The prairie lay dim and shadowy in the creeping dusk when Winston sat on a redwood stringer near the head of his partly-finished bridge. There was no sound from the hollow behind him but the faint gurgle of the creek, and the almost imperceptible vibration of countless minute wings. The birches which climbed the slope to it wound away sinuously, a black wall on either hand, and the prairie lying gray and still stretched back into the silence in front of him. Here and there a smoldering fire showed dully red on the brink of the ravine, but the tired men who had lighted them were already wrapped in heavy slumber.
The prairie hay was gathered, harvest had not come, and for the last few weeks Winston, with his hired men from the bush of Ontario, had toiled at the bridge with a tireless persistency which had somewhat astonished the gentlemen farmers of Silverdale. They, however, rode over every now and then, and most cheerfully rendered what assistance they could, until it was time to return for tennis or a shooting sweepstake, and Winston thanked them gravely, even when he and his Ontario axmen found it necessary to do the work again. He could have told nobody why he had undertaken to build the bridge, which could be of no use to him, but he was in a measure prompted by instincts born in him, for he was one of the Englishmen who, with a dim recognition of the primeval charge to subdue the earth and render it fruitful, gravitate to the newer lands, and usually leave their mark upon them. He had also a half-defined notion that it would be something he could leave behind in reparation, that the men of Silverdale might remember more leniently the stranger who had imposed on them while in the strain of the mental struggle strenuous occupation was a necessity to him.
A bundle of papers it was now too dim to see lay beside him clammy with the dew, and he sat bare-headed, a pipe which had gone out in his hand, staring across the prairie with an ironical smile in his eyes. He had planned boldly and striven tirelessly, and now the fee he could not take would surely be tendered him. Wheat was growing dearer every day, and such crops as he had sown had not been seen at Silverdale. Still, the man, who had had few compunctions before he met Maud Barrington, knew now that in a little while he must leave all he had painfully achieved behind. What he would do then he did not know, for only one fact seemed certain--in another four months, or less, he would have turned his back on Silverdale.
Presently, however, the sound of horse-hoofs caught his ears, and he stood up when a mounted figure rose out of the prairie. The moon had just swung up, round and coppery, from behind a rise, and when horse and rider cut black and sharp against it his pulses throbbed faster and a little flush crept into his face, for he knew every line of the figure in the saddle. Some minutes had passed when Maud Barrington rode slowly to the head of the bridge, and pulled up her horse at the sight of him.
The moon turning silver now shone behind her head, and a tress of hair sparkled beneath her wide hat, while the man had a glimpse of the gleaming whiteness of rounded cheek and neck. Her face he could not see, but shapely shoulders, curve of waist, and sweeping line of the light habit were forced up as in a daguerreotype, and as the girl sat still looking down on him, slender, lissom, dainty, etherealized almost by the brightening radiance, she seemed to him a visionary complement of the harmonies of the night. It also appeared wiser to think of her as such than a being of flesh and blood whom he had wildly ventured to long for, and he almost regretted when her first words dispelled the illusion.
"It is dreadfully late," she said. "Pluto went very lame soon after I left Macdonald's, and I knew if I went back for another horse he would have insisted on riding home with me. I had slipped away while he was in the granary. One can cross the bridge?"
"Not mounted!" said Winston. "There are only a few planks between the stringers here and there, but, if you don't mind waiting, I can lead your horse across."
He smiled a little, for the words seemed trivial and out of place in face of the effect the girl's appearance had on him, but she glanced at him questioningly.
"No!" she said. "Now, I would have gone round by the old bridge, only that Allardyce told me you let him ride across this afternoon."
"Still," and the man stopped a moment, "it was daylight then, you see."
Maud Barrington laughed a little, for his face was visible and she understood the slowness of his answer. "Is that all? It is moonlight now."
"No," said Winston dryly, "but one is apt to make an explanation too complete occasionally. Will you let me help you down?"
Maud Barrington held out her hands, and when he swung her down watched him tramp away with the horse, with a curious smile. A light compliment seldom afforded her much pleasure, but the man's grim reserve had now and then piqued more than her curiosity, though she was sensible that the efforts she occasionally made to uncover what lay behind it were not without their risk. Then he came back, and turned to her very gravely.
"Let me have your hand," he said.
Maud Barrington gave it to him, and hoped the curious little thrill that ran through her when his hard fingers closed upon her palm did not communicate itself to him. She also noticed that he moved his head sharply a moment, and then looked straight in front again. Then the birches seemed to fall away beneath them, and they moved out across the dim gully with the loosely-laid planking rattling under their feet, until they came to a strip scarcely three feet wide which spanned a gulf of blackness in the shadow of the trees.
"Hold fast!" said Winston, with a trace of hoarseness. "You are sure you feel quite steady?"
"Of course!" said the girl, with a little laugh, though she recognized the anxiety in his voice, and felt his hand close almost cruelly on her own. She was by no means timorous, and still less fanciful, but when they moved out into the blackness that closed about them above and beneath along the slender strip of swaying timber she was glad of the masterful grip. It seemed in some strange fashion portentous, for she felt that she would once more be willing to brave unseen perils, secure only in his guidance. What he felt she did not know, and was sensible of an almost overwhelming curiosity, until when at last well-stiffened timber lay beneath them, she contrived to drop a glove just where the moonlight smote the bridge. Winston stooped, and his face was clear in the silvery light when he rose again. Maud Barrington saw the relief in it, and compelled by some influence stood still looking at him with a little glow behind the smile in her eyes. A good deal was revealed to both of them in that instant, but the man dare not admit it, and was master of himself.
"Yes," he said, very simply, "I am glad you are across."
Maud Barrington laughed. "I scarcely fancy the risk was very great, but tell me about the bridge," she said. "You are living beside it?"
"Yes," said Winston. "In a tent. I must have it finished before harvest, you see!"
The girl understood why this was necessary, but deciding that she had on other occasions ventured sufficiently far with that topic, moved on across the bridge.
"A tent," she said, "cannot be a very comfortable place to live in, and who cooks for you?"
Winston smiled dryly. "I am used to it, and can do all the cooking that is necessary," he said. "It is the usual home for the beginner, and I lived six months in one--on grindstone bread, the tinctured glucose you are probably not acquainted with as 'drips,' and rancid pork--when I first came out to this country and hired myself, for ten dollars monthly, to another man. It is a diet one gets a little tired of occasionally, but after breaking prairie twelve hours every day one can eat almost anything, and when I afterwards turned farmer my credit was rarely good enough to provide the pork."
The girl looked at him curiously, for she knew how some of the smaller settlers lived, and once more felt divided between wonder and sympathy. She could picture the grim self-denial, for she had seen the stubborn patience in this man's face, as well as a stamp that was not born by any other man at Silverdale. Some of the crofter settlers, who periodically came near starvation in their sod hovels, and the men from Ontario who staked their little handful of dollars on the first wheat crop to be wrested from the prairie, bore it, however. From what Miss Barrington had told her, it was clear that Courthorne's first year in Canada could not have been spent in this fashion, but there was no doubt in the girl's mind as she listened. Her faith was equal to a more strenuous test.
"There is a difference in the present, but who taught you bridge-building? It takes years to learn the use of the ax," she said.
Winston laughed. "I think it took me four, but the man who has not a dollar to spare usually finds out how to do a good many things for himself, and I had working drawings of the bridge made in Winnipeg. Besides, your friends have helped me with their hands as well as their good-will. Except at the beginning, they have all been kind to me, and one could not well have expected very much from them then."
Maud Barrington colored a trifle as she remembered her own attitude towards him. "Cannot you forget it?" she said, with a curious little ring in her voice. "They would do anything you asked them now."
"One generally finds it useful to have a good memory, and I remember most clearly that, although they had very little reason for it, most of them afterwards trusted me. That made, and still makes, a great difference to me."
The girl appeared thoughtful. "Does it?" she said. "Still, do you know, I fancy that if they had tried to drive you out, you would have stayed in spite of them?"
"Yes," said Winston dryly. "I believe I would, but the fact that in a very little while they held out a friendly hand to a stranger steeped in suspicion, and gave him the chance to prove himself their equal, carries a big responsibility. That, and your aunt's goodness, puts so many things one might have done out of the question."
The obvious inference was that the prodigal had been reclaimed by the simple means of putting him on his honor, but that did not for a moment suggest itself to the girl. She had often regretted her own disbelief and once more felt the need for reparation.
"Lance," she said, very quietly, "my aunt was wiser than I was, but she was mistaken. What she gave you out of her wide charity was already yours by right."
That was complete and final, for Maud Barrington did nothing by half, and Winston recognized that she held him blameless in the past, which she could not know, as well as in the present, which was visible to her. Her confidence stung him as a whip, and when in place of answering he looked away, the girl fancied that a smothered groan escaped him. She waited, curiously expectant, but he did not speak, and just then the fall of hoofs rose from behind the birches in the bluff. Then a man's voice came through it singing a little French song, and Maud Barrington glanced at her companion.
"Lance," she said, "how long is it since you sang that song?"
"Well," said Winston, doggedly conscious of what he was doing, "I do not know a word of it, and never heard it in my life."
Maud Barrington stared at him. "Think," she said. "It seems ever so long ago, but you cannot have forgotten. Surely you remember Madame Aubert, who taught me to prattle in French, and the day you slipped into the music-room and picked up the song, while she tried in vain to teach it me. Can't you recollect how I cried, when you sang it in the billiard-room, and Uncle Geoffrey gave you the half-sovereign which had been promised to me?"
"No," said Winston, a trifle hoarsely, and with his head turned from her watched the trail.
A man in embroidered deerskin jacket was riding into the moonlight, and though the little song had ceased, and the wide hat hid his face, there was an almost insolent gracefulness in his carriage that seemed familiar to Winston. It was not the _abandon_ of the swashbuckler stock-rider from across the frontier, but something more finished and distinguished that suggested the bygone cavalier. Maud Barrington, it was evident, also noticed it.
"Geoffrey Courthorne rode as that man does," she said. "I remember hearing my mother once tell him that he had been born too late, because his attributes and tastes would have fitted him to follow Prince Rupert."
Winston made no answer, and the man rode on until he drew bridle in front of them. Then he swung his hat off, and while the moonlight shone into his face looked down with a little ironical smile at the man and woman standing beside the horse. Winston closed one hand a trifle, and slowly straightened himself, feeling that there was need of all his self-control, for he saw his companion glance at him, and then almost too steadily at Lance Courthorne.
The latter said nothing for a space of seconds, for which Winston hated him, and yet in the tension of the suspense he noticed that the signs of indulgence he had seen on the last occasion were plainer in Courthorne's face. The little bitter smile upon his lips was also not quite in keeping with the restlessness of his fingers upon the bridle.
"Is that bridge fit for crossing, farmer?" he asked.
"Yes," said Winston quietly. "You must lead your horse."
Maud Barrington had in the meanwhile stood very still, and now moved as by an effort. "It is time I rode on, and you can show the stranger across," she said. "I have kept you at least five minutes longer than was necessary."
Courthorne, Winston fancied, shifted one foot from the stirrup, but then sat still as the farmer held his hand for the girl to mount by, while when she rode away he looked at his companion with a trace of anger as well as irony in his eyes.
"Yes," said Winston. "What you heard was correct. Miss Barrington's horse fell lame coming from one of the farms, which accounts for her passing here so late. I had just led the beast across the incompleted bridge. Still, it is not on my account I tell you this. Where have you been and why have you broken one of my conditions?"
Courthorne laughed. "It seems to me you are adopting a somewhat curious tone. I went to my homestead to look for you."
"You have not answered my other question, and in the meanwhile I am your tenant, and the place is mine."
"We really needn't quibble," said Courthorne. "I came for the very simple reason that I wanted money."
"You had one thousand dollars," said Winston dryly.
Courthorne made a little gesture of resignation. "It is, however, certain that I haven't got them now. They went as dollars usually do. The fact is, I have met one or two men recently who apparently know rather more games of chance than I do, and I passed on the fame, which was my most valuable asset, to you."
"You passed me on the brand of a crime I never committed," said Winston grimly. "That, however, is not the question now. Not one dollar, except at the time agreed upon, will you get from me. Why did you come here dressed as we usually are on the prairie?"
Courthorne glanced down at the deerskin jacket and smiled as he straightened himself into a caricature of Winston's mounted attitude. It was done cleverly.
"When I ride in this fashion we are really not very unlike, you see, and I let one or two men I met get a good look at me," he said. "I meant it as a hint that it would be wise of you to come to terms with me."
"I have done so already. You made the bargain."
"Well," said Courthorne, smiling, "a contract may be modified at any time when both parties are willing."
"One is not," said Winston dryly. "You heard my terms, and nothing that you can urge will move me a hairsbreadth from them."
Courthorne looked at him steadily, and some men would have found his glance disconcerting, for now and then all the wickedness that was in him showed in his half-closed eyes. Still, he saw that the farmer was unyielding.
"Then we will let it go; in the meanwhile," he said, "take me across the bridge."
They were half-way along it when he pulled the horse up, and once more looked down on Winston.
"Your hand is a tolerably good one so long as you are willing to sacrifice yourself, but it has its weak points, and there is one thing I could not tolerate," he said.
"What is that?"
Courthorne laughed wickedly. "You wish me to be explicit? Maud Barrington is devilishly pretty, but it is quite out of the question that you should ever marry her."
Winston turned towards him with the veins on his forehead swollen. "Granting that it is so, what is that to you?"
Courthorne nodded as if in comprehension. "Well, I'm probably not consistent, but one rarely quite loses touch with everything, and if I believed that my kinswoman was growing fond of a beggarly prairie farmer, I'd venture to put a sudden stop to your love-making. This, at least, is perfectly bona fide, Winston."
Winston had borne a good deal of late, and his hatred of the man flared up. He had no definite intention, but he moved a pace forward, and Courthorne touched the horse with his heel. It backed, and then, growing afraid of the blackness about it, plunged, while Winston for the first time saw that there was a gap in the loosely-laid planking close behind it. Another plunge or flounder, and horse and rider would go down together.
For a moment he held his breath and watched. Then, as the beast resisting its rider's efforts backed again, he sprang forward and seized the bridle.
"Get your spurs in! Shove him forward for your life," he said.
There was a momentary struggle on the slippery planking, and, almost as its hind hoofs overhung the edge, Winston dragged the horse away. Courthorne swung himself out of the saddle, left the farmer the bridle, and glanced behind him at the gap. Then he turned, and the two men looked at each other steadily. Their faces were a trifle paler than usual.
"You saw it?" asked Courthorne.
"Yes, but not until you backed the beast and he commenced plunging."
"He plunged once or twice before you caught the bridle."
"Yes," said Winston quietly.
Courthorne laughed. "You are a curious man. It would have cleared the ground for you."
"No," said Winston dryly. "I don't know that you will understand me, but I scarcely think it would. It may have been a mistake of mine to do what I did, but I have a good deal on my shoulders already."
Courthorne made no answer as he led his horse across, the bridge. Then he mounted, and looked down on the farmer who stood beside him.
"I remember some things, though I don't always let them influence me to my detriment," he said. "I'm going back to the railroad, and then West, and don't quite know when you will have the pleasure of seeing me again."
Winston watched him quietly. "It would be wiser if you did not come back until I send for you."
Vance Courthorne had lightly taken a good many risks in his time, for he usually found a spice of danger stimulating, and there was in him an irresponsible daring that not infrequently served him better than a well-laid plan. There are also men of his type, who for a time, at least, appear immune from the disasters which follow the one rash venture the prudent make, and it was half in frolic and half in malice he rode to Silverdale dressed as a prairie farmer in the light of day, and forgot that their occupation sets a stamp he had never worn upon the tillers of the soil. The same spirit induced him to imitate one or two of Winston's gestures for the benefit of his cook, and afterwards wait for a police trooper, who apparently desired to overtake him when he had just left the homestead.
He pulled his horse up when the other man shouted to him, and trusting in the wide hat that hid most of his face, smiled out of half-closed eyes when he handed a packet.
"You have saved me a ride, Mr. Courthorne. I heard you were at the bridge," the trooper said. "If you'll sign for those documents I needn't keep you."
He brought out a pencil, and Courthorne scribbled on the paper handed him. He was quite aware that there was a risk attached to this, but if Winston had any communications with the police, it appeared advisable to discover what they were about. Then he laughed, as riding on again he opened the packet.
"Agricultural Bureau documents," he said. "This lot to be returned filled in! Well, if I can remember, I'll give them to Winston."
As it happened, he did not remember, but he made a worse mistake just before his departure from the railroad settlement. He had spent two nights at a little wooden hotel, which was not the one where Winston put up when he drove into the place, and to pass the time commenced a flirtation with the proprietor's daughter. The girl was pretty, and Courthorne a man of different type from the wheat-growers she had been used to. When his horse was at the door, he strolled into the saloon where he found the girl alone in the bar.
"I'm a very sad man, to-day, my dear," he said, and his melancholy became him.
The girl blushed prettily. "Still," she said, "whenever you want to, you can come back again."
"If I did would you be pleased to see me?"
"Of course!" said the girl. "Now, you wait a minute, and I'll give you something to remember me by. I don't mix this up for everybody."
She busied herself with certain decanters and essences, and Courthorne held the glass she handed him high.
"The brightest eyes and the reddest lips between Winnipeg and the Rockies!" he said. "This is nectar, but I would like to remember you by something sweeter still!"
Their heads were not far apart when he laid down his glass, and before the girl quite knew what was happening, an arm was round her neck. Next moment she had flung the man backwards, and stood very straight, quivering with anger and crimson in face, for Courthorne, as occasionally happens with men of his type, assumed too much, and did not always know when to stop. Then, she called sharply, "Jake!"
There was a tramp of feet outside, and when a big grim-faced man looked in at the door, Courthorne decided it was time for him to effect his retreat while it could be done with safety. He knew already that there were two doors to the saloon, and his fingers closed on the neck of a decanter. Next moment it smote the new-comer on the chest, and while he staggered backwards with the fluid trickling from him, Courthorne departed through the opposite entrance. Once outside, he mounted leisurely, but nobody came out from the hotel, and shaking the bridle with a little laugh he cantered out of the settlement.
In the meanwhile the other man carefully wiped his garments, and then turned to his companion.
"Now what's all this about?" he asked.
The girl told him, and the man ruminated for a minute or two. "Well, he's gone, and I don't know that I'm sorry there wasn't a circus here," he said. "I figured there was something not square about that fellow any way. Registered as Guyler from Minnesota, but I've seen somebody like him among the boys from Silverdale. Guess I'll find out when I ride over about the horse, and then I'll have a talk with him quietly."
In the meanwhile, the police trooper who had handed him the packet returned to the outpost, and, as it happened, found the grizzled Sergeant Stimson, who appeared astonished to see him back so soon, there.
"I met Courthorne near his homestead, and gave him the papers, sir," he said.
"You did?" said the Sergeant. "Now that's kind of curious, because he's at the bridge."
"It couldn't have been anybody else, because he took the documents and signed for them," said the trooper.
"Big bay horse?"
"No, sir," said the trooper. "It was a bronco, and a screw at that."
"Well," said Stimson dryly, "let me have your book. If Payne has come in, tell him I want him."
The trooper went out, and when his comrade came in, Stimson laid a strip of paper before him. "You have seen Courthorne's writing," he said: "would you call it anything like that?"
"No, sir," said Trooper Payne. "I would not!"
Stimson nodded. "Take a good horse, and ride round by the bridge. If you find Courthorne there, as you probably will, head for the settlement and see if you can come across a man who might pass for him. Ask your questions as though the answer didn't count, and tell nobody what you hear but me."
Payne rode out, and when he returned three days later, Sergeant Stimson made a journey to confer with one of his superiors. The officer was a man who had risen in the service somewhat rapidly, and when he heard the tale, said nothing while he turned over a bundle of papers a trooper brought him. Then he glanced at Stimson thoughtfully.
"I have a report of the Shannon shooting case here," he said. "How did it strike you at the time?"
Stimson's answer was guarded. "As a curious affair. You see, it was quite easy to get at Winston's character from anybody down there, and he wasn't the kind of man to do the thing. There were one or two other trifles I couldn't quite figure out the meaning of."
"Winston was drowned?" said the officer.
"Well," said Stimson, "the trooper who rode after him heard him break through the ice, but nobody ever found him, though a farmer came upon his horse."
The officer nodded. "I fancy you are right, and the point is this. There were two men, who apparently bore some resemblance to each other, engaged in an unlawful venture, and one of them commits a crime nobody believed him capable of, but which would have been less out of keeping with the other's character. Then the second man comes into an inheritance, and leads a life which seems to have astonished everybody who knows him. Now, have you ever seen these two men side by side?"
"No, sir," said Stimson. "Courthorne kept out of our sight when he could, in Alberta, and I don't think I or any of the boys, except Shannon, ever saw him for more than a minute or two. Now and then we passed Winston on the prairie or saw him from the trail, but I think I only once spoke to him."
"Well," said the officer, "it seems to me I had better get you sent back to your old station, where you can quietly pick up the threads again. Would the trooper you mentioned be fit to keep an eye on things at Silverdale?"
"No one better, sir," said Stimson.
"Then it shall be done," said the officer. "The quieter you keep the affair the better."
It was a week or two later when Winston returned to his homestead from the bridge, which was almost completed. Dusk was closing in, but as he rode down the rise he could see the wheat roll in slow ripples back into the distance. The steady beat of its rhythmic murmur told of heavy ears, and where the stalks stood waist-high on the rise, the last flush of saffron in the northwest was flung back in a dull bronze gleam. The rest swayed athwart the shadowy hollow, dusky indigo and green, but that flash of gold and red told that harvest was nigh again.
Winston had seen no crop to compare with it during the eight years he had spent in the dominion. There had been neither drought nor hail that year, and now, when the warm western breezes kept sweet and wholesome the splendid ears they fanned, there was removed from him the terror of the harvest frost, which not infrequently blights the fairest prospects in one bitter night. Fate, which had tried him hardly hitherto, denying the seed its due share of fertilizing rain, sweeping his stock from existence with icy blizzard, and mowing down the tall green corn with devastating hail, was now showering favors on him when it was too late. Still, though he felt the irony of it, he was glad, for others had followed his lead, and while the lean years had left a lamentable scarcity of dollars at Silverdale, wealth would now pour in to every man who had had the faith to sow.
He dismounted beside the oats which he would harvest first, and listened with a curious stirring of his pulses to their musical patter. It was not the full-toned song of the wheat, but there was that in the quicker beat of it which told that each graceful tassel would redeem its promise. He could not see the end of them, but by the right of the producer they were all his. He knew that he could also hold them by right of conquest, too, for that year a knowledge of his strength had been forced upon him. Still, from something he had seen in the eyes of a girl and grasped in the words of a white-haired lady, he realized that there is a limit beyond which man's ambition may not venture, and a right before which even that of possession must bow.
It had been shown him plainly that no man of his own devices can make the wheat grow, and standing beside it in the creeping dusk he felt in a vague, half-pagan fashion that there was, somewhere behind what appeared the chaotic chances of life, a scheme of order and justice immutable, which would in due time crush the too presumptuous human atom who opposed himself to it. Regret and rebellion were, it seemed, equally futile, and he must go out from Silverdale before retribution overtook him. He had done wrong, and, though he had made what reparation he could, knew that he would carry his punishment with him.
The house was almost dark when he reached it, and as he went in, his cook signed to him. "There's a man in here waiting for you," he said. "He doesn't seem in any way friendly or civil."
Winston nodded as he went on, wondering with a grim expectancy whether Courthorne had returned again. If he had, he felt in a mood for very direct speech with him. His visitor was, however, not Courthorne. Winston could see that at a glance, although the room was dim.
"I don't seem to know you, but I'll get a light in a minute," he said.
"I wouldn't waste time," said the other. "We can talk just as straight in the dark, and I guess this meeting will finish up outside on the prairie. You've given me a good deal of trouble to trail you, Mr. Guyler."
"Well," said Winston dryly, "it seems to me that you have found the wrong man."
The stranger laughed unpleasantly. "I was figuring you'd take it like that, but you can't bluff me. Well now, I've come round to take it out of you for slinging that decanter at me, and if there is another thing we needn't mention it."
Winston stared at the man, and his astonishment was evident, but the fact that he still spoke with an English accentuation, as Courthorne did, was against him.
"To the best of my recollection, I have never suffered the unpleasantness of meeting you in my life," he said. "I certainly never threw a decanter or anything else at you, though I understand that one might feel tempted to."
The man rose up slowly, and appeared big and heavy-shouldered as he moved athwart the window. "I guess that is quite enough for me," he said. "What were you condemned Englishmen made for, any way, but to take the best of what other men worked for, until the folks who've got grit enough run you out of the old country! Lord, why don't they drown you instead of dumping you and your wickedness on to us? Still, I'm going to show one of you, as I've longed to do, that you can't play your old tricks with the women of this country."
"I don't see the drift of a word of it," said Winston. "Hadn't you better come back to-morrow, when you've worked the vapors off?"
"Come out!" said the other man grimly. "There's scarcely room in here. Well then, have it your own way, and the devil take care of you!"
"I think there's enough," said Winston, and as the other sprang forward, closed with him.
He felt sick and dizzy for a moment, for he had laid himself open and the first blow got home, but he had decided that if the grapple was inevitable, it was best to commence it and end it speedily. A few seconds later there was a crash against the table, and the stranger gasped as he felt the edge of it pressed into his backbone. Then he felt himself borne backwards until he groaned under the strain, and heard a hoarse voice say: "If you attempt to use that foot again, I'll make the leg useless all your life to you. Come right in here, Tom."
A man carrying a lantern came in, and stared at the pair as he set it down. "Do you want me to see a fair finish-up?" he asked.
"No," said Winston. "I want you to see this gentleman out with me. Nip his arms behind his back, he can't hurt you."
It was done with a little difficulty, and there was a further scuffle in the hall, for the stranger resisted strenuously, but a minute later the trio reeled out of the door just as a buggy pulled up. Then, as the evicted man plunged forward alone, Winston, straightening himself suddenly, saw that Colonel Barrington was looking down on him, and that his niece was seated at his side. He stood still, flushed and breathless, with his jacket hanging rent half-way up about him, and the Colonel's voice was quietly ironical.
"I had a question or two to ask you, but can wait," he said. "No doubt I shall find you less engaged another time."
He flicked the horse, and as the buggy rolled away the other man walked up to Winston.
"While I only wanted to get rid of you before, I feel greatly tempted to give you your wish now," said the latter.
The stranger laughed dryly. "I guess you needn't worry. I don't fight because I'm fond of it, and you're not the man."
"Not the man?" said Winston.
"No, sir," said the other. "Not like him, now I can see you better. Well, I'm kind of sorry I started a circus here."
A suspicion of the truth flashed upon Winston. "What sort of a man was the one you mistook for me?"
"Usual British waster. Never done a day's work in his life, and never wanted to, too tired to open his eyes more than half-way when he looked at you, but if he ever fools round the saloon again, he'll know what he is before I'm through with him."
Winston laughed. "I wouldn't be rash or you may get another astonishment," he said. "We really know one or two useful things in the old country, but you can't fetch the settlement before morning, and we'll put you up if you like."
"No, sir," said the other dryly. "I'm not fond of Englishmen, and we might get arguing, while I've had 'bout enough of you for one night."
He rode away, and Winston went back into the house very thoughtfully, wondering whether he would be called upon to answer for more of Courthorne's doings.
It was two or three days later when Maud Barrington returned with her aunt from a visit to an outlying farm, where, because an account of what took place in the saloon had by some means been spread about, she heard a story brought in from the settlement. It kept her silent during the return journey, and Miss Barrington said nothing, but when the Colonel met them in the hall, he glanced at his niece.
"I see Mrs. Carndall has been telling you both a tale," he said. "It would have been more fitting if she had kept it to herself."
"Yes," said Maud Barrington. "Still, you do not credit it?"
Barrington smiled a trifle dryly. "I should very much prefer not to, my dear, but what we saw the other night appears to give it probability. The man Courthorne was dismissing somewhat summarily is, I believe, to marry the lady in question. You will remember I asked you once before whether the leopard can change his spots."
The girl laughed a little. "Still, are you not presuming when you take it for granted that there are spots to change?"
Colonel Barrington said nothing further, and it was late that night when the two women reopened the subject.
"Aunt," said Maud Barrington, "I want to know what you think about Mrs. Carndall's tale."
The little lady shook her head. "I should like to disbelieve it if I could."
"Then," said Maud Barrington, "why don't you?"
"Can you give me any reasons? One must not expect too much from human nature, my dear."
The girl sat silent a while, remembering the man who she had at first sight, and in the moonlight, fancied was like her companion at the time. It was not, however, the faint resemblance that had impressed her, but a vague something in his manner, his grace, his half-veiled insolence, his poise in the saddle. She had only seen Lance Courthorne on a few occasions when she was very young, but she had seen others of his race, and the man reminded her of them. Still, she felt half-instinctively that as yet it would be better that nobody should know this, and she stooped over some lace on the table as she answered the elder lady.
"I only know one, and it is convincing. That Lance should have done what he is credited with doing, is quite impossible."
Miss Barrington smiled. "I almost believe so, too, but others of his family have done such things somewhat frequently. Do you know that Lance has all along been a problem to me, for there is a good deal in my brother's question. Although it seems out of the question, I have wondered whether there could be two Lance Courthornes in Western Canada."
The girl looked at her aunt in silence for a space, but each hid a portion of her thoughts. Then Maud Barrington laughed.
"The Lance Courthorne now at Silverdale is as free from reproach as any man may be," she said. "I can't tell you why I am sure of it--but I know I am not mistaken."
It was a hot morning when Sergeant Stimson and Corporal Payne rode towards the railroad across the prairie. The grassy levels rolled away before them, white and parched, into the blue distance, where willow grove and straggling bluff floated on the dazzling horizon, and the fibrous dust rose in little puffs beneath the horses' feet, until Stimson pulled his beast up in the shadow of the birches by the bridge, and looked back towards Silverdale. There, wooden homesteads girt about with barns and granaries rose from the whitened waste, and behind some of them stretched great belts of wheat. Then the Sergeant, understanding the faith of the men who had sown that splendid grain, nodded, for he was old and wise, and had seen many adverse seasons, and the slackness that comes, when hope has gone, to beaten men.
"They will reap this year--a handful of cents on every bushel," he said. "A fine gentleman is Colonel Barrington, but some of them will be thankful there's a better head than the one he has, at Silverdale."
"Yes, sir," said Corporal Payne, who wore the double chevrons for the first time, and surmised that his companion's observations were not without their purpose.
Stimson glanced at the bridge. "Good work," he said. "It will save them dollars on every load they haul in. A gambler built it! Do they teach men to use the ax in Montana saloons?"
The corporal smiled, and waited for what he felt would come. He was no longer the hot-blooded lad who had come out from the old country, for he had felt the bonds of discipline, and been taught restraint and silence on the lonely marches of the prairie.
"I have," he said tentatively, "fancied there was something a little unusual about the thing."
Stimson nodded, but his next observation was apparently quite unconnected with the topic. "You were a raw colt when I got you, Payne, and the bit galled you now and then, but you had good hands on a bridle, and somebody who knew his business had taught you to sit a horse in the old country. Still, you were not as handy with brush and fork at stable duty,"
The bronze seemed to deepen in the corporal's face, but it was turned steadily towards his officer. "Sir," he said, "has that anything to do with what you were speaking of?"
Stimson laughed softly. "That depends, my lad. Now, I've taught you to ride straight, and to hold your tongue. I've asked you no questions, but I've eyes in my head, and it's not without a purpose you've been made corporal. You're the kind they give commissions to, now and then--and your folks in the old country never raised you for a police trooper."
"Can you tell me how to win one?" ask the corporal, and Stimson noticed the little gleam in his eyes.
"There's one road to advancement, and you know where to find the trooper's duty laid down plain," he said, with a dry smile. "Now, you saw Lance Courthorne once or twice back there in Alberta?"
"Yes, sir, but never close to."
"And you knew farmer Winston?"
Payne appeared thoughtful. "Of course I met him a few times on the prairie, always on horseback with his big hat on, but Winston is dead--that is, I heard him break through the ice."
The men's eyes met for a moment, and Stimson smiled curiously. "There is," he said, "still a warrant out for him. Now, you know where I am going, and, while I am away, you will watch Courthorne and his homestead. If anything curious happens there, you will let me know. The new man has instructions to find you any duty that will suit you."
The corporal looked at his officer steadily, and again there was comprehension in his eyes. Then he nodded. "Yes, sir. I have wondered whether, if Shannon could have spoken another word that night, it would have been Winston the warrant was issued for."
Stimson raised a restraining hand. "My lad," he said dryly, "the police trooper who gets advancement is the one that carries out his orders and never questions them, until he can show that they are wrong. Then he uses a good deal of discretion. Now you know your duty?"
"Yes, sir," said Payne, and Stimson, shaking his bridle, cantered off across the prairie.
Then, seeing no need to waste time, the corporal rode towards Courthorne's homestead, and found its owner stripping a binder. Pieces of the machine lay all around him, and from the fashion in which he handled them it was evident that he was capable of doing what the other men at Silverdale left to the mechanic at the settlement. Payne wondered, as he watched him, who had taught the gambler to use spanner and file.
"I will not trouble you if you are busy, Mr. Courthorne, but if you would give me the returns the Bureau ask for, it would save me riding round again," he said.
"I'm afraid I can't," said Winston. "You see, I haven't had the papers."
"Trooper Bacon told me he had given them to you."
"I don't seem to remember it," said Winston.
Payne laughed. "One forgets things when he is busy. Still, you had them--because you signed for them."
Winston looked up suddenly, and in another moment smiled, but he was a trifle too late, for Payne had seen his astonishment, and that he was now on guard.
"Well," he said, "I haven't got them now. Send me a duplicate. You have, no doubt, some extra forms at the outpost."
Payne decided that the man had never had the documents, but was too clever to ask any questions or offer explanations that might involve him. It was evident he knew that somebody had personated him, and the fact sent a little thrill through the corporal; he was at least on the trail.
"I'll bring you one round the next time I'm in the neighborhood," he said, and Winston sat still with the spanner lying idle in his hand when he rode away.
He realized that Courthorne had taken the papers, and his face grew anxious as well as grim. The harvest was almost ready now, and a little while would see it in. Then his work would be over, but he had of late felt a growing fear lest something, that would prevent its accomplishment, might happen in the meanwhile. Then almost fiercely he resumed the stripping of the machine.
An hour or two later Dane rode up, and sat still in his saddle looking down on Winston with a curious smile on his face.
"I was down at the settlement, and found a curious story going round," he said. "Of course, it had its humorous aspect, but I don't know that the thing was quite discreet. You see, Barrington has once or twice had to put a stern check on the indulgence in playfulness of that kind by some of the younger men, and you are becoming an influence at Silverdale."
"You naturally believed what you heard. It was in keeping with what you have seen of me?"
Dane's eyes twinkled. "I didn't want to, and I must admit that it isn't. Still, a good many of you quiet men are addicted to occasionally astonishing your friends, and I can't help a fancy that you could do that kind of thing as well as most folks, if it pleased you. In fact, there was an artistic finish to the climax that suggested your usual thoroughness."
"It did?" said Winston grimly, remembering his recent visitor and one or two of Courthorne's Albertan escapades. "Still, as I'm afraid I haven't the dramatic instinct, do you mind telling me how?"
Dane laughed. "Well, it is probable there are other men who would have kissed the girl, but I don't know that it would have occurred to them to smash a decanter on the irate lover's head."
Winston felt his fingers tingle for a grip on Courthorne's throat. "And that's what I've been doing lately? You, of course, concluded that after conducting myself in an examplary fashion an astonishing time it was a trifling lapse?"
"Well," said Dane dryly, "as I admitted, it appeared somewhat out of your usual line, but when I heard that a man from the settlement had been ejected with violence from your homestead, what could one believe?"
"Colonel Barrington told you that!"
"No," said Dane, "you know he didn't. Still, he had a hired man riding a horse he'd bought, and I believe--though it is not my affair--Maud Barrington was there. Now, of course, one feels diffident about anything that may appear like preaching, but you see, a good many of us are following you, and I wouldn't like you to have many little lapses of that kind while I'm backing you. You and I have done with these frivolities some time ago, but there are lads here they might appeal to. I should be pleased if you could deny the story."
Winston's face was grim. "I'm afraid it would not suit me to do as much just now," he said. "Still, between you and I, do you believe it likely that I would fly at that kind of game?"
Dane laughed softly. "Well," he said, "tastes differ, and the girl is pretty, while you know, after all, they're very much the same. We have, however, got to look at the thing sensibly, and you admit you can't deny it."
"I told you it wouldn't suit me."
"Then there is a difference?"
Winston nodded. "You must make the best of that, but the others may believe exactly what they please. It will be a favor to me if you remember it."
Dane smiled curiously. "Then I think it is enough for me, and you will overlook my presumption. Courthorne, I wonder now and then when I shall altogether understand you!"
"The time will come," said Winston dryly, to hide what he felt, for his comrade's simple avowal had been wonderfully eloquent. Then Dane touched his horse with his heel and rode away.
It was two or three weeks later when Winston, being requested to do so, drove over to attend one of the assemblies at Silverdale Grange. It was dark when he reached the house, for the nights were drawing in, but because of the temperature few of the great oil lamps were lighted, and the windows were open wide. Somebody had just finished singing when he walked into the big general room, and he would have preferred another moment to make his entrance, but disdained to wait. He, however, felt a momentary warmth in his face when Miss Barrington, stately as when he had first seen her in her rustling silk and ancient laces, came forward to greet him with her usual graciousness. He knew that every eye was upon them, and guessed why she had done so much.
What she said was of no moment, but the fact that she had received him without sign of coldness was eloquent, and the man bent very respectfully over the little white hand. Then he stood straight and square for a moment and met her eyes.
"Madam," he said, "I shall know whom to come to when I want a friend."
Afterwards he drifted towards a group of married farmers and their wives, who, except for that open warranty, might have been less cordial to him, and presently, though he was never quite sure how it came about, found himself standing beside Maud Barrington. She smiled at him, and then glanced towards one the open windows, outside which one or two of the older men were sitting.
"The room is very hot," said Winston tentatively.
"Yes," said the girl. "I fancy it would be cooler in the hall."
They passed out together into the shadowy hall, but a little gleam of light from the doorway behind them rested on Maud Barrington as she sat down. She looked inquiringly at the man as though in wait for something.
"It is distinctly cooler here," he said.
Maud Barrington laughed impatiently. "It is," she said.
"Well," said Winston, with a little smile, "I will try again. Wheat has made another advance lately."
The girl turned towards him with a little sparkle in her eyes. Winston saw it, and the faint shimmer of the pearls upon the whiteness of her neck, and then moved his head so that he looked out upon the dusky prairie.
"Pshaw!" she said. "You know why you were brought here to-night."
Winston admired her courage, but did not turn round, for there were times when he feared his will might fail him. "I fancy I know why your aunt was so gracious to me. Do you know that her confidence almost hurts me?"
"Then why don't you vindicate it and yourself? Dane would be your mouthpiece, and two or three words would be sufficient."
Winston made no answer for a space. Somebody was singing in the room behind them, and through the open window he could see the stars in the soft indigo above the great sweep of prairie. He noticed them vacantly and took a curious impersonal interest in the two dim figures standing close together outside the window. One was a young English lad, and the other a girl in a long white dress. What they were doing there was no concern of his, but any trifle that diverted his attention a moment was welcome in that time of strain, for he had felt of late that exposure was close at hand, and was fiercely anxious to finish his work before it came. Maud Barrington's finances must be made secure before he left Silverdale, and he must remain at any cost until the wheat was sold.
Then he turned slowly towards her. "It is not your aunt's confidence that hurts me the most."
The girl looked at him steadily, the color a trifle plainer in her face, which she would not turn from the light, and a growing wonder in her eyes.
"Lance," she said, "we both know that it is not misplaced. Still, your impassiveness does not please us."
Winston groaned inwardly and the swollen veins showed on his forehead. His companion had leaned forward a little so that she could see him, and one white shoulder almost touched his own. The perfume of her hair was in his nostrils, and when he remembered how cold she had once been to him, a longing that was stronger than the humiliation that came with it grew almost overwhelming. Still, because of her very trust in him, there was a wrong he could not do, and it dawned on him that a means of placing himself beyond further temptation was opening to him. Maud Barrington, he knew, would have scanty sympathy with an intrigue of the kind Courthorne's recent adventure pointed to.
"You mean, why do I not deny what you have no doubt heard?" he said. "What could one gain by that if you had heard the truth?"
Maud Barrington laughed softly. "Isn't the question useless?"
"No," said Winston, a trifle hoarsely now.
The girl touched his arm almost imperiously as he turned his head again.
"Lance," she said. "Men of your kind need not deal in subterfuge. The wheat and the bridge you built speak for you."
"Still," persisted Winston, and the girl checked him with a smile.
"I fancy you are wasting time," she said. "Now, I wonder whether, when you were in England, you ever saw a play founded on an incident in the life of a once famous actor. At the time it rather appealed to me. The hero, with a chivalric purpose assumed various shortcomings he had really no sympathy with--but while there is, of course, no similarity beyond the generous impulse, between the cases--he did not do it clumsily. It is, however, a trifle difficult to understand what purpose you could have, and one cannot help fancying that you owe a little to Silverdale and yourself."
It was a somewhat daring parallel, for Winston, who dare not look at his companion and saw that he had failed, knew the play.
"Isn't the subject a trifle difficult?" he asked.
"Then," said Maud Barrington, "we will end it. Still, you promised that I should understand--a good deal--when the time came."
Winston nodded gravely. "You shall," he said.
Then, somewhat to his embarrassment, the two figures moved further across the window, and as they were silhouetted against the blue duskiness, he saw that there was an arm about the waist of the girl's white dress. He became sensible that Maud Barrington saw it too, and then that, perhaps to save the situation, she was smiling. The two figures, however, vanished, and a minute later a young girl in a long white dress came in, and stood still, apparently dismayed when she saw Maud Barrington. She did not notice Winston, who sat further in the shadow. He, however, saw her face suddenly crimson.
"Have you been here long?" she asked.
"Yes," said Maud Barrington, with a significant glance towards the window. "At least ten minutes. I am sorry, but I really couldn't help it. It was very hot in the other room, and Allender was singing."
"Then," said the girl, with a little tremor in her voice, "you will not tell?"
"No," said Maud Barrington. "But you must not do it again."
The girl stooped swiftly and kissed her, then recoiled with a gasp when she saw the man, but Maud Barrington laughed.
"I think," she said, "I can answer for Mr. Courthorne's silence. Still, when I have an opportunity, I am going to lecture you."
Winston turned with a twinkle he could not quite repress in his eyes, and with a flutter of her dress the girl whisked away.
"I'm afraid this makes me an accessory, but I can only neglect my manifest duty, which would be to warn her mother," said Maud Barrington.
"Is it a duty?" asked Winston, feeling that the further he drifted away from the previous topic the better it would be for him.
"Some people would fancy so," said his companion, "Lily will have a good deal of money, by and by, and she is very young. Atterly has nothing but an unprofitable farm; but he is an honest lad, and I know she is very fond of him."
"And would that count against the dollars?"
Maud Barrington laughed a little. "Yes," she said quietly. "I think it would if the girl is wise. Even now such things do happen, but I fancy it is time I went back again."
She moved away, but Winston stayed where he was until the lad came in with a cigar in his hand.
"Hallo, Courthorne!" he said. "Did you notice anybody pass the window a little while ago?"
"You are the first to come in through it," said Winston dryly. "The kind of things you wear admit of climbing."
The lad glanced at him with a trace of embarrassment.
"I don't quite understand you, but I meant a man," he said. "He was walking curiously, as if he was half-asleep, but he slipped round the corner of the building and I lost him."
Winston laughed. "There's a want of finish in the tale, but you needn't worry about me. I didn't see a man."
"There is rather less wisdom than usual in your remarks to-night, but I tell you I saw him," said the lad.
He passed on, and a minute later there was a cry from the inner room. "It's there again! Can't you see the face at the window?"
Winston was in the larger room next moment, and saw, as a startled girl had evidently done, a face that showed distorted and white to ghastliness through the window. He also recognized it, and running back through the hall was outside in another few seconds. Courthorne was leaning against one of the casements as though faint with weakness or pain, and collapsed when Winston dragged him backwards into the shadow. He had scarcely laid him down when the window was opened, and Colonel Barrington's shoulders showed black against the light.
"Come outside alone, sir," said Winston.
Barrington did so, and Winston stood so that no light fell on the pallid face in the grass. "It's a man I have dealings with," he said. "He has evidently ridden out from the settlement and fallen from his horse."
"Why should he fall?" asked the Colonel.
Winston laughed. "There is a perfume about him that is tolerably conclusive. I was, however, on the point of going, and if you will tell your hired man to get my wagon out, I'll take him away quietly. You can make light of the affair to the others."
"Yes," said Barrington. "Unless you think the man is hurt, that would be best, but we'll keep him if you like."
"No, sir. I couldn't trouble you," said Winston hastily. "Men of his kind are also very hard to kill."
Five minutes later he and the hired man hoisted Courthorne into the wagon and packed some hay about him, while, soon after the rattle of wheels sank into the silence of the prairie, the girl Maud Barrington had spoken to rejoined her companion.
"Could Courthorne have seen you coming in?" he asked.
"Yes," said the girl, blushing. "He did."
"Then it can't be helped, and, after all, Courthorne wouldn't talk, even if he wasn't what he is," said the lad. "You don't know why, and I'm not going to tell you, but it wouldn't become him."
"You don't mean Maud Barrington?" asked his companion.
"No," said the lad, with a laugh. "Courthorne is not like me. He has no sense. It's quite another kind of girl, you see."