The first day on which my attendants would treat me as a rational being was a memorable one to me. It must have been late in the morning when I opened my eyes, for the sun had risen above the level of the open window, and I lay still blinking out across the prairie with, at first, a curious satisfaction. I had cheated death and been called back out of the darkness to sunlight and life, it seemed. Then I began to remember, and the pain in the arm bound fast to my side helped to remind me that life implied a struggle. Raising my head, I noticed that there had been changes made in my room, and a young woman standing by the window frowned at me.
"I guess all men are worrying, but you're about the worst I ever struck, Rancher Ormesby. Just you lie back till I fix you, or I'll call the boys in to tie you fast with a girth."
She was a tall, fair, well-favored damsel, with a ruddy countenance and somewhat bold eyes; but I was disappointed when I saw her clearly, even though her laugh was heartsome when I answered humbly: "I will try not to trouble you if you don't mean to starve me."
Miss Sally Steel, for it was my neighbor's sister, shouted to somebody through the window, and then turned to the man who rose from a corner. "You just stay right where you are. When I call cookie I'll see he comes. I've been running this place as it ought to be run, and you won't know Gaspard's when you get about, Rancher Ormesby."
The man laughed, and I saw it was Thorn, though I did not know then that after doing my work and his own during the day he had watched the greater part of every night beside me.
"Feeling pretty fit this morning?" he asked.
"Comparatively so," I answered. "I should feel better if I knew just what happened to me and to the stock. You might tell me, beginning from the time the fence went down."
"If he does there'll be trouble," broke in Miss Steel, who, I soon discovered, had constituted herself autocratic mistress of Gaspard's Trail. "He must wait until you have had breakfast, anyway." And I saw the cook stroll very leisurely towards the window carrying a tray.
"Was anybody calling?" he commenced, with the exasperating slowness he could at times assume; and then, catching sight of me, would have clambered in over the low window-sill but that Miss Steel stopped him.
"Anybody calling! I should think there was—and when I want people they'll come right along," she said. "No; you can stop out there—isn't all the prairie big enough for you? There'll be some tone about this place before I'm through," and the cook grinned broadly as he caught my eye.
Miss Steel's voice was not unpleasant, though it had a strident ring, and her face was gentle as she raised me on a heap of folded blankets with no great effort, though I was never a very light weight, after which, between my desire to please her and a returning appetite, I made a creditable meal.
"That's a long way better," she said approvingly. "Tom brought a fool doctor over from Calgary, who said you'd got your brain mixed and a concussion of the head. 'Fix up his bones and don't worry about anything else,' I said. 'It would take a steam hammer to make any concussion worth talking of on Rancher Ormesby's head.'"
"Thorn has not answered my question," I interrupted; and Miss Steel flashed a glance at the foreman, who seemed to hesitate before he answered. "It happened this way: You were a trifle late lighting out when you'd cut the fence. Steel said one of the beasts charged you, and after that more of them stampeded right over you. The horse must have kept some of them off, for he wasstamped out pretty flat, and it was a relief to hear you growling at something when we got you out."
"How did you get me out?" I asked, and Thorn fidgeted before he answered: "It wasn't worth mentioning, but between us Steel and I managed to split the rush, and the beasts went by on each side of us."
"At the risk of being stamped flat, too! I might have expected it of you and Steel," I said; and the girl's eyes sparkled as she turned to the foreman.
"Then Steel went back for the wagon after we found you had an arm and a collarbone broken. I rode in to the railroad and wired for a doctor. Sally came over to nurse you, and a pretty tough time she has had of it. You had fever mighty bad."
"There's no use in saying I'm obliged to both of you, because you know it well," I made shift to answer; and Sally Steel stroked the hair back from my forehead in sisterly fashion as she smiled at Thorn. "But what about the stock? Did they all get through?"
Thorn's honest face clouded, and Sally Steel laid her plump hand on my mouth. "You're not going to worry about that. A herd of cattle stampeded over you and you're still alive. Isn't that good enough for you?"
I moved my head aside. "I shall worry until I know the truth. All the beasts could not have got out. How many did?" I asked.
Thorn looked at Sally, then sideways at me, and I held my breath until the girl said softly: "You had better tell him."
"Very few," said the foreman; and I hoped that my face was as expressionless as I tried to make it when I heard the count. "Some of those near the fence got clear, and some didn't. Steel had grubbed up a post, and when the wires slacked part of the rest got tangled up and went down, choking the gap. It was worse than a Chicago slaughter-house when the fire rolled up."
"The horses, too? How long have I been ill, and has any rain fallen?" I asked, with the strange steadiness that sometimes follows a crushing blow, and Thorn moodily shook his head.
"Both horses done for. You've been ill 'bout two weeks, I think. No rain worth mentioning—and the crop is clean wiped out."
There was silence for some minutes, and Sally Steel patted my uninjured shoulder sympathetically. Then I pointed to a litter of papers on the table, and inquired if there were any letters in Lane's writing. Thorn handed me one reluctantly, and it was hard to refrain from fierce exclamation as I read the laconic missive. Lane regretted to hear of my accident, but the scarcity of money rendered it necessary to advise me that as I had not formally accepted his terms, repayment of the loan was overdue, and he would be obliged to realize unless I were willing to pledge Crane Valley or renew the arrangement at an extra five per cent. on the terms last mentioned.
"Bad news?" said Sally. "Then I guess Thorn sha'n't worry you any more; but it's just when things look worst the turn comes. That team will be bolting soon, Thorn. I'll sit right back in the corner, and until you want to talk to me you can forget I'm there."
The high-pitched voice sank to a gentler tone, and I felt grateful to Sally Steel. Her reckless vagaries often formed a theme for laughter when the inhabitants of the prairie foregathered at settlement or store; but there was a depth of good-nature, as well as an overdaring love of mischief in her, and not infrequently a blessing accompanied the jest. Thorn was moving towards the door when, recollecting another point, I beckoned him.
"How was it that when they had, or should have had, time enough, Henderson's man and Redmond did not stop the cattle bunching in the fence? It's very unlike our ways if they made no effort to save my beasts as well as their own masters' property," I said.
Foreman Thorn looked troubled, and I saw that Sally was watching him keenly. "I don't understand it rightly, and I guess no man ever will," he said. "Of course, we struck Henderson's Jo with just that question, and this is what he made of it. He and Redmond were camping in Torkill's deserted sod-house, and whenthey saw the fires were bad that night, Redmond said he'd ride round the cattle. Their own lot was pretty well out of harm's way, east of the fence, but Jo told him to take a look at yours. Redmond started, and, as Jo knew that he'd be called if he were wanted, he went off to sleep."
"That does not explain much," I interjected, when Thorn halted, rubbing his head as though in search of inspiration.
"There isn't an explanation. Jo, waking later, saw the fire coming right down the hollow and started on foot for the fence. There was no sign of Redmond anywhere. Jo couldn't get the stock out, and he couldn't cut the fence, and he was going back for an ax when we met him. You know all the rest—'cept this. Steel and I were standing over you, and the fire was roasting the beasts mixed up in the fence, when Redmond comes along. The way he stood, the flame shone right on his face. It seemed twisted, and the man looked like a ghost. He stood there blinking at the beasts—and it wasn't a pretty sight—then shook all over as he stooped down and looked at you. There was a good deal of blood about you from the horse.
"'What the devil's wrong with you? Stiffen yourself up!' says Steel; and Redmond's voice cracked in the middle as he answered him: 'I'm feeling mighty sick. Is he dead?'
"'Looks pretty near it. If you'd seen those beasts clear he mightn't have come to this. Here, take a drink. We'll want you presently,' says Steel, and went on strapping you together with a girth and bridle, while I watched Redmond with one eye. As you know, there was never much grit in the creature, and he had another shivering fit.
"'Get out until you're feeling better. That kind of thing's catching, and we've lots to do,' I said; and he laughs with a cackle like an hysterical woman, and blinks straight past me. Steel and I figured he'd got hold of some smuggled whisky and been drinking bad, but afterwards Henderson's Jo said no.
"'It's murder. My God! It's horrible—an' he never done anyone no harm,' he says, and falls to cussing somebody quietly. I can talk pretty straight when I'm hot myself, but that was ice-cold swearing with venom in it, and when he got on to Judas, with the devil in his eyes, I ripped up a big sod and plugged him on the head with it.
"'If you don't let up or quit I'll pound the life out of you,' says Steel.
"Well, we got you fixed so you couldn't make the damage worse, and when Steel went for the wagon and I looked around for Redmond he was gone. Don't know what to think of it, anyway, 'cept his troubles or bad whisky had turned his head. You see he was never far from crazy."
"Why didn't one of you get hold of him and make him talk next day?" I asked; and Thorn looked at me curiously.
"Because he'd gone. Lit out to nobody knows where and stopped there. I don't know just what to think, myself."
Sally took Thorn by the shoulders and thrust him out, but he left me with sufficient, and unpleasant, food for reflection. The stock I had counted on were gone. Also, when it was above all things desirable that I should be up and doing, I must lie still for weeks, useless as a log. One thing at least I saw clearly, and that was the usurer's purpose to absorb my property; and as I lay with throbbing forehead and tight-clenched fingers, which had grown strangely white, I determined that he should have cause to remember the struggle before he accomplished it. That Redmond had been driven by him into shameful treachery appeared too probable, though there was no definite proof of it, and the thought stiffened my resolution. My scattered neighbors, patient as they were, were ill to coerce and would doubtless join me in an effort before the schemer's machinations left us homeless.
Then I could hardly check a groan as I remembered all that the brief glimpses of a brighter life at Bonaventure had suggested. A few months earlier it had appeared possible that with one or two more good seasons I might even have attained to it; but since then a gulf had opened between Beatrice Haldane and me, and the best I could hope for was a resumption of what now seemed hopeless drudgery. It was a bitter awakening, and I almost regretted that Steel and Foreman Thorn had not been a few seconds later when the fence went down. An hour passed, and Sally Steel, bringing a chair over to my side, offered to read to me what she said was a real smart shadowing story. I glanced at the invincible detective standing amid a scene of bloodshed, depicted on the cover of the journal she held up, and declined with due civility.
"I am afraid my nerves are not good enough. I should sooner you talked to me, Sally," I said.
She laughed coquettishly, and there was no doubt that Steel's sister was handsome, as women on that part of the prairie go. Sun and wind had ripened the color in her face, her teeth were white as ivory, her lips full and red, and perhaps most men would have found pleasure watching the sparkle of mischief that danced in her eyes as she answered demurely: "That would be just too nice. What shall we talk about?"
"You might tell me who was the first to come ask about me," I said.
The girl stretched out one plump arm with a comprehensive gesture. "They all came, bringing things along, most of them. Even the little Icelander; he loaded up his wagon with a keg of herrings—said they were best raw—and lumps of grindstone bread. Oh, yes; they all came, and I was glad to see them, 'cept when some of their wives came with them."
"They are kind people in this country; but how could the women worry you? In any case, I think you would be equal to them," I commented; and, somewhat to my surprise, the girl first blushed, and then looked positively wicked.
"They—well, they would ask questions, and saidthings, when they found Tom was down to Brandon," she answered enigmatically. "Still, I guess I was equal to most of them. 'Rancher Ormesby's not sending the hat round yet, and that truck is not fit for any sick man to eat when it's just about half-cooked,' I said. 'You can either take it back or leave it for Thorn to worry with. Fresh rocks wouldn't hurt his digestion. Just now I'm way too busy to answer conundrums.'"
Sally seemed glad to abandon that topic, and did not look quite pleased when I hazarded another question, with suppressed interest, but as carelessly as I could: "Did anybody else drive over?"
The girl laughed a trifle maliciously, and yet with a certain enjoyment. "Oh, yes. One day, when I was too busy for anything, the people from Bonaventure drove over, and wanted to take you back. I don't know why, but the way Haldane's elder daughter looked about the place just got my back up. 'You can't have him. This is where he belongs,' I said.
"'But he is ill, and this place is hardly fit for him. There are no comforts, and we could take better care of him,' said the younger one, and I turned round to her.
"'That's just where you're wrong. Rancher Ormesby has lived here for eight years, and when he's sick he has plenty friends of his own kind to take care of him. I'm one of them, and we don't dump our sick people on to strangers,' I said.
"The elder one she straightens herself a little, as though she didn't like my talk. 'He could not be as comfortable as he would be at Bonaventure, which is the most important thing. We will ask the doctor; and have you any right to place obstacles in the way of Mr. Ormesby's recovery?' says she, and that was enough for me.
"'I've all the right I want,' I answered. 'I'm running Gaspard's Trail, and if you can find a man about the place who won't jump when I want him, you needn't believe me. That makes me a busy woman—see?—so I'll not keep you. Go back to Bonaventure, and don'tcome worrying the people he belongs to about Rancher Ormesby.'"
I groaned inwardly, and only by an effort concealed my blank consternation. "What did they say next?" I asked.
"Nothing much. The younger one—and I was half sorry I'd spoken straight to her—opened her eyes wide. The elder one she looks at me in a way that made me feel fit to choke her, while Haldane made a little bow. 'I have no doubt he is in capable hands, and we need not trouble you further. No, I don't think you need mention that we called,' says he."
Sally tossed her head with an air of triumph as she concluded, and I lay very still, for it was too late to pray for deliverance from my friends, though of all the rude succession this was about the most cruel blow. What mischievous fiend had prompted the quick-tempered girl to turn upon the Haldanes I could never surmise, but jealousy might have had something to do with it, for Trooper Cotton had once been a favorite of hers. In any case, the result appeared disastrous, for, while I believed her no more than thoughtless, there was no disguising the fact that some of the settlers' less-favored daughters spoke evil of Sally Steel, and I feared their stories had reached Bonaventure.
When five minutes or so had passed she looked at me somewhat shyly. "You're not mad?" she said.
"I could hardly be vexed with you, whatever happened, after all you have done for me. I was only thinking," I made shift to answer. "Still, you might have been a little more civil, Sally."
For a moment or two the girl appeared almost penitent; then she bent her head towards my own, and again the mischief crept into her eyes.
"I'd have brought them in to a banquet, if I had only guessed," she said; and with a thrill of laughter she slipped out of the room. It was with sincere relief I saw her go, for I was in no mood for the somewhat pointed prairie banter, and felt that, in spite of her manifold kindnesses, I could almost have shaken Sally Steel. Then I turned my head from the light, remembering I was not only a ruined man without even power to move, but had left a discordant memory with the friends whose good opinion I most valued, and whom now I might never again meet on the old terms.
The weather continued pitilessly hot and dry, when, one afternoon, Trooper Cotton, returning from a tour of fireguard inspection, sat near the window-seat in which I lay at Gaspard's Trail. I was glad of his company, because the sight of the parched prairie and bare strip of plowland was depressing. Barns and granary alike were empty, for the earth had failed to redeem her promise that season, and an unnatural silence brooded over Gaspard's Trail.
"I don't know what has come over this country," the trooper said. "One used to get a cheery word everywhere, but now farmer and stockman can hardly answer a question civilly, and the last fellow I spoke to about his fireguards seemed inclined to assault me. Presumably it's the bad times, and I'll be thankful when they improve. It might put some of you into a more pleasant humor."
"If you had said bad men you might have been nearer the mark," I answered dryly. "We are a peaceable people, but there's an oppression worse than any governmental tyranny, and from the rumors in the air it's not impossible some of us may try to find our own remedy if we are pushed too far."
"That's a little indefinite," said Cotton, with a laugh. "If you mean taking the law into your own hands, there would be very unpleasant work for me. Still, I'm sorry for all of you, especially those whom that flabby scoundrel Lane seems to be squeezing. He's been driving to and from the railroad a good deal of late, and it's curious that twice when I struck his trail two traveling photographers turned up soon after him. One was a most amusing rascal, but I did not see the other, who was busy inside the wagon tent, and who apparently managed the camera. I'll show you a really tolerable picture of me he insisted on taking."
It struck me that Boone, or Adams, had twice run a serious risk; but I said nothing, and Cotton, fumbling inside his tunic, tossed a litter of papers on the table. These were mostly official, but there were odd letters among them, for the trooper was not remarkable for preciseness, and I noticed a crest upon some of the envelopes, while, after shuffling them, he flung me a small card, back uppermost. I was surprised when, turning it over, the face of Lucille Haldane met my gaze.
"It is a charming picture; but that is only natural, considering the original. How did you get this, Cotton?" I said.
The trooper snatched it from me, and a darker color mantled his forehead. "Confound it! I never meant to show you that," he said.
"So I surmised," I answered dryly; and the lad frowned as he thrust the picture out of sight.
"You will understand, Ormesby, that Miss Haldane did not give me this. I—well—I discovered it."
"Wasn't it foolish of you?" I asked quietly; and the trooper, who, strange to say, did not seem to find my tone of paternal admonition ludicrous, answered impulsively: "I don't know why I should strip for your inspection, Ormesby, or why I should not favor you with a well-known reply; but it is perhaps best that you should not misunderstand the position. I know what you are thinking, but I haven't forgotten I'm Trooper Cotton—nor am I likely to. It's a strange life, Ormesby, and the men who live it go under occasionally. This—God bless her—is merely something to hold on by."
I made no answer, for there was nothing appropriate I could find to say; but it occurred to me that Lucille Haldane might never receive a higher compliment than this lad's unexpectant homage.
"Here is the right one, and you will obliterate the other from your memory," he said, passing me a second photograph. "The fellow who took it knows how to handle a camera."
It was evident he did; and, knowing who he was, the irony of the circumstances impressed me as I examined the picture. "He has an artistic taste and an eye for an effective pose. Are you going to send any copies to your people in England, Cotton?" I said.
"No," answered the lad quietly; "they might not be pleased with it. Well, I dare say, you have guessed long ago that I am one of the legion. Most of my people were soldiers, which was why, when I had two dollars left, I offered the nation my services at Regina; but I am the first of them to wear a police private's uniform."
I nodded sympathetically, and the trooper, who looked away from me out of the window, said: "Talk of the devil! All men, it is said, are equal in this country, but I fancy there's a grade between most of us and your acquaintance, Foster Lane. The fellow has passed the corral, and I can't get out without meeting him."
I nodded with a certain grim sense of anticipation, for I had determined to speak very plainly to Foster Lane, and knew that Cotton could, on occasion, display a refined insolence that was signally exasperating. The next moment Lane came in, red-faced and perspiring, and greeted me with his usual affability.
"I'm on the way to recovery, but unable to ride far, which explains my request for a visit," I said; and Lane waved his large hands deprecatingly.
"Business is business, and you need not apologize, because although I have come two hundred miles you will find first-class expenses charged for in the bill. I can't smoke on horseback. Will you and the trooper try one of these?"
"No, thanks," said Cotton, with an inflection in his voice and a look in his half-closed eyes that would have warned a more sensitive person; but Lane, still holding out the cigar-case, added with mild surprise: "By the price I paid for them they ought to be good."
"I don't doubt it," drawled Cotton, glancing languidly at the speaker. "But a few of what you would call British prejudices still cling to me, and I take cigars and things only from my friends—you see?"
The stout man laughed a little, though there was malice in his eye. "And we are not likely to be acquainted? You are, one might presume, a scion of the English aristocracy, come out to recruit your health or wait until it's a little less sultry in the old country."
"I would hardly go so far!"—and Cotton drawled out the words, as he turned upon his heel. "More unlikely things have happened. At present I have the honor of serving her Majesty as—a police trooper."
Lane handed me his cigar-case when the lad strolled out of the door, but I was in no mood to assume an unfelt cordiality. "I am not inclined for smoking. Hadn't we better come straight to business?" I said.
Lane struck a match, and stretched his legs along the window-seat, though he closed the case with a snap. "Why, certainly! You are ready to redeem the mortgage on Gaspard's Trail?"
He spoke pleasantly, though there was a sneer in his eyes, and he had both lighted his cigar, in spite of my hint, and laid his dusty boots on the cushions with a cool assurance that made me long to personally chastise him. "You probably know that I am not," I said.
"I did hear you had lost some cattle," he answered indifferently. "Well, in that case, I wait your proposition."
"I am open to renew the loan at the original interest until this time next year, when, no matter what I may have to part with, it will be paid off. You have already had a very fair return on your money," I said.
"It can't be done," and Lane looked thoughtfully at his cigar. "I'll carry you on that long at double interest, or make you a bid outright for Crane Valley."
"There is no reason in your first offer; you asked only fifty per cent. increase last time, which was enough in all conscience. What do you want with Crane Valley?"
Lane smiled benignly. "You didn't accept that offer formally. Crane Valley's a pretty location, and I've taken a fancy to it."
I took time to answer, and set my brain to work. The advantage lay with the enemy, but, while it appearedcertain that he would dispossess me of Gaspard's Trail, I determined to hold on to Crane Valley. "You can't have it, and I will not pay the extortionate interest. That, I think, is plain enough," I said.
The financier shrugged his shoulders. "I hope you won't be sorry. I haven't quite decided on my program, but you will hear what it is when I'm ready. Have you got your own fixed?"
"I will have soon," I answered, my indignation gaining the mastery. "There is no advantage to be gained by further circumlocution, and you may as well know that I will give you as much trouble as possible before you plunder me. In the first place, if we find Redmond, I shall try to strike you for conspiracy."
"Do you know where Redmond is?" and there was a curious note in the speaker's voice, though I stolidly refrained from any sign of either negation or assent. "Neither do I; but I have my suspicions that he won't be much use to you if you do find him. The man is half-crazy, anyway. Did you ever hear about the fool bullfrog and the ox, Rancher Ormesby?"
He leaned back against the logs, and chuckled so complacently at his own conceit that it was hard to believe this easy-tempered creature was draining half my neighbors' blood; but I was filled with a great loathing for him.
"Your simile isn't a good one, even if it fits the case. An ox is a hard-working, honest, and useful kind of beast; but there's no use bandying words," I said.
"Just so!" and Lane rose lazily. "It's rather a pity you sent for me, because you have not had much for your money. Being rather pressed just now, I won't stay."
I had no intention of requesting him to do so, for the air seemed clearer without him, and presently Cotton returned. For the first time, I told him all my suspicions concerning Redmond, and he looked grave as he listened. "It would have saved some people sorrow if I could only have run that horse-leach in," he commented, gazing regretfully after the diminishing figureof the rider. "Yes; it's curious about Redmond. Lane was over at his place a little while before your accident, and I believe afterwards as well, and since then nobody has seen Redmond. I'll have a talk with Mackay, and put some of our men on his trail. If he's still on top of the prairie they'll find him."
Cotton rode away; and late that evening Steel returned from his own holding with a very grim face, while the eyes of his sister were suspiciously red.
"I'm to be sold up, and am turned out now," he said. "Lane, who won't wait any longer, is foreclosing, and he'll fix things so there will be no balance left. God knows what's to become of Sally and me."
"You need not trouble about Sally," the girl said, with a flash in her eyes. "We'll worry along somehow, and we'll live to see that devil sorry."
Practical counsel seemed the best sympathy, and after asking a few questions, I said: "This is going to be a grain-producing country, and there are plenty acres ready for breaking and horses idle at Crane Valley. When Lane seizes Gaspard's Trail, as he probably will, we must see what can be done with them on the share arrangement; and meantime, since I paid two hired men off, there is plenty for you to do here helping me."
Steel eventually agreed, and as soon as I was fit for the saddle I rode over to Mackay's quarters; but, though he stated that if Redmond were anywhere in the Territories he would sooner or later be found, nothing had so far resulted from his inquiries.
It was some weeks later, and towards the close of a sultry afternoon, when I rode homewards with Cotton and Steel towards the Sweetwater. We had much thunder that season, and though there had been a heavy storm the night before, a stagnant, oppressive atmosphere still hung over the prairie. It suited the somber mood of two of the party, while even Cotton seemed unusually subdued.
Steel's possessions had been sold off that day, and bought up at ridiculously inadequate prices by two strangers, who we all suspected had been financed byLane. Few of us had a dollar to spare, and the auctioneer, who was also probably under the money-lender's thumb, demanded proof of ability to make the purchase when one or two neighbors attempted to force up the bidding. Steel rode with slack bridle and his head bent, and I was heavy of heart, for I held Gaspard's Trail only on sufferance, and the same fate must soon overtake me. The prairie stretched before us a desolate waste, fading on the horizon into gray obscurity, and, together with the gloom of the heavens above, its forlorn aspect increased my depression. So we came moodily to the dip to the Sweetwater, and I saw Mackay standing beside a deeper pool below. A rapid flowed into the head of it, and the lines of froth shone with a strange lividness. The time was then perhaps an hour before sunset. When we dismounted to water and rest the horses, Mackay turned sharply and glanced at Cotton.
"All went off quietly?" And the trooper nodded.
"Yes," I said. "We have a long patience, Sergeant; but there were signs on some of the faces that things may go differently some day."
"Ay?" said the sergeant, fixing his keen eyes on me as he stood, a lean, bronze-skinned statue beside the river. "What were ye meaning, Rancher Ormesby?"
"I was merely giving you a hint," I said. "We have paid all demanded from us and kept the law, but now, when the powers that rule us stand by and watch us ground out of existence to enrich a few unprincipled schemers, it is hard to say what might not happen."
"Ye did well," was the dry answer. "It will be my business to see ye keep it still; but in this country any man has liberty to talk just as foolishly as it pleases him. Can the law change the seasons for ye, or protect the careless from their own improvidence? But let be. I'm older than most o' ye, and have seen that there's a measure set on oppression."
He concluded with a curious assurance which approached solemnity; but Steel added, with a Western expletive, that he had already let be until he was ruined.Then I broke in: "If I can find Redmond and wring the truth from him I hope to prove that the limit has been reached; and I purpose, in the first place, to see what the law will do for me. Have you any word of him?"
"No," and the sergeant's tone was very significant. "If he were still above the prairie-sod we should have found him. But there was a bit freshet last night—and I am expecting him."
Steel, I fancied, shivered, and though the speaker might well be mistaken, anything that served to divert our thoughts was a relief, and for a while we lay among the grasses, smoking silently. The sky was heavily overcast, there was no breath of air astir, and the slow gurgle of the river drifted mournfully down the hollow. For some reason, I felt strangely restless and expectant, as though something unusual would shortly happen. A faint drumming of hoofs rose up from somewhere far off across the prairie, as well as a sound which might have been made by an approaching wagon.
"That's Lane striking south for the railroad with a few of the boys behind him," Steel said listlessly. "There'll be thunder before he reaches it, and Lardeau's team is wild, but there's no use hoping they'll bolt and break Lane's neck for him. Accidents do not happen to that kind of man."
A little time had passed, and the beat of horses' feet broke in a rhythmic measure through the heavy stillness, when Cotton, who had followed his sergeant along the bank, raised a shout, and I leaped to my feet, for something that circled with the current was drifting down stream. We ran our hardest, and, for I was not strong yet, the others were standing very silent, with tense faces and staring eyes, when I rejoined them.
"Yon's Redmond," said Sergeant Mackay. "I was expecting him."
The object he pointed to slid slowly by abreast of us, and I felt a shock of physical nausea as I stared at it. At that distance it was without human semblance, a mere shapeless mass of sodden clothing, save for thefaint white glimmer of a face; but the shock gave place to a fit of sullen fury. Heaven knows I cherished no anger against the unfortunate man. Indeed, from the beginning, I had regarded him as a mere helpless tool; but death had robbed me of my only weapon, and I remembered Lane's prediction that Redmond would be of little use to me if I found him.
"If one of ye has a lariat ye had better bring it," said Sergeant Mackay.
We followed the object down stream. It floated slowly, now half-submerged, now rising more buoyantly, with the blanched countenance turned towards the murky heavens, out of which the light was fading, until Steel, poising himself upon the bank, deftly flung a coupled lariat. The noose upon its end took hold, and I shrank backwards when we drew what it held ashore, for Redmond's face was ill to look upon, and seemed to mock me with its staring eyes.
"Stan' clear!" said the sergeant, perhaps feeling speech of any kind would be a relief, for nobody showed the least desire to crowd upon him. "If it had not been for the regulations a drop of whisky would have been acceptable, seeing that it's my painful duty to find out how he came by his end."
The words were excusable, but there was no whisky forthcoming; and though, perhaps, only one man in a hundred would have undertaken that gruesome task, the sergeant went through it with the grim thoroughness which characterized all his actions.
"There's no sign of a blow or bullet that I can find, and I'm thinking only the Almighty knows whether he drowned himself or it was accidental death. Ye can identify him, all of ye?"
We thought we could, but had been so intent that nobody noticed the trampling of horses' hoofs until a wagon was drawn up close by, and several riders reined in their beasts.
"Here's a man who ought to," said Steel. "Come down and swear to your partner, Lane."
Turning, I saw my enemy start as he looked overthe side of the wagon at what lay before him. Every eye was fixed upon him, and Steel stood quietly determined by the wheel.
"I'm in a hurry, and don't fill the post of coroner," the former said.
"Will you come down?" Steel added; and there was a low growl from the assembly, while Lane shrank back from that side of the vehicle. "I guess it's certain this man was the last to see Redmond alive."
"Drive on!" said Lane to the teamster; but the man hesitated, while, when his employer snatched up the reins, there was another murmur deeper than before, and mounted men closed about the wagon, their figures cutting blackly against the fading light. Why they were journeying homewards in such company I did not learn, but, overtaking it, they had perhaps ridden beside the wagon for the purpose of expressing their frank opinion of its occupant.
"Ye cannot pass until ye have answered my questions," said Sergeant Mackay. "If he does not dismount ye have authority to help him, Steel. Ye will hold the horses, Trooper Cotton."
Lane slowly climbed down the wheel, and neither Mackay nor Cotton interfered when, as he showed signs of remaining at the foot of it, Steel's hand closed firmly on his neck and forced him forwards, apparently much against his wishes. Then the ruined farmer held him, protesting savagely, beside the body of his victim. It was, in its own way, an impressive scene—the erect, soldierly figures of the uniformed troopers, the circle of silent mounted men, who moved only to sooth their uneasy horses, and the white-faced man who shivered visibly as he looked down at the sodden heap at his feet. There was also, even had the two been strangers, ample excuse for him.
"While protesting that this is an outrage, I am ready to answer your questions," he said huskily.
"Who is this man? Did ye know him?" asked the sergeant, whose face remained woodenly impassive.
"Rancher Redmond, by his clothing," was the answer. "Yes; if necessary, I think I could swear to him." And the sergeant asked again: "When and where did ye last see him?"
"In the birchcoulée, at dusk, three weeks past Tuesday. That would make it——" But the financier seemed unable to work out the simple sum, and concluded: "You can figure the date for yourself."
"What business had ye with him?" and the sergeant smiled dryly at the answer: "That does not concern you."
"Maybe no. If ye have good reasons for not telling I will not press ye, though ye may be called upon to speak plainly. Do ye know how he came into the river?"
"No," said Lane, a trifle too vehemently.
"Do ye know of any reason why he should have drowned himself?" And Lane turned upon the questioner savagely:
"I'll make you all suffer for your inference! Why should I know? I challenge the right of anyone but a coroner to detain me."
"I'll let ye see my authority at the station if I find it necessary to take ye there," said the sergeant grimly. "Noo will ye answer? Do ye know why this man ye had dealings with should wish to destroy himself?"
"You're presuming a good deal," was the answer; and Lane's face grew malevolent as he glanced at Steel and me. "How do you know he did destroy himself, anyway; and if he did, I guess it's an open secret he had trouble with Ormesby and Steel."
I sprang forward, but Cotton laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and there was a threatening ejaculation from one of the bystanders. "Well, to satisfy you, I solemnly declare I am in no way connected with what has befallen the deceased rancher, and know of no reason why he should have attempted his life. This isn't a court; but because I'm in a hurry, and to stop chattering tongues, I call heaven to witness it is the truth."
I believed that, after a villainous attempt to divert suspicion to me, the man was deliberately perjuring himself, and several of the bystanders must have believed it, too. Most of them were not wholly free from superstition, and their faces were almost expectant as they stood strung up and intent about the dead man under the deepening gloom. Then a flicker of pale lightning filled the hollow. Each face was lit up for a second, and Lane's was livid; and, when the flash faded, the dusk seemed to deepen suddenly, and a boom of distant thunder rolled from swelling level to level across the prairie. Thunder had been very frequent during the last few weeks, but the listeners seemed to find the coincidence significant.
"Ye can pass," said the sergeant, whose voice seemed a trifle unsteady. "But it will be on horseback, and we may want ye later. Lardeau—it's a charity—ye will lend Redmond the wagon."
"You can't have it," said Lane. "I have a long journey before me and a rheumatic thigh. If you take the wagon I hired what am I to do?"
"You can ride with Redmond. His house is on your way, and you can't hurt him, anyway. The poor devil's beyond you now," said a stern voice; and Lane, who allowed the teamster to help him onto one of the horses which was replaced, departed hurriedly.
"I congratulate ye," said Sergeant Mackay significantly. "He was a fellow-creature, boys. Who'll help me lift him in? We will e'en need the same service ourselves some day."
I shuddered, but took my place with Steel among the rest; and when the task was accomplished, the latter expressed both our feelings as he said: "I wouldn't for five hundred dollars do that again; but it seemed the poor devil's due after what we said about him. I guess he wasn't quite responsible, and was driven to it; but, when it comes to the reckoning, God help the man who drove him."
It was dark when we gained the level and followed the creaking wagon that jolted before us across the prairie. Few words were spoken. A low rumbling of thunder rolled across the great emptiness, while nowand then a pale blue flash fell athwart the lathered horses and set faces of the men. "The beasts," said one big farmer, "know considerably more than they can tell. Look at the near one sweating! I guess they find Redmond or the load he's carrying mighty heavy."
"Then," added another voice, which broke harshly through the thuds of hoofs, "ten teams wouldn't move the man who rode away."
The ways of the prairie dwellers are in some respects modern and crudely new; but the Highland servants of the Hudson's Bay Company and the French half-breedvoyageurhave between them left us a dowry of quaint belief and superstition; and the growl of the thunder and the black darkness made a due impression on most of those who brought Redmond home. For my part I was thankful when a lonely log-house loomed up ahead and the wagon came to a standstill. Four men, improvising a stretcher, took up their burden, and halted as Sergeant Mackay and another, neither of whom seemed to care about his errand, knocked on the door.
A young woman opened it, holding aloft a lamp, and under its uncertain light her face showed drawn and pale. I breathed harder, and heard some of those about me murmur compassionately, for she looked very frail and young to bear what must follow. The sergeant's words did not reach us, but a swift glare of blue flame, that left us dazzled, broke in upon them. The whole space about the building was flooded with temporary brilliancy, and Redmond's daughter must have seen us standing about the wagon and the bearers waiting, for she dropped the lantern (which Mackay seized in time), and caught at the logs which framed the door as if for support. A minute must have passed before the slight form once more stood erect upon the threshold.
"Mackay thinks of everything," Steel said in my ear. "He sent Gordon off to bring his wife along. There's only the half-breed here, and she'll need a white woman with her to-night, poor soul."
"Bring him in," said a low voice; and before the sergeant could prevent her, the speaker, snatching up thelantern, moved forward to meet the bearers. It was no sight for young eyes, and I saw Steel shudder; but there was wild Erse blood in the girl, and, holding one arm up, she stood erect, facing us again.
"This was my father, and he was a kind man to me," she said, with a choking gasp that was not a sob, and from which her voice broke high and shrill. "For the sake of a few acres and cattle he was driven to his death, and may black sorrow follow the man who ruined him. Sorrow and bitterness, with the fear that will drive sleep from him and waste him blood and bone until he takes the curse of the widow and orphan with him into the flame of hell!"
Then the eerie voice sank again, and it was with a strange dignity she concluded: "I thank you, neighbors. You can bring him in."
Another paler flash lit up the prairie as they carried Redmond in, and, when a wagon came bouncing up to the fence, Steel said: "Here's Mrs. Gordon; they have lost no time. Are you coming back, Ormesby? I've had about enough of this."
I had no wish to linger, and when we rode homewards through the deluge that now thrashed our faces, the sergeant, who overtook us, said: "Man, I feel creepy! She's no' quite canny, and yon was awesome."
"It was impressive; but you can't attach much importance to that poor girl's half-distracted raving," I said, partly to convince myself.
"Maybe no," said Sergeant Mackay. "Superstition, ye say; but I'm thinking there's a judgment here as well as hereafter, and I'd no' care to carry yon curse about with me."
So Redmond came home, and we buried him the following night by torchlight on a desolate ridge of the prairie. It was his daughter who ordered this; and if some of those who held aloft the flaming tow guessed his secret they kept it for the sake of the girl who stood with a stony, tearless face beside the open grave. He had doubtless yielded to strong compulsion when driven into a corner from which, for one of his nature, there was no escape, and now that he was dead, I had transferred my score against him to the debit of the usurer. As we rode home after the funeral I said something of the kind to Steel, who agreed with me.
"If you concluded to try it, Thorn and Jo and I, taking our affidavits as to what we saw that night, might make out a case for you; but I don't know that we could fix it on Lane, and it strikes me as mean to drag a dead man into the fuss for nothing," he said. "Redmond has gone to a place where he can't testify, but he has left his daughter, and she already has about all she can stand."
"Strikes me that way, too; and Lane's too smart to be corraled," added Thorn.
"We'll get even somehow without Redmond, and to that end you two will have to run Gaspard's Trail," I said. "I'm going down to Montreal with Carolan's cattle."
A project had for some little time been shaping itself in my mind. I had a small reversionary interest in some English property, and though it would be long before a penny of it could accrue to me, it seemed just possible to raise a little money on it. Considering Western rates of interest, nobody in Winnipeg would troublewith such an investment, but I had a distant and prosperous kinsman in Montreal who might find some speculator willing. Montreal was, however, at least two thousand miles away, and traveling expensive; but the Carolan brothers had promptly accepted my offer to take charge of their cattle destined for Europe, which implied free passes both ways. It was not the mode of traveling one would have expected a prosperous rancher to adopt, but I needed every available dollar for the approaching struggle, and was well content when, after the untamed stock had nearly wrecked the railroad depot, we got them on board the cars.
The only time I ever saw Sergeant Mackay thoroughly disconcerted was that morning. We came up out of the empty prairie riding on the flanks of the herd. The beasts had suffered from the scarcity of water and were in an uncertain temper, while, as luck would have it, just as they surged close-packed between the bare frame houses, Mackay and a trooper came riding down the unpaved street of the little prairie town. There was no opening either to right or to left, and the more prudent storekeepers put up their shutters.
"Look as if they owned the universe, them police," said the man who cantered up beside me. "Sure, it would take the starch out of them if anything did start the cattle."
Mackay pulled up his horse and looked dubiously at the mass of tossing horns rolling towards him. "'Tis not in accordance with regulations to turn a big draft loose on a peaceful town. Why did ye not split them up?" he said. "Ye could be held responsible if there's damage done."
"I'm afraid these beasts don't understand regulations, and I had to bring them as best I could," I answered; and my assistant shouted, "Get out of the daylight, sergeant, dear, while your shoes are good."
Mackay seemed to resent this familiarity, and sat still, with one hand on his hip, an incarnation of official dignity, though he kept his eyes upon the fast advancing herd until the big freight locomotive which was awaiting us set up a discordant shrieking, and backed a row of clanging cars across the switches. That was sufficient for the untamed cattle. With a thunder of pounding hoofs they poured tumultuously down the rutted street, and I caught a brief glimpse of the sergeant hurriedly wheeling his horse before everything was blotted out by the stirred-up dust. The streets of a prairie town are inches deep in powdered loam all summer and in bottomless sloughs all spring.
A wild shout of "Faugh-a-ballagh!" rang out; and I found myself riding faster than was prudent along the crazy plank sidewalk to pass and, if possible, swing the stampeding herd into the railroad corral. How my horse gained the three-foot elevation and avoided falling over the dry-goods bales and flour bags which lay littered everywhere, I do not remember; but my chief assistant, Dennis, who, yelling his hardest, charged recklessly down the opposite one, afterwards declared that his beast climbed up the steps like a kitten. Then, as I drew a little ahead, Mackay became dimly visible, riding bareheaded, as though for his life, with the horns, that showed through the tossed-up grit, a few yards behind him. Fortunately the stockyard gates were open wide, and Dennis came up at a gallop in time to head the herd off from a charge across the prairie, while a second man and I turned their opposite wing. Mackay did his best to wheel his horse clear of the gates, but the beast was evidently bent on getting as far as possible from the oncoming mass, and resisted bit and spur. Then there was a great roar of laughter from loungers and stockyard hands as the dust swept up towards heaven and the drove thundered through the opening.
"Where's the sergeant?" I shouted; and Dennis, who chuckled so that his speech was thick, made answer: "Sure, he's in the corral. The beasts have run him in, but it's mighty tough beef they'd find him in the old country."
Dennis was right, for when the haze thinned the sergeant appeared, as white as a miller, flattened up against the rails, while a playful steer curveted in the vicinity,as though considering where to charge him. He was extricated by pulling down the rails, and accepted my apologies stiffly.
"This," he said, disregarding the offer of a lounger to wash him under the locomotive tank, "is not just what I would have expected of ye, Rancher Ormesby."
While the stock were being transferred to the cars amid an almost indescribable tumult, I met Miss Redmond on the little sod platform.
"I am glad I have met you, because I am going to Winnipeg, and may never see you again," she said. "There is much I do not understand, but I feel you have been wronged, and want to thank you for your consideration."
Redmond's daughter had received some training in an Eastern convent, it was said, and I found it hard to believe that the very pale, quietly-spoken girl was the one who had called down the curses upon Foster Lane. Still, I knew there was a strain of something akin to insanity in that family, and that, in addition, she was of the changeful nature which accompanies pure Celtic blood.
"You should not indulge in morbid fancies, and you have very little cause for gratitude. We were sincerely sorry for you, and tried to do what we could," I said.
Ailin Redmond fixed her black eyes intently upon me, and I grew uneasy, seeing what suggested a smoldering fire in them. "You are not clever enough to deceive a woman," she said, with a disconcerting composure. "I do not know all, but perhaps I shall some day, and then, whatever it costs me, you and another person shall see justice done. It may not be for a long time, but I can wait; and I am going away from the prairie. Still, I should like to ask you one question—how did your cattle get inside the fence?"
"The fire drove them; but instead of fretting over such things, you must try to forget the last two months as soon as possible," I answered as stoutly as I could, seeking meanwhile an excuse for flight, which was notlacking. "Those beasts will kill somebody if I neglect them any longer."
Ailin Redmond held out her hand to me, saying very quietly: "I shall never forget, and—it is no use protesting—a time will come when I shall understand it all clearly. Until then may the good saints protect you from all further evil, Rancher Ormesby."
As I hurried away a tented wagon lurched into the station, and when I last saw Redmond's daughter she stood near the lonely end of the platform talking earnestly with the traveling photographer.
Dennis had not recovered from his merriment when, much to the satisfaction of those we left behind, the long cars rolled out of the station, while many agents remembered our visit to the stations which succeeded. Blinding dust and fragments of ballast whirled about the cars as the huge locomotive hauled them rocking over the limitless levels. From sunrise to sunset the gaunt telegraph poles reeled up from the receding horizon, growing from the size of matches to towering spars as they came, and then slowly diminishing far down the straight-ruled line again. For hours we lay on side-tracks waiting until one of the great inter-ocean expresses, running their portion of the race round half the globe, thundered past, white with the dust of a fifteen-hundred-mile journey, and then, with cars and cattle complaining, we lurched on our way again.
At times we led the beasts out in detachments to water at wayside stations, and there was usually much profanity and destruction of property before we got them back again, and left the agent to assess the damage to his feelings, besides splintered gangways and broken rails. It was at Portage or Brandon, I think, that one showed me a warning received by wire. "Through freight full of wild beasts coming along. There'll be nothing left of your station if you let the lunatics in charge of them turn their menagerie out."
The beasts had, however, grown more subdued before the cars rolled slowly into Winnipeg, and gave us little trouble when, leaving the prairie behind, we sped, eastwards ever, past broad lake and foaming river, into the muskegs of Ontario; so that I had time for reflection when the great locomotive, panting on the grades, hauled us, poised giddily between crag face and deep blue water, along the Superior shore. The Haldanes were in Montreal, and I wondered, in case chance threw me in their way, how they would greet me, and what I should say. I was apparently a prosperous rancher when they last spoke with me, and a tender of other men's cattle now, while it might well happen that in their eyes a further cloud rested upon me.
The long and weary journey came to an end at last, and when the big engines ceased their panting beside the broad St. Lawrence I left Dennis and his companions to divert themselves in Montreal after the fashion of their kind, and, arraying myself in civilized fashion, proceeded to my relative's offices.
A clerk said that Mr. Leyland, who was absent, desired me to follow him to his autumn retreat, but I first set about the business which had brought me, unassisted. Nobody, however, would entertain the species of investment I had to propose, and it was with a heavy heart I boarded the cars again some days later.
Leyland and his wife appeared unaffectedly glad to see me at their pretty summer-house, which stood above the smooth white shingle fringing a wide lake, and at sunset that evening I lay smoking among the boulders of a point, while his son and heir sat close by interrogating me. Part of the lake still reflected the afterglow, and after the monotonous levels of the prairie it rested my eyes to see the climbing pines tower above it in shadowy majesty. Their drowsy scent was soothing, and through the dusk that crept towards me from their feet, blinking lights cast trembling reflections across the glassy water. Several prosperous citizens retired at times to spend their leisure in what they termed camping on the islets of that lake.
"Air you poor and wicked?" asked the urchin, inspecting me critically.
"Very poor, and about up to the average for iniquity," I said; and the diminutive questioner rubbed his curly locks as though puzzled.
"Well, you don't quite look neither," he commented. "Poor men don't wear new store clothes. The last one I saw had big holes in his pants, and hadn't eaten nothing for three weeks, he said. Pop, he spanked me good 'cos I gave him four dollars off'n the bureau to buy some dinner with. Say, how long was it since you had a square meal, anyway? You did mighty well at supper. I was watching you."
"It is about two months since I had a meal like that and then it was because a friend of mine gave it to me," I answered truthfully; and Leyland junior rubbed his head again.
"No—you don't look very low down, but you must be," he repeated. "Pop was talking 'bout you, and he said: 'You'll do your best to see the poor devil has a good time, 'Twoinette. From what I gather he needs it pretty bad.'"
I laughed, perhaps somewhat hollowly, for the child commented: "Won't you do that again? It's just like a loon. There's one lives over yonder, and he might answer. Ma, she says people should never make a noise when they laugh; but when I sent Ted on the roof to get my ball, and he fell into the rain-butt, she just laughed worse than you, and her teeth came out."
"Your mother would probably spank you for telling that to strangers. But who is Ted?" I said, remembering that a loon is a water-bird that sets up an unearthly shrieking in the stillness of the night; and the urchin rebuked me with the cheerful disrespect for his seniors which characterizes the Colonial born.
"Say, was you forgotten when brains were given out? He's just Ted Caryl, and I think he's bad. Pop says his firm's meaner than road agents. He comes round evenings and swops business lies with Pop, 'specially when Bee is here, but he can't be clever. Ma says he don't even know enough to be sure which girl he wants. They is two of them, and I like Lou best."
"Why?" I asked, because the urchin seemed to expect some comment; and he proceeded to convince me. "They is both pretty, but Lou is nicest. I found it out one day I'd been eating corduroy candy, and Bee she just dropped me when I got up on her knee. She didn't say anything, but she looked considerable. Then I went to Lou, and she picked me up and gave me nicer candies out of a gilt-edge box. Ma says she must have been an angel, because her dress was all sticky, and I think she is. There was one just like her with silver wings in the church at Sault Chaudiere. One night Ma and them was talking 'bout you, and Bee sits quite still as if she didn't care, but she was listening. Lou, she says: 'Poor——' I don't think it was poor devil."
"Do you know where little boys who tell all they hear go to?" I asked; and Leyland junior pointed to a dusky sail that showed up behind the island before he answered wearily: "You make me tired. I've been asked that one before. Here's Ted and the others coming. I'm off to see what they have brought for me."
He vanished among the boulders, and, filling my pipe again, I kept still, feeling no great inclination to take part in the casual chatter of people with whose customs I had almost lost touch. I was struck by the resemblance of the names the child mentioned to those of Haldane's daughters, but both were tolerably common, and it did not please me that Mrs. Leyland should make a story of my struggles for the amusement of strangers. So some time had passed before I entered the veranda of the little wooden house, and, as it was only partially lighted by a shaded lamp, managed to find a place almost unobserved in a corner. Thus I had time to recover from my surprise at the sight of Beatrice and Lucille Haldane seated at a little table beneath the lamp. Two men I did not know leaned against the balustrade close at hand, and several more were partly distinguishable in the shadows. From where I sat some of the figures were projected blackly against a field of azure and silver, for the moon now hung above the lake. Beatrice Haldane was examining what appeared to be a bound collection of photographic reproductions.
"Yes. As Mrs. Leyland mentions, I have met the original of this picture, and it is a good one, though it owes something to the retoucher," she said; and I saw my hostess smile wickedly at her husband when somebody said: "Tell us about him. How interesting!"
Beatrice Haldane answered lightly: "There is not much to tell. The allegorical title explains itself, if it refers to the edict that it is by the sweat of his brow man shall earn his bread, which most of our acquaintances seem to have evaded. The West is a hard, bare country, and its inhabitants, though not wholly uncivilized, hard men. I should like to send some of our amateur athletes to march or work with them. This one is merely a characteristic specimen."
I wondered what the subject of the picture was, but waited an opportunity to approach the speaker, while, as I did so, a young man said: "I should rather like to take up your sister's challenge. Pulling the big catboat across here inside an hour without an air of wind was not exactly play; but can you tell us anything more about these tireless Westerners, Miss Lucille?"
The younger girl, who sat quietly, with her hands in her lap, looked up. "It is the fashion never to grow enthusiastic; but I am going to tell you, Ted. Those men were always in real earnest, and that is why they interested me; but I shouldn't take up the challenge if I were you. We call this camping. They lie down to sleep on many a journey in a snow trench under the arctic frost, ride as carelessly through blinding blizzard as summer heat, and, I concluded, generally work all day and half the night. They are not hard in any other sense, but very generous, though they sometimes speak, as they live, very plainly."
Some of the listeners appeared amused, others half-inclined to applaud the girl, and there was a little laughter when Miss Haldane interposed: "This is my sister's hobby. Some of them, you may remember, seem to live upon gophers, Lucille."
Lucille Haldane did not appear pleased at this interruption; but the flush of animation and luster in hereyes wonderfully became her. "I do not know that even gophers would be worse than the canned goose livers and other disgusting things we import for their weight in silver," she said. "All I saw in the West pleased me, and, because I am a Canadian first and last, I don't mind being smiled at for admitting that I am very glad I have seen the men who live there at their work. They are doing a great deal for our country."
"They could not have a stancher or prettier champion, my dear," said a gray-haired man who sat near me. "It would be hard to grow equally enthusiastic about your profession, Ted."
"It is Miss Haldane's genius which makes the most of everybody's good points," answered a young man with a frank face and stalwart appearance, turning towards me. "I am afraid the rest of us would see only a tired and dusty farmer who looked as though twelve hours' sleep would be good for him. What's your idea of the West? If I remember Mrs. Leyland correctly, you come from the land of promise, don't you?"
"We certainly work tolerably hard out there, but it is no great credit to us when we have to choose between that and starvation; and the West is the land of disappointment as well as promise," I answered dryly.
The rest glanced around in our direction, and Mrs. Leyland laughed mischievously. "If any of you are really interested, my friend here, who came in so quietly, would, I dare say, answer your questions. Let me present you, Rancher Ormesby."
I bowed as, endeavoring to remember the names that followed, I moved towards the chair beside her when she beckoned. It lay full in the light, and I noticed blank surprise in the faces turned towards me. Beatrice Haldane dropped the album, and for some reason the clear rose color surged upwards from her sister's neck. I stooped to recover the book, which lay open, and then stared at it with astonishment and indignation, for the face of the man standing beside a weary team, waist-deep in the tall grass of a slough, was unmistakably myown. I had forgotten the click of the camera shutter that hot morning.
"It was hardly fair of my hostess not to warn me, and this print was published without my knowledge or consent," I said. "Still, it shows how we earn a living in my country, and I can really tell you little more. We resemble most other people in that we chiefly exert ourselves under pressure of necessity—and one would prefer to forget that fact during a brief holiday."
The listeners either smiled or nodded good-humoredly and it was Lucille Haldane who held out her hand to me, while her elder sister returned my salutation with a civility which was distinct from cordiality. How Mrs. Leyland changed the situation I do not remember, nor how, when some of the party were inspecting fire-flies in the grasses by the lake, I found myself beside Beatrice Haldane at the end of the veranda. I had schooled myself in preparation for a possible meeting, but she looked so beautiful with the moonlight on her that I spoke rashly.
"We parted good friends—but no one could have hoped you felt the slightest pleasure at the present meeting."
"Frankness is sometimes irksome to both speaker and listener," said the girl, turning her dark eyes upon me steadily. "Can you not be satisfied with the possibility of your being mistaken?"
"No," I answered doggedly, and she smiled. "Then suppose one admitted you had surmised correctly?"
"I should ask the cause," and Beatrice Haldane, saying nothing, looked a warning, which, being filled with an insane bitterness, I would not take. "It would hurt me to conclude that those you honored with your friendship on the prairie would be less welcome here."
She raised her head a little with the Haldane's pride, which, though never paraded, was unmistakable. "You should have learned to know us better. Neither your prosperity nor the reverse would have made any difference."
"Then is there no explanation?" I asked, forgetting everything under the strain of the moment; and it wasevident that Beatrice Haldane shared her sister's courage, for, though there was a darker spot in the center of her cheek she answered steadily: "There is. We are disappointed in you, Rancher Ormesby."
Then, without another word, she turned away, and presently the rattle of oars and a gleam of moonlit canvas told that the catboat was returning across the lake.
"I hope you have enjoyed the meeting with your friends," said Mrs. Leyland, presently. "Very much, I assure you," I answered, with an effort which I hope will be forgiven me.