped away while he was in the granary. One can cross the bridge?”
“Not mounted,” said Witham. “There are only a few planks between the stringers here and there, but, if you don’t mind waiting, I can lead your horse across.”
He smiled a little, for the words seemed trivial and out of place in face of the effect the girl’s appearance had on him, but she glanced at him questioningly.
“No!” she said. “Now, I would have gone round by the old bridge, only that Allardyce told me you let him ride across this afternoon.”
“Still,” and the man stopped a moment, “it was daylight then, you see.”
Maud Barrington laughed a little, for his face was visible, and she understood the slowness of his answer. “Is that all? It is moonlight now.”
“No,” said Witham dryly, “but one is apt to make an explanation too complete occasionally. Will you let me help you down?”
Maud Barrington held out her hands, and when he swung her down watched him tramp away with the horse with a curious smile. A light compliment seldom afforded her much pleasure, but the man’s grim reserve had now and then piqued more than her curiosity, though she was sensible that the efforts she occasionally made to uncover what lay behind it were not without their risk. Then he came back, and turned to her very gravely.
“Let me have your hand,” he said.
Maud Barrington gave it him, and hoped the curious little thrill that ran through her when his hard fingers closed upon her palm did not communicate itself to him. She also noticed that he moved his head sharply a moment, and then looked straight in front again. Then the birches seemed to fall away beneath them, and they moved out across the dim gully with the loosely-laid planking rattling under their feet, until they came to a strip scarcely three feet wide which spanned a gulf of blackness in the shadow of the trees.
“Hold fast!” said Witham with a trace of hoarseness. “You are sure you feel quite steady?”
“Of course!” said the girl with a little laugh, though she recognized the anxiety in his voice, and felt his hand close almost cruelly on her own. She was by no means timorous, and still less fanciful, but when they moved out into the blackness that closed about them above and beneath along the slender strip of swaying timber she was glad of the masterful grip. It seemed in some strange fashion portentous, for she felt that she would once more be willing to brave unseen perils, secure only in his guidance. What he felt she did not know, and was sensible of an almost overwhelming curiosity, until when at last well-stiffened timber lay beneath them, she contrived to drop a glove just where the moonlight smote the bridge. Witham stooped, and his face was clear in the silvery light when he rose again. Maud Barrington saw the relief in it, and, compelled by some influence, stood still looking at him with a little glow behind the smile in her eyes. A good deal was revealed to both of them in that instant, but the man dare not admit it, and was master of himself.
“Yes,” he said, very simply, “I am glad you are across.”
Maud Barrington laughed. “I scarcely fancy the risk was very great, but tell me about the bridge,” she said. “You are living beside it?”
“Yes,” said Witham, “in a tent, I must have it finished before harvest, you see!”
The girl understood why this was necessary, but deciding that she had on other occasions ventured sufficiently far with that topic, moved on across the bridge.
“A tent,” she said, “cannot be a very comfortable place to live in, and who cooks for you?”
Witham smiled dryly. “I am used to it, and can do all the cooking that is necessary,” he said. “It is the usual home for the beginner, and I lived six months in one—on grindstone bread, the tinctured glucose you are probably not acquainted with as ‘drips,’ and rancid pork—when I first came out to this country and hired myself, for ten dollars monthly, to another man. It is a diet one gets a little tired of occasionally, but after breaking prairie twelve hours every day one can eat almost anything, and when I afterwards turned farmer my credit was rarely good enough to provide the pork.”
The girl looked at him curiously, for she knew how some of the smaller settlers lived, and once more felt divided between wonder and sympathy. She could picture the grim self-denial, for she had seen the stubborn patience in this man’s face as well as a stamp that was not borne by any other man at Silverdale. Some of the crofter settlers, who periodically came near starvation in their sod hovels, and the men from Ontario who staked their little handful of dollars on the first wheat crop to be wrested from the prairie, bore it, however. From what Miss Barrington had told her, it was clear that Courthorne’s first year in Canada could not have been spent in this fashion, but there was no doubt in the girl’s mind as she listened. Her faith was equal to a more strenuous test.
“There is a difference in the present, but who taught you bridge-building? It takes years to learn the use of the axe,” she said.
Witham laughed. “I think it took me four, but the man who has not a dollar to spare usually finds out how to do a good many things for himself, and I had working drawings of the bridge made in Winnipeg. Besides, your friends have helped me with their hands as well as their good-will. Except at the beginning, they have all been kind to me, and one could not well have expected very much from them then.”
Maud Barrington coloured a trifle as she remembered her own attitude towards him. “Cannot you forget it?” she said, with a curious little ring in her voice. “They would do anything you asked them now.”
“One generally finds it useful to have a good memory, and I remember most clearly that, although they had very little reason for it, most of them afterwards trusted me. That made, and still makes, a great difference to me.”
The girl appeared thoughtful. “Does it?” she said. “Still, do you know, I fancy that if they had tried to drive you out, you would have stayed in spite of them.”
“Yes,” said Witham dryly, “I believe I would, but the fact that in a very little while they held out a friendly hand to a stranger steeped in suspicion, and gave him the chance to prove himself their equal, carries a big responsibility. That, and your aunt’s goodness, puts so many things one might have done out of the question.”
The obvious inference was that the prodigal had been reclaimed by the simple means of putting him on his honour, but that did not for a moment suggest itself to the girl. She had often regretted her own disbelief, and once more felt the need for reparation.
“Lance,” she said, very quietly, “my aunt was wiser than I was, but she was mistaken. What she gave you out of her wide charity was already yours by right.”
That was complete and final, for Maud Barrington did nothing by half, and Witham recognized that she held him blameless in the past, which she could not know, as well as in the present, which was visible to her. Her confidence stung him as a whip, and when in place of answering he looked away, the girl fancied that a smothered groan escaped him. She waited, curiously expectant, but he did not speak, and just then the fall of hoofs rose from behind the birches in the bluff. Then a man’s voice came through it singing a little French song, and Maud Barrington glanced at her companion.
“Lance,” she said, “how long is it since you sang that song?”
“Well,” said Witham, doggedly conscious of what he was doing, “I do not know a word of it, and never heard it in my life.”
Maud Barrington stared at him. “Think,” she said. “It seems ever so long ago, but you cannot have forgotten. Surely you remember Madame Aubert, who taught me to prattle in French, and the day you slipped into the music-room and picked up the song, while she tried in vain to teach it me. Can’t you recollect how I cried, when you sang it in the billiard-room, and Uncle Geoffrey gave you the half-sovereign which had been promised to me?”
“No,” said Witham a trifle hoarsely, and with his head turned from her watched the trail.
A man in embroidered deerskin jacket was riding into the moonlight, and though the little song had ceased, and the wide hat hid his face, there was an almost insolent gracefulness in his carriage that seemed familiar to Witham. It was not theabandonof the swashbuckler stock-rider from across the frontier, but something more finished and distinguished that suggested the bygone cavalier. Maud Barrington, it was evident, also noticed it.
“Geoffrey Courthorne rode as that man does,” she said. “I remember hearing my mother once tell him that he had been born too late, because his attributes and tastes would have fitted him to follow Prince Rupert.”
Witham made no answer, and the man rode on until he drew bridle in front of them. Then he swung his hat off, and while the moonlight shone into his face looked down with a little ironical smile at the man and woman standing beside the horse. Witham closed one hand a trifle, and slowly straightened himself, feeling that there was need of all his self-control, for he saw his companion glance at him, and then almost too steadily at Lance Courthorne.
The latter said nothing for a space of seconds, for which Witham hated him, and yet in the tension of the suspense he noticed that the signs of indulgence he had seen on the last occasion were plainer in Courthorne’s face. The little bitter smile upon his lips was also not quite in keeping with the restlessness of his fingers upon the bridle.
“Is that bridge fit for crossing, farmer?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Witham quietly. “You must lead your horse.”
Maud Barrington had in the meanwhile stood very still, and now moved as by an effort. “It is time I rode on, and you can show the stranger across,” she said. “I have kept you at least five minutes longer than was necessary.”
Courthorne, Witham fancied, shifted one foot from the stirrup, but then sat still as the farmer held his hand for the girl to mount by, while when she rode away he looked at his companion with a trace of anger as well as irony in his eyes.
“Yes,” said Witham. “What you heard was correct. Miss Barrington’s horse fell lame coming from one of the farms, which accounts for her passing here so late. I had just led the beast across the incompleted bridge. Still, it is not on my account I tell you this. Where have you been and why have you broken one of my conditions?”
Courthorne laughed. “It seems to me you are adopting a somewhat curious tone. I went to my homestead to look for you.”
“You have not answered my other question, and in the meanwhile I am your tenant, and the place is mine.”
“We really needn’t quibble,” said Courthorne. “I came for the very simple reason that I wanted money.”
“You had one thousand dollars,” said Witham dryly.
Courthorne made a little gesture of resignation. “It is, however, certain that I haven’t got them now. They went as dollars usually do. The fact is, I have met one or two men recently who apparently know rather more about games of chance than I do, and I passed on the fame, which was my most valuable asset, to you.”
“You passed me on the brand of a crime I never committed,” said Witham grimly. “That, however, is not the question now. Not one dollar, except at the time agreed upon, will you get from me. Why did you come here dressed as we usually are on the prairie?”
Courthorne glanced down at the deerskin jacket and smiled as he straightened himself into a caricature of Witham’s mounted attitude. It was done cleverly.
“When I ride in this fashion we are really not very unlike, you see, and I let one or two men I met get a good look at me,” he said. “I meant it as a hint that it would be wise of you to come to terms with me.”
“I have done so already. You made the bargain.”
“Well,” said Courthorne smiling, “a contract may be modified at any time when both parties are willing.”
“One is not,” said Witham dryly. “You heard my terms, and nothing that you can urge will move me a hairsbreadth from them.”
Courthorne looked at him steadily, and some men would have found his glance disconcerting, for now and then all the wickedness that was in him showed in his half-closed eyes. Still, he saw that the farmer was unyielding.
“Then we will let it go; in the meanwhile,” he said, “take me across the bridge.”
They were half-way along it when he pulled the horse up, and once more looked down on Witham.
“Your hand is a tolerably good one so long as you are willing to sacrifice yourself, but it has its weak points, and there is one thing I could not tolerate,” he said.
“What is that?”
Courthorne laughed wickedly, “You wish me to be explicit? Maud Barrington is devilishly pretty, but it is quite out of the question that you should ever marry her.”
Witham turned towards him with the veins on his forehead swollen. “Granting that it is so, what is that to you?”
Courthorne nodded as if in comprehension. “Well, I’m probably not consistent, but one rarely quite loses touch with everything, and if I believed that my kinswoman was growing fond of a beggarly farmer, I’d venture to put a sudden stop to your love-making. This, at least, is perfectlybona fide, Witham.”
Witham had borne a good deal of late, and his hatred of the man flared up. He had no definite intention, but he moved a pace forward, and Courthorne touched the horse with his heel. It backed, and then growing afraid of the blackness about it plunged, while Witham for the first time saw that there was a gap in the loosely-laid planking close behind it. Another plunge or flounder, and horse and rider would go down together.
For a moment he held his breath and watched. Then, as the beast, resisting its rider’s efforts, backed again, sprang forward and seized the bridle.
“Get your spurs in! Shove him forward for your life,” he said.
There was a momentary struggle on the slippery planking, and, almost as its hind hoofs overhung the edge, Witham dragged the horse away. Courthorne swung himself out of the saddle, left the farmer the bridle, and glanced behind him at the gap. Then he turned, and the two men looked at each other steadily. Their faces were a trifle paler than usual.
“You saw it?” asked Courthorne.
“Yes, but not until you backed the beast and he commenced plunging.”
“He plunged once or twice before you caught the bridle?”
“Yes,” said Witham quietly.
Courthorne laughed. “You are a curious man. It would have cleared the ground for you.”
“No,” said Witham dryly, “I don’t know that you will understand me, but I scarcely think it would. It may have been a mistake of mine to do what I did, but I have a good deal on my shoulders already.”
Courthorne made no answer as he led his horse across the bridge. Then he mounted and looked down on the farmer who stood beside him.
“I remember some things, though I don’t always let them influence me to my detriment,” he said. “I’m going back to the railroad, and then West, and don’t quite know when you will have the pleasure of seeing me again.”
Witham watched him quietly. “It would be wiser if you did not come back until I send for you.”
Lance Courthorne had lightly taken a good many risks in his time, for he usually found a spice of danger stimulating, and there was in him an irresponsible daring that not infrequently served him better than a well-laid plan. There are also men of his type who, for a time at least, appear immune from the disasters which follow the one rash venture the prudent make, and it was half in frolic and half in malice he rode to Silverdale dressed as a prairie farmer in the light of day, and forgot that their occupation sets a stamp he had never worn upon the tillers of the soil. The same spirit induced him to imitate one or two of Witham’s gestures for the benefit of his cook, and afterwards wait for a police trooper, who, apparently desired to overtake him when he had just left the homestead.
He pulled his horse up when the other man shouted to him, and trusting to the wide hat that hid most of his face, smiled out of half-closed eyes when he handed a packet.
“You have saved me a ride, Mr. Courthorne, I heard you were at the bridge,” the trooper said, “If you’ll sign for those documents I needn’t keep you.”
He brought out a pencil, and Courthorne scribbled on the paper handed him. He was quite aware that there was a risk attached to this, but if Witham had any communications with the police it appeared advisable to discover what they were about. Then he laughed, as riding on again he opened the packet.
“Agricultural Bureau documents,” he said. “This lot to be returned filled in! Well, if I can remember, I’ll give them to Witham.”
As it happened, he did not remember; but he made a worse mistake just before his departure from the railroad settlement. He had spent two nights at a little wooden hotel, which was not the one where Witham put up when he drove into the place, and to pass the time commenced a flirtation with the proprietor’s daughter. The girl was pretty, and Courthorne a man of different type from the wheat-growers she had been used to. When his horse was at the door, he strolled into the saloon where he found the girl alone in the bar.
“I’m a very sad man to-day, my dear,” he said, and his melancholy became him.
The girl blushed prettily. “Still,” she said, “whenever you want to, you can come back again.”
“If I did, would you be pleased to see me?”
“Of course!” said the girl. “Now, you wait a minute, and I’ll give you something to remember me by. I don’t mix this up for everybody.”
She busied herself with certain decanters and essences, and Courthorne held the glass she handed him high.
“The brightest eyes and the reddest lips between Winnipeg and the Rockies!” he said. “This is nectar, but I would like to remember you by something sweeter still!”
Their heads were not far apart when he laid down his glass, and before the girl quite knew what was happening an arm was round her neck. Next moment she had flung the man backwards, and stood very straight, quivering with anger and crimson in face, for Courthorne, as occasionally happens with men of his type, assumed too much, and did not always know when to stop. Then she called sharply, “Jake.”
There was a tramp of feet outside, and when a big, grim-faced man looked in at the door Courthorne decided it was time for him to effect his retreat while it could be done with safety. He knew already that there were two doors to the saloon, and his finger closed on the neck of a decanter. Next moment it smote the newcomer on the chest, and while he staggered backwards with the fluid trickling from him, Courthorne departed through the opposite entrance. Once outside, he mounted leisurely, but nobody came out from the hotel, and shaking the bridle with a little laugh he cantered out of the settlement.
In the meanwhile, the other man carefully wiped his garments, and then turned to his companion.
“Now what’s all this about?” he said.
The girl told him, and the man ruminated for a minute or two. “Well, he’s gone, and I don’t know that I’m sorry there wasn’t a circus here,” he said. “I figured there was something not square about that fellow, anyway. Registered as Guyler from Minnesota, but I’ve seen somebody like him among the boys from Silverdale. Guess I’ll find out when I ride over about the horse, and then I’ll have a talk with him quietly.”
In the meanwhile, the police trooper who had handed him the packet returned to the outpost, and, as it happened, found the grizzled Sergeant Stimson, who appeared astonished to see him back so soon there.
“I met Courthorne near his homestead, and gave him the papers, sir,” he said.
“You did?” said the Sergeant. “Now that’s kind of curious, because he’s at the bridge.”
“It couldn’t have been anybody else, because he took the documents and signed for them,” said the trooper.
“Big bay horse?”
“No, sir,” said the trooper. “It was a bronco, and a screw at that.”
“Well,” said Stimson dryly, “let me have your book. If Payne has come in, tell him I want him.”
The trooper went out, and when his comrade came in Stimson laid a strip of paper before him. “You have seen Courthorne’s writing,” he said; “would you call it anything like that?”
“No, sir,” said Trooper Payne. “I would not!”
Stimson nodded. “Take a good horse and ride round by the bridge. If you find Courthorne there, as you probably will, head for the settlement and see if you can come across a man who might pass for him. Ask your question as though the answer didn’t count, and tell nobody what you hear but me.”
Payne rode out, and when he returned three days later, Sergeant Stimson made a journey to confer with one of his superiors. The officer was a man who had risen in the service somewhat rapidly, and when he heard the tale said nothing, while he turned over a bundle of papers a trooper brought him. Then he glanced at Stimson thoughtfully.
“I have a report of the Shannon shooting case here,” he said. “How did it strike you at the time?”
Stimson’s answer was guarded. “As a curious affair. You see, it was quite easy to get at Witham’s character from anybody down there, and he wasn’t the kind of man to do the thing. There were one or two other trifles I couldn’t quite figure out the meaning of.”
“Witham was drowned?” said the officer.
“Well,” said Stimson, “the trooper who rode after him heard him break through the ice, but nobody ever found him, though a farmer came upon his horse.”
The officer nodded. “I fancy you are right, and the point is this. There were two men, who apparently bore some resemblance to each other, engaged in an unlawful venture, and one of them commits a crime nobody believed him capable of, but which would have been less out of keeping with the other’s character. Then the second man comes into an inheritance, and leads a life which seems to have astonished everybody who knows him. Now, have you ever seen these two men side by side?”
“No, sir,” said Stimson. “Courthorne kept out of our sight when he could in Alberta, and I don’t think I or any of the boys, except Shannon, ever saw him for more than a minute or two. Now and then we passed Witham on the prairie or saw him from the trail, but I think I only once spoke to him.”
“Well,” said the officer, “it seems to me I had better get you sent back to your old station, where you can quietly pick up the threads again. Would the trooper you mentioned be fit to keep an eye on things at Silverdale?”
“No one better, sir,” said Stimson.
“Then it shall be done,” said the officer. “The quieter you keep the affair the better.”
It was a week or two later when Witham returned to his homestead from the bridge, which was almost completed. Dusk was closing in, but as he rode down the rise he could see the wheat roll in slow ripples back into the distance. The steady beat of its rhythmic murmur told of heavy ears, and where the stalks stood waist-high on the rise, the last flush of saffron in the north-west was flung back in a dull bronze gleam. The rest swayed athwart the shadowy hollow, dusky indigo and green, but that flash of gold and red told that harvest was nigh again.
Witham had seen no crop to compare with it during the eight years he had spent in the Dominion. There had been neither drought nor hail that year, and now, when the warm western breezes kept sweet and wholesome the splendid ears they fanned, there was removed from him the terrors of the harvest frost, which not infrequently blights the fairest prospects in one bitter night. Fate, which had tried him hardly hitherto, denying the seed its due share of fertilizing rain, sweeping his stock from existence with icy blizzard, and mowing down the tall green corn with devastating hail, was now showering favours on him when it was too late. Still, though he felt the irony of it, he was glad, for others had followed his lead, and while the lean years had left a lamentable scarcity of dollars at Silverdale, wealth would now pour in to every man who had had the faith to sow.
He dismounted beside the oats which he would harvest first, and listened with a curious stirring of his pulses to their musical patter. It was not the full-toned song of the wheat, but there was that in the quicker beat of it which told that each graceful tassel would redeem its promise. He could not see the end of them, but by the right of the producer they were all his. He knew that he could also hold them by right of conquest, too, for that year a knowledge of his strength had been forced upon him. Still, from something he had seen in the eyes of a girl and grasped at in the words of a white-haired lady, he realized that there is a limit beyond which man’s ambition may not venture, and a right before which even that of possession must bow.
It had been shown him plainly that no man of his own devices can make the wheat grow, and standing beside it in the creeping dusk he felt in a vague, half-pagan fashion that there was, somewhere behind what appeared the chaotic chances of life, a scheme of order and justice immutable, which would in due time crush the too presumptuous human atom who opposed himself to it. Regret and rebellion were, it seemed, equally futile, and he must go out from Silverdale before retribution overtook him. He had done wrong, and, though he had made what reparation he could, knew that he would carry his punishment with him.
The house was almost dark when he reached it, and as he went in his cook signed to him. “There’s a man in here waiting for you,” he said. “He doesn’t seem in any way friendly or civil.”
Witham nodded as he went on, wondering with a grim expectancy whether Courthorne had returned again. If he had, he felt in a mood for very direct speech with him. His visitor was, however, not Courthorne. Witham could see that at a glance, although the room was dim.
“I don’t seem to know you, but I’ll get a light in a minute,” he said.
“I wouldn’t waste time,” said the other. “We can talk just as straight in the dark, and I guess this meeting will finish up outside on the prairie. You’ve given me a good deal of trouble to trail you, Mr. Guyler.”
“Well,” said Witham dryly, “it seems to me that you have found the wrong man.”
The stranger laughed unpleasantly. “I was figuring you’d take it like that, but you can’t bluff me. Well now, I’ve come round to take it out of you for slinging that decanter at me, and if there is another thing, we needn’t mention it.”
Witham stared at the man, and his astonishment was evident, but the fact that he still spoke with an English accentuation, as Courthorne did, was against him.
“To the best of my recollection, I have never suffered the unpleasantness of meeting you in my life,” he said. “I certainly never threw a decanter or anything else at you, though I understand that one might feel tempted to.”
The man rose up slowly, and appeared big and heavy-shouldered as he moved athwart the window. “I guess that is quite enough for me,” he said. “What were you condemned Englishmen made for, anyway, but to take the best of what other men worked for, until the folks who’ve got grit enough run you out of the old country! Lord, why don’t they drown you instead of dumping you and your wickedness on to us? Still, I’m going to show one of you, as I’ve longed to do, that you can’t play your old tricks with the women of this country.”
“I don’t see the drift of a word of it,” said Witham. “Hadn’t you better come back when you’ve worked the vapours off to-morrow?”
“Come out!” said the other man grimly. “There’s scarcely room in here. Well then, have it your own way, and the devil take care of you!”
“I think there’s enough,” said Witham, and as the other swung forward, closed with him.
He felt sick and dizzy for a moment, for he had laid himself open and the first blow got home, but he had decided that if the grapple was inevitable, it was best to commence it and end it speedily. A few seconds later there was a crash against the table, and the stranger gasped as he felt the edge of it pressed into his backbone. Then he felt himself borne backwards until he groaned under the strain, and heard a hoarse voice say, “If you attempt to use that foot again, I’ll make the leg useless all your life to you. Come right in here, Tom.”
A man carrying a lantern came in, and stared at the pair as he set it down. “Do you want me to see a fair finish-up?” he said.
“No,” said Witham. “I want you to see this gentleman out with me. Nip his arms behind his back; he can’t hurt you.”
It was done with a little difficulty, and there was a further scuffle in the hall, for the stranger resisted strenuously, but a minute later the trio reeled out of the door just as a buggy pulled up. Then, as the evicted man plunged forward alone, Witham, straightening himself suddenly, saw that Colonel Barrington was looking down on him, and that his niece was seated at his side. He stood still, flushed and breathless, with his jacket hanging rent half-way up about him, and the Colonel’s voice was quietly ironical.
“I had a question or two to ask you, but can wait,” he said. “No doubt I shall find you less engaged another time.”
He flicked the horse, and as the buggy rolled away the other man walked up to Witham.
“While I only wanted to get rid of you before, I feel greatly tempted to give you your wish now,” said the latter.
The stranger laughed dryly. “I guess you needn’t worry. I don’t fight because I’m fond of it, and you’re not the man.”
“Not the man?” said Witham.
“No, sir,” said the other. “Not like him, now I can see you better. Well, I’m kind of sorry I started a circus here.”
A suspicion of the truth flashed upon Witham. “What sort of a man was the one you mistook for me?”
“Usual British waster. Never done a day’s work in his life, and never wanted to; too tired to open his eyes more than half-way when he looked at you, but if he ever fools round the saloon again, he’ll know what he is before I’m through with him.”
Witham laughed. “I wouldn’t be rash or you may get another astonishment. We really know one or two useful things in the old country, but you can’t fetch the settlement before morning, and we’ll put you up if you like.”
“No, sir,” said the other dryly. “I’m not fond of Englishmen, and we might get arguing, while I’ve had ’bout enough of you for one night.”
He rode away, and Witham went back into the house very thoughtfully, wondering whether he would be called upon to answer for more of Courthorne’s doings.
It was two or three days later when Maud Barrington returned with her aunt from a visit to an outlying farm, where, because an account of what took place in the saloon had by some means been spread about, she heard a story brought in from the settlement. It kept her silent during the return journey, and Miss Barrington said nothing, but when the Colonel met them in the hall he glanced at his niece.
“I see Mrs. Carndall has been telling you both a tale,” he said. “It would have been more fitting if she had kept it to herself.”
“Yes,” said Maud Barrington. “Still, you do not credit it?”
Barrington smiled a trifle dryly. “I should very much prefer not to, my dear, but what we saw the other night appears to give it probability. The man Courthorne was dismissing somewhat summarily is, I believe, to marry the lady in question. You will remember I asked you once before whether the leopard can change his spots.”
The girl laughed a little. “Still, are you not presuming when you take it for granted that there are spots to change?”
Colonel Barrington said nothing further, and it was late that night when the two women reopened the subject.
“Aunt,” said Maud Barrington, “I want to know what you think about Mrs. Carndall’s tale.”
The little lady shook her head. “I should like to disbelieve it if I could.”
“Then,” said Maud Barrington, “why don’t you?”
“Can you give me any reasons? One must not expect too much from human nature, my dear.”
The girl sat silent awhile, remembering the man whom she had at first sight, and in the moonlight, fancied was like her companion at the time. It was not, however, the faint resemblance that had impressed her, but a vague something in his manner—his grace, his half-veiled insolence, his poise in the saddle. She had only seen Lance Courthorne on a few occasions when she was very young, but she had seen others of his race, and the man reminded her of them. Still, she felt half-instinctively that as yet it would be better that nobody should know this, and she stooped over some lace on the table as she answered the elder lady.
“I only know one, and it is convincing. That Lance should have done what he is credited with doing is quite impossible.”
Miss Barrington smiled. “I almost believe so, too, but others of his family have done such things somewhat frequently. Do you know that Lance has all along been a problem to me, for there is a good deal in my brother’s question. Although it seems out of the question, I have wondered whether there could be two Lance Courthornes in Western Canada.”
The girl looked at her aunt in silence for a space, but each hid a portion of her thoughts. Then Maud Barrington laughed.
“The Lance Courthorne now at Silverdale is as free from reproach as any man may be,” she said. “I can’t tell you why I am sure of it—but I know I am not mistaken.”