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THE IMPOSTOR.


[Illustration: "In the meanwhile, Maud Barrington sat by the open window
in her room." (Chapter XVI.)]


THE IMPOSTOR

by

HAROLD BINDLOSS

Author of "Hawtrey's Deputy," "The Liberationist,"
"A Sower of Wheat," "The Pioneer," etc.







Ward, Lock & Co., Limited
London, Melbourne and Toronto




CONTENTS

      I Rancher Witham
     II Lance Courthorne
    III Trooper Shannon's Quarrel
     IV In the Bluff
      V Miss Barrington Comes Home
     VI Anticipations
    VII Witham's Decision
   VIII Witham Comes to Silverdale
     IX An Armistice
      X Maud Barrington's Promise
     XI Speed the Plough
    XII Mastery Recognized
   XIII A Fair Advocate
    XIV The Unexpected
     XV Facing the Flame
    XVI Maud Barrington is Merciless
   XVII With the Stream
  XVIII Under Test
    XIX Courthorne Blunders
     XX The Face at the Window
    XXI Colonel Barrington is Convinced
   XXII Sergeant Stimson Confirms his Suspicions
  XXIII The Revelation
   XXIV Courthorne makes Reparation
    XXV Witham Rides Away
   XXVI Reinstation




THE IMPOSTOR




CHAPTER I

RANCHER WITHAM


It was a bitter night, for although there was no snow as yet, the
frost had bound the prairie in its iron grip, when Rancher Witham
stood shivering in a little Canadian settlement in the great, lonely
land which runs north from the American frontier to Athabasca. There
was no blink of starlight in the murky sky, and a stinging wind that
came up out of the great waste of grass moaned about the frame houses
clustering beside the trail that led south over the limited levels to
the railroad and civilization. It chilled Witham through his somewhat
tattered furs, and he strode up and down, glancing expectantly into
the darkness, and then across the unpaved street, where the ruts were
ploughed a foot deep in the prairie sod, towards the warm, red glow
from the windows of the wooden hotel. He knew that the rest of the
outlying farmers and ranchers who had ridden in for their letters were
sitting snug about the stove, but it was customary for all who sought
shelter there to pay for their share of the six o'clock supper, and
the half-dollar Witham had then in his pocket was required for other
purposes.

He had also retained through all his struggles a measure of his pride,
and because of it strode up and down buffeted by the blasts until a
beat of horse-hoofs came out of the darkness and was followed by a
rattle of wheels. It grew steadily louder, a blinking ray of
brightness flickered across the frame houses, and presently dark
figures were silhouetted against the light on the hotel veranda as a
lurching wagon drew up beneath it. Two dusky objects, shapeless in
their furs, sprang down, and one stumbled into the post office close
by with a bag while the other man answered the questions hurled at him
as he fumbled with stiffened fingers at the harness.

"Late? Well, you might be thankful you've got your mail at all," he
said. "We had to go round by Willow Bluff, and didn't think we'd get
through the ford. Ice an inch thick, anyway, and Charley talked that
much he's not said anything since, even when the near horse put his
foot into a badger hole."

Rude banter followed this, but Witham took no part in it. Hastening
into the post office, he stood betraying his impatience by his very
impassiveness while a sallow-faced woman tossed the letters out upon
the counter. At last she took up two of them, and the man's fingers
trembled a little as he stretched out his hand, when she said--

"That's all there are for you."

Witham recognized the writing on the envelopes, and it was with
difficulty he held his eagerness in check, but other men were waiting
for his place, and he went out and crossed the street to the hotel
where there was light to read by. As he entered it a girl, bustling
about a long table in the big stove-warmed room, turned with a little
smile.

"It's only you!" she said. "Now I was figuring it was Lance
Courthorne."

Witham, impatient as he was, stopped and laughed, for the
hotel-keeper's daughter was tolerably well-favoured and a friend of
his.

"And you're disappointed?" he said. "I haven't Lance's good looks, or
his ready tongue."

The room was empty, for the guests were thronging about the post
office then, and the girl's eyes twinkled as she drew back a pace and
surveyed the man. There was nothing in his appearance that would have
aroused a stranger's interest, or attracted more than a passing
glance, and he stood before her in a very old fur coat, with a fur cap
that was in keeping with it in his hand. His face had been bronzed
almost to the colour of a Blackfoot Indian's by frost and wind and
sun, and it was of English type from the crisp fair hair above the
broad forehead to the somewhat solid chin. The mouth was hidden by the
bronze-tinted moustache, and the eyes alone, were noticeable. They
were grey, and there was a steadiness in them which was almost unusual
even in that country, where men look into long distances. For the
rest, he was of average stature, and stood impassively straight,
looking down upon the girl without either grace or awkwardness, while
his hard brown hands, suggested, as his attire did, strenuous labour
for a very small reward.

"Well," said the girl with Western frankness, "there's a kind of stamp
on Lance that you haven't got. I figure he brought it with him from
the old country. Still, one might take you for him if you stood with
the light behind you, and you're not quite a bad-looking man. It's a
kind of pity you're so solemn."

Witham smiled. "I don't fancy that's astonishing after losing two
harvests in succession," he said. "You see, there's nobody back there
in the old country to send remittances to me."

The girl nodded with quick sympathy. "Oh, yes. The times are bad," she
said. "Well, you read your letters; I'm not going to worry you."

Witham sat down and opened the first envelope under the big lamp. It
was from a land agent and mortgage-broker, and his face grew a trifle
grimmer as he read, "In the present condition of the money market your
request that we should carry you over is unreasonable, and we regret
that unless you can extinguish at least half the loan we will be
compelled to foreclose upon your holding."

There was a little more of it, but that was sufficient for Witham, who
knew it meant disaster, and it was with the feeling of one clinging
desperately to the last shred of hope he tore open the second
envelope. The letter it held was from a friend he had made in a
Western city, and once entertained for a month at his ranch, but the
man had evidently sufficient difficulties of his own to contend with.

"Very sorry, but it can't be done," he wrote. "I'm loaded up with
wheat nobody will buy, and couldn't raise five hundred dollars to lend
any one just now,"

Witham sighed a little, but when he rose and slowly straightened
himself nobody would have suspected he was looking ruin in the face.
He had fought a slow, losing battle for six weary years, holding on
doggedly though defeat appeared inevitable, and now when it had come
he bore it impassively, for the struggle which, though he was scarcely
twenty-six, had crushed all mirth and brightness out of his life, had
given him endurance in place of them. Just then a man came bustling
towards him, with the girl who bore a tray close behind.

"What are you doing with that coat on?" he said. "Get it off and sit
down right there. The boys are about through with the mail and
supper's ready,"

Witham glanced at the steaming dishes hungrily, for he had passed most
of the day in the bitter frost, eating very little, and there was
still a drive of twenty miles before him.

"It is time I was taking the trail," he said.

He was sensible of a pain in his left side, which, as other men have
discovered, not infrequently follows enforced abstinence from food,
but he remembered what he wanted the half-dollar in his pocket for.
The hotel-keeper had possibly some notion of the state of affairs, for
he laughed a little.

"You've got to sit down," he said. "Now, after the way you fixed me up
when I stopped at your ranch, you don't figure I'd let you go before
you had some supper with me."

Witham may have been unduly sensitive, but he shook his head. "You're
very good, but it's a long ride, and I'm going now," he said.
"Good-night, Nettie."

He turned as he spoke, with the swift decision that was habitual with
him, and when he went out the girl glanced at her father
reproachfully.

"You always get spoiling things when you put your hand in," she said.
"Now that man's hungry, and I'd have fixed it so he'd have got his
supper if you had left it to me."

The hotel-keeper laughed a little. "I'm kind of sorry for Witham
because there's grit in him, and he's never had a show," he said.
"Still, I figure he's not worth your going out gunning after, Nettie."

The girl said nothing, but there was a little flush in her face which
had not been there before, when she busied herself with the dishes.

In the meanwhile Witham was harnessing two bronco horses to a very
dilapidated wagon. They were vicious beasts, but he had bought them
cheap from a man who had some difficulty in driving them, while the
wagon had been given him, when it was apparently useless, by a
neighbour. The team had, however, already covered thirty miles that
day, and started homewards at a steady trot without the playful
kicking they usually indulged in. Here and there a man sprang clear of
the rutted road, but Witham did not notice him or return his greeting.
He was abstractedly watching the rude frame houses flit by, and
wondering, while the pain in his side grew keener, when he would get
his supper, for it happens not infrequently that the susceptibilities
are dulled by a heavy blow, and the victim finds a distraction that is
almost welcome in the endurance of a petty trouble.

Witham was very hungry, and weary alike in body and mind. The sun had
not risen when he left his homestead, and he had passed the day under
a nervous strain, hoping, although it seemed improbable, that the mail
would bring him relief from his anxieties. Now he knew the worst he
could bear it as he had borne the loss of two harvests, and the
disaster which followed in the wake of the blizzard that killed off
his stock; but it seemed unfair that he should endure cold and hunger
too, and when one wheel sank in a rut and the jolt shook him in every
stiffened limb, he broke out with a hoarse expletive. It was his first
protest against the fate that was too strong for him, and almost as he
made it he laughed.

"Pshaw! There's no use kicking against what has to be, and I've got to
keep my head just now," he said.

There was no great comfort in the reflection, but it had sustained him
before, and Witham's head was a somewhat exceptional one, though there
was as a rule nothing in any way remarkable about his conversation,
and he was apparently merely one of the many quietly-spoken,
bronze-faced men who are even by their blunders building up a great
future for the Canadian dominion. He accordingly drew his old rug
tighter round him, and instinctively pulled his fur cap lower down
when the lights of the settlement faded behind him and the creaking
wagon swung out into the blackness of the prairie. It ran back league
beyond league across three broad provinces, and the wind that came up
out of the great emptiness emphasized its solitude. A man from the
cities would have heard nothing but the creaking of the wagon and the
drumming fall of hoofs, but Witham heard the grasses patter as they
swayed beneath the bitter blasts stiff with frost, and the moan of
swinging boughs in a far-off willow bluff. It was these things that
guided him, for he had left the rutted trail, and here and there the
swishen beneath the wheels told of taller grass, while the bluff ran
black athwart the horizon when that had gone. Then twigs crackled
beneath them as the horses picked their way amidst the shadowy trees
stunted by a ceaseless struggle with the wind, and Witham shook the
creeping drowsiness from him when they came out into the open again,
for he knew it is not advisable for any man with work still to do to
fall asleep under the frost of that country.

Still, he grew a trifle dazed as the miles went by, and because of it
indulged in memories he had shaken off at other times. They were
blurred recollections of the land he had left eight years ago,
pictures of sheltered England, half-forgotten music, the voices of
friends who no longer remembered him, and the smiles in a girl's
bright eyes. Then he settled himself more firmly in the driving-seat,
and with numbed fingers sought a tighter grip of the reins as the
memory of the girl's soft answer to a question he had asked brought
his callow ambitions back.

He was to hew his way to fortune in the West, and then come back for
her, but the girl who had clung to him with wet cheeks when he left
her had apparently grown tired of waiting, and Witham sent back her
letters in return for a silver-printed card. That was six years ago,
and now none of the dollars he had brought into the country remained
to him. He realized, dispassionately and without egotism, that this
was through no fault of his, for he knew that better men had been
crushed and beaten.

It was, however, time he had done with these reflections, for while he
sat half-dazed and more than half-frozen the miles had been flitting
by, and now the team knew they were not very far from home. Little by
little their pace increased, and Witham was almost astonished to see
another bluff black against the night ahead of him. As usual in that
country, the willows and birches crawled up the sides and just showed
their heads above the sinuous crest of a river hollow. It was very
dark when the wagon lurched in among them, and it cost the man an
effort to discern the winding trail which led down into the blackness
of the hollow. In places the slope was almost precipitous, and it
behoved him to be careful of the horses, which could not be replaced.
Without them he could not plough in spring, and his life did not
appear of any especial value in comparison with theirs just then.

The team, however, were evidently bent on getting home as soon as
possible, and Witham's fingers were too stiff to effectively grasp the
reins. A swinging bough also struck one of the horses, and when it
plunged and flung up its head the man reeled a little in his seat.
Before he recovered the team were going down-hill at a gallop. Witham
flung himself bodily backwards with tense muscles, and the reins
slipping a trifle in his hands, knowing that though he bore against
them with all his strength the team were leaving the trail. Then the
wagon jolted against a tree, one horse stumbled, picked up its stride,
and went on at a headlong gallop. The man felt the wind rush past him
and saw the dim trees whirl by, but he could only hold on and wonder
what would take place when they came to the bottom. The bridge the
trail went round by was some distance to the right and because the
frost had just set in he knew the ice on the river would not bear the
load, even if the horses could keep their footing.

He had not, however, long to wonder. Once more a horse stumbled, there
was a crash, and a branch hurled Witham backwards into the wagon,
which came to a standstill suddenly. When he rose something warm was
running down his face, and there was a red smear on the hand he
lighted the lantern with. When that was done he flung himself down
from the wagon, dreading what he would find. The flickering radiance
showed him that the pole had snapped, and while one bronco still stood
trembling on its feet the other lay inert amidst a tangle of harness.
The man's face grew a trifle grimmer as he threw the light upon it,
and then, stooping, glanced at one doubled leg. It was evident that
fate, which did nothing by halves, had dealt him a crushing blow. The
last faint hope he clung to had vanished now.

He was, however, a humane man, and considerate of the beasts that
worked for him, and accordingly thrust his hand inside the old fur
coat, when he had loosed the uninjured horse, and drew out a
long-bladed knife. Then he knelt and, setting down the lantern, felt
for the place to strike. When he found it his courage almost deserted
him, and meeting the eyes that seemed to look up at him with dumb
appeal, turned his head away. Still, he was a man who would not shirk
a painful duty, and shaking off the sense of revulsion turned again
and stroked the beast's head.

"It's all I can do for you," he said.

Then his arm came down, and a tremor ran through the quivering frame,
while Witham set his lips tightly as his hand grew warm. The thing was
horrible to him, but the life he led had taught him the folly of
weakness, and he was too pitiful to let his squeamishness overcome
him.

Still, he shivered when it was done, and rubbing the knife in the
withered leaves, rose and made shift to gird a rug about the uninjured
horse. Then he cut the reins and tied them, and mounting without
stirrups rode towards the bridge. The horse went quietly enough now,
and the man allowed it to choose its way. He was going home to find
shelter from the cold, because his animal instincts prompted him, but
otherwise, almost without volition, in a state of dispassionate
indifference. Nothing more he fancied, could well befall him.




CHAPTER II

LANCE COURTHORNE


It was late when Witham reached his log-built house, but he set out
once more with his remaining horse before the lingering daylight crept
out of the east, to haul the wagon home. He also spent most of the day
in repairing it, because occupation of any kind that would keep him
from unpleasant reflections appeared advisable, and to allow anything
to fall out of use was distasteful to him, although as the wagon had
been built for two horses he had little hope of driving it again. It
was a bitter, grey day, with a low, smoky sky, and seemed very long to
Witham; but evening came at last, and he was left with nothing between
him and his thoughts.

He lay in a dilapidated chair beside the stove, and the little bare
room through which its pipe ran was permeated with the smell of fresh
shavings, hot iron, and the fumes of indifferent tobacco. A
carpenter's bench ran along one end of it, and was now occupied by a
new wagon pole the man had fashioned out of a slender birch. A Marlin
rifle, an axe, and a big saw hung beneath the head of an antelope on
the wall above the bench, and all of them showed signs of use and
glistened with oil. Opposite to them a few shelves were filled with
simple crockery and cooking utensils, and these also shone spotlessly.
There was a pair of knee boots in one corner with a patch partly sewn
on to one of them, and the harness in another showed traces of careful
repair. A bookcase hung above them, and its somewhat tattered contents
indicated that the man who had chosen and evidently handled them
frequently possessed tastes any one who did not know that country
would scarcely have expected to find in a prairie farmer. A table and
one or two rude chairs made by their owner's hands completed the
furniture; but while all hinted at poverty, it also suggested
neatness, industry, and care, for the room bore the impress of its
occupier's individuality, as rooms not infrequently do.

It was not difficult to see that he was frugal, though possibly from
necessity rather than taste, not sparing of effort, and had a keen eye
for utility, and if that suggested the question why, with such
capacities, he had not attained to greater comfort, the answer was
simple. Witham had no money, and the seasons had fought against him.
He had done his uttermost with the means at his disposal, and now he
knew he was beaten.

A doleful wind moaned about the lonely building and set the roof
shingles rattling overhead. Now and then the stove crackled, or the
lamp flickered, and any one unused to the prairie would have felt the
little loghouse very desolate and lonely. There was no other human
habitation within a league, only a great waste of whitened grass
relieved about the homestead by the raw clods of the fall ploughing;
for, while his scattered neighbours, for the most part, put their
trust in horses and cattle, Witham had been among the first to realize
the capacities of that land as a wheat-growing country.

Now, clad in well-worn jean trousers and an old deerskin jacket, he
looked down at the bundle of documents on his knee, accounts unpaid, a
banker's intimation that no more cheques would be honoured and a
mortgage deed. They were not pleasant reading, and the man's face
clouded as he pencilled notes on some of them, but there was no
weakness or futile protest in it. Defeat was plain between the lines
of all he read, but he was going on stubbornly until the struggle was
ended, as others of his kind had done, there at the western limit of
the furrows of the plough and in the great province further east which
is one of the world's granaries. They went under and were forgotten,
but they showed the way, and while their guerdon was usually six feet
of prairie soil, the wheat-fields, mills, and railroads came, for it
is written plainly on the new North-West that no man may live and
labour for himself alone, and there are many who, realizing it,
instinctively ask very little, and freely give their best for the land
that but indifferently shelters them.

Presently, however, there was a knocking at the door, and though this
was most unusual, Witham only quietly moved his head when a bitter
blast came in, and a man wrapped in furs stood in the opening.

"I'll put my horse in the stable while I've got my furs on. It's a
bitter night," he said.

Witham nodded. "You know where the lantern is," he said. "There's some
chop in the manger, and you needn't spare the oats in the bin. At
present prices it doesn't pay to haul them in."

The man closed the door silently, and it was ten minutes before he
returned, and sloughing off his furs dropped into a chair beside the
stove. "I got supper at Broughton's, and don't want anything but
shelter to-night," he said. "Shake that pipe out and try one of these
instead."

He laid a cigar case on the table, and though well worn it was of
costly make, with a good deal of silver about it, while Witham, who
lighted one, knew that the cigars were good. He had no esteem for his
visitor, but men are not censorious upon the prairie, and Western
hospitality is always free.

"Where have you come from, Courthorne?" he said quietly.

The other man laughed a little. "The long trail," he said. "The
Dakotas, Colorado, Montana. Cleaned up one thousand dollars at Regent,
and might have got more, but some folks down there seemed tired of me.
The play was quite regular, but they have apparently been getting
virtuous lately."

"And now?" said Witham, with polite indifference.

Courthorne made a little gesture of deprecation.

"I'm back again with the rustlers."

Witham's nod signified comprehension, for the struggle between the
great range-holders across the frontier and the smaller settlers who
with legal right invaded their cattle runs was just over. It had been
fought out bitterly with dynamite and rifles, and when at last, with
the aid of the United States cavalry, peace was made, sundry broken
men and mercenaries who had taken the pay of both parties, seeing
their occupation gone, had found a fresh scope for their energies in
smuggling liquor, and on opportunity transferring cattle, without
their owners' sanction, across the frontier. That was then a
prohibition country, and the profits and risks attached to supplying
it and the Blackfeet on the reserves with liquor were heavy.

"Business this way?" said Witham.

Courthorne appeared to consider a moment, and there was a curious
little glint which did not escape his companion's attention in his
eyes, but he laughed.

"Yes, we're making a big run," he said, then stopped and looked
straight at the rancher. "Did it ever strike you, Witham, that you
were not unlike me?"

Witham smiled, but made a little gesture of dissent as he returned the
other's gaze. They were about the same height and had the same English
type of face, while Witham's eyes were grey and his companion's an
indefinite blue that approached the former colour, but there the
resemblance, which was not more than discernible, ended. Witham was
quietly-spoken and somewhat grim, a plain prairie farmer in
appearance, while a vague but recognizable stamp of breeding and
distinction still clung to Courthorne. He would have appeared more in
place in the States upon the southern Atlantic seaboard, where the
characteristics the Cavalier settlers brought with them are not
extinct, than he did upon the Canadian prairie. His voice had even in
his merriment a little imperious ring, his face was refined as well as
sensual, and there was a languid gracefulness in his movements and a
hint of pride in his eyes. They, however, lacked the steadiness of
Witham's, and there were men who had seen the wild devil that was born
in Courthorne look out of them. Witham knew him as a pleasant
companion, but surmised from stories he had heard that there were men,
and more women, who bitterly rued the trust they had placed in him.

"No," he said dryly. "I scarcely think I am like you, although only
last night Nettie at the settlement took me for you. You see, the kind
of life I've led out here has set its mark on me, and my folks in the
old country were distinctly middle-class people. There is something in
heredity."

Courthorne did not parry the unexpressed question. "Oh, yes," he said,
with a little sardonic smile. "I know. The backbone of the
nation--solemn, virtuous, and slow. You're like them, but my folks
were different, as you surmise. I don't think they had many estimable
qualities from your point of view, but if they all didn't go quite
straight they never went slow, and they had a few prejudices, which is
why I found it advisable to leave the old country. Still, I've had my
fill of all that life can offer most folks out here, while you
scarcely seem to have found virtue pay you. They told me at the
settlement things were bad with you."

Witham, who was usually correct in his deductions, surmised that his
companion had an object, and expected something in return for this
confidence. There was also no need for reticence when every farmer in
the district knew all about his affairs, while something urged him to
follow Courthorne's lead.

"Yes," he said quietly. "They are. You see, when I lost my cattle in
the blizzard, I had to sell out or mortgage the place to the hilt, and
during the last two years I haven't made the interest. The loan falls
due in August, and they're going to foreclose on me."

"Then," said Courthorne, "what is keeping you here when the result of
every hour's work you put in will go straight into another's man's
pocket?"

Witham smiled a little. "In the first place, I've nowhere else to go,
and there's something in the feeling that one has held on to the end.
Besides, until a few days ago I had a vague hope that by working
double tides, I might get another crop in. Somebody might have
advanced me a little on it because the mortgage only claims the house
and land."

Courthorne looked at him curiously. "No. We are not alike," he said.
"There's a slow stubborn devil in you, Witham, and I think I'd be
afraid of you if I ever did you an injury. But go on."

"There's very little more. My team ran away down the ravine, and I had
to put one beast out of its misery. I can't do my ploughing with one
horse, and that leaves me stranded for the want of the dollars to buy
another with. It's usually a very little thing that turns the scale,
but now the end has come, I don't know that I'm sorry. I've never had
a good time, you see, and the struggle was slowly crushing the life
out of me."

Witham spoke quietly, without bitterness, but Courthorne, who had
never striven at all but stretched out his hand and taken what was
offered, the more willingly when it was banned alike by judicial and
moral law, dimly understood him. He was a fearless man, but he knew
his courage would not have been equal to the strain of that six years'
struggle against loneliness, physical fatigue, and adverse seasons,
during which disaster followed disaster. He looked at the bronzed
farmer as he said, "Still, you would do a little in return for a
hundred dollars that would help you to go on with the fight?"

A faint sparkle crept into Witham's eyes. It was not hope, but rather
the grim anticipation of the man offered a better weapon when standing
with his back to the wall.

"Yes," he said slowly. "I would do almost anything."

"Even if it was against the law?"

Witham sat silent for almost a minute, but there was no indecision in
his face, which slightly perplexed Courthorne. "Yes," he said. "Though
I kept it while I could, the law was made for the safe-guarding of
prosperous men, but with such as I am it is every man for his own hand
and the devil to care for the vanquished. Still, there is a
reservation."

Courthorne nodded. "It's unlawful, but not against the unwritten
code."

"Well," said Witham quietly, "when you tell me what you want I should
have a better opinion."

Courthorne laughed a little, though there was something unpleasant in
his eyes. "When I first came out to this country I should have
resented that," he said. "Now, it seems to me that I'm putting too
much in your hands if I make the whole thing clear before you commit
yourself in any way."

Witham nodded. "In fact, you have got to trust me. You can do so
safely."

"The assurance of the guileless is astonishing and occasionally hard
to bear," said Courthorne. "Why not reverse the position?"

Witham's gaze was steady, and free from embarrassment. "I am," he
said, "waiting for your offer."

"Then," said Courthorne dryly, "here it is. We are running a big load
through to the northern settlements and the reserves to-morrow, and
while there's a good deal of profit attached to the venture, I have a
notion that Sergeant Stimson has had word of it. Now, the Sergeant
knows just how I stand with the rustlers, though he can fasten no
charge on me, and he will have several of his troopers looking out for
me. Well, I want one of them to see and follow me south along the
Montana trail. There's no horse in the Government service can keep
pace with that black of mine, but it would not be difficult to pull
him and just keep the trooper out of carbine shot behind. When he
finds he can't overtake the black he'll go off for his comrades, and
the boys will run our goods across the river while they're picking up
the trail."

"You mentioned the horse, but not yourself," said Witham quietly.

Courthorne laughed. "Yes," he said; "I will not be there. I'm offering
you one hundred dollars to ride the black for me. You can put my furs
on, and anybody who saw you and knew the horse would certify it was
me."

"And where will you be?"

"Here," said Courthorne dryly. "The boys will have no use for me until
they want a guide, but they'll leave an unloaded packhorse handy, and,
as it wouldn't suit any of us to make my connexion with them too
plain, it will be a night or two later when I join them. In the
meanwhile your part's quite easy. No trooper could ride you down
unless you wanted him to, and you'll ride straight on to Montana--I've
a route marked out for you. You'll stop at the places I tell you, and
the testimony of anybody who saw you on the black would be quite
enough to clear me if Stimson's men are too clever for the boys."

Witham sat still a moment, and it was not avarice which prompted him
when he said, "Considering the risk, one hundred dollars is very
little."

"Of course," said Courthorne. "Still, it isn't worth any more to me,
and there will be your expenses. If it doesn't suit you, I will do the
thing myself and find the boys another guide."

He spoke indifferently, but Witham was not a fool, and knew that he
was lying.

"Turn your face to the light," he said sharply.

A little ominous glint became visible in Courthorne's eyes, and there
was just a trace of darker colour in his forehead, but Witham saw it
and was not astonished. Still Courthorne did not move.

"What made you ask me that?" he said.

Witham watched him closely, but his voice betrayed no special interest
as he said, "I fancied I saw a mark across your cheek. It seemed to me
that it had been made by a whip."

The deeper tint was more visible on Courthorne's forehead, where the
swollen veins showed a trifle, and he appeared to swallow something
before he spoke. "Aren't you asking too many questions? What has a
mark on my face to do with you?"

"Nothing," said Witham quietly. "Will you go through the conditions
again?"

Courthorne nodded. "I pay you one hundred dollars--now," he said. "You
ride south to-morrow along the Montana trail and take the risk of the
troopers overtaking you. You will remain away a fortnight at my
expense, and pass in the meanwhile for me. Then you will return at
night as rancher Witham, and keep the whole thing a secret from
everybody."

Witham sat silent and very still again for more than a minute. He
surmised that the man who made the offer had not told him all and
there was more behind, but that was, after all, of no great
importance. He was prepared to do a good deal for one hundred dollars,
and his bare life of effort and self-denial had grown almost
unendurable. He had now nothing to lose, and while some impulse urged
him to the venture, he felt that it was possible fate had in store for
him something better than he had known in the past. In the meanwhile
the cigar he held went out, and the striking of a match as Courthorne
lighted another roused him suddenly from the retrospect he was sinking
into. The bitter wind still moaned about the ranch, emphasizing its
loneliness, and the cedar shingles rattled dolefully overhead, while
it chanced that as Witham glanced towards the roof his eyes rested on
the suspended piece of rancid pork which with a little flour and a few
potatoes had during the last few months provided him with a
sustenance. It was of course a trifle, but it tipped the beam, as
trifles often do, and the man who was tired of all it symbolized
straightened himself with a little mirthless laugh.

"On your word of honour there is nothing beyond the risk of a few
days' detention which can affect me?" he said.

"No," said Courthorne solemnly, knowing that he lied. "On my honour.
The troopers could only question you. Is it a deal?"

"Yes," said Witham simply, stretching out his hand for the roll of
bills the other flung down on the table, and, while one of the
contracting parties knew that the other would regret it bitterly, the
bargain was made.

Then Courthorne laughed in his usual indolent fashion as he said,
"Well, it's all decided, and I don't even ask your word. To-morrow
will see the husk sloughed off and for a fortnight you'll be Lance
Courthorne. I hope you feel equal to playing the rôle with credit,
because I wouldn't entrust my good fame to everybody."

Witham smiled dryly. "I fancy I shall," he said, and long afterwards
recalled the words. "You see, I had ambitions in my callow days, and
it's not my fault that hitherto I've never had a part to play."

Rancher Witham was, however, wrong in this. He had played the part of
an honest man with a courage which had brought him to ruin, but there
was now to be a difference.




CHAPTER III

TROOPER SHANNON'S QUARREL


There was bitter frost in the darkness outside when two young men
stood talking in the stables of a little outpost lying a long ride
back from the settlement in the lonely prairie. One leaned against a
manger with a pipe in his hand, while the spotless, softly-gleaming
harness hung up behind him showed what his occupation had been. The
other stood bolt upright with lips set, and a faint greyness which
betokened strong emotion showing through his tan. The lantern above
them flickered in the icy draughts, and from out of the shadows beyond
its light came the stamping of restless horses and the smell of
prairie hay, which is pungent with the odours of wild peppermint.

The two lads, and they were very little more, were friends, in spite
of the difference in their upbringing, for there are few distinctions
between caste and caste in that country where manhood is still
esteemed the greatest thing, and the primitive virtues count for more
than wealth or intellect. Courage and endurance still command respect
in the new North-West, and that both the lads possessed them was made
evident by the fact that they were troopers of the North-West police,
a force of splendid cavalry whose duty it is to patrol the wilderness
at all seasons and in all weathers, under scorching sun and in
blinding snow.

The men who keep the peace of the prairie are taught what heat and
thirst are, when they ride in couples through a desolate waste wherein
there is only bitter water, parched by pitiless sunrays and whitened
by the intolerable dust of alkali. They also discover just how much
cold the human frame can endure, when they lie down with only the
stars above them, long leagues from the nearest outpost, in a trench,
scooped in the snow, and they know how near one may come to
suffocation and yet live through the grassfire's blinding smoke. It
happens now and then that two who have answered to the last roster in
the icy darkness do not awaken when the lingering dawn breaks across
the great white waste, and only the coyote knows their resting-place,
but the watch and ward is kept, and the lonely settler dwells as safe
in the wilderness as he would in an English town.

Trooper Shannon was an Irishman from the bush of Ontario, Trooper
Payne, English, and a scion of a somewhat distinguished family in the
old country, but while he told nobody why he left it suddenly, nobody
thought of asking him. He was known to be a bold rider and careful of
his beast, and that was sufficient for his comrades and the keen-eyed
Sergeant Stimson. He glanced at his companion thoughtfully as he said,
"She was a pretty girl. You knew her in Ontario?"

Shannon's hands trembled a little. "Sure," he said, "Larry's place was
just a mile beyont our clearing, an' there was never a bonnier thing
than Ailly Blake came out from the old country--but is it need there
is for talking when ye've seen her? There was once I watched her smile
at ye with the black eyes that would have melted the heart out of any
man. Waking and sleeping they're with me still."

Three generations of the Shannons had hewn the lonely clearing further
into the bush of Ontario and married the daughters of the soil, but
the Celtic strain, it was evident, had not run out yet. Payne,
however, came of English stock, and expressed himself differently.

"It was a--shame," he said. "Of course he flung her over. I think you
saw him, Pat?"

Shannon's face grew greyer, and he quivered visibly as his passion
shook him, while Payne felt his own blood pulse faster as he
remembered the graceful dark-eyed girl who had given him and his
comrade many a welcome meal when their duty took them near her
brother's homestead. That was, however, before one black day for Ailly
and Larry Blake when Lance Courthorne also rode that way.

"Yes," said the lad from Ontario, "I was driving in for the stores
when I met him in the willow bluff, an' Courthorne pulls his divil of
a black horse up with a little ugly smile on the lips of him when I
swung the wagon right across the trail.

"'That's not civil, trooper,' says he.

"'I'm wanting a word,' says I, with the black hate choking me at the
sight of him. 'What have ye done with Ailly?'

"'Is it anything to you?' says he.

"'It's everything,' says I. 'And if ye will not tell me I'll tear it
out of ye.'

"Courthorne laughs a little, but I saw the divil in his eyes. 'I don't
think you're quite man enough,' says he, sitting very quiet on the big
black horse. 'Anyway, I can't tell you where she is just now, because
she left the dancing saloon she was in down in Montana when I last saw
her.'

"I had the big whip that day, and I forgot everything as I heard the
hiss of it round my shoulder. It came home across the ugly face of
him, and then I flung it down and grabbed the carbine as he swung the
black round with one hand fumbling in his jacket. It came out empty,
an' we sat there a moment, the two of us, Courthorne white as death,
his eyes like burning coals, and the fingers of me trembling on the
carbine. Sorrow on the man that he hadn't a pistol, or I'd have sent
the black soul of him to the divil it came from."

The lad panted, and Payne, who had guessed at his hopeless devotion to
the girl who had listened to Courthorne, made a gesture of disapproval
that was tempered by sympathy. It was for her sake, he fancied,
Shannon had left the Ontario clearing and followed Larry Blake to the
West.

"I'm glad he hadn't, Pat," said Payne. "What was the end of it?"

"I remembered," said the other with a groan, "remembered I was Trooper
Shannon, an' dropped the carbine into the wagon. Courthorne wheels the
black horse round, an' I saw the red line across the face of him.

"'You'll be sorry for this, my lad,' says he."

"He's a dangerous man," Payne said thoughtfully. "Pat, you came near
being a----ass that day. Anyway, it's time we went in, and as Larry's
here I shouldn't wonder if we saw Courthorne again before the
morning."

The icy cold went through them to the bone as they left the stables,
and it was a relief to enter the loghouse, which was heated to
fustiness by the glowing stove. A lamp hung from a rough birch beam,
and its uncertain radiance showed motionless figures wrapped in
blankets in the bunks round the walls. Two men were, however,
dressing, and one already in uniform sat at a table talking to another
swathed in furs, who was from his appearance a prairie farmer. The man
at the table was lean and weather-bronzed, with grizzled hair and
observant eyes. They were fixed steadily upon the farmer, who knew
that very little which happened upon the prairie escaped the vigilance
of Sergeant Stimson.

"It's straight talk you're giving me, Larry? What do you figure on
making by it?" he said.

The farmer laughed mirthlessly. "Not much, anyway, beyond the chance
of getting a bullet in me back or me best steer lifted one dark night.
'Tis not forgiving the rustlers are, and Courthorne's the divil," he
said. "But listen now, Sergeant; I've told ye where he is, and if
ye're not fit to corral him I'll ride him down meself."

Sergeant Stimson wrinkled his forehead. "If anybody knows what they're
after, it should be you," he said, watching the man out of the corner
of his eyes. "Still, I'm a little worried as to why, when you'll get
nothing for it, you're anxious to serve the State."

The farmer clenched a big hand. "Sergeant, you that knows everything,
will ye drive me mad, an' to ---- with the State!" he said. "Sure,
it's gospel I'm telling ye, an' as you're knowing well, it's me could
tell where the boys who ride at midnight drop many a keg. Well, if ye
will have your reason, it was Courthorne who put the black shame on me
an' mine."

Sergeant Stimson nodded, for he had already suspected this.

"Then," he said dryly, "we'll give you a chance of helping us to put
the handcuffs on him. Now, because they wouldn't risk the bridge, and
the ice is not thick yet everywhere, there are just two ways they
could bring the stuff across, and I figure we'd be near the thing if
we fixed on Graham's Pool. Still, Courthorne's no kind of fool, and
just because that crossing seems the likeliest he might try the other
one. You're ready for duty, Trooper Payne?"

The lad stood straight. "I can turn out in ten minutes, sir," he said.

"Then," and Sergeant Stimson raised his voice a trifle, "you will ride
at once to the rise a league outside the settlement, and watch the
Montana trail. Courthorne will probably be coming over from Witham's
soon after you get there, riding the big black, and you'll keep out of
sight and follow him. If he heads for Carson's Crossing ride for
Graham's at a gallop, where you'll find me with the rest. If he makes
for the bridge, you will overtake him if you can and find out what
he's after. It's quite likely he'll tell you nothing, and you will not
arrest him, but bearing in mind that every minute he spends there will
be a loss to the rustlers you'll keep him so long as you can. Trooper
Shannon, you'll ride at once to the bluff above Graham's Pool, and
watch the trail. Stop any man who rides that way, and if it's
Courthorne keep him until the rest of the boys come up with me. You've
got your duty quite straight, both of you?"

The lads saluted, and went out, while the Sergeant smiled a little as
he glanced at the farmer, and the men who were dressing.

"It's steep chances we'll have Mr. Courthorne's company to-morrow,
boys," he said. "Fill up the kettle, Tom, and serve out a pint of
coffee. There are reasons why we shouldn't turn out too soon. We'll
saddle in an hour or so."

Two of the men went out, and the stinging blast that swept in through
the open door smote a smoky smear across the blinking lamp and roused
a sharper crackling from the stove. Then one returned with the kettle
and there was silence, when the fusty heat resumed its sway. Now and
then a tired trooper murmured in his sleep, or there was a snapping in
the stove, while the icy wind moaned about the building and the kettle
commenced a soft sibilation, but nobody moved or spoke. Three shadowy
figures in uniform sat just outside the light soaking in the grateful
warmth while they could, for they knew that they might spend the next
night unsheltered from the Arctic cold of the wilderness. The Sergeant
sat with thoughtful eyes and wrinkled forehead where the flickering
radiance forced up his lean face and silhouetted his spare outline on
the rough boarding behind him, and close by the farmer sucked silently
at his pipe, waiting, with a stony calm that sprang from fierce
impatience, the reckoning with the man who had brought back shame upon
him.

It was about this time when Witham stood shivering a little with the
bridle of a big black horse in his hand just outside the door of his
homestead. A valise and two thick blankets were strapped to the
saddle, and he had donned the fur cap and coat Courthorne usually
wore. Courthorne himself stood close by, smiling at him sardonically.

"If you keep the cap down and ride with your stirrups long, as I've
fixed them, anybody would take you for me," said he. "Go straight
through the settlement, and let any man you come across see you. His
testimony would come in useful if Stimson tries to fix a charge on me.
You know your part of the bargain. You're to be Lance Courthorne for a
fortnight from to-day."

"Yes," said Witham dryly. "I wish I was equally sure of yours."

Courthorne laughed. "I'm to be Rancher Witham until to-morrow night,
anyway. Don't worry about me. I'll borrow those books of yours and
improve my mind. Possible starvation is the only thing that threatens
me, and it's unfortunate you've left nothing fit to eat behind you."

Witham swung himself into the saddle, a trifle awkwardly, for
Courthorne rode with longer stirrup leathers than he was accustomed
to, then he raised one hand, and the other man laughed a little as he
watched him sink into the darkness of the shadowy prairie. When the
drumming of hoofs was lost in the moaning of the wind he strode
towards the stable, and taking up the lantern surveyed Witham's horse
thoughtfully.

"The thing cuts with both edges, and the farmer only sees one of
them," he said. "That beast's about as difficult to mistake as my
black is."

Then he returned to the loghouse, and presently put on Witham's old
fur coat and tattered fur cap. Had Witham seen his unpleasant smile as
he did it, he would probably have wheeled the black horse and returned
at a gallop, but the farmer was sweeping across the waste of whitened
grass at least a league away by this time. Now and then a half-moon
blinked down between wisps of smoky cloud, but for the most part grey
dimness hung over the prairie, and the drumming of hoofs rang
stridently through the silence. Witham knew a good horse, and had bred
several of them--before a blizzard which swept the prairie killed off
his finest yearlings as well as their pedigree sire--and his spirits
rose as the splendid beast swung into faster stride beneath him.

For two weeks at least he would be free from anxiety, and the monotony
of his life at the lonely homestead had grown horribly irksome. Witham
was young, and, now when for a brief space he had left his cares
behind, the old love of adventure which had driven him out from
England once more awakened and set his blood stirring. For the first
time in six years of struggle he did not know what lay before him, and
he had a curious, half-instinctive feeling that the trail he was
travelling would lead him farther than Montana. It was borne in upon
him that he had left the old hopeless life behind, and, stirred by
some impulse, he broke into a little song he had sung in England, long
and forgotten. He had a clear voice, and the words, which were filled
with the hope of youth, rang bravely through the stillness of the
frozen wilderness until the horse blundered, and Witham stopped with a
little smile.

"It's four long years since I felt as I do to-night," he said.

Then he drew bridle and checked the horse as the lights of the
settlement commenced to blink ahead, for the trail was rutted deep and
frozen into the likeness of adamant, but when the first frame houses
flung tracks of yellow radiance across the whitened grass he dropped
his left arm a trifle and rode in at a canter as he had seen
Courthorne do. Witham did not like Courthorne, but he meant to keep
his bargain.

As he passed the hotel more slowly a man who came out called to him.
"Hello, Lance! Taking the trail?" he said. "Well, it kind of strikes
me it's time you did. One of Stimson's boys was down here, and he
seemed quite anxious about you."

Witham knew the man, and was about to urge the horse forward, but in
place of it drew bridle, and laughed with a feeling that was wholly
new to him as he remembered that his neighbours now and then bantered
him about his English and that Courthorne only used the Western
colloquialism when it suited him.

"Sergeant Stimson is an enterprising officer, but there are as keen
men as he is," he said. "You will, in case he questions you, remember
when you met me."

"Oh, yes," said the other. "Still, I wouldn't fool too much with
him--and where did you get those mittens from? That's the kind of
outfit that would suit Witham."

Witham nodded, for though he had turned his face from the light the
hand he held the bridle with was visible, and his big fur gloves were
very old.

"They are his. The fact is, I've just come from his place," he said.
"Well, you can tell Stimson you saw me starting out on the Montana
trail."

He shook the bridle, laughed softly as the frame houses flitted by,
and then grew intent when the darkness of the prairie once more closed
down. It was, he knew probable that some of Stimson's, men would be
looking out for him, and he had not sufficient faith in Courthorne's
assurances to court an encounter with them.

The lights had faded, and the harsh grass was, crackling under the
drumming hoofs when the blurred outline of a mounted man showed up on
the crest of a rise, and a shout came down.

"Hallo! Pull up there a moment, stranger."

There was nothing alarming in the greeting, but Witham recognized the
ring of command, as well as the faint jingle of steel which had
preceded it, and pressed his heels home. The black swung forward
faster, and Witham glancing over his shoulder, saw, the dusky shape
was now moving down the incline, Then the voice rose again more
commandingly.

"Pull up; I want a talk with you."

Witham turned his head a moment, and remembering Courthorne's English,
flung back the answer, "Sorry, I haven't time."

The faint musical jingle grew plainer, there was a thud of hoofs
behind, and the curious, exhilaration returned to Witham as the big
black horse stretched out at a gallop. The soil was hard as granite,
but the matted grasses formed a covering that rendered fast riding
possible to a man who took the risks and Witham knew there were few
horses in the Government service to match the one he rode. Still, it
was evident that the trooper meant to overtake him, and recollecting
his compact he tightened his grip on the bridle. It was a long way to
the ranch where he was to spend the night, and he knew that the
further he drew the trooper on the better it would suit Courthorne.

So they swept on through the darkness over the empty waste, the
trooper who was riding hard slowly creeping up behind. Still, Witham
held the horse in until a glance over his shoulder showed him that
there was less than a hundred yards between them, and he fancied he
heard a portentous rattle as well as the thud of hoofs. It was not
unlike that made by a carbine flung across the saddle. This suggested
unpleasant possibilities, and he slackened his grip on the bridle.
Then a breathless shout rang out, "Pull up or I'll fire."

Witham wondered if the threat was genuine or what is termed "bluff" in
that country, but as he had decided objections to being shot in the
back to please Courthorne, sent his heels home. The horse shot forward
beneath him, and though no carbine flashed, the next backward glance
showed him that the distance between him and the pursuer was drawing
out, while when he stared ahead again the dark shape of willows or
birches cut the skyline. As they came back to him the drumming of
hoofs swelled into a staccato roar, while presently the trail grew
steep, and dark boughs swayed above him. In another few minutes
something smooth and level flung back a blink of light, and the
timbers of a wooden bridge rattled under his passage. Then he was
racing upwards through the gloom of wind-dwarfed birches on the
opposite side, listening for the rattle behind him on the bridge, and
after a struggle with the horse pulled him up smoking when he did not
hear it.

There was a beat of hoofs across the river, but it was slower than
when he had last heard it and grew momentarily less audible, and
Witham laughed as he watched the steam of the horse and his own breath
rise in a thin white cloud.

"The trooper has given it up, and now for Montana," he said.




CHAPTER IV

IN THE BLUFF


It was very dark amidst the birches where Trooper Shannon sat
motionless in his saddle, gazing down into the denser blackness of the
river hollow. The stream ran deep below the level of the prairie, as
the rivers of that country usually do, and the trees, which there
alone found shelter from the winds, straggled, gnarled and stunted, up
either side of the steep declivity. Close behind the trooper a sinuous
trail seamed by ruts and the print of hoofs stretched away across the
empty prairie. It forked on the outskirts of the bluff, and one arm
dipped steeply to the river where, because the stream ran slow just
there and the bottom was firm, a horseman might cross when the water
was low, and heavy sledges make the passage on the ice in winter time.
The other arm twisted in and out among the birches towards the bridge,
but that detour increased the distance to any one travelling north or
south by two leagues or so.

The ice, however was not very thick as yet, and Shannon, who had heard
it ring hollowly under him, surmised that while it might be possible
to lead a laden horse across, there would be some risk attached to the
operation. For that very reason, and although his opinion had not been
asked, he agreed with Sergeant Stimson that the whisky-runners would
attempt the passage. They were men who took the risks as they came,
and that route would considerably shorten the journey it was
especially desirable for them to make at night, while it would,
Shannon fancied, appear probable to them that if the police had word
of their intentions they would watch the bridge. Between it and the
frozen ford the stream ran faster, and the trooper decided that no
mounted man could cross the thinner ice.

It was very cold as well as dark, for although the snow, which usually
precedes the frost in that country, had not come as yet, it was
evidently not far away, and the trooper shivered in the blasts from
the pole which cut through fur and leather with the keenness of steel.
The temperature had fallen steadily since morning, and now there was a
presage of a blizzard in the moaning wind and murky sky. If it broke
and scattered its blinking whiteness upon the roaring blast there
would be but little hope for any man or beast caught shelterless in
the empty wilderness, for it is beyond the power of anything made of
flesh and blood to withstand that cold.

Already a fine haze of snow swirled between the birch twigs every now
and then, and stung the few patches of the trooper's unprotected skin
as though they had been pricked with red-hot needles. It, however,
seldom lasted more than a minute, and when it whirled away, a
half-moon shone down for a moment between smoky clouds. The uncertain
radiance showed the thrashing birches rising from the hollow, row on
row, struck a faint sparkle from the ice beneath them, and then went
out, leaving the gloom intensified. It was evident to Shannon that his
eyes would not be much use to him that night, for which reason he kept
his ears uncovered at the risk of losing them, but though he had been
born in the bush and all the sounds of the wilderness had for him a
meaning, hearing did not promise to be of much assistance. The dim
trees roared about him with a great thrashing of twigs, and when the
wilder gusts had passed there was an eery moaning, through which came
the murmur of leagues of tormented grasses. The wind was rising
rapidly, and it would, he fancied, drown the beat of approaching hoofs
as well as any cry from his comrades.

Four of them were hidden amidst the birches where the trail wound
steeply upwards through the bluff across the river, two on the nearer
side not far below, and Trooper Shannon's watch would serve two
purposes. He was to let the rustlers pass him it they rode for the
ford, and then help to cut off the retreat of any who escaped the
sergeant, while if they found the ice too thin for loaded beasts or
rode towards the bridge, a flash from his carbine would bring his
comrades across in time to join the others who were watching that
trail. It had, as usual with Stimson's schemes, all been carefully
thought out and the plan was eminently workable, but unfortunately for
the grizzled sergeant a better brain than his had foreseen the
combination.

In the meanwhile the lad felt his limbs grow stiff and almost useless,
and a lethargic numbness blunt the keenness of his faculties as the
heat went out of him. He had more than usual endurance, and utter
cold, thirst, and the hunger that most ably helps the frost, are not
infrequently the portion of the wardens of the prairie; but there is a
limit to what man can bear, and the troopers who watched by the frozen
river that night had almost reached it. Shannon could not feel the
stirrups with his feet. One of his ears was tingling horribly as the
blood that had almost left it resumed its efforts to penetrate the
congealing flesh, while the mittened hands he beat upon his breast
fell solidly on his wrappings without separate motion of the fingers.
Once or twice the horse stamped fretfully, but a touch of hand and
heel quieted him, for though the frozen flesh may shrink, unwavering
obedience is demanded equally from man and beast enrolled in the
service of the North-West police.

"Stiddy now," said the lad, partly to discover if he still retained
the power of speech. "Sure ye know the order that was given me, and if
it's a funeral that comes of it the Government will bury ye."

He sighed as he beat his hands upon his breast again, and when a
flicker of moonlight smote a passing track of brightness athwart the
tossing birches his young face was very grim. Like many another
trooper of the North-West police, Shannon had his story, and he
remembered the one trace of romance that had brightened his hard, bare
life that night as he waited for the man who had dissipated it.

When Larry Blake moved West from Ontario, Shannon, drawn by his
sister's dark eyes, followed him, and took up a Government grant of
prairie sod. His dollars were few, but he had a stout heart and two
working oxen, and nothing seemed impossible while Ailly Blake smiled
on him, and she smiled tolerably frequently, for Shannon was a
well-favoured lad. He had worked harder than most grown men could do,
won one good harvest, and had a few dollars in the bank when
Courthorne rode up to Blake's homestead on his big black horse. After
that, all Shannon's hopes and ambitions came down with a crash; and
the day he found Blake grey in face with shame and rage he offered
Sergeant Stimson his services. Now he was filled with an unholy
content that he had done so, for he came of a race that does not
forget an injury, and had sufficient cause for a jealous pride in the
virtue of its women. He and Larry might have forgiven a pistol shot,
but they could not forget the shame.

Suddenly he stiffened to attention, for though a man of the cities
would probably have heard nothing but the wailing of the wind, he
caught a faint rhythmic drumming which might have been made by a
galloping horse. It ceased, and he surmised, probably correctly, that
it was Trooper Payne returning. It was, however, his business to watch
the forking of the trail, and when he could only hear the thrashing of
the birches, he moved his mittened hand from the bridle, and patted
the restive horse. Just then the bluff was filled with sound as a
blast that drove a haze of snow before it roared down. It was followed
by a sudden stillness that was almost bewildering, and when a blink of
moonlight came streaming down, Trooper Shannon grabbed at his carbine,
for a man stood close beside him in the trail. The lad, who had
neither seen nor heard him come, looked down on the glinting barrel of
a Marlin rifle and saw a set white face behind it.

"Hands up!" said a hoarse voice. "Throw that thing down,"

Trooper Shannon recognized it, and all the fierce hate he was capable
of flamed up. It shook him with a gust of passion, and it was not fear
that caused his stiffened fingers to slip upon the carbine. It fell
with a rattle, and while he sat still, almost breathless and livid in
face, the man laughed a little.

"That's better; get down," he said.

Trooper Shannon swung himself from the saddle, and alighted heavily as
a flung-off sack would have done, for his limbs refused to bend. Still
it was not from lack of courage that he obeyed, and during one moment
he had clutched the bridle with the purpose of riding over his enemy.
He had, however, been taught to think for himself swiftly and shrewdly
from his boyhood up, and realized instinctively that if he escaped
scathless the ringing of the rifle would warn the rustlers who, he
surmised, were close behind. He was also a police trooper broken to
the iron bond of discipline, and if a bullet from the Marlin was to
end his career, he determined it should, if possible, also terminate
his enemy's liberty. The gust of rage had gone, and left him with the
cold vindictive cunning the Celt who has a grievous injury to remember
is also capable of, and there was contempt in his voice as he turned
to Courthorne quietly.

"Sure it's your turn now," he said. "The last time I put my mark on
the divil's face of ye."

Courthorne laughed wickedly. "It was a bad day's work for you; I
haven't forgotten yet," he said. "I'm only sorry you're not a trifle
older, but it will teach Sergeant Stimson the folly of sending a lad
to deal with me. Well, walk straight into the bush, and remember that
the muzzle of the rifle is scarcely three feet behind you!"

Trooper Shannon did so with black rage in his heart, and his empty
hands at his sides. He was a police trooper and a bushman born, and
knew that the rustlers' laden horses would find some difficulty in
remounting the steep trail and could not escape to left or right once
they were entangled amidst the trees. Then it would be time to give
the alarm, and go down with a bullet in his body, or by some
contrivance evade the deadly rifle and come to grips with his enemy.
He also knew Lance Courthorne, and, remembering how the lash had
seamed his face, expected no pity. One of them it was tolerably
certain would have set out on the long trail before the morning, but
they breed grim men in the bush of Ontario, and no other kind ride
very long with the wardens of the prairie.

"Stop where you are," said Courthorne presently. "Now then, turn
round. Move a finger or open your lips, and I'll have great pleasure
in shooting you. In the meanwhile you can endeavour to make favour
with whatever saint is honoured by the charge of you."

Shannon smiled in a fashion that resembled a snarl as once more a
blink of moonlight shone down upon them, and in place of showing
apprehension, his young white face, from which the bronze had faded,
was venomous.

"And my folks were Orange, but what does that matter now?" said he.
"There'll be one of us in----to-morrow, but for the shame ye put on
Larry ye'll carry my mark there with ye."

Courthorne looked at him with a little glow in his eyes. "You haven't
felt mine yet," he said. "You will probably talk differently when you
do."

It may have been youthful bravado, but Trooper Shannon laughed. "In
the meanwhile," he said, "I'm wondering why you're wearing an honest
man's coat and cap. Faith, if he saw them on ye, Witham would burn
them."

Courthorne returned no answer and the moonlight went out, but they
stood scarcely three feet apart, and one of them knew that any move he
made would be followed by the pressure of the other's finger on the
trigger. He, however, did not move at all, and while the birches
roared about them they stood silently face to face, the man of birth
and pedigree with a past behind him and blood already upon his head,
and the raw lad from the bush, his equal before the tribunal that
would presently judge their quarrel.

In the meanwhile Trooper Shannon heard a drumming of hoofs that grew
steadily louder before Courthorne apparently noticed the sound, and
his trained ears told him that the rustlers' horses were coming down
the trail. Now they had passed the forking, and when the branches
ceased roaring again he knew they had floundered down the first of the
declivity, and it would be well to wait a little until they had
straggled out where the trail was narrow and deeply rutted. No one
could turn them hastily there, and the men who drove them could
scarcely escape the troopers who waited them, if they blundered on
through the darkness of the bush. So five breathless minutes passed,
Trooper Shannon standing tense and straight with every nerve tingling
as he braced himself for an effort, Courthorne stooping a little with
forefinger on the trigger, and the Marlin rifle at his hip. Then
through a lull there rose a clearer thud of hoofs. It was lost in the
thrashing of the twigs as a gust roared down again, and Trooper
Shannon launched himself like a panther upon his enemy.

He might have succeeded, and the effort was gallantly made, but
Courthorne had never moved his eyes from the shadowy object before
him, and even as it sprang, his finger contracted further on the
trigger. There was a red flash and because he fired from the hip the
trigger guard gashed his mitten. He sprang sideways, scarcely feeling
the bite of the steel, for the lad's hand brushed his shoulder. Then
there was a crash as something went down heavily amidst the crackling
twigs. Courthorne stooped a little, panting in the smoke that blew
into his eyes, jerked the Marlin lever, and, as the moon came through
again, had a blurred vision of a white, drawn face that stared up at
him still with defiance in its eyes. He looked down into it as he drew
the trigger once more.

Shannon quivered a moment, and then lay very still, and it was high
time for Courthorne to look to himself, for there was a shouting in
the bluff, and something came crashing through the undergrowth. Even
then his cunning did not desert him, and flinging the Marlin down
beside the trooper, he slipped almost silently in and out among the
birches and swung himself into the saddle of a tethered horse.
Unlooping the bridle from a branch, he pressed his heels home,
realizing as he did it that there was no time to lose, for it was
evident that one of the troopers was somewhat close behind him, and
others were coming across the river. He knew the bluff well, and
having no desire to be entangled in it was heading for the prairie,
when a blink of moonlight showed him a lad in uniform riding at a
gallop between him and the crest of the slope. It was Trooper Payne,
and Courthorne knew him for a very bold horseman.

Now, it is possible that had one of the rustlers, who were simple men
with primitive virtues as well as primitive passions, been similarly
placed, he would have joined his comrades and taken his chance with
them, but Courthorne kept faith with nobody unless it suited him, and
was equally dangerous to his friends and enemies. Trooper Shannon had
also been silenced for ever, and if he could cross the frontier
unrecognized, nobody would believe the story of the man he would leave
to bear the brunt in place of him. Accordingly he headed at a gallop
down the winding trail, while sharp orders and a drumming of hoofs
grew louder behind him, and hoarse cries rose in front. Trooper Payne
was, it seemed, at least keeping pace with him, and he glanced over
his shoulder as he saw something dark and shadowy across the trail. It
was apparently a horse from which two men were struggling to loose its
burden.

Courthorne guessed that the trail was blocked in front of it by other
loaded beasts, and he could not get past in time, for the half-seen
trooper was closing with him fast, and another still rode between him
and the edge of the bluff cutting off his road to the prairie. It was
evident he could not go on, while the crackle of twigs, roar of hoofs,
and jingle of steel behind him, made it plain that to turn was to ride
back upon the carbines of men who would be quite willing to use them.
There alone remained the river. It ran fast below him, and the ice was
thin, and for just a moment he tightened his grip on the bridle.

"We've got you!" a hoarse voice reached him. "You're taking steep
chances if you go on."

Courthorne swung off from the trail. There was a flash above him,
something whirred through the twigs above his head, and the horse
plunged as he drove his heels in.

"One of them gone for the river," another shout rang out, and
Courthorne was crashing through the undergrowth straight down the
declivity, while thin snow whirled about him, and now and then he
caught the faint glimmer flung back by the ice beneath.

Swaying boughs lashed him, his fur cap was whipped away, and he felt
that his face was bleeding, but there was another crackle close behind
him, for Trooper Payne was riding as daringly, and he carried a
carbine. Had he desired it Courthorne could not turn. The bronco he
bestrode was madly excited and less than half broken, and it is
probable no man could have pulled him up just then. It may also have
been borne in upon Courthorne, that he owed a little to those he had
left behind him in the old country, and he had not lost his pride.
There was, it seemed, no escape, but he had at least a choice of
endings, and with a little breathless laugh he rode straight for the
river.

It was with difficulty Trooper Payne pulled his horse up on the steep
bank a minute later. A white haze was now sliding down the hollow
between the two dark walls of trees, and something seemed to move in
the midst of it while the ice rang about it. Then, as the trooper
pitched up his carbine, there was a crash that was followed by a
horrible floundering and silence again. Payne sat still, shivering a
little in his saddle until the snow that whirled about him blotted out
all the birches, and a roaring blast came down.

He knew there was now nothing that he could do. The current had
evidently sucked the fugitive under, and, dismounting, he groped his
way up the slope, leading the horse by the bridle, and only swung
himself into the saddle when he found the trail again. A carbine
flashed in front of him, two dim figures went by at a gallop, and a
third one flung an order over his shoulder as he passed.

"Go back. The Sergeant's hurt and Shannon has got a bullet in him."

Trooper Payne had surmised as much already, and went back as fast as
he could ride, while the beat of hoofs grew fainter down the trail.
Ten minutes later he drew bridle close by a man who held a lantern,
and saw Sergeant Stimson sitting very grim in face on the ground. It
transpired later that his horse had fallen and thrown him, and it was
several weeks before he rode again.

"You lost your man?" he said. "Get down."

Payne dismounted. "Yes, sir, I fancy he is dead," he said. "He tried
the river, and the ice wouldn't carry him. I saw him ride away from
here just after the first shot, and fancied he fired at Shannon. Have
you seen him, sir?"

The other trooper moved his lantern, and Payne gasped as he saw a
third man stooping, with the white face of his comrade close by his
feet. Shannon appeared to recognize him, for his eyes moved a little
and the grey lips fell apart. Then Payne turned his head aside while
the other trooper nodded compassionately in answer to his questioning
glance.

"I've sent one of the boys to Graham's for a wagon," said the
Sergeant. "You saw the man who fired at him?"

"Yes, sir," said Trooper Payne.

"You knew him?" and there was a ring in the Sergeant's voice.

"Yes, sir," said the trooper. "At least he was riding Witham's horse,
and had on the old, long coat of his."

Sergeant Stimson nodded, and pointed to the weapon lying with
blackened muzzle at his feet. "And I think you could recognize that
rifle? There's F. Witham cut on the stock of it."

Payne said nothing, for the trooper signed to him.

"I fancy Shannon wants to talk to you," he said.

The lad knelt down, slipped one arm about his comrade's neck, and took
the mittened hand in his own. Shannon smiled up at him feebly.

"Witham's horse and his cap," he said, and then stopped, gasping
horribly.

"You will remember that, boys," said the Sergeant.

Payne could say nothing. Trooper Shannon and he had ridden through icy
blizzard and scorching heat together, and he felt his manhood melting
as he looked down into his dimming eyes. There was a curious look in
them which suggested a strenuous endeavour and an appeal, and the lips
moved again.

"It was," said Shannon, and moved his head a little on Payne's arm,
apparently in an agony of effort.

Then the birches roared about them, and drowned the feeble utterance,
while, when the gust passed, all three, who had not heard what
preceded it, caught only one word--"Witham."

Trooper Shannon's eyes closed, and his head fell back, while the snow
beat softly in to his upturned face, and there was a very impressive
silence, intensified by the moaning of the wind, until the rattle of
wheels came faintly down the trail.




CHAPTER V

MISS BARRINGTON COMES HOME


The long train was slackening speed and two whistles rang shrilly
through the roar of wheels when Miss Barrington laid down the book
with which she had beguiled her journey of fifteen hundred miles, and
rose from her seat in a corner of the big first-class car. The car was
sumptuously upholstered, and its decorations tasteful as well as
lavish, but just then it held no other passenger, and Miss Barrington
smiled curiously as she stood, swaying a little, in front of the
mirror at one end of it, wrapping her furs about her. There was,
however, a faint suggestion of regret in the smile, and the girl's
eyes grew grave again, for the soft cushions, dainty curtains,
gleaming gold and nickel, and equable temperature formed a part of the
sheltered life she was about to leave behind her, and there would, she
knew, be a difference in the future. Still, she laughed again as,
drawing a little fur cap well down upon her broad, white forehead, she
nodded at her own reflection.

"One cannot have everything, and you might have stayed there and
revelled in civilization if you had liked," she said.

Crossing to the door of the portico she stood a moment with fingers on
its handle, and once more looked about her. The car was very cosy, and
Maud Barrington had all the average young woman's appreciation of the
smoother side of life, although she had also the capacity, which is by
no means so common, for extracting the most it had to give from the
opposite one. Still, it was with a faint regret she prepared to
complete what had been a deed of renunciation. Montreal, with its
gaieties and luxuries, had not seemed so very far away while she was
carried West amid all the comforts artizans who were also artists
could provide for the traveller, but once that door closed behind her
she would be cut adrift from it all, and left face to face with the
simple, strenuous life of the prairie.

Maud Barrington had, however, made her mind up some weeks ago; and
when the lock closed with a little clack that seemed to emphasize the
fact that the door was shut, she had shaken the memories from her, and
was quietly prepared to look forward instead of back. It also needed
some little courage, for, as she stood with the furs fluttering about
her on the lurching platform, the cold went through her like a knife,
and the roofs of the little prairie town rose up above the willows the
train was now crawling through. The odours that greeted her nostrils
were the reverse of pleasant, and glancing down with the faintest
shiver of disgust, her eyes rested on the litter of empty cans,
discarded garments, and other even more unsightly things which are
usually dumped in the handiest bluff by the citizens of a springing
Western town. They have, for the most part, but little appreciation of
the picturesque, and it would take a good deal to affect their health.

Then the dwarfed trees opened out, and flanked by two huge wheat
elevators and a great water tank, the prairie city stood revealed. It
was crude and repellent, devoid of anything that could please the most
lenient eye, for the bare frame houses rose with their rough boarding
weathered and cracked by frost and sun, hideous almost in their
simplicity, from the white prairie. Paint was apparently an unknown
luxury, and pavement there was none, though a rude plank platform
straggled some distance above the ground down either side of the
street, so that the citizens might not sink knee-deep in the mire of
the spring thawing. Here and there a dilapidated wagon was drawn up in
front of a store, but with a clanging of the big bell the locomotive
rolled into the little station, and Maud Barrington looked down upon a
group of silent men who had sauntered there to enjoy the one
relaxation the desolate place afforded them.

There was very little in their appearance to attract the attention of
a young woman of Miss Barrington's upbringing. They had grave, bronzed
faces, and wore, for the most part, old fur coats stained here and
there with soil. Nor were their mittens and moccasins in good repair,
but there was a curious steadiness in their gaze which vaguely
suggested the slow, stubborn courage that upheld them through the
strenuous effort and grim self-denial of their toilsome lives. They
were small wheat-growers who had driven in to purchase provisions or
inquire the price of grain, and here and there a mittened hand was
raised to a well-worn cap, for most of them recognized Miss Barrington
of Silverdale Grange. She returned their greetings graciously, and
then swung herself from the platform, with a smile in her eyes as a
man came hastily and yet, as it were, with a certain deliberation in
her direction.

He was elderly, but held himself erect, while his furs, which were
good, fitted him in a fashion which suggested a uniform. He also wore
boots which reached half-way to the knee, and were presumably lined to
resist the prairie cold, which few men at that season would do, and
scarcely a speck of dust marred their lustrous exterior, while as much
of his face as was visible beneath the great fur cap was lean and
commanding. Its salient features were the keen and somewhat imperious
grey eyes and long, straight nose, while something in the squareness
of the man's shoulders and his pose set him apart from the prairie
farmers and suggested the cavalry officer. He was, in fact, Colonel
Barrington, founder and autocratic ruler of the English community of
Silverdale, and had been awaiting his niece somewhat impatiently.
Colonel Barrington was invariably punctual, and resented the fact that
the train had come in an hour later than it should have done.

"So you have come back to us. We have been longing for you, my dear,"
he said. "I don't know what we should have done had they kept you in
Montreal altogether."

Maud Barrington smiled, though there was a brightness in her eyes and
a faint warmth in her cheek, for the sincerity of her uncle's welcome
was evident.

"Yes," she said, "I have come back. It was very pleasant in the city,
and they were all kind to me; but I think, henceforward, I would
sooner stay with you on the prairie."

Colonel Barrington patted the hand he drew through his arm, and there
was a very kindly smile in his eyes as they left the station and
crossed the tract towards a little, and by no means very comfortable,
wooden hotel. He stopped outside it.

"I want to see the horses put in and get our mail," he said. "Mrs.
Jasper expects you, and will have tea ready."

He disappeared behind the wooden building, and his niece standing a
moment on the veranda watched the long train roll away down the faint
blur of track that ran west to the farthest verge of the great white
wilderness. Then with a little impatient gesture she went into the
hotel.

"That is another leaf turned down, and there is no use in looking
back; but I wonder what is written on the rest," she said.

Twenty minutes later she watched Colonel Barrington cross the street
with a bundle of letters in his hand. She fancied that his step was
slower than it had been, and that he seemed a trifle preoccupied and
embarrassed; but he spoke with quiet kindliness when he handed her
into the waiting sleigh, and the girl's spirits rose as they swung
smoothly northwards behind two fast horses across the prairie. It
stretched away before her, ridged here and there with a dusky birch
bluff or willow grove under a vault of crystalline blue. The sun that
had no heat in it struck a silvery glitter from the snow, and the
trail swept back to the horizon a sinuous blue-grey smear, while the
keen, dry cold and sense of swift motion set the girl's blood
stirring. After all, it seemed to her, there were worse lives than
those the Western farmers led on the great levels under the frost and
sun.

Colonel Barrington watched her with a little gleam of approval in his
eyes. "You are not sorry to come back to this and Silverdale?" he
said, sweeping his mittened hand vaguely round the horizon.

"No," said the girl, with a little laugh. "At least, I shall not be
sorry to return to Silverdale. It has a charm of its own, for while
one is occasionally glad to get away from it, one is even more pleased
to come home again. It is a somewhat purposeless life our friends are
leading yonder in the cities. I, of course, mean the women."

Barrington nodded. "And some of the men! Well, we have room here for
the many who are going to the devil in the old country for the lack of
something worth while to do; though I am afraid there is considerably
less prospect than I once fancied there would be of their making
money."

His niece noticed the gravity in his face, and sat thoughtfully silent
for several minutes, while, with the snow hissing beneath it, the
sleigh nipped into and swung out of a hollow.

Colonel Barrington had founded the Silverdale settlement ten years
earlier, and gathered about him other men with a grievance who had
once served their nation, and the younger sons of English gentlemen
who had no inclination for commerce, and found that lack of brains and
capital debarred them from either a political or military career. He
had settled them on the land, and taught them to farm, while, for the
community had prospered at first when Western wheat was dear, it had
taken ten years to bring home to him the fact that men who dined
ceremoniously each evening and spent at least a third of their time in
games and sport, could not well compete with the grim bushmen from
Ontario, or the lean Dakota ploughmen, who ate their meals in ten
minutes and toiled at least twelve hours every day.

Colonel Barrington was slow to believe that the race he sprang from
could be equalled and much less beaten at anything, while his respect
for and scrupulous observance of insular traditions had cost him a
good deal, and left him a poorer man than he had been when he founded
Silverdale. Maud Barrington had been his ward, and he still directed
the farming of a good many acres of wheat land which she now held in
her own right. The soil was excellent, and would in all probability
have provided one of the Ontario men with a very desirable revenue,
but Colonel Barrington had no taste for small economies.

"I want to hear all the news," said the girl. "You can begin at the
beginning--the price of wheat. I fancied, when I saw you, it had been
declining."

Barrington sighed a little. "Hard wheat is five cents down, and I am
sorry I persuaded you to hold your crop. I am very much afraid we
shall see the balance the wrong side again next half-year."

Maud Barrington smiled curiously. There was no great cause for
merriment in the information given her, but it emphasized the contrast
between the present and the careless life she had lately led when her
one thought had been how to extract the greatest pleasure from the
day. One had frequently to grapple with the problems arising from
scanty finances at Silverdale.

"It will go up again," she said. "Is there anything else?"

Barrington's face grew a trifle grim as he nodded. "There is; and
while I have not much expectation of an advance in prices, I have been
worrying over another affair lately."

His niece regarded him steadily. "You mean, Lance Courthorne?"

"Yes," said Barrington, who flicked the near horse somewhat viciously
with the whip. "He is also sufficient to cause any man with my
responsibilities anxiety."

Maud Barrington looked thoughtful. "You fancy he will come to
Silverdale?"

Barrington appeared to be repressing an inclination towards vigorous
speech with some difficulty, and a little glint crept into his eyes.
"If I could by any means prevent it, the answer would be, No. As it
is, you know that, while I founded it, Silverdale was one of Geoffrey
Courthorne's imperialistic schemes, and a good deal of the land was
recorded in his name. That being so, he had every right to leave the
best farm on it to the man he had disinherited, especially as Lance
will not get a penny of the English property. Still, I do not know why
he did so, because he never spoke of him without bitterness."

"Yes," said the girl, while a little flush crept into her face. "I was
sorry for the old man. It was a painful story."

Colonel Barrington nodded. "It is one that is best forgotten--and you
do not know it all. Still, the fact that the man may settle among us
is not the worst. As you know, there was every reason to believe that
Geoffrey intended all his property at Silverdale for you."

"I have much less right to it than his own son, and the colonial cure
is not infrequently efficacious," said Miss Barrington. "Lance may,
after all, quieten down, and he must have some good qualities."

The Colonel's smile was very grim. "It is fifteen years since I saw
him at Westham, and they were not much in evidence then. I can
remember two little episodes, in which he figured, with painful
distinctness, and one was the hanging of a terrier which had in some
way displeased him. The beast was past assistance when I arrived on
the scene, but the devilish pleasure in the lad's face sent a chill
through me. In the other, the gardener's lad flung a stone at a
blackbird on the wall above the vinery, and Master Lance, who, I
fancy, did not like the gardener's lad, flung one through the glass.
Geoffrey, who was angry, but had not seen what I did, haled the boy
before him, and Lance looked him in the face and lied with the
assurance of an ambassador. The end was that the gardener, who was
admonished, cuffed the innocent lad. These, my dear, are somewhat
instructive memories."

"I wonder," said Maud Barrington, glancing out across the prairie
which was growing dusky now, "why you took the trouble to call them up
for me?"

The Colonel smiled dryly. "I never saw a Courthorne who could not
catch a woman's eye, or had any undue diffidence about making the most
of the fact; and that is partly why they have brought so much trouble
on everybody connected with them. Further, it is unfortunate that
women are not infrequently more inclined to be gracious to the sinner
who repents, when it is worth his while, than they are to the honest
man who has done no wrong. Nor do I know that it is only pity which
influences them. Some of you take an exasperating delight in
picturesque rascality."

Miss Barrington laughed, and fearlessly met her uncle's glance. "Then
you don't believe in penitence?"

"Well," said the Colonel dryly, "I am, I hope, a Christian man, but it
would be difficult to convince me that the gambler, cattle-thief, and
whisky-runner who ruined every man and woman who trusted him will be
admitted to the same place as clean-lived English gentlemen. There
are, my dear, plenty of them still."

Barrington spoke almost fiercely, and then flushed through his tan,
when the girl, looking into his eyes, smiled a little. "Yes," she
said, "I can believe it, because I owe a good deal to one of them."

The ring in the girl's voice belied the smile, and the speech was
warranted; for, dogmatic, domineering, and vindictive as he was apt to
be occasionally, the words he had used applied most fitly to Colonel
Barrington. His word at least had never been broken, and had he not
adhered steadfastly to his own rigid code, he would have been a good
deal richer man than he was then. Nor did his little shortcomings,
which were burlesqued virtues, and ludicrous now and then, greatly
detract from the stamp of dignity which, for speech was his worst
point, sat well upon him. He was innately conservative to the
backbone, though since an ungrateful Government had slighted him, he
had become an ardent Canadian, and in all political questions
aggressively democratic.

"My dear, I sometimes fancy I am a hypercritical old fogey!" he said,
and sighed a little, while once more the anxious look crept into his
face. "Just now I wish devoutly I was a better business man."

Nothing more was said for a little, and Miss Barrington watched the
crimson sunset burn out low down on the prairie's western rim. Then
the pale stars blinked out through the creeping dusk, and a great
silence and an utter cold settled down upon the waste. The muffled
thud of hoofs, and the crunching beneath the sliding steel, seemed to
intensify it, and there was a suggestion of frozen brilliancy in the
sparkle flung back by the snow. Then a coyote howled dolefully in a
distant bluff, and the girl shivered as she shrank down further amidst
the furs.

"Forty degrees of frost," said the Colonel. "Perhaps more. This is
very different from the cold of Montreal. Still, you'll see the lights
of Silverdale from the crest of the next rise."

It was, however, an hour before they reached them, and Miss Barrington
was almost frozen when the first square loghouse rose out of the
prairie. It and others that followed it flitted by, and then, flanked
by a great birch bluff, with outlying barns, granaries and stables,
looming black about it against a crystalline sky, Silverdale Grange
grew into shape across their way. Its rows of ruddy windows cast
streaks of flickering orange down the trail, the baying of dogs
changed into a joyous clamour when the Colonel reined in his team,
half-seen men in furs waved a greeting, and one who risked frost-bite,
with his cap at his knee, handed Miss Barrington from the sleigh and
up the veranda stairway.

She had need of the assistance, for her limbs were stiff and almost
powerless, and she gasped a little when she passed into the drowsy
warmth and brightness of the great log-walled hall. The chilled blood
surged back tingling to her skin, and swaying with a creeping
faintness she found refuge in the arms of a grey-haired lady who
stooped and kissed her gently. Then the door swung to, and she was
home again in the wooden grange of Silverdale, which stood far remote
from any civilization but its own on the frozen levels of the great
white plain.




CHAPTER VI

ANTICIPATIONS


It was late at night, and outside the prairie lay white and utterly
silent under the Arctic cold, when Maud Barrington, who glanced at it
through the double windows, flung back the curtains with a little
shiver, and turning towards the fire, sat down on a little velvet
footstool beside her aunt's knee. She had shaken out the coils of
lustrous brown hair which flowed about her shoulders glinting in the
light of the shaded lamp, and it was with a little gesture of physical
content she stretched her hands towards the hearth. A crumbling birch
log still gleamed redly amidst the feathery ashes, but its effect was
chiefly artistic, for no open fire could have dissipated the cold of
the prairie, and a big tiled stove brought from Teutonic Minnesota
furnished the needful warmth.

The girl's face was partly in shadow, and her figure foreshortened by
her pose, which accentuated its rounded outline and concealed its
willowy slenderness; but the broad white forehead and straight nose
became visible when she moved her head a trifle, and a faintly
humorous sparkle crept into the clear brown eyes. Possibly Maud
Barrington looked her best just then, for the lower part of the
pale-tinted face was a trifle too firm in its modelling.

"No, I am not tired, aunt, and I could not sleep just now," she said.
"You see, after leaving all that behind one, one feels, as it were,
adrift, and it is necessary to realize one's self again."

The little silver-haired lady who sat in the big basket chair smiled
down upon her and laid a thin white hand that was still beautiful upon
the gleaming hair.

"I can understand, my dear, and am glad you enjoyed your stay in the
city, because sometimes when I count your birthdays, I can't help a
fancy that you are not young enough," she said. "You have lived out
here with two old people who belong to the past too much."

The girl moved a little, and swept her glance slowly round the room.
It was small and scantily furnished, though great curtains shrouded
door and window, and here and there a picture relieved the bareness of
the walls, which were panelled with roughly-dressed British-Columbian
cedar. The floor was of redwood, diligently polished and adorned, not
covered, by one or two skins brought by some of Colonel Barrington's
younger neighbours from the Rockies. There were two basket-chairs and
a plain, redwood table; but in contrast to them a cabinet of old
French workmanship stood in one corner bearing books in dainty
bindings, and two great silver candlesticks. The shaded lamp was also
of the same metal, and the whole room with its faint resinous smell
conveyed, in a fashion not uncommon on the prairie, a suggestion of
taste and refinement held in check by the least comparative poverty.
Colonel Barrington was a widower who had been esteemed a man of
wealth, but the founding of Silverdale had made a serious inroad on
his finances. Even yet, though he occasionally practised it, he did
not take kindly to economy.

"Yes," said the girl, "I enjoyed it all--and it was so different from
the prairie."

There was comprehension, and a trace of sympathy, in Miss Barrington's
nod. "Tell me a little, my dear," she said. "There was not a great
deal in your letters."

Her niece glanced dreamily into the sinking fire as though she would
call up the pictures there. "But you know it all--the life I have only
had glimpses of. Well, for the first few months I almost lost my head,
and was swung right off my feet by the whirl of it. It was then I was,
perhaps, just a trifle thoughtless."

The while-haired lady laughed softly. "It is difficult to believe it,
Maud."

The girl shook her head reproachfully. "I know what you mean, and
perhaps you are right, for that was what Twoinette insinuated," she
said. "She actually told me that I should be thankful I had a brain
since I had no heart. Still, at first I let myself go, and it was
delightful--the opera, the dances, and the covered skating rink with
the music and the black ice flashing beneath the lights. The whirr of
the toboggans down the great slide was finer still, and the torchlight
meets of the snowshoe clubs on the mountain. Yes, I think I was really
young while it lasted."

"For a month," said the elder. "And after?"

"Then," said the girl slowly, "it all seemed to grow a trifle
purposeless, and there was something that spoiled it. Twoinette was
quite angry, and I know her mother wrote you--but it was not my fault,
aunt. How was I, a guileless girl from the prairie, to guess that such
a man would fling the handkerchief to me?"

The evenness of tone and entire absence of embarrassment was
significant. It also pointed to the fact that there was a closer
confidence between Maud Barrington and her aunt than often exists
between mother and daughter, and the elder lady stroked the lustrous
head that rested against her knee with a little affectionate pride.

"My dear, you know you are beautiful, and you have the cachet that all
the Courthornes wear. Still, you could not like him. Tell me about
him."

Maud Barrington curled herself up further. "I think I could have liked
him, but that was all," she said. "He was nice to look at and did all
the little things gracefully; but he had never done anything else,
never would, and, I fancy, had never wanted to. Now, a man of that
kind would very soon pall on me, and I should have lost my temper
trying to waken him to his responsibilities."

"And what kind of man would please you?"

Maud Barrington's eyes twinkled, but the fact that she answered at all
was a proof of the sympathy between herself and the questioner. "I do
not know that I am anxious any of them should," she said. "But, since
you ask, he would have to be a man first: a toiling, striving animal,
who could hold his own amidst his fellows wherever he was placed.
Secondly, one would naturally prefer a gentleman, though I do not like
the word, and one would fancy the combination a trifle rare, because
brains and birth do not necessarily tally, and the man educated by the
struggle for existence is apt to be taught more than he ever would be
at Oxford or in the army. Still, men of that stamp forget a good deal,
and learn so much that is undesirable, you see. In fact, I only know
one man who would have suited me, and he is debarred by age and
affinity--but, because we are so much alike, I can't help fancying
that you once knew another."

The smile in Miss Barrington's face, which was still almost beautiful
as well as patient, became a trifle wistful.

"There are few better men than my brother, though he is not clever,"
she said and dropped her voice a little. "As to the other, he died in
India--beside his mountain gun--long ago."

"And you have never forgotten? He must have been worth it--I wonder if
loyalty and chivalric faith belong only to the past," said the girl,
reaching up a rounded arm and patting her aunt's thin hand. "And now
we will be practical. I fancied the head of the settlement looked
worried when he met me, and he is not very proficient at hiding his
feelings."

Miss Barrington sighed. "I am afraid that is nothing very new, and
with wheat steadily falling and our granaries full, he has cause for
anxiety. Then the fact that Lance Courthorne has divided your
inheritance and is going to settle here has been troubling him."

"The first is the lesser evil," said the girl, with a little laugh. "I
wore very short frocks when I last saw Lance in England, and so far as
I can remember he had the face of an angel and the temper of a devil.
But did not my uncle endeavour to buy him off, and--for I know you
have been finding out things--I want you to tell me all about him."

"He would not take the money," said Miss Barrington, and sat in
thoughtful silence a space. Then, and perhaps she had a reason, she
quietly recounted Courthorne's Canadian history so far as her
brother's agents had been able to trace it, not omitting, dainty in
thought and speech as she was, one or two incidents which a mother
might have kept back from her daughter's ears. Still, it was very
seldom that Miss Barrington made a blunder. There was a faint pinkness
in her face when she concluded, but she was not surprised when, with a
slow, sinuous movement, the girl rose to her feet. Her cheeks were
very slightly flushed, but there was a significant sparkle in her
eyes.

"Oh," she said, with utter contempt. "How sickening! Are there men
like that?"

There was a little silence, emphasized by the snapping in the stove,
and if Miss Barrington had spoken with an object she should have been
contented. The girl was imperious in her anger, which was caused by
something deeper than startled prudery.

"It is," said the little white-haired lady, "all quite true. Still, I
must confess that my brother and myself were a trifle astonished at
the report of the lawyer he sent to confer with Lance in Montana, One
would almost have imagined that he had of late been trying to make
amends."

The girl's face was very scornful. "Could a man with a past like that
ever live it down."

"We have a warrant for believing it," said Miss Barrington quietly, as
she laid her hand on her companion's arm. "My dear, I have told you
what Lance was, because I felt it was right that you should know; but
none of us can tell what he may be, and if the man is honestly trying
to lead a different life, all I ask is that you should not wound him
by any manifest suspicion. Those who have never been tempted can
afford to be merciful."

Maud Barrington laughed somewhat curiously. "You are a very wise
woman, aunt, but you are a little transparent now and then," she said.
"At least, he shall have a fair trial without prejudice or favour--and
if he fails, as fail he will, we shall find the means of punishing
him."

"We?" said the elder lady a trifle maliciously.

The girl nodded as she moved towards the doorway, and then turned a
moment with the folds of the big red curtain flung behind her. It
forced up the sweeping lines of a figure so delicately moulded that
its slenderness was scarcely apparent, for Maud Barrington still wore
a long, sombre dress that had assisted in her triumphs in the city. It
emphasized the clear pallor of her skin and the brightness of her
eyes, as she held herself very erect in a pose which, while assumed in
mockery, had yet in it something that was almost imperial.

"Yes," she said. "We. You know who is the power behind the throne at
Silverdale, and what the boys call me. And now, good night. Sleep
well, dear."

She went out, and Miss Barrington sat very still gazing, with eyes
that were curiously thoughtful, into the fire. "Princess of the
Prairie--and it fits her well," she said, and then sighed a little.
"And if there is a trace of hardness in the girl it may be fortunate.
We all have our troubles--and wheat is going down."

In the meanwhile, late as it was, Colonel Barrington and his chief
lieutenant, Gordon Dane, sat in his log-walled smoking-room talking
with a man he sold his wheat through in Winnipeg. The room was big and
bare. There were a few fine heads of antelope upon the walls, and
beneath them an armoury of English-made shot guns and rifles, while a
row of riding crops, silver-mounted, and some handled with ivory,
stood in a corner. All these represented amusement, while two or three
treatises on veterinary surgery and agriculture lying amidst English
stud-books and racing records, presumably stood for industry. The
comparison was significant, and Graham, the Winnipeg wheat-broker,
noticed it as he listened patiently to the views of Colonel
Barrington, who nevertheless worked hard enough in his own fashion.
Unfortunately, it was rather the fashion of the English gentleman than
that common on the prairie.

"And now," he said, with a trace of the anxiety he had concealed in
his eyes, "I am open to hear what you can do for me."

Graham smiled a little. "It isn't very much, Colonel. I'll take all
your wheat off you at three cents down."

Now Barrington did not like the broker's smile. It savoured too much
of equality; and, though he had already unbent as far as he was
capable of doing, he had no great esteem for men of business. Nor did
it please him to be addressed as "Colonel."

"That," he said coldly, "is out of the question, I would not sell at
the last market price. Besides, you have hitherto acted as my broker."

Graham nodded. "The market price will be less than what I offered you
in a week, and I could scarcely sell your wheat at it to-day. I was
going to hold it myself, because I can occasionally get a little more
from one or two millers who like that special grade. Usual sorts I'm
selling for a fall. Quite sure the deal wouldn't suit you?"

Barrington lighted a fresh cigar, though Graham, noticed that he had
smoked very little of the one he flung away. This was, of course, a
trifle, but it is the trifles that count in the aggregate upon the
prairie, as they not infrequently do elsewhere.

"I fancy I told you so," he said.

The broker glanced at Dane, who was a big, bronzed man, and, since
Barrington could not see him, shook his head deprecatingly.

"You can consider that decided, Graham," he said. "Still, can you as a
friendly deed give us any notion of what to do? As you know, farming,
especially at Silverdale, costs money, and the banks are demanding an
iniquitous interest just now, while we are carrying over a good deal
of wheat."

Graham nodded. He understood why farming was unusually expensive at
Silverdale, and was, in recollection of past favours, inclined to be
disinterestedly friendly.

"If I were you I would sell right along for forward delivery at a few
cents under the market."

"It is a trifle difficult to see how that would help us," said
Barrington, with a little gesture of irritation, for it almost seemed
that the broker was deriding him.

"No!" said the man from Winnipeg, "on the contrary, it's quite easy.
Now I can predict that wheat will touch lower prices still before you
have to make delivery, and it isn't very difficult to figure out the
profit on selling a thing for a dollar and then buying it, when you
have to produce it at ninety cents. Of course, there is a risk of the
market going against you, but you could buy at the first rise, and
you've your stock to dole out in case anybody cornered you."

"That," said Dane thoughtfully, "appears quite sensible. Of course,
it's a speculation, but presumably we couldn't be much worse off than
we are. Have you any objections to the scheme, sir."

Barrington laid down his cigar, and glanced with astonished severity
at the speaker. "Unfortunately, I have. We are wheat growers, and not
wheat stock jugglers. Our purpose is to farm, and not swindle and lie
in the wheat pits for decimal differences. I have a distinct antipathy
to anything of the kind."

"But, sir," said Dane, and Barrington stopped with a gesture.

"I would," he said, "as soon turn gambler. Still, while it has always
been a tradition at Silverdale that the head of the settlement's lead
is to be followed, that need not prevent you putting on the gloves
with the wheat-ring blacklegs in Winnipeg."

Dane blushed a little under his tan, and then smiled as he remembered
the one speculative venture his leader had indulged in, for Colonel
Barrington was a somewhat hot-tempered and vindictive man. He made a
little gesture of deprecation as he glanced at Graham, who
straightened himself suddenly in his chair.

"I should not think of doing so in face of your opinion, sir," he
said. "There is an end to the thing, Graham!"

The broker's face was a trifle grim. "I gave you good advice out of
friendship, Colonel, and there are men with dollars to spare who would
value a hint from me," he said. "Still, as it doesn't seem to strike
you the right way, I've no use for arguing. Keep your wheat--and pay
bank interest if you want any help to carry over."

"Thanks," said Dane quietly. "They charge tolerably high, but I've
seen what happens to the man who meddles with the mortgage-broker."

Graham nodded. "Well, as I'm starting out at six o'clock, it's time I
was asleep," he said. "Good-night to you, Colonel."

Barrington shook hands with Graham, and then sighed a little when he
went out. "I believe the man is honest, and he is a guest of mine, or
I should have dressed him down," he said. "I don't like the way things
are going, Dane; and the fact is we must find accommodation somewhere,
because now I have to pay out so much on my ward's account to that
confounded Courthorne, it is necessary to raise more dollars than the
banks will give me. Now, there was a broker fellow wrote me a very
civil letter."

Dane, who was a thoughtful man, ventured to lay his hand upon his
leader's arm. "Keep yourself and Miss Barrington out of those fellows'
clutches, at any cost," he said.

Barrington shook off his hand and looked at him sternly. "Are you not
a trifle young to adopt that tone?" he asked.

Dane nodded. "No doubt I am, but I've seen a little of mortgage
jobbing. You must try to overlook it. I did not mean to offend."

He went out, and, while Colonel Barrington sat down before a sheaf of
accounts, sprang into a waiting sleigh. "It's no use; we've got to go
through," he said to the lad who shook the reins, "Graham made a very
sensible suggestion, but our respected leader came down on him, as he
did on me. You see, one simply can't talk to the Colonel; and it's
unfortunate Miss Barrington didn't marry that man in Montreal."

"I don't know," said the lad. "Of course, there are not many girls
like Maud Barrington, but is it necessary she should go outside
Silverdale?"

Dane laughed. "None of us would be old enough for Miss Barrington when
we were fifty. The trouble is, that we spend half our time in play,
and I've a notion it's a man, and not a gentleman dilettante, she's
looking for."

"Isn't that a curious way of putting it?" asked his companion.

Dane nodded. "It may be the right one. Woman is as she was made, and
I've had more than a suspicion lately that a little less refinement
would not come amiss at Silverdale. Anyway, I hope she'll find him,
for it's a man with grit and energy, who could put a little desirable
pressure on the Colonel occasionally, we're all wanting. Of course,
I'm backing my leader, though it's going to cost me a good deal, but
it's time he had somebody to help him."

"He would never accept assistance," said the lad thoughtfully. "That
is, unless the man who offered it was, or became by marriage, one of
the dynasty."

"Of course," said Dane. "That's why I'm inclined to take a fatherly
interest in Miss Barrington's affairs. It's a misfortune we've heard
nothing very reassuring about Courthorne."




CHAPTER VII

WITHAM'S DECISION


Farmer Witham crossed the frontier without molestation and spent one
night in a little wooden town, where several people he did not speak
to apparently recognized him. Then he pushed on southwards, and passed
a week in the especially desolate settlement he had been directed to.
A few dilapidated frame houses rose out of the white wilderness beside
the broad, beaten trail, and, for here the prairie rolled south in
long rises like the wakes of a frozen sea, a low wooden building on
the crest of one cut the skyline a league away. It served as outpost
for a squadron of United States cavalry, and the troopers daily
maligned the Government which had sent them into that desolation on
police duty.

There was nothing else visible but a few dusky groves of willows and
dazzling snow. The ramshackle wooden hotel was rather more than
usually badly kept and comfortless, and Witham, who had managed to
conciliate his host, felt relieved one afternoon when the latter flung
down the cards disgustedly.

"I guess I've had enough," he said. "Playing for stakes of this kind
isn't good enough for you!"

Witham laughed a little to hide his resentment, as he said, "I don't
quite understand."

"Pshaw!" said the American with a contemptuous gesture. "Three times
out of four I've spoiled your hand, and if I didn't know that black
horse I'd take you for some blamed Canadian rancher. You didn't handle
the pictures that way when you stripped the boys to the hide at
Regent, Mr. Courthorne?"

"Regent?" said Witham.

The hotel-keeper laughed. "Oh yes," he said. "I wouldn't go back there
too soon, anyway. The boys seem quite contented, and I don't figure
they would be very nice to you. Well, now, I've no use for fooling
with a man who's too proud to take my dollars, and I've a pair of
horses just stuffed with wickedness in the stable. There's not much
you don't know about a beast, anyway, and you can take them out a
league or two if you feel like it."

Witham, who had grown very tired of his host, was glad of any
distraction, especially as he surmised that while the man had never
seen Courthorne, he knew rather more than he did himself about his
doings. Accordingly, he got into the sleigh that was brought out by
and by, and enjoyed the struggle with the half-tamed team which stood
with ears laid back, prepared for conflict. Oats had been very
plentiful, and prices low that season. Witham, who knew at least as
much about a horse as Lance Courthorne, however, bent them to his will
and the team were trotting quietly through the shadow of a big birch
bluff a league from town, when he heard a faint clip-clop coming down
the trail behind him. It led straight beneath the leafless branches,
and was beaten smooth and firm; while Witham, who had noticed already
that whenever he strayed any distance from the hotel there was a
mounted cavalryman somewhere, in the vicinity, shook the reins.

The team swung into faster stride, the cold wind whistled past him,
and the snow whirled up from beneath the runners; but while he
listened the rhythmic drumming behind him also quickened a little.
Then a faintly musical jingle of steel accompanied the beat of hoofs,
and Witham glanced about him with a little laugh of annoyance. The
dusk was creeping across the prairie, and a pale star or two growing
into brilliancy in the cloudless sweep of indigo.

"It's getting a trifle tiresome. I'll find out what the fellow wants,"
he said.

Wheeling the team, he drove back the way he came, and, when a dusky
object materialized out of the shadows beneath the birches, swung the
horses right across the trail. The snow lay deep on either side of it
just there, with a sharp crust upon its surface, which rendered it
inadvisable to take a horse round the sleigh. The mounted man
accordingly drew bridle, and the jingle and rattle betokened his
profession, though it was already too dark to see him clearly.

"Hallo!" he said. "Been buying this trail up, stranger?"

"No," said Witham quietly, though he still held his team across the
way. "Still, I've got the same right as any other citizen to walk or
drive along it without anybody prowling after me, and just now I want
to know if there is a reason I should be favoured with your company."

The trooper laughed a little. "I guess there is. It's down in the
orders that whoever's on patrol near the settlement should keep his
eye on you. You see, if you lit out of here we would want to know just
where you were going to."

"I am," said Witham, "a Canadian citizen, and I came out here for
quietness."

"Well," said the other, "you're an American too. Anyway, when you were
in a tight place down in Regent there, you told the boys so. Now, no
sensible man would boast of being a Britisher unless it was helping
him to play out his hand."

Witham kept his temper. "I want a straight answer. Can you tell me
what you and the boys are trailing me for?"

"No," said the trooper. "Still, I guess our commander could. If you
don't know of any reason, you might ask him."

Witham tightened his grip on the reins. "I'll ride back with you to
the outpost now."

The trooper shook his bridle, and trotted behind the sleigh, while, as
it swung up and down over the billowy rises of the prairie, Witham
became sensible of a curious expectancy. The bare, hopeless life he
had led seemed to have slipped behind him, and though he suspected
that there was no great difference between his escort and a prisoner's
guard, the old love of excitement he once fancied he had outgrown for
ever awoke again within him. Anything that was different from the past
would be a relief, and the man who had for eight long years of
strenuous toil practised the grimmest self-denial wondered with a
quickening of all his faculties what the future, that could not be
more colourless, might have in store for him.

It was dark, and very cold, when they reached the wooden building, but
Witham's step was lighter, and his spirits more buoyant than they had
been for some months when, handing the sleigh over to an orderly, he
walked into the guard-room, where bronzed men in uniform glanced at
him curiously. Then he was shown into a bare, log-walled hall, where a
young man in blue uniform with a weather-darkened face was writing at
a table.

"I've been partly expecting a visit," he said. "I'm glad to see you,
Mr. Courthorne."

Witham laughed with a very good imitation of the outlaw's
recklessness, and wondered the while because it cost him no effort. He
who had, throughout the last two adverse seasons, seldom smiled at
all, and then but grimly, experienced the same delight in an adventure
that he had done when he came out to Canada.

"I don't know that I can return the compliment just yet," he said. "I
have one or two things to ask you."

The young soldier smiled good-humouredly, as he flung a cigar case on
the table. "Oh, sit down and shake those furs off," he said. "I'm not
a worrying policeman, and we're white men, anyway. If you'd been
twelve months in this forsaken place you'd know what I'm feeling. Take
a smoke, and start in with your questions when you feel like it."

Witham lighted a cigar, flung himself down in a hide chair, and
stretched out his feet towards the stove. "In the first place, I want
to know why your boys are shadowing me. You see, you couldn't arrest
me unless our folks in the Dominion had got their papers through."

The officer nodded. "No. We couldn't lay hands on you, and we only had
orders to see where you went to when you left this place, so the folks
there could corral you if they got the papers. That's about the size
of it at present, but, as I've sent a trooper over to Regent, I'll
know more to-morrow."

Witham laughed. "It may appear a little astonishing, but I haven't the
faintest notion why the police in Canada should worry about me. Is
there any reason you shouldn't tell me?"

The officer looked at him thoughtfully. "Bluff? I'm quite smart at it
myself," he said.

"No," and Witham shook his head. "It's a straight question. I want to
know."

"Well," said the other, "it couldn't do much harm if I told you. You
were running whisky a little while ago, and, though the folks didn't
seem to suspect it, you had a farmer or a rancher for a partner--it
appears he has mixed up things for you."

"Witham?" and the farmer turned to roll the cigar which did not need
it between his fingers.

"That's the man," said his companion. "Well, though I guess it's
no news to you, the police came down upon your friends at a
river-crossing, and farmer Witham put a bullet into a young trooper,
Shannon, I fancy."

Witham sat upright, and the blood that surged to his forehead sank
from it suddenly, and left his face grey with anger.

"Good Lord!" he said hoarsely. "He killed him?"

"Yes, sir," said the officer, "Killing's not quite the word, because
one shot would have been enough to free him of the lad, and the
rancher fired twice into him. They figured, from the way the trooper
was lying and the footprints, that he meant to finish him."

The farmer's face was very grim as he said, "They were sure it was
Witham?"

"Yes," and the soldier watched him curiously. "Anyway, they were sure
of his horse, and it was Witham's rifle. Another trooper nearly got
him, and he left it behind him. It wasn't killing, for the trooper
don't seem to have had a show at all, and I'm glad to see it makes you
kind of sick. Only that one of the troopers allows he was trailing you
at a time which shows you had no hand in the thing, you wouldn't be
sitting there smoking that cigar."

It was almost a minute before Witham could trust his voice. Then he
said slowly, "And what do they want me for?"

"I guess they don't quite know whether they do or not," said the
officer. "They crawl slow in Canada. In the meanwhile they wanted to
know where you were, so they could take out papers if anything turned
up against you."

"And Witham?" said the farmer.

"Got away with a trooper close behind him. The rest of them had headed
him off from the prairie, and he took to the river. Went through the
ice and drowned himself, though as there was a blizzard nobody quite
saw the end of him, and in case there was any doubt they've got a
warrant out. Farmer Witham's dead, and if he isn't he soon will be,
for the troopers have got their net right across the prairie, and the
Canadians don't fool time away as we do when it comes to hanging
anybody. The tale seems to have worried you."

Witham sat rigidly still and silent for almost a minute. Then he rose
up with a curious little shake of his shoulders.

"And farmer Witham's dead. Well he had a hard life. I knew him rather
well," he said. "Thank you for the story. On my word this is the first
time I've heard it, and now it's time I was going."

The officer laughed a little. "Sit right down again. Now, there's
something about you that makes me like you, and as I can't talk to the
boys, I'll give you the best supper we can raise in the whole forsaken
country, and you can camp here until to-morrow. It's an arrangement
that will meet the views of everybody, because I'll know whether the
Canadians want you or not in the morning."

Witham did not know what prompted him to agree, but it all seemed part
of a purpose that impelled him against his reasoning will, and he sat
still beside the stove while his host went out to give orders
respecting supper and the return of the sleigh. He was also glad to be
alone for a while, for now and then a fit of anger shook him as he saw
how he had been duped by Courthorne. He had heard Shannon's story,
and, remembering it, could fancy that Courthorne had planned the
trooper's destruction with a devilish cunning that recognized by what
means the blame could be laid upon a guiltless man. Witham's face
became mottled with grey again as he realized that if he revealed his
identity he had nothing but his word to offer in proof of his
innocence.

Still, it was anger and not fear that stirred him, for nobody could
arrest a man who was dead, and there was no reason that would render
it undesirable for him to remain so. His farm would, when sold,
realize the money borrowed upon it, and the holder of the mortgage had
received a profitable interest already. Had the unforeseen not
happened, Witham would have held out to the end of the struggle, but
now he had no regret that this was out of the question. Fate had been
too strong for him as farmer Witham, but it might deal more kindly
with him as the outlaw Courthorne. He could also make a quick
decision, and when the officer returned to say that supper was ready,
he rose with a smile.

They sat down to a meal that was barbaric in its simplicity and
abundance, for men live and eat in Homeric fashion in the North-West,
while when the green tea was finished and the officer pushed the
whisky across, his guest laughed as he filled his glass.

"Here's better fortune to farmer Witham!" he said.

The officer stared at him. "No, sir," he said "If the old folks taught
me aright, Witham's in----"

A curious smile flickered in the farmer's eyes. "No," he said slowly.
"He was tolerably near it once or twice when he was alive, and,
because of what he went through then, there may be something better in
store for him."

His companion appeared astonished, but said nothing further until he
brought out the cards. They played for an hour beside the snapping
stove, and then, when Witham flung a trump away, the officer groaned.

"I guess," he said disgustedly, "you're not well to-night, or
something is worrying you."

Witham looked up with a little twinkle in his eyes. "I don't know that
there's very much wrong with me."

"Then," said the officer decisively, "if the boys down at Regent know
enough to remember what trumps are, you're not Lance Courthorne. Now
after what I'd heard of you, I'd have put up fifty dollars for the
pleasure of watching your game--and it's not worth ten cents when I've
seen it."

Witham laughed. "Sit down and talk," he said. "One isn't always in his
usual form, and there are folks who get famous too easily."

They talked until nearly midnight, sitting close to the stove, while a
doleful wind that moaned without drove the dust of snow pattering
against the windows, and the shadows grew darker in the corners of the
great log-walled room each time the icy draughts set the lamp
flickering. Then the officer, rising, expressed the feelings of his
guest as he said, "It's a forsaken country, and I'm thankful one can
sleep and forget it."

He had, however, an honourable calling, and a welcome from friend and
kinsman awaiting him when he went East again, to revel in the life of
the cities, but the man who followed him silently to the sleeping-room
had nothing but a half-instinctive assurance that the future could not
well be harder or more lonely than the past had been. Still, farmer
Witham was a man of courage with a quiet belief in himself, and in ten
minutes he was fast asleep.

When he came down to breakfast his host was already seated with a
bundle of letters before him, and one addressed to Courthorne lay
unopened by Witham's plate. The officer nodded when he saw him.

"The trooper has come in with the mail, and your friends in Canada are
not going to worry you," he said. "Now, if you feel like staying here
a few days, it would be a favour to me."

Witham had in the meanwhile opened the envelope. He knew that when
once the decision was made there could only be peril in half-measures,
and his eyes grew thoughtful as he read. The letter had been written
by a Winnipeg lawyer from a little town not very far away, and
requested Courthorne to meet and confer with him respecting certain
suggestions made by a Colonel Barrington. Witham decided to take the
risk.

"I'm sorry, but I have got to go into Annerly at once," he said.

"Then," said the officer, "I'll drive you. I've some stores to get
down there."

They started after breakfast, but it was dusk next day when they
reached the little town, and Witham walked quietly into a private room
of the wooden hotel, where a middle-aged man with a shrewd face sat
waiting him. The big nickelled lamp flickered in the draughts that
found their way in, and Witham was glad of it, though he was outwardly
very collected. The stubborn patience and self-control with which he
had faced the loss of his wheat crops and frozen stock stood him in
good stead now. He fancied the lawyer seemed a trifle astonished at
his appearance, and sat down wondering whether he had previously
spoken to Courthorne, until the question was answered for him.

"Although I have never had the pleasure of meeting you before, I have
acted as Colonel Barrington's legal adviser ever since he settled at
Silverdale, and am, therefore, well posted as to his affairs, which
are, of course, connected with those of your own family," said the
lawyer. "We can accordingly talk with greater freedom, and I hope
without the acerbity which in your recent communications somewhat
annoyed the Colonel!"

"Well," said Courthorne, who had never heard of Colonel Barrington, "I
am ready to listen."

The lawyer drummed on the table. "It might be best to come to the
point at once," he said. "Colonel Barrington does not deem it
convenient that you should settle at Silverdale, and would be prepared
to offer you a reasonable sum to relinquish your claim."

"My claim?" said Witham, who remembered having heard of the Silverdale
Colony, which lay several hundred miles away.

"Of course," said the lawyer. "The legacy lately left you by Roger
Courthorne. I have brought you a schedule of the wheat in store, and
amounts due to you on various sales made. You will also find the
acreage, stock, and implements detailed at a well-known appraiser's
valuation, which you could, of course, confirm, and Colonel Barrington
would hand you a cheque for half the total now. He however, asks four
years to pay the balance, which would carry bank interest in the
meanwhile, in."

Witham, who was glad of the excuse, spent at least ten minutes
studying the paper, and realized that it referred to a large and
well-appointed farm, though it occurred to him that the crop was a
good deal smaller than it should have been. He noticed this, as it
were, instinctively, for his brain was otherwise very busy.

"Colonel Barrington seems somewhat anxious to get rid of me," he said.
"You see, this land is mine by right."

"Yes," said the lawyer. "Colonel Barrington does not dispute it,
though I am of opinion that he might have done so under one clause of
the will. I do not think we need discuss his motives."

Witham moistened his lips with his tongue, and his lips quivered a
little. He had hitherto been an honest man, and now it was impossible
for him to take the money. It, however, appeared equally impossible to
reveal his identity and escape the halter, and he felt that the dead
man had wronged him horribly. He was entitled at least to safety by
way of compensation, for by passing as Courthorne he would avoid
recognition as Witham.

"Still, I do not know how I have offended Colonel Barrington," he
said.

"I would sooner," said the lawyer, "not go into that. It is, I fancy,
fifteen years since Colonel Barrington saw you, but he desired me to
find means of tracing your Canadian record, and did not seem pleased
with it. Nor, at the risk of offending you, could I deem him unduly
prejudiced."

"In fact," said Witham dryly, "this man who has not seen me for
fifteen years is desirous of withholding what is mine from me at
almost any cost."

The lawyer nodded. "There is nothing to be gained by endeavouring to
controvert it. Colonel Barrington is also, as you know, a somewhat
determined gentleman."

Witham laughed, for he was essentially a stubborn man, and felt little
kindliness towards any one connected with Courthorne, as the Colonel
evidently was.

"I fancy I am not entirely unlike him in that respect," he said. "What
you have told me makes me the more determined to follow my own
inclinations. Is there any one else at Silverdale prejudiced against
me?"

The lawyer fell into the trap. "Miss Barrington, of course, takes her
brother's view, and her niece would scarcely go counter to them. She
must have been a very young girl when she last saw you, but from what
I know of her character I should expect her to support the Colonel."

"Well," said Witham. "I want to think over the thing. We will talk
again to-morrow. You would require me to establish my identity,
anyway?"

"The fact that a famous inquiry agent has traced your movements down
to a week or two ago, and told me where to find you, will render that
simple," said the lawyer dryly.

Witham sat up late that night turning over the papers the lawyer left
him, and thinking hard. It was evident that in the meanwhile he must
pass as Courthorne, but as the thought of taking the money revolted
him, the next step led to the occupation of the dead man's property.
The assumption of it would apparently do nobody a wrong, while he felt
that Courthorne had taken so much from him that the farm at Silverdale
would be a very small reparation. It was not, he saw, a great
inheritance, but one that in the right hands could be made profitable,
and Witham, who had fought a plucky fight with obsolete and worthless
implements and indifferent teams, felt that he could do a great deal
with what was, as it were, thrust upon him at Silverdale. It was not
avarice that tempted him, though he knew he was tempted now, but a
longing to find a fair outlet for his energies, and show what, once
given the chance that most men had, he could do. He had stinted
himself and toiled almost as a beast of burden, but now he could use
his brains in place of wringing the last effort out of overtaxed
muscle. He had also during the long struggle lost, to some extent, his
clearness of vision, and only saw himself as a lonely man fighting for
his own hand with fate against him. Now, when prosperity was offered
him, it seemed but folly to stand aside when he could stretch out a
strong hand and take it.

During the last hour he sat almost motionless, the issue hung in the
balance, and he laid himself down still undecided. Still, he had lived
long in primitive fashion in close touch with the soil, and sank, as
most men would have done, into restful sleep. The sun hung red above
the rim of the prairie when he awakened, and going down to breakfast
found the lawyer waiting for him.

"You can tell Colonel Barrington I'm coming to Silverdale," he said.

The lawyer looked at him curiously. "Would there be any use in asking
you to consider?"

Witham laughed. "No," he said. "Now, I rather like the way you talked
to me, and if it wouldn't be disloyalty to the Colonel, I should be
pleased if you would undertake to put me in due possession of my
property."

He said nothing further, and the lawyer sat down to write Colonel
Barrington.

"Mr. Courthorne proves obdurate," he said. "He is, however, by no
means the type of man I expected to find, and I venture to surmise
that you will eventually discover him to be a less undesirable
addition to Silverdale than you are at present inclined to fancy."




CHAPTER VIII

WITHAM COMES TO SILVERDALE


There were warmth and brightness in the cedar-boarded general room of
Silverdale Grange, and most of the company gathered there basked in it
contentedly after their drive through the bitter night. Those who came
from the homesteads lying farthest out had risked frost-nipped hands
and feet, for when Colonel Barrington held a levee at the Grange
nobody felt equal to refusing his invitation. Neither scorching heat
nor utter cold might excuse compliance with the wishes of the founder
of Silverdale, and it was not until Dane, the big middle-aged
bachelor, had spoken very plainly, that he consented to receive his
guests in time of biting frost dressed otherwise than as they would
have appeared in England.

Dane was the one man in the settlement who dare remonstrate with its
ruler, but it was a painful astonishment to the latter when he said,
in answer to one invitation, "I have never been frost-bitten, sir, and
I stand the cold well, but one or two of the lads are weak in the
chest, and this climate was never intended for bare-shouldered women.
Hence, if I come, I shall dress myself to suit it."

Colonel Barrington stared at him for almost a minute, and then shook
his head. "Have it your own way," he said, "Understand that in itself
I care very little for dress, but it is only by holding fast to every
traditional nicety we can prevent ourselves sinking into Western
barbarism, and I am horribly afraid of the thin end of the wedge."

Dane having gained his point, said nothing further, for he was one of
the wise and silent men who know when to stop, and that evening he sat
in a corner watching his leader thoughtfully, for there was anxiety in
the Colonel's face. Barrington sat silent near the ample hearth whose
heat would scarcely have kept water from freezing but for the big
stove, and disdaining the dispensation made his guests, he was clad
conventionally, though the smooth black fabric clung about him more
tightly than it had once been intended to do. His sister stood, with
the stamp of a not wholly vanished beauty still clinging to her gentle
face, talking to one or two matrons from outlying farms, and his niece
by a little table turning over Eastern photographs with a few young
girls. She, too, wore black in deference to the Colonel's taste, which
was sombre, and the garment she had laughed at as a compromise, left
uncovered a narrow strip of ivory shoulder and enhanced the polished
whiteness of her neck. A slender string of pearls gleamed softly on
the satiny skin, but Maud Barrington wore no other adornment and did
not need it. She had inherited the Courthorne comeliness, and the
Barringtons she sprang from on her father's side had always borne the
stamp of distinction.

A young girl sat at the piano singing in a thin, reedy voice, while an
English lad waited with ill-concealed jealousy of a too officious
companion to turn over the music by her side. Other men, mostly young,
with weather-bronzed faces, picturesque in embroidered deerskin or
velvet lounge jackets, were scattered about the room, and all were
waiting for the eight-o'clock dinner, which replaced the usual prairie
supper at Silverdale. They were growers of wheat who combined a good
deal of amusement with a little not very profitable farming, and most
of them possessed a large share of insular English pride and a
somewhat depleted exchequer.

Presently Dane crossed over, and sat down by Colonel Barrington. "You
are silent, sir, and not looking very well to-night," he said.

Barrington nodded gravely, for he had a respect for the one man who
occasionally spoke plain truth to him. "The fact is, I am growing
old," he said, and then added, with what was only an apparent lack of
connexion, "Wheat is down three cents, and money tighter than ever."

Dane looked thoughtful, and noticed the older man's glance in his
niece's direction, as he said, "I am afraid there are difficult times
before us."

"I have no doubt we shall weather them as we have done before," said
the Colonel. "Still, I can't help admitting that just now I feel--a
little tired--and am commencing to think we should have been better
prepared for the struggle had we worked a trifle harder during the
recent era of prosperity. I could wish there were older heads on the
shoulders of those who will come after me."

Just then Maud Barrington glanced at them, and Dane, who could not
remember having heard his leader talk in that fashion before, and
could guess his anxieties, was a little touched as he noticed his
attempt at sprightliness. As it happened, one of the lads at the piano
commenced a song of dogs and horses that had little to recommend it
but the brave young voice.

"They have the right spirit, sir," he said.

"Of course!" said Barrington. "They are English lads, but I think a
little more is required. Thank God we have not rated the dollar too
high, but it is possible we have undervalued its utility, and I fear I
have only taught them to be gentlemen."

"That is a good deal, sir," Dane said quietly.

"It is. Still, a gentleman, in the restricted sense, is somewhat of an
anachronism on the prairie, and it is too late to begin again. In the
usual course of nature I must lay down my charge presently, and that
is why I feel the want of a more capable successor, whom they would
follow because of his connexion with mine and me."

Dane looked thoughtful. "If I am not taking a liberty--you still
consider the one apparently born to fill the place quite unsuitable?"

"Yes," said Barrington quietly. "I fear there is not a redeeming
feature in Courthorne's character."

Neither said anything further, until there was a tapping at the door,
and, though this was a most unusual spectacle on the prairie, a trim
English maid in white-banded dress stood in the opening.

"Mr. Courthorne, Miss Barrington," she said.

Now Silverdale had adopted one Western custom in that no chance guest
was ever kept waiting, and the music ceased suddenly, while the
stillness was very suggestive, when a man appeared in the doorway. He
wore one of the Scandinavian leather jackets which are not uncommon in
that country, and when his eyes had become accustomed to the light,
moved forward with a quiet deliberation that was characterized neither
by graceful ease nor the restraint of embarrassment. His face was
almost the colour of a Blackfoot's, his eyes steady and grey, but
those of the men who watched him were next moment turned upon the
Colonel's sister, who rose to receive him, slight, silver-haired, and
faded, but still stamped with a simple dignity that her ancient silks
and lace curiously enhanced. Then there was a silence that could be
felt, for all realized that a good deal depended on the stranger's
first words and the fashion of his reception.

Witham, as it happened, felt this too, and something more. It was
eight years since he had stood before an English lady, and he surmised
that there could not be many to compare with this one, while after his
grim, lonely life an intangible something that seemed to emanate from
her gracious serenity compelled his homage. Then as she smiled at him
and held out her hand, he was for a moment sensible of an almost
overwhelming confusion. It passed as suddenly, for this was a man of
quick perceptions, and remembering that Courthorne had now and then
displayed some of the grace of bygone days he yielded to a curious
impulse, and, stooping, kissed the little withered fingers.

"I have," he said, "to thank you for a welcome that does not match my
poor deserts, madam."

Then Dane, standing beside his leader, saw the grimness grow a trifle
less marked in his eyes. "It is in the blood," he said half aloud, but
Dane heard him and afterwards remembered it.

In the meanwhile Miss Barrington had turned from the stranger to her
niece. "It is a very long time since you have seen Lance, Maud, and,
though I knew his mother well, I am less fortunate, because this is
our first meeting," she said. "I wonder if you still remember my
niece."

Now, Witham had been gratified by his first success, and was about to
venture on the answer that it was impossible to forget; but when he
turned towards the very stately young woman in the long black dress,
whose eyes had a sardonic gleam, and wondered whether he had ever seen
anybody so comely or less inclined to be companionable, it was borne
in upon him that any speech of the kind would be distinctly out of
place. Accordingly, and because there was no hand held out in this
case, he contented himself with a little bend of his head. Then he was
presented to the Colonel, who was distantly cordial, and Witham was
thankful when the maid appeared in the doorway again, to announce that
dinner was ready. Miss Barrington laid her hand upon his arm.

"You will put up with an old woman's company to-night?" she said.

Witham glanced down deprecatingly at his attire. "I must explain that
I had no intention of trespassing on your hospitality," he said. "I
purposed going on to my own homestead, and only called to acquaint
Colonel Barrington with my arrival."

Miss Barrington laughed pleasantly. "That," she said, "was neither
dutiful nor friendly. I should have fancied you would also have
desired to pay your respects to my niece and me."

Witham was not quite sure what he answered, but he drew in a deep
breath, for he had made the plunge and felt that the worst was over.
His companion, evidently noticed the gasp of relief.

"It was somewhat of an ordeal?" she said.

Witham looked down upon her gravely, and Miss Barrington noticed a
steadiness in his eyes she had not expected to see. "It was, and I
feel guilty because I was horribly afraid," he said. "Now I only
wonder if you will always be equally kind to me."

Miss Barrington smiled a little, but the man fancied there was just a
perceptible tightening of the hand upon his arm. "I would like to be,
for your mother's sake," she said.

Witham understood that while Courthorne's iniquities were not to be
brought up against him, the little gentle-voiced lady had but taken
him on trial; but, perhaps because it was so long since any woman had
spoken kindly words to him, his heart went out towards her, and he
felt a curious desire to compel her good opinion. Then he found
himself seated near the head of the long table, with Maud Barrington
on his other hand, and had an uncomfortable feeling that most of the
faces were turned somewhat frequently in his direction. It is also
possible that he would have betrayed himself, had he been burdened
with self-consciousness, but the long, bitter struggle he had fought
alone had purged him of petty weaknesses and left him the closer grasp
of essential things, with the strength of character which is one and
the same in all men who possess it, whatever may be their upbringing.

During a lull in the voices, Maud Barrington, who may have felt it
incumbent on her to show him some scant civility, turned towards him
as she said, "I am afraid our conversation will not appeal to you.
Partly because there is so little else to interest us, we talk wheat
throughout the year at Silverdale."

"Well," said Witham with a curious little smile, "wheat as a topic is
not quite new to me. In fact, I know almost more about cereals than
some folks would care to do."

"In the shape of elevator warrants or Winnipeg market margins,
presumably?"

Witham's eyes twinkled, though he understood the implication. "No," he
said. "The wheat I handled was in 250-pound bags, and I occasionally
grew somewhat tired of pitching them into a wagon, while my
speculations usually consisted in committing it to the prairie soil,
in the hope of reaping forty bushels to the acre, and then
endeavouring to be content with ten. It is conceivable that operations
on the Winnipeg market are less laborious as well as more profitable,
but I have no opportunity of trying them."

Miss Barrington looked at him steadily, and Witham felt the blood
surge to his forehead as he remembered having heard of a certain
venture made by Courthorne, which brought discredit on one or two men,
connected with the affairs of a grain elevator. It was evident that
Miss Barrington had also heard of it, and no man cares to stand
convicted of falsification in the eyes of a very pretty girl. Still,
he roused himself with an effort.

"It is neither wise nor charitable to believe all one hears," he said.

The girl smiled a little, but the man still winced inwardly under her
clear brown eyes that would, he fancied, have been very scornful had
they been less indifferent.

"I do not remember mentioning having heard anything," she said. "Were
you not a trifle premature in face of the proverb?"

Witham's face was a trifle grim, though he laughed. "I'm afraid I was;
but I am warned," he said. "Excuses are, after all, not worth much,
and when I make my defence it will be before a more merciful judge."

Maud Barrington's curiosity was piqued. Lance Courthorne, outcast and
gambler, was at least a different stamp of man from the type she had
been used to, and, being a woman, the romance that was interwoven with
his somewhat iniquitous career was not without its attractions for
her.

"I did not know that you included farming among your talents, and
should have fancied you would have found it--monotonous," she said.

"I did," and the provoking smile still flickered in Witham's eyes.
"Are not all strictly virtuous occupations usually so?"

"It is probably a question of temperament. I have, of course, heard
sardonic speeches of the kind before, and felt inclined to wonder
whether those who made them were qualified to form an opinion."

Witham nodded, but there was a little ring in his voice. "Perhaps I
laid myself open to the thrust; but have you any right to assume I
have never followed a commendable profession?"

No answer was immediately forthcoming, but Witham did wisely when, in
place of waiting, he turned to Miss Barrington. He had left her niece
irritated, but the trace of anger she felt was likely to enhance her
interest. The meal, however, was a trial to him, for he had during
eight long years lived for the most part apart from all his kind, a
lonely toiler, and now was constrained to personate a man known to be
almost dangerously skilful with his tongue. At first sight the task
appeared almost insuperably difficult, but Witham was a clever man,
and felt all the thrill of one playing a risky game just then. Perhaps
it was due to excitement that a readiness he had never fancied himself
capable of came to him in his need, and, when at last the ladies rose,
he felt that he had not slipped perilously. Still, he found how dry
his lips had grown when somebody poured him a glass of wine. Then he
became sensible that Colonel Barrington, who had apparently been
delivering a lengthy monologue, was addressing him.

"The outlook is sufficient to cause us some anxiety," he said. "We are
holding large stocks, and I can see no prospect of anything but a
steady fall in wheat. It is, however, presumably a little too soon to
ask your opinion."

"Well," said Witham, "while I am prepared to act upon it, I would
recommend it to others with some diffidence. No money can be made at
present by farming, but I see no reason why we should not endeavour to
cut our losses by selling forward down. If caught by a sudden rally,
we could fall back on the grain we hold."

There was a sudden silence, until Dane said softly, "That is exactly
what one of the cleverest brokers in Winnipeg recommended."

"I think," said Colonel Barrington, "you heard my answer. I am
inclined to fancy that such a measure would not be advisable or
fitting, Mr. Courthorne. You, however, presumably know very little
about the practical aspect of the wheat question?"

Witham smiled. "On the contrary, I know a great deal."

"You do?" said Barrington sharply, and while a blunderer would have
endeavoured to qualify his statement, Witham stood by it.

"You are evidently not aware, sir, that I have tried my hand at
farming, though not very successfully."

"That, at least," said Barrington dryly, as he rose, "is quite
credible."

When they went into the smaller room, Witham crossed over to where
Maud Barrington sat alone, and looked down upon her gravely. "One
discovers that frankness is usually best," he said. "Now, I would not
like to feel that you had determined to be unfriendly with me."

Maud Barrington fixed a pair of clear brown eyes upon his face, and
the faintest trace of astonishment crept into them. She was a woman
with high principles, but neither a fool nor a prude, and she saw no
sign of dissolute living there. The man's gaze was curiously steady,
his skin clear and brown, and his sinewy form suggested a capacity
for, and she almost fancied an acquaintance with, physical toil. Yet
he had already denied the truth to her. Witham, on his part, saw a
very fair face with wholesome pride in it, and felt that the eyes
which were coldly contemptuous now could, if there was a warrant for
it, grow very gentle.

"Would it be of any moment if I were?" she said.

"Yes," said Witham quietly. "There are two people here it is desirable
for me to stand well with, and the first of them, your aunt, has, I
fancy, already decided to give me a fair trial. She told me it was for
my mother's sake. Now, I can deal with your uncle."

The girl smiled a little. "Are you quite sure? Everybody does not find
it easy to get on with Colonel Barrington. His code is somewhat
draconic."

Witham nodded. "He is a man, and I hope to convince him I have at
least a right to toleration. That leaves only you. The rest don't
count. They will come round by and by, you see."

The little forceful gesture with which he concluded pleased Maud
Barrington. It was free from vanity, but conveyed an assurance that he
knew his own value.

"No friendship that is lightly given is worth very much," she said. "I
could decide better in another six months. Now it is perhaps fortunate
that Colonel Barrington is waiting for us to make up his four at
whist."

Witham allowed a faint gesture of dismay to escape him. "Must I play?"

"Yes," said the girl, smiling. "Whist is my uncle's hobby, and he is
enthusiastic over a clever game."

Witham groaned inwardly. "And I am a fool at whist."

"Then it was poker you played?" and again a faint trace of anger crept
into the girl's eyes.

Witham shook his head. "No," he said. "I had few opportunities of
indulging in expensive luxuries."

"I think we had better take our places," said Maud Barrington, with
unveiled contempt.

Witham's forehead grew a trifle hot, and when he sat down Barrington
glanced at him. "I should explain that we never allow stakes of any
kind at Silverdale," he said. "Some of the lads sent out to me have
been a trifle extravagant in the old country."

He dealt out the cards, but a trace of bewildered irritation crept
into his eyes as the game proceeded, and once or twice he appeared to
check an exclamation of astonishment, while at last he glanced
reproachfully at Witham.

"My dear sir! Still, you have ridden a long way," he said, laying his
finger on a king.

Witham laughed to hide his dismay. "I am sorry, sir. It was scarcely
fair to my partner. You would, however, have beaten us, anyway."

Barrington gravely gathered up the cards. "We will," he said, "have
some music. I do not play poker."

Then, for the first time, Witham lost his head in his anger. "Nor do
I, sir."

Barrington only looked at him, but the farmer felt as though somebody
had struck him in the face, and as soon as he conveniently could, bade
Miss Barrington good night.

"But we expected you would stay here a day or two. Your place is not
ready," she said.

Witham smiled at her. "I think I am wise. I must feel my way."

Miss Barrington was won, and, making no further protest, signed to
Dane. "You will take Mr. Courthorne home with you," she said. "I would
have kept him here, but he is evidently anxious to talk over affairs
with some one more of his age than my brother is."

Dane appeared quite willing, and an hour later, Witham sat, cigar in
hand, in a room of his outlying farm. It was furnished simply, but
there were signs of taste, and the farmer who occupied it had already
formed a good opinion of the man whose knowledge of his own profession
astonished him.

"So you are actually going to sell wheat in face of the Colonel's
views?" he said.

"Of course," said Witham simply. "I don't like unpleasantness, but I
can allow no man to dictate my affairs to me."

Dane grinned. "Well," he said, "the Colonel can be nasty, and he has
no great reason for being fond of you already."

"No?" said Witham. "Now, of course, my accession will make a
difference at Silverdale, but I would consider it a friendly act if
you will let me know the views of the colony."

Dane looked thoughtful. "The trouble is that your taking up the land
leaves less for Maud Barrington than there would have been.
Barrington, who is fond of the girl, was trustee for the property, and
after your--estrangement--from your father everybody expected she
would get it all."

"So I have deprived Miss Barrington of part of her income?"

"Of course," said Dane. "Didn't you know?"

Witham found it difficult to answer. "I never quite realized it
before. Are there more accounts against me?"

"That," said Dane slowly, "is rather a facer. We are all more or less
friends of the dominant family, you see."

Witham laid down his cigar and stood up, "Now," he said, "I generally
talk straight, and you have held out a hand to me. Can you believe in
the apparent improbability of such a man as I am in the opinion of the
folks at Silverdale getting tired of a wasted life and trying to walk
straight again? I want your answer, yes or no, before I head across
the prairie for my own place."

"Sit down," said Dane with a little smile. "Do you think I would have
brought you here if I hadn't believed it? And, if I have my way, the
first man who flings a stone will be sorry for it. Still, I don't
think any of them will--or could afford it. If we had all been saints,
some of us would never have come out from the old country."

He stopped and poured out two glasses of wine. "It's a long while
since I've talked so much," he said. "Here's to our better
acquaintance, Courthorne."

After that they talked wheat-growing and horses, and when his guest
retired Dane still sat smoking thoughtfully beside the stove. "We want
a man with nerve and brains," he said. "I fancy the one who has been
sent us will make a difference at Silverdale."

It was about the same time when Colonel Barrington stood talking with
his niece and sister in Silverdale Grange. "And the man threw that
trick away when it was absolutely clear who had the ace--and wished me
to believe that he forgot!" he said.

His face was flushed with indignation, but Miss Barrington smiled at
her niece. "What is your opinion, Maud?"

The girl moved one white shoulder with a gesture of disdain. "Can you
ask--after that! Besides, he twice wilfully perverted facts while he
talked to me, though it was not in the least necessary."

Miss Barrington looked thoughtful. "And yet, because I was watching
him, I do not think he plays cards well."

"But he was a professional gambler," said the girl.

The elder lady shook her head. "So we--heard," she said. "My dear,
give him a little time. I have seen many men and women--and can't help
a fancy that there is good in him."

"Can the leopard change his spots?" asked Colonel Barrington, with a
grim smile.

The little white-haired lady glanced at him as she said quietly, "When
the wicked man----"




CHAPTER IX

AN ARMISTICE


The dismal afternoon was drawing in when Witham, driving home from the
railroad, came into sight of a lonely farm. It lifted itself out of
the prairie, a blur of huddled buildings on the crest of a long rise,
but at first sight Witham scarcely noticed it. He was gazing
abstractedly down the sinuous smear of trail which unrolled itself
like an endless riband across the great white desolation, and his
brain was busy. Four months had passed since he came to Silverdale,
and they had left their mark on him.

At first there had been the constant fear of detection, and when that
had lessened and he was accepted as Lance Courthorne, the latter's
unfortunate record had met him at every turn. It accounted for the
suspicions of Colonel Barrington, the reserve of his niece, and the
aloofness of some of his neighbours, while there had been times when
Witham found Silverdale almost unendurable. He was, however, an
obstinate man, and there was on the opposite side the gracious
kindliness of the little grey-haired lady, who had from the beginning
been his champion, and the friendship of Dane and one or two of the
older men. Witham had also proved his right to be listened to, and
treated, outwardly at least, with due civility, while something in his
resolute quietness rendered an impertinence impossible. He knew by
this time that he could hold his own at Silverdale, and based his
conduct on the fact, but that was only one aspect of the question, and
he speculated as to the consummation.

It was, however, evident that in the meanwhile he must continue to
pose as Courthorne, and he felt, rightly or wrongly, that the
possession of his estate, was, after all, a small reparation for the
injury the outlaw had done him, but the affair was complicated by the
fact that, in taking Courthorne's inheritance, he had deprived Maud
Barrington of part of hers. The girl's coldness stung him, but her
unquestionable beauty and strength of character had not been without
their effect, and the man winced as he remembered that she had no pity
for anything false or mean. He had decided only upon two things, first
that he would vindicate himself in her eyes, and, since nobody else
could apparently do it, pull the property that should have been hers
out of the ruin it had been drifting into under her uncle's
guardianship. When this had been done, and the killing of Trooper
Shannon forgotten, it would be time for him to slip back into the
obscurity he came from.

Then the fact that the homestead was growing nearer forced itself upon
his perceptions, and he glanced doubtfully across the prairie as he
approached the forking of the trail. A grey dimness was creeping
across the wilderness and the smoky sky seemed to hang lower above the
dully gleaming snow, while the moaning wind flung little clouds of icy
dust about him. It was evident that the snow was not far away, and it
was still two leagues to Silverdale, but Witham, who had been to
Winnipeg, had business with the farmer, and had faced a prairie storm
before. Accordingly he swung the team into the forking trail and shook
the reins. There was, he knew, little time to lose, and in another
five minutes he stood, still wearing his white-sprinkled furs, in a
room of the birch-log building.

"Here are your accounts, Macdonald, and while we've pulled up our
losses, I can't help thinking we have just got out in time," he said.
"The market is but little stiffer yet, but there is less selling, and
before a few months are over we're going to see a sharp recovery."

The farmer glanced at the documents, and smiled with contentment as he
took the cheque. "I'm glad I listened to you," he said. "It's
unfortunate for him and his niece that Barrington wouldn't--at least,
not until he had lost the opportunity."

"I don't understand," said Witham.

"No," said the farmer, "you've been away. Well, you know it takes a
long while to get an idea into the Colonel's head, but once it's in
it's even harder to get it out again. Now Barrington looked down on
wheat jobbing, but money's tight at Silverdale, and when he saw what
you were making, he commenced to think. Accordingly he's going to
sell, and, as he seems convinced that wheat will not go up again, let
half the acreage lie fallow this season. The worst of it is, the
others will follow him up, and he controls Maud Barrington's property
as well as his own."

Witham's face was grave. "I heard in Winnipeg that most of the smaller
men who had lost courage were doing the same thing. That means a very
small crop of western hard, and millers paying our own prices.
Somebody must stop the Colonel."

"Well," said Macdonald dryly, "I wouldn't like to be the man, and,
after all, it's only your opinion. As you have seen, the small men
here and in Minnesota are afraid to plough."

Witham laughed softly. "The man who makes the dollars is the one who
sees farther than the crowd. Anyway, I found the views of one or two
men who make big deals were much the same as mine, and I'll speak to
Miss Barrington."

"Then if you will wait a little, you will have an opportunity. She is
here, you see."

Witham looked disconcerted. "She should not have been. Why didn't you
send her home? There'll be snow before she reaches Silverdale."

Macdonald laughed. "I hadn't noticed the weather, and, though my wife
wished her to stay, there is no use in attempting to persuade Miss
Barrington to do anything when she does not want to. In some respects
she is very like the Colonel."

The farmer led the way into another room, and Witham flushed a little
when the girl returned his greeting in a fashion which he fancied the
presence of Mrs. Macdonald alone rendered distantly cordial. Still, a
glance through the windows showed him that delay was inadvisable.

"I think you had better stay here all night, Miss Barrington," he
said. "There is snow coming."

"I am sorry our views do not coincide," said the girl. "I have several
things to attend to at the Grange."

"Then Macdonald will keep your team, and I will drive you home," said
Witham. "Mine are the best horses at Silverdale, and I fancy we will
need all their strength."

Miss Barrington looked up sharply. There had been a little ring in
Witham's voice, but there was also a solicitude in his face which
almost astonished her, and when Macdonald urged her to comply she rose
leisurely.

"I will be ready in ten minutes," she said.

Witham waited at least twenty, very impatiently, but when at last the
girl appeared, handed her with quiet deference into the sleigh, and
then took his place, as far as the dimensions of the vehicle
permitted, apart from her. Once he fancied she noticed it with faint
amusement, but the horses knew what was coming, and it was only when
he pulled them up to a trot again on the slope of a rise that he found
speech convenient.

"I am glad we are alone, though I feel a little diffidence in asking a
favour of you, because unfortunately when I venture to recommend
anything you usually set yourself against it," he said. "This is, in
the language of this country, tolerably straight."

Maud Barrington laughed. "I could find no fault with it on the score
of ambiguity."

"Well," said Witham, "I believe your uncle is going to sell wheat for
you, and let a good deal of your land go out of cultivation. Now, as
you perhaps do not know, the laws which govern the markets are very
simple and almost immutable, but the trouble is that a good many
people do not understand their application."

"You apparently consider yourself an exception," said the girl.

Witham nodded. "I do just now. Still, I do not wish to talk about
myself. You see, the people back there in Europe must be fed, and the
latest news from wheat-growing countries does not promise more than an
average crop, while half the faint-hearted farmers here are not going
to sow much this year. Therefore when the demand comes for Western
wheat there will be little to sell."

"But how is it that you alone see this? Isn't it a trifle
egotistical?"

Witham laughed. "Can't we leave my virtues, or the reverse, out of the
question? I feel that I am right, and want you to dissuade your uncle.
It would be even better if, when I return to Winnipeg, you would
empower me to buy wheat for you."

Maud Barrington looked at him curiously. "I am a little perplexed as
to why you should wish me to."

"No doubt," said Witham. "Still, is there any reason why I should be
debarred the usual privilege of taking an interest in my neighbour's
affairs?"

"No," said the girl slowly. "But can you not see that it is out of the
question that I should entrust you with this commission?"

Witham's hands closed on the reins, and his face grew a trifle grim as
he said, "From the point of view you evidently take, I presume it is."

A flush of crimson suffused the girl's cheeks. "I never meant that,
and I can scarcely forgive you for fancying I did. Of course I could
trust you with--you have made me use the word--the dollars, but you
must realize that I could not do anything in public opposition to my
uncle's opinion."

Witham was sensible of a great relief, but it did not appear advisable
to show it. "There are so many things you apparently find it difficult
to forgive me--and we will let this one pass," he said. "Still, I
cannot help thinking that Colonel Barrington will have a good deal to
answer for."

Maud Barrington made no answer, but she was sensible of a respect
which appeared quite unwarranted for the dryly-spoken man who, though
she guessed her words stung him now and then, bore them without
wincing. While she sat silent, shivering under her furs, darkness
crept down. The smoky cloud dropped lower, the horizon closed in as
the grey obscurity rolled up to meet them across a rapidly-narrowing
strip of snow. Then she could scarcely see the horses, and the muffled
drumming of their hoofs was lost in a doleful wail of wind. It also
seemed to her that the cold, which was already almost insupportable,
suddenly increased, as it not infrequently does in that country before
the snow. Then a white powder was whirled into her face, filling her
eyes and searing the skin, while, when she could see anything again,
the horses were plunging at a gallop through a filmy haze, and Witham,
whitened all over, leaned forward with lowered head hurling hoarse
encouragement at them. His voice reached her fitfully through the roar
of wind, until sight and hearing were lost alike as the white haze
closed about them, and it was not until the wild gust had passed she
heard him again.

He was apparently shouting, "Come nearer."

Maud Barrington was not sure whether she obeyed him or he seized and
drew her towards him. She, however, felt the furs piled high about her
neck and that there was an arm round her shoulder, and for a moment
was sensible of an almost overwhelming revulsion from the contact. She
was proud and very dainty, and fancied she knew what this man had
been, while now she was drawn in to his side, and felt her chilled
blood respond to the warmth of his body. Indeed, she grew suddenly hot
to the neck, and felt that henceforward she could never forgive him or
herself, but the mood passed almost as swiftly, for again the awful
blast shrieked about them and she only remembered her companion's
humanity as the differences of sex and character vanished under that
destroying cold. They were no longer man and woman, but only beings of
flesh and blood, clinging desperately to the life that was in them,
for the first rush of the Western snowstorm has more than a physical
effect, and man exposed to its fury loses all but his animal instincts
in the primitive struggle with the elements.

Then, while the snow folded them closely in its white embrace during a
lull, the girl recovered herself, and her strained voice was faintly
audible.

"This is my fault; why don't you tell me so?" she said.

A hoarse laugh seemed to issue from the whitened object beside her,
and she was drawn closer to it again. "We needn't go into that just
now. You have one thing to do, and that is to keep warm."

One of the horses stumbled, the grasp that was around her became
relaxed and she heard the swish of the whip followed by hoarse
expletives, and did not resent it. The man, it seemed, was fighting
for her life as well as his own, and even brutal virility was
necessary. After that there was a space of oblivion, while the storm
raged about them, until, when the wind fell a trifle, it became
evident that the horses had left the trail.

"You are off the track, and will never make the Grange unless you find
it!" she said.

Witham seemed to nod. "We are not going there," he said, and if he
added anything, it was lost in the scream of a returning gust.

Again Maud Barrington's reason reasserted itself, and remembering the
man's history she became sensible of a curious dismay, but it also
passed, and left her with the vague realization that he and she were
actuated alike only by the desire to escape extinction. Presently she
became sensible that the sleigh had stopped beside a formless mound of
white and the man was shaking her.

"Hold those furs about you while I lift you down," he said.

She did his bidding, and did not shrink when she felt his arms about
her, while next moment she was standing knee-deep in the snow and the
man shouting something she did not catch. Team and sleigh seemed to
vanish, and she saw her companion dimly for a moment before he was
lost in the sliding whiteness too. Then a horrible fear came upon her.

It seemed a very long while before he reappeared, and thrust her in
through what seemed to be a door. Then there was another waiting
before the light of a lamp blinked out, and she saw that she was
standing in a little log-walled room with bare floor and a few trusses
of straw in a corner. There was also a rusty stove, and a very small
pile of billets beside it. Witham, who had closed the door, stood
looking at them with a curious expression.

"Where is the team?" she gasped.

"Heading for a birch bluff or Silverdale, though I scarcely think they
will get there," said the man. "I have never stopped here, and it
wasn't astonishing they fancied the place a pile of snow. While I was
getting the furs out they slipped away from me."

Miss Barrington now knew where they were. The shanty was used by the
remoter settlers as a half-way house where they slept occasionally on
their long journey to the railroad, and as there was a birch bluff not
far away, it was the rule that whoever occupied it should replace the
fuel he had consumed. The last man had, however, not been liberal.

"But what are we to do?" she asked, with a little gasp of dismay.

"Stay here until the morning," said Witham quietly. "Unfortunately I
can't even spare you my company. The stable has fallen in, and it
would be death to stand outside, you see. In the meanwhile, pull out
some of the straw and put it in the stove."

"Can you not do that?" asked Miss Barrington, feeling that she must
commence at once, if she was to keep this man at a befitting distance.

Witham laughed. "Oh, yes, but you will freeze if you stand still, and
these billets require splitting. Still, if you have special objections
to doing what I ask you, you can walk up and down rapidly."

The girl glanced at him a moment, and then lowered her eyes. "Of
course I was wrong! Do you wish to hear that I am sorry?"

Witham, answering nothing, swung an axe round his head, and the girl,
kneeling beside the stove, noticed the sinewy suppleness of his frame
and the precision with which the heavy blade cleft the billets. The
axe, she knew, is by no means an easy tool to handle. At last the red
flame crackled, and though she had not intended the question to be
malicious, there was a faint trace of irony in her voice as she asked,
"Is there any other thing you wish me to do?"

Witham flung two bundles of straw down beside the stove, and stood
looking at her gravely. "Yes," he said. "I want you to sit down and
let me wrap this sleigh robe about you."

The girl submitted, and did not shrink from his touch visibly when he
drew the fur robe about her shoulders and packed the end of it round
her feet. Still, there was a faint warmth in her face, and she was
grateful for his unconcernedness.

"Fate or fortune has placed me in charge of you until to-morrow, and
if the position is distasteful to you it is not my fault," he said.
"Still, I feel the responsibility, and it would be a little less
difficult if you could accept the fact tacitly."

Maud Barrington would not have shivered if she could have avoided it,
but the cold was too great for her, and she did not know whether she
was vexed or pleased at the gleam of compassion in the man's grey
eyes. It was more eloquent than anything of the kind she had ever
seen, but it had gone and he was only quietly deferent when she
glanced at him again.

"I will endeavour to be good," she said, and then flushed with
annoyance at the adjective. Half-dazed by the cold as she was, she
could not think of a more suitable one. Witham, however, retained his
gravity.

"Now, Macdonald gave you no supper, and he has dinner at noon," he
said. "I brought some eatables along, and you must make the best meal
you can."

He opened a packet, and laid it, with a little silver flask, upon her
knee.

"I cannot eat all this--and it is raw spirit," said Maud Barrington.

Witham laughed. "Are you not forgetting your promise? Still, we will
melt a little snow into the cup."

An icy gust swept in when he opened the door, and it was only by a
strenuous effort he closed it again, while, when he came back panting
with the top of the flask a little colour crept into Maud Barrington's
face. "I am sorry," she said. "That at least is your due."

"I really don't want my due," said Witham with a deprecatory gesture
as he laid the silver cup upon the stove. "Can't we forget we are not
exactly friends, just for to-night? If so, you will drink this and
commence at once on the provisions--to please me!"

Maud Barrington was glad of the reviving draught, for she was very
cold, but presently she held out the packet.

"One really cannot eat many crackers at once; will you help me?"

Witham laughed as he took one of the biscuits. "If I had expected any
one would share my meal, I would have provided a better one. Still, I
have been glad to feast upon more unappetizing things occasionally!"

"When were you unfortunate?" said the girl.

Witham smiled somewhat dryly. "I was unfortunate for six years on
end."

He was aware of the blunder when he had spoken, but Maud Barrington
appeared to be looking at the flask thoughtfully.

"The design is very pretty," she said. "You got it in England?"

The man knew that it was the name F. Witham his companion's eyes
rested on, but his face was expressionless. "Yes," he said. "It is one
of the things they make for presentation in the old country."

Maud Barrington noticed the absence of any attempt at explanation, and
having considerable pride of her own, was sensible of a faint
approval. "You are making slow progress," she said, with a slight but
perceptible difference in her tone. "Now, you can have eaten nothing
since breakfast."

Witham said nothing, but by and by poured a little of the spirit into
a rusty can, and the girl, who understood why he did so, felt that it
covered several of his offences. "Now," she said graciously, "you may
smoke if you wish to."

Witham pointed to the few billets left and shook his head. "I'm afraid
I must get more wood."

The roar of the wind almost drowned his voice, and the birch logs
seemed to tremble under the impact of the blast, while Maud Barrington
shivered as she asked, "Is it safe?"

"It is necessary," said Witham, with the little laugh she had already
found reassuring.

He had gone out in another minute, and the girl felt curiously lonely
as she remembered stories of men who had left their homesteads during
a blizzard to see to the safety of the horses in a neighbouring
stable, and were found afterwards as still as the snow that covered
them. Maud Barrington was not unduly timorous, but the roar of that
awful icy gale would have stricken dismay into the hearts of most men,
and she found herself glancing with feverish impatience at a
diminutive gold watch and wondering whether the cold had retarded its
progress. Ten minutes passed very slowly, lengthened to twenty more
slowly still, and then it flashed upon her that there was at least
something she could do; and, scraping up a little of the snow that
sifted in, she melted it in the can. Then she set the flask-top upon
the stove, and once more listened for the man's footsteps very
eagerly.

She did not hear them, but at last the door swung open, and carrying a
load of birch branches Witham staggered in. He dropped them, strove to
close the door, and failed, then leaned against it, gasping, with a
livid face, for there are few men who can withstand the cold of a
snow-laden gale at forty degrees below.

How Maud Barrington closed the door she did not know; but it was with
a little imperious gesture she turned to the man.

"Shake those furs at once," she said; and drawing him towards the
stove held up the steaming cup. "Now sit there and drink it."

Witham stooped and reached out for the can, but the girl swept it off
the stove. "Oh, I know the silver was for me," she said. "Still, is
this a time for trifles such as that?"

Worn out by a very grim struggle, Witham did as he was bidden, and
looked up with a twinkle in his eyes, when with the faintest trace of
colour in her cheeks the girl sat down close to him and drew part of
the fur robe about him.

"I really believe you were a little pleased to see me come back just
now," he said.

"Was that quite necessary?" asked Maud Barrington. "Still, I was."

Witham made a little deprecatory gesture. "Of course," he said. "Now
we can resume our former footing to-morrow, but in the meanwhile I
would like to know why you are so hard upon me, Miss Barrington,
because I really have not done much harm to any one at Silverdale.
Your aunt"--and he made a little respectful inclination of his head
which pleased the girl--"is at least giving me a fair trial."

"It is difficult to tell you--but it was your own doing," said Maud
Barrington. "At the beginning you prejudiced us when you told us you
could only play cards indifferently. It was so unnecessary, and we
knew a good deal about you!"

"Well," said Witham quietly, "I have only my word to offer, and I
wonder if you will believe me now, but I don't think I ever won five
dollars at cards in my life."

Maud Barrington watched him closely, but his tone carried conviction,
and again she was glad that he attempted no explanation. "I am quite
willing to take it," she said. "Still, you can understand----"

"Yes," said Witham. "It puts a strain upon your faith, but some day I
may be able to make a good deal that puzzles you quite clear."

Maud Barrington glanced at the flask. "I wonder if that is connected
with the explanation, but I will wait. Now, you have not lighted your
cigar."

Witham understood that the topic was dismissed, and sat thoughtfully
still while the girl nestled against the birch logs close beside him
under the same furs; for the wind went through the building and the
cold was unbearable a few feet from the stove. The birch rafters shook
above their heads, and every now and then it seemed that a roaring
gust would lift the roof from them. Still the stove glowed and
snapped, and close in about it there was a drowsy heat, while
presently the girl's eyes grew heavy. Finally--for there are few who
can resist the desire for sleep in the cold of the North-West--her
head sank back, and Witham, rising very slowly, held his breath as he
piled the furs about her. That done, he stooped and looked down upon
her while the blood crept to his face. Maud Barrington lay very still,
the long, dark lashes resting on her cold-tinted cheeks, and the
patrician serenity of her face was even more marked in her sleep. Then
he turned away, feeling like one who had committed a desecration,
knowing that he had looked too long already upon the sleeping girl who
believed he had been an outcast and yet had taken his word; for it was
borne in upon him that a time would come when he would try her faith
even more severely. Moving softly, he paced up and down the room.

Witham afterwards wondered how many miles he walked that night, for
though the loghouse was not longer than thirty feet, the cold bit
deep; but at last he heard a sigh as he glanced towards the stove, and
immediately swung round again. When he next turned, Miss Barrington
stood upright, a little flushed in face, but otherwise very calm; and
the man stood still, shivering in spite of his efforts, and blue with
cold. The wind had fallen, but the sting of the frost that followed it
made itself felt beside the stove.

"You had only your deerskin jacket--and you let me sleep under all the
furs," she said.

Witham shook his head, and hoped he did not look as guilty as he felt,
when he remembered that it must have been evident to his companion
that the furs did not get into the position they had occupied
themselves.

"I only fancied you were a trifle drowsy and not inclined to talk," he
said, with an absence of concern, for which Miss Barrington, who did
not believe him, felt grateful. "You see"--and the inspiration was a
trifle too evident--"I was too sleepy to notice anything myself.
Still, I am glad you are awake now, because I must make my way to the
Grange."

"But the snow will be ever so deep, and I could not come," said Maud
Barrington.

Witham shook his head. "I'm afraid you must stay here; but I will be
back with Colonel Barrington in a few hours at latest."

The girl deemed it advisable to hide her consternation. "But you might
not find the trail," she said. "The ravine would lead you to Graham's
homestead."

"Still," said Witham slowly, "I am going to the Grange."

Then Maud Barrington remembered, and glanced aside from him. It was
evident this man thought of everything; and she made no answer when
Witham, who thrust more billets into the stove, turned to her with a
little smile.

"I think we need remember nothing when we meet again, beyond the fact
that you will give me a chance of showing that the Lance Courthorne,
whose fame you know, has ceased to exist."

Then he went out, and the girl stood with flushed cheeks looking down
at the furs he had left behind him.




CHAPTER X

MAUD HARRINGTON'S PROMISE


Daylight had not broken across the prairie, when, floundering through
a foot of dusty snow, Witham reached the Grange. He was aching from
fatigue and cold, and the deerskin jacket stood out from his numbed
body, stiff with frost, when, leaning heavily on a table, he awaited
Colonel Barrington. The latter, on entering, stared at him and then
flung open a cupboard and poured out a glass of wine.

"Drink that before you talk. You look half dead," he said.

Witham shook his head. "Perhaps you had better hear me first."

Barrington thrust the glass upon him. "I could make nothing of what
you told me while you speak like that. Drink it, and then sit until
you get used to the different temperature."

Witham drained the glass and sank limply into a chair. As yet his face
was colourless, though his chilled flesh tingled horribly as the blood
once more crept into the surface tissues. Then he fixed his eyes upon
his host as he told his story. Barrington stood very straight watching
his visitor, but his face was drawn, for the resolution which
supported him through the day was less noticeable in the early
morning, and it was evident now at least that he was an old man
carrying a heavy load of anxiety. Still, as the story proceeded, a
little blood crept into his cheeks, while Witham guessed that he found
it difficult to retain his grim immobility.

"I am to understand that an attempt to reach the Grange through the
snow would have been perilous?" he said.

"Yes," said Witham quietly.

The older man stood very still regarding him intently, until he said,
"I don't mind admitting that it was distinctly regrettable!"

Witham stopped him with a gesture. "It was at least unavoidable, sir.
The team would not face the snow, and no one could have reached the
Grange alive."

"No doubt you did your best--and, as a connexion of the family, I am
glad it was you. Still--and there are cases in which it is desirable
to speak plainly--the affair, which you will, of course, dismiss from
your recollection, is to be considered as closed now."

Witham smiled, and a trace of irony he could not quite repress was
just discernible in his voice. "I scarcely think that was necessary,
sir. It is, of course, sufficient for me to have rendered a small
service to the distinguished family which has given me an opportunity
of proving my right to recognition, and neither you, nor Miss
Barrington, need have any apprehension that I will presume upon it!"

Barrington wheeled round. "You have the Courthorne temper, at least,
and perhaps I deserved this display of it. You acted with commendable
discretion in coming straight to me--and the astonishment I got drove
the other aspect of the question out of my head. If it hadn't been for
you, my niece would have frozen."

"I'm afraid I spoke unguardedly, sir; but I am very tired. Still, if
you will wait a few minutes, I will get the horses out without
troubling the hired man."

Barrington made a little gesture of comprehension, and then shook his
head. "You are fit for nothing further, and need rest and sleep."

"You will want somebody, sir," said Witham. "The snow is very loose
and deep."

He went out, and Barrington, who looked after him with a curious
expression in his face, nodded twice as if in approval. Twenty minutes
later he took his place in the sleigh that slid away from the Grange,
which lay a league behind it when the sunrise flamed across the
prairie. The wind had gone, and there was only a pitiless brightness
and a devastating cold, while the snow lay blown in wisps, dried dusty
and fine as flour by the frost. It had no cohesion, the runners sank
in it, and Witham was almost waist deep when he dragged the
floundering team through the drifts. A day had passed since he had
eaten anything worth mention, but he held on with an endurance which
his companion, who was incapable of rendering him assistance, wondered
at. There were belts of deep snow the almost buried sleigh must be
dragged through, and tracts from which the wind had swept the dusty
covering, leaving bare the grasses the runners would not slide over,
where the team came to a standstill, and could scarcely be urged to
continue the struggle.

At last, however, the loghouse rose, a lonely mound of whiteness, out
of the prairie, and Witham drew in a deep breath of contentment when a
dusky figure appeared for a moment in the doorway. His weariness
seemed to fall from him, and once more his companion wondered at the
tirelessness of the man, as, floundering on foot beside them, he urged
the team through the powdery drifts beneath the big birch bluff.
Witham did not go in, however, when they reached the house; and when,
five minutes later, Maud Barrington came out, she saw him leaning with
a drawn face against the sleigh. He straightened himself suddenly at
the sight of her, but she had seen sufficient, and her heart softened
towards him. Whatever the man's history had been he had borne a good
deal for her.

The return journey was even more arduous, and now and then Maud
Barrington felt a curious throb of pity for the worn-out man, who
during most of it walked beside the team; but it was accomplished at
last, and she contrived to find means of thanking him alone when they
reached the Grange.

Witham shook his head, and then smiled a little. "It isn't nice to
make a bargain," he said. "Still, it is less pleasant now and then to
feel under an obligation, though there is no reason why you should."

Maud Barrington was not altogether pleased, but she could not blind
herself to facts, and it was plain that there was an obligation. "I am
afraid I cannot quite believe that, but I do not see what you are
leading to."

Witham's eyes twinkled. "Well," he said reflectively, "I don't want
you to fancy that last night commits you to any line of conduct in
regard to me. I only asked for a truce, you see."

Maud Barrington was a trifle nettled. "Yes?" she said.

"Then, I want to show you how you can discharge any trifling
obligation you may fancy you may owe me, which of course would be more
pleasant to you. Do not allow your uncle to sell any wheat forward for
you, and persuade him to sow every acre that belongs to you this
spring."

"But however would this benefit you," asked the girl.

Witham laughed. "I have a fancy that I can straighten up things at
Silverdale, if I can get my way. It would please me, and I believe
they want it. Of course, a desire to improve anything appears curious
in me!"

Maud Barrington was relieved of the necessity of answering, for the
Colonel came up just then; but, moved by some sudden impulse, she
nodded as if in agreement.

It was afternoon when she awakened from a refreshing sleep, and
descending to the room set apart for herself and her aunt, sat
thoughtfully still awhile in a chair beside the stove. Then,
stretching out her hand, she took up a little case of photographs and
slipped out one of them. It was a portrait of a boy and pony, but
there was a significance in the fact that she knew just where to find
it. The picture was a good one, and once more Maud Barrington noticed
the arrogance, which did not, however, seem out of place there, in the
lad's face. It was also a comely face, but there was a hint of
sensuality in it that marred its beauty. Then with a growing
perplexity she compared it with that of the weary man who had plodded
beside the team. Witham was not arrogant but resolute, and there was
no stamp of indulgence in his face. Indeed, the girl had from the
beginning recognized the virility in it that was tinged with
asceticism and sprang from a simple, strenuous life of toil in the
wind and sun.

Just then there was a rustle of fabric, and she laid down the
photograph a moment too late, as her aunt came in. As it happened, the
elder lady's eyes rested on the picture, and a faint flush of
annoyance crept into the face of the girl. It was scarcely
perceptible, but Miss Barrington saw it, and though she felt tempted,
did not smile.

"I did not know you were down," she said. "Lance is still asleep. He
seemed very tired."

"Yes," said the girl. "That is very probable. He left the railroad
before daylight, and had driven round to several farms before he came
to Macdonald's, and he was very considerate. He had made me take all
the furs, and, I fancy, walked up and down with nothing but his indoor
clothing on all night long, though the wind went through the building,
and one could scarcely keep alive a few feet from the stove."

Again the flicker of colour crept into the girl's cheeks, and the eyes
that were keen, as well as gentle, noticed it.

"I think you owe him a good deal," said Miss Barrington.

"Yes," said her niece, with a little laugh which appeared to imply a
trace of resentment. "I believe I do, but he seemed unusually anxious
to relieve me of that impression. He was also good enough to hint that
nothing he might have done need prevent me being--the right word is a
trifle difficult to find--but I fancy he meant unpleasant to him if I
wished it."

There was a little twinkle in Miss Barrington's eyes. "Are you not a
trifle hard to please, my dear? Now, if he had attempted to insist on
a claim to your gratitude, you would have resented it."

"Of course," said the girl reflectively. "Still, it is annoying to be
debarred from offering it. There are times, aunt, when I can't help
wishing that Lance Courthorne had never come to Silverdale. There are
men who leave nothing just as they found it, and whom one can't
ignore."

Miss Barrington shook her head. "I fancy you are wrong. He has
offended after all?"

She was pleased to see her niece's face relax into a smile that
expressed unconcern. "We are all exacting now and then," said the
girl. "Still, he made me promise to give him a fair trial, which was
not flattering, because it suggested that I had been unnecessarily
harsh, and then hinted this morning that he had no intention of
holding me to it. It really was not gratifying to find he held the
concession he asked for of so small account. You are, however, as
easily swayed by trifles as I am, because Lance can do no wrong since
he kissed your hand."

"I really think I liked him the better for it," said the little
silver-haired lady. "The respect was not assumed, but wholly genuine,
you see; and whether I was entitled to it or not, it was a good deal
in Lance's favour that he should offer it to me. There must be some
good in the man who can be moved to reverence anything, even if he is
mistaken."

"No man with any sense could help adoring you," said Maud Barrington.
"Still, I wonder why you believe I was wrong in wishing he had not
come to Silverdale."

Miss Barrington looked thoughtful. "I will tell you, my dear. There
are few better men than my brother; but his thoughts, and the
traditions he is bound by, are those of fifty years ago, while the
restless life of the prairie is a thing of to-day. We have fallen too
far behind it at Silverdale, and a crisis is coming that none of us
are prepared for. Even Dane is scarcely fitted to help my brother to
face it, and the rest are either over-fond of their pleasure or
untrained boys. Brave lads they are, but none of them have been taught
that it is only by mental strain, or the ceaseless toil of his body,
the man without an inheritance can win himself a competence now. This
is why they want a leader who has known hardship and hunger, instead
of ease, and won what he holds with his own hand in place of having it
given him."

"You fancy we could find one in such a man as Lance has been?"

Miss Barrington looked grave. "I believe the prodigal was afterwards a
better, as well as a wiser, man than the one who stayed at home, and I
am not quite sure that Lance's history is so nearly like that of the
son in the parable as we have believed it to be. A residence in the
sty is apt to leave a stain, which I have not, though I have looked
for it, found on him."

The eyes of the two women met, and, though nothing more was said, each
realized that the other was perplexed by the same question, while the
girl was astonished to find her vague suspicions shared. While they
sat silent, Colonel Barrington came in.

"I am glad to see you looking so much better, Maud," he said, with a
trace of embarrassment. "Courthorne is resting still. Now, I can't
help feeling that we have been a trifle more distant than was needful
with him. The man has really behaved very discreetly. I mean in
everything."

This was a great admission, and Miss Barrington smiled. "Did it hurt
you very much to tell us that?" she asked.

The Colonel laughed. "I know what you mean, and if you put me on my
mettle I'll retract. After all, it was no great credit to him, because
blood will tell, and he is, of course, a Courthorne."

Almost without her intention, Maud Barrington's eyes wandered towards
the photograph, and then looking up she met those of her aunt, and
once more saw the thought that troubled her in them.

"The Courthorne blood is responsible for a good deal more than
discretion," said Miss Barrington, who went out quietly.

Her brother appeared a trifle perplexed. "Now, I fancied your aunt had
taken him under her wing, and when I was about to suggest that,
considering the connexion between the families, we might ask him over
to dinner occasionally, she goes away," he said.

The girl looked down a moment, for, realizing that her uncle
recognized the obligation he was under to the man he did not like, she
remembered that she herself owed him considerably more and he had
asked for something in return. It was not altogether easy to grant,
but she had tacitly pledged herself, and turning suddenly she laid a
hand on Barrington's arm.

"Of course; but I want to talk of something else just now," she said.
"You know I have very seldom asked you questions about my affairs, but
I wish to take a little practical interest in them this year."

"Yes?" said Barrington, with a smile. "Well, I am at your service, my
dear, and quite ready to account for my stewardship. You are no longer
my ward, except by your own wishes."

"I am still your niece," said the girl, patting his arm. "Now, there
is, of course, nobody who could manage the farming better than you do,
but I would like to raise a large crop of wheat this season."

"It wouldn't pay," and the Colonel grew suddenly grave. "Very few men
in the district are going to sow all their holding. Wheat is steadily
going down."

"Then if nobody sows there will be very little, and shouldn't that put
up the prices?"

Barrington's eyes twinkled. "Who has been teaching you commercial
economy? You are too pretty to understand such things, and the
argument is fallacious, because the wheat is consumed in Europe--and
even if we have not much to offer, they can get plenty from
California, Chile, India, and Australia."

"Oh, yes--and Russia," said the girl. "Still, you see, the big mills
in Winnipeg and Minneapolis depend upon the prairie. They couldn't
very well bring wheat in from Australia."

Barrington was still smiling with his eyes, but his lips were set. "A
little knowledge is dangerous, my dear, and if you could understand me
better, I could show you where you were wrong. As it is, I can only
tell you that I have decided to sell wheat forward and plough very
little."

"But that was a policy you condemned with your usual vigour. You
really know you did."

"My dear," said the Colonel, with a little impatient gesture, "one can
never argue with a lady. You see--circumstances alter cases
considerably."

He nodded with an air of wisdom as though that decided it; but the
girl persisted. "Uncle," she said, drawing closer to him with lithe
gracefulness, "I want you to let me have my own way just for once, and
if I am wrong I will never do anything you do not approve of again.
After all, it is a very little thing, and you would like to please
me."

"It is a trifle that is likely to cost you a good deal of money," said
the Colonel dryly.

"I think I could afford it, and you could not refuse me."

"As I am only your uncle, and no longer a trustee, I could not," said
Barrington. "Still, you would not act against my wishes?"

His eyes were gentle, unusually so, for he was not as a rule very
patient when any one questioned his will; but there was a reproach in
them that hurt the girl. Still, because she had promised, she
persisted.

"No," she said. "That is why it would be ever so much nicer if you
would just think as I did."

Barrington looked at her steadily. "If you insist, I can at least hope
for the best," he said, with a gravity that brought a faint colour to
the listener's cheek.

It was next day when Witham took his leave, and Maud Barrington stood
beside him as he put on his driving furs.

"You told me there was something you wished me to do, and, though it
was difficult, it is done," she said. "My holding will be sown with
wheat this spring."

Witham turned his head aside a moment and apparently found it needful
to fumble at the fastenings of the furs, while there was a curious
expression in his eyes when he looked round again.

"Then," he said with a little smile, "we are quits. That cancels any
little obligation which may have existed."

He had gone in another minute, and Maud Barrington turned back into
the stove-warmed room very quietly. Her lips were, however, somewhat
closely set.




CHAPTER XI

SPEED THE PLOUGH


Winter had fled back beyond the barrens to the lonely North at last,
and though here and there a little slushy snow still lay soaking the
black loam in a hollow, a warm wind swept the vast levels when one
morning Colonel Barrington rode with his niece and sister across the
prairie. Spring comes suddenly in that region, and the frost-bleached
sod was steaming under an effulgent sun, while in places a hardy
flower peeped through. It was six hundred miles to the forests of the
Rockies' eastern slope, and as far to the Athabascan pines, but it
seemed to Maud Barrington that their resinous sweetness was in the
glorious western wind, which awoke a musical sighing from the sea of
rippling grass. It rolled away before her in billows of lustrous
silver-grey, and had for sole boundary the first upward spring of the
arch of cloudless blue, across which the vanguard of the feathered
host pressed on, company by company towards the Pole.

The freshness of it all stirred her blood like wine, and the
brightness that flooded the prairie had crept into her eyes; for those
who bear the iron winter of that lonely land realize the wonder of the
reawakening, which in a little space of day, dresses the waste which
has lain for long months white and silent as the dead, in living
green. It also has its subtle significance that the grimmest toiler
feels, and the essence of it is hope eternal and triumphant life. The
girl felt the thrill of it, and gave thanks by an answering
brightness, as the murmuring grasses and peeping flowerets did; but
there was behind her instinctive gladness a vague wonder and
expectancy. She had read widely, and seen the life of the cities with
understanding eyes, and now she was to be provided with the edifying
spectacle of the gambler and outcast turned farmer.

Had she been asked a few months earlier whether the man who had, as
Courthorne had done, cast away his honour and wallowed in the mire,
could come forth again and purge himself from the stain, her answer
would have been coldly sceptical; but now, with the old familiar
miracle and what it symbolized before her eyes, the thing looked less
improbable. Why this should give pleasure she did not know, or would
not admit that she did, but the fact remained that it was so.

Trotting down the slope of the next rise, they came upon him, and he
stood with very little sign of dissolute living upon him by a great
breaker plough. In front of him, the quarter-mile furrow led on beyond
the tall sighting poles on the crest of the next rise, and four
splendid horses, of a kind not very usual on the prairie, were
stamping the steaming clods at his side. Bronzed by frost and sun,
with his brick-red neck and arch of chest revealed by the coarse blue
shirt that, belted at the waist, enhanced his slenderness of flank,
the repentant prodigal was at least a passable specimen of the animal
man, but it was the strength and patience in his face that struck the
girl, as he turned towards her, bareheaded, with a little smile in his
eyes. She also noticed the difference he presented with his ingrained
hands and the stain of the soil upon him to her uncle, who sat his
horse, immaculate as usual with gloved hand on the bridle, for the
Englishmen at Silverdale usually hired other men to do their coarser
work for them.

"So you are commencing in earnest in face of my opinion?" said
Barrington. "Of course, I wish you success, but that consummation
appears distinctly doubtful."

Witham laughed as he pointed to a great machine which, hauled by four
horses, rolled towards them, scattering the black clods in its wake.
"I'm doing what I can to achieve it, sir," he said. "In fact, I'm
staking somewhat heavily. That team with the gang ploughs and
cultivators cost me more dollars than I care to remember."

"No doubt," said Barrington dryly. "Still, we have always considered
oxen good enough for breaking prairie at Silverdale."

Witham nodded. "I used to do so, sir, when I could get nothing better,
but after driving oxen for eight years one finds out their
disadvantages."

Barrington's face grew a trifle stern. "There are times when you tax
our patience, Lance," he said. "Still, there is nothing to be gained
by questioning your assertion. What I fail to see is where your reward
for all this will come from, because I am still convinced that the
soil will, so to speak, give you back eighty cents for every dollar
you put into it. I would, however, like to look at those implements. I
have never seen better ones."

He dismounted and helped his companion down, for Witham made no
answer. The farmer was never sure what actuated him, but, save in an
occasional fit of irony, he had not attempted by any reference to make
his past fall into line with Courthorne's since he had first been
accepted as the latter at Silverdale. He had taken the dead man's
inheritance, for a while, but he would stoop no further, and to speak
the truth, which he saw was not credited, brought him a grim amusement
as well as flung a sop to his pride. Presently, however, Miss
Barrington turned to him, and there was a kindly gleam in her eyes as
she glanced at the splendid horses and widening strip of ploughing.

"You have the hope of youth, Lance, to make this venture when all
looks black--and it pleases me," she said. "Sometimes I fancy that men
had braver hearts than they have now when I was young."

Witham flushed a trifle, and stretching out an arm swept his hand
round the horizon. "All that looked dead a very little while ago, and
now you can see the creeping greenness in the sod," he said. "The lean
years cannot last for ever, and, even if one is beaten again, there is
a consolation in knowing that one has made a struggle. Now, I am quite
aware that you are fancying a speech of this kind does not come well
from me."

Maud Barrington had seen his gesture, and something in the thought
that impelled it, as well as the almost statuesque pose of his
thinly-clad figure, appealed to her. Courthorne as farmer, with the
damp of clean effort on his forehead and the stain of the good soil
that would faithfully repay it on his garments, had very little in
common with the profligate and gambler. Vaguely she wondered whether
he was not working out his own redemption by every wheat furrow torn
from the virgin prairie, and then again the doubt crept in. Could this
man have ever found pleasure in the mire?

"You will plough all your holding, Lance?" asked the elder lady, who
had not answered his last speech yet, but meant to do.

"Yes," said the man. "All I can. It's a big venture, and if it fails
will cripple me; but I seem to feel, apart from any reason I can
discern, that wheat is going up again, and I must go through with this
ploughing. Of course, it does not sound very sensible."

Miss Barrington looked at him gravely, for there was a curious and
steadily-tightening bond between the two. "It depends upon what you
mean by sense. Can we reason out all we feel, and is there nothing
intangible but real behind the impulses which may be sent to us?"

"Well," said Witham, with a little smile, "that is a trifle too deep
for me, and it's difficult to think of anything but the work I have to
do. But you were the first at Silverdale to hold out a hand to me--and
I have a feeling that your good wishes would go a long way now. Is it
altogether fantastic to believe that the good-will of my first friend
would help to bring me prosperity?"

The white-haired lady's eyes grew momentarily soft, and, with a
gravity that did not seem out of place, she moved forward and laid her
hand on a big horse's neck, and smiled when the dumb beast responded
to her gentle touch.

"It is a good work," she said. "Lance, there is more than dollars, or
the bread that somebody is needing, behind what you are doing, and
because I loved your mother I know how her approval would have
followed you. And now sow in hope, and God speed your plough!"

She turned away almost abruptly, and Witham stood still, with one hand
closed tightly and a little deeper tint in the bronze of his face,
sensible at once of an unchanged resolution and a horrible
degradation. Then he saw that the Colonel had helped Miss Barrington
into the saddle and her niece was speaking.

"I have something to ask Mr. Courthorne, and will overtake you," she
said.

The others rode on, and the girl turned to Witham, "I made you a
promise and did my best to keep it but I find it harder than I fancied
it would be," she said. "I want you to release me."

"I should like to hear your reasons," said Witham.

The girl made a faint gesture of impatience. "Of course, if you
insist!"

"I do," said Witham quietly.

"Then I promised you to have all my holding sown this year, and I am
still willing to do so; but, though my uncle makes no protests I know
he feels my opposition very keenly, and it hurts me horribly. Unspoken
reproaches are the worst to bear, you know, and now Dane and some of
the others are following your lead, it is painful to feel that I am
taking part with them against the man who has always been kind to me."

"And you would prefer to be loyal to Colonel Barrington even if it
cost you a good deal?"

"Of course!" said Maud Barrington. "Can you ask me?"

Witham saw the sparkle in her eyes and the half-contemptuous pride in
the poise of the shapely head. Loyalty, it was evident, was not a
figure of speech with her, but he felt that he had seen enough and
turned his face aside.

"I knew it would be difficult when I asked," he said. "Still, I cannot
give you back that promise. We are going to see a great change this
year, and I have set my heart on making all I can for you."

"But why should you?" asked Maud Barrington, somewhat astonished that
she did not feel more angry.

"Well," said Witham gravely, "I may tell you by and by, and in the
meanwhile you can set it down to vanity. This may be my last venture
at Silverdale, and I want to make it a big success."

The girl glanced at him sharply, and it was because the news caused
her an unreasonable concern that there was a trace of irony in her
voice.

"Your last venture! Have we been unkind to you or does it imply that,
as you once insinuated, an exemplary life becomes monotonous?"

Witham laughed. "No. I should like to stay here--a very long while,"
he said; and the girl saw he spoke the truth as she watched him glance
wistfully at the splendid teams, great ploughs, and rich, black soil.
"In fact, strange as it may appear, it will be virtue, given the rein
for once, that drives me out when I go away."

"But where are you going to?"

Witham glanced vaguely across the prairie, and the girl was puzzled by
the look in his eyes. "Back to my own station," he said softly, as
though to himself, and then turned with a little shrug of his
shoulders. "In the meanwhile there is a good deal to do, and once more
I am sorry I cannot release you."

"Then, there is an end of it. You could not expect me to beg you to,
so we will discuss the practical difficulty. I cannot under the
circumstances borrow my uncle's teams, and I am told I have not
sufficient men or horses to put a large crop in."

"Of course!" said Witham quietly. "Well, I have now the best teams and
machines on this part of the prairie, and am bringing Ontario men in.
I will do the ploughing--and, if it will make it easier for you, you
can pay me for the services."

There was a little flush on the girl's face. "It is all distasteful,
but as you will not give me back my word, I will keep it to the
letter. Still, it almost makes me reluctant to ask you a further
favour."

"This one is promised before you ask it," said Witham quietly.

It cost Maud Barrington some trouble to make her wishes clear, and
Witham's smile was not wholly one of pleasure as he listened. One of
the young English lads, who was, it appeared, a distant connexion of
the girl's, had been losing large sums of money at a gaming table, and
seeking other equally undesirable relaxations at the railroad
settlement. For the sake of his mother in England, Miss Barrington
desired him brought to his senses, but was afraid to appeal to the
Colonel, whose measures were occasionally more draconic than wise.

"I will do what I can," said Witham. "Still, I am not sure that a lad
of the kind is worth your worrying over, and I am a trifle curious as
to what induced you to entrust the mission to me?"

The girl felt embarrassed, but she saw that an answer was expected.
"Since you ask, it occurred to me that you could do it better than
anybody else," she said. "Please don't misunderstand me; but I fancy
it is the other man who is leading him away."

Witham smiled somewhat grimly. "Your meaning is quite plain, and I am
already looking forward to the encounter with my fellow-gambler. You
believe that I will prove a match for him?"

Maud Barrington, to her annoyance, felt the blood creep to her
forehead, but she looked at the man steadily, noticing the quiet
forcefulness beneath his somewhat caustic amusement.

"Yes," she said simply; "and I shall be grateful."

In another few minutes she was galloping across the prairie, and when
she rejoined her aunt and Barrington, endeavoured to draw out the
latter's opinion respecting Courthorne's venture by a few discreet
questions.

"Heaven knows where he was taught it, but there is no doubt that the
man is an excellent farmer," he said. "It is a pity that he is also,
to all intents and purposes, mad."

Miss Barrington glanced at her niece, and both of them smiled, for the
Colonel usually took for granted the insanity of any one who
questioned his opinions.

In the meanwhile, Witham sat swaying on the driving-seat, mechanically
guiding the horses and noticing how the prairie sod rolled away in
black waves beneath the great plough. He heard the crackle of fibres
beneath the triple shares, and the swish of greasy loam along the
mouldboard's side; but his thoughts were far away, and when he raised
his head, he looked into the dim future beyond the long furrow that
cut the skyline on the rise.

It was shadowy and uncertain, but one thing was clear to him, and that
was that he could not stay in Silverdale. At first he had almost hoped
he might do this, for the good land, and the means of efficiently
working it, had been a horrible temptation. That was before he
reckoned on Maud Barrington's attractions; but of late he had seen
what these were leading him to, and all that was good in him recoiled
from an attempt to win her. Once he had dared to wonder whether it
could be done, for his grim life had left him self-centred and bitter,
but that mood had passed, and it was with disgust he looked back upon
it. Now he knew that the sooner he left Silverdale, the less difficult
it would be to forget her; but he was still determined to vindicate
himself by the work he did, and make her affairs secure. Then, with or
without a confession, he would slip back into the obscurity he came
from.

While he worked the soft wind rioted about him, and the harbingers of
summer passed north in battalions overhead--crane, brent goose, and
mallard--in crescents, skeins, and wedges, after the fashion of their
kind. Little long-tailed gophers whisked across the whitened sod, and
when the great plough rolled through the shadows of a bluff, jack
rabbits, pied white and grey, scurried amidst the rustling leaves.
Even the birches were fragrant in that vivifying air, and seemed to
rejoice as all animate creatures did; but the man's face grew more
sombre as the day of toil wore on. Still, he did his work with the
grim, unwavering diligence that had already carried him, dismayed but
unyielding, through years of drought and harvest hail, and the stars
shone down on the prairie when at last he loosed his second team.

Then, standing in the door of his lonely homestead, he glanced at the
great shadowy granaries and barns, and clenched his hand as he saw
what he could do if the things that had been forced upon him were
rightfully his. He knew his own mettle, and that he could hold them if
he would; but the pale, cold face of a woman rose up in judgment
against him, and he also knew that because of the love of her, that
was casting its toils about him, he must give them up.

Far back on the prairie a lonely coyote howled, and a faint wind, that
was now like snow-cooled wine, brought the sighing of limitless
grasses out of the silence. There was no cloud in the crystalline
ether, and something in the vastness and stillness that spoke of
infinity brought a curious sense of peace to him. Impostor though he
was, he would leave Silverdale better than he found it, and afterwards
it would be of no great moment what became of him. Countless
generations of toiling men had borne their petty sorrows before him,
and gone back to the dust they sprang from; but still, in due
succession, harvest followed seed-time, and the world whirled on.
Then, remembering that, in the meanwhile, he had much to do which
would commence with the sun on the morrow, he went back into the house
and shook the fancies from him.




CHAPTER XII

MASTERY RECOGNIZED


There was, considering the latest price of wheat, a somewhat
astonishing attendance in the long room of the hotel at the railroad
settlement one Saturday evening. A big stove in the midst of it
diffused a stuffy and almost unnecessary heat, gaudy nickelled lamps
an uncertain brilliancy, and the place was filled with the drifting
smoke of indifferent tobacco. Oleographs, barbaric in colour and
drawing, hung about the roughly-boarded walls, and any critical
stranger would have found the saloon comfortless and tawdry.

It was, however, filled that night with bronzed-faced men who expected
nothing better. Most of them wore jackets of soft black leather or
embroidered deerskin, and the jean trousers and long boots of not a
few apparently stood in need of repairing, though the sprinkling of
more conventional apparel and paler faces showed that the storekeepers
of the settlement had been drawn together, as well as the prairie
farmers who had driven in to buy provisions or take up their mail.
There was, however, but little laughter, and their voices were low,
for boisterousness and assertion are not generally met with on the
silent prairie. Indeed, the attitude of some of the men was mildly
deprecatory, as though they felt that in assisting in what was going
forward they were doing an unusual thing. Still, the eyes of all were
turned toward the table where a man, who differed widely in appearance
from most of them, dealt out the cards.

He wore city clothes, and a white shirt with a fine diamond in the
front of it, while there was a keen intentness behind the
half-ironical smile in his somewhat colourless face. The whiteness of
his long, nervous fingers and the quickness of his gestures would also
have stamped him as a being of different order from the slowly-spoken
prairie farmers, while the slenderness of the little pile of coins in
front of him testified that his endeavours to tempt them to
speculation on games of chance had met with no very marked success as
yet. Gambling for stakes of moment is not a popular amusement in that
country, where the soil demands his best from every man in return for
the scanty dollars it yields him, but the gamester had chosen his time
well, and the men who had borne the dreary solitude of winter in
outlying farms, and now only saw another adverse season opening before
them, were for once in the mood to clutch at any excitement that would
relieve the monotony of their toilsome lives.

A few were betting small sums with an apparent lack of interest which
did not in the least deceive the dealer, and when he handed a few
dollars out he laughed a little as he turned to the bar-keeper.

"Set them up again. I want a drink to pass the time," he said. "I'll
play you at anything you like to put a name to, boys, if this game
don't suit you, but you'll have to give me the chance of making my
hotel bill. In my country I've seen folks livelier at a funeral."

The glasses were handed round, but when the gambler reached out
towards the silver at his side, a big bronzed-skinned rancher stopped
him.

"No," he drawled. "We're not sticking you for a locomotive tank, and
this comes out of my treasury. I'll call you three dollars and take my
chances on the draw."

"Well," said the dealer, "that's a little more encouraging. Anybody
wanting to make it better?"

A young lad in elaborately-embroidered deerskin with a flushed face
leaned upon the table. "Show you how we play cards in the old
country," he said. "I'll make it thirty--for a beginning."

There was a momentary silence, for the lad had staked heavily and lost
of late, but one or two more bets were made. Then the cards were
turned up, and the lad smiled fatuously as he took up his winnings.

"Now, I'll let you see," he said. "This time we'll make it fifty."

He won twice more in succession, and the men closed in about the
table, while, for the dealer knew when to strike, the glasses went
round again, and in the growing interest nobody quite noticed who paid
for the refreshment. Then, while the dollars began to trickle in, the
lad flung a bill for a hundred down.

"Go on," he said a trifle huskily. "To-night you can't beat me!"

Once more he won, and just then two men came quietly into the room.
One of them signed to the hotel-keeper.

"What's going on? The boys seem kind of keen," he said.

The other man laughed a little. "Ferris has struck a streak of luck,
but I wouldn't be very sorry if you got him away, Mr. Courthorne. He
has had as much as he can carry already, and I don't want anybody
broke up in my house. The boys can look out for themselves, but the
Silverdale kid has been losing a good deal lately, and he doesn't know
when to stop."

Witham glanced at his companion, who nodded. "The young fool," he
said.

They crossed towards the table in time to see the lad take up his
winnings again, and Witham laid his hand quietly upon his shoulder.

"Come along and have a drink while you give the rest a show," he said.
"You seem to have done tolerably well, and it's usually wise to stop
while the chances are going with you."

The lad turned and stared at him with languid insolence in his
half-closed eyes, and, though he came of a lineage that had been
famous in the old country, there was nothing very prepossessing in his
appearance. His mouth was loose, his face weak in spite of its
inherited pride, and there was little need to tell either of the men,
who noticed his nervous fingers and muddiness of skin, that he was one
who in the strenuous early days would have worn the woolly crown.

"Were you addressing me?" he asked.

"I was," said Witham quietly. "I was, in fact, inviting you to share
our refreshment. You see we have just come in."

"Then," said the lad, "it was condemnable impertinence. Since you have
taken this fellow up, couldn't you teach him that it's bad taste to
thrust his company upon people who don't want it, Dane?"

Witham said nothing, but drew Dane, who flushed a trifle, aside, and
when they sat down the latter smiled dryly.

"You have taken on a big contract, Courthorne. How are you going to
get the young ass out?" he said.

"Well," said Witham, "it would gratify me to take him by the neck, but
as I don't know that it would please the Colonel if I made a public
spectacle of one of his retainers, I fancy I'll have to tackle the
gambler. I don't know him, but as he comes from across the frontier
it's more than likely he has heard of me. There are advantages in
having a record like mine, you see."

"It would, of course, be a kindness to the lad's people--but the young
fool is scarcely worth it, and it's not your affair," said Dane
reflectively.

Witham guessed the drift of the speech, but he could respect a
confidence, and laughed a little. "It's not often I have done any one
a good turn, and the novelty has its attractions."

Dane did not appear contented with this explanation, but he asked
nothing further, and the two sat watching the men about the table, who
were evidently growing eager.

"That's two hundred the kid has let go," said somebody.

There was a murmur of excited voices, and one rose hoarse and a trifle
shaky in the consonants above the rest.

"Show you how a gentleman can stand up, boys. Throw them out again.
Two hundred this time on the game!"

There was silence and the rustle of shuffled cards; then once more the
voices went up. "Against him! Better let up before he takes your farm.
Oh, let him face it and show his grit--the man who slings round his
hundreds can afford to lose!"

The lad's face showed a trifle paler through the drifting smoke,
though a good many of the cigars had gone out now, and once more there
was the stillness of expectancy through which a strained voice rose.

"Going to get it all back. I'll stake you four hundred."

Witham rose and moved forward quietly, with Dane behind him, and then
stood still where he could see the table. He had also very observant
eyes, and was free from the excitement of those who had a risk on the
game. Still, when the cards were dealt, it was the gambler's face he
watched. For a brief space nobody moved, and then the lad flung down
his cards and stood up with a greyness in his cheeks and his hands
shaking.

"You've got all my dollars now," he said. "Still, I'll play you for
doubles if you'll take my paper."

The gambler nodded, and flung down a big pile of bills. "I guess I'll
trust you. Mine are here."

The bystanders waited motionless, and none of them made a bet, for any
stakes they could offer would be trifles now; but they glanced at the
lad who stood tensely still, while Witham watched the face of the man
at the table in front of him. For a moment he saw a flicker of triumph
in his eyes, and that decided him. Again, one by one, the cards went
down, and then, when everybody waited in strained expectancy, the lad
seemed to grow limp suddenly and groaned.

"You can let up," he said hoarsely. "I've gone down!"

Then a hard brown hand was laid upon the table, and while the rest
stared in astonishment, a voice which had a little stern ring in it
said, "Turn the whole pack up, and hand over the other one."

In an instant the gambler's hand swept beneath his jacket, but it was
a mistaken move, for as swiftly the other hard, brown fingers closed
upon the pile of bills, and the men, too astonished to murmur, saw
Witham leaning very grim in face across the table. Then it tilted over
beneath him, and the cards were on the gambler's knees, while, as the
two men rose and faced each other, something glinted in the hands of
one of them.

It is more than probable that the man did not intend to use it, and
trusted to its moral effect, for the display of pistols is not
regarded with much toleration on the Canadian prairie. In any case, he
had not the opportunity, for in another moment Witham's right hand
closed upon his wrist, and the gambler was struggling fruitlessly to
extricate it. He was a muscular man, with doubtless a sufficiency of
nerve, but he had not toiled with his arms and led a Spartan life for
eight long years. Before another few seconds had passed he was
wondering whether he would ever use that wrist again, while Dane
picked up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket with the bundle
of bills Witham handed him.

"Now," said the latter, "I want to do the square thing. If you'll let
us strip you and turn out your pockets, we'll see you get any winnings
you're entitled to when we've straightened up the cards."

The gambler was apparently not willing, for, though it is possible he
would have found it advisable to play an honest game across the
frontier, he had evidently surmised that there was less risk of
detection among the Canadian farmers. He probably knew they would not
wait long for his consent, but in the first stages of the altercation
it is not as a rule insuperably difficult for a fearless man to hold
his own against an indignant company who have no definite notion of
what they mean to do, and it was to cover his retreat he turned to
Witham.

"And who the ---- are you?" he asked.

Witham smiled grimly. "I guess you have heard of me. Anyway, there are
a good many places in Montana where they know Lance Courthorne. Quite
sure I know a straight game when I see it!"

The man's resistance vanished, but he had evidently been taught the
necessity of making the best of defeat in his profession, and he
laughed as he swept his glance round at the angry faces turned upon
him.

"If you don't there's nobody does," he said. "Still, as you've got my
pistol and 'most dislocated my wrist, the least you can do is to get a
partner out of this."

There was an ominous murmur, and the lad's face showed livid with fury
and humiliation, but Witham turned quietly to the hotel-keeper.

"You will take this man with you into your side room and stop with him
there," he said. "Dane, give him the bills. The rest of you had better
sit down here and make a list of your losses, and you'll get whatever
the fellow has upon him divided amongst you. Then, because I ask you,
and you'd have had nothing but for me, you'll put him in his wagon
and turn him out quietly upon the prairie."

"That's sense, and we don't want no circus here," said somebody.

A few voices were raised in protest, but when it became evident that
one or two of the company were inclined to adopt more draconic
measures, Dane spoke quietly and forcibly, and was listened to. Then
Witham reached out and grasped the shoulder of the English lad, who
made the last attempt to rouse his companions.

"Let them alone, Ferris, and come along. You'll get most of what you
lost back to-morrow, and we're going to take you home," he said.

Ferris turned upon him, hoarse with passion, flushed in face, and
swaying a trifle on his feet, while Witham noticed that he drew one
arm back.

"Who are you to lay hands on a gentleman?" he asked. "Keep your
distance. I'm going to stay here, and, if I'd have had my way, we'd
have kicked you out of Silverdale."

Witham dropped his hand, but next moment the ornament of a
distinguished family was seized by the neck, and the farmer glanced at
Dane.

"We've had enough of this fooling, and he'll be grateful to me
to-morrow," he said.

Then his captive was thrust, resisting strenuously, out of the room,
and with Dane's assistance conveyed to the waiting wagon, into which
he was flung, almost speechless with indignation.

"Now," said Dane quietly, "you've given us a good deal more trouble
than you're worth, Ferris, and if you attempt to get out again, I'll
break your head for you. Tell Courthorne how much that fellow got from
you."

In another ten minutes they had jolted across the railroad track, and
were speeding through the silence of the lonely prairie. Above them
the clear stars flung their cold radiance down through vast distances
of liquid indigo, and the soft beat of hoofs was the only sound that
disturbed the solemn stillness of the wilderness. Dane drew in a great
breath of the cool night air and laughed quietly.

"It's a good deal more wholesome here in several ways," said he. "If
you're wise, you'll let up on card-playing and hanging round the
settlement, Ferris, and stick to farming. Even if you lose almost as
many dollars over it, it will pay you considerably better. Now that's
all I'm going to tell you, but I know what I'm speaking of, because
I've had my fling--and it's costing me more than I care to figure out
still. You, however, can pull up, because by this time you have no
doubt found out a good deal, if you're not all a fool. Curiosity's at
the bottom of half our youthful follies, isn't it, Courthorne? We want
to know what the things forbidden actually taste like."

"Well," said Witham dryly, "I don't quite know. You see, I had very
little money in the old country, and still less leisure here to spend
either on that kind of experimenting. Where to get enough to eat was
the one problem that worried me."

Dane turned a trifle sharply. "We are, I fancy, tolerably good
friends. Isn't it a little unnecessary for you to adopt that tone with
me?"

Witham laughed, but made no answer, and their companion said nothing
at all. Either the night wind had a drowsy effect on him or he was
moodily resentful, for it was not until Witham pulled up before the
homestead whose lands he farmed indifferently under Barrington's
supervision that he opened his mouth.

"You have got off very cheaply to-night, and if you're wise you'll let
that kind of thing alone in future," said Witham quietly.

The lad stepped down from the wagon and then stood still. "I resent
advice from you as much as I do your uncalled-for insolence an hour or
two ago," he said. "To lie low until honest men got used to him would
be considerably more becoming to a man like you."

"Well," said Witham, stung into forgetfulness, "I'm not going to
offend in that fashion again, and you can go to the devil in the way
that most pleases you. In fact, I only pulled you out of the pit
to-night because a lady, who apparently takes a quite unwarranted
interest in you, asked me to."

Ferris stared up at him, and his face showed almost livid through the
luminous night.

"She asked you to!" he said. "By the Lord, I'll make you sorry for
this."

Witham said nothing, but shook the reins, and when the wagon lurched
forward Dane looked at him.

"I didn't know that before," he said.

"Well," said Witham dryly, "if I hadn't lost my temper with the lad
you wouldn't have done now."

Dane smiled. "You miss the point of it. Our engaging friend made
himself the laughing-stock of the colony by favouring Maud Barrington
with his attentions when he came out. In fact, I fancy the lady, in
desperation, had to turn her uncle loose on him before he could be
made to understand that they were not appreciated. I'd keep your eye
on him, Courthorne, for the little beast has shown himself abominably
vindictive occasionally, though I have a notion he's scarcely to be
held accountable. It's a case of too pure a strain and consanguinity.
Two branches of the family--marriage between land and money, you see."

"It will be my heel if he gets in my way," said Witham grimly.

It was late when they reached his homestead where Dane was to stay the
night, and when they went in a youthful figure in uniform rose up in
the big log-walled hall. For a moment Witham's heart almost stood
still, and then, holding himself in hand by a strenuous effort, he
moved forward and stood where the light of a lamp did not shine quite
fully upon him. He knew that uniform, and he had also seen the lad who
wore it once or twice before, at an outpost six hundred miles away
across the prairie. He knew the risk he took was great, but it was
evident to him that if his identity escaped detection at first sight,
use would do the rest, and while he had worn a short pointed beard on
the Western prairie, he was cleanly-shaven now.

The lad stood quite still a moment staring at him, and Witham
returning his gaze steadily felt his pulses throb.

"Well, trooper, what has brought you here?" he said.

"Homestead visitation, sir," said the lad, who had a pleasant English
voice. "Mr. Courthorne, I presume--accept my regrets if I stared too
hard at you--but for a moment you reminded me of a man I knew. They've
changed us round lately, and I'm from the Alberta Squadron just sent
in to this district. It was late when I rode in, and your people were
kind enough to put me up."

Witham laughed. "I have been taken for another man before. Would you
like anything to drink, or a smoke before you turn in, trooper?"

"No, sir," said the lad. "If you'll sign my docket to show I've been
here, I'll get some sleep. I've sixty miles to ride to-morrow."

Witham did as he was asked, and the trooper withdrew, while when they
sat down to a last cigar it seemed to Dane that his companion's face
was graver than usual.

"Did you notice the lad's astonishment when you came in?" he asked.
"He looked very much as if he had seen a ghost."

Witham smiled. "I believe he fancied he had. There was a man in the
district he came from whom some folks considered resembled me. In
reality, I was by no means like him, and he's dead now."

"Likenesses are curious things, and it's stranger still how folks
alter," said Dane. "Now, they've a photograph at Barrington's of you
as a boy, and while there is a resemblance in the face, nobody with
any discernment would have fancied that lad would grow into a man like
you. Still, that's of no great moment, and I want to know just how you
spotted the gambler. I had a tolerably expensive tuition in most games
of chance in my callow days, and haven't forgotten completely what I
was taught then, but though I watched the game I saw nothing that led
me to suspect crooked play."

Witham laughed. "I watched his face, and what I saw there decided me
to try a bluff, but it was not until he turned the table over I knew I
was right."

"Well," said Dane dryly, "you don't need your nerves toning up. With
only a suspicion to go upon, it was a tolerably risky game. Still, of
course, you had advantages."

"I have played a more risky one, but I don't know that I have cause to
be very grateful for anything I acquired in the past," said Witham
with a curious smile.

Dane stood up and flung his cigar away. "It's time I was asleep," he
said. "Still, since our talk has turned in this direction, I want to
tell you that, as you have doubtless seen, there is something about
you that puzzles me occasionally. I don't ask your confidence until
you are ready to give it me--but if ever you want anybody to stand
behind you in a difficulty, you'll find me rather more than willing."

He went out, and Witham sat still very grave in face for at least
another hour.




CHAPTER XIII

A FAIR ADVOCATE


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 Witham were also not desirous that their
friends should know 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
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 neighbours 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
endeavoured 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 at
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 rôle."

"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
was just a trace of reality in our picturesque fancies of debonair
desperadoes and big-hatted cavaliers."

There was a curious expression in Ferris' face, but as he glanced
round 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 them 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 colour
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 Witham 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 round 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 colour 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 a 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 Witham. "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 Witham'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?" she said.

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 Witham, crossing the room, took a vacant place at
Maud Barrington's side. She turned her head a moment and looked at
him.

Witham 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 Witham 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?"

Witham 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 Witham 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."

Witham 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?"

Witham 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 with what
fate had thrust upon him might dare to go, 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 Witham,
with a note the girl had not heard before in his voice.

"I should not believe them," she said.

"Still," persisted Witham, "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
colour on any story, and I believe they could never be true again."

Witham 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 Witham 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?"

Witham 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 of her character from him. It was with a
smothered groan he realized that if he flung the last shred of honour
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 Witham 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 ploughing of your land and mine, and
nobody's exchequer is inexhaustible at Silverdale. Now I want you to
take a cheque from me."

"Is it necessary, that I should?"

"Of course," said the girl, with a trace of displeasure.

Witham 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.




CHAPTER XIV

THE UNEXPECTED


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, tasselled
now with whispering foliage, divided the homestead from 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 vigour and something of the sombreness 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 tranquility 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 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 them.

"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 plough 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 is 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 grey 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
ploughing 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 plough.
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 plough 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 amidst a clatter of harness, its
mate squealed savagely, and the man who loosed one hand from the
headstall flung out an arm. Then he and the pair whirled round
together amidst 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, Witham 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 ploughing. "When
wheat is going down?"

Witham nodded. "Yes," he said. "I mean, to me; and the price of wheat
is only 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."

Witham 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 Witham, 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 Witham, 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
cheque with me," said Maud Barrington. "Please let us get it over
first of all."

Witham sat down at a table and scribbled on a strip of paper. "That,"
he said gravely, "is what you owe me for the ploughing."

There was a little flush in his face as he took the cheque 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 Witham 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 Witham, "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 ploughed 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 staken 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 I, and three
or four others in all the province, are ploughing more than half their
holdings."

The suggestion of comradeship set Witham'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 ploughing 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 said.

"'The Dakota wheat-growers are mostly following. 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 Witham. "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 nations' bonds in the old
country now, for they and the rest of Europe forget their necessities
at times, but it is impossible to picture them finding their granaries
empty and clamouring 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."

Witham'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."

Witham 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."

Witham 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 Witham sat
still awhile, and then went back very grim in face to his ploughing.
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 ploughing. 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 Witham 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 Witham 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
Witham 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."

Witham 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 deal. 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 Witham favoured 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 Witham 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. They're
mine, you see."

Witham 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 them 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 Witham, 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 Witham 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
connexions. 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."

Witham stood up and set his back to the door. "You heard my terms, but
if you mention that lady again in connexion 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.

Witham 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 Witham. "Stay, if it pleases you."

Courthorne shook his head. "I don't know that it would. You don't do
it badly, Witham."

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.

Witham 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 Witham 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 offence, and called round
to requisition a horse. One of the Whitesod boys has been deciding a
quarrel with a neighbour with an axe, 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 Witham.
"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, Witham 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 Witham
noticed that the life he had led was telling upon his companion.

"As your guest?" he asked.

"Yes," said Witham. "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."




CHAPTER XV

FACING THE FLAME


Courthorne rode away next morning, and some weeks had passed when Maud
Barrington came upon Witham sitting beside his mower in a sloo. He did
not at first see her, for the rattle of the machines in a neighbouring
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 with him, a 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 Witham 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 Witham 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 in her face which showed just touched by the sun
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 to taste for at least a space
the life of leisure and refinement came upon him, as it had done too
often for his tranquility since he came to Silverdale. 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.

Witham 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 over far."

"We are inquisitive, you know," said Maud Barrington; "can't you tell
me what they were?"

Witham 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 fancy 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 clamoured for, east in the old
country, and west in British Columbia--and for a background,
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?"

Witham 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?"

Witham 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 Witham'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 Witham, "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?"

Witham smiled wryly. "It is the present that is difficult," he said.
"Can a man be pardoned and retain the offence?"

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!"

Witham 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
neighbours, Witham 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 odour 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 ploughed round every homestead at Silverdale.

Maud Barrington was at the piano, and her voice was good; while
Witham, 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 Witham'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 ploughed, 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
neighbours that he had sold for a fall; but Barrington could lose
gracefully. Then both his niece and Dane looked at Witham 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."

Witham 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 Witham simply. "Still 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 Witham 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, 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."

Witham 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 honour of telling you and Miss Barrington was the
fact," he said.

Nobody spoke, and the girl was wondering by what means the strain,
which, though few heard what Barrington said, all seemed to feel,
could be relieved, 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 as yet 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, and healthy Englishmen,
of the stock that had furnished their nation's fighting line, and not
infrequently counted no sacrifice too great that brought their colours
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 honour,
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 hurled straight, 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 defences, 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 Witham'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
ploughs 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 fall-depth
furrow a furlong from the fire."

There was no confusion, and already the hired men were busy with two
great machines until Witham 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 Witham 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 Witham 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 with the
wife of one of her neighbours had watched the struggle, stood
wide-eyed, half-afraid, and yet thrilled in every fibre.

"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 horse's 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,
though the men who led them afterwards wondered how they kept their
grip on the horses' heads, came out frantic with fear on the farther
side. Then it was that while the machines swung round and other men
ran to help, Witham, springing from the driving-seat, found Dane
amidst 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 plough, 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 grey 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 plough, 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 Witham, 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."

Witham'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 defences
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 Witham.

"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 plough along. Anyway, 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 smouldering 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 amidst 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 Witham 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 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.




CHAPTER XVI

MAUD BARRINGTON IS MERCILESS


Dane overtook the wagon close by the birch bluff at Silverdale
Grange. It was late then, but there were lights in the windows that
blinked beyond the trees, and, when the wagon stopped, Barrington
stood in the doorway with one or two of his hired men. Accidents are
not infrequent on the prairie, where surgical assistance is not always
available, and there was a shutter ready on the ground beside him, for
the Colonel had seen the field hospital in operation.

"Unhook the tailboard," he said sharply. "Two of you pick up the
shutter. Four more here. Now, arms about his shoulders, hips, and
knees. Lift and lower--step off with right foot leading bearer, with
your left in the rear!"

It was done in a few moments, and when the bearers passed into the big
hall that rang with their shuffling steps, Maud Barrington shivered as
she waited with her aunt in an inner room. That tramping was horribly
suggestive, and she had seen but little of sickness and grievous
wounds. Still, the fact scarcely accounted for the painful throbbing
of her heart, and the dizziness that came upon her. Then the bearers
came in, panting, with Barrington and Dane behind them, and the girl
was grateful to her aunt, who laid a hand upon her arm when she saw
the singed head, and blackened face that was smeared with a ruddier
tint, upon the shutter.

"Lower!" said Colonel Barrington. "Lift, as I told you," and the
huddled object was laid upon the bed. Then there was silence until the
impassive voice rose again.

"We shall not want you, Maud. Dane, you and I will get these burnt
things off him."

The girl went out, and while she stood, feeling curiously chilly in an
adjoining room, Barrington bent over his patient.

"Well put together!" he said thoughtfully. "Most of his people were
lighter in the frame. Well, we can only oil the burns, and get a cold
compress about his head. All intact, so far as I can see, and I fancy
he'd pull through a good deal more than has happened to him. I am
obliged for your assistance, but I need not keep you."

The men withdrew, and when a rattle of wheels rose from the prairie,
Maud Barrington waylaid her uncle in the hall. Her fingers were
trembling, and, though her voice was steady, the man glanced at her
curiously as she asked, "How is he?"

"One can scarcely form an opinion yet," he said slowly. "He is burned
here and there, and his head is badly cut, but it is the concussion
that troubles me. A frantic horse kicks tolerably hard, you know, but
I shall be able to tell you more when the doctor comes to-morrow. In
the meanwhile you had better rest, though you could look in and see if
your aunt wants anything in an hour or two."

Maud Barrington passed an hour in horrible impatience, and then stole
quietly into the sick-room. The windows were open wide, and the shaded
lamp burned unsteadily as the cool night breeze flowed in. Its dim
light just touched the man who lay motionless with a bandage round his
head, and the drawn pallor of his face once more sent a shiver through
the girl. Then Miss Barrington rose and lifted a warning hand.

"Quite unconscious still," she said softly. "I fancy he was knocked
down by one of the horses and trampled on, but your uncle has hopes of
him. He has evidently led a healthy life."

The girl was a little less serene than usual then, and drew back into
the shadow.

"Yes," she said. "We did not think so once."

Miss Barrington smiled curiously. "Are you very much astonished, Maud?
Still, there is nothing you can do for me, and we shall want you
to-morrow."

Realizing that there was no need for her, the girl went out, and when
the door closed behind her the little white-haired lady bent down and
gazed at her patient long and steadily. Then she shook her head, and
moved back to the seat she had risen from, with perplexity in her
face.

In the meantime Maud Barrington sat by the open window in her room,
staring out into the night. There was a whispering in the birch bluff,
and the murmuring of leagues of grasses rose from the prairie that
stretched away beyond it. Still, though the wind fanned her throbbing
forehead with a pleasant coolness, the nocturnal harmonies awoke no
response in her. Sleep was out of the question, for her brain was in a
whirl of vague sensation, through which fear came uppermost every now
and then. Why anything which could befall this man who had come out of
the obscurity and was he had told her, to go back into it again,
should disturb her, Maud Barrington did not know; but there was no
disguising the fact that she would feel his loss grievously, as others
at Silverdale would do. Then with a little tremor she wondered whether
they must lose him, and, rising, stood tensely still, listening for
any sound from the room where the sick man lay.

There was nothing but the sighing of the grasses outside and the
murmur of the birches in the bluff, until the doleful howl of a coyote
stole faintly out of the night. Again the beast sent its cry out upon
the wind, and the girl trembled as she listened. The unearthly wail
seemed charged with augury, and every nerve in her thrilled.

Then she sank down into her chair again, and sat still, hoping,
listening, fearing, and wondering when the day would come, until at
last her eyes grew heavy, and it was with a start she roused herself
when a rattle of wheels came up out of the prairie in the early
morning. Then a spume-flecked team swept up to the house, a door swung
open, there was a murmur of voices and a sound of feet that moved
softly in the hall, after which for what seemed an interminable time,
silence reigned again. At last, when the stealthy patter of feet
recommenced, the girl slipped down the stairway and came upon
Barrington. Still, she could not ask the question that was trembling
on her lips.

"Is there anything I can do?" she said.

Barrington shook his head. "Not now! The doctor is here, and does not
seem very anxious about him. The concussion is not apparently serious,
and his other injuries will not trouble him much."

Maud Barrington said nothing and turned away, sensible of a great
relief, while her aunt entering her room an hour later found her lying
fast asleep but still dressed as she had last seen her. Then, being a
discerning woman, she went out softly with a curious smile, and did
not at any time mention what she had seen.

It was that evening, and Barrington had departed suddenly on business
to Winnipeg, when Dane rode up to the Grange. He asked for Miss
Barrington and her niece, and when he heard that his comrade was
recovering sensibility, sat down looking very grave.

"I have something to tell you, but Courthorne must not know until he
is better, while I'm not sure that we need tell him then," he said.
"In the meanwhile, I am also inclined to fancy it would be better kept
from Colonel Barrington on his return. It is the first time anything
of the kind has happened at Silverdale, and it would hurt him
horribly, which decided us to come first to you."

"You must be more concise," said Miss Barrington quietly, and Dane
trifled with the hat in his hand.

"It is," he said, "a most unpleasant thing, and is known to three men
only, of whom I am one. We have also arranged that nobody else will
chance upon what we have discovered. You see, Ferris is unfortunately
connected with you, and his people have had trouble enough already."

"Ferris?" said Maud Barrington, with a sudden hardening of her face.
"You surely don't mean----"

Dane nodded. "Yes," he said reluctantly. "I'm afraid I do. Now, if you
will listen to me for a minute or two."

He told his story with a grim, convincing quietness, and the blood
crept into the girl's cheeks as she followed his discoveries step by
step. Glancing at her aunt, she saw that there was horror as well as
belief in the gentle lady's face.

"Then," she said with cold incisiveness, "Ferris cannot stay here, and
he shall be punished."

"No," said Dane. "We have no room for a lad of his disposition at
Silverdale--but I'm very uncertain in regard to the rest. You see,
it couldn't be done without attracting attention--and I have the
honour of knowing his mother. You will remember how she lost
another son. That is why I did not tell Colonel Barrington. He is a
trifle--precipitate--occasionally."

Miss Barrington glanced at him gratefully. "You have done wisely," she
said. "Ethel Ferris has borne enough, and she has never been the same
since the horrible night they brought Frank home, for she knew how he
came by his death, though the coroner brought it in misadventure. I
also fancy my brother would be implacable in a case like this, though
how far I am warranted in keeping the facts from him I do not know."

Dane nodded gravely. "We leave that to you. You will, however,
remember what happened once before. We cannot go through what we did
then again."

Miss Barrington recalled the formal court-martial that had once been
held in the hall of the Grange, when every man in the settlement had
been summoned to attend, for there were offences in regard to which
her brother was inflexible. When it was over and the disgraced man
went forth an outcast, a full account of the proceedings had been
forwarded to those at home who had hoped for much from him.

"No," she said. "For the sake of the woman who sent him here we must
stop short of that."

Then Maud Barrington looked at them both. "There is one person you do
not seem to consider at all, and that is the man who lies here in
peril through Ferris's fault," she said. "Is there nothing due to
him?"

Dane noticed the sternness in her eyes, and glanced as if for support
towards Miss Barrington. "I fancy he would be the last to claim it if
he knew what we do. Still, in the meanwhile, I leave the affair to
your aunt and you. We would like to have your views before doing
anything further."

He rose as he spoke, and when he had gone out Maud Barrington sat down
at a writing table. "Aunt," she said quietly, "I will ask Ferris to
come here at once."

It was next day when Ferris came, evidently ill at ease, though he
greeted Miss Barrington with elaborate courtesy, and would have done
the same with her niece but the girl turned from him with visible
disdain.

"Sit down," she said coldly. "Colonel Barrington is away, but his
sister will take his place, and after him I have the largest stake in
the welfare of Silverdale. Now, a story has come to our ears which, if
it had not been substantiated, would have appeared incredible. Shall
Miss Barrington tell it you?"

Ferris, who was a very young man, flushed, but the colour faded and
left his cheeks a trifle grey. He was not a very prepossessing lad,
for it requires a better physique than he was endowed with to bear the
stamp of viciousness that is usually most noticeable on the feeble,
but he was distinguished by a trace of arrogance that not infrequently
served him as well as resolution.

"If it would not inconvenience Miss Barrington, it would help me to
understand a good deal I can find no meaning for now," he said.

The elder lady's face grew sterner, and very quietly but remorselessly
she set forth his offence, until no one who heard the tale could have
doubted the origin of the fire.

"I should have been better pleased had you, if only when you saw we
knew everything, appeared willing to confess your fault and make
amends," she said.

Ferris laughed as ironically as he dared under the eyes which had lost
their gentleness. "You will pardon me for telling you that I have no
intention of admitting it now. That you should be so readily
prejudiced against me is not gratifying, but, you see, nobody could
take any steps without positive proof of the story, and my word is at
least as credible as that of the interloper who told it you."

Maud Barrington raised her head suddenly, and looked at him with a
curious light in her eyes, but the elder lady made a little gesture of
deprecation.

"Mr. Courthorne has told us nothing," she said. "Still, three
gentlemen whose worth is known at Silverdale are willing to certify
every point of it. If we lay the affair before Colonel Barrington, you
will have an opportunity of standing face to face with them."

The lad's assurance, which, so far and no further, did duty for
courage, deserted him. He was evidently not prepared to be made the
subject of another court-martial, and the hand he laid on the table in
front of him trembled a little.

"Madam," he said hoarsely, "if I admit everything what will you do?"

"Nothing," said Maud Barrington coldly. "On conditions that within a
month you leave Silverdale."

Ferris stared at her. "You can't mean that. You see, I'm fond of
farming, and nobody would give me what the place cost me. I couldn't
live among the outside settler fellows."

The girl smiled coldly. "I mean exactly what you heard, and, if you do
not enlighten them, the settlers would probably not object to you.
Your farm will be taken over at what you gave for it."

Ferris stood up. "I am going to make a last appeal. Silverdale's the
only place fit for a gentleman to live in in Canada, and I want to
stay here. You don't know what it would cost me to go away, and I'd do
anything for reparation--send a big cheque to a Winnipeg hospital and
starve myself to make up for it if that would content you. Only, don't
send me away."

His tone grew almost abject as he proceeded, and while Miss
Barrington's eyes softened, her niece's heart grew harder because of
it, as she remembered that he had brought a strong man down.

"No," she said dryly. "That would punish your mother and sisters from
whom you would cajole the money. You can decide between leaving
Silverdale and having the story, and the proof of it, put into the
hands of Colonel Barrington."

She sat near an open window regarding him with quiet scorn, and the
light that shone upon her struck a sparkle from her hair and set the
rounded cheek and neck gleaming like ivory. The severity of her pose
became her, and the lad's callow desire that had driven him to his
ruin stirred him to impotent rage in his desperation. There were grey
patches in his cheeks, and his voice was strained and hoarse.

"You have no mercy on me because I struck at him," he said. "The one
thing I shall always be sorry for is that I failed, and I would go
away with pleasure if the horse had trampled the life out of him.
Well, there was a time when you could have made what you wished of me,
and now, at least, I shall not see the blackleg you have showered your
favours on drag you down to the mire he came from."

Maud Barrington's face had grown very colourless, but she said
nothing, and her aunt rose and raised the hammer of a gong.

"Ferris," she said, "do you wish to be led out by the hired men?"

The lad laughed, and the hideous merriment set the white-haired lady's
nerves on edge. "Oh, I am going now; but, for once, let us be honest.
It was for her I did it, and if it had been any other man I had
injured, she would have forgiven me."

Then with an ironical farewell he swung out of the room, and the two
women exchanged glances when the door closed noisily behind him. Miss
Barrington was flushed with anger, but her niece's face was paler than
usual.

"Are there men like him?" she said.

Miss Barrington shook off her anger and, rising, laid a gentle hand on
her niece's shoulder. "Very few, I hope," she said. "Still, it would
be better if we sent word to Dane. You would not care for that tale to
spread?"

For a moment the girl's cheek flamed, then she rose quietly and
crossed the room.

"No," she said; and her aunt stood still, apparently lost in
contemplation, after the door swung softly to. Then she sat down at
the writing table. There was very little in the note, but an hour
after Dane received it that night, a wagon drew up outside Ferris's
farm. Two men went quietly in and found the owner of the homestead
sitting with a sheaf of papers scattered about the table in front of
him.

"Come back to-morrow. I can't be worried now," he said. "Well, why the
devil don't you go?"

Dane laid a hand on his shoulder. "We are waiting for you. You are
coming with us!"

Ferris turned and stared at them. "Where to?"

"To the railroad," said Dane dryly. "After that you can go just where
it pleases you. Now, there's no use whatever making a fuss, and every
care will be taken of your property until you can arrange to dispose
of it. Hadn't you better get ready?"

The grim quietness of the voice was sufficient, and Ferris, who saw
that force would be used if it was necessary, decided that it was
scarcely likely his hired men would support him.

"I might have expected it!" he said. "Of course, it was imprudent to
speak the truth to our leader's niece. You know what I have done."

"I know what you did the night Courthorne nearly lost his life," said
Dane. "One would have fancied that would have contented you."

"Well," said Ferris, "if you like to hear of a more serious offence,
I'll oblige you."

Dane's finger closed on his arm. "If you attempt to tell me, I'll
break your head for you."

Next moment Ferris was lifted from his chair, and in less than ten
minutes Dane thrust him into the wagon, where another man, who passed
a hand through his arm, sat beside him. It was a very long drive to
the railroad, but few words were exchanged during it, and when they
reached the settlement one of Ferris's companions mounted guard
outside the hotel he found accommodation in, until the Montreal
express crawled up above the rim of the prairie. Then both went with
him to the station, and as the long cars rolled in Dane turned quietly
to the lad.

"Now, I am quite aware that we are incurring some responsibility, so
you need not waste your breath," he said. "There are, however, lawyers
in Winnipeg, if you fancy it is advisable to make use of them, and you
know where I and Macdonald are, if you want us. In the meanwhile, your
farm will be run better than ever it was in your hands, until you
dispose of it. That is all I have to tell you, except that if any
undesirable version of the affair gets about, Courthorne or I will
assuredly find you."

Then there was a scream of the whistle, and the train rolled away with
Ferris standing white with fury on the platform of a car.

In the meanwhile, Maud Barrington spent a sleepless night. Ferris's
taunt had reached its mark, and she realized with confusion that it
was the truth he spoke. The fact that brought the blood to her cheeks
would no longer be hidden, and she knew it was a longing to punish the
lad who had struck down the man she loved that had led to her
insistence on the former leaving Silverdale. It was a difficult
admission, but she made it that night. The outcast who had stepped out
of the obscurity and into her peaceful life, had shown himself a man
that any woman might be proud to mate with; and, though he had said
very little, and now and then his words were bitter, she knew that he
loved her. Whatever he had done--and she felt against all the
teachings of her reason that it had not been evil--he had shown
himself the equal of the best at Silverdale, and she laughed as she
wondered which of the men there she could set in the balance against
him. Then she shivered a little, remembering that there was a barrier
whose extent he alone realized between them, and wondered vaguely what
the future would bring.

It was a week or two before Witham was on his feet again, and Maud
Barrington was one of the first to greet him when he walked feebly
into the hall. She had, however, decided on the line of conduct that
would be most fitting, and there was no hint of more than neighbourly
kindliness in her tone. They had spoken about various trifles when
Witham turned to her.

"You and Miss Barrington have taken such good care of me that, if I
consulted my inclinations I would linger in convalescence a long
while," he said. "Still, I must make an effort to get away to-morrow."

"We cannot take the responsibility of letting you go under a week
yet," said Maud Barrington. "Have you anything especially important to
do?"

"Yes," said Witham--and the girl understood the grimness of his
face--"I have."

"It concerns the fire?"

Witham looked at her curiously. "I would sooner you did not ask me
that question, Miss Barrington."

"I scarcely fancy it is necessary," said the girl, with a little
smile. "Still I have something to tell you, and a favour to ask.
Ferris has left Silverdale, and you must never make any attempt to
discover what caused the fire."

"You know?"

"Yes," said Maud Barrington. "Dane, Macdonald, and Hassal know, too;
but you will not ask them, and if you did they would not tell you."

"I can refuse you nothing," said Witham with a laugh, though his voice
betrayed him. "Still, I want a _quid pro quo_. Wait until Ferris's
farm is in the sale list, and then take it with the growing crop."

"I could not. There are reasons," said the girl.

Witham gazed at her steadily, and a little colour crept to his
forehead, but he answered unconcernedly, "They can be over-ridden. It
may be the last favour I shall ever ask you."

"No," said Maud Barrington. "Anything else you wish, but not that. You
must believe, without wondering why, that it is out of the question!"

Witham yielded with a curious little smile. "Well," he said, "we will
let it drop. I ask no questions. You have accepted so much already
without understanding it."




CHAPTER XVII

WITH THE STREAM


It was Witham's last afternoon at the Grange, and almost unpleasantly
hot, while the man whose vigour had not as yet returned to him was
content to lounge in the big window-seat listlessly watching his
companion. He had borne the strain of effort long, and the time of his
convalescence amidst the tranquility of Silverdale Grange had, with
the gracious kindliness of Miss Barrington and her niece, been a
revelation to him. There were moments when it brought him bitterness
and self-reproach, but these were usually brief, and he made the most
of what he knew might never be his again, telling himself that it
would at least be something to look back upon.

Maud Barrington sat close by, glancing through the letters a mounted
man had brought in, and the fact that his presence put no restraint on
her curiously pleased the man. At last, however, she opened a paper
and passed it across to him.

"You have been very patient, but no doubt you will find something that
will atone for my silence there," she said.

Witham turned over the journal, and then smiled at her. "Is there
anything of moment in your letters?"

"No," said the girl with a little laugh. "I scarcely think there is--a
garden party, a big reception, the visit of a high official, and a
description of the latest hat. Still, you know, that is supposed to be
enough for us."

"Then I wonder whether you will find this more interesting. 'The bears
made a determined rally yesterday, and wheat moved back again. There
was later in the day a rush to sell, and prices now stand at almost
two cents below their lowest level.'"

"Yes," said Maud Barrington, noticing the sudden intentness of his
pallid face. "I do. It is serious news for you?"

"And for you! You see where I have led you. Ill or well, I must start
for Winnipeg to-morrow."

Maud Barrington smiled curiously. "You and I and a handful of others
stand alone, but I told you I would not blame you whether we won or
lost. Do you know that I am grateful for the glimpses of the realities
of life that you have given me?"

Witham felt his pulses throb faster, for the girl's unabated
confidence stirred him, but he looked at her gravely. "I wonder if you
realize what you have given me in return? Life as I had seen it was
very grim and bare--and now I know what, with a little help, it is
possible to make of it."

"With a little help?" said Maud Barrington.

Witham nodded, and his face, which had grown almost wistful, hardened.
"Those who strive in the pit are apt to grow blind to the best--the
sweetness and order and all the little graces that mean so much. Even
if their eyes are opened, it is usually too late. You see, they lose
touch with all that lies beyond the struggle, and without some one to
lead them they cannot get back to it. Still, if I talk in this fashion
you will laugh at me; but every one has his weakness now and then--and
no doubt I shall make up for it at Winnipeg to-morrow. One cannot
afford to be fanciful when wheat is two cents down."

Maud Barrington was not astonished. Tireless in his activities and,
more curious still, almost ascetic in his mode of life, the man had
already given her glimpses of his inner self and the vague longings
that came upon him. He never asked her pity, but she found something
pathetic in his attitude, for it seemed he knew that the stress and
the turmoil alone could be his. Why this was so, she did not know, but
it was with a confidence that could not be shaken now she felt it was
through no fault of his. His last words, however, showed her that the
mask was on again.

"I scarcely fancy you are well enough, but if you must go, I wonder
whether you would do a good turn to Alfreton?" she said. "The lad has
been speculating and he seems anxious lately."

"It is natural that they should all bring their troubles to you."

Maud Barrington laughed. "I, however, generally pass them on to you."

A trace of colour crept into the man's face, and his voice was a
trifle hoarse as he said. "Do you know that I would ask nothing better
than to take every care you had and bear it for you?"

"Still," said the girl with a little smile, "that is very evidently
out of the question."

Witham rose, and she saw that one hand was closed as he looked down
upon her. Then he turned and stared out at the prairie, but there was
something very significant in the rigidity of his attitude, and his
face seemed to have grown suddenly careworn when he glanced back at
her.

"Of course," he said quietly. "You see, I have been ill, and a little
off my balance lately. That accounts for erratic speeches, though I
meant it all. Colonel Barrington is still in Winnipeg?"

"Yes," said the girl, who was not convinced by the explanation, very
quietly. "I am a little anxious about him, too. He sold wheat forward,
and I gather from his last letter has not bought it yet. Now, as
Alfreton is driving in to-morrow, he could take you."

Witham was grateful to her, and still more to Miss Barrington, who
came in just then; while he did not see the girl again before he
departed with Alfreton on the morrow. When they had left Silverdale a
league behind, the trail dipped steeply amidst straggling birches to a
bridge which spanned the creek in a hollow, and Witham glanced at the
winding ascent thoughtfully.

"It has struck me that going round by this place puts another six
miles on to your journey to the railroad, and a double team could not
pull a big load up," he said.

The lad nodded. "The creek is a condemned nuisance. We have either to
load light when we are hauling grain in and then pitch half the bags
off at the bottom and come back for them--while, you know, one man
can't put up many four bushel bags--or keep a man and horses at the
ravine until we're through."

Witham laughed. "Now, I wonder whether you ever figured how much those
little things put up the price of your wheat."

"This is the only practicable way down," said the lad. "You can
scarcely climb up one side where the ravine's narrow abreast of
Silverdale."

"Drive round. I want to see it," said Witham. "Call at Rushforth for a
spool of binder twine."

Half-an-hour later Alfreton pulled the wagon up amidst the birches on
the edge of the ravine, which just there sloped steep as a railway
cutting, and not very much broader, to the creek. Witham gazed at it,
and then handed the twine to the hired man.

"Take that with you, Charley, and get down," he said. "If you strip
your boots off you can wade through the creek."

"I don't know that I want to," said the man.

"Well," said Witham, "it would please me if you did, as well as cool
your feet. Then you could climb up and hold that twine down on the
other side."

The man grinned; and, though Alfreton remembered that he was not
usually so tractable with him, proceeded to do Witham's bidding. When
he came back there was a twinkle of comprehension in his eyes; and
Witham, who cut off the length of twine, smiled at Alfreton.

"It is," he said dryly, "only a little idea of mine."

They drove on, and, reaching Winnipeg next day, went straight to
Graham the wheat-broker's offices. He kept them waiting some time, and
in the meanwhile men with intent faces passed hastily in and out
through the outer office. Some of them had telegrams or bundles of
papers in their hands, and the eyes of all were eager. The corridor
rang with footsteps, the murmur of voices seemed to vibrate through
the great building; while it seemed to Alfreton there was a suggestion
of strain and expectancy in all he heard and saw. Witham, however, sat
gravely still, though the lad noticed that his eyes were keener than
usual, for the muffled roar of the city, patter of messengers' feet,
ceaseless tinkle of telephone call bells, and whirr of the elevators,
each packed with human freight, all stirred him. Hitherto, he had
grappled with nature, but now he was to test his judgment against the
keenest wits of the cities, and stand or fall by it, in the struggle
that was to be waged over the older nation's food.

At last, however, a clerk signed to them from a doorway, and they
found Graham sitting before a littered table. A man sat opposite him
with the telephone receiver in his hand.

"Sorry to keep you, but I've both hands full just now. Every man in
this city is thinking wheat," he said. "Has he word from Chicago,
Thomson?"

"Yes," said the clerk. "Bears lost hold this morning. General buying!"

Just then the door swung open, and a breathless man came in. "Guess I
scared that clerk of yours who wanted to turn me off," he said. "Heard
what Chicago's doing? Well, you've got to buy for me now. They're
going to send her right up into the sky, and it's 'bout time I got out
before the bulls trample the life out of me."

"Quite sure you can't wait until to-morrow?" asked Graham.

The man shook his head. "No, sir. When I've been selling all along the
line! Send off right away, and tell your man on the market to cover
every blame sale for me."

Graham signed to the clerk, and as the telephone bell tinkled, a lad
brought in a message. The broker opened it. "'New York lost advance
and recovered it twice in the first hour,'" he read. "'At present a
point or two better. Steady buying in Liverpool.'"

"That," said the other man, "is quite enough for me. Let me have the
contracts as soon as they're ready."

He went out, and Graham turned to Witham. "There's half-a-dozen more
of them outside," he said. "Do you buy or sell?"

Witham laughed. "I want to know which a wise man would do."

"Well," said Graham, "I can't tell you. The bulls rushed wheat up as I
wired you, but the other folks got their claws in and worried it down
again. Wheat's anywhere and nowhere all the time, and I'm advising
nobody just now. No doubt you've formed your own opinion."

Witham nodded. "It's the last of the grappled, and the bears aren't
quite beaten yet, but any time the next week or two the decisive turn
will come. Then, if they haven't got out, there'll be very little left
of them."

"You seem tolerably sure of the thing. Got plenty of confidence in the
bulls?"

Witham smiled. "I fancy I know how Western wheat was sown this year
better than any statistician of the ring, and it's not the bulls I'm
counting on but those millions of hungry folks in the old country.
It's not New York or Chicago, but Liverpool the spark is coming from."

"Well," said Graham, "that's my notion, too, but I've no time for
anybody who hasn't grist for me just now. Still, I'd be glad to come
round and take you home to supper if you haven't the prejudice, which
is not unknown at Silverdale, against eating with a man who makes his
dollars on the market and didn't get them given him."

Witham laughed, and held up a lean brown hand. "All I ever had until
less than a year ago I earned with that. I'll be ready for you."

He went out with Alfreton, and noticed that the lad ate little at
lunch. When the meal was over he glanced at him with a smile through
the cigar smoke.

"I think it would do you good to take me into your confidence," he
said.

"Well," said Alfreton, "it would be a relief to talk, and I feel I
could trust you. Still, it's only fair to tell you I didn't at the
beginning. I was an opinionated ass, you see."

Witham laughed. "I don't mind in the least, and we have most of us
felt that way."

"Well," said the lad, "I was a little short of funds, and proud of
myself, and when everybody seemed certain that wheat was going down
for ever, I thought I saw my chance of making a little. Now I've more
wheat than I care to think of to deliver, the market's against me. If
it stiffens any further it will break me; and that's not all, you see.
Things have gone tolerably badly with the folks at home, and I fancy
it took a good deal of what should have been the girls' portion to
start me at Silverdale."

"Then," said Witham, "it's no use trying to show you how foolish
you've been. That is the usual thing, and it's easy; but what the man
in the hole wants to know is the means of getting out again."

Alfreton smiled ruefully. "I'm tolerably far in. I could just cover at
to-day's prices if I pledged my crop, but it would leave me nothing to
go on with and the next advance would swamp the farm."

"Well," said Witham quietly, "don't buy to-day. There's going to be an
advance that will take folks' breath away, but the time's not quite
ripe yet. You'll see prices knocked back a little the next day or two,
and then you will cover your sales to the last bushel."

"But are you sure?" asked the lad a trifle hoarsely. "You see, if
you're mistaken, it will mean ruin to me."

Witham laid his hand on his shoulder. "If I am wrong, I'll make your
losses good."

Nothing more was said on that subject, but Alfreton's face grew
anxious once more as they went up and down the city. Everybody was
talking wheat, which was not astonishing, for that city and the two
great provinces to the west of it lived by the trade in grain; and
before the afternoon had passed they learned that there had been a
persistent advance. The lad's uneasiness showed itself, but when they
went back to the hotel about the supper hour Witham smiled at him.

"You're feeling sick?" he said. "Still, I don't fancy you need worry."

Then Graham appeared and claimed him, and it was next morning when he
saw Alfreton again. He was breakfasting with Colonel Barrington and
Dane, and Witham noticed that the older man did not appear to have
much appetite. When the meal was finished he drew him aside.

"You have covered your sales, sir?" he asked.

"No, sir," said Barrington. "I have not."

"Then I wonder if it would be presumption if I asked you a question?"

Barrington looked at him steadily. "To be frank, I fancy it would be
better if you did not. I have, of course, only my own folly to blame
for believing I could equal your natural aptitude for this risky
amusement, which I had, and still have, objections to. I was, however,
in need of money, and seeing your success, yielded to the temptation.
I am not laying any of the responsibility on you, but am not inclined
to listen to more of your suggestions."

Witham met his gaze without embarrassment. "I am sorry you have been
unfortunate, sir."

Just then Dane joined them. "I sat up late last night in the hope of
seeing you," he said. "Now, I don't know what to make of the market,
but there were one or two fellows who would have bought my estimated
crop from me at a figure which would have about covered working
expenses. Some of the others who did not know you were coming in, put
their affairs in my hands, too."

"Sell nothing," said Witham quietly.

It was an hour later when a messenger from Graham found them in the
smoking-room, and Colonel Barrington smiled dryly as he tore up the
envelope handed him.

"'Market opened with sellers prevailing. Chicago flat!'" he read.

Dane glanced at Witham somewhat ruefully, but the latter's eyes were
fixed on Colonel Barrington.

"If I had anything to cover I should still wait," he said.

"That," said Dane, "is not exactly good news to me."

"Our turn will come," said Witham gravely.

That day, and during several which followed it, wheat moved down, and
Dane said nothing to Witham about what he felt, though his face grew
grimmer as the time went on. Barrington was quietly impassive when
they met him, while Alfreton, who saw a way out of his difficulties,
was hard to restrain. Witham long afterwards remembered that horrible
suspense, but he showed no sign of what he was enduring then, and was
only a trifle quieter than usual when he and Alfreton entered Graham's
office one morning. It was busier than ever, while the men who
hastened in and out seemed to reveal by attitude and voice that they
felt something was going to happen.

"In sellers' favour!" said the broker. "Everybody with a few dollars
is hammering prices one way or the other. Nothing but wheat is heard
of in this city. Well, we'll simmer down when the turn comes, and
though I'm piling up dollars, I'll be thankful. Hallo, Thomson,
anything going on now?"

"Chicago buying," said the clerk. "Now it's Liverpool! Sellers holding
off. Wanting a two-eights more the cental."

The telephone bell tinkled again, and there was a trace of excitement
in the face of the man who answered it.

"Walthew has got news ahead of us," he said. "Chicago bears caved in.
Buying orders from Liverpool broke them. Got it there strong."

Witham tapped Alfreton's shoulder. "Now is the time. Tell him to buy,"
he said. "We'll wait outside until you've put this deal through,
Graham."

It was twenty minutes before Graham came out to them. "I'll let you
have your contracts, Mr. Alfreton, and my man on the market just fixed
them in time," he said. "They're up a penny on the cental in Liverpool
now, and nobody will sell, while here in Winnipeg they're falling over
each other to buy. Never had such a circus since the trade began."

Alfreton, who seemed to quiver, turned to his companion, and then
forgot what he had to tell him. Witham had straightened himself and
his eyes were shining, while the lad was puzzled by his face. Still,
save for the little tremor in it, his voice was very quiet.

"It has come at last," he said. "Two farms would not have covered your
losses, Alfreton, if you had waited until to-morrrow. Have supper with
us Graham--if you like it, lakes of champagne."

"I want my head, but I'll come," said Graham, with a curious smile. "I
don't know that it wouldn't pay me to hire yours just now."

Then Witham turned suddenly, and running down the stairway shook the
man awaiting him by the arm.

"The flood's with us now," he said. "Find Colonel Barrington, and make
him cover everything before he's ruined. Dane, you and I, and a few
others, will see the dollars rolling into Silverdale."

Dane found Barrington, who listened with a grim smile to what he had
to tell him.

"The words are yours, Dane, but that is all," he said. "Wheat will go
down again, and I do not know that I am grateful to Courthorne."

Dane dare urge nothing further, and spent the rest of that day
wandering up and down the city, in a state of blissful content, with
Alfreton and Witham. One of them had turned his losses into a small
profit, and the other two, who had, hoping almost against hope, sown
when others had feared to plough, saw that the harvest would repay
them beyond their wildest expectations. They heard nothing but
predictions of higher prices everywhere, and the busy city seemed to
throb with exultation. The turn had come, and there was hope for the
vast wheat lands it throve upon.

Graham had much to tell them when they sat down to the somewhat
elaborate meal Witham termed supper that night, and he nodded
approvingly when Dane held out his glass of champagne and touched his
comrade's.

"I'm not fond of speeches, Courthorne, and I fancy our tastes are the
same," he said. "Still, I can't let this great night pass without
greeting you as the man who has saved not a few of us at Silverdale.
We were in a very tight place before you came, and we are with you
when you want us from this time, soul and body, and all our
possessions." Alfreton's eyes glistened, and his hand shook a little
as he touched the rim of Witham's goblet.

"There are folks in the old country who will bless you when they
know," he said. "You'll forget it, though I can't, that I was once
against you."

Witham nodded to them gravely, and when the glasses were empty shook
hands with the three.

"We have put up a good fight, and I think we shall win; but, while you
will understand me better by-and-by what you have offered me almost
hurts," he said.

"What we have given is yours. We don't take it back," said Dane.

Witham smiled, though there was a wistfulness in his eyes as he saw
the faint bewilderment in his companions' faces.

"Well," he said slowly, "you can do a little for me now. Colonel
Barrington was right when he set his face against speculation, and it
was only because I saw dollars were badly needed at Silverdale, and
the one means of getting them, I made my deal. Still, if we are to
succeed as farmers we must market our wheat as cheaply as our rivals,
and we want a new bridge on the level. Now, I got a drawing of one and
estimates for British Columbia stringers, yesterday, while the birches
in the ravine will give us what else we want. I'll build a bridge
myself, but it will cheapen the wheat-hauling to everybody, and you
might like to help me."

Dane glanced at the drawing laid before him, but Alfreton spoke first.
"One hundred dollars. I'm only a small man, but I wish it was five,"
he said.

"I'll make it that much, and see the others do their share," said
Dane, and then glanced at the broker with a curious smile.

"How does he do it--this and other things? He was never a business
man!"

Graham nodded. "He can't help it. It was born in him. You and I can
figure and plan, but Courthorne is different--the right thing comes to
him. I knew, the first night I saw him, you had got the man you wanted
at Silverdale."

Then Witham stood up, wineglass in hand. "I am obliged to you, but I
fancy this has gone far enough," he said. "There is one man who has
done more for you than I could ever do. Prosperity is a good thing,
but you at least know what he has aimed at stands high above that. May
you have the head of the Silverdale community long with you!"




CHAPTER XVIII

UNDER TEST


The prairie lay dim and shadowy in the creeping dusk when Witham 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 grey and still
stretched back into the silence in front of him. Here and there a
smouldering 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 Witham, 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 Witham thanked them gravely, even when he and his
Ontario axemen 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
the stranger who had imposed on them more leniently, 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 bareheaded, 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 Witham. "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 Witham 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 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 Witham 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. Witham 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 Witham, "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?"

Witham 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
borne 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 axe," she
said.

Witham 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 coloured 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 Witham 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 honour, 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 Witham 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 Witham, 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 Witham 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 Witham. 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."

Witham 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. Witham 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 Witham 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 Witham 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, Witham 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 Witham. "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 Witham 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 about 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 Witham
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 Witham'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 Witham 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 Witham.

"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."

Witham 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 farmer, I'd
venture to put a sudden stop to your love-making. This, at least, is
perfectly _bona fide_, Witham."

Witham 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 Witham 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, 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, Witham 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 Witham quietly.

Courthorne laughed. "You are a curious man. It would have cleared the
ground for you."

"No," said Witham 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."

Witham watched him quietly. "It would be wiser if you did not come
back until I send for you."




CHAPTER XIX

COURTHORNE BLUNDERS


Lance 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 Witham'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
to 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
Witham 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 Witham."

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 Witham
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 finger closed on the neck
of a decanter. Next moment it smote the newcomer 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 said.

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, anyway. 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 question 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 Witham'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."

"Witham 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 Witham 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 Witham 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 north-west 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.

Witham 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 terrors 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 favours
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 at 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."

Witham 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.
Witham 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 Witham 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."

Witham 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, anyway, 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 Witham. "Hadn't you
better come back when you've worked the vapours off to-morrow?"

"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 Witham, and as the other swung 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 said.

"No," said Witham. "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, Witham, 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 Witham.

"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 Witham.

"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 Witham. "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."

Witham laughed. "I wouldn't be rash or you may get another
astonishment. 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 Witham 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 awhile, remembering the man whom 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."




CHAPTER XX

THE FACE AT THE WINDOW


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 axe 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 toward 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?" asked 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 Witham?"

Payne appeared thoughtful. "Of course I met him a few times on the
prairie, always on horseback, with his big hat on; but Witham 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 Witham 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 Witham. "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 Witham.

Payne laughed. "One forgets things when he is busy. Still, you had
them--because you signed for them."

Witham 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 neighbourhood," he
said; and Witham 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 Witham with a curious smile in 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 our 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. It fact, there was an artistic finish to the climax that
suggested your usual thoroughness."

"It did?" said Witham 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."

Witham felt his finger 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 exemplary 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 am 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."

Witham's face was grim. "I'm afraid it would not suit me to do as much
just now," he said. "Still, between you and me, 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?"

Witham nodded. "You must make the best of that, but the others may
believe exactly what they please. It will be a favour 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 Witham 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 Witham, 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 who 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 of the open windows, outside which
one or two of the older men were sitting.

"The room is very hot," said Witham 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 Witham, 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. Witham
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."

Witham 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."

Witham 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 colour 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."

Witham 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 Witham, 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 Witham, 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 Witham, 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."

Witham 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 Witham, 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."

Witham 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 Witham, 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 Witham 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 come in through it," said Witham 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."

Witham laughed. "There's a want of finish in the tale, but you needn't
worry about me. I didn't see a man."

"There's 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?"

Witham 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 Witham 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 Witham. Barrington did so, and Witham
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.

Witham 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 Witham 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."




CHAPTER XXI

COLONEL BARRINGTON IS CONVINCED


It was not until early morning that Courthorne awakened from the
stupor he sank into, soon after Witham conveyed him into his
homestead. First, however, he asked for a little food, and ate it with
apparent difficulty. When Witham came in, he looked up from the bed
where he lay, with the dust still white upon his clothing, and his
face showed grey and haggard in the creeping light.

"I'm feeling a trifle better now," he said; "still, I scarcely fancy I
could get up just yet. I gave you a little surprise last night?"

Witham nodded. "You did. Of course, I knew how much your promise was
worth, but in view of the risks you ran, I had not expected you to
turn up at the Grange."

"The risks!" said Courthorne with an unpleasant smile.

"Yes," said Witham wearily; "I have a good deal on hand I would like
to finish here, and it will not take me long, but I am quite prepared
to give myself up now, if it is necessary."

Courthorne laughed. "I don't think you need, and it wouldn't be wise.
You see, even if you made out your innocence, which you couldn't do,
you rendered yourself an accessory by not denouncing me long ago. I
fancy we can come to an understanding which would be pleasanter to
both of us."

"The difficulty," said Witham, "is that an understanding is useless
when made with a man who never keeps his word."

"Well," said Courthorne dryly, "we shall gain nothing by paying each
other compliments, and whether you believe it or otherwise, it was not
by intention I turned up at the Grange. I was coming here from a place
west of the settlement and you can see that I have been ill if you
look at me. I counted too much on my strength, couldn't find a
homestead where I could get anything to eat, and the rest may be
accounted for by the execrable brandy I had with me. Anyway, the horse
threw me and made off, and after lying under some willows a good deal
of the day, I dragged myself along until I saw a house."

"That," said Witham, "is beside the question. What do you want of me?
Dollars, in all probability. Well, you will not get them."

"I'm afraid I'm scarcely fit for a discussion now," said Courthorne.
"The fact is, it hurts me to talk, and there's an aggressiveness about
you which isn't pleasant to a badly-shaken man. Wait until this
evening, but there is no necessity for you to ride to the outpost
before you have heard me."

"I'm not sure it would be advisable to leave you here," said Witham
dryly.

Courthorne smiled ironically. "Use your eyes. Would any one expect me
to get up and indulge in a fresh folly? Leave me a little brandy--I
need it--and go about your work. You'll certainly find me here when
you want me."

Witham, glancing at the man's face, considered this very probable, and
went out. He found his cook, who could be trusted, and said to him,
"The man yonder is tolerably sick, and you'll let him have a little
brandy, and something to eat when he asks for it. Still, you'll bring
the decanter away with you, and lock him in whenever you go out."

The man nodded, and making a hasty breakfast, Witham, who had business
at several outlying farms, mounted and rode away. It was evening
before he returned, and found Courthorne lying in a big chair with a
cigar in his hand, languidly _debonair_ but apparently ill. His face
was curiously pallid, and his eyes dimmer than they had been, but
there was a sardonic twinkle in them.

"You take a look at the decanter," said the man, who went up with
Witham, carrying a lamp. "He's been wanting brandy all the time, but
it doesn't seem to have muddled him."

Witham dismissed the man and sat down in front of Courthorne.

"Well?" he said.

Courthorne laughed. "You ought to be a witty man, though one would
scarcely charge you with that. You surmised correctly this morning. It
is dollars I want."

"You had my answer."

"Of course. Still, I don't want very many in the meanwhile, and you
haven't heard what led up to the demand, or why I came back to you.
You are evidently not curious, but I'm going to tell you. Soon after I
left you, I fell very sick, and lay in the saloon of a little desolate
settlement for days. The place was suffocating, and the wind blew the
alkali dust in. They had only horrible brandy, and bitter water to
drink it with, and I lay there on my back, panting, with the flies
crawling over me. I knew if I stayed any longer it would finish me,
and when there came a merciful cool day I got myself into the saddle
and started off to find you. I don't quite know how I made the
journey, and during a good deal of it I couldn't see the prairie, but
I knew you would feel there was an obligation on you to do something
for me. Of course, I could put it differently."

Witham had as little liking for Courthorne as he had ever had, but he
remembered the time when he had lain very sick in his lonely log hut.
He also remembered that everything he now held belonged to this man.

"You made the bargain," he said, less decisively.

Courthorne nodded. "Still, I fancy one of the conditions could be
modified. Now, if I wait for another three months I may be dead before
the reckoning comes, and while that probably wouldn't grieve you, I
could, when it appeared advisable, send for a magistrate and make a
deposition."

"You could," said Witham. "I have, however, something of the same kind
in contemplation."

Courthorne smiled curiously. "I don't know that it will be necessary.
Carry me on until you have sold your crop, and then make a reasonable
offer, and it's probable you may still keep what you have at
Silverdale. To be quite frank, I've a notion that my time in this
world is tolerably limited, and I want a last taste of all it has to
offer a man of my capacities before I leave it. One is a long while
dead, you know."

Witham nodded, for he understood. He had also during the grim cares of
the lean years known the fierce longing for one deep draught of the
wine of pleasure, whatever it afterwards cost him.

"It was that which induced you to look for a little relaxation at the
settlement at my expense," he said. "A trifle paltry, wasn't it?"

Courthorne laughed. "It seems you don't know me yet. That was a
frolic, indulged in out of humour, for your benefit. You see, your
rôle demanded a good deal more ability than you ever displayed in it,
and it did not seem fitting that a very puritanical and priggish
person should pose as me at Silverdale. The little affair was the one
touch of verisimilitude about the thing. No doubt my worthy connexions
are grieving over your lapse."

"My sense of humour had never much chance of developing," said Witham
grimly. "What is the matter with you?"

"Pulmonary haemorrhage!" said Courthorne. "Perhaps it was born in me,
but I never had much trouble until after that night in the snow at the
river. Would you care to hear about it? We're not fond of each other,
but after the steer-drivers I've been herding with, it's a relief to
talk to a man of moderate intelligence."

"Go on," said Witham.

"Well," said Courthorne, "when the trooper was close behind me, my
horse went through the ice, but somehow I crawled out. We were almost
across the river, and it was snowing fast, while I had a fancy that I
might have saved the horse but, as the trooper would probably have
seen a mounted man, I let him go. The stream sucked him under, and,
though you may not believe it, I felt very mean when I saw nothing but
the hole in the ice. Then, as the troopers didn't seem inclined to
cross, I went on through the snow, and, as it happened, blundered
across Jardine's old shanty. There was still a little prairie hay in
the place, and I lay in it until morning, dragging fresh armfuls
around me as I burnt it in the stove. Did you ever spend a night, wet
through, in a place that was ten to twenty under freezing?"

"Yes," said Witham dryly. "I have done it twice."

"Well," said Courthorne, "I fancy that night narrowed in my life for
me, but I made out across the prairie in the morning, and as we had a
good many friends up and down the country, one of them took care of
me."

Witham sat silent a while. The story had held his attention, and the
frankness of the man who lay panting a little in his chair had its
effect on him. There was no sound from the prairie, and the house was
very still.

"Why did you kill Shannon?" he asked at length.

"Is any one quite sure of his motives?" said Courthorne. "The lad had
done something which was difficult to forgive him, but I think I would
have let him go if he hadn't recognized me. The world is tolerably
good to the man who has no scruples, you see, and I took all it
offered me, while it did not seem fitting that a clod of a trooper
without capacity for enjoyment, or much more sensibility than the
beast he rode, should put an end to all my opportunities. Still, it
was only when he tried to warn his comrades he threw his last chance
away."

Witham shivered a little at the dispassionate brutality of the speech,
and then checked the anger that came upon him.

"Fate, or my own folly, has put it out of my power to denounce you
without abandoning what I have set my heart upon, and after all it is
not my business," he said. "I will give you five hundred dollars and
you can go to Chicago or Montreal, and consult a specialist. If the
money is exhausted before I send for you, I will pay your hotel bills,
but every dollar will be deducted when we come to the reckoning."

Courthorne laughed a little. "You had better make it seven-fifty. Five
hundred dollars will not go very far with me."

"Then you will have to husband them," said Witham dryly. "I am paying
you at a rate agreed upon for the use of your land and small bank
balance handed me, and want all of it. The rent is a fair one in face
of the fact that a good deal of the farm consisted of virgin prairie,
which can be had from the Government for nothing."

He said nothing further, and soon after he went out Courthorne went to
sleep, but Witham sat by an open window with a burned-out cigar in his
hand, staring at the prairie while the night wore through, until he
rose with a shiver in the chill of early morning to commence his task
again.

A few days later he saw Courthorne safely into a sleeping car with a
ticket for Chicago in his pocket, and felt that a load had been lifted
off his shoulders when the train rolled out of the little prairie
station. Another week had passed, when, riding home one evening, he
stopped at the Grange, and, as it happened, found Maud Barrington
alone. She received him without any visible restraint, but he realized
that all that had passed at their last meeting was to be tacitly
ignored.

"Has your visitor recovered yet?" she asked.

"So far as to leave my place, and I was not anxious to keep him," said
Witham with a little laugh. "I am sorry he disturbed you."

Maud Barrington seemed thoughtful. "I can scarcely think the man was
to blame."

"No?" said Witham.

The girl looked at him curiously, and shook her head. "No," she said.
"I heard my uncle's explanation, but it was not convincing. I saw the
man's face."

It was several seconds before Witham answered, and then he took the
bold course.

"Well?" he said.

Maud Barrington made a curious little gesture. "I knew I had seen it
before at the bridge, but that was not all. It was vaguely familiar,
and I felt I ought to know it. It reminded me of somebody."

"Of me?" and Witham laughed.

"No. There was a resemblance, but it was very superficial. That man's
face had little in common with yours."

"These faint likenesses are not unusual," said Witham, and once more
Maud Barrington looked at him steadily.

"No," she said. "Of course not. Well, we will conclude that my fancies
ran away with me, and be practical. What is wheat doing just now?"

"Rising still," said Witham, and regretted the alacrity with which he
had seized the opportunity of changing the topic when he saw that it
had not escaped the notice of his companion. "You and I and a few
others will be rich this year."

"Yes, but I am afraid some of the rest will find it has only further
anxieties for them."

"I fancy," said Witham, "you are thinking of one."

Maud Barrington nodded. "Yes; I am sorry for him."

"Then it would please you if I tried to straighten out things for him?
It would be difficult, but I believe it could be accomplished."

Maud Barrington's eyes were grateful, but there was something that
Witham could not fathom behind her smile.

"If you undertook it. One could almost believe you had the wonderful
lamp," she said.

Witham smiled somewhat dryly. "Then all its virtues will be tested
to-night, and I had better make a commencement while I have the
courage. Colonel Barrington is in?"

Maud Barrington went with him to the door, and then laid her hand a
moment on his arm. "Lance," she said, with a little tremor in her
voice, "if there was a time when our distrust hurt you, it has
recoiled upon our heads. You have returned it with a splendid
generosity."

Witham did not trust himself to answer, but walked straight to
Barrington's room, and finding the door open went quietly in. The head
of the Silverdale settlement was sitting at a littered table in front
of a shaded lamp, and the light that fell upon it showed the care in
his face. It grew a trifle grimmer when he saw the younger man.

"Will you sit down?" he said. "I have been looking for a visit from
you for some little time. It would have been more fitting had you made
it earlier."

Witham nodded as he took a chair. "I fancy I understand you, but I
have nothing that you expect to hear to tell you, sir."

"That," said Barrington, "is unfortunate. Now, it is not my business
to pose as a censor on the conduct of any man here, except when it
affects the community, but their friends have sent out a good many
young English lads, some of whom have not been too discreet in the old
country, to me. They did not do so solely that I might teach them
farming. A charge of that kind is no light responsibility, and I look
for assistance from the men who have almost as large a stake as I have
in the prosperity of Silverdale."

"Have you ever seen me do anything you could consider prejudicial to
it?" asked Witham.

"I have not," said Colonel Barrington.

"And it was by her own wish Miss Barrington, who, I fancy, is seldom
mistaken, asked me to the Grange?"

"Is is a good plea," said Barrington. "I cannot question anything my
sister does."

"Then we will let it pass, though I am afraid you will consider what I
am going to ask a further presumption. You have forward wheat to
deliver, and find it difficult to obtain it?"

Barrington's smile was somewhat grim. "In both cases you have surmised
correctly."

Witham nodded. "Still, it is not mere inquisitiveness, sir. I fancy I
am the only man at Silverdale who can understand your difficulties,
and, what is more to the point, suggest a means of obviating them. You
still expect to buy at lower prices before the time to make delivery
comes?"

Again the care crept into Barrington's face, and he sat silent for
almost a minute. Then he said, very slowly, "I feel that I should
resent the question, but I will answer. It is what I hope to do."

"Well," said Witham, "I am afraid you will find prices higher still.
There is very little wheat in Minnesota this year, and what there was
in Dakota was cut down by hail. Millers in St. Paul and Minneapolis
are anxious already, and there is talk of a big corner in Chicago.
Nobody is offering again, while you know what land lies fallow in
Manitoba, and the activity of their brokers shows the fears of
Winnipeg millers with contracts on hand. This is not my opinion alone.
I can convince you from the papers and market reports I see before
you."

Barrington could not controvert the unpleasant truth he was still
endeavouring to shut his eyes to. "The demand from the East may
slacken," he said.

Witham shook his head. "Russia can give them nothing. There was a
failure in the Indian monsoon, and South American crops were small.
Now, I am going to take a further liberty. How much are you short?"

Barrington was never sure why he told him, but he was hard pressed
then, and there was a quiet forcefulness about the younger man that
had its effect on him. "That," he said, holding out a document, "is
the one contract I have not covered."

Witham glanced at it. "The quantity is small. Still, money is very
scarce, and bank interest almost extortionate just now."

Barrington flushed a trifle, and there was anger in his face. He knew
the fact that his loss on this sale should cause him anxiety was
significant, and that Witham had surmised the condition of his
finances tolerably correctly.

"Have you not gone quite far enough?" he said.

Witham nodded. "I fancy I need ask no more, sir. You can scarcely buy
the wheat, and the banks will advance nothing further on what you have
to offer at Silverdale. It would be perilous to put yourself in the
hands of a mortgage-broker."

Barrington stood up very grim and straight, and there were not many
men at Silverdale who would have met his gaze.

"Your content is a little too apparent, but I can still resent an
impertinence," he said. "Are my affairs your business?"

"Sit down, sir," said Witham. "I fancy they are, and had it not been
necessary, I would not have ventured so far. You have done much for
Silverdale, and it had cost you a good deal, while it seems to me that
every man here has a duty to the head of the settlement. I am,
however, not going to urge that point, but have, as you know, a
propensity for taking risks. I can't help it. It was probably born in
me. Now, I will take that contract up for you."

Barrington gazed at him in bewildered astonishment. "But you would
lose on it heavily. How could you overcome a difficulty that is too
great for me?"

"Well," said Witham with a little smile, "it seems I have some ability
in dealing with these affairs."

Barrington did not answer for a while, and when he spoke it was
slowly. "You have a wonderful capacity for making any one believe in
you."

"That is not the point," said Witham. "If you will let me have the
contract, or, and it comes to the same thing, buy the wheat it calls
for, and if advisable sell as much again, exactly as I tell you, at my
risk and expense, I shall get what I want out of it. My affairs are a
trifle complicated, and it would take some little time to make you
understand how this would suit me. In the meanwhile you can give me a
mere I O U for the difference between what you sold at, and the price
to-day, to be paid without interest and whenever it suits you. It
isn't very formal, but you will have to trust me."

Barrington moved twice up and down the room before he turned to the
younger man. "Lance," he said, "when you first came here, any deal of
this kind between us would have been out of the question. Now, it is
only your due to tell you that I have been wrong from the beginning,
and you have a good deal to forgive."

"I think we need not go into that," said Witham, with a little smile.
"This is a business deal, and if it hadn't suited me I would not have
made it."

He went out in another few minutes with a little strip of paper, and
just before he left the Grange placed it in Maud Barrington's hand.

"You will not ask any questions, but if ever Colonel Barrington is not
kind to you, you can show him that," he said.

He had gone in another moment, but the girl, comprehending dimly what
he had done, stood still, staring at the paper with a warmth in her
cheeks and a mistiness in her eyes.




CHAPTER XXII

SERGEANT STIMSON CONFIRMS HIS SUSPICIONS


It was late in the afternoon when Colonel Barrington drove up to
Witham's homestead. He had his niece and sister with him, and when he
pulled up his team, all three were glad of the little breeze that came
down from the blueness of the north and rippled the whitened grass. It
had blown over leagues of sun-bleached prairie, and the great
desolation beyond the pines of the Saskatchewan, but had not wholly
lost the faint wholesome chill it brought from the Pole.

There was no cloud in the vault of ether, and slanting sunrays beat
fiercely down upon the prairie, until the fibrous dust grew fiery, and
the eyes ached from the glare of the vast stretch of silvery grey. The
latter was, however, relieved by stronger colour in front of the
party, for, blazing gold on the dazzling stubble, the oat sheaves
rolled away in long rows that diminished and melted into each other,
until they cut the blue of the sky in a delicate filigree. Oats had
moved up in value in sympathy with wheat, and the good soil had most
abundantly redeemed its promise that year. Colonel Barrington,
however, sighed a little as he looked at them, and remembered that
such a harvest might have been his.

"We will get down and walk towards the wheat," he said. "It is a good
crop, and Lance is to be envied."

"Still," said Miss Barrington, "he deserved it, and those sheaves
stand for more than the toil that brought them there."

"Of course!" said the Colonel with a curious little smile. "For
rashness, I fancied, when they showed the first blade above the clod,
but I am less sure of it now. Well, the wheat is even finer."

A man who came up took charge of the horses, and the party walked in
silence towards the wheat. It stretched before them in a vast
parallelogram, and while the oats were the pale gold of the austral,
there was the tint of the ruddier metal of their own North-West in
this. It stood tall and stately, murmuring as the sea does, until it
rolled before a stronger puff of breeze in waves of ochre, through
which the warm bronze gleamed when its rhythmic patter swelled into
deeper-toned harmonies. There was that in the elfin music and blaze of
colour which appealed to sensual ear and eye, and something which
struck deeper still, as it did in the days men poured libations on the
fruitful soil, and white-robed priest blessed it, when the world was
young.

Maud Barrington felt it vaguely, but she recognized more clearly, as
her aunt had done, the faith and daring of the sower. The earth was
very bountiful, but that wheat had not come there of itself; and she
knew the man who had called it up had done more than bear his share of
the primeval curse which, however, was apparently more or less evaded
at Silverdale. Even when the issue appeared hopeless, the courage that
held him resolute in face of other's fears, and the greatness of his
projects, had appealed to her, and it almost counted for less that he
had achieved success. Then, glancing further across the billowing
grain she saw him--still, as it seemed it had always been with him,
amidst the stress and dust of strenuous endeavour.

Once more, as she had seen them when the furrows were bare at seed
time, and there was apparently only ruin in store for those who raised
the Eastern people's bread, lines of dusty teams came plodding down
the rise. They advanced in echelon, keeping their time and distance
with a military precision; but in place of the harrows the tossing
arms of the binders flashed and swung. The wheat went down before
them, their wake was strewn with gleaming sheaves, and one man came
foremost, swaying in the driving-seat of a rattling machine. His face
was the colour of a Blackfoot's, and she could see the darkness of his
neck above the loose-fronted shirt and a bare blackened arm that was
raised to hold the tired beasts to their task. Their trampling and the
crash and rattle that swelled in slow crescendo drowned the murmur of
the wheat, until one of the machines stood still, and the leader,
turning a moment in his saddle, held up a hand. Then those that came
behind swung into changed formation, passed, and fell into indented
line again, while Colonel Barrington nodded with grim approval.

"It is very well done," he said. "The best of harvesters! No newcomers
yonder. They're capable Manitoba men. I don't know where he got them,
and, in any other year, one would have wondered where he would find
the means of paying them. We have never seen farming of this kind at
Silverdale."

He seemed to sigh a little, while his hand closed on the bridle; and
Maud Barrington fancied she understood his thoughts just then.

"Nobody can be always right, and the good years do not come alone,"
she said. "You will plough every acre next one."

Barrington smiled dryly. "I'm afraid that will be a little late, my
dear. Any one can follow, but since, when everybody's crop is good,
the price comes down, the man who gets the prize is the one who shows
the way."

"He was content to face the risk," said Miss Barrington.

"Of course," said the Colonel quietly. "I should be the last to make
light of his foresight and courage. Indeed, I am glad I can
acknowledge it, in more ways than one, for I have felt lately that I
am getting an old man. Still, there is one with greater capacities
ready to step into my shoes; and though it was long before I could
overcome my prejudice against him, I think I should now be content to
let him have them. Whatever Lance may have been, he was born a
gentleman, and blood is bound to tell."

Maud Barrington, who was of a patrician parentage, and would not at
one time have questioned this assertion, wondered why she felt less
sure of it just then.

"But if he had not been, would not what he has done be sufficient to
vouch for him?" she said.

Barrington smiled a little, and the girl felt that her question was
useless as she glanced at him. He sat very straight in his saddle,
immaculate in dress, with a gloved hand on his hip and a stamp which
he had inherited, with the thinly-covered pride that usually
accompanies it, from generations of a similar type, on his clean-cut
face. It was evidently needless to look for any sympathy with that
view from him.

"My dear," he said, "there are things at which the others can beat us;
but, after all, I do not think they are worth the most; and while
Lance has occasionally exhibited a few undesirable characteristics, no
doubt acquired in this country, and has not been always blameless, the
fact that he is a Courthorne at once covers and accounts for a good
deal."

Then Witham recognized them, and made a sign to one of the men behind
him as he hauled his binder clear of the wheat. He had dismounted in
another minute and came towards them, with the jacket he had not
wholly succeeded in struggling into loose about his shoulders.

"It is almost time I gave my team a rest," he said. "Will you come
with me to the house?"

"No," said Colonel Barrington. "We only stopped in passing. The crop
will harvest well."

"Yes," said Witham, turning with a little smile to Miss Barrington.
"Better than I expected, and prices are still moving up. You will
remember, madam, who it was wished me good fortune. It has undeniably
come!"

"Then," said the white-haired lady, "next year I will do as much
again, though it will be a little unnecessary, because you have my
good wishes all the time. Still, you are too prosaic to fancy they can
have anything to do with--this."

She pointed to the wheat, but though Witham smiled again, there was a
curious expression in his face as he glanced at her niece.

"I certainly do, and your good-will has made a greater difference than
you realize to me," he said.

Miss Barrington looked at him steadily. "Lance," she said, "there is
something about you and your speeches that occasionally puzzles me.
Now, of course, that was the only rejoinder you could make, but I
fancied you meant it."

"I did," said Witham, with a trace of grimness in his smile. "Still,
isn't it better to tell any one too little rather than too much?"

"Well," said Miss Barrington, "you are going to be franker with me by
and by. Now, my brother has been endeavouring to convince us that you
owe your success to qualities inherited from bygone Courthornes."

Witham did not answer for a moment and then he laughed. "I fancy
Colonel Barrington is wrong," he said. "Don't you think there are
latent capabilities in every man, though only one here and there gets
an opportunity of using them? In any case, wouldn't it be pleasanter
for any one to feel that his virtues were his own and not those of his
family?"

Miss Barrington's eyes twinkled but she shook her head. "That," she
said, "would be distinctly wrong of him, but I fancy it is time we
were getting on."

In another few minutes Colonel Barrington took up the reins, and as
they drove slowly past the wheat his niece had another view of the
toiling teams. They were moving on tirelessly with their leader in
front of them, and the rasp of the knives, trample of hoofs, and clash
of the binders' wooden arms once more stirred her. She had heard those
sounds often before, and attached no significance to them; but now she
knew a little of the stress and effort that preceded them; she could
hear through the turmoil the exultant note of victory.

Then the wagon rolled more slowly up the rise and had passed from
view behind it when a mounted man rode up to Witham with an envelope
in his hand.

"Mr. Macdonald was in at the settlement, and the telegraph clerk gave
it him," he said. "He told me to come along with it."

Witham opened the message, and his face grew grim as he read, "Send me
five hundred dollars. Urgent."

Then he thrust it into his pocket and went on with his harvesting,
when he had thanked the man. He also worked until dusk was creeping up
across the prairie before he concerned himself further about the
affair; and then the note he wrote was laconic.

"Enclosed you will find fifty dollars, sent only because you may be
ill. In case of necessity, you can forward your doctor's or hotel
bills," it ran.

It was with a wry smile he watched the man ride off towards the
settlement with it. "I shall not be sorry when the climax comes," he
said. "The strain is telling."

In the meanwhile, Sergeant Stimson had been quietly renewing his
acquaintance with certain ranchers and herders of sheep scattered
across the Albertan prairie some six hundred miles away. They found
him more communicative and cordial than he used to be, and with one or
two he unbent so far as, in the face of regulations, to refresh
himself with whisky which had contributed nothing to the Canadian
revenue. Now, the lonely ranchers have, as a rule, few opportunities
of friendly talk with anybody, and as they responded to the sergeant's
geniality, he became acquainted with a good many facts, some of which
confirmed certain vague suspicions of his, though others astonished
him. In consequence of this, he rode out one night with two or three
troopers of a Western squadron.

His apparent business was somewhat prosaic. Musquash, the Blackfoot,
in place of remaining quietly on his reserve, had in a state of
inebriation reverted to the primitive customs of his race, and taking
the trail not only annexed some of his white neighbours' ponies and
badly frightened their wives, but drove off a steer with which he
feasted his people. The owner, following, came upon the hide, and
Musquash, seeing it was too late to remove the brand from it,
expressed his contrition, and pleaded in extenuation that he was
rather worthy of sympathy than blame, because he would never have laid
hands on what was not his had not a white man sold him deleterious
liquor. As no white man is allowed to supply an Indian with alcohol in
any form, the wardens of the prairie took a somewhat similar view of
the case; and Stimson was, from motives which he did not mention,
especially anxious to get his grip upon the other offender.

The night when they rode out was very dark, and they spent half of it
beneath a birch bluff, seeing nothing whatever, and only hearing a
coyote howl. It almost appeared that there was something wrong with
the information supplied them respecting the probable running of
another load of prohibited whisky, and towards morning Stimson rode up
to the young commissioned officer.

"The man who brought us word has either played their usual trick and
sent us here while his friends take the other trail, or somebody saw
us ride out and went south to tell the boys," he said. "Now, you might
consider it advisable that I and one of the troopers should head for
the ford at Willow Hollow, sir."

"Yes," said the young officer, who was quite aware that there was as
yet many things connected with his duties he did not know. "Now I come
to think of it, Sergeant, I do. We'll give you two hours, and then, if
you don't turn up, ride over after you; it's condemnably shivery
waiting for nothing here."

Stimson saluted and shook his bridle, and rather less than an hour
later faintly discerned a rattle of wheels that rose from a long way
off across the prairie. Then he used the spur, and by and by it became
evident that the drumming of their horses' feet had carried far, for
though the rattle grew a little louder there was no doubt that whoever
drove the wagon had no desire to be overtaken. Still, two horses
cannot haul a vehicle over a rutted trail as fast as one can carry a
man, and when the wardens of the prairie raced towards the black wall
of birches that rose higher in front of them, the sound of wheels
seemed very near. It, however, ceased suddenly, and was followed by a
drumming that could only have been made by a galloping horse.

"One beast!" said the Sergeant. "Well, they'd have two men, anyway, in
that wagon. Get down and picket. We'll find the other fellow
somewhere in the bluff."

They came upon him within five minutes endeavouring to cut loose the
remaining horse from the entangled harness in such desperate haste
that he did not hear them until Stimson grasped his shoulder.

"Hold out your hands," he said. "You have your carbine ready,
trooper?"

The man made no resistance, and Stimson laughed when the handcuffs
were on.

"Now," he said, "where's your partner?"

"I don't know that I mind telling you," said the prisoner. "It was a
low down trick he played on me. We got down to take out the horses,
when we saw we couldn't get away from you, and I'd a blanket girthed
round the best of them, when he said he'd hold him while I tried what
I could do with the other. Well, I let him, and the first thing I knew
he was off at a gallop, leaving me with the other kicking devil two
men couldn't handle. You'll find him rustling south over the Montana
trail."

"Mount and ride!" said Stimson, and when his companion galloped off
turned once more to his prisoner.

"You'll have a lantern somewhere, and I'd like a look at you," he
said. "If you're the man I expect, I'm glad I found you."

"It's in the wagon," said the other dejectedly.

Stimson got a light, and when he had released and picketed the
plunging horse, held it so that he could see his prisoner. Then he
nodded with evident contentment.

"You may as well sit down. We've got to have a talk," he said.

"Well," said the other, "I'd help you to catch Harmon if I could, but
I can prove he hired me to drive him over to Kemp's in the wagon, and
you'd find it difficult to show I knew what there was in the packages
he took along."

Stimson smiled dryly. "Still," he said, "I think it could be done, and
I've another count against you. You had one or two deals with the boys
some little while ago."

"I'm not afraid of your fixing up against me anything I did then,"
said the other man.

"No?" said Stimson. "Now, I guess you're wrong, and it might be a good
deal more serious than whisky-running. One night a man crawled up to
your homestead through the snow, and you took him in."

He saw the sudden fear in his companion's face before he turned it
from the lantern.

"It has happened quite a few times," said the latter. "We don't turn
any stranger out in this country."

"Of course!" said the Sergeant gravely, though he felt a little thrill
of content as he saw the shot, he had been by no means sure of, had
told. "That man, however, had lost his horse in the river, and it was
the one he got from you that took him out of the country. Now, if we
could show you knew what he had done, it might go as far as hanging
somebody."

The man was evidently not a confirmed law-breaker, but merely one of
the small farmers who were willing to pick up a few dollars by
assisting the whisky-runners now and then, and he abandoned all
resistance.

"Sergeant," he said, "it was most a week before I knew, and if anybody
had told me at the time I'd have turned him out to freeze before I'd
have let him have a horse of mine."

"That wouldn't go very far if we brought the charge against you," said
Stimson grimly. "If you'd sent us word when you did know, we'd have
had him."

"Well," said the man, "he was across the frontier by that time, and I
don't know that most folks would have done it, if they'd had the
warning the boys sent me."

Stimson appeared to consider for almost a minute, and then gravely
rapped his companion's arm.

"It seems to me that the sooner you and I have an understanding, the
better it will be for you," he said.

They were some time arriving at it, and the Sergeant's superiors might
not have been pleased with all he promised during the discussion.
Still, he was flying at higher game and had to sacrifice a little,
while he knew his man.

"We'll fix it up without you, as far as we can; but if we want you to
give evidence that the man who lost his horse in the river was not
Farmer Witham, we'll know where to find you," he said. "You'll have to
take your chance of being tried with him, if we find you trying to get
out of the country."

It was half an hour later when the rest of the troopers arrived, and
Stimson had some talk with their officer aside.

"A little out of the usual course, isn't it?" said the latter. "I
don't know that I'd have countenanced it, so to speak, off my own bat
at all, but I had a tolerably plain hint that you were to use your
discretion over this affair. After all, one has to stretch a point or
two occasionally."

"Yes, sir," said Stimson; "a good many now and then."

The officer smiled a little and went back to the rest. "Two of you
will ride after the other rascal," he said. "Now look here, my man;
the first time my troopers, who'll call round quite frequently, don't
find you about your homestead, you'll land yourself in a tolerably
serious difficulty. In the meanwhile, I'm sorry we can't bring a
charge of whisky-running against you, but another time be careful who
you hire your wagon to."

Then there was a rapid drumming of hoofs as two troopers went off at a
gallop, while when the rest turned back towards the outpost, Stimson
rode with them, quietly content.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE REVELATION


Witham's harvesting prospered as his sowing had done, for day by day
the bright sunshine shone down on standing wheat and lengthening rows
of sheaves. It was in the bracing cold of sunrise the work began, and
the first pale stars were out before the tired men and jaded horses
dragged themselves home again. Not infrequently it happened that the
men wore out the teams and machines, but there was no stoppage then,
for fresh horses were led out from the corral or a new binder was
ready. Every minute was worth a dollar, and Witham, who had apparently
foreseen and provided for everything, wasted none.

Then--for wheat is seldom stacked in that country--as the days grew
shorter and the evenings cool, the smoke of the big thrasher streaked
the harvest field, and the wagons went jolting between humming
separator and granary, until the latter was gorged to repletion, and
the wheat was stored within a willow framing beneath the chaff and
straw that streamed from the shoot of the great machine. Witham had
round him the best men that dollars could hire, and toiled tirelessly
with the grimy host in the whirling dust of the thrasher and amidst
the sheaves, wherever another pair of hands, or the quick decision
that would save an hour's delay, was needed most.

As compared with the practice of insular Britain, there were not half
enough of them; but wages are high in that country, and the crew of
the thrasher paid by the bushel, while the rest had long worked for
their own hand on the levels of Manitoba and in the bush of Ontario,
and knew that the sooner their toil was over the sooner they would go
home again with well-lined pockets. So, generously fed, splendid human
muscle kept pace with clinking steel under a stress that is seldom
borne outside the sun-bleached prairie at harvest time, and Witham
forgot everything save the constant need for the utmost effort of body
and brain. It was even of little import to him that prices moved
steadily upwards as he toiled.

At last it was finished, and only knee-high stubble covered his land
and that of Maud Barrington; while--for he was one who could venture
fearlessly and still know when he had risked enough--soon after it was
thrashed out the wheat was sold. The harvesters went home with enough
to maintain them through the winter; and Witham, who spent two days
counting his gain, wrote asking Graham to send him an accountant from
Winnipeg. With him he spent a couple more, and then, with an effort he
was never to forget, prepared himself for the reckoning. It was time
to fling off the mask before the eyes of all who had trusted him.

He had thought over it carefully, and his first decision had been to
make the revelation alone to Colonel Barrington. That, however, would,
he felt be too simple, and his pride rebelled against anything that
would stamp him as one who dare not face the men he had deceived. One
by one they had tacitly offered him their friendship and then their
esteem, until he knew that he was virtually leader at Silverdale; and
it seemed fitting that he should admit the wrong he had done them, and
bear the obloquy before them all. For a while the thought of Maud
Barrington restrained him, and then he brushed that aside. He had
fancied with masculine blindness that what he felt for her had been
well concealed, and that her attitude to him could be no more than
kindly sympathy with one who was endeavouring to atone for a
discreditable past. Her anger and astonishment would be hard to bear,
but once more his pride prompted him, and he decided that she should
at least see he had the courage to face the results of his
wrong-doing. As it happened, he was also given an opportunity when he
was invited to the harvest celebration that was held each year at
Silverdale.

It was a still, cool evening when every man of the community, and most
of the women gathered in the big dining-room of the Grange. The
windows were shut now, for the chill of the early frost was on the
prairie, and the great lamps burned steadily above the long tables.
Cut glass, dainty china and silver gleamed beneath them amidst the
ears of wheat that stood in clusters for sole and appropriate
ornamentation. They merited the place of honour, for wheat had brought
prosperity to every man at Silverdale who had had the faith to sow
that year.

On either hand were rows of smiling faces: the men's burned and
bronzed, the women's kissed into faintly warmer colour by the sun, and
white shoulders shone amidst the sombrely covered ones, while here and
there a diamond gleamed on a snowy neck. Barrington sat at the head of
the longest table, with his niece and sister, Dane, and his oldest
followers about him, and Witham at its foot, dressed very simply after
the usual fashion of the prairie farmers. There were few in the
company who had not noticed this, though they did not as yet
understand its purport.

Nothing happened during dinner, but Maud Barrington noticed that
although some of his younger neighbours rallied him, Witham was grimly
quiet. When it was over, Barrington rose, and the men who knew the
care he had borne that year never paid him more willing homage than
they did when he stood smiling down on them. As usual, he was
immaculate in dress, erect, and quietly commanding; but, in spite of
its smile, his face seemed worn, and there were thickening wrinkles,
which told of anxiety, about his eyes.

"Another year has gone, and we have met again to celebrate with
gratefulness the fulfilment of the promise made when the world was
young," he said. "We do well to be thankful, but I think humility
becomes us, too. While we doubted, the sun and the rain have been with
us for a sign that, though men grow faint-hearted and spare their
toil, seed time and harvest shall not fail."

It was the first time Colonel Barrington had spoken in quite that
strain, and when he paused a moment there was a curious stillness, for
those who heard him noticed an unusual tremor in his voice. There was
also a gravity that was not far removed from sadness in his face when
he went on again, but the intentness of his retainers would have been
greater had they known that two separate detachments of police
troopers were then riding toward Silverdale.

"The year has brought its changes and set its mark deeply on some of
us," he said. "We cannot recall it, or retrieve our blunders, but we
can hope they will be forgiven us, and endeavour to avoid them again.
This is not the fashion in which I had meant to speak to you to-night,
but after the bounty showered upon us I feel my responsibility. The
law is unchangeable. The man who would have bread to eat or sell must
toil for it, and I, in disregard of it, bade you hold your hand. Well,
we have had our lesson, and we will be wiser another time; but I have
felt that my usefulness as your leader is slipping away from me. This
year has shown me that I am getting an old man."

Dane kicked the foot of a lad beside him, and glanced at the piano as
he stood up.

"Sir," he said simply, "although we have differed about trifles and
may do again, we don't want a better one--and if we did, we couldn't
find him."

A chord from the piano rang through the approving murmurs, and the
company rose to their feet before the lad had beaten out the first bar
of the jingling rhythm. Then the voices took it up, and the great hall
shook to the rafters with the last "Nobody can deny."

Trite as it was, Barrington saw the darker flush in the bronzed faces,
and there was a shade of warmer colour in his own as he went on again.

"The things one feels the most are those one can least express, and I
will not try to tell you how I value your confidence," he said.
"Still, the fact remains that sooner or later I must let the reins
fall into younger hands, and there is a man here who will, I fancy,
lead you farther than you would ever go with me. Times change, and he
can teach you how those who would do the most for the Dominion need
live to-day. He is also, and I am glad of it, one of us, for
traditions do not wholly lose their force, and we know that blood will
tell. That this year has not ended hi disaster irretrievable is due to
our latest comrade, Lance Courthorne."

This time there were no musical honours or need of them, for a shout
went up that called forth an answering rattle from the cedar
panelling. It was flung back from table to table up and down the great
room, and when the men sat down flushed and breathless, their eyes
still shining, the one they admitted had saved Silverdale rose up
quietly at the foot of the table. The hand he laid on the snowy cloth
shook a little, and the bronze that generally suffused it was less
noticeable in his face. All who saw it felt that something unusual was
coming, and Maud Barrington leaned forward a trifle with a curious
throbbing of her heart.

"Comrades! It is, I think, the last time you will hear the term from
me," he said--"I am glad that we have made and won a good fight at
Silverdale, because it may soften your most warranted resentment when
you think of me."

Every eye was turned upon him, and an expression of bewilderment crept
into the faces, while a lad who sat next to him touched his arm
reassuringly.

"You'll feel your feet in a moment, but that's a curious fashion of
putting it," he said.

Witham turned to Barrington, and stood silent a moment. He saw Maud
Barrington's face showing strained and intent, but less bewildered
than the others, and that of her aunt, which seemed curiously
impassive, and a little thrill ran through him. It passed, and once
more he only saw the leader of Silverdale.

"Sir," he said, "I did you a wrong when I came here, and with your
convictions you would never tolerate me as your successor."

There was a rustle of fabric as some of the women moved, and a murmur
of uncontrollable astonishment, while those who noticed it remembered
Barrington's gasp. It expressed absolute bewilderment, but in another
moment he smiled.

"Sit down, Lance," he said. "You need make no speeches. We expect
better things from you."

Witham stood very still. "It was the simple truth I told you, sir," he
said. "Don't make it too hard for me."

Just then there was a disturbance at the rear of the room, and a man,
who shook off the grasp of one that followed him, came in. He moved
forward with uneven steps, and then, resting his hand on a chair-back,
faced about and looked at Witham. The dust was thick upon his clothes,
but it was his face that seized and held attention. It was horribly
pallid, save for the flush that showed in either cheek, and his
half-closed eyes were dazed.

"I heard them cheering," he said. "Couldn't find you at your
homestead. You should have sent the five hundred dollars. They would
have saved you this."

The defective utterance would alone have attracted attention, and,
with the man's attitude, was very significant, but it was equally
evident to most of those who watched him that he was also struggling
with some infirmity. Western hospitality has, however, no limit, and
one of the younger men drew out a chair.

"Hadn't you better sit down, and if you want anything to eat we'll get
it you," he said. "Then you can tell us what your errand is."

The man made a gesture of negation, and pointed to Witham.

"I came to find a friend of mine. They told me at his homestead that
he was here," he said.

There was an impressive silence, until Colonel Barrington glanced at
Witham, who still stood, quietly impassive, at the foot of the table.

"You know our visitor?" he said. "The Grange is large enough to give a
stranger shelter."

The man laughed. "Of course, he does! It's my place he's living in!"

Barrington turned again to Witham and his face seemed to have grown a
trifle stern.

"Who is this man?" he said.

Witham looked steadily in front of him, vacantly noticing the rows of
faces turned towards him under the big lamps. "If he had waited a few
minutes longer, you would have known," he said. "He is Lance
Courthorne!"

This time the murmurs implied incredulity, but the man who stood
swaying a little with his hand on the chair, and a smile in his
half-closed eyes, made an ironical inclination.

"It's evident you don't believe it, or wish to. Still, it's true," he
said.

One of the men nearest him rose and quietly pushed him into the chair.

"Sit down in the meanwhile," he said dryly. "By and by, Colonel
Barrington will talk to you."

Barrington thanked him with a gesture, and glanced at the rest. "One
would have preferred to carry out this inquiry more privately," he
said, very slowly, but with hoarse distinctness. "Still, you have
already heard so much."

Dane nodded. "I fancy you are right, sir. Because we have known and
respected the man who has, at least, done a good deal for us, it would
be better that we should hear the rest."

Barrington made a little gesture of agreement, and once more fixed his
eyes on Witham. "Then will you tell us who you are?"

"A struggling prairie farmer," said Witham quietly. "The son of an
English country doctor, who died in penury, and one who, from your
point of view, could never have been entitled to more than courteous
toleration from any of you."

He stopped, but--for the astonishment was passing--there was negation
in the murmurs which followed, while somebody said, "Go on!"

Dane stood up. "I fancy our comrade is mistaken," he said. "Whatever
he may have been, we recognize our debt to him. Still, I think he owes
us a more complete explanation."

Then Maud Barrington, sitting where all could see her, signed
imperiously to Alfreton, who was on his feet next moment, with
Macdonald and more of the men following him.

"I," he said with a little ring in his voice and a flush in his young
face, "owe him everything, and I'm not the only one. This, it seems to
me, is the time to acknowledge it."

Barrington checked him with a gesture. "Sit down, all of you. Painful
and embarrassing as it is, now we have gone so far, this affair must
be elucidated. It would be better if you told us more."

Witham drew back a chair, and when Courthorne moved, the man who sat
next to him laid a grasp on his arm. "You will oblige me by not making
any remarks just now," he said dryly. "When Colonel Barrington wants
to hear anything from you he'll ask you."

"There is little more," said Witham. "I could see no hope in the old
country, and came out to this one with one hundred pounds, a distant
connexion lent me. That sum will not go very far anywhere, as I found
when, after working for other men, I bought stock and took up
Government land. To hear how I tried to do three men's work for six
weary years, and at times went for months together half-fed, might not
interest you, though it has its bearing on what came after. The
seasons were against me, and I had not the dollars to tide me over the
time of drought and blizzard until a good one came. Still, though my
stock died, and I could scarcely haul in the little wheat the frost
and hail left me, with my worn-out team, I held on, feeling that I
could achieve prosperity if I once had the chances of other men."

He stopped a moment, and Macdonald poured out a glass of wine and
passed it across to him in a fashion that made the significance of
what he did evident.

"We know what kind of a struggle you made by what we have seen at
Silverdale," he said.

Witham put the glass aside, and turned once more to Colonel
Barrington.

"Still," he said, "until Courthorne crossed my path, I had done no
wrong, and I was in dire need of the money that tempted me to take his
offer. He made a bargain with me that I should ride his horse and
personate him, that the police troopers might leave him unsuspected to
lead his comrades running whisky, while they followed me. I kept my
part of the bargain, and it cost me what I fancy I can never recover,
unless the trial I shall shortly face will take the stain from me.
While I passed for him your lawyer found me, and I had no choice
between being condemned as a criminal for what Courthorne had in the
meanwhile done, or continuing the deception. He had, as soon as I had
left him, taken my horse and garments, so that if seen by the police
they would charge me. I could not take your money, but, though
Courthorne was apparently drowned I did wrong when I came to
Silverdale. For a time the opportunities dazzled me; ambition drew me
on, and I knew what I could do."

He stopped again, and once more there was a soft rustle of dresses,
and a murmur, as those who listened gave inarticulate expression to
their feelings. Moving a little, he looked steadily at Maud
Barrington, and her aunt, who sat close together.

"Then," he said very slowly, "it was borne in upon me that I could not
persist in deceiving you. Courthorne, I fancied, could not return to
trouble me, but the confidence that little by little you placed in me
rendered it out of the question. Still, I saw that I could save some
at least at Silverdale from drifting to disaster, and there was work
for me here which would go a little way in reparation, and now that it
is done I was about to bid you good-bye and ask you not to think too
hardly of me."

There was a moment's intense silence until once more Dane rose up, and
pointed to Courthorne sitting with half-closed eyes, dusty, partly
dazed by indulgence, and with the stamp of dissolute living on him, in
his chair. Then, he glanced at Witham's bronzed face, which showed
quietly resolute at the bottom of the table.

"Whatever we would spare you and ourselves, sir, we must face the
truth," he said. "Which of these men was needed at Silverdale?"

Again the murmurs rose up, but Witham sat silent, his pulses throbbing
with a curious exultation. He had seen the colour creep into Maud
Barrington's face, and her aunt's eyes, when he told her what had
prompted him to leave Silverdale, and knew they understood him. Then,
in the stillness that followed, the drumming of hoofs rose from the
prairie. It grew louder, and when another sound became audible too,
more than one of those who listened recognized the jingle of
accoutrements. Courthorne rose unsteadily, and made for the door.

"I think," he said with a curious laugh, "I must be going. I don't
know whether the troopers want me or your comrade."

A lad sprang to his feet, and as he ran to the door called "Stop him!"

In another moment Dane had caught his arm, and his voice rang through
the confusion, as everybody turned or rose.

"Keep back all of you," he said. "Let him go!"

Courthorne was outside by this time, and only those who reached the
door before Dane closed it heard a faint beat of hoofs as somebody
rode quietly away beneath the bluff, while as the rest clustered
together, wondering, a minute or two later, Corporal Payne, flecked
with spume and covered with dust came in. He raised his hand in
salutation to Colonel Barrington, who sat very grim in face in his
chair at the head of the table.

"I'm sorry, sir, but it's my duty to apprehend Lance Courthorne," he
said.

"You have a warrant?" asked Barrington.

"Yes, sir," said the corporal.

There was intense silence for a moment. Then the Colonel's voice broke
through it very quietly.

"He is not here," he said.

Payne made a little deprecatory gesture. "We knew he came here. It is
my duty to warn you that proceedings will be taken against any one
concealing or harbouring him."

Barrington rose up very stiffly, with a little grey tinge in his face,
but words seemed to fail him, and Dane laid his hand on the corporal's
shoulder.

"Then," he said grimly, "don't exceed it. If you believe he's here, we
will give you every opportunity of finding him."

Payne called to a comrade outside, who was, as it happened, new to the
force, and they spent at least ten minutes questioning the servants
and going up and down the house. Then, as they glanced into the
general room, the trooper looked deprecatingly at his officer.

"I fancied I heard somebody riding by the bluff just before we reached
the house," he said.

Payne wheeled round with a flash in his eyes. "Then you have lost us
our man. Out with you, and tell Jackson to try the bluff for a trail."

They had gone in another moment, and Witham still sat at the foot of
the table and Barrington at the head, while the rest of the company
were scattered, some wonderingly silent, though others talked in
whispers, about the room. As yet they felt only consternation and
astonishment.




CHAPTER XXIV

COURTHORNE MAKES REPARATION


The silence in the big room had grown oppressive when Barrington
raised his head and sat stiffly upright.

"What has happened has been a blow to me, and I am afraid I am
scarcely equal to entertaining you to-night," he said. "I should,
however, like Dane and Macdonald, and one or two of the older men, to
stay a while. There is still, I fancy, a good deal for us to do."

The others turned towards the door, but as they passed Witham, Miss
Barrington turned and touched his shoulder. The man, looking up
suddenly, saw her and her niece standing close beside her.

"Madam," he said hoarsely, though it was Maud Barrington he glanced
at, "the comedy is over. Well, I promised you an explanation, and now
you have it you will try not to think too bitterly of me. I cannot ask
you to forgive me."

The little white-haired lady pointed to the ears of wheat which stood
gleaming ruddy-bronze in front of him.

"That," she said very quietly, "will make it easier."

Maud Barrington said nothing, but every one in the room saw her
standing a moment beside the man with a little flush in her face and
no blame in her eyes. Then she passed on, but, short as it was, the
pause had been very significant, for it seemed that whatever the
elders of the community might decide, the two women, whose influence
was supreme at Silverdale, had given the impostor absolution.

The girl could not analyse her feelings, but through them all a vague
relief was uppermost; for whatever he had been, it was evident the man
had done one wrong only, and daringly, and that was a good deal easier
to forgive than several incidents in Courthorne's past would have
been. Then she was conscious that Miss Barrington's eyes were upon
her.

"Aunt," she said with a little tremor in her voice, "it is almost
bewildering. Still one seemed to feel that what that man has done
could never have been the work of Lance Courthorne."

Miss Barrington made no answer, but her face was very grave; and just
then those nearest it drew back a little from the door. A trooper
stood outside it, his carbine glinting in the light, and another was
silhouetted against the sky, sitting motionless in his saddle further
back on the prairie.

"The police are still there," said somebody.

One by one they passed out under the trooper's gaze, but there was the
usual delay in harnessing and saddling, and the first vehicle had
scarcely rolled away when again the beat of hoofs and thin jingle of
steel came portentously out of the silence. Maud Barrington shivered a
little as she heard it.

In the meanwhile, the few who remained had seated themselves about
Colonel Barrington. When there was quietness again he glanced at
Witham, who still sat at the foot of the table.

"Have you anything more to tell us?" he asked. "These gentlemen are
here to advise me if necessary."

"Yes," said Witham quietly. "I shall probably leave Silverdale before
morning, and have now to hand you a statement of my agreement with
Courthorne and the result of my farming here, drawn up by a Winnipeg
accountant. Here is also a document in which I have taken the liberty
of making you and Dane my assigns. You will, as authorized by it, pay
to Courthorne the sum due to him, and with your consent, which you
have power to withhold, I propose taking one thousand dollars only of
the balance that remains to me. I have it here now, and in the
meanwhile surrender it to you. Of the rest, you will make whatever use
that appears desirable for the general benefit of Silverdale.
Courthorne has absolutely no claim upon it."

He laid a wallet on the table, and Dane glanced at Colonel Barrington,
who nodded when he returned it unopened.

"We will pass it without counting. You accept the charge, sir?" he
said.

"Yes," said Barrington gravely. "It seems it is forced on me. Well, we
will glance through the statement."

For at least ten minutes nobody spoke, and then Dane said, "There are
prairie farmers who would consider what he is leaving behind him a
competence."

"If this agreement, which was apparently verbal, is confirmed by
Courthorne, the entire sum rightfully belongs to the man he made his
tenant," said Barrington; and Macdonald smiled gravely as he glanced
at Witham.

"I think we can accept the statement that it was made, without
question, sir," he said.

Witham shook his head. "I claim one thousand dollars as the fee of my
services, and they should be worth that much; but I will take no
more."

"Are we not progressing a little too rapidly, sir?" said Dane. "It
seems to me we have yet to decide whether it is necessary that the man
who has done so much for us should leave Silverdale."

Witham smiled a trifle grimly. "I think," he said, "that question will
very shortly be answered for you."

Macdonald held his hand up, and a rapid thud of hoofs came faintly
through the silence.

"Troopers! They are coming here," he said.

"Yes," said Witham. "I fancy they will relieve you from any further
difficulty."

Dane strode to one of the windows, and glanced at Colonel Barrington
as he pulled back the catch. Witham, however, shook his head, and a
little flush crept into Dane's bronzed face.

"Sorry. Of course, you are right," he said. "It will be better that
they should acquit you."

No one moved for a few more minutes, and then with a trooper behind
him Sergeant Stimson came in, and laid his hand on Witham's shoulder.

"I have a warrant for your apprehension, Farmer Witham," he said. "You
probably know the charge against you."

"Yes," said Witham, simply. "I hope to refute it. I will come with
you."

He went out, and Barrington stared at the men about him. "I did not
catch the name before. That was the man who shot the police trooper in
Alberta?"

"No, sir," said Dane very quietly. "Nothing would induce me to believe
it of him."

Barrington looked at him in bewilderment. "But he must have
done--unless," he said, and ended with a little gasp. "Good Lord!
There was the faint resemblance, and they changed horses--it is
horrible."

Dane's eyes were very compassionate as he laid his hand gently on his
leader's shoulder.

"Sir," he said, "you have our sympathy, and I am sorry that to offer
it is all we can do. Now, I think, we have stayed too long already."

They went out and left Colonel Barrington sitting alone with a grey
face at the head of the table.

It was a minute or two later when Witham swung himself into the saddle
at the door of the Grange; All the vehicles had not left as yet, and
there was a little murmur of sympathy--when the troopers closed in
about him. Still before they rode away, one of the men wheeled his
horse aside, and Witham saw Maud Barrington standing bareheaded by his
stirrup. The moonlight showed that her face was impassive but
curiously pale.

"We could not let you go without a word; and you will come back to us
with your innocence made clear," she said.

Her voice had a little ring in it that carried far, and her companions
heard her. What Witham said, they could not hear, and he did not
remember it, but he swung his hat off, and those who saw the girl at
his stirrup recognized with confusion that she alone had proclaimed
her faith, while they had stood aside from him. Then the Sergeant
raised his hand and the troopers rode forward with their prisoner.

In the meanwhile, Courthorne was pressing south for the American
frontier and daylight was just creeping across the prairie when the
pursuers, who had found his trail and the ranch he obtained a fresh
horse at, had sight of him. There were three of them, riding wearily,
grimed with dust, when a lonely mounted figure showed for a moment on
the crest of a rise. In another minute it dipped into a hollow, and
Corporal Payne smiled grimly.

"I think we have him now. The creek can't be far away, and he's west
of the bridge," he said. "While we try to head him off, you'll follow
behind him Hilton."

One trooper sent the spurs in and, while the others swung off, rode
straight on. Courthorne was at least a mile from them, but they were
nearer the bridge, and Payne surmised that his jaded horse would fail
him if he essayed to ford the creek and climb the farther side of the
deep ravine it flowed through. They saw nothing of him when they swept
across the rise, for here and there a grove of willows stretched out
across the prairie from the sinuous band of trees in front of them.
These marked the river hollow, and Payne knowing that the chase might
be ended in a few more minutes did not spare the spur. He also
remembered, as he tightened his grip on the bridle, the white face of
Trooper Shannon flecked with the drifting snow.

The bluff that rose steadily higher came back to them, willow and
straggling birch flashed by, and at last Payne drew bridle where a
rutted trail wound down between the trees to the bridge in the hollow.
A swift glance showed him that a mounted man could scarcely make his
way between them and he smiled dryly as he signed to his companion.

"Back your horse clear of the trail," he said; and there was a rattle
as he flung his carbine across the saddle. "With Hilton behind him,
he'll ride straight into our hands."

He wheeled his horse in among the birches, and then sat still, with
fingers that quivered a little on the carbine stock, until a faint
drumming rose from the prairie.

"He's coming!" said the trooper. "Hilton's hanging on to him!"

Payne made no answer, and the sound that rang more loudly every moment
through the greyness of the early daylight was not pleasant to hear.
Man's vitality is near its lowest about that hour, and the troopers
had ridden furiously the long night through, while one of them, who
knew Lance Courthorne, surmised that there was grim work before him.
Still, though he shivered as a little chilly wind shook the birch
twigs, he set his lips, and once more remembered the comrade who had
ridden far and kept many a lonely vigil with him.

Then a mounted man appeared in the space between the trees. His horse
was jaded, and he rode loosely, swaying once or twice in his saddle;
but he came straight on, and there was a jingle and rattle as the
troopers swung out into the trail. The man saw them, for he glanced
over his shoulder, as if at the rider who appeared behind, and then
sent the spurs in again.

"Pull him up," cried Corporal Payne, and his voice was a little
strained. "Stop right where you are before we fire on you!"

The man must have seen the carbines, for he raised himself a trifle,
and Payne saw his face under the flapping hat. It was drawn and grey,
but there was no sign of yielding or consternation in the half-closed
eyes. Then he lurched in his saddle, as from exhaustion or weariness,
and straightened himself again with both hands on the bridle. Payne
saw his heels move and the spurs drip red, and slid his left hand
further along the carbine stock. The trail was steep and narrow. A
horseman could scarcely turn in it, and the stranger was coming on at
a gallop.

"He will have it," said the trooper hoarsely. "If he rides one of us
down he may get away."

"We have got to stop him," said Corporal Payne.

Once more the swaying man straightened himself, flung his head back,
and with a little breathless laugh drove his horse furiously at Payne.
He was very close now, and his face showed livid under the smearing
dust; but his lips were drawn up in a little bitter smile as he rode
straight upon the levelled carbines. Payne at least understood it, and
the absence of flung-up hand or cry. Courthorne's inborn instincts
were strong to the end.

There was a hoarse shout from the trooper, and no answer, and a
carbine flashed. Then Courthorne loosed the bridle, reeled sideways
from the saddle, rolled half round with one foot in the stirrup and
his head upon the ground, and was left behind, while the riderless
horse and pursuer swept past the two men who, avoiding them by a
hairsbreadth, sat motionless a moment in the thin drifting smoke.

Then Corporal Payne swung himself down, and, while the trooper
followed, stooped over the man who lay, a limp huddled object, in the
trail. He blinked up at them out of eyes that were almost closed.

"I think you have done for me," he said.

Payne glanced at his comrade. "Push on to the settlement," he said.
"They've a doctor there. Bring him and Harland the magistrate out."

The trooper seemed glad to mount and ride away, and Payne once more
bent over the wounded man.

"Very sorry," he said. "Still, you see, you left me no other means of
stopping you. Now, is there anything I can do for you?"

A little wry smile crept into Courthorne's face. "Don't worry," he
said. "I had no wish to wait for the jury, and you can't get at an
injury that's inside me."

He said nothing more, and it seemed a very long while to Corporal
Payne and Trooper Hilton, who rejoined him, before a wagon with two
men in it beside the trooper came jolting up the trail. They got out,
and one of them, who was busy with Courthorne for some minutes, nodded
to Payne.

"Any time in the next twelve hours. He may last that long," he said.
"Nobody's going to worry him now, but I'll see if I can revive him a
little when we get to Adamson's. It can't be more than a league away."

They lifted Courthorne, who appeared insensible, into the wagon, and
Payne signed to Trooper Hilton. "Take my horse and tell Colonel
Barrington. Let him understand there's no time to lose. Then you can
bring Stimson."

The tired lad hoisted himself into his saddle and groaned a little as
he rode away, but he did his errand, and late that night Barrington
and Dane drove up to a lonely homestead. A man led them into a room
where a limp figure was lying on a bed.

"Been kind of sleeping most of the day, but the doctor has given him
something that has wakened him," he said.

Barrington returned Payne's greeting and sat down with Dane close
beside him, while, when the wounded man raised his head, the doctor
spoke softly to the magistrate from the settlement a league or two
away.

"I fancy he can talk to you, but you had better be quick if you wish
to ask him anything," he said.

Courthorne seemed to have heard him, for he smiled a little as he
glanced at Barrington. "I'm afraid it will hurt you to hear what I
have to tell this gentleman," he said. "Now, I want you to listen
carefully, and every word put down. Doctor, a little more brandy."

Barrington apparently would have spoken, but while the doctor held a
glass to the bloodless lips the magistrate, who took up a strip of
paper, signed to him.

"We'll have it in due form. Give him that book, doctor," he said.
"Now, repeat after me, and then we'll take your testimony."

It was done, and a flicker of irony showed in Courthorne's half-closed
eyes.

"You feel more sure of me after that?" he said, in a voice that was
very faint and strained. "Still, you see, I could gain nothing by
deviating from the truth now. Well, I shot Trooper Shannon. You'll
have the date in the warrant. Don't know if it will seem strange to
you, but I forget it. I borrowed Farmer Witham's horse and rifle
without his knowledge, though I had paid him a trifle to personate me
and draw the troopers off the whisky-runners. That was Witham's only
complicity. The troopers, who fancied they were chasing him, followed
me until his horse which I was riding went through the ice; but Witham
was in Montana at the time, and did not know that I was alive until a
very little while ago. Now, you can straighten that up and read it out
to me."

The magistrate's pen scratched noisily in the stillness of the room,
but before he had finished, Sergeant Stimson, hot and dusty, came in.
Then he raised his hand, and for a while his voice rose and fell
monotonously until Courthorne nodded.

"That's all right," he said. "I'll sign."

The doctor raised him a trifle, and moistened his lips with brandy as
he gave him the pen. It scratched for a moment or two, and then fell
from his relaxing fingers, while the man who took the paper wrote
across the foot of it, and then would have handed it to Colonel
Barrington, but that Dane quietly laid his hand upon it.

"No," he said. "If you want another witness, take me."

Barrington thanked him with a gesture; and Courthorne, looking round,
saw Stimson.

"You have been very patient, Sergeant, and it's rough on you that the
one man you can lay your hands upon is slipping away from you," he
said. "You'll see by my deposition that Witham thought me as dead as
the rest of you did."

Stimson nodded to the magistrate. "I heard what was read, and it is
confirmed by the facts I have picked up," he said.

Then Courthorne turned to Barrington. "I sympathize with you, sir," he
said, "This must be horribly mortifying; but, you see, Witham once
stopped my horse backing over a bridge into a gully when just to hold
his hand would have rid him of me. You will not grudge me the one good
turn I have probably done any man, when I shall assuredly not have the
chance of doing another."

Barrington winced a little, for he recognized the irony in the failing
voice; but he rose and moved towards the bed.

"Lance," he said, a trifle hoarsely, "it is not that which makes what
has happened horrible to me, and I am only glad that you have righted
this man. Your father had many claims on me, and things might have
gone differently if, when you came out to Canada, I had done my duty
by his son."

Courthorne smiled a little, but without bitterness. "It would have
made no difference, sir; and, after all, I led the life that suited
me. By and by you will be grateful to me. I sent you a man who will
bring prosperity to Silverdale."

Then he turned to Stimson, and his voice sank almost beyond hearing as
he said, "Sergeant, remember Witham fancied I was dead."

He moved his head a trifle, and the doctor, stooping over him, signed
to the rest, who went out except Barrington.

It was some hours later, and very cold, when Barrington came softly
into the room where Dane lay half asleep in a big chair. The latter
glanced at him with a question in his eyes, and the Colonel nodded
very gravely.

"Yes," he said. "He has slipped out of the troopers' hands and beyond
our reproaches--but I think the last thing he did will count for a
little."




CHAPTER XXV

WITHAM RIDES AWAY


The first of the snow was driving across the prairie before a bitter
wind when Maud Barrington stood by a window of the Grange looking out
into the night. The double casements rattled, the curtains behind her
moved with the icy draughts, until, growing weary of watching the
white flakes whirl past, she drew them to and walked slowly towards a
mirror. Then a faint tinge of pink crept into her cheeks, and a
softness that became her into her eyes. They, however, grew critical
as she smoothed back a tress of lustrous hair a trifle from her
forehead, straightened the laces at neck and wrist, and shook into
more flowing lines the long black dress. Maud Barrington was not
unduly vain, but it was some time before she seemed contented, and one
would have surmised that she desired to appear her best that night.

The result was beyond cavil in its artistic simplicity, for the girl,
knowing the significance that trifles have at times, had laid aside
every adornment that might hint at wealth, and the sombre draperies
alone emphasized the polished whiteness of her face and neck. Still,
and she did not know whether she was pleased or otherwise at this, the
mirror had shown the stamp which revealed itself even in passive pose
and poise of head. It was her birthright, and would not be disguised.

Then she drew a low chair towards the stove, and once more the faint
colour crept into her face as she took up a note. It was laconic, and
requested permission to call at the Grange, but Maud Barrington was
not deceived, and recognized the consideration each word had cost the
man who wrote it. Afterwards she glanced at her watch, raised it with
a little gesture of impatience to make sure it had not stopped, and
sat still, listening to the moaning of the wind, until the door
opened, and Miss Barrington came in. She glanced at her niece, who
felt that her eyes had noticed each detail of her somewhat unusual
dress, but said nothing until the younger woman turned to her.

"They would scarcely come to-night, aunt," she said.

Miss Barrington, listening a moment, heard the wind that whirled the
snow about the lonely building, but smiled incredulously.

"I fancy you are wrong, and I wish my brother were here," she said.
"We could not refuse Mr. Witham permission to call, but whatever
passes between us will have more than its individual significance.
Anything we tacitly promise the others will agree to, and I feel the
responsibility of deciding for Silverdale."

Miss Barrington went out; but her niece, who understood her smile and
that she had received a warning, sat with a strained expression in her
eyes. The prosperity of Silverdale had been dear to her, but she knew
she must let something that was dearer still slip away from her, or,
since they must come from her, trample on her pride as she made the
first advances. It seemed a very long while before there was a
knocking at the outer door, and she rose with a little quiver when
light steps came up the stairway.

In the meanwhile, two men stood beside the stove in the hall until an
English maid returned to them.

"Colonel Barrington is away, but Miss Barrington and Miss Maud are at
home," she said. "Will you go forward into the morning-room when you
have taken off your furs?"

"Did you know Barrington was not here?" asked Witham, when the maid
moved away.

Dane appeared embarrassed. "The fact is, I did."

"Then," said Witham dryly, "I am a little astonished you did not think
fit to tell me."

Dane's face flushed, but he laid his hand on his comrade's arm. "No,"
he said. "I didn't. Now, listen to me for the last time, Witham. I've
not been blind, you see; and, as I told you, your comrades have
decided that they wish you to stay. Can't you sink your confounded
pride and take what is offered you?"

Witham shook his grasp off, and there was weariness in his face. "You
need not go through it all again. I made my decision a long while
ago."

"Well," said Dane, with a gesture of hopelessness, "I've done all I
could and, since you are going on, I'll look at that trace clip while
you tell Miss Barrington. I mean the younger one."

"The harness can wait," said Witham. "You are coming with me."

A little grim smile crept into Dane's eyes. "I am not. I wouldn't
raise a finger to help you now," he said, and retreated hastily.

                   *       *       *       *       *

It was five minutes later when Witham walked quietly into Maud
Barrington's presence, and sat down when the girl signed to him. He
wondered if she guessed how his heart was beating.

"It is very good of you to receive me, but I felt I could not slip
away without acknowledging the kindness you and Miss Barrington have
shown me," he said. "I did not know Colonel Barrington was away."

The girl smiled a little. "Or you would not have come? Then we should
have had no opportunity of congratulating you on your triumphant
acquittal. You see it must be mentioned."

"I'm afraid there was a miscarriage of justice," said Witham quietly.
"Still, though it is a difficult subject, the deposition of the man I
supplanted went a long way, and the police did not seem desirous of
pressing a charge against me. Perhaps I should have insisted on
implicating myself, but you would scarcely have looked for that after
what you now know of me."

Maud Barrington braced herself for an effort, though she was outwardly
very calm. "No," she said, "no one would have looked for it from any
man placed as you were, and you are purposing to do more than is
required of you. Why will you go away?"

"I am a poor man," said Witham. "One must have means to live at
Silverdale."

"Then," said the girl with a soft laugh which cost her a good deal,
"it is because you prefer poverty, and you have at least one
opportunity at Silverdale. Courthorne's land was mine to all intents
and purposes before it was his, and now it reverts to me. I owe him
nothing, and he did not give it me. Will you stay and farm it on
whatever arrangement Dane and Macdonald may consider equitable? My
uncle's hands are too full for him to attempt it."

"No," said Witham, and his voice trembled a little. "Your friends
would resent it."

"Then," said the girl, "why have they urged you to stay?"

"A generous impulse. They would repent of it by and by. I am not one
of them, and they know it now, as I did at the beginning. No doubt
they would be courteous, but you see a half-contemptuous toleration
would gall me."

There was a little smile on Maud Barrington's lips, but it was not in
keeping with the tinge in her cheek and the flash in her eyes.

"I once told you that you were poor at subterfuge, and you know you
are wronging them," she said. "You also know that even if they were
hostile to you, you could stay and compel them to acknowledge you. I
fancy you once admitted as much to me. What has become of this pride
of the democracy you showed me?"

Witham made a deprecatory gesture. "You must have laughed at me. I had
not been long at Silverdale then," he said dryly. "I should feel very
lonely now. One man against long generations. Wouldn't it be a trifle
unequal?"

Maud Barrington smiled again. "I did not laugh, and this is not
England, though what you consider prejudices do not count for so much
as they used to there, while there is, one is told quite frequently,
no limit to what a man may attain to here, if he dares sufficiently."

A little quiver ran through Witham, and he rose and stood looking down
on her, with one brown hand clenched on the table and the veins
showing on his forehead.

"You would have me stay?" he said.

Maud Barrington met his eyes, for the spirit that was in her was the
equal of his. "I would have you be yourself--what you were when you
came here in defiance of Colonel Barrington, and again when you sowed
the last acre of Courthorne's land, while my friends, who are yours
too, looked on wondering. Then you would stay--if it pleased you.
Where has your splendid audacity gone?"

Witham slowly straightened himself and the girl noticed the damp the
struggle had brought there on his forehead, for he understood that if
he would stretch out his hand and take it what he longed for might be
his.

"I do not know, any more than I know where it came from, for until I
met Courthorne I had never made a big venture in my life," he said.
"It seems it has served its turn and left me--for now there are things
I am afraid to do."

"So you will go away and forget us?"

Witham stood very still a moment, and the girl, who felt her heart
beating noticed that his face was drawn. Still, she could go no
further. Then he said very slowly, "I should be under the shadow
always if I stay, and my friends would feel it even more deeply than I
would do. I may win the right to come back again if I go away."

Maud Barrington made no answer, but both knew no further word could be
spoken on that subject until, if fate ever willed it, the man returned
again, and it was a relief when Miss Barrington came in with Dane. He
glanced at his comrade keenly, and then, seeing the grimness in his
face, quietly declined the white-haired lady's offer of hospitality.
Five minutes later the farewells were said and Maud Barrington stood
with the stinging flakes whirling about her in the doorway, while the
sleigh slid out into the filmy whiteness that drove across the
prairie. When it vanished she turned back into the warmth and
brightness with a little shiver and one hand tightly closed.

The great room seemed very lonely when, while the wind moaned outside,
she and her aunt sat down to dinner. Neither of them appeared
communicative, and both felt it a relief when the meal was over. Then
Maud Barrington smiled curiously as she rose and stood with hands
stretched out towards the stove.

"Aunt," she said, "Twoinette has twice asked me to go back to
Montreal, and I think I will. The prairie is very dreary in the
winter."

It was about this time when, as the whitened horses floundered through
the lee of a bluff where there was shelter from the wind, the men in
the sleigh found opportunity for speech.

"Now," said Dane quietly, "I know that we have lost you, for a while
at least. Will you ever come back, Witham?"

Witham nodded. "Yes," he said. "When time has done its work and
Colonel Barrington asks me, if I can buy land enough to give me a
standing at Silverdale."

"That," said Dane, "will need a good many dollars, and you insisted on
flinging those you had away. How are you going to make them?"

"I don't know," said Witham simply. "Still, by some means it will be
done."

It was next day when he walked into Graham's office at Winnipeg, and
laughed when the broker who shook hands, passed the cigar box across
to him.

"We had better understand each other first," he said. "You have heard
what has happened to me, and will not find me a profitable customer
to-day."

"These cigars are the best in the city, or I wouldn't ask you to take
one," said Graham dryly. "You understand me, anyway. Wait until I tell
my clerk that if anybody comes round I'm busy."

A bell rang, a little window opened and shut again, and Witham smiled
over his cigar.

"I want to make thirty thousand dollars as soon as I can, and it seems
to me there are going to be opportunities in this business. Do you
know anybody who would take me as clerk or salesman?"

Graham did not appear astonished.

"You'll scarcely make them that way if I find you a berth at fifty a
month," he said.

"No," said Witham. "Still, I wouldn't purpose keeping it for more than
six months or so. By that time I should know a little about the
business."

"Got any dollars now?"

"One thousand," said Witham quietly.

Graham nodded. "Smoke that cigar out, and don't worry me. I've got
some thinking to do."

Witham took up a journal, and laid it down again twenty minutes later.
"Well," he said, "you think it's too big a thing?"

"No," said Graham. "It depends upon the man, and it might be done.
Knowing the business goes a good way, and so does having dollars in
hand, but there's something that's born in one man in a thousand that
goes a long way further still. I can't tell you what it is, but I know
it when I see it."

"Then," said Witham, "you have seen this thing in me?"

Graham nodded gravely. "Yes, sir, but you don't want to get proud. You
had nothing to do with the getting of it. It was given you. Now, we're
going to have a year that will not be forgotten by those who handle
wheat and flour, and the men with the long heads will roll the dollars
in. Well, I've no use for another clerk, and my salesman's good enough
for me, but if we can agree on the items I'll take you for a partner."

The offer was made and accepted quietly, and when a rough draft of the
arrangement had been agreed upon, Graham nodded as he lighted another
cigar.

"You may as well take hold at once, and there's work ready now," he
said. "You've heard of the old St. Louis mills back on the edge of the
bush country. Never did any good. Folks who had them were short of
dollars, and didn't know how they should be run. Well, I and two other
men have bought them for a song, and while the place is tumbling in,
the plant seems good. Now, I can get hold of orders for flour when I
want them, and everybody with dollars to spare will plank them right
into any concern handling food-stuffs this year. You go down to-morrow
with an engineer, and, when you've got the mills running and orders
coming in, we'll sell out to a company if we don't want them."

Witham sat silent a space, turning over a big bundle of plans and
estimates. Then he said, "You'll have to lay out a pile of dollars."

Graham laughed. "That's going to be your affair. When you want them
the dollars will be ready, and there's only one condition. Every
dollar we put down has got to bring another in."

"But," said Witham, "I don't know anything about milling."

"Then," said Graham dryly, "you have got to learn. A good many men
have got quite rich in this country running things they didn't know
much about when they took hold of them."

"There's one more point," said Witham. "I must make those thirty
thousand dollars soon, or they'll be no great use to me, and when I
have them I may want to leave you."

"That's all right," said Graham. "By the time you've done it, you'll
have made sixty for me. We'll go out and have some lunch to clinch the
deal if you're ready."

It might have appeared unusual in England, but it was much less so in
a country where the specialization of professions is still almost
unknown, and the man who can adapt himself attains ascendency, and on
the morrow Witham arrived at a big wooden building beside a
pine-shrouded river. It appeared falling to pieces, and the engineer
looked disdainfully at some of the machinery, but, somewhat against
his wishes, he sat up with his companion most of the night in a little
log hotel, and orders that occasioned one of Graham's associates
consternation were mailed to the city next morning. Then machines came
out by the carload, and men with tools in droves. Some of them
murmured mutinously when they found they were expected to do as much
as their leader who was not a tradesman, but these were forthwith sent
back again, and the rest were willing to stay and earn the premium he
promised them for rapid work.

Before the frost grew Arctic, the building stood firm and the hammers
rang inside it night and day until when the ice had bound the dam and
lead the fires were lighted and the trials under steam again. It cost
more than water, but buyers with orders from the East were clamouring
for flour just then. For a fortnight Witham snatched his food in
mouthfuls, and scarcely closed his eyes, when Graham found him pale
and almost haggard when he came down with several men from the cities
in response to a telegram. For an hour they moved up and down,
watching whirring belt and humming roller, and then, whitened with the
dust, stood very intent and quiet while one of them dipped up a little
flour from the delivery hopper. His opinions on, and dealings in that
product were famous in the land. He said nothing for several minutes,
and then, brushing the white dust from his hands, turned with a little
smile to Graham.

"We'll have some baked, but I don't know that there's much use for it.
This will grade a very good first," he said. "You can book me the
thousand two eighties for a beginning now."

Witham's fingers trembled, but there was a twinkle in Graham's eyes as
he brought his hand down on his shoulder.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I was figuring right on this when I brought the
champagne along. It was all I could do, but Imperial Tokay wouldn't be
good enough to rinse this dust down with, when every speck of it
that's on you means dollars by the handful rolling in."

It was a very contented and slightly hilarious party that went back to
the city, but Witham sat down before a shaded lamp with a wet rag
round his head when they left him, and bent over a sheaf of drawings
until his eyes grew dim. Then he once more took up a little strip of
paper that Graham had given him, and leaned forward with his arms upon
the table. The mill was very silent at last, for of all who toiled in
it that day one weary man alone sat awake, staring, with aching eyes,
in front of him. There was, however, a little smile in them, for
roseate visions floated before them. If the promise that strip of
paper held out was redeemed, they might be materialized, for those who
had toiled and wasted their substance that the eastern peoples might
be fed would that year, at least, not go without their reward. Then he
stretched out his arms wearily above his head.

"It almost seems that what I have hoped for may be mine," he said.
"Still, there is a good deal to be done first, and not two hours left
before I begin it to-morrow."




CHAPTER XXVI

REINSTATION


A year of tireless effort and some anxiety had passed since Witham had
seen the first load of flour sent to the east, when he and Graham sat
talking in their Winnipeg office. The products of the St. Louis mills
were already in growing demand, and Graham appeared quietly contented
as he turned over the letters before him. When he laid down the last
one, however, he glanced at his companion somewhat anxiously.

"We have got to fix up something soon," he said. "I have booked all
the St. Louis can turn out for six months ahead, and the syndicate is
ready to take the business over, though I don't know quite whether it
would be wise to let them. It seems to me that milling is going to pay
tolerably well for another year, and if I knew what you were wanting,
it would suit me better."

"I told you I wanted thirty thousand dollars," said Witham quietly.

"You've got them," said Graham. "When the next balance comes out
you'll have a good many more. The question is, what you're going to do
with them now they're yours?"

Witham took out a letter from Dane and passed it across to Graham.
"I'm sorry to tell you the Colonel is getting no better," it ran. "The
specialist we brought in seems to think he will never be quite himself
again, and now he has let the reins go, things are falling to pieces
at Silverdale. Somebody left Atterly a pile of money, and he is going
back to the old country, Carshalton is going, too; and, as they can't
sell out to any one we don't approve of, the rest insisted on my
seeing you. I purpose starting to-morrow."

"What happened to Colonel Barrington?" asked Graham.

"His sleigh turned over," said Witham. "Horse trampled on him, and it
was an hour or two before his hired man could get him under shelter."

"You would be content to turn farmer again?"

"I think I would," said Witham. "At least, at Silverdale."

Graham made a little grimace. "Well," he said resignedly, "I guess
it's human nature; but I'm thankful now and then there's nothing about
me but my dollars that would take the eye of any young woman. I figure
they're kind of useful to wake up a man so he'll stir round looking
for something to offer one of them, but he is apt to find his business
must go second when she has got it and him, and he has to waste on
house fixings what would give a man a fair start in life. Still, it's
no use talking. What have you told him?"

Witham laughed a little. "Nothing," he said. "I will let him come, and
you shall have my decision when I've been to Silverdale."

It was next day when Dane arrived at Winnipeg, and Witham listened
gravely to all he had to tell him.

"I have two questions to ask," he said. "Would the others be unanimous
in receiving me, and does Colonel Barrington know of your mission?"

"Yes to both," said Dane. "We haven't a man there who would not hold
out his hand to you, and Barrington has been worrying and talking a
good deal about you lately. He seems to fancy nothing has gone right
at Silverdale since you left it, and others share his opinion. The
fact is, the old man is losing his grip tolerably rapidly."

"Then," said Witham quietly, "I'll go down with you, but I can make no
promise until I have heard the others."

Dane smiled a little. "That is all I want. I don't know whether I told
you that Maud Barrington is there. Would to-morrow suit you?"

"No," said Witham. "I will come to-day."

It was early next morning when they stepped out of the stove-warmed
car into the stinging cold of the prairie. Fur-clad figures, showing
shapeless in the creeping light, clustered about them, and Witham felt
himself thumped on the shoulders by mittened hands, while Alfreton's
young voice broke through the murmurs of welcome.

"Let him alone while he's hungry," he said. "It's the first time in
its history they've had breakfast ready at this hour in the hotel, and
it would not have been accomplished if I hadn't spent most of
yesterday playing cards with the man who keeps it and making love to
the young women!"

"That's quite right," said another lad. "When he takes his cap off
you'll see how one of them rewarded him. But come along, Witham.
It--is--ready."

The greetings might, of course, have been expressed differently, but
Witham also was not addicted to displaying all he felt, and the little
ring in the lads' voices was enough for him. As they moved towards the
hotel he saw that Dane was looking at him.

"Well?" said the latter, "you see, they want you."

That was probably the most hilarious breakfast that had ever been held
in the wooden hotel; and before it was over, three of his companions
had said to Witham, "Of course, you'll drive in with me!"

"Boys," he said, as they put their furs on, and his voice shook a
trifle, "I can't ride in with everybody who has asked me unless you
dismember me."

Finally, Alfreton, who was a trifle too quick for the others, got him
into his sleigh, and they swept out behind a splendid team into the
frozen stillness of the prairie. The white leagues rolled behind them,
the cold grew intense; but while Witham was for the most part silent
and apparently preoccupied, Alfreton talked almost incessantly, and
only once looked grave. That happened when Witham asked about Colonel
Barrington.

The lad shook his head. "I scarcely think he will ever take hold
again," he said. "You will understand me better when you see him."

They stopped awhile at mid-day at an outlying farm, but Witham glanced
inquiringly at Alfreton when one of the sleighs went on. The lad
smiled at him.

"Yes," he said. "He is going on to tell them we have got you."

"They would have found it out in a few more hours," said Witham.

Alfreton's eyes twinkled. "No doubt they would," he said dryly.
"Still, you see, somebody was offering two to one that Dane couldn't
bring you, and you know we're generally keen about any kind of wager."

The explanation, which was not quite out of keeping with the customs
of the younger men at Silverdale did not content Witham, but he said
nothing. So far his return had resembled a triumph, and while the
sincerity of the welcome had its effect on him, he shrank a little
from what he fancied might be waiting him.

The creeping darkness found them still upon the waste, and the cold
grew keener when the stars peeped out. Even sound seemed frozen, and
the faint muffled beat of hoofs unreal and out of place in the icy
stillness of the wilderness. Still, the horses knew they were nearing
home, and swung into faster pace, while the men drew fur caps down and
the robes closer round them as the draught their passage made stung
them with a cold that seemed to sear the skin where there was an inch
left uncovered on the face. Now and then a clump of willows or a birch
bluff flitted out of the dimness, grew a trifle blacker, and was left
behind; but there was still no sign of habitation, and Alfreton, too
chilled at last to speak, passed the reins to Witham and beat his
mittened hands. Witham could scarcely grasp them, for he had lived of
late in the cities, and the cold he had been sheltered from was
numbing.

For another hour they slid onwards, and then a dim blur crept out of
the white waste. It rose higher, cutting more blackly against the sky;
and Witham recognized with a curious little quiver the birch bluff
that sheltered Silverdale Grange. Then, as they swept through the
gloom of it, a row of ruddy lights blinked across the snow; and Witham
felt his heart beat as he watched the homestead grow into form. He had
first come there an impostor, and had left it an outcast; while now it
was amidst the acclamations of those who had once looked on him with
suspicion he was coming back again.

Still, he was almost too cold for any definite feeling but the sting
of the frost, and it was very stiffly he stood up, shaken by vague
emotions, when at last the horses stopped. A great door swung open,
somebody grasped his hand, there was a murmur of voices, and partly
dazed by the change of temperature he blundered into the warmth of the
hall. The blaze of light bewildered him, and he was but dimly sensible
that the men who greeted him were helping him to shake off his furs;
while the next thing he was sure of was that a little white-haired
lady was holding out her hand.

"We are all very glad to see you back," she said, with a simplicity
that yet suggested stateliness. "Your friends insisted on coming over
to welcome you, and Dane will not let you keep them waiting too long.
Dinner is almost ready."

Witham could not remember what he answered, but Miss Barrington smiled
at him as she moved away, for the flush in his face was very eloquent.
The man was very grateful for that greeting, and what it implied. It
was a few minutes later when he found himself alone with Dane, who
laughed softly as he nodded to him.

"You are convinced at last?" he said. "Still there is a little more of
the same thing to be faced; and, if it would relieve you, I will send
for Alfreton, who has some taste in that direction, to fix that tie
for you. You have been five minutes over it, and it evidently does not
please you. It's the first time I've ever seen you worry about your
dress."

Witham turned, and a curious smile crept into his face as he laid a
lean hand that shook a little on the toilet table.

"I also think it's the first time these fingers wouldn't do what I
wanted them. You can deduce what you please from that," he said.

Dane only nodded, and when they went down together laid a kindly grasp
upon his comrade's arm as he led him into the great dining-room. Every
man at Silverdale was apparently there, as were most of the women; and
Witham stood still a moment, very erect, with shoulders square,
because the posture enabled him to conceal the tremor that ran through
him when he saw the smiling faces turned upon him. Then he moved
slowly down the room towards Maud Barrington, and felt her hand rest
for a second between his fingers, which he feared were too responsive.
After that, everybody seemed to speak to him, and he was glad when he
found himself sitting next to Miss Barrington at the head of the long
table, with her niece opposite him.

He could not remember what he or the others talked about during the
meal, but he had a vague notion that there was now and then a silence
of attention when he answered a question, and that the little lady's
face grew momentarily grave when, as the voice sank a trifle, he
turned to her.

"I would have paid my respects to Colonel Barrington, but Dane did not
consider it advisable," he said.

"No," said Miss Barrington. "He has talked a good deal about you
during the last two days, but he is sleeping now, and we did not care
to disturb him. I am afraid you will find a great change in him when
you see him."

Witham asked no more questions on that topic until later in the
evening, when he found a place apart from the rest by Miss
Barrington's side. He fancied this would not have happened without her
connivance and she seemed graver than usual when he stood by her
chair.

"I don't wish to pain you, but I surmise that Colonel Barrington is
scarcely well enough to be consulted about anything of importance just
now," he said.

Miss Barrington made a little gesture of assent. "We usually pay him
the compliment, but I am almost afraid he will never make a decision
of moment again."

"Then," said Witham slowly, "you stand in his place, and I fancy you
know why I have come back to Silverdale. Will you listen for a very
few minutes while I tell you about my parents and what my upbringing
has been? I must return to Winnipeg, for a time, at least, to-morrow."

Miss Barrington signed her willingness, and the man spoke rapidly with
a faint trace of hoarseness. Then he looked down on her.

"Madam," he said, "I have told you everything, partly from respect for
those who only by a grim sacrifice did what they could for me, and
that you may realize the difference between myself and the rest at
Silverdale. I want to be honest now at least, and I discovered, not
without bitterness at the time, that the barriers between our castes
are strong in the old country."

Miss Barrington smiled a little. "Have I ever made you feel it here?"

"No," said Witham gravely. "Still, I am going to put your forbearance
to a strenuous test. I want your approval. I have a question to ask
your niece to-night."

"If I withheld it?"

"It would hurt me," said Witham. "Still, I would not be astonished,
and I could not blame you."

"But it would make no difference?"

"Yes," said Witham gravely. "It would, but it would not cause me to
desist. Nothing would do that, if Miss Barrington can overlook the
past."

The little white-haired lady smiled at him. "Then," she said, "if it
is any comfort to you, you have my good wishes. I do not know what
Maud's decision will be, but that is the spirit which would have
induced me to listen in times long gone by!"

She rose and left him, and it may have been by her arranging that
shortly afterwards Witham found Maud Barrington passing through the
dimly-lighted hall. He opened the door she moved towards a trifle, and
then stood facing her, with it in his hand.

"Will you wait a moment, and then you may pass if you wish," he said.
"I had one great inducement for coming here to-night. I wonder if you
know what it is?"

The girl stood still and met his gaze, though, dim as the light was,
the man could see the crimson in her cheeks.

"Yes," she said, very quietly.

"Then," said Witham with a little smile, though the fingers on the
door quivered visibly, "I think the audacity you once mentioned must
have returned to me, for I am going to make a very great venture."

For a moment Maud Barrington turned her eyes away. "It is the daring
venture that most frequently succeeds."

Then she felt the man's hand on her shoulder, and that he was
compelling her to look up at him.

"It is you I came for," he said quietly. "Still, for you know the
wrong I have done, I dare not urge you, and have little to offer. It
is you who must give everything, if you can come down from your
station and be content with mine."

"One thing," said Maud Barrington, very softly, "is, however,
necessary."

"That," said Witham, "was yours ever since we spent the night in the
snow."

The girl felt his grip upon her shoulder grow almost painful, but her
eyes shone softly when she lifted her head again.

"Then," she said, "what I can give is yours--and it seems you have
already taken possession."

Witham drew her towards him, and it may have been by Miss Barrington's
arranging that nobody entered the hall, but at last the girl glanced
up at the man half-shyly as she said, "Why did you wait so long?"

"It was well worth while," said Witham. "Still, I think you know."

"Yes," said Maud Barrington softly. "Now, at least, I can tell you I
am glad you went away--but if you had asked me I would have gone with
you."

It was some little time later when Miss Barrington came in and, after
a glance at Witham, kissed her niece. Then she turned to the man. "My
brother is asking for you," she said. "Will you come up with me?"

Witham followed her, and hid his astonishment when he found Colonel
Barrington lying in a big chair. His face was haggard and pale, his
form seemed to have grown limp and fragile, and the hand he held out
trembled.

"Lance," he said, "I am very pleased to have you home again. I hear
you have done wonders in the city, but you are, I think, the first of
your family who could ever make money. I have, as you will see, not
been well lately."

"I am relieved to find you better than I expected, sir," Witham said
quietly. "Still, I fancy you are forgetting what I told you the night
I went away."

Barrington nodded, and then made a little impatient gesture. "There
was something unpleasant, but my memory seems to be going, and my
sister has forgiven you. I know you did a good deal for us at
Silverdale, and showed yourself a match for the best of them in the
city. That pleases me. By and by, you will take hold here after me."

Witham glanced at Miss Barrington, who smiled somewhat sadly.

"I am glad you mentioned that, sir, because I purpose staying at
Silverdale now," he said. "It leads up to what I have to ask you."

Barrington's perceptions seemed to grow clearer, and he asked a few
pertinent questions before he nodded approbation.

"Yes," he said, "she is a good girl--a very good girl, and it would be
a suitable match. I should like somebody to send for her."

Maud Barrington came in softly, with a little glow in her eyes and a
flush in her face, and Barrington smiled at her.

"My dear, I am very pleased, and I wish you every happiness," he said.
"Once I would scarcely have trusted you to Lance, but he will forgive
me, and has shown me that I was wrong. You and he will make Silverdale
famous, and it is comforting to know, now my rest is very near, that
you have chosen a man of your own station to follow me. With all our
faults and blunders, blood is bound to tell."

Witham saw that Miss Barrington's eyes were a trifle misty, and he
felt his face grow hot, but the girl's fingers touched his arm, and he
followed, when, while her aunt signed approbation, she led him away.
Then, when they stood outside she laid her hands upon his face and
drew it down to her.

"You will forget it, dear, and he is still wrong. If you had been
Lance Courthorne, I should never have done this," she said.

"No," said the man gravely. "I think there are many ways in which he
is right, but you can be content with Witham the prairie farmer?"

Maud Barrington drew closer to him with a little smile in her eyes.
"Yes," she said simply. "There never was a Courthorne who could stand
beside him."


London: Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd.