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Throwing off his sheet cloak, Langford became transformed into a figure of early history. He held the ox-heart high in the air with his left hand and struck a soldierly attitude.
He was now the famous Black Douglas of Scotland, fighting his last fight against the Moors in Spain, with the heart of his beloved dead monarch, Robert Bruce, in the silver casket in which he had undertaken to carry it to the Holy Land.
Parrying and thrusting with his imaginary sword, gasping, panting in assumed exhaustion, staggering, recovering and fighting again, then feigning wounds of a deadly nature, he threw the ox-heart over the heads of his gaping spectators toward the door, where it fell at Phil’s feet.
“Onward, brave Heart,” he cried, “as thou wert wont to be in the field. Douglas will follow thee or die.”
Then, casting his audience on either side of him, like falling thistles under a sickle, he sprang toward the exit. When he reached his objective, he stooped to pick up the ox-heart.
Phil smartly placed his foot on it.
Slowly Jim unbent himself, his eyes travelling from the foot that dared to interfere with his will, up the leg, body and chest, until at last they stared into the familiar eyes of his friend, who returned his stare with cold questioning. Thus they looked at each other for a moment, then Jim’s eyes averted. He turned quickly away and passed into the darkened roadway.
Phil followed, a short step behind.
Jim heard him and quickened his pace. Phil did likewise. Finally he broke into a run. Phil responded. He ran till his breath began to give out, but try as he would, Langford could not shake his follower.
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There was no sign of any recognition; no word passed between them.
Three or four times they circled Chinatown in this way. Langford next dropped into a long, swinging stride and started up toward the railway tracks and out on to the high road of Coldcreek. Doggedly, limpet-like, Phil kept closely to him.
On, on he walked, mile after mile, untiring, apparently unheeding, looking neither to right nor left. And on, on, after him, almost at his side, went his determined friend.
In an hour, Jim cut down a side road and commenced to circle back by the low road, past the lake and once again toward the fairy, twinkling lights of Vernock.
The Post Office clock chimed the first hour of a new day, when they got back.
Jim stopped up in front of a stable, pushed his way inside––for the door was ajar––tumbled down in a corner among some hay and, apparently, was soon fast asleep.
Phil dropped down beside him, but did not close his eyes.
And glad he was of it, for, about an hour later, very stealthily Jim rose on his elbow, looked into Phil’s face, and, evidently satisfied that he was unconscious, rose and made softly for the door.
But when he turned to close it behind him, Phil was right by his side.
Without a word, Jim changed his mind and went straight back to his hay bed on the stable floor; and this time he tumbled into a deep sleep.
Phil must have dozed off too, for when he awoke the light of an Autumn sun was streaming through a dirty window on to his face.
He started up in consternation, but his fears were137soon allayed for Jim Langford was still sleeping peacefully, dead to the world, with an upturned face tranquil and unlined, and innocent-looking as a baby boy’s.
The work horses in their stalls were becoming restless. Phil examined his watch. It was six o’clock.
He knew that the teamster would soon be on his job getting his beasts ready for their day’s work, so he roused Langford, who sat up in a semi-stupor, licking his lips with a dry, rough tongue.
He gazed at Phil for a while. Phil smiled in good humour.
“Man, but I’m a rotter!” said Jim.
“Of course you are!” agreed Phil. “We’re both more or less rotters.”
“But that son of a lobster McGregor knocked you cold,” he pursued, starting in where he had left off several days before.
“He did, Jim, and threw me through the window to wind up with.”
“And I’m the man that knows it, too. Lord!––but I’m as dry as if I had been eating salt fish for a week.”
“And you can have a nice, big drink of fresh water at the trough outside whenever you are ready.”
“Water, Phil! Have a heart!”
“Sure thing! Good fresh water!”
“‘Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink,’” he quoted.
And sitting up, there among the hay, a strangely assorted pair they seemed as they conversed familiarly.
“Well,––I fancy I’ve had about enough this trip.”
“You certainly have!”
“Ay, Phil,––but think of that big shrimp knocking us soft.”
“Us, did you say?” put in Phil. “Then it is true, after all?”
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“What?”
“That he finished you off after he put me to sleep!”
Langford tried to spit in disgust, but despite the greatness of his disgust his mouth and salivic glands refused to function.
“Oh, man!––it makes me sick. The big, long-legged, red-haired devil has been learning to box on the quiet. And to think that he had that up his sleeve, and was just waiting for us!”
“Tell me what happened after I got mine, Jim. I haven’t heard it right yet.”
“Everything happened. I went out and picked you up. I got some of the boys to take you home after I knew that you weren’t really booked for ‘The Better Land.’ Then I went back to lick the stuffing out of Rob Roy. He was in there, grinning and throwing out his chest like a pouter pigeon.”
“‘You want the same dose?’ he asked.
“‘That’s what I came for,’ said I. And, Phil, between you and me, that’s just about what I got.
“We fought in the bar-room for three-quarters of an hour. I never hit him worth a rap, for he had a defence like the Rock o’ Gibraltar. He didn’t hit me very often, either, but when he did,––Oh, Lord! Well, to make a short story for a thirsty man, we had to quit, both of us, from sheer exhaustion. When we could hardly stand, the Mayor came in and separated us. He sent McGregor and his gang slap-bang home to Redmans. And after that––well, they filled me up to the neck. Oh, I was quite ready to be filled, Phil, for my pride was sorely humbled. And––I’ve been filled up to the neck ever since.
“What day is it, Phil?”
“Wednesday!”
“This week, last week or next week?”
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“This week!”
“Is that all? And it happened only last Saturday. Man!” he cried, springing up, “if that’s the case, I’ve only started.”
“You have finished,” said Phil decidedly, “finished good and plenty, now and for all.”
“But man,––think o’ my reputation. I always have a month of it.”
“Not this time!”
“But I’ve done it for years. Think o’ tradition!”
“Tradition be-darned! If you do, I’ll have a month of it, too.”
“That’s pure blarney, Phil. You’re not that kind.”
“No, but I shall be. See if I won’t, if you don’t quit.”
Jim looked into Phil’s eyes and he saw a determination in them that he knew he could never shake, and, knowing his own weakness, he would have killed Phil rather than see him in the same plight.
“Man!” he exclaimed in perplexity, “I do believe you would.”
“Try me and you’ll soon find out.”
They sat silently for a time. Suddenly Phil broke in.
“Come on,––what is it to be? Back into decency or a month of hell?” he asked.
Jim Langford got to his feet.
“Lead on, old chum,” he said. “Me for a bath, a shave, a good breakfast and––honest toil.”
140CHAPTER XISol Wants a Good Wife––Bad
Phil was busy in the forge one morning, all alone. Sol Hanson, for some unknown reason, had failed to put in an appearance, and his assistant was not a little troubled over his absence. Before starting out to make inquiries, however, he decided to work away until noon, for it was the day after the Provincial Election, and the results were expected any minute and were anxiously awaited.
He felt quite confident within himself that John Royce Pederstone would be elected, for the candidate had received a splendid reception at all his meetings throughout the Valley, with the solitary exception of the hometown of his opponent. Furthermore, rumour had it that Pederstone’s party was sweeping the country, so, if there was anything at all in indications, Royce Pederstone’s election was a foregone conclusion.
Phil had noticed that the nearer the election day had drawn, the more serious, nervous and unsettled Sol had seemed to grow, as if he dreaded the possibility of his old master’s defeat and was taking it to himself as a personal matter.
At noon time, Phil went out, took a hurried lunch, then strolled down to the office of theAdvertiser, where a crowd was gathered reading the results from the various constituencies as they were posted up on the notice-board outside.
Just as he got there, Ben Todd came rushing out of141the office, his eyes jumping, his little hunched body quivering with excitement, and his long arms swinging, apelike and energetic. He mounted a chair. He could not settle himself at the start, so all he did was to wave a paper in the air and shout gleefully:––
“He’s in, boys! He’s in! Vernock is on the map at last. Hip-hip-hurrah, for John Royce Pederstone, M.L.A.!”
The news was received with yells of delight, cat-calls and some real cowboy war-whoops. When the commotion subsided, Ben Todd continued.
“Our new member is coming in on the stage from Kelowna at six-thirty. The band is going to be there, so don’t forget to be there too and give him a rouser. The ladies are busy already at the town hall. Supper at seven-thirty and a dance at eighty-thirty till the cows come home. Put on your glad rags, bring your women folks and whoop her up for a fare-you-well.”
Thus relieved of his effervescence, Ben Todd threw his slang overboard and started in to a political speech in good English, on the immense possibilities of the Valley in which they were privileged to dwell; the era of prosperity just ahead––in fact, with some already reached; on the increasing demand for property everywhere, the consequent rising values and the prospect of early wealth to the present holders of land; haranguing the good-natured crowd on the outstanding qualities of John Royce Pederstone, their new member; on the wonderful things he would do for the Valley in the matter of irrigation, railroads, public buildings and everything else; eulogising on the tremendous help Mayor Brenchfield had given with his widespread influence and his virile oratory during the final whirlwind tour over the Valley; and last but not least, dwelling on the unfailing support the new member had received from the greatest of British Columbia’s142inland newspapers,The Vernock and District Advertiser.
Phil had no time to wait to hear all of it. He threaded his way through the crowd and back to the smithy. He had just got his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, when Sol Hanson swaggered in in great style. He was dressed in a loud-checked summer suit, which fitted him only where it touched him. Every button on it was buttoned and straining, and in places the cloth was stretched to bursting point––for no ordinary-sized suit ever fitted Sol Hanson; and, never thinking of such a disloyalty as sending out of the Valley for his clothes, he had, perforce, to content himself with the biggest suit he could obtain in the Vernock stores.
Sol had a black bowler hat, three sizes too small for him, sitting jauntily on the back of his head. His great shock of fair hair was streaming from under it, all round, like a waterfall. It was a new hat, but it looked as if it had had an argument with a dusty roadway.
Later information proved that appearances, so far as the hat was concerned, were not deceptive.
Sol’s trousers were tight and straining. They were turned up, high above a pair of flaring yellow boots, displaying some four inches of lavender socks. A red necktie, a walking stick, a huge red rose and a pair of tan gloves completed the external extravaganza. Sol had succeeded in getting one glove on his great ham-like hand, but the other had proved too much for him and he carried it loosely in his hand.
He strutted up and down in front of Phil, with a look of inordinate pride on his big, porridge-soft, Simple Simon face.
Phil gaped in wonder, then, when he could restrain himself no longer, he burst out laughing, much to the dandified Sol’s disappointment.
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“What’s the matter?” he asked, straightening up.
This caused Phil to laugh the more.
“Why, Sol!––you’re all dolled up something awful,” he remarked.
“Well!––that’s all right,––ain’t it?”
“Sure thing,––go to it! Mr. Pederstone won’t know you when you go up to congratulate him on his victory.”
“Ya!––Mr. Pederstone win. I pretty dam-glad. But that ain’t any reason why a fellow put on his fine clothes.”
“What is it then, Sol? You might tell a fellow. You haven’t come into a fortune?”
“No such dam-luck as that! But this my birthday, Phil. I been thirty-three years old to-day.”
“Well now!––and I never knew.” Phil reached and shook the big Swede’s big hand heartily. “Leave it there,––many happy returns, old man!”
Sol’s good nature bubbled over, but his face took on a clouded expression shortly after. “‘Old man’!” he repeated. “Ya!––you right, Phil, thirty-three, I soon, be old man and I not been got married yet. If I wait two-three year more, nobody have me.”
“Oh, go on, you old pessimist. You’re a young fellow yet. There’s lot of time.”
“Maybe––maybe not! Yesterday I think all pretty girl here soon be snapped up. Gretchen Gilder, she get married to that slob Peters last year, and Peters he no dam-good. I never ask Gretchen, or maybe I have her now. I think she been too good. Peters he ask her and get her right off. All them Johnson girls get married; five fine big girl too! Now little Betty McCawl––you know little Irish girl––God bless me!––I just been crazy for her. She go get married day before yesterday to that other Swede, Jan Nansen.”
Phil laughed at Sol’s rueful countenance, as the latter recounted his matrimonial misses.
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“Why!––you’re too slow.”
“You bet!––too dam-slow to catch myself getting out of bed. I scared to tell little Betty. Think maybe she not like to marry big Swede. Jan Nansen catch her first time. Jan Nansen,––land sakes!––I got more money, more sense, more hair on top my head, more clothes;––I could put Jan in my jean’s pocket. Now little Betty, she Mrs. Jan Nansen. Good night and God bless me!”
Sol spat among the hoof parings on the floor in his annoyance.
“Yes, too bad, Sol!” Phil put in.
“Yesterday I say too bad too! I got fine house. Build him all myself too. I got three room, with chairs, tables, fine stove, everything. But I got nobody to keep it nice. Then that dam-fool of a fine little fellow Smiler, he going all plumb toboggan to hell because nobody look after him all day long. Soon no more pretty girl be left, I say to myself:––‘Sol Hanson, to-morrow your birthday. You get all dressed up and first girl you meet you ask her if she marry Sol Hanson.’ See! Maybe she not take me. All right! I keep on ask next one, then another one, till some girl take me. First one take me, she get me,––see!”
Phil raised his eyebrows in amusement, wondering what next he was about to hear.
“Well, last night I go down to Morrison’s store and buy all these. This morning, I have a fine bath, with fine baby soap. I get good shave, dress up swell like this, and come out about one o’clock. One o’clock all fine girl be going back to work after dinner,––see!
“I open front door and get down sidewalk, then come down street. Nobody there; nobody pass me. But when I get ten yard from corner Snider Avenue, who come slap-bang pretty near head-on collision:––big Martha Schmidt.”
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Phil yelled uproariously as Sol stood there the picture of seriousness.
“Ya,––you laugh. I laugh now,––ha, ha! You know Martha. She maybe thirty, maybe thirty-six. I don’t know. She got one good eye; other eye all shot to hell sometime. Just got one big tooth and he stick out good and plenty. Ugh!
“Well,––Sol Hanson every time he dam-good sport and do what he say he do. But I not meet her. I stop quick,––think for one little time,––then Martha cry, ‘Hullo, Sol!’ I never hear her. I turn quick, walk back all the same as if, maybe, I left my pipe home. I hurry into house, slam door hard and stand inside all shivers like one pound of head cheese waiting to get cold.”
“And what then, Sol?”
“Oh,––after while, I peep out and see Martha go up the road. Little while more, all clear, I come out and have one more try.
“This time, first girl for sure, I say. Well––first girl happen to be black buck-nigger Ebenezer Jones’s coon kid, Dorothea. Dorothea she dam-fine girl all right. She say, ‘Hullo, Kid,––nice day!’
“I look away down the street to corner. I make her think I not see her. I keep on going. She stand on sidewalk, one big fist on each hip and she look after me and say, ‘Wal,––I like dat!’”
“Dirty trick!” remarked Phil.
“What? Holy Yiminy!––that fair enough. You don’t expect decent white man ask nigger coon wench to marry him. I maybe not mention it to myself when I make deal with myself, but no black nigger, no Chink or Jap for Sol Hanson. I keep single first,––you bet!”
“Quite right!” switched Phil. “Keep the colour scheme right anyway, Sol.”
“Well––then white girl come along. ‘By gosh!’ I say.
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“She Miss Gladys Tierney,––you know,––she work typewriter for Commercial Bank.
“I raise my hat and say, ‘Good morning, lady!’
“She look me up and down. ‘Are you crazy?’ she ask. ‘You bet!’ I say, ‘been crazy for you, sweetheart.’
“She sniff and give me regular freeze-out; leave me standing dam-fool foolish.
“Little while more, pretty fine Jane she come along. I see her sometimes; but not know her name.
“Big,––uhm! Work in steam laundry. She wear her sleeves all rolled up; walk very quick like she been going some place. She look good to me, so I step up in front. I take off my hat.
“‘How do you do, Jane!’
“She look at me and laugh. Half-smile, half laugh,––you know, Phil. I guess, maybe, it all right. So I try, little bit more.
“‘Very nice day, ma’am,’ I say.
“‘It is,’ she say.
“‘You look pretty nice!’ I say next.
“‘That’s comforting!’ she say next back, very quick.
“‘This my birthday.’ And I smile to her.
“‘It is written all over you,’ she answer.
“‘You think I look pretty good to you, eh?’ I ask.
“‘Swell!’ she say.
“‘You think somebody like to marry me? I got dam-fine house, and furniture, and Smiler.’
“‘Somebodymight,’ she say.
“Well, Phil,––I seem to be getting on pretty good, so I take the bull by the tail and say right bang off the wrong side of the bat, ‘You be my wife?’
“‘What?’ she say, as if maybe she make a mistake in her ear-drums.
“‘You marry me?’ I ask again.
“She pull the blinds down all over her face just like147biff. She take one swing on me, Phil, right there, and pretty near break my jaw;––knock my four dollar hat all to hell in the middle of the road and walk away laughing like, like––oh, like big, fat, laundry maid laugh.”
Very seriously, Phil asked his further adventures.
“Ain’t that plenty for one day? No dam-good catch wife that way. I try another trick, though. Maybe it work better.”
“What’s the other trick, Sol?”
The big simpleton drew a pink coloured, badly frayed newspaper out of his pocket. It wasThe Matrimonial Times, a monthly sheet printed in Seattle and intended for the lonely, lovesick and forlorn of both sexes; a sort of agony column by the mile.
“You don’t mean to say you correspond with anybody through that?”
“You bet!”
“And can’t you land anyone?”
“Not yet! Everybody say, ‘Send photo.’ I send it, then no answer come back.”
“Never mind!” commiserated Phil. “One of these days your picture will reach the right one and she’ll think you’re the only man on earth.”
“Well,––she have to be pretty gol-darn quick now, for I’m all sick inside waiting.”
“Meantime, hadn’t you better get back to work, Sol?”
“Guess, maybe just as well.”
He went into a corner, took off his glad rags, folded them and laid them carefully on a bench, then donned his working trousers, shirt and leather apron, and was soon swinging his hammer and making the sparks fly as if he had no other thought in the world but the welding of the iron he handled to its fore-ordained shape.
148CHAPTER XIIThe Dance
That night, Phil and Jim attired themselves in their best clothes and set out for the town hall. There was no missing the way, for Chinese lanterns and strings of electric lights led there, and all pedestrians were making for that important objective.
The two comrades were late in getting there; much too late to be partakers of the supper and listeners to the toasting and speech-making so dear to the hearts of politicians, aspiring politicians, lodge men, newspaper men, parsons, lawyers, ward-committee chairmen and the less pretentious, common-ordinary soap-box orator––whom no community is without. The long-suffering and patient public had evidently been hypnotised into putting up with the usual surfeit of lingual fare by the nerve-soothing influences of a preceding supper with a dance to follow.
Outside the town hall, horses, harnessed and saddled, lined the roadway, hitched to every available post, rail and tree in the vicinity. The side streets were blocked in similar fashion.
The hall inside was a blaze of coloured lights and was bedecked with flags and streamers. The orchestral part of the town band was doing its best. Everybody, his wife and his sweetheart, were conspicuously present, despite the fact that it was the height of the harvest season and most of them had been hard at work in the orchards since early morning, garnering their apple crops,149and would have to be hard at it again next day, as if nothing had happened between times to disturb their evening’s recuperations.
A number of dances had been gone through, evidently, for the younger ladies were seated round the hall, fanning themselves daintily, while the complexions of the more elderly of them had already begun to betray a perspiry floridness.
The men, young and old alike, mopping their moist foreheads with their handkerchiefs and straining at their collars in partial suffocation, crowded the corridors in quest of cooler air and an opportunity for a pipe or a cigarette. Only a few of the younger gallants lingered in the dance room to exchange pleasantries and bask for several precious extra moments in the alluring presence of some particular young lady with whom, for the time being, they were especially enamoured.
A cheery atmosphere prevailed; both political parties had buried their differences for the night. All were out for a good time and to do honour to the Valley’s new parliamentary representative.
The men who congregated in the corridors presented a strange contrast; great broad fellows, polite of manner and speaking cultured English, in full evening dress but of a cut of the decade previous; others in their best blue serges; still others in breeches and leggings or puttees; while a few––not of the ballroom variety––refused to dislodge themselves from their sheepskin chaps, and jingled their spurs every time they changed position.
For the most part, the eyes of these men were clear and bright, and their faces were tanned to a healthy brown from long exposure to the Okanagan’s perpetual sunshine. The pale-faced exceptions were the storekeepers, clerks, hotel-men and the bunco-dealers, like Rattlesnake Jim150Dalton, who spent their days in the saloons and their nights at the card-tables.
The ladies, seated round the hall, compared favourably with their partners in point of healthy and virile appearance; and many of them, who a few years before, in their former homes in the East and in the Old Land, had not known what it meant to dry a dish, cook a meal or make a dress, who had trembled at the thought of a warm ray of God’s blessed sunshine falling on their tender, sweet-milk complexions unless it were filtered and diluted through a parasol or a drawn curtain, now knew, from hard, honest experience, how to cook for their own household and, in addition, to cater for a dozen ever-hungry ranch hands and cattlemen:––knew not only how to make a dress but how to make one over when the necessity called for it; could milk the cows with the best of their serving-girls; could canter over the ranges, rope a steer and stare the blazing summer sun straight in the eye, with a laugh of defiance and real, live happiness.
The feminine hired-help chatted freely with their mistresses in a comradeship and a kind of free-masonry that only the hard battling with nature in the West could engender.
Phil was leaning idly against the door-post at the entrance to the dance-room, contemplating the kaleidoscope, when Jim’s voice roused him.
“Phil,––I see your dear, dear friend, Mayor Brenchfield, is here.”
“You’ve wonderful eyesight!” Phil answered. “Brenchfield is hardly the one to let anyone miss seeing him. His middle name is publicity, in capital letters.”
“Little chatterbox Jenny Steele tells me he has had three dances out of the last five with Eileen Pederstone,” was the next tantaliser.
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“That shows his mighty good taste!”
“You bet it does! But he shows darned poor breeding, unless he’s tied up to her.”
“It is up to her, anyway, and maybe they are engaged,” returned Phil, lightly enough.
“I don’t doubt that he would like to be. Guess he will be too, sooner or later. Gee!” he continued in disgust, “I wish some son-of-a-gun would cut the big, fat, over-confident bluffer out.”
“Why don’t you have a try, Jim?” laughed his companion.
“Me? I never had a lass in my life. I’m––I’m not a lady’s man. They are all very nice to me, and all that; but I never feel completely comfortable unless it happens to be a woman who could be my great-grandmother.”
“You’re begging the question, Jim. Why don’t you go over and claim a dance or two from Miss Pederstone, seeing you are so anxious over her and Brenchfield?”
“I would,––bless your wee, palpitating, undiscerning soul, but I don’t dance.”
“Go and talk to her, then.”
“And have somebody come over and pick her up to dance with, from under my very nose? No, thanks! This is a dance, man; and the lassies are here to dance. It would be ill of me to deprive her of all the fun she wants.
“You can dance, Phil? I know you can by the way you’ve been beating your feet every time the band plays. Go on, man!”
“I could dance, once,” said Phil, “but–––”
“Once! Spirit of my great-great-grandfather! You talk like Methuselah.”
“I haven’t danced for five years.”
“Good heavens, man! This five years of yours gets152on my nerves. You must have Rip Van Winkled five years of your precious life away.”
The remark bit deep; and Phil grew solemn and did not reply.
Jim looked into his face soberly, then placed his arm on Phil’s shoulder.
“Sorry, old man! I’m an indiscreet idiot. Didn’t mean to be rude,” he said.
Phil smiled.
“But say,” Jim urged, still bent on providing himself with some amusement, “go to it and enjoy yourself. Go on, man;––don’t be scared!” he goaded.
Phil undoubtedly was scared, although he felt fairly sure, after that first interview in the smithy, that Eileen Pederstone had not recognised him. But he knew he would be running a risk. As he looked at her across the dancing floor, as she sat there in her soft, shimmering silks, her cheeks aglow, her eyes dancing with happiness and her brown curls straying over her forehead––elfish-like rather than humanly robust––he was tempted, sorely tempted indeed.
“Gee, but you’re slow!” went on Jim.
“Oh, go to the devil!” Phil muttered irritably.
But Jim grinned the more; the imp in him uppermost.
“You’ve met her, haven’t you, Phil?”
“Yes,––I spoke to her once only, in the smithy.”
“Well––that’s good enough for a start.”
“Do you think so?”
“Sure thing! Eileen Pederstone turn you down! Man alive,––Eileen wouldn’t have the heart to turn you down if you had a wooden leg. I’ll tell you what! If she turns you down, I’ll ask her for a dance myself; and I never danced in my life.”
The music was starting up. It was a good, old-fashioned waltz. How Phil’s heart beat to the rhythm of153it! The men commenced to swarm from the corridors. He took a step forward. Jim pushed him encouragingly from behind with a “Quick, man, before somebody else asks her up!” and he was in the stream and away with the current. He started across, his heart drumming a tattoo on his ribs. Half-way over the floor––and he would have turned back but for the thought of Jim. He kept on, still somewhat indeterminately. When he got near to Miss Pederstone, she looked up almost in surprise, but the smile she bestowed on him was ample repayment for his daring. It was the dancing waters of the Kalamalka Lake under a sunburst.
She held out her hand.
“Good evening, Mr. Ralston! Everybody seems to be here to-night.”
“Of course,––isn’t thisyournight?” Phil ventured.
She beckoned him to sit down by her side.
“It isn’tmynight,” she answered; “it is my daddy’s.”
“You must be very happy at his wonderful victory.”
“Yes,––I am very happy, just for father’s sake, he was so set on it toward the finish. He is just like a boy who has won a hard race. And now he is being buttonholed by everybody. I shall never have him all to myself any more.”
The dancers were already on the floor and gliding away.
“May I have this dance?” asked Phil.
“With pleasure!” she answered. And his heart raced on again, in overwhelming delight. “But first, let us sit just for a moment or so.
“Is Jim Langford with you to-night?” she asked.
“Yes,––he is over there by the door.”
“He is a great boy, Jim,” she said. “Everybody likes him, and yet he is so terribly foolish at times to his own interests. He doesn’t seem to care anything for money,154position or material progress. And he is so clever; he could accomplish anything almost, if he set his mind to it. And,––and he is always a gentleman.”
“Yes! Jim’s pure gold right through,” Phil answered with enthusiasm.
“Mr. Ralston, I think you are the only man he has ever been known really to chum with. And he doesn’t dance,” she added.
“So he tells me.”
“Sometimes I fancy hecandance, but refuses to admit it for some particular reason of his own. He looks like a dancer.”
“Quite possible!” Phil returned. “I never thought of it in that light.”
“He does not seem to hanker after a lady’s company very much. He is most at home with the men folks.”
“He told me, only a few minutes ago, that he was not a lady’s man.”
“Ah, but he is!” she differed. “It is true he does not show any inclination for the company of young ladies, but he is very much a lady’s man all the same. There isn’t a young lady in this hall but would be proud to have the honour of Jim Langford’s company and companionship at any time. He is of that deep, mercurial disposition that attracts women. It is good for Jim Langford that he does not know his own power,” she said, nodding her dainty head suggestively.
“Shall I tell him?” teased Phil.
“No!––let him find that out for himself. He will enjoy it all the more when he does. Some day, I hope, the right young lady will wake him up. Then maybe he won’t be ‘Wayward’ Langford any more.
“I have heard them call you ‘Silent’ Ralston.”
Her remark startled Phil. In the first place, he fancied the nick-name that had been given him was known155merely by the rougher element about town, and it sounded strangely coming from her. Again, that was the name they had given him in Ukalla, and it created an uncanny feeling in him that it, of all nick-names, should again fasten to him.
“But you aren’t really so silent,––are you now?”
“No!––I can hold my own in the field of conversation. It is just a foolish name some one tagged on, one day, for lack of brains to think of anything more apt;––and it has stuck to me ever since, as such things have a habit of doing.”
“‘Wayward’ Langford and ‘Silent’ Ralston!” She turned the words on her tongue reflectively. “What a peculiar combination!”
Phil laughed, but refused to be drawn further.
“Are you as wayward as he?” she asked.
Phil did not answer.
“Are you?” she asked again.
“Jim and I are chums,” he answered.
“Which means–––?”
“‘Birds of a feather–––’”
How long they would have chatted on, Phil had no notion, for the lights, the music, the gliding dancers, the gaiety and the intoxicating presence of Eileen Pederstone had him in their thrall. However, he was interrupted by the stout but agile figure of Graham Brenchfield weaving in and out among the dancers and coming their way.
He stopped up in front of them, giving Phil a careless nod. He held out his bent arm to Miss Pederstone.
“This is ours, I think, Eileen,” he said. “Sorry I was late. Excuse us, Ralston!”
Phil gasped and looked over to Miss Pederstone.
“No, siree!” answered the young lady, quite calmly and naturally. “I have promised this dance to Mr.156Ralston, and was just resting a little bit before starting out.”
“Pshaw!––Ralston doesn’t dance,” he bantered. “This is a dandy waltz,––come!”
“But youdodance, Mr. Ralston?” she put in.
“Of course I do!” said Phil, springing up. And, in a moment, they sailed away from him whose very presence tainted the atmosphere for Ralston.
A backward glance showed Brenchfield glooming after them, the fingers of one hand fumbling with the pendant of his watch-chain, the fingers of the other pulling at his heavy, black moustache.
But who had any desire to keep the picture of one such as he in memory, in the new delights that were swarming in on Phil?
He held Eileen Pederstone lightly within the half-hoop of his arm. She was but a floating featherweight. But, ah! the intoxication of it, he could never forget: the violins singing and sighing in splendid harmony and time; the perfume of the lady’s presence; the soft, sweet, white, living, swaying loveliness; the feeling of abandonment to the pleasure of the moment that enveloped him from his partner’s happy heart. Great God!––and Phil a young man in the first flush of his manhood, exiled from the presence of womanhood for five years, shut away from the refining of their influence and in all that time never to have felt the charm of a woman’s voice, the delight of a woman’s happy laugh, never to have felt the thrill of the touch of a woman’s hand;––and suddenly to be released at the very Gates of Heaven: little wonder he was dumb, sightless and deaf to all else but the bewitchment of the waltz.
Phil thought he had forgotten the way, but, ah! how they danced as they threaded their way through and157round. No one touched them; none stopped the swing, rhythm and beat of their movements.
Once Eileen spoke to him, but he did not comprehend. She looked up into his face and, as he gazed down into her eyes, he thought she must have understood his feelings, for she did not attempt conversation again.
He was as a soul without a body, soaring in the vastnesses of the heavens, in harmony and unison with the great and perfect God-created spirit world of which he formed an infinitesimal but perfect and necessary part.
Gradually, and all too soon, alas!––for it seemed to him that they had hardly started––the music slowed and softened till it died away in a whisper, and he was awakened to his surroundings by the sudden burst of applause from the dancers on every side of them.
He did not wait to ascertain if there might be a few more bars of encore. He did not know, even, that there was a possibility of such. Still in a daze, he led Eileen Pederstone to her seat. He thanked her, bowed and turned to cross the floor. But she did not sit down. She laid a detaining hand gently on his arm.
“Thank you so much!” she said. “I enjoyed it immensely. And Mr. Brenchfield dared to say you couldn’t dance!”
Phil smiled, but did not reply. The spell of the dance had not yet entirely gone from him.
“Are you afraid to ask me if there might be another?” she inquired, with a coy glance and just a little petulance in her voice.
“Can you––can you spare another?”
“Of course, I can!”
“Another waltz?” he queried eagerly.
“The dance fourth from now is a waltz,” she answered.
“May I have it?”
“Yes!”
158
Brenchfield––surly watch-dog that he was––was at their heels again. This time, the refreshment buffet was his plea.
Phil abandoned his partner to him with good grace, for even Graham Brenchfield could not quench his good spirits over the great enjoyment he still had in store;––another waltz with Eileen Pederstone.
In the hallway, he encountered Jim, who twitted him for a moment for his great courage, but Phil could see that Jim had something on his mind that had not been there when he had left him. They went to the outside door and stood together in the cool, night air.
“Gee Phil!––but this is a grand night for these feed sneaks to pull off something big,” he said, in that mixture of Scotticisms and Western Canadian slang that he often indulged in.
“What makes you think of that?”
“Look at the sky, man!––black as ink and not a moon to be seen. Everybody is at the dance; Chief Palmer and Howden are here; the Mayor, the Aldermen, Royce Pederstone, Ben Todd; why, man,––the town outside there is empty.
“Did you notice anything peculiar in the gathering in there, Phil?”
“No! How do you mean?”
“Not a mother’s son of that Redman’s bunch is present.”
“But they’re not much of a dancing crowd.”
“You bet they are!––when it suits them. You never saw a crowd of cowpunchers that weren’t.
“I have the keys to the O.K. Supply Company’s Warehouse on the tracks. Are you game for a nose around, just to see if there’s anything doing?”
“What’s the good of worrying over a thing like that to-night, Jim? Let’s forget it and have a good time.”