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“Why––what do you mean?”
Eve’s eyes were widely questioning. The other shrugged.
“You can’t tell. It’s hard to get at what’s passing through his quaint mind. I don’t think gold interests him as much as you’d think. Peter has plenty of money. Do you know, he offered to advance me ten thousand dollars to buy up a ranch around here. He pressed it on me, and tried to make out it would be a favor to him if I took it. Said I didn’t know how much I’d be obliging him. He’s a good man. A––a wonderful man. I tried to get him to stop on––but–––”
“I don’t blame him for going,” said Eve, regretfully.
“Nor do I.”
Again that silence fell, and each was busy with thoughts they neither could easily have expressed.
“What’s the other?” Eve inquired presently. “You said––two things.”
“Did I? Oh, yes, of course.”
But Jim did not at once tell her the other reason for his visit. Instead he sat thinking of many things, and all his thoughts were centred round her. He was thinking the honest thoughts of a man who loves a woman so well that he shrinks from offering her so little of worldly goods as he possesses. He had come there, as a man will come, to hover round and burn his fingers at the fire which he has not the courage to turn his back upon. He had come there to tell her that he was going away, even as Peter was going––going away to make one more of those many starts which it had been his lot to make in the past.
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“Well?” Eve faced him with smiling eyes. She understood that his second reason was troubling him, and she wanted to encourage him.
He shook his head.
“It isn’t a scrap ‘well,’” he said, with an attempt at a lightness he did not feel.
“Nothing can be so bad, as––as some things,” she said. Her eyes had become serious again. She was thinking of those two short months ago.
“No,” he breathed, with a sigh. “I––I suppose not.” Then with a desperate effort he blurted out his resolve. “I’m going away, too,” he said clumsily.
His announcement cost him more than he knew. But Eve showed not the least bit of astonishment.
“I knew you would,” she said. Then she added, as though following out a thought which had been hers for a long time, “You see there are some things nobody can put up with––for long. Barnriff, for instance, when it turns against you.”
Jim nodded. Her understanding delighted him, and he went on more easily.
“I’ve one hundred and fifty head of stock, and a thousand odd dollars,” he said deliberately. “I’m going to make a fresh start.”
He laughed, and somehow his laugh hurt the woman. She understood.
“Don’t laugh like that, Jim,” she said gently. “It’s––it’s not like you.”
“I’m sorry, Eve,” he replied in swift contrition. “But––but it’s not much, is it?”
“I seem to fancy it’s quite a deal.” The girl’s face wore a delightful smile. “Where are you thinking of?”
“We’ve just come over to say that we, too, are going to hit the trail.”
“We’ve just come over to say that we, too, are going to hit the trail.”
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“Canada. Edmonton. It’s a longish piece off, but it’s good land––and cheap.”
“It’s British.”
“Ye-es.”
“It’s not under the ‘stars and stripes.’”
“Most flags are made of bunting.”
The girl nodded her head.
“A monarchy, too,” she said.
“Monarchs and presidents are both men.”
Jim’s love for his flag was a sore point with him, and he gathered that Eve disapproved. He wanted her approval. He wanted it more than anything else, because––– Suddenly he remembered something.
“Peter’s English,” he said slyly.
“God bless him!”
The fervor of the woman’s response was unmistakable.
“I must see him to-night before he goes,” she went on, “because––I’ve got something to tell him.”
She looked down at the table on which the dress she had just finished making was lying.
“That’s the last of them,” she said, pointing at it.
The man knew what she meant. She had completed her last order.
“I’m going to do no more––here.”
Jim’s eyes lit.
“Here?”
Eve shook her head.
“I’m going away,” she said, with a shamefaced smile. “That’s––that’s what I want to tell––Peter.”
Jim sprang to his feet, and looked into the bright smiling eyes.
“I’ve got a sewing-machine,” Eve went on, deliberately412mimicking him, “and––and some dollars. And I’m going to make a fresh start.”
Her manner of detailing her stock-in-trade, and the smile that accompanied her words were good to see. Jim’s heart beat hard beneath his buckskin shirt, and the light in his eyes was one of a hope such as he rarely permitted himself.
“Where?” he demanded. But he knew before she said the words.
“Canada, Edmonton. It’s––it’s a longish piece off––but–––”
Eve never finished her mimicry. In a moment she was in his arms, and her lips were silenced with his kisses.
Some minutes later she protested.
“You haven’t let me finish, Jim,” she cried.
But he shook his head.
“No need. I’ll tell you the rest. We’ll start in together, up there, and––we’ll keep the sewing-machine for home use. You see my socks ’ll sure need darning.”
“Silly. You don’t do that with a sewing-machine.”
Peter’s spring wagon was standing outside his door. It was a quaint, old-fashioned vehicle––just such a conveyance as one would expect him to possess. It had lain idle during most of his time in Barnriff, and had suffered much from the stress of bitter winters and the blistering sun of summers. But it still possessed four clattering wheels, even though the woodwork and the tires looked conspicuously like parting company.
The last of his household goods, with the exception of his blankets, had been loaded up. There was a confused413pile of gold-prospecting tools and domestic chattels. Books and “washing” pans, pictures and steel drills, jostled with each other in a manner thoroughly characteristic of his disregard for the comforts of life. These material matters concerned him so little.
He was scraping out a large frying-pan, the one utensil which shared with his “billy” the privilege of supplying him with a means of cooking his food. The work he was engaged upon was something of a strain. It seemed so unnecessary. Still, the process was his habit of years, so he did not attempt to shirk it. But he looked up with relief when he heard voices, and a glad smile of welcome greeted Jim and Eve as they came up.
“Peter, I’ve–––”
“Peter, we’ve–––”
Jim and Eve both began to speak at the same time. And both broke off to let the other go on.
Peter glanced swiftly from one to the other. His shrewd eyes took in the situation at once.
“I’m glad,” he said, “real glad. Jim,” he went on, “I guess your luck’s set in. Eve, my dear, your luck’s running, too. I’m just glad.”
The culprits exchanged swift glances of astonishment. Eve blushed, but it was Jim who answered him.
“Guess you see things easy, Peter,” he said. “But you aren’t as glad as I am.”
“We are,” corrected Eve.
Peter bent over his work again, smiling at the friendly pan with renewed interest. He scraped some long congealed black grease from its shoulder and gazed at it ruefully.
“Look at that,” he said, with his quaint smile, holding414up the knife with the unwholesome fat sticking to it. “Guess your pans won’t get like that, eh, Eve?” Then he added with a sigh, “It’s sure time I hit the trail. It’s been accumulating too long already. Y’see,” he went on simply, “it’s a good thing moving at times. Things need cleaning once in a while.”
He threw the pan into the wagon-box with a sigh of relief, and turned again to his two friends.
“I’d ask you to sit,” he began. But Jim cut him short.
“There’s no need, old friend. We’ve just come over to say we, too, are going to hit the trail. We’re going to hit it together.”
Peter nodded.
“We’re going to get the parson to marry us,” Jim went on eagerly, “and then we’re going to hit out for Canada––Edmonton––and start up a bit of a one-eyed ranch.”
Peter stood lost in thought, and Jim grew impatient.
“Well?” he inquired. “What do you think of it?”
The other nodded slowly, his eyes twinkling.
“Bully, but you’ll need a wagon to drive you out––when you’re getting married,” he said. “That’s how I was thinking. Guess I’ll drive you out in mine, eh?”
“But you’re going at sun-up,” cried Eve, in dismay. “We––we can’t get married so soon.”
“Guess I’ll wait over,” Peter answered easily. “It just means off-loading––and then loading up again. My frying-pan can have another cleaning.”
“Thanks, old friend,” cried Jim, linking his arm in Eve’s. “You’re a great feller. You’ll see us––married.” He squeezed the girl’s arm. “And then?”
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“And then?”
Peter looked away at the dying light. His eyes were full of the kindly thought his two friends knew so well.
“Why, I’ll just hit the trail again,” he said.
“Where to?”
The big man turned his face slowly toward them, and his gentle humor was largely written in his expressive eyes.
“Why, Canada, I guess,” he said. “Edmonton––it seems to me.”