Thanks to the fashion in which the hotel keeper managed the affair, the gambler left the settlement without personal injury, but very little richer than when he entered it. The rest of those who were present at his meeting with Winston were also not desirous that their friends should know that they had been victimized, and because Dane was discreet news of what had happened might never have reached Silverdale had not one of the younger men ridden in to the railroad a few days later. Odd scraps of conversation overheard led him to suspect that something unusual had taken place, but as nobody seemed to be willing to supply details, he returned to Silverdale with his curiosity unsatisfied. As it happened, he was shortly afterwards present at a gathering of his neighbors at Macdonald's farm and came across Ferris there.
"I heard fragments of a curious story at the settlement," he said. "There was trouble of some kind in which a professional gambler figured last Saturday night, and though nobody seemed to want to talk about it, I surmised that somebody from Silverdale was concerned in it."
He had perhaps spoken a trifle more loudly than he had intended, and there were a good many of the Silverdale farmers with a few of their wives and daughters whose attention was not wholly confined to the efforts of Mrs. Macdonald at the piano in the long room just then. In any case a voice broke through the silence that followed the final chords.
"Ferris could tell us if he liked. He was there that night."
Ferris, who had cause for doing so, looked uncomfortable, and endeavored to sign to the first speaker that it was not desirable to pursue the topic.
"I have been in tolerably often of late. Had things to attend to," he said.
The other man was, however, possessed by a mischievous spirit or did not understand him. "You may just as well tell us now as later, because you never kept a secret in your life," he said.
In the meantime, several of the others had gathered about them, and Mrs. Macdonald, who had joined the group, smiled as she said, "There is evidently something interesting going on. Mayn't I know, Gordon?"
"Of course," said the man who had visited the settlement. "You shall know as much as I do, though that is little, and if it excites your curiosity, you can ask Ferris for the rest. He is only anxious to enhance the value of his story by being mysterious. Well, there was a more or less dramatic happening, of the kind our friends in the old country unwarrantably fancy is typical of the West, in the saloon of the settlement not long ago. Cards, pistols, a professional gambler, and the unmasking of foul play, don't you know. Somebody from Silverdale played the leading role."
"How interesting!" said a young English girl. "Now, I used to fancy something of that kind happened here every day before I came out to the prairie. Please tell us, Mr. Ferris! One would like to find there is just a trace of reality in our picturesque fancies of debonair desperadoes and big-hatted cavaliers."
There was a curious expression in Ferris's face, but as he glanced around at the rest, who were regarding him expectantly, he did not observe that Maud Barrington and her aunt had just come in and stood close behind him.
"Can't you see there's no getting out of it, Ferris?" said somebody.
"Well," said the lad in desperation, "I can only admit that Gordon is right. There was foul play and a pistol drawn, but I'm sorry that I can't add anything further. In fact, it wouldn't be quite fair of me."
"But the man from Silverdale?" asked Mrs. Macdonald.
"I'm afraid," said Ferris, with the air of one shielding a friend, "I can't tell you anything about him."
"I know Mr. Courthorne drove in that night," said the young English girl, who was not endued with very much discretion.
"Courthorne," said one of the bystanders, and there was a momentary silence that was very expressive. "Was he concerned in what took place, Ferris?"
"Yes," said the lad with apparent reluctance. "Mrs. Macdonald, you will remember that they dragged it out of me, but I will tell you nothing more whatever."
"It seems to me you have told us quite sufficient and perhaps a trifle too much," said somebody.
There was a curious silence. All of those present were more or less acquainted with Courthorne's past history, and the suggestion of foul play coupled with the mention of a professional gambler had been significant. Ferris, while committing himself in no way, had certainly said sufficient. Then there was a sudden turning of heads as a young woman moved quietly into the midst of the group. She was ominously calm, but she stood very straight, and there was a little hard glitter in her eyes, which reminded one or two of the men who noticed it of those of Colonel Barrington. The fingers of one hand were also closed at her side. "I overheard you telling a story, Ferris, but you have a bad memory and left rather too much out," she said.
"They compelled me to tell them what I did, Miss Barrington," said the lad, who winced beneath her gaze. "Now there is really nothing to be gained by going any further into the affair. Shall I play something for you, Mrs. Macdonald?"
He turned as he spoke and would have edged away, but that one of the men at a glance from the girl laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't be in a hurry, Ferris. I fancy Miss Barrington has something more to tell you," he said dryly.
The girl thanked him with a gesture. "I want you to supply the most important part," she said, and the lad, saying nothing, changed color under the glance she cast upon him. "You do not seem willing. Then perhaps I had better do it for you. There were two men from Silverdale directly concerned in the affair, and one of them at no slight risk to himself did a very generous thing. That one was Mr. Courthorne. Did you see him lay a single stake upon a card, or do anything that led you to suppose he was there for the purpose of gambling that evening?"
"No," said the lad, seeing she knew the truth, and his hoarse voice was scarcely audible.
"Then," said Maud Barrington, "I want you to tell us what you did see him do."
Ferris said nothing, and though the girl laughed a little as she glanced at the wondering group, her voice was icily disdainful.
"Well," she said, "I will tell you. You saw him question a professional gambler's play to save a man who had no claim on him from ruin, and, with only one comrade to back him, drive the swindler, who had a pistol, from the field. He had, you admit, no interest of any kind in the game."
Ferris had grown crimson again, and the veins on his forehead showed swollen high. "No," he said almost abjectly.
Maud Barrington turned from him to her hostess as she answered, "That will suffice, in the meanwhile, until I can decide whether it is desirable to make known the rest of the tale. I brought the new song Evelyn wanted, Mrs. Macdonald, and I will play it for her, if she would care to try it."
She moved away with the elder lady, and left the rest astonished to wonder what had become of Ferris, who was seen no more that evening, while presently Winston came in.
His face was a trifle weary, for he had toiled since the sun rose above the rim of the prairie and when the arduous day was over and those who worked for him were glad to rest their aching limbs, had driven two leagues to Macdonald's. Why he had done so, he was not willing to admit, but he glanced around the long room anxiously as he came in, and his eyes brightened as they rested on Maud Barrington. They were, however, observant eyes, and he noticed that there was a trifle more color than usual in the girl's pale-tinted face, and signs of suppressed curiosity about some of the rest. When he had greeted his hostess he turned to one of the men.
"It seems to me you are either trying not to see something, Gordon, or to forget it as soon as you can," he said.
Gordon laughed at little. "You are not often mistaken, Courthorne. That is precisely what we are doing. I presume you haven't heard what occurred here an hour ago?"
"No!" said Winston. "I'm not very curious if it does not concern me."
Gordon looked at him steadily. "I fancy it does. You see that young fool Ferris was suggesting that you had been mixed up in something not very creditable at the settlement lately. As it happened, Maud Barrington overheard him and made him retract before the company. She did it effectively, and if it had been any one else, the scene would have been almost theatrical. Still, you know nothing seems out of place when it comes from the Colonel's niece. Nor if you had heard her would you have wanted a better advocate."
For a moment the bronze deepened in Winston's forehead, and there was a gleam in his eyes, but though it passed as rapidly as it came, Gordon had seen it and smiled when the farmer moved away.
"That's a probability I never counted on," he thought, "Still, I fancy if it came about, it would suit everybody but the Colonel."
Then he turned as Mrs. Macdonald came up to him. "What are you doing here alone when I see there is nobody talking to the girl from Winnipeg?"
The man laughed a little. "I was wondering whether it is a good sign or otherwise when a young woman is, so far as she can decently be, uncivil to a man who desires her good-will."
Mrs. Macdonald glanced at him sharply, and then shook her head. "The question is too deep for you--and it is not your affair. Besides, haven't you seen that indiscreet freedom of speech is not encouraged at Silverdale?"
In the meanwhile Winston, crossing the room, took a vacant place at Maud Barrington's side. She turned her head a moment and looked at him.
Winston nodded. "Yes, I heard," he said. "Why did you do it?"
Maud Barrington made a little gesture of impatience. "That is quite unnecessary. You know I sent you."
"Yes," said Winston, a trifle dryly, "I see. You would have felt mean if you hadn't defended me?"
"No," said the girl, with a curious smile. "That was not exactly the reason, but we cannot talk too long here. Dane is anxious to take us home in his new buggy, but it would apparently be a very tight fit for three. Will you drive me over?"
Winston only nodded, for Mrs. Macdonald approached in pursuit of him, but he spent the rest of the evening in a state of expectancy, and Maud Barrington fancied that his hard hands were suspiciously unresponsive as she took them when he helped her into the Silverdale wagon--a vehicle a strong man could have lifted, and in no way resembling its English prototype. The team was mettlesome, the lights of Macdonald's homestead soon faded behind them, and they were racing with many a lurch and jolt straight as the crow flies across the prairie.
There was no moon, but the stars shone far up in the soft indigo, and the grasses whirled back in endless ripples to the humming wheels, dimmed to the dusky blue that suffused the whole intermerging sweep of earth and sky. The sweetness of wild peppermint rose through the coolness of the dew, and the voices of the wilderness were part of the silence that was but the perfect balance of the nocturnal harmonies. The two who knew and loved the prairie could pick out each one of them. Nor did it seem that there was any need of speech on such a night, but at last Winston turned with a little smile to his companion, as he checked the horses on the slope of a billowy rise.
"One feels diffident about intruding on this great quietness," he said. "Still, I fancy you had a purpose in asking me to drive you home."
"Yes," said the girl, with a curious gentleness. "In the first place, though I know it isn't necessary with you, I want to thank you. I made Dane tell me, and you have done all I wished--splendidly."
Winston laughed. "Well, you see, it naturally came easy to me."
Maud Barrington noticed the trace of grimness in his voice. "Please try to overlook our unkindness," she said. "Is it really needful to keep reminding me? And how was I to know what you were, when I had only heard that wicked story?"
Winston felt a little thrill run through him, for which reason he looked straight in front of him and shifted his grasp on the reins. Disdainful and imperious as she was at times, he knew there was a wealth of softer qualities in his companion now. Her daintiness in thought and person, and honesty of purpose, appealed to him, while that night her mere physical presence had an effect that was almost bewildering. For a moment he wondered vaguely how far a man might dare to go, with what fate had thrust upon him, and then with a little shiver saw once more the barrier of deceit and imposture.
"You believe it was not a true one?" he asked.
"Of course," said Maud Barrington. "How could it be? And you have been very patient under our suspicions. Now, if you still value the good-will you once asked for, it is yours absolutely."
"But you may still hear unpleasant stories about me," said Winston, with a note the girl had not heard before in his voice.
"I should not believe them," she said.
"Still," persisted Winston, "if the tales were true?"
Maud Barrington did nothing by halves. "Then I should remember that there is always so much we do not know which would put a different color on any story, and I believe they could never be true again."
Winston checked a little gasp of wonder and delight, and Maud Barrington looked away across the prairie. She was not usually impulsive and seldom lightly bestowed gifts that were worth the having, and the man knew that the faith in him she had confessed to was the result of a conviction that would last until he himself shattered it. Then, in the midst of his elation, he shivered again and drew the lash across the near horse's back. The wonder and delight he felt had suddenly gone.
"Few would venture to predict as much. Now and then I feel that our deeds are scarcely contrived by our own will, and one could fancy our parts had been thrust upon us in a grim joke," he said. "For instance, isn't it strange that I should have a share in the rousing of Silverdale to a sense of its responsibilities? Lord, what I could make of it, if fate had but given me a fair opportunity!"
He spoke almost fiercely, but the words did not displease the girl. The forceful ring in his voice set something thrilling within her, and she knew by this time that his assertions seldom went beyond the fact.
"But you will have the opportunity, and we need you here," she said.
"No," said Winston slowly. "I am afraid not. Still, I will finish the work I see in front of me. That at least--one cannot hope for the unattainable."
Maud Barrington was sensible of a sudden chill. "Still, if one has strength and patience, is anything quite unattainable?"
Winston looked out across the prairie, and for a moment the demons of pride and ambition rioted within him. He knew there were in him the qualities that compel success, and the temptation to stretch out a daring hand and take all he longed for grew almost overmastering. Still, he also knew how strong the innate prejudices of caste and tradition are in most women of his companion's station, and she had never hidden one aspect or her character from him. It was with a smothered groan he realized that if he flung the last shred of honor aside and grasped the forbidden fruit it would turn to bitterness in his mouth.
"Yes," he said very slowly. "There is a limit which only fools would pass."
Then there was silence for a while, until, as they swept across the rise, Maud Barrington laughed as she pointed to the lights that blinked in the hollow, and Winston realized that the barrier between them stood firm again.
"Our views seldom coincide for very long, but there is something else to mention before we reach the Grange," she said. "You must have paid out a good many dollars for the plowing of your land and mine, and nobody's exchequer is inexhaustible at Silverdale. Now I want you to take a check from me."
"It is necessary that I should?"
"Of course," said the girl, with a trace of displeasure.
Winston laughed. "Then I shall be prepared to hand you my account whenever you demand it."
He did not look at his companion again, but with a tighter grip than there was any need for on the reins, sent the light wagon jolting down the slope to Silverdale Grange.
The sun beat down on the prairie, which was already losing its flush of green, but it was cool where Maud Barrington and her aunt stood in the shadow of the bluff by Silverdale Grange. The birches, tasseled now with whispering foliage, divided the homestead front the waste which would lie white and desolate under the parching heat, and that afternoon it seemed to the girl that the wall of green shut out more than the driving dust and sun-glare from the Grange, for where the trees were thinner she could see moving specks of men and horses athwart the skyline.
They had toiled in the sun-baked furrow since the first flush of crimson streaked the prairie's rim, and the chill of dusk would fall upon the grasses before their work was done. Those men who bore the burden and heat of the day were, the girl knew, helots now, but there was in them the silent vigor and something of the somberness of the land of rock and forest they came from, and a time would come when others would work for them. Winning slowly, holding grimly, they were moving on, while secure in its patrician tranquillity; Silverdale stood still, and Maud Barrington smiled curiously as she glanced down at the long white robe that clung very daintily about her and then towards her companions in the tennis field. Her apparel had cost many dollars in Montreal, and there was a joyous irresponsibility in the faces of those she watched.
"It is a little unequal, isn't it, aunt?" she said. "One feels inclined to wonder what we have done that we should have exemption from the charge laid upon the first tiller of the soil that we, and the men who are plodding through the dust there, are descended from."
Miss Barrington laughed a little as she glanced with a nod of comprehension at the distant toilers, and more gravely towards the net. Merry voices came up to her through the shadows of the trees as English lad and English maiden, lissom and picturesque in many-hued jackets and light dresses, flitted across the little square of velvet green. The men had followed the harrow and seeder a while that morning. Some of them, indeed, had for a few hours driven a team, and then left the rest to the hired hands, for the stress and sweat of effort that was to turn the wilderness into a granary was not for such as they.
"Don't you think it is all made up to those others?" she asked.
"In one sense--yes," said the girl. "Of course, one can see that all effort must have its idealistic aspect, and there may be men who find their compensation in the thrill of the fight, and the knowledge of work well done when they rest at night. Still, I fancy most of them only toil to eat, and their views are not revealed to us. We are, you see, women--and we live at Silverdale."
Her aunt smiled again. "How long is it since the plow crossed the Red River, and what is Manitoba now? How did those mile furrows come there, and who drove the road that takes the wheat out through the granite of the Superior shore? It was more than their appetites that impelled those men, my dear. Still, it is scarcely wise to expect too much when one meets them, for though one could feel it is presumptuous to forgive its deficiencies, the Berserk type of manhood is not conspicuous for its refinement."
For no apparent reason Maud Barrington evaded her aunt's gaze. "You," she said dryly, "have forgiven one of that type a good deal already, but, at least, we have never seen him when the fit was upon him."
Miss Barrington laughed. "Still, I have no doubt that, sooner or later, you will enjoy the spectacle."
Just then, a light wagon came up behind them, and when one of the hired men helped them in they swept out of the cool shade into the dust and glare of the prairie, and when some little time later, with the thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels softened by the bleaching sod, they rolled down a rise, there was spread out before them evidence of man's activity.
Acre by acre, gleaming chocolate brown against the gray and green of the prairie, the wheat loam rolled away, back to the ridge, over it, and on again. It was such a breadth of sowing as had but once, when wheat was dear, been seen at Silverdale, but still across the foreground, advancing in echelon, came lines of dusty teams, and there was a meaning in the furrows they left behind them, for they were not plowing where the wheat had been. Each wave of lustrous clods that rolled from the gleaming shares was so much rent from the virgin prairie, and a promise of what would come when man had fulfilled his mission and the wilderness would blossom. There was a wealth of food stored, little by little during ages past counting, in every yard of the crackling sod to await the time when the toiler with the sweat of the primeval curse upon his forehead should unseal it with the plow. It was also borne in upon Maud Barrington that the man who directed those energies was either altogether without discernment, or one who saw further than his fellows and had an excellent courage, when he flung his substance into the furrows while wheat was going down. Then as the hired man pulled up the wagon she saw him.
A great plow with triple shares had stopped at the end of the furrow, and the leading horses were apparently at variance with the man who, while he gave of his own strength to the uttermost, was asking too much from them. Young and indifferently broken, tortured by swarming insects, and galled by the strain of the collar, they had laid back their ears, and the wickedness of the bronco strain shone in their eyes. One rose almost upright amid a clatter of harness, its mate squealed savagely, and the man who loosed one hand from the head-stall flung out an arm. Then he and the pair whirled round together amid the trampled clods in a blurred medley of spume-flecked bodies, soil-stained jean, flung-up hoofs, and an arm that swung and smote again. Miss Barrington grew a trifle pale as she watched, but a little glow crept into her niece's eyes.
The struggle, however, ended suddenly, and hailing a man who plodded behind another team, Winston picked up his broad hat, which was trampled into shapelessness, and turned towards the wagon. There was dust and spume upon him, a rent in the blue shirt, and the knuckles of one hand dripped red, but he laughed as he said, "I did not know we had an audience, but this, you see, is necessary."
"Is it?" asked Miss Barrington, who glanced at the plowing. "When wheat is going down?"
Winston nodded. "Yes," he said. "I mean, to me; and the price of wheat is only one part of the question."
Miss Barrington stretched out her hand, though her niece said nothing at all. "Of course, but I want you to help us down. Maud has an account you have not sent in to ask you for."
Winston first turned to the two men who now stood by the idle machine. "You'll have to drive those beasts of mine as best you can, Tom, and Jake will take your team. Get them off again now. This piece of breaking has to be put through before we loose again."
Then he handed his visitors down, and Maud Barrington fancied as he walked with them to the house that the fashion in which the damaged hat hung down over his eyes would have rendered most other men ludicrous. He left them a space in his bare sitting-room, which suggested only grim utility, and Miss Barrington smiled when her niece glanced at her.
"And this is how Lance, the profligate, lives!" said she.
Maud Barrington shook her head. "No," she said. "Can you believe that this man was ever a prodigal?"
Her aunt was a trifle less astonished than she would once have been, but before she could answer Winston, who had made a trifling change in his clothing, came in.
"I can give you some green tea, though I am afraid it might be a good deal better than it is, and our crockery is not all you have been used to," he said. "You see, we have only time to think of one thing until the sowing is through."
Miss Barrington's eyes twinkled. "And then?"
"Then," said Winston, with a little laugh, "there will be prairie hay to cut, and after that the harvest coming on."
"In the meanwhile, it was business that brought me here, and I have a check with me," said Maud Barrington. "Please let us get it over first of all."
Winston sat down at a table and scribbled on a strip of paper. "That," he said gravely, "is what you owe me for the plowing."
There was a little flush in his face as he took the check the girl filled in, and both felt somewhat grateful for the entrance of a man in blue jean with the tea. It was of very indifferent quality, and he had sprinkled a good deal on the tray, but Winston felt a curious thrill as he watched the girl pour it out at the head of the bare table. Her white dress gleamed in the light of a dusty window, and the shadowy cedar boarding behind her forced up each line of the shapely figure. Again the maddening temptation took hold of him, and he wondered whether he had betrayed too much when he felt the elder lady's eyes upon him. There was a tremor in his brown fingers as he took the cup held out to him, but his voice was steady.
"You can scarcely fancy how pleasant this is," he said. "For eight years, in fact ever since I left England, no woman has ever done any of these graceful little offices for me."
Miss Barrington glanced at her niece, and both of them knew that, if the lawyer had traced Courthorne's past correctly, this could not be true. Still, there was no disbelief in the elder lady's eyes, and the girl's faith remained unshaken.
"Eight years," she said, with a little smile, "is a very long while."
"Yes," said Winston, "horribly long, and one year at Silverdale is worth them all--that is, a year like this one, which is going to be remembered by all who have sown wheat on the prairie, and that leads up to something. When I have plowed all my own holding, I shall not be content, and I want to make another bargain. Give me the use of your unbroken land, and I will find horses, seed, and men, while we will share what it yields us when the harvest is in."
The girl was astonished. This, she knew, was splendid audacity, for the man had already staked very heavily on the crop he had sown, and while the daring of it stirred her she sat silent a moment.
"I could lose nothing, but you will have to bring out a host of men, and have risked so much," she said. "Nobody but you and me and three or four others in all the province is plowing more than half his holdings."
The suggestion of comradeship set Winston's blood tingling, but it was with a little laugh he turned over the pile of papers on the table, and then took them up in turn.
"'Very little plowing has been done in the tracts of Minnesota previously alluded to. Farmers find wheat cannot be grown at present prices, and there is apparently no prospect of a rise,'" he read. "'The Dakota wheat-growers are mostly fallowing. They can't quite figure how they would get eighty cents for the dollar's worth of seeding this year. Milling very quiet in Winnipeg. No inquiries from Europe coming in, and Manitoba dealers, generally, find little demand for harrows or seeders this year. Reports from Assiniboia seem to show that the one hope this season will be mixed farming and the neglect of cereals.'"
"There is only one inference," he said. "When the demand comes, there will be nothing to meet it with."
"When it comes," said Maud Barrington quietly. "But you who believe it will stand alone."
"Almost," said Winston. "Still, there are a few much cleverer men who feel as I do. I can't give you all my reasons, or read you the sheaf of papers from the Pacific slope, London, New York, Australia, but while men lose hope, and little by little the stocks run down, the world must be fed. Just as sure as the harvest follows the sowing, it will wake up suddenly to the fact that it is hungry. They are buying cotton and scattering their money in other nation's bonds in the old country now, for they and the rest of Europe forget their necessities at times, but is it impossible to picture them finding their granaries empty and clamoring for bread?"
It was a crucial test of faith, and the man knew it, as the woman did. He stood alone, with the opinions of the multitude against him, but there was, Maud Barrington felt, a great if undefinable difference between his quiet resolution and the gambler's recklessness. Once more the boldness of his venture stirred her, and this time there was a little flash in her eyes as she bore witness to her perfect confidence.
"You shall have the land, every acre of it, to do what you like with, and I will ask no questions whether you win or lose," she said.
Then Miss Barrington glanced at him in turn. "Lance, I have a thousand dollars I want you to turn into wheat for me."
Winston's fingers trembled, and a darker hue crept into his tan. "Madam," he said, "I can take no money from you."
"You must," said the little, white-haired lady. "For your mother's sake, Lance. It is a brave thing you are doing, and you are the son of one who was my dearest friend."
Winston turned his head away, and both women wondered when he looked round again. His face seemed a trifle drawn, and his voice was strained.
"I hope," he said slowly, "it will in some degree make amends for others I have done. In the meanwhile, there are reasons why your confidence humiliates me."
Miss Barrington rose and her niece after her. "Still, I believe it is warranted, and you will remember there are two women who have trusted you, hoping for your success. And now, I fancy we have kept you too long."
Winston stood holding the door open a moment, with his head bent, and then suddenly straightened himself.
"I can at least be honest with you in this venture," he said with a curious quietness.
Nothing further was said, but when his guests drove away Winston sat still a while and then went back very grim in face to his plowing. He had passed other unpleasant moments of that kind since he came to Silverdale, and long afterwards the memory of them brought a flush to his face. The excuses he had made seemed worthless when he strove to view what he had done, and was doing, through those women's eyes.
It was dusk when he returned to the homestead, worn, out in body but more tranquil in mind, and stopped a moment in the doorway to look back on the darkening sweep of the plowing. He felt with no misgivings that his time of triumph would come, and in the meanwhile the handling of this great farm with all the aids that money could buy him was a keen joy to him; but each time he met Maud Barrington's eyes he realized the more surely that the hour of his success must also see accomplished an act of abnegation, which he wondered with a growing fear whether he could find the strength for. Then as he went in a man who cooked for his hired assistants came to meet him.
"There's a stranger inside waiting for you," he said. "Wouldn't tell me what he wanted, but sat right down as if the place was his, and helped himself without asking to your cigars. Wanted something to drink, too, and smiled at me kind of wicked when I brought him the cider."
The room was almost dark when Winston entered it, and stood still a moment staring at a man who sat, cigar in hand, quietly watching him. His appearance was curiously familiar, but Winston could not see his face until he moved forward another step or two. Then he stopped once more, and the two saying nothing looked at one another. It was Winston who spoke first, and his voice was very even.
"What do you want here?" he asked.
The other man laughed. "Isn't that a curious question when the place is mine? You don't seem overjoyed to see me come to life again."
Winston sat down and slowly lighted a cigar. "We need not go into that. I asked you what you want."
"Well," said Courthorne dryly, "it is not a great ideal. Only the means to live in a manner more befitting a gentleman than I have been able to do lately."
"You have not been prospering?" and Winston favored his companion with a slow scrutiny.
"No," and Courthorne laughed again. "You see, I could pick up a tolerable living as Lance Courthorne, but there is very little to be made at my business when you commence in new fields as an unknown man."
"Well," said Winston coldly, "I don't know that it wouldn't be better to face my trial than stay here at your mercy. So far as my inclinations go, I would sooner fight than have any further dealings with a man like you."
Courthorne shook his head. "I fixed up the thing too well, and you would be convicted. Still, we'll not go into that, and you will not find me unreasonable. A life at Silverdale would not suit me, and you know by this time that it would be difficult to sell the place, while I don't know where I could find a tenant who would farm it better than you. That being so, it wouldn't be good policy to bleed you too severely. Still, I want a thousand dollars in the meanwhile. It's mine, you see."
Winston sat still a minute. He was sensible of a fierce distrust and hatred of the man before him, but he felt he must at least see the consummation of his sowing.
"Then you shall have it on condition that you go away, and stay away, until harvest is over. After that, I will send for you and shall have more to tell you. If in the meantime you come back here, or hint that I am Winston, I will surrender to the police, or decide our differences in another fashion."
Courthorne nodded. "That is direct," he said. "One knows where he is when he deals with a man who talks as you do. Now, are you not curious as to the way I cheated both the river and the police?"
"No," said Winston grimly, "not in the least. We will talk business together when it is necessary, but I can only decline to discuss anything else with you."
Courthorne laughed. "There's nothing to be gained by pretending to misunderstand you, but it wouldn't pay me to be resentful when I'm graciously willing to let you work for me. Still, I have been inclined to wonder how you were getting on with my estimable relatives and connections. One of them has, I hear, unbent a trifle towards you, but I would like to warn you not to presume on any small courtesy shown you by the younger Miss Barrington."
Winston stood up and set his back to the door. "You heard my terms, but if you mention that lady again in connection with me, it would suit me equally well to make good all I owe you very differently."
Courthorne did not appear in any way disconcerted, but, before he could answer, a man outside opened the door.
"Here's Sergeant Stimson and one of his troopers wanting you," he said.
Winston looked at Courthorne, but the latter smiled. "The visit has nothing to do with me. It is probably accidental, but I fancy Stimson knows me, and it wouldn't be advisable for him to see us both together. Now, I wonder whether you could make it fifteen hundred dollars."
"No," said Winston. "Stay if it pleases you."
Courthorne shook his head. "I don't know that it would. You don't do it badly, Winston."
He went out by another door, almost as the grizzled sergeant came in and stood still, looking at the master of the homestead.
"I haven't seen you since I came here, Mr. Courthorne, and now you remind me of another man I once had dealings with," he said.
Winston laughed a little. "I scarcely fancy that is very civil, Sergeant."
"Well," said the prairie-rider, "there is a difference, when I look at you more closely. Let me see, I met you once or twice back there in Alberta?"
He appeared to be reflecting, but Winston was on his guard. "More frequently, I fancy, but you had nothing definite against me, and the times have changed. I would like to point that out to you civilly. Your chiefs are also on good terms with us at Silverdale, you see."
The sergeant laughed. "Well, sir, I meant no offense, and called round to requisition a horse. One of the Whitesod boys has been deciding a quarrel with a neighbor with an ax, and while I fancy they want me at once, my beast got his foot in a badger-hole."
"Tell Tom in the stables to let you have your choice," said Winston. "If you like them, there's no reason you shouldn't take some of these cigars along."
The sergeant went out, and when the beat of hoofs sank into the silence of the prairie, Winston called Courthorne in. "I have offered you no refreshment, but the best in the house is at your service," he said.
Courthorne looked at him curiously, and for the first time Winston noticed that the life he had led was telling upon his companion.
"As your guest?" he asked.
"Yes," said Winston. "I am tenant here, and, that I may owe you nothing, purpose paying you a second thousand dollars when the crop is in, as well as bank-rate interest on the value of the stock and machines and the money I have used, as shown in the documents handed me by Colonel Barrington. With wheat at its present price nobody would give you more for the land. In return, I demand the unconditional use of the farm until within three months from harvest. I have the elevator warrants for whatever wheat I raise, which will belong to me. If you do not agree, or remain here after sunrise to-morrow, I shall ride over to the outpost and make a declaration."
"Well," said Courthorne slowly, "you can consider it a deal."
Courthorne rode away next morning, and some weeks had passed when Maud Barrington came upon Winston sitting beside his mower in a sloo. He did not at first see her, for the rattle of the machines in a neighboring hollow drowned the muffled beat of hoofs, and the girl, reining her horse in, looked down on him. The man was sitting very still, which was unusual for him, hammer in his hand, gazing straight before him, as though he could see something beyond the shimmering heat that danced along the rim of the prairie.
Summer had come, and the grass, which grew scarcely ankle-deep on the great levels, was once more white and dry, but in the hollows that had held the melting snow it stood waist-high, scented with peppermint, harsh and wiry, and Winston had set out with every man he had to harvest it. Already a line of loaded wagons crawled slowly across the prairie, and men and horses moved half-seen amid the dust that whirled about another sloo. Out of it came the trampling of hoofs and the musical tinkle of steel.
Suddenly Winston looked up, and the care which was stamped upon it fled from his face when he saw the girl. The dust that lay thick upon his garments had spared her, and as she sat, patting the restless horse, with a little smile on her face which showed beneath the big white hat, something in her dainty freshness reacted upon the tired man's fancy. He had long borne the stress and the burden, and as he watched her a longing came upon him, as it had too often for his tranquillity since he had been at Silverdale, to taste, for a short space of time at least, a life of leisure and refinement. This woman who had been born to it could, it seemed to him, lift the man she trusted beyond the sordid cares of the turmoil to her own high level, and as he waited for her to speak, a fit of passion shook him. It betrayed itself only by the sudden hardening of his face.
"It is the first time I have surprised you idle. You were dreaming," she said.
Winston smiled a trifle mirthlessly. "I was, but I am afraid the fulfillment of the dreams is not for me. One is apt to be pulled up suddenly when he ventures overfar."
"We are inquisitive, you know," said Maud Barrington; "can't you tell me what they were?"
Winston did not know what impulse swayed him, and afterwards blamed himself for complying, but the girl's interest compelled him, and he showed her a little of what was in his heart.
"I fancied I saw Silverdale gorging the elevators with the choicest wheat," he said. "A new bridge flung level across the ravine where the wagons go down half-loaded to the creek; a dam turning the hollow into a lake, and big turbines driving our own flouring mill. Then there were herds of cattle fattening on the strippings of the grain that wasteful people burn, our products clamored for, east in the old country and west in British Columbia--and for a back-ground, prosperity and power, even if it was paid for with half the traditions of Silverdale. Still, you see it may all be due to the effect of the fierce sunshine on an idle man's fancy."
Maud Barrington regarded him steadily, and the smile died out of her eyes. "But," she said slowly, "is all that quite beyond realization. Could you not bring it about?"
Winston saw her quiet confidence and something of her pride. There was no avarice in this woman, but the slight dilation of the nostrils and the glow in her eyes told of ambition, and for a moment his soul was not his own.
"I could," he said, and Maud Barrington, who watched the swift straightening of his shoulders and lifting of his head, felt that he spoke no more than the truth. Then with a sudden access of bitterness, "But I never will."
"Why?" she asked, "Have you grown tired of Silverdale, or has what you pictured no charm for you?"
Winston leaned, as it were wearily, against the wheel of the mower. "I wonder if you could understand what my life has been. The crushing poverty that rendered every effort useless from the beginning, the wounds that come from using imperfect tools, and the numb hopelessness that follows repeated failure. They are tolerably hard to bear alone, but it is more difficult to make the best of them when the poorly-fed body is as worn out as the mind. To stay here would be--paradise--but a glimpse of it will probably have to suffice. Its gates are well guarded, and without are the dogs, you know."
Something in Maud Barrington thrilled in answer to the faint hoarseness in Winston's voice, and she did not resent it. She was a woman with all her sex's instinctive response to passion and emotion, though as yet the primitive impulses that stir the hearts of men had been covered if not wholly hidden from her by the thin veneer of civilization. Now, at least, she felt in touch with them, and for a moment she looked at the man with a daring that matched his own shining in her eyes.
"And you fear the angel with the sword?" she said. "There is nothing so terrible at Silverdale."
"No," said Winston. "I think it is the load I have to carry I fear the most."
For the moment Maud Barrington had flung off the bonds of conventionality. "Lance," she said, "you have proved your right to stay at Silverdale, and would not what you are doing now cover a great deal in the past?"
Winston smiled wryly. "It is the present that is difficult," he said. "Can a man be pardoned and retain the offense?"
He saw the faint bewilderment in the girl's face give place to the resentment of frankness unreturned and with a little shake of his shoulders shrank into himself. Maud Barrington, who understood it, once more put on the becoming reticence of Silverdale.
"We are getting beyond our depth, and it is very hot," she said. "You have all this hay to cut!"
Winston laughed as he bent over the mower's knife. "Yes," he said, "It is really more in my line, and I have kept you in the sun too long."
In another few moments Maud Barrington was riding across the prairie, but when the rattle of the machine rose from the sloo behind her, she laughed curiously.
"The man knew his place, but you came perilously near making a fool of yourself this morning, my dear," she said.
It was a week or two later, and very hot, when, with others of his neighbors, Winston sat in the big hall at Silverdale Grange. The windows were open wide and the smell of hot dust came in from the white waste which rolled away beneath the stars. There was also another odor in the little puffs of wind that flickered in, and far off where the arch of indigo dropped to the dusky earth, wavy lines of crimson moved along the horizon. It was then the season when fires that are lighted by means which no man knows creep up and down the waste of grass, until they put on speed and roll in a surf of flame before a sudden breeze. Still, nobody was anxious about them, for the guarding furrows that would oppose a space of dusty soil to the march of the flame had been plowed round every homestead at Silverdale.
Maud Barrington was at the piano and her voice was good, while Winston, who had known what it is to toil from red dawn to sunset without hope of more than daily food, found the simple song she had chosen chime with his mood. "All day long the reapers."
A faint staccato drumming that rose from the silent prairie throbbed through the final chords of it, and when the music ceased, swelled into the gallop of a horse. It seemed in some curious fashion portentous, and when there was a rattle and jingle outside other eyes than Winston's were turned towards the door. It swung open presently and Dane came in. There was quiet elation and some diffidence in his bronzed face as he turned to Colonel Barrington.
"I could not get away earlier from the settlement, sir, but I have great news," he said. "They have awoke to the fact that stocks are getting low in the old country. Wheat moved up at Winnipeg, and there was almost a rush to buy yesterday."
There was a sudden silence, for among those present were men who remembered the acres of good soil they had not plowed, but a little grim smile crept into their leader's face.
"It is," he said quietly, "too late for most of us. Still, we will not grudge you your good fortune, Dane. You and a few of the others owe it to Courthorne."
Every eye was on the speaker, for it had become known among his neighbors that he had sold for a fall; but Barrington could lose gracefully. Then both his niece and Dane looked at Winston with a question in their eyes.
"Yes," he said very quietly, "it is the turning of the tide."
He crossed over to Barrington, who smiled at him dryly as he said, "It is a trifle soon to admit that I was wrong."
Winston made a gesture of almost impatient deprecation. "I was wondering how far I might presume, sir. You have forward wheat to deliver?"
"I have," said Barrington, "unfortunately a good deal. You believe the advance will continue?"
"Yes," said Winston simply. "It is but the beginning, and there will be a reflux before the stream sets in. Wait a little, sir, and then telegraph your broker to cover all your contracts when the price drops again."
"I fancy it would be wiser to cut my losses now," said Barrington dryly.
Then Winston did a somewhat daring thing, for he raised his voice a trifle, in a fashion that seemed to invite the attention of the rest of the company.
"The more certain the advance seems to be, the fiercer will be the bears' last attack," he said. "They have to get from under, and will take heavy chances to force prices back. As yet they may contrive to check or turn the stream, and then every wise man who has sold down will try to cover, but no one can tell how far it may carry us, once it sets strongly in!"
The men understood, as did Colonel Barrington, that they were being warned, as it were, above their leader's head, and his niece, while resenting the slight, admitted the courage of the man. Barrington's face was sardonic, and a less resolute man would have winced under the implication as he said:
"This is, no doubt, intuition. I fancy you told us you had no dealings on the markets at Winnipeg."
Winston looked steadily at the speaker, and the girl noticed with a curious approval that he smiled.
"Perhaps it is, but I believe events will prove me right. In any case, what I had the honor of telling you and Miss Barrington was the fact," he said.
Nobody spoke, and the girl was wondering by what means the strain could be relieved, which, though few heard what Barrington said, all seemed to feel, when out of the darkness came a second beat of hoofs, and by and by a man swaying on the driving-seat of a jolting wagon swept into the light from the windows. Then, there were voices outside, and a breathless lad came in.
"A big grass fire coming right down on Courthorne's farm!" he said. "It was tolerably close when I got away."
In an instant there was commotion, and every man in Silverdale Grange was on his feet. For the most part, they took life lightly, and looked upon their farming as an attempt to combine the making of dollars with gentlemanly relaxation; but there were no laggards among them when there was perilous work to be done, and they went out to meet the fire joyously. Inside five minutes scarcely a horse remained in the stables, and the men were flying at a gallop across the dusky prairie laughing at the risk of a stumble in a deadly badger-hole. Yet, in the haste of saddling, they found time to arrange a twenty-dollar sweepstake and the allowance for weight.
Up the long rise, and down the back of it, they swept, stirrup by stirrup and neck by neck, while the roar of the hoofs reft the silence of the prairie like the roll of musketry. Behind came the wagons, lurching up the slope, and the blood surged to the brave young faces as the night wind smote them and fanned into brightness the crimson smear on the horizon. They were English lads of the stock that had furnished their nation's fighting line, and not infrequently counted no sacrifice too great that brought their colors home first on the racing turf. Still, careless to the verge of irresponsibility as they were in most affairs that did not touch their pride, the man who rode with red spurs and Dane next behind him, a clear length before the first of them, asked no better allies in what was to be done.
Then the line drew out as the pace began to tell, though the rearmost rode grimly, knowing the risks the leaders ran, and that the chance of being first to meet the fire might yet fall to them. There was not one among them who would not have killed his best horse for that honor, and for further incentive the Colonel's niece, in streaming habit, flitted in front of them. She had come up from behind them, and passed them on a rise, for Barrington disdained to breed horses for dollars alone, and there was blood well known on the English turf in the beast she rode.
By and by, a straggling birch bluff rose blackly across their way, but nobody swung wide. Swaying low while the branches smote them, they went through, the twigs crackling under foot, and here and there the red drops trickling down a flushed, scarred face, for the slanting rent of a birch bough cuts like a knife. Dim trees whirled by them, undergrowth went down, and they, were out on the dusty grass again, while, like field guns wanted at the front, the bouncing wagons went through behind. Then the fire rose higher in front of them, and when they topped the last rise the pace grew faster still. The slope they thundered down was undermined by gophers and seamed by badger-holes, but they took their chances gleefully, sparing no effort of hand and heel, for the sum of twenty dollars and the credit of being first man in. Then the smoke rolled up to them, and when eager hands drew bridle at last, a youthful voice rose breathlessly out of it:
"Stapleton a good first, but he'll go back on weight. It used to be black and orange when he was at home."
There was a ripple of hoarse laughter, a gasping cheer, and then silence, for now their play was over, and it was with the grim quietness, which is not unusual with their kind, the men of Silverdale turned towards the fire. It rolled towards the homestead, a waving crimson wall, not fast, but with remorseless persistency, out of the dusky prairie, and already the horses were plunging in the smoke of it. That, however, did not greatly concern the men, for the bare fire furrows stretched between themselves and it; but there was also another blaze inside the defenses, and, unless it was checked, nothing could save house and barns and granaries, rows of costly binders, and stock of prairie hay. They looked for a leader, and found one ready, for Winston's voice came up through the crackle of the fire:
"Some of you lead the saddle-horses back to the willows and picket them. The rest to the stables and bring out the working beasts. The plows are by the corral, and the first team that comes up is to be harnessed to each in turn. Then start in, and turn over a full-depth furrow a furlong from the fire."
There was no confusion, and already the hired men were busy with two great machines until Winston displaced two of them.
"How that fire passed the guards I don't know, but there will be time to find out later," he said to Dane. "Follow with the big breaker--it wants a strong man to keep that share in--as close as you can."
Then they were off, a man at the heads of the leading horses harnessed to the great machines, and Winston sitting very intent in the driving-seat of one, while the tough sod crackled under the rending shares. Both the man and the reins were needed when the smoke rolled down on them, but it was for a moment torn aside again, and there roared up towards the blurred arch of indigo a great rush of flame. The heat of it smote into prickliness the uncovered skin, and in spite of all that Winston could do, the beasts recoiled upon the machine behind them. Then they swung round wrenching the shares from the triplex furrow, and for a few wild minutes man and terrified beast fought for the mastery. Breathless half-strangled objurgations, the clatter of trace and swivel, and the thud of hoofs, rose muffled through the roar of the fire, for, while swaying, plunging, panting, they fought with fist and hoof, it was rolling on, and now the heat was almost insupportable. The victory, however, was to the men, and when the great machine went on again, Maud Barrington, who had watched the struggle with the wife of one of her neighbors, stood wide-eyed, half-afraid and yet thrilled in every fiber.
"It was splendid," she said. "They can't be beaten."
Her companion seemed to shiver a little. "Yes," she said, "perhaps it was, but I wish it was over. It would appeal to you differently, my dear, if you had a husband at one of those horses' heads."
For a moment Maud Barrington wondered whether it would, and then, when a red flame flickered out towards the team, felt a little chill of dread. In another second the smoke whirled about them, and she moved backward choking with her companion. The teams, however, went on, and came out, frantic with fear, on the farther side. The men who led them afterwards wondered how they kept their grip on the horses' heads. Then it was that while the machines swung round and other men ran to help, Winston, springing from the driving-seat, found Dane amid the swaying, plunging medley of beasts and men.
"If you can't find hook or clevis, cut the trace," he said. "It can't burn the plow, and the devils are out of hand now. The fire will jump these furrows, and we've got to try again."
In another minute four maddened beasts were careering across the prairie with portions of their trappings banging about them, while one man who was badly kicked sat down gray in face and gasping, and the fire rolled up to the ridge of loam, checked, and then sprang across it here and there.
"I'll take one of those lad's places," said Dane. "That fellow can't hold the breaker straight, Courthorne."
It was a minute or two later when he flung a breathless lad away from his plow, and the latter turned upon him hoarse with indignation.
"I raced Stapleton for it. Loose your hold, confound you. It's mine," he said.
Dane turned and laughed at him as he signed to one of the Ontario hired men to take the near horse's head.
"You're a plucky lad, and you've done what you could," he said. "Still, if you get in the way of a grown man now, I'll break your head for you."
He was off in another moment, crossed Winston, who had found fresh beasts, in his furrow, and had turned and doubled it before the fire that had passed the other barrier came close upon them. Once more the smoke grew blinding, and one of Dane's beasts went down.
"I'm out of action now," he said. "Try back. That team will never face it, Courthorne."
Winston's face showed very grim under the tossing flame. "They've got to. I'm going through," he said. "If the others are to stop it behind there, they must have time."
Then he and the husband of the woman who had spoken to Maud Barrington passed on with the frantic team into the smoke that was streaked with flame.
"Good Lord!" said Dane, and added more as sitting on the horse's head he turned his tingling face from the fire.
It was some minutes before he and the hired man who came up loosed the fallen horse, and led it and its fellow back towards the last defenses the rest had been raising, while the first furrows checked but did not stay the conflagration. There he presently came upon the man who had been with Winston.
"I don't know where Courthorne is," he said. "The beasts bolted with us just after we'd gone through the worst of it, and I fancy they took the plow along. Any way, I didn't see what became of them, and don't fancy anybody would have worried much about them after being trampled on by a horse in the lumbar region."
Dane saw that the man was limping and white in face, and asked no more questions. It was evident to him that Courthorne would be where he was most needed, and he did what he could with those who were adding furrow to furrow across the path of the fire. It rolled up to them roaring, stopped, flung a shower of burning filaments before it, sank and swept aloft again, while the sparks rained down upon the grass before the draught it made.
Blackened men with smoldering clothes were, however, ready, and they fought each incipient blaze with soaked grain bags, and shovels, some of them also, careless of blistered arms, with their own wet jackets. As fast as each fire was trampled out another sprang into life, but the parent blaze that fed them sank and died, and at last there was a hoarse cheer. They had won, and the fire they had beaten passed on divided across the prairie, leaving the homestead unscathed between.
Then they turned to look for their leader, and did not find him until a lad came up to Dane.
"Courthorne's back by the second furrows, and I fancy he's badly hurt," he said. "He didn't appear to know me, and his head seems all kicked in."
It was not apparent how the news went round, but in a few more minutes Dane was kneeling beside a limp, blackened object stretched amid the grass, and while his comrades clustered behind her, Maud Barrington bent over him. Her voice was breathless as she asked, "You don't believe him dead?"
Somebody had brought a lantern, and Dane felt inclined to gasp when he saw the girl's white face, but what she felt was not his business then.
"He's of a kind that is very hard to kill. Hold that lantern so I can see him," he said.
The rest waited silent, glad that there was somebody to take a lead, and in a few moments Dane looked round again.
"Ride in to the settlement, Stapleton, and bring that Doctor fellow out if you bring him by the neck. Stop just a moment. You don't know where you're to bring him to."
"Here, of course," said the lad, breaking into a run.
"Wait," and Dane's voice stopped him. "Now, I don't fancy that would do. It seems to me that this is a case in which a woman to look after him would be necessary."
Then, before any of the married men or their wives who had followed them could make an offer, Maud Barrington touched his shoulder.
"He is coming to the Grange," she said.
Dane nodded, signed to Stapleton, then spoke quickly to the men about him and turned to Maud Barrington.
"Ride on at a gallop and get everything ready. I'll see he comes to no harm," he said.
The girl felt curiously grateful as she rode out with her companion, and Dane, who laid Winston carefully in a wagon, drew two of the other men aside when it rolled away towards the Grange.
"There is something to be looked into. Did you notice anything unusual about the affair?" he said.
"Since you asked me, I did," said one of the men. "I, however, scarcely cared to mention it until I had time for reflection, but while I fancy the regulation guards would have checked the fire on the boundaries without our help, I don't quite see how one started in the hollow inside them."
"Exactly," said Dane, very dryly. "Well, we have got to discover it, and the more quickly we do it the better. I fancy, however, that the question who started it is what we have to consider."
The men looked at one another, and the third of them nodded.
"I fancy it comes to that--though it is horribly unpleasant to admit it," he said.