Kitabı oku: «A Prairie Courtship», sayfa 15

Alison's eyes sparkled approvingly.

"But suppose he goes himself?"

"He won't until after supper. Nevis is not the man to deny himself unless it seems absolutely necessary, and he'll naturally assume that Slaney is spending the night with Forrester. But there's a certain probability of his setting out immediately after the meal."

"And what are you going to do about it?"

Thorne's expression became regretful.

"I'm very much afraid I can't do anything. You see, the – arrangement – with Corporal Slaney stands in the way."

"You never thought that Winthrop would come back here when you made it," Alison suggested.

"No," acknowledged Thorne; "the point is that the corporal didn't either."

Alison appeared to reflect, and he watched her with quiet amusement.

"I've changed my mind about Winthrop," she told him at length. "I want him to get away."

Thorne made no answer, and she continued:

"Lucy Calvert is, no doubt, a good deal more anxious than I am that he should escape, and it would be only natural if you wished to earn her thanks. I think she could be very nice, and her eyes are wonderfully blue."

Thorne met her inquiring gaze with one of contemplative scrutiny.

"Yours," he said, "are usually delightfully still and gray – like a pool on a moorland stream at home under a faintly clouded sky; but now and then they gleam with a golden light as the water does when the sun comes through."

His companion hastily abandoned that line of attack. His defense was too vigorous for her to follow it up.

"You feel that your hands are absolutely tied by the hint you gave Slaney that afternoon?" she asked.

"That's how it strikes me," Thorne declared. "In this case I'm afraid I'll have to stand aside and content myself with looking on."

"But haven't you already made it difficult for Nevis to get a messenger?"

"I've certainly given a couple of men a hint that I'd rather they didn't do any errand of his to-night. That may have been going too far – I can't tell." He paused and laughed softly. "Except when it's a case of selling patent medicines, I'm not a casuist."

Alison realized his point of view and in several ways it appealed to her. He had treated the matter humorously, but, though so little had been said by either of the men, it was clear that he felt he had pledged himself to Slaney, and was not to be moved.

"Well," she urged, "somebody must stop Nevis from driving over to Forrester's."

"It would be very desirable," Thorne admitted dryly. "The most annoying thing is that it could have been managed with very little trouble."

"How?" Alison asked with assumed indifference.

Thorne, suspecting nothing, fell into the trap.

"Nevis's hired buggy is a rather rickety affair. It wouldn't astonish anybody if, when he wished to start, there was a bolt short."

A look of satisfaction flashed into Alison's eyes.

"Then he will certainly have to put up with any trouble the absence of that bolt is capable of causing. As there doesn't seem to be any other way, I'll pull it out myself. Your scruples won't compel you to forbid me?"

The man expostulated, but she was quietly determined.

"If you won't tell me what to do, I'll get Dave," she laughed. "I've no doubt he'd be willing to help me."

Thorne thought it highly undesirable that they should take a third person into their confidence, and he reluctantly yielded.

"Then," he advised, "it would be wiser to set about it while the boys are getting supper; there'll be nobody about the back of the hotel then. In the meanwhile, we'd better go in again and talk to the others."

CHAPTER XXII
ALISON SPOILS HER GLOVES

Mrs. Farquhar and her friends had finished supper, and the men who got their meals there were trooping into the hotel, when Alison found Thorne waiting on the veranda.

"You're ready, I suppose?"

"I've no intention of keeping you waiting, anyway," Thorne replied.

Alison looked at him with a hint of sharpness.

"If you would very much rather stay here, why should you come at all? Now that you have told me what to do, it really isn't necessary."

Thorne smiled.

"Well," he said, "on the whole, it strikes me as advisable."

He walked down the steps with her, and, sauntering a few yards along the street, they turned down an opening between the houses and stopped at the back of the hotel. There were only two windows in that part of the building, and the rude wooden stable would shield anybody standing close beneath one side of it from observation. Several gigs stood there to wait until their owners were ready to drive back to their outlying farms, and behind them the gray-white prairie ran back into the distance, empty and unbroken except for the riband of rutted trail. There was no sound from the hotel, for the average Westerner eats in silent, strenuous haste, and the two could hear only the movements of a restless horse in the stable.

Alison walked up to a somewhat dilapidated buggy and inspected it dubiously.

"This must be the one, and I suppose that's the bolt," she said. "There seems to be a big nut beneath it, and I don't quite see how I'm to get it off. Would your scruples prevent your making any suggestion?"

Thorne appeared to consider, though there was a twinkle in his eyes.

"I might go so far as to point out that if you went into the stable you would find a spanner on the ledge behind the door. It's an instrument that's made for screwing off nuts with."

Alison disappeared into the stable and came back with the spanner in her hand. Thorne noticed that she had put on a pair of rather shabby light gloves, with the object, he supposed, of protecting her fingers. Stooping down behind the buggy she stretched out an arm beneath the seat, and became desperately busy, to judge from the tapping and clinking she made. Then she straightened herself and looked up at him, hot and a trifle flushed.

"It won't go on to the nut," she complained. "Is it quite out of the question that you should help me?"

She saw the constraint in his face, and was pleased with it. She did not wish the man to break his pledge, and it is probable that she would have refused his assistance; but she was, on the other hand, very human in most respects, and she greatly desired to ascertain how strong the temptation to help her was.

"In the first place, you might try turning the screw on the spanner a little," he advised. "It will make the opening wider."

She did so, and had no more difficulty on that point, but the bolt was rusty and the nut very stiff. While she struggled with it there was a sound of footsteps, and Thorne, moving suddenly forward, snatched the tool from her.

"Stay there until I make it possible for you to slip away!" he whispered sharply; then he stepped swiftly back a few paces and leaned against a wagon with the spanner in his hand.

He had scarcely done so when a man came out of the opening between the houses, and Alison felt her heart throb unpleasantly fast. If the newcomer should look around toward the stables it seemed impossible that he should fail to notice Thorne. The latter, however, stood quietly still, with his shoulders resting against the wagon wheel, and the spanner in full view in front of him. The other man drew abreast of them, but he did not look around, and Alison gasped with relief when he vanished behind one of the neighboring buildings.

Then she turned impulsively to her companion.

"Oh," she cried, "you meant him to see you!"

Thorne raised his hand in expostulation.

"Hadn't you better get the thing out before somebody else comes along?"

There was no doubt that he was right in this, and Alison attacked the nut again. In two or three more minutes she moved away from the buggy with the bolt in her hand.

"What had I better do with it?" she asked.

"I might suggest dropping it into a thick clump of grass. If you don't mind, we'll stroll out a little way on the prairie. There's too much dust to be pleasant blowing down the street."

They had left the wooden buildings some distance behind when Alison next spoke to him.

"That was a generous thing you did just now."

Thorne looked confused, but he made no attempt to evade an answer.

"It was necessary."

"If the man had seen you with the spanner, Corporal Slaney would, no doubt, have heard of it afterward. That would have hurt you?"

"It certainly wouldn't have pleased me."

"Then why did you do what you did?"

"I think I have just told you."

"You said it was necessary," replied Alison, looking at him with eyes which just then had what he thought a very wonderful light in them. "You haven't convinced me that it wasn't – rather fine of you."

Thorne was manifestly more embarrassed, and embarrassment of any kind was somewhat unusual with him.

"Then," he said, "you compel me to try. If we had remained standing as we did when the man first came out from behind the houses and he had noticed you, it's exceedingly probable that he would have noticed me. Even if he hadn't, it's almost certain that several people must have seen you leave the hotel in my company. They wouldn't have had much trouble in figuring out the thing."

"Of course!" exclaimed Alison, a little astonished that this had not occurred to her earlier. Then her face grew suddenly warm. "You mean they would have recognized that I was acting – on your instructions?"

Thorne looked at her with a disconcerting steadiness.

"You haven't quite grasped the most important fact yet. They would have wondered how I was able to get you to do it – in other words, what gave me such a hold on you. The trouble is that there's an explanation that would naturally suggest itself."

"Yes," murmured Alison, with her eyes turned away from him; "that would have been unpleasant – for both of us."

Thorne did not quite know what to make of the pause, though he had a shadowy idea that it somehow rendered her assertion less positive, and left the point open to doubt. In any case, it set his heart beating fast, and he had some trouble in holding himself in hand. Outwardly, however, he was graver than usual.

"Well," he added, "I didn't think it desirable in several ways. You see, a pedler is, after all, a person of no account in this part of Canada. He has no particular interest in the fortune of the country; he doesn't help its progress; his calling benefits nobody."

"But you are a farmer now," protested Alison, glancing at him covertly.

"Strictly on probation. In fact, there's very little doubt that my new venture is generally regarded as a harmless eccentricity. It will be some time before my neighbors realize that I'm capable of anything that's not connected with an amusing frolic." He stopped a moment, and smiled at her. "On the whole, I can't reasonably blame them. My situation's a very precarious one; a frozen crop would break me."

Alison wondered what the drift of these observations could be, for she imagined that he must have had some particular purpose in saying so much. It was, so far as her experience went, a very unusual thing for a man to confess that he was an object of amusement to his neighbors, or that there was a probability of his failing to make his mark in his profession.

"I suppose," she suggested, to help him out, "you're not content with such a state of things?"

"That is just the point. It's my intention to alter it as soon as possible, and a bonanza harvest this year would go a long way toward setting me on my feet. In the meanwhile, it seems only fitting that I should put up with popular opinion, and try to bear in mind my disabilities."

He was far from explicit, but explicitness was, after all, not what Alison desired, and she fancied she understood him. It had not been without a sufficient reason that he had, to his friends' astonishment, turned farmer, and now he meant to wait until he had made a success of it, and had shown that he could hold his own with the best of them, before going any farther. This naturally suggested the question as to what he meant to do then, and she fancied that she could supply the answer. She had already confessed to herself that she liked the man, and this was sufficient for the time being.

"I heard that your wheat escaped, as Farquhar's did."

Thorne, glancing at her, surmised that this was a lead, and that he was not expected to pursue the previous subject.

"Yes," he replied, "I'm thankful to say it did. Most of the grain a few miles to the west of us was blotted out, including Hunter's – I'm sorry for him. The storm seems to have traveled straight down into Dakota, destroying everything in its path. My place lay just outside it, and at present everything promises a record crop." He broke off, and glanced down at her hands. "Have you noticed your glove?"

Alison held it up and displayed a large rusty stain across the palm and part of the back of it.

"Yes," she answered; "I did that getting the bolt out, and I'm rather vexed about it. Mrs. Farquhar will, no doubt, notice the stain, and I don't feel anxious to explain how it was done."

"Then you'll have to take the glove off," advised Thorne.

Alison smiled.

"I'm not sure that simple expedient would get over the difficulty. Of course, I might leave them behind altogether." Then she shook her head. "No; the person who found them would see the stain and guess whose they were. I don't think that would do, either."

"It wouldn't," Thorne agreed.

Then they began to talk of something else, and presently they turned back together toward the hotel. When they reached it, Florence Hunter and Mrs. Farquhar were sitting on the veranda, while two or three men occupied the lower steps, and another group lounged about near them, pipe in hand. A few minutes later Nevis appeared striding down the street with his lips set and some signs of temper. He stopped in front of the hotel, and Alison glanced at Thorne significantly when he turned to the lounging men.

"You folks seem mighty prosperous in spite of the hail," he sneered. "I can't find a man in this town who's open to earn a couple of dollars."

Some of them grinned, but none made any answer. His tone was offensive, in the first place, and, while nobody is overburdened with riches on the prairie, the average Westerner has his own ideas as to what is becoming.

Nevis signed to one of them.

"Get my buggy, Bill!"

The man hesitated, and though he strolled off toward the stables, Nevis's sharpness cost him several minutes' unnecessary delay. Eventually the buggy was brought out, and nobody said anything when Nevis got in and flicked the horse smartly with a whip, though the tilt of the seat must have been evident to most of the lookers-on. Alison touched Thorne's arm.

"Hadn't you better call to him?" she suggested.

The next moment the warning was rendered unnecessary, for there was a crash, and the seat of the buggy collapsed. Nevis lurched violently forward, but he managed to recover his balance and pull up the horse. Then he swung himself down, and after crawling under the vehicle, stood up with a frowning face while the loungers began to gather about him.

"There's a bolt out. I didn't notice it when I drove up," he grumbled. "It's three-eighths by the hole, I think. Ask Bill if he's got anything of the kind in the stable."

Bill, who had been standing near, sauntered away, and it was at least five minutes before he came back, empty-handed.

"I've nothing that will fit," he announced.

"Then go in and see if they've got one at the hardware store," ordered Nevis. "I ought to have thought of that earlier."

Bill was away a long while this time, and when he returned he held up an unusually long bolt for inspection.

"Guess it won't be any use," he said. "Thread doesn't go far enough to let the nut to the plate."

"Then what in thunder did you bring it for?" Nevis asked with rising anger.

Alison looked at Thorne and laughed.

"Have you been giving that man a hint?" she inquired.

"No," answered Thorne, smiling; "it would have been wasted in any case. Nevis has succeeded in riling him. He couldn't have managed the thing better if I had prompted him."

In the meanwhile Bill languidly affected to consider Nevis's question.

"I guess I wanted to be quite sure it wouldn't fit," he replied at length. "If it doesn't, I could see if he has got a shorter one in another package."

Nevis flung out his arms in savage expostulation.

"Well," he cried, "I've never yet struck anybody quite as thick as you. Couldn't you have brought the shorter one along?"

"Those bolts," Bill answered solemnly, "don't run many to the dollar, and I'd a kind of notion I might find a big nut or some washers I could fill up with in the stables."

"No," snapped Nevis; "you have wasted time enough! If it won't do, take the thing back into the store and ask Bevan to cut the thread farther along it!"

Bill strolled away at a particularly leisurely gait, and Thorne took out his watch.

"It's highly probable that Slaney will have left Forrester's before our friend gets off," he said. "In that case, it will no doubt be noon to-morrow before the police make their first attempt to get on Winthrop's trail. I wonder whether anybody except Dave can have seen him."

"I did," Alison told him; "the morning before the hail."

Thorne turned toward her with a start.

"Where?"

"At the homestead. Farquhar and his wife were out."

"What brought Winthrop there?"

"That," smiled Alison, "I may tell you some day, but not just now. I wonder what has kept him in the neighborhood?"

"It's easily figured out. He'd head for Mrs. Calvert's, and probably stay an hour or two there; then he'd go on to Brayton's place – they're friends – at night. Jardine's would be his next call, and he'd be striking west away from the larger settlements when Dave came across him."

This struck Alison as probable, but just then Bill came out of the store again.

"Beavan hasn't anything shorter, and he's doing up his accounts. He can't cut threads on bolts, anyway," he announced. "It's Pete who does that kind of thing for him."

Judging from his face, it cost Nevis a determined effort to check an outbreak of fury.

"Then where in thunder is Pete?" he shouted.

It appeared that the man had gone home to supper, and a quarter of an hour passed before he came upon the scene. Then it took him quite as long to operate on the bolt and fit it in the buggy, and Nevis's face was very hot and red when he flung himself into the vehicle. He used the whip savagely, and there was some derisive applause and laughter when the horse went down the street at a gallop with the buggy jolting dangerously in the ruts behind it.

Thorne descended the steps and disappeared. When he came back Mrs. Farquhar's wagon was being brought out, and he walked up to Alison with a parcel in his hand.

"I think," he said, "that's the best way of hiding the stain."

Alison opened the parcel, and was conscious of a curious thrill, in which pleasure and embarrassment were mingled, when she found a pair of gloves inside. It was the first gift he had made her.

"Thank you," she murmured. "They fit me, too. How did you guess the size?"

"Oh," laughed Thorne, "it was very simple. I just asked for the smallest pair they had in the store."

Then Mrs. Farquhar came up, and he helped her and Alison into the wagon.

CHAPTER XXIII
AN UNEXPECTED DISASTER

Several weeks had slipped away since the evening Nevis drove out of Graham's Bluff in search of Corporal Slaney, and there had been no news of Winthrop, when Thorne plodded across the prairie beside his team, hauling in a load of dressed lumber for the new creamery. Hunter had contracted with him to convey the necessary material from the railroad, and in the interval between sowing and reaping Thorne had found the arrangement a profitable one. He had a use for every dollar he could raise, and all through the heat of the summer he had worked double tides.

It was blazing hot that afternoon, and the wide plain lay scorching under a pitiless glare. Thorne was not sorry when the Farquhar homestead with its encircling sea of wheat took shape ahead. The trail led past it, and, though time was precious to him then, he felt that he could put up with an hour or two's delay in case Mrs. Farquhar invited him to wait for supper. It was now a fortnight since he had seen Alison.

The wooden buildings rose very slowly, though he several times urged the jaded horses. They had made a long haul that day, and the man, who had trudged at their head since early morning, was almost as weary. On the odd days that they had spent in the stable he had toiled arduously on his house and half-finished barn, beginning with the dawn and ceasing at dark. Now he was grimed with dust and dripping with perspiration, and a tantalizing cloud of flies hovered over him. All this was a decided change from driving a few hours daily in a lightly loaded wagon, but what at first had appeared an almost unexplainable liking for the constant effort had grown upon him. He would not have abandoned it now had that course been open to him.

By degrees the sea of grain grew nearer, its edge rising in a clean-cut ridge above the flat white sweep of dazzling plain. It had changed from green to pale yellow in the past few weeks, but there were here and there vivid coppery gleams in it. It promised a bounteous yield when thrashing was over, and he thought of his own splendid crop with the clean pride of accomplishment. Then he noticed that a buggy was approaching from the opposite direction, and when he reached the homestead a man in white shirt and store clothes had just pulled up his horse. He shook hands with Thorne, who had already recognized him as a dealer in implements and general farming supplies from the railroad settlement.

"Glad I met you. It will save my going on to your place," he said.

Thorne noticed that the man, who was usually optimistic and cheerful, looked depressed.

"Did you want to see me about something, Grantly?" he asked.

"Yes. To cut it short, I'm going out of business."

The full significance of this announcement did not immediately dawn upon Thorne.

"I expect most of the boys will regret it as much as I do," he said. "One could rely on anything sent out from your store, and there's no doubt that you have always treated us liberally."

"That's just the trouble. I've been too blamed easy with some of you. If I'd kept a tighter hand on the folks who owed me money it's quite likely I'd have been able to meet my bills."

"Is it as bad as that?" Thorne inquired with genuine sympathy.

Grantly turned to Farquhar, who had joined them in the meanwhile.

"The fact is, things have been going against me the last three years. Nevis has been steadily cutting into my trade; but I held on somehow, expecting that a record harvest or a high market would put me straight. I'd have been able to get some of my money in again then. In the meanwhile I was getting behind with the makers who supplied me, and now one or two of them have pulled me up; I guess it was the hail that decided them. It's a private compromise, but the point is that Nevis takes over my liabilities."

Thorne's face suddenly hardened, and Farquhar looked grave.

"It's bad news," said the latter. "Is he paying cash?"

"Part," Grantly answered. "The rest in bills. He has Brand, of Winnipeg, behind him, and he's good enough. In fact, I believe the man has been backing Nevis right along." He turned to Thorne. "Anyway, I've got to give the store up, and you'll have Nevis for a creditor instead of me. That's really what brought me over. The note you gave me calls for a good many dollars and it's due very soon."

Thorne endeavored to brace himself after the blow, which had been as unexpected as it was heavy. He had obtained all his implements and most of the materials he required for his house-building from Grantly, giving him a claim upon his possessions as security, in addition to a promise to pay at a date by which harvest was usually over; but owing to an exceptionally cold spring, harvest was late that year.

"It was understood that you wouldn't press me if I should be a few weeks behind," he reminded him.

"That's quite right," Grantly assented. "The trouble is that it was only a verbal promise, and it won't count for much with Nevis. He's been after you for some time, and I guess he'll stick to the date on the note. If you're not ready with the money he'll break you."

Farquhar made a sign of concurrence.

"I'm afraid it's very probable. What are you going to do about it, Mavy?"

Thorne stood silent for almost a minute, and the bronze faded a little in his face, which was very grim.

"That note will have to be met. You told Grantly I was to be relied upon, and I'm not going back on you. It's not my intention to let Nevis do what he likes with me, either. In a general way, I'd have gone to Hunter, and I've no doubt that he would have financed me; but that's quite out of the question now. He has all the trouble he's fit to stand on his hands already."

"A sure thing," Farquhar agreed.

"Well," Thorne added, "the oats are about ripe, and though I'd rather they had stood another week or so, I'll put the binder into them at sunup to-morrow. The wheat should be nearly ready by the time I'm through, and I'll hire the help I could have borrowed if I had been able to wait a while. I'll have to let up on the haulage contract and work right on, almost without stopping, until I can get the thrashers in; but I'll put the crop on the market before the note is due!"

"You couldn't do it, Mavy, if you worked all night."

Thorne laughed in a harsh fashion.

"Just wait and see! It has to be done! In the meanwhile, please make my excuses to Mrs. Farquhar for not calling. I must be getting on."

"You can't do anything to-night," Farquhar objected.

"I can ride over to Hall's and get back to my place by sunup with his team."

He called to his horses, and with a creaking of suddenly tightened harness the wagon jolted on, but as he passed the door of the homestead Alison came out. Thorne stopped, while the team slowly plodded forward, and it seemed to her that there was a striking change in the man. Nothing in his manner suggested that he had ever regarded life as a frolic and taken his part in it with careless gaiety. His eyes were very grave and there was a look she had never seen in them before, while his face seemed to have set in sharper lines. He looked strangely determined and forceful; almost, as she thought of it, dominant.

"What is the matter? You are in some trouble?" she exclaimed.

"Yes," said Thorne simply. "Farquhar will no doubt explain the thing. There's a very tough fight in front of me. I don't think I could have undertaken it six months ago." He spread out his hands. "It's unthinkable that I should be beaten!"

Alison felt strangely stirred by something in his voice.

"Then," she urged, "you will have to win! You must; I want you to!"

Thorne looked at her with a gleam in his eyes that set her heart throbbing painfully fast.

"Now," he laughed, "the thing seems almost easy!"

He turned away after his wagon, and Alison waited until Farquhar came up with Grantly.

"What has Thorne undertaken?" she asked.

Farquhar smiled.

"I'll try to tell you after supper. In the meanwhile, I can only say that he seems determined on breaking himself up by attempting a task that in my opinion is beyond the power of any man on the prairie."

He went into the house with Grantly, and it was an hour or two later before Alison was able to form a fairly accurate idea of the situation. Then her heart grew very soft toward Thorne, and she thought of him with a sense of pride. It was for her sake he had braced himself for this most unequal fight, and she knew that he meant to win.

In the meanwhile Thorne was urging on his team, and dusk was closing in when he flung down the lumber from his wagon. After that, he drove through the soft darkness for two or three hours, and finally roused an outlying neighbor from his well-earned slumber. The man, descending, roundly abused him, but became a little mollified when he heard his story.

"The thing surely can't be done, and just now you can't count on much help, either. The Ontario boys are only just starting West, and the first of them will be snapped up before they get to Brandon. Anyway, I'll come along with you and do what I can." He moved toward a cupboard. "If you left Farquhar's when you said, you couldn't have got your supper."

"Now that you mention it," laughed Thorne, "I don't think I did."

His friend set food before him, and an hour later they drove off in the darkness, leaving Thorne's jaded team behind them. Eventually they reached his homestead in the early dawn, and Thorne, who had been on foot most of the time since sunrise on the previous morning, sat down wearily on the stoop and took out his pipe while he looked about him. Eager as he was to get to work, he could not begin just yet, for the night had been clear and cold, and the grain was dripping with the heavy dew.

He had his back to the house, which was at last almost ready for habitation, but the half-finished barn and the rude sod stable rose before him blackly against the growing light. Beyond these, the sweep of grain stretched back, a darker patch on the shadowy prairie, with another dusky oblong just discernible on the short grass some distance away. Determined as he was, his heart sank as he gazed at them. He had undertaken a task that looked utterly beyond his powers.

Had he been content to begin on his hundred-and-sixty-acre holding on the scale usual in the case of men with scanty means, he would probably have had no great trouble in harvesting all the crop he could have raised; but he had seen enough during his journeyings up and down the prairie to convince him that there was remarkably little to be made in this fashion. As a result he had staked boldly, breaking practically all his land, with hired assistance and the most modern implements that could be purchased, though this necessitated the borrowing of money. He had, in addition, secured the use of a neighboring holding, part of which had been under grain before, from a man who had worked it long enough to secure his patent and had then discovered that he could earn considerably more as a subcontractor on a new branch railroad.