' BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Crown 8vo. cloth, 3$. 6d. AINSLIE'S JU-JU: A ROMANCE OF THE HINTERLAND. 1 Mr. Harold Bindloss, one of the few men who know the Niger region as intimately as nous autres know Hyde Park, chats about it in " Ainslie's Ju-ju.". . . The book is well worth getting and reading on account of the vivid glimpses it gives us of the strange land at the back of Lagos." PUNCH. ' ' ' Ainslie's Ju-ju " is more than a sensational fancy. Mr. Harold Bindloss has written a striking book on the dismal Niger country, and now he has threaded on a sufficiently excking tale a series of pictures which are as impressive as we belive them to be truthful.' TIMES. ' A powerful story, well told, full of incident, strenuously subordinated to enhance the main interest of the characters and the fulfilment of their destiny.' MORNING POST. ' An impressive romance. . . . The book, if somewhat sombre, is always interesting and powerful, and it has quite an exceptional knowledge of men and manners in regions little known to civilisation. It draws the negroes from the life. ... It is an able and attractive story, and deserves to be widely read.' SCOTSMAN. ' It is a capital tale in every way in plot, incident, characterisation, and literary style.' GLASGOW HERALD. ' The strangeness, peril, and fascination of Anglo- African life are amply illustrated.' DUNDEE ADVERTISER. ' A thoroughly interesting, well-written, and carefully-constructed effort in a field of fiction where Probability has as yet had little chance.' OUTLOOK. 1 A thrilling South African novel. The story of the talisman is strikingly told. Very adventurous African life pervades the whole romance.' PERTHSHIRE CONSTITUTIONAL. 1 Mr. Bindloss has a unique and convincing knowledge of Nigeria and the Lagos Hinterland.' SPEAKER. ' " Ainslie's Ju-ju," written by a man who knows every inch of his ground, is a delightful book of travel, flavoured with a soupfon of interesting fiction. Now that the eyes of half the world are turned towards Africa, Mr. Bindloss's charmingly written story will have many greedy readers.' LIVERPOOL REVIEW. ' The book is full of excitement. . . . Mr. Bindloss knows the country in which he sets his romance, so that, in addition to its other merits, the story has the local colour that so helps interest.' LLOYD'S NEWS. Whether on sea or land or river, Mr. Bindloss's pictures of Nigeria and its in- has seen what wnetner on sea or lana or river, Mr. cmaiosss pictures or mge habitants are illumined by a hundred touches only possible in a writer who he describes. . . . An astonishingly vivid account of the sufferings of the adventurers from pestilence, drought, and the attacks of hostile natives.' SPECTATOR. ' It is a thrilling story. . . . Mr. Bindloss brings this strange country before us with extraordinary vividness, and his thrilling narrative never flags.' PEOPLE'S FRIEND. ' A book which all lovers of good writing and a good story ought to read. The author exhibits a keen insight into character, and a command of pure English which are delightful and refreshing.' TOPICAL TIMES. ' The real interest lies in the journey of a trading party up country, and for the sake of this journey the book is well worth reading.' PUBLIC OPINION. ' It is a story that will reward the reader.' LITERARY WORLD. 'Powerfully and vividly written, and sustains the reader's interest from first to last.' BRADFORD OBSERVER. ' Mr. Bindloss has travelled extensively in Western Africa. . . . Mr. Bindloss has used his experience of the country to embody many incidents of adventure and entertain- ing characters which carry the reader pleasantly onward from beginning to close. 1 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL COLONIAL INSTITUTE. LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, in ST. MARTIN'S LANE, W.C. A SOWER OF WHEAT PRINTED BY SPOTTISVVOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON A SOWER OF WHEAT BY HAROLD BINDLOSS AUTHOR OF AINSLIE'S ju-ju ' IN THE NIGER COUNTRY ETC. LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1901 CONTENTS CHAPTER PROLOGUE I. THE FIRST SOWING 6 II. THE CHURCH PARADE 15 III. 'THE LAND OF PROMISE 3 24 IV. AN UNPLEASANT APPRENTICESHIP ... 34 V. A BID FOR FORTUNE 45 VI. THE FIRST CROP 55 VII. HARVEST HOME 65 VIII. HELD UP 76 IX. A RECKONING 90 X. A FORWARD POLICY IO4 XI. ON THE RAILROAD Il6 XII. THE UNEXPECTED 127 XIII. ADVOCATES OF TEMPERANCE 137 XIV. THE HIRED TEAMSTER 150 XV. UNDER THE SHADOW OF DEATH . . . . 162 XVI. WHEN THE WATERS ROSE 174 XVII. THE RETURN 183 XVIII. THE OPENING OF THE LINE 193 XIX. A GENEROUS OFFER . 208 vi A SOWER OF WHEAT CHAPTER PAGE XX. THE RETURN TO THE PRAIRIE . . . . 21 9 XXI. THE STOLEN CATTLE 230 XXII. A RACE WITH TIME 241 XXIII. ON THE GOLD TRAIL 252 XXIV. THE BRINK OF ETERNITY 266 XXV. ORMOND'S LAST JOURNEY 279 XXVI. THE TRIAL . . . 290 XXVII. THE ROAD TO DAKOTA 304 XXVIII. THE RECALL OF ADAM LEE 315 XXIX. CONCERNING THE DAY SPRING MINE . . . 325 XXX. THE REVOLT OF CARRINGTON .... 339 XXXI. THE NEW RULER OF CARRINGTON . . . . 351 XXXII. A BOUNTIFUL HARVEST 364 A SOWER OF WHEAT PROLOGUE FAIRMEAD, WESTERN CANADA. IT is a still, hot day in autumn, and there is a droning of mosquitoes where I sit by an open window, alternately glancing out across the Assiniboian prairie and somewhat blankly at the bundle of paper before me, ready to begin this story. Its telling will not be an easy matter, but one finds idle hours pass heavily after a life such as mine has been, and since the bronco blundering into a badger hole fell and broke my leg the surgeon who rode forty miles to set it said that if I was to work at harvest I must not move before and the harvest is already near. So I nibble the pen and look round the long match-boarded hall, waiting for the inspiration which is strangely slow in coming, while my wife that was Grace Carrington smiles over her sewing and suggests that it is high time to begin. There are many guns on the wall glistening like sardines with oil rubbed well in, and among them the old Winchester which once saved us from starvation in British Columbia. There are also long rows of painted butterflies and moths whose colours pleased Grace's fancy when I caught them in the sloos. Sometimes I wonder if she B 2 A SOWER OF WHEAT really likes that kind of decoration, or merely pinned them to the wall because I caught them for her. Then, and this is my own fancy, the bit of the horse which once saved her life hangs in a place of its own under the heads of the antelopes and the forward half of a crane with which a Winnipeg taxidermist has travestied nature. There are also a few oil paintings and of course some furniture, but I am not learned in such matters, and only know it cost me many dollars when I brought it out from Toronto on one of Grace's birthdays, and never regretted the investment. No, there is nothing which merits much comment here, though Fairmead is one of the finest homesteads between the Saskatchewan and the Souris, and then as I gaze with half-closed eyes through the open window the memories awaken and crowd, as it were, upon each other. Far out on the rim of the prairie lies a silvery haze, through which the vault of azure melts into the dusty whiteness of the grasses. Then, level on level, with each slowly swelling rise growing sharper under that crystalline atmosphere the prairie rolls in, broken here by a willow copse and there by a straggling birch bluff, while a belt of cool neutral shadow marks the course of a deep-sunk ravine. At first sight it is all one glaring sweep of white and grey, but on looking closer with understanding eyes one sees the yellow and sage greens of tall reeds in a sloo, the glowing lights of sun- bleached buffalo bones, and a mingling of many colours where there is wild peppermint or flowers among the grass. Then, broad across the foreground, growing tall and green in a few moister places almost breast-high, and in others changing to dchre and coppery red, there ripples, acre beyond acre, a great sea of grain whose extent is beyond the comprehension of the insular Briton. That, at least, with its feathery oat tassels and stately heads of wheat, is a picture well worth looking upon, for PROLOGUE 3 there are few places in the world where one may see furrows of equal length. It was won hardly, by much privation, and in the sweat of the brow, as well as by the favour of Providence, as Grace would say, and she is right in most things, except when she attempts to instruct me in stock feeding, for we hold on the prairie that it is not fair to place all the burden on Providence. Therefore the settlers who succeed also cut down rations and work double tides to help themselves in time of adversity. Yes, though better men have done more and failed, we worked hard enough for it, Harry Lorraine and I, stinting ourselves often to feed the stock and deal justly with the soil, until at last the ill-fortune turned and the kindly earth repaid us a hundred fold for our trust in it. Grace partly approves of the foregoing, for she laid by her sewing to read the loose sheets beside me, bending down until her hair, which is bronze-gold with the sun in it, just touched my own. It may be my eyes are prejudiced, but I have never seen a woman who might compare with her. Neither has her comeliness faded. Instead, it has grown even more refined and stately, for Grace had always a queenly way, since the day when I first met her, the fairest maid I think so now, though it is long ago that ever trod the bleak moorlands of eastern Lancashire. Beyond the wheat and straggling birches I can see the shingled roofs of Harry's dwelling. We have long been partners, and he married my sister Aline all the Winnipeg dealers know the firm of Crosfield and Lorraine, and how they send their wheat in by special freight train. Then there is a stretch of raw breaking, and the tinkle of the binders rises out of a hidden hollow, as tireless arms of wood and steel pile up the sheaves of Jasper's crop. Jasper takes a special pride in forestalling us, while the dun smoke of a smudge-fire shows that Harry is in prairie fashion protecting B 2 4 A SOWER OF WHEAT our stock, and I see it drifting eastwards across the dusty plain, with the cattle seeking shelter from the mosquitoes under it. The management of a farm like Fairmead is a serious task, even when there are two to do it, and Grace says there are weighty responsibilities attached. How many toilers in crowded Europe benefit by the cheap flour we send them I do not know, though last year we kept the Winnipeg millers busy, but when in conjunction with a certain society we opened new lands and homes for the homeless poor it was Grace's pet project all those who occupied them were not thankful. Some also stole their neighbours' chickens, and the said neighbours abused us. Others seemed more inclined to live on one another than wrest a living from the soil, while once Macdonald of the North- West Police lodged a solemn protest, * We'll hold ye baith re- sponsible for the depredations o' the wastrels ye're disturb- ing the harmony o' this peaceful prairie with.' Still, Harry and I were once poor enough ourselves, and with Grace's help we have done our best to weed out the worthless Harry attends to this and encourage the rest. Very many bushels of seed wheat has she given them, and here as elsewhere there are considerably more good than bad, while already a certain society takes to itself the credit of the flourishing Fairmead colony. Harry, however, says that undeserved prosperity has made me an optimist. But the reader will wonder how I, Ralph Crosfield, who landed in Canada with one hundred pounds capital, became owner of Fairmead and married Grace, only daughter and heiress of Colonel Carrington. Well, that is a long story, and looking back to the beginning of it instead of the sunlit prairie I see a grimy smoke-blackened land where gaunt chimneys stand in rows, and behind it the bare moors of Lancashire. Then again the memories change like the glasses of a kaleidoscope, PROLOGUE 5 and I sigh as I remember comrades who helped us in our necessity and now sleep forgotten by all save a few among the snow-bound ranges, under the bitter alkali dust, and deep in the smoking canons we carried the new steel high- way through. Failures, probably their friends called them at home, but in this their friends were wrong. With light jest, or grim silent endurance, they played out the lost game to the bitter end, and laid the foundations of a great country's prosperity, while if fate or fortune has but favours for the few, those who receive them should remember with becom- ing humility what otherwise they might have been. So the past comes back, struggle, disappointment, and slow success, at last, until it is a relief when Harry Lorraine strides laugh- ing in and Grace fills for him a great polished horn of cider. * Here's success to your story. Tell them simply how we live and work, and some of us, the best, have died in this land,' he said. Then he raises the horn high towards the rafters and I know his meaning. It is a way the fore- runners of civilisation, axe- man, paddle-man, and railroad shoveller had, and he did it in memory of one who lies far off among the northern snows. Then taking up the weary pen as he and Grace go out together I prepare to follow his counsel, telling the story simply and as it happened from the beginning. A SOWER OF WHEAT I THE FIRST SOWING IT was late in autumn, and the heather had faded into dingy brown, though long streaks of golden fern crept winding down, when Grace Carrington first talked with me of the Canadian Dominion on the bleak slopes of Star- cross Moor. There was a hollow in the hillside where a few pale-stemmed birches and sombre firs formed, as it were, a rampart between the poor, climbing meadows and waste of gorse and fern, while we two beneath them seemed utterly alone in the moorland solitude. Grace sat on a lichened boulder with the sunlight upon her, gazing down across the levels of Lancashire. I was just twenty years old, and she seemed the incarnation of all that was fresh and good in early womanhood. Still, it was not only her beauty that attracted me, though she was the well-dowered daughter of a race which has long been famous for fair women, but a certain grave dignity that made her softly spoken wishes seem commands it would be a pleasure to obey. Grace was nineteen then, and she lived in Western Canada with her widowed father, Colonel Carrington, who had made himself a power in that country. Yet she was English by birth and early training, of the fair-haired, grey-eyed, old Lancashire stock, and had lost nothing by her sojourn on the prairie as youthful mistress of Carrington Manor. The land which ran west before us was not a pleasant THE FIRST SOWING 7 one. Across its horizon hung a pall of factory smoke, and unlovely hamlets, each with its gaunt pit-head gear and stark brick chimney, sprinkled the bare fields between, for hedgerows were scanty and fences of rusty colliery rope replaced them. Yet it was a wealthy country, and bred keen-witted, enterprising men, who, uncouth often in speech and exterior, possessed an energy which has spread their commerce to the far corners of the earth. That day the autumn haze wrapped a mellow dimness round its defects, but Grace Carrington sighed as she turned towards me. ' I shall not be sorry to go home again,' she said. 4 Perhaps I miss our clear sunshine, but here everyone looks careworn in your dingy towns, and there are so many poor. Besides, the monotony of those endless smoky streets oppresses me. No, I should not care to come back to Lancashire.' Now, the words of a young and winsome woman seldom fall lightly on the ears of a young man, and Grace spoke with- out affectation as one accustomed to be listened to, which was hardly surprising in the heiress of Carrington. As it hap- pened, they also wakened an answering echo within me. The love of the open sky had been handed down to me through long generations of a yeoman ancestry, and yet fate had apparently decreed that I should earn my bread in the counting-house of a cotton mill. It is also probable that I should have been abashed and awkward before this patrician damsel in a drawing-room, but here, under the blue lift, with the brown double-barrel it was my uncle's new hammerless across my knees, and the speckled birds beneath, I felt in harmony with the surroundings, and accordingly at ease. I was born and bred under the other edge of the moor. 1 It does not always rain here, though this has been a 8 A SOWER OF WHEAT wet season, and trade is bad,' I said. < Will you tell me about Canada, Miss Carrington ? ' and her eyes brightened as she answered, ' It is my adopted country, and I love it. Still it is no place for the weak and idle, for, as they say out there, we have no room for any but live men and strong. Yet, I never saw a ragged woman nor heard of a hungry child. All summer the settlers work from dawn to dusk under the clear sunshine of the open prairie, paying rent to no one, for each tills his own land, and though there are drawbacks drought, hail, and harvest-frost they meet them lightly, for you see neither anxious faces nor bent shoulders there. Our folk walk upright, as becomes free men. Then, through the long winter, when the snow lies firm and white, and the wheat crop has been hauled in, you can hear the jingling sleigh teams flit across the prairie from homestead to homestead under the cloudless blue. The settlers enjoy themselves when their work is done and we have no drunkenness.' She ceased, turning an eager face towards me, and I felt an old longing increase. It was the inborn love of a fertile soil and that wide sunlit country seemed to call me, for my father had been the last of a long family to hold one of the extensive farms which with their crumbling feudal halls may yet be found in the remoter corners of Lancashire. Then, asking practical questions, I wondered as Grace Carrington answered, because, though she wore the stamp of refinement to her finger tips, she knew all that concerned the feeding of stock, and the number of bushels that might be thrashed from an acre of wheat. I knew she spoke as one having experience, for I had been taught to till the soil, and only entered the cotton mill when on my father's death it was found his weakness for horses and unlucky experiments had rendered it impossible I should carry on the farm. So, while unobserved the sun sank down, I listened THE FIRST SOWING 9 eagerly until at last there was a sound of footsteps among the fern, and she ceased, after a glance at her watch. But like the grain she spoke of, drilled into the black Assiniboian loam, the seed had been sown, and in due time the crop would ripen to maturity. A man came out from the birches, a handsome man, glancing about him with a look of indolent good humour upon his face, and though for a moment Grace Carrington seemed displeased she showed no sign of it as she rose leisurely to meet him. * I am sorry you had to come in search of me, Geoffrey,' she said ; < this is Mr. Crosfield Captain Ormond. I think you have met before. I lost my way, and he kindly brought me across the moor. I have been telling him about Canada/ The newcomer bowed with an easy indifference, for which, not knowing exactly why, I disliked him, as he said, * Don't remember that pleasure meet so many people ! Canada must be a very nice place ; been thinking of going out there myself drive oxen, grow potatoes, and that kind of thing, you know.' He glanced at Grace, as though seeking her approval for such an act of self-sacrifice, but the girl laughed frankly as she answered, ' I can't fancy you tramping behind the plough in a jacket patched with flour-bags, Geoffrey ; ' while feeling myself overlooked, and not knowing what to say, I raised my cap and awkwardly turned away. Still, looking back, I caught the waft of a light dress among the fern, and frowned as the sound of laughter came down the wind. These people had been making merry, I thought, at my expense, though I had fancied Miss Carrington incapable of such ungenerous conduct. In this, however, I misjudged her, for long afterwards I learned that Grace was laughing at the stories her companion io A SOWER OF WHEAT told of his strange experiences with sundry recruits, until presently the latter said, ' She stoops to conquer, even a raw Lancashire lad. I congratulate you on your judge- ment, Gracie. There is something in that untrained cub could recognise it by the steady, disapproving way he looked at me, and I am some kind of a relative, which is presumably a warrant for impertinence.' Now a saving sense of humour tempered Miss Carrington's seriousness, and Geoffrey Ormond joined in her merry laugh. In spite of his love of ease and frivolous badinage, he was, as I was to learn some day, considerably less of a good- natured fool than it occasionally pleased him to appear to be. Meantime, I strode homeward with the fierce longing growing stronger. I hated the dingy office where I sat under a gas-jet making up the count of yarn ; and yet four weary years I had laboured there, partly because I had to earn my bread, and because my uncle and sole guardian greatly desired I should. It grew dark as I entered the valley which led to his house, for the cotton-spinner now lived ten miles by rail from his mill, and the sighing of the pine branches under a cold breeze served to increase my restless- ness. So it was with a sense of relief I found my cousin Alice waiting in a cosy corner of the fire-lit drawing-room. We had known each other from childhood, and, though for that very reason this is not always the case, were the best of friends. She would be rich some day, so the men I met in her father's business said ; but if Alice Crosfield ever remembered the fact, it made but little difference to her. She was delicate, slight, and homely, with a fund of shrewd common-sense and a very kindly heart, whose thoughts, however, she did not always reveal. Now she sat in a lounge before the fire, with the soft light of a coloured lamp falling upon her, while a great embroidered screen shut off the rest of the partly darkened room. THE FIRST SOWING n * I have been waiting for you with the tea so patiently, Ralph,' she said. * You look tired and moody you have been out on the moors too long. See, here is a low chair ready just inside the screen, and here is the tea. Sit down and tell me what is troubling you.' I settled myself in the corner, and answered, look- ing into the fire, *You were always kind to me, Alice, and one can talk to you. Something made me unsettled to-day, and I didn't care about the birds, though I got a plump brace for you. Alice, I can't help thinking these brief holidays, though they are like a glimpse of Paradise after my dingy rooms in that sickening town, are not good for me. I am only a poor clerk in your father's mill, and such things as guns and horses are out of my sphere. They only stir up useless longings. So I return on Monday, and hardly think I shall come back for a long time.' Alice laughed softly, for she was a shrewd young person, then laid her little hand restrainingly on my arm, before she said : * And who has a better right to the bay horse and the new hammerless ejector than the nephew of the man who never uses them ? Now, I'm guessing at a secret, but it's probable your uncle bought that gun especially for you. Ralph, you are getting morbid and you have not been shooting all day. Did you meet Miss Carrington on the moor again ? ' Now in such matters I was generally a blunderer ; yet something warned me my answer would displease her. I could, however, see no way of avoiding it, and when I said as unconcernedly as I could, * Yes, and talked to her about Canada ! ' Alice for no particular reason stooped and dropped a thread into the fire. Then lifting her head she looked at me steadily when I continued, with some hesitation : ' You know how I was always taught that in due time 12 A SOWER OF WHEAT I should work the lands of Lingdale Hall, and how, when we found on my father's death there was nothing left, I tried the cotton mill. Well, after four years' trial I like it worse than I did at the beginning, and now I feel I must give it up. I am going back to the soil again, even if it is across the sea.' Alice made no answer for a few moments ; then she said slowly, ' Ralph, you will not be rash ; think it over well. Now tell me if you have any definite plans you know how I always used to advise you ? ' I felt I needed sympathy, and Alice was a faithful con- fidant, so I opened my heart to her, and she listened with patient sympathy, while it seemed to me my cousin had never looked so winsome as she sat close beside me with a slight flush of colour in her usually pale face where the soft lamplight touched it. So we sat and talked until Martin Crosfield entered unobserved, and when, on hearing a footstep, I looked up I saw he was smiling with what seemed grim approval as his eyes rested upon us, and this puzzled me. Then his daughter started almost guiltily as he said, * I wondered where you two were. Dinner has been waiting, and you never heard the bell.' I retired early that night, and being young forgot my perplexities in heavy slumber, while next morning I noticed Alice's eyes seemed heavy, and wondered what could be the reason. In after years I mentioned it when Grace and I were talking about old times together, but she only smiled gravely, and said, c I sometimes think your cousin was too good for this world.' The next day was one of those wet Sundays which it is hard to forget. The bleak moor was lost in vapour, and a pitiless drizzle came slanting down the valley, while the -raw air seemed filled with falling leaves. A prosperous man with a good conscience may make light of such things, but THE FIRST SOWING 13 they leave their own impression on the poor and anxious, so, divided between two courses, I wandered up and down, finding rest nowhere until I chanced upon a large new atlas in my uncle's library. Martin Crosfield was proud of his library, and a well-read man, though like others of his kind he made no pretence at scholarship, and used the broad, burring dialect when he spoke in his mill. Here I found occupa- tion studying the Dominion of Canada, especially the prairie territories, and lost myself in dreams of half-mile furrows and a day's ride straight as the crow flies across a cattle run, all of which, though I scarcely dared hope it then, came true in its own appointed time. My uncle had ridden out early, for he was to take part in the new mayor's state visit to church in the manu- facturing town, and even Alice seemed out of spirits, so when I left the library there was the weary afternoon to be somehow dragged through. It passed very slowly, and then as I stood by the stables a man from the house at the further end of the valley where Colonel Carrington was staying said to our stable lad : * I mun hurry back. Our folks are wantin' t' horses ; maister an' t' Colonel's daughter's goin' to the church parade. They're sayin' it's a grand turnout, wi' t' firemen, bands, an' t' volunteers, in big brass helmets ! ' Neither of them saw me, and presently calling the lad I bade him put the bay horse into the dog-cart. * He's in a gradely bad temper,' said the lad doubtfully. * Not done nothink but eat for a long time now, an' he nearly bit a piece out of me ; I wish t' maister would shoot him.' I laughed at the warning then, though I had occasion to remember it, and looking for Alice said, ' I am driving in to church to-night. Would you like to come with me ? ' Now Alice Crosfield possessed her father's keen percep- tion, and when he kept his temper he was perhaps the shrewdest man I ever met, so when she looked me straight i 4 A SOWER OF WHEAT in the- face I dropped my eyes, because I really was not anxious for her company, and would not have gone except in the hope of seeing Grace Carrington. * Have you turned religious suddenly, Ralph ? ' she asked. ' Or have you forgotten you told me yesterday that you did not care to go ? ' I made some awkward answer, but Alice smiled drily, and with a solemn courtesy said, * Two are company, three are none. Cousin Ralph, I will not go with you. But don't leave the dog-cart behind and come back with the shafts.' I went out with a flushed face, and a sense of relief, angry, nevertheless, that she should read my inmost thoughts, having fancied that invitation was a stroke of diplomacy. I learned afterwards that diplomacy is a mistake for the simple man. With a straightforward * Yes ' or * No ' he can often turn aside the schemes of the cunning, but on forsaking these generally finds the other side considerably too clever for him, all of which is a wanton digression from the story. II THE CHURCH PARADE IT was raining hard when I climbed into the dog-cart and rattled away into the darkness, while somewhat to my surprise Robert the Devil, or Devilish Bob, as those who had the care of him called the bay horse, played no antics on the outward journey, which was safely accomplished. So leaving him at the venerable * Swan ' I hurried through the miry streets towards the church. They were thronged with pale-faced men and women who had sweated out their vigour in the glare of red furnace, dye-shop, and humming mill, but there was no lack of enthusiasm. I do not think there are any cities in the world with the same public spirit and pride in local customs which one may find in the grimy towns of Lancashire. The enthusiasm is, however, part of their inhabitants' nature, and has nothing to do with the dismal surroundings. A haze of smoke had mingled with the rain, yellow gas jets blinked through it, though it would not be dark for an hour or so yet, and the grim, smoke-blackened houses seemed trickling with water. Still, everyone laughed and chattered with good-humoured expectancy, even the many who had no umbrellas. It was hard work to reach the church, though I opined that all the multitude did not intend to venture within, while when once I saw my uncle with a wand in his hand I carefully avoided him. Martin Crosfield was a power and well liked in that town, but I 1 6 A SOWER OF WHEAT had not driven ten miles to assist him. Then I waited among the jostling crowd in a fever of impatience, wondering whether Miss Carrington had yet gone in, until at last I saw the Colonel marching through the throng, which and knowing the temperament of our people I wondered at it made way for him. There were others of the party behind, and my heart leapt at the sight of Grace. She was walking beside Captain Ormond, who smiled down on her. Then, just as the Colonel passed within, a burst of cheering broke out, and in the mad scramble for the entrance Grace, who turned a moment to recover the cloak she dropped, was separated from her companion. He was driven forward in the thickest part of the stream of excited human beings, and fortune had signally favoured me. Squeezing through from behind a pillar I reached her side, and grew hot with pride when she slipped her arm through mine, and we were borne forward irresistibly by the surging crowd. Once I saw Ormond vainly trying to make his way back in search of his companion, and stood so that he could not recognise her, while when half-way down the aisle we met an official who recognised me as a nephew of Martin Crosfield. * I'll find you and the lady seats in the chancel. It will be the only good place left,' he said. I did not care where we went so long as Grace went with me, and when he ensconced us under an oaken canopy among the ancient carved stalls I longed that the service might last a century, while Grace's quiet * Thank you, I am so interested,' filled me with ecstasy. The church was interesting There are many cathe- drals that could not compare with it, and it was very old. The damp haze had entered the building, and obscuring half the clerestory enhanced its stateliness, for the great carved pillars and arches led the wandering eye aloft and lost it in a mystery, while far up at the western end above THE CHURCH PARADE 17 the organ, which in this case stood there, a gilded Gloria caught a stray shaft of light and blazed out of the gloom. I saw Grace's eyes rest upon it, and then followed them down across the sea of faces, along the quaint escutcheons, and over two marble tombs, until she fixed them on her father, who with his party sat in a high-backed pew. Then the crash of music outside ceased, and with a steady tramp of feet, file by file, men in scarlet uniform moved up the aisle ; while before them, led by the sword and gilded mace, came a little homely man, who seemed burdened by his glittering chain, and most uncomfortable. As I knew, he commenced his business career with ten pounds capital, could hardly speak plain English, and now his goods were known in every bazaar from Cairo to Singapore. This knowledge fostered a vague but daring hope within me. I remember little of the service beyond Grace's voice ringing high and clear in the * Magnificat,' while for perhaps the first time I caught a glimmer of its full significance, and her face, clean-cut against shadow where a fretted pinnacle allowed one shaft of light to pass it, looking, I thought, like that of a haloed saint. The rest was all a blurred impression of rolling music, half-seen faces, and gay uniforms, until a tall old man of commanding personality stood high aloft in the carved pulpit, and proclaimed a doctrine which seemed strangely out of place in the busy town. Honest labour brought its own reward in the joy of diligent toil, he said, and the prize of fame or money was a much slighter thing. I could not quite understand this then, for there were many in that district whose daily toil wore body and soul away, so that none of them might hope to live out half man's allotted span, while a prize I would have given my life for sat close beside me, and twice that evening the calm proud eyes had smiled gratefully into mine. 1 8 A SOWER OF WHEAT Still, there was one drawback. As chance would have it, Minnie Lee, who operated the typewriter in the mill offices, sat just opposite, and would cast mischievous glances towards me. We were good friends, in a way, for during two years I had talked to her on business matters every day, and sometimes also indulged in innocent badinage. She was fair-haired and delicately pretty, and was said to be aware of it ; but now of all times I did not want those playful smiles directed at me. However, I hoped Grace did not see them, and not knowing what else to do, for I could not frown at her, sought refuge in what proved to be a bewildering chapter of genealogy until the building trembled as the vast assembly joined in the closing hymn. Long afterward, out on the lone prairie when the stars shone down through the bitter frost, I could hear in fancy Grace's voice rising beside me through the great waves of sound. Then I would remember the song of the speckled thrush singing at sunset after a showery April day through the shadow of a copse. We reached the street safely, though in that press there was no hope of finding Colonel Carrington, even if I wished it, which I certainly did not, so after some demur and the discussing of other expedients, Grace accepted my offer to drive her home. ' I am afraid it can't be helped,' she said, I thought with quite unnecessary cruelty. The dog-cart was ready, and Robert the Devil went well. The long streets rolled behind us, and were lost in the rain ; then with a rhythmic drumming of hoofs and a constant splashing from under the whirring wheels, we swept out into the blackness of a treeless plain. I knew the road and did not take the shortest one, while it was rapture to draw the rugs and apron round Grace's waist, and feel the soft furs she wore brushing against me. The ten miles passed in what seemed to be scarcely as many minutes, THE CHURCH PARADE 19 and the rush through the damp air for the rain had ceased at last raised my companion's spirits, and she chatted merrily ; then, just as we reached the crest of a steep dip into the Starcross valley, the Devil must take fright at a coloured railway light he had often seen before. I knew we were in for a struggle, and got both hands on the reins, but two men would hardly have held him, and next moment, with a mad rattle of wheels and red sparks flashing under the battering hoofs, we went flying into the long dark hollow, while I think I prayed that the Devil might keep his footing on the loose stones of a very bad road. One lurch flung Grace against the guard-rail, the next against my shoulder, and I remember feeling I would gladly have done battle with ten wild horses were she not also in jeopardy when the little hand fastened on my arm. Fresh drizzle lashed our faces, the wind screamed past, the wheels seemed to leave the ground alternately, and a light rushed up towards us from below, while with my teeth hard set I wondered what would happen when we reached the sharp bend at the bottom. I got the Devil round it somehow, and then breathed easier, for the steep slope of Starcross Brow rose close ahead, and I knew no horse was ever foaled who could run away up that. So, trusting to one hand, I slipped my arm round Grace's waist, and, thrilled at the touch of her damp hair on my neck, < I'll hold you safe ; we are near the end, and the danger will soon be past,' I said. It turned out so, for though Robert the Devil charged the hill gallantly, Starcross Brow proved too much for him, and, with a sigh of relief, Grace drew herself apart. *I must thank you, Mr. Crosfield. You drive well,' she said. Then I thought that if she had been like Minnie, or even cousin Alice, I might have ventured to replace the protecting arm, but there was something about Grace c 2 20 A SOWER OF WHEAT Carrington which made one treat her, as it were, with reverence. When we drew up in front of Starcross House a carriage with flashing lamps stood in the drive ; I had seen those other lights coming down the opposite side of the valley, and after Grace had thanked me with a quiet friendliness as I helped her down, a group turned to meet us at the door. The first was a tall thin-faced man of com- manding presence with a long grey moustache, and he stared hard at me with a haughtiness which I fancied was tinctured with contempt, while Captain Ormond stood behind him smiling languidly and lifted a warning finger unobserved to Grace. There was something forbidding about Colonel Carrington, and to the last few men liked him, while I remember Harry Lorraine once comparing him to Coriolanus ' Steeped in pride to the backbone,' said Harry, ' but it's a clean pride, and there's a good deal of backbone about him.' 4 1 am glad to see you safe, Grace,' he commenced. * We were anxious about you. But wherever have you been, and how did we pass you ? ' I never saw Grace either confused or taken by surprise, and when she explained quietly her father looked down on me from the top step as he said, ' I thank you, sir, but did not catch the name. May I ask who it is we are so much indebted to ? Neither do I quite understand yet how we got here before you.' There was nothing in the words, but the glance and tone conveyed the idea that he regretted the debt, while the whimsical look on Ormond's face aided in stirring me, for we had democratic notions in that part of Lancashire. ' Ralph Crosfield, assistant cashier in the Orb Mill,' I said. * It was a slight service, and I did not consider the shortest way best ; ' while before the Colonel could answer I raised my hat to Grace, and, taking Robert the Devil's THE CHURCH PARADE 21 head, turned him sharply round. Still, as I climbed into the dog-cart I saw that the burly master of Starcross House was chuckling at something, and drove away feeling strangely satisfied with myself, until I began to wonder whether after all to twice walk off the field defiantly before the enemy was not another form of cowardice. Alice met me on the threshold for she heard the wheels with a query why the Satanic Robert was in such a state ; but for several reasons I did not fully enlighten her. My uncle did not return that night, and I left for town next morning, while the same afternoon I sought an inter- view with him in his private office. It was with some trepidation I entered, because Martin Crosfield was frank of speech and quick in temper, and I knew he was then busy with the details of a scheme which might double the output of his mill. He thrust the papers away and leaned forward on his desk, a characteristic specimen of his race, square in jaw and shoulder, with keenness and power stamped upon his wrinkled face. ' Well, Ralph, what is it now ? ' he said. ' Johnson of Starcross has been telling me some tale about your running away with an heiress and giving his answer to Colonel Carrington. I'm not altogether sorry. I do not like that man. There is also a reason why he doesn't like me.' 'It has nothing to do with that, sir,' I answered awkwardly. ' You know I have never asked questions about the family money ; and you have been very kind to me. But the fact is I can't stand the mill, and I'm thinking of asking for whatever remains of my share and going out to Canada.' Martin Crosfield smote the desk suddenly with his fist, and there was angry bewilderment in his eyes as he asked, * Hast gone mad altogether, lad ? ' I met his gaze steadily, answering, * No. I can't help 22 A SOWER OF WHEAT longing for a life in the open air ; and there is room in Canada for poor folks like me.' Then, thrusting his square jaw forward, he said, * Thy father left four hundred pounds in all. It is now five, under my stewardship. Shall I ask the cashier to make out a statement ? Thy father had whims and fancies, or it would have been four thousand. Tom Crosfield could never see which side his bread was buttered. He was born a fool, like thee.' Flinging back my head I rose facing him. But he thundered, ' Stop ! You ought to know my meaning. He was an open-handed gentleman, and my well-loved brother. If you take your share of the five hundred, what is going to educate your brother Reggie and Aline ? I presume you know the fees they charge at both those schools ? And did you ever ask if I had plans for thee ? ' I was silent a moment. For the first time it struck me with sudden shame that Martin Crosfield had already most generously done his best to start his brother's orphans well in life. Then I answered slowly, * I beg your pardon, and recognise your goodness ; but I know I should never be successful in the mill. I'm sorry, but that is only the simple truth. Let Reggie and Aline keep all, except enough for a third-class passage to Winnipeg. This is not a rash whim. It has taken me three years to make up my mind.' 'Then there's an end of the matter,' said Martin Crosfield. < Stubbornness is in the family, and you are your father's son. An archangel would hardly have moved poor Tom ! Well, lad, you shall not go penniless, nor third-class, if it's only for the credit of the name ; and you can't go until spring. I thank thee for telling me ; but I'm busy, and we'll talk again. Hast told thy cousin Alice about it ? ' His eyes had lost their angry flash before I went out, and THE CHURCH PARADE 23 something in his change of tone revealed the hard bargain- maker's inner self; while, as it happened, Minnie Lee smiled over the typewriter as I passed her room, and I went in to tell her about it. I felt I must talk to someone ; and, if not gifted with much sense, she was a sympathetic girl. She listened with a pretty air of dismay, and said petulantly, ' So I shall lose my only friend in this dreary mill. Don't they pay high wages for my work in Montreal and Winnipeg ? Well, if you hear of a situation you can send straight back for me.' Then a door slammed, and I saw a frown on my uncle's face as, perhaps attracted by the sound of voices, he glanced into the room on passing. Still, it was some time afterwards before I learned he had heard the last words ; and, remembering them eventually when recalled by events, Minnie's careless speech proved an unfortunate one for both of us. 24 A SOWER OF WHEAT III * THE LAND OF PROMISE ' IT was a dismal afternoon in early spring when I lounged disconsolately about the streets of Winnipeg. The prairie metropolis had not then attained its present magni- tude, but it was busy and muddy enough ; for when the thaw comes the mire of a Western town is indescribable. Also odd showers of wet snow came down, and I shivered under my new skin coat, envying the busy citizens who, with fur caps drawn low down, hurried to and fro. One and all wore the stamp of prosperity, and their voices had a cheerful ring which grated upon me, for I of all that bustling crowd seemed idle and without a purpose. So, feel- ing utterly forlorn, a stranger in a very strange and, at first sight, a forbidding land, I trudged up and down, waiting for the evening train which was to bear me west and pondering over all that had happened during the past few weeks. There was the parting with my uncle, who laid a strong hand on my shoulder and lapsed into the speech of the country as he said, * I need not tell thee to set thy teeth and hang on through the first few years, lad. Thy father played out a losing game only too staunchly ; and it's stey work at the beginning. I mind when I started the mill but that's an old story. It's the man who can - grin and bear it, coming up smiling after each fall, who wins in the end. And thou hast all the world before thee. 'THE LAND OF PROMISE' 25 Still, remember there are staunch friends behind thee here in Lancashire.' I think his fingers shook a little, but Martin Crosfield was not addicted to much display of sentiment, and with a cough he hurried away ; though I remember the old cashier, who had served him since he started, putting a sealed envelope in my hand, said, 'It's a draft for one hundred pounds on the Bank of Montreal, and it's a secret ; but I'm not debiting the estate with it. Thou'rt a gradely fool for thy trouble, Ralph Crosfield. But I knew thy father, and, like him, thou mun go thy own way. Well, maybe it's for the best ; and good luck go with thee.' Next came my farewell from cousin Alice, who blushed as, laying before me a fine Winchester repeating rifle, which must have cost her some trouble to obtain in Eng- land then, she said, ' It's only a little keepsake, but I thought you would like it and you will remember your cousin when you use it. Ralph, you have chosen to work out your own destiny, and for many a night your uncle fumed over it until at last he said that the child who fought for scraps in the gutter grew to be worth any two of the spoon-fed. You know how fond he is of forcible simile, and he frowned when I suggested that Canada was not a gutter. Still, it is too late to consider if you did well, and I ask, as a last favour, if you are ever unfortunate, if only for the sake of old times, you will let us know. And now I wish you all prosperity. Good-bye, Ralph dear, and God bless you.' Her eyes were dim, and she looked so small and fragile that I stooped and kissed her, while though she drew herself suddenly away with the crimson mantling upwards from her neck, I felt that whatever happened I had a friend for life in Alice Crosfield. Now all that had faded into the past I had left behind 26 A SOWER OF WHEAT across the sea, and henceforward I knew there must be no more glancing back. I had chosen my own path, and must press forward with eyes turned steadfastly ahead, although at present I could see no further than the prairie station I would reach some time before dawn next day. A wheat- grower's dwelling thirty miles back from the railroad was registered as wanting assistance, the immigration officer said. Slowly, with more snow and a freshening of the bitter wind, the afternoon wore itself away, and I was glad when that evening I boarded the west-bound train. It was thronged with emigrants of many nationalities, and among them were Scandinavian maidens, tow-haired and red- cheeked, each going out to be married in the West. Their courtship would be brief and unromantic, but, as I was afterwards to learn, three-fourths of the marriages so made turned out an unqualified success. Still, I found a corner in the smoking end of a long Colonist car, and with the big bell clanging and a storm of voices exchanging farewells in many tongues, the great locomotive hauled us out into the whirling snow. Thick flakes beat on the windows, and icy draughts swept through the car, while the big stove in a boxed-in corner hummed with a drowsy roar, and I leaned back with half-closed eyes against the hard maple while the preceding scenes of the long journey rolled like a panorama before me. Twelve days it took the ancient steamer, which swarmed like a hive, to thrash through mist and screaming gale across the Atlantic, while fifteen hun- dred emigrants below wished themselves dead. Then there followed an apparently endless transit in the lurching cars, where we slept as best we could on uncushioned seats and floor, through dark pine forests, with only an occasional tin-roofed hamlet to break the monotony. After that there were wooden cities in Ontario very like the said hamlets of 'THE LAND OF PROMISE' 27 a larger growth, and when at last, sickened by the vibra- tion, we sped out on to the long-expected prairie, the prospect was by no means inviting. Spring, I was told, was very late that year, and the plains rolled before us to the horizon a dreary white wilderness streaked by willow-swale, with at first many lonely lakes rippling a bitter steely-blue under the blasts, while crackling ice fringed their shores. Then several of my companions, who were young and romantic Britons with big revolvers strapped about them under their jackets, grew suspiciously quiet, and said no more about the strange adventures they had looked for in the West. There was nothing romantic about this land, which lacked even the clear skies Grace Carrington spoke of. It looked a hard country, which only a man with the power of stubborn endurance could wrest a living out of. So with a rhythmic beat of whirring wheels, and now and again a clash of couplings as we slid down some hollow of the track, we rolled on through the night, while the scream of wind grew louder outside the rattling cars, until when I was three parts asleep there came a sudden shock, and the conductor's voice rang out warning us to leave the train. At slackened speed we had run into a snow block, and the old wedge-headed plough was going, so he said, to plug the drifts under a full pressure, and butt her right straight through. Shivering to the backbone, I dropped from the platform into two feet of snow, and when after floundering through it I halted among a group of excited men behind the two huge locomotives, it was for a newcomer a striking scene. The snow had ceased, and watery moonlight lit up the great white plain, while in the midst of it, with the black smoke of the engines drifting across it under a double column of roaring steam, stood the illuminated train. There was nothing else to show that man had ever been there before 28 A SOWER OF WHEAT except the spectral row of telegraph posts that dwindled in long perspective to the horizon, and ahead a billowy drift which filled a hollow rose level with the wedged- shaped framing on the snow-plough front. They run both better ploughs and more luxurious Colonist cars now. * Will they get through ? ' I asked a tall man in fur robes whom I had chatted with ; and he answered cheer- fully, 'Oh, yes, you just bet they will. Jim Grant and Number Sixty are a very bad pair to beat ; he'll either jump the track or rush her through it. He's backing her out for the first lead now.' With a clang of the bell to warn us off the line, the coupled engines slowly shoved the long train back the way they had come. Then the roar of blown-off steam grew still, and with loud blasts from the funnels that rapidly quickened they swept like snorting giants down the slight grade again, the huge head-lamp casting a blaze of radiance before them. It went out suddenly ; I heard the thud of a soft but heavy shock, and long waves of whiteness curled up, while above it there was a hurling aloft of red sparks from the twin funnels. Then the tail light glim- mered more brightly as it returned again, and we looked into the steep hollow with rammed back slopes the engines backed out of. 'She'll do it sure next time,' said the passenger. ' Grant's going right back to Winnipeg to get on speed enough ; ' and under an eddying blast of steam the massive locomotives charged past us once more, while I felt a thrill as I watched them, and envied Grant the engineer. It was something to hold that power in the hollow of one's hand. Thick white powder whirled aloft like smoke before them, a filmy wavy mass that seemed alive rolled aside, while presently the whistle boomed in triumph, and there was an 'THE LAND OF PROMISE' 29 exultant shout from the passengers, for steam had vanquished the snow, and the road lay open before us. Blundering down the gap they had made I climbed on board the train, colder than ever, and, as my new friend seemed a native of the neighbourhood, asked him if he knew the farmer I was going to offer my services to. He laughed as he answered, ' 1 ought to. Beat me badly over a deal in stock he did. Old Coombs is a Britisher, and a precious low-grade specimen. Dare say he'll take you, but stick him for half as much again as he offers you, and bargain ex harvest you'll get double wages anywhere then see ? How does this great country strike you don't think much of it ? well, go slow and steady and it will grow on you. It's good enough for me, and I was raised on the best land in Ontario.' This was not encouraging, but I knew most beginnings are unpleasant, and went shivering to sleep until in the grey twilight of what might have been a mid-winter dawn a blast of the whistle wakened me and the brakes began to scream. The train ran slowly past an edifice resembling a sod stable with one light in it, stopped, and the conductor strode into the car. Even now the Western railroad conductor is a personage, but he might have been an emperor then, and this particular specimen had lorded it over the Colonist passengers in a manner which for several days had made me long to rebuke him. It was of course foolish, but I was as yet new to the ways of the country, and I fear we were always a somewhat combative family. * Anyone for Elk-tail ? Jump off; we can't wait all night with the West-bound mail,' he said. 'Say you,' looking at me, < you had an Elk-tail ticket. Why aren't you getting off ? ' ' It's Vermont I am bound for,' I answered sleepily. 30 A SOWER OF WHEAT ' You will see it on my ticket if you look in your wallet,' but this, of course, the magnate refused to do, and when another hoot of the whistle announced the engineer's im- patience he called a brakesman, saying, * You are bound for Elk-tail, and we've no time for fooling. Won't get off ? Well, we'll soon put you,' and, grasping my shoulder, he hustled me towards the platform of the car. Now, though Martin Crosfield sometimes gave way to outbreaks of indignation, he was fond of impressing the fact upon me that if forced into a quarrel one should take the first steps deliberately. Also, even then I remembered that Coombs' homestead lay almost as near Elk-tail, and a happy thought struck me. So I offered but little resistance until, as we stood on the platform, the brakesman or someone waved a lantern ; then, while with a shock of couplings the cars commenced to move, I gripped the guard rail with one hand and held the other ready, for I had determined if I left that train before I reached Vermont the conductor should certainly leave it too. ' Off with you ! ' he shouted, and shook me by the shoulder ; but I seized him by the waist the cars were moving faster now and then flung myself off backwards into the snow. I fell soft, for as it happened the conductor fell under me, and, profiting by experience hardly earned in several colliery disputes, took the precaution of sitting upon him before he could get up again. c It won't be my fault if you get hurt because you don't keep still,' I said. Then there was a roar of laughter close by, and staring breathless down the track I saw the tail-light of the train grow dimmer across the prairie until it stopped and came swinging towards us again. * I'd rather have lost five dollars than missed that,' said my new friend, rubbing his hands. * Not bad for a raw Britisher put the boss conductor off his own train and f her outland sons. The clear skin showed through the snow-blink's tan, and the eyes were bright with a steadfastness which comes from gazing into wide distance. Sun, wind, and snow, the dust of parched HARVEST HOME 67 earth and the stinging smoke of the drifts, had played their part in hardening them, but still, a little deeper in colour, a little stronger in limb, they were the same men one finds dwelling in many an English home. Standing beside a great open hearth, on which to aid the stove a huge pile of birch logs crackled joyously, the representative of an alien race drew a cunning bow across the strings of a dingy violin. He sprang from Gallic stock, a descendant of the old coureurs who for two centuries wandered in search of furs across the wilderness, even as far as the northern barrens, before the Briton came to farm. It was a waltz he played at least, that was the time ; but the music seemed filled with the sighing of limitless pines, and the air was probably known in France three hundred years ago. Still, weather- beaten men, and fair women who were considerably less numerous, swept light-heartedly round to it, and when, declining refreshment then, we found a corner, Harry and I sat staring with all our eyes at the scene before us. After the monotonous labour of the past two years the swish of light dresses and rhythmic patter of feet, with the merry faces and joyous laughter, moved me strangely. All this seemed to belong to a different world from the one we had been living in, and I wondered if any of those dainty daughters of Carrington would deign to dance with me. They might have been transplanted like English roses from some walled garden at home, and their refined beauty had grown to a fuller blossom upon the prairie. Still, I knew they would have faded in the dry heat of the dwellings in an Eastern town. * How do those French-Canadians learn to play like that ? ' said Harry. * No one taught them ; inherited it, I suppose. I know that air ; it's very old, and he's taking liberties with it masterfully ; now it's like the cypress singing in the big coulee. Of course, it wasn't learned in F 2 68 A SOWER OF WHEAT one generation, but why does a waltz of that kind unsettle one so, with a suggestion of ancient sorrow sighing through its gladness ? But I'm forgetting, and vapouring again. We are ox-drivers, you and I.' I nodded silently, for I had not the gift of ready speech, and it was Harry who most often put my thoughts into words for me. Then I grew intent as he said : ' There she is. Who ! Miss Carrington is there anyone else to look at when she is in the room ? ' Grace floated past us dressed as I had somewhere seen her before and could not recall it, though the memory puzzled me. Neither do I know what she wore, beyond that the fabric's colour was of the ruddy gold one sees among the stems of ripening grain, while wheat ears nestled between her neck and shoulder. It also rustled like barley rippling to the breeze, as with the music embodied in each movement of her form she whirled by us on Ormond's arm. He looked as he did when I last saw him, placidly good-humoured, with the eyeglass dangling this time loosely by its cord. Then I drew in my breath as the music ceased, and Raymond Lyle approached us, saying : ' As usual, men are at a discount, but you have not had a dance, and most of the others have. Come, and I'll find you partners. Ah, if you are not tired, Miss Carrington, will you take pity on an old friend of yours ? I have many duties, and you will excuse me.' He withdrew quickly, and Grace smiled. ' One must never be too tired to dance with an old friend at a prairie feast,' she said, running her pencil through the initials on a programme which had travelled several hundred miles from Winnipeg. Then I felt uncomfortable, for I guessed the letters R. L. represented my host, who had good-naturedly made way for me. It was a kindly thought, but Raymond Lyle, who was a confirmed bachelor living under his self- HARVEST HOME 69 willed sister's wing, had evidently guessed my interest and remembered the incident of the jibbing team. It was a square dance, and Harry with a laughing damsel formed my vis-a-vis, but having only eyes for my partner I saw little but a moving mixture of soft colours and embroidered deerskin, for some of the men folk were dressed in prairie fashion. Also I felt her warm breath on my neck, the shapely form yielding to my arm, and it was small wonder I lost myself in the glamour of it, until with the crash of a final chord from the piano the music stopped. * And you have not danced for four years ! ' she said as I led her through the press. ' Well, it has all come back to you, and out here there is so much more than dancing for a man to do. Yes, you may put down another, there towards the end, and fill in the next one too. I have been looking forward to a quiet talk with you.' I was left alone with pulses throbbing. There was very little in what she said, but her face showed a kindly interest in our doings, and it was no small thing that the heiress of Carrington should place me on an old friend's level. Harry was chatting merrily with his late partner, who seemed amused at him, and this was not surprising, for Harry's honest heart was somewhat strangely united with a silver tongue, and all women took kindly to him. But I found other partners and he did the same, so it was some time before we met again, and I remember remarking that all this gaiety and brightness seemed unreal after our quarters at Fairmead, and ended somewhat lamely, ' I suppose it's out of mere pity she danced with me. As you said, we are of the soil, earthy, and a princess of the prairie is far beyond our sphere. Yet she seemed genuinely pleased to see me. If it were even you, Harry ! ' He laughed as he pointed to a large mirror draped in cypress, saying, ' Look into that. You are slow at under- 70 A SOWER OF WHEAT standing certain matters, Ralph. Not seen the whole of your noble self in a glass for two years ? Neither have I, and it hasn't dawned upon you that you came out in the transition stage a grub, or shall we say a chrysalis ? No, don't wrinkle your forehead ; it's only an allegory. Now you have come out of the chrysalis see ? ' Part of this was certainly true, for at Coombs' we had the broken half of a hand-glass to make our simple toilet in, and at Fairmead a whole one of some four inches dia- meter which cost two bits, tin-backed, at the store, and I remember saying that it was an extravagance. Now I stared into the long glass, standing erect in my one gala garment of fringed deerskin, and Harry smiled as he said, * A little too bull-necked, but, except for Raymond Lyle, the stiffest-framed man in the room. Solid and slow from shoulders to ankles ; head, shall we say that of a gladiator, or a prize-fighter ? Good gracious, Ralph, remember you're in a ball room, not trying on your trousseau.' His remarks were not exactly flattering, but for the first time I felt glad to stand a strong man among those who had other advantages behind them, though I fumed inwardly when presently I heard Harry's partner say, ' What a curious man your friend is ! I saw him standing before the big glass actually admiring himself.' And Harry had the mendacity to assure her that this was a favourite habit of mine. Afterwards I chatted for a time with the giver of the feast. We had much in common, for he was a stalwart plainly spoken man whose chief concern was the improvement of his holding, and from what he said it was clear that taking season by season his bank account increased but little, while he mentioned that several of his neighbours lost a certain sum yearly. There are two ways of farming in the West, and it seemed that after all Harry and I had chosen the best, the creeping HARVEST HOME 71 on from acre to acre, living frugally, and doing whatever is needed oneself, then investing each dollar hardly saved in better implements. Nevertheless, I saw that the men of Carrington who followed the other plan, spending and hiring freely, were doing a good work for the country, because even if they lost a small sum each year most of them could afford it, and their expenses would have been much greater at home. They helped to maintain a demand for good horses and the product of clever workmen's skill, supported the store- keepers of the wooden towns, while the poorer settlers could always earn a few dollars by working for them. So it dawned upon me that it is well for the nation that some are content to take their pleasure, as these men did, in an occu- pation which brought them small profit, sinking their surplus funds for the benefit of those who will follow them. Neither does the mother country lose, because she reaps the fruit of their labours in the shape of cheap and wholesome food. At last the conversation drifted round to the founder of Carrington, and Lyle said : ' An austere man and he's somewhat different to the rest of us ready to gather in wherever he can, very hard to get ahead of at a deal, but if he is keen it's all for the sake of his daughter. There are two things Carrington is proud of, one is this settlement, and the other his heiress. He's not exactly an attractive personage, but there are whispers that some painful incident in her mother's life soured him, and one learns to respect him. His word is better than most other men's bond, and if his will is like cast iron his very determination often saves trouble in the end.' Silence succeeded, for bold chords of music held the assembly still, and I saw Harry seated at the piano, which had apparently escaped serious damage in its long transit across the prairie. This was a surprise, for I had not 72 A SOWER OF WHEAT suspected Harry of musical proficiency. There was power in his fingers, hardened as they were, and when the ringing prelude to an English ballad filled the room more than his partner felt that he could call up a response to his own spirit from the soul of the instrument. The lad beside him also sang well, perhaps because he was young and sentiment was strong within him, but sturdy labour under the open heaven seems inimical to the development of hypercritical cynicism, and the men who at home would probably have applauded that song with an indulgent smile listened with kindling eyes and then made the long room ring with their bravos. Here, far away from the land that bred them, they were Britons still, and proud of their birthright. Then Grace Carrington sang, and I would have given years of my life for Harry's skill, which seemed a bond between them as she smiled gratefully upon him. The words were simple, as became the work of a master who loved the open, and the music flowed with them like the ripple of glancing water, so a deeper silence settled upon all, and I was back in England where a sparkling beck leapt out from the furze of Lingdale and sped in flashing shallows under the yellow fern, while somewhere beyond the singer's voice I could almost hear the alders talking to the breeze. When it ceased the sound grew louder, but it was only a bitter blast that came from the icy Pole moaning about the homestead of Lone Hollow. Raymond Lyle stepped forward to express the wish of the rest, and Grace bent her fair head to confer with Harry, who nodded gravely, after which she stood still, while a stately prelude which was curiously familiar awoke old memories. Then the words came, and from the lips of others they might have seemed presumptuous or out of place, but Grace Carrington delivered them as though they were a message which must be hearkened to, and there* HARVEST HOME 73 was an expectant hush when the first line, * A sower went forth sowing/ rang clearly forth. Later some of those about me breathed harder, and I saw that big Raymond's eyes were hazy, while one hard brown hand was clenched upon his knee, as in sinking cadence we heard again, ' Within a hallowed acre he sows yet other grain.' Then after the last note died away and there was only the moaning of the wind, he said simply, ' Thank you, Miss Carrington. I am glad you sang it at the Lone Hollow harvest home.' c I would never have played it here for anyone else,' said Harry presently. i These things are not to be under- taken casually, but she well, I felt they had to listen, and I did the best that was in me. I think it was her clean- hearted simplicity.' It was some time afterwards when I led Grace out and spent a blissful ten minutes swinging through the mazes of a prairie dance, before we found a nook under dark spruce branches from the big coulee, where Grace listened with interest while I told her of our experiences in the Dominion. The background of sombre sprays enhanced her fair beauty, and her dress, which, though there was azure about it, was of much the same colour, melted into the festoon of wheat stalks below. The French-Canadian was playing another of his weird waltzes, and it may have been this which reminded me, for now I remembered how I had seen her so before. ' You will not laugh, I hope, when I tell you that all this seems familiar,' I said hesitatingly. * Some- times in a strange country one comes upon a scene that one knows perfectly, and we feel that, perhaps in dreams, we have seen it all before. Why it is so, I cannot tell, but once in fancy already I saw you with a dress exactly like the one you are wearing now, and tall wheat behind you. 74 A SOWER OF WHEAT Of course, it sounds ridiculous, but, as Harry says, we do not know everything, and you believe me, don't you ? ' Grace's face grew suddenly grave, and there was a heightened colour in it as she answered, < Your friend' is a philosopher, besides a fine musician, and I quite believe you. I have had such experiences but I think these fancies, if fancies they are, are best forgotten. Still, tell me, did you dream or imagine anything more ? ' 4 Yes,' I said, still puzzled as a dim memory came back, 4 I saw your father too. He seemed in trouble, and I was concerned in it. This I think was on the prairie, but there were tall pines too ; while across the whole dream picture drove an alternate haze of dust and snow.' Grace shivered as though the relation troubled her, and was silent until she said with a smile, ' It must be that ghostly music. Louis of Sapin Rouge has missed his vocation, and we will talk no more of it. You once did me a kindness ; I wonder whether you would repeat it.' ' I would go to the world's end,' I commenced hotly, but stopped abashed as she checked me with a gesture, though I fancied she did not seem so displeased at my boldness as she might have been. Then she answered, smiling, C I thought you were too staid and sensible for such speeches, and they hardly become you, because, of course you do not mean it. It is nothing very serious. There are signs of bad weather, and my aunt is not strong, so, as Miss Lyle presses us, we shall stay here until to-morrow noon, and I want you to ride over and tell my father. He might grow uneasy about me and for some reason I feel uneasy about him, while, as he has been ailing lately, I would not like him to venture across the prairie. It seems unfair to ask you, but you are young and strong, and I would like you to meet him. He has his peculiarities, so our neighbours say, but he has ever been a most indulgent HARVEST HOME 75 parent to me, and he can be a very firm friend. You will do this, as a favour, won't you ? ' She gave me her hand as she rose, and, mastering a senseless desire to do more than this, I bowed over it and hurried away, feeling that hers was the favour granted, for Ormond and many others would have gladly ridden fifty miles through a blizzard to do her bidding. It was for this reason that I made my excuses to our host quietly, and Harry laughed as he said, Til ride over with the others for you when the dance is finished, but that won't be until nearly dawn. The length of these prairie festivities is only equalled by their rarity. But beware, Ralph. You are a poor wheat-grower, and too much of those bright eyes is not good for you.' I was glad of the skin coat and fur cap before I even reached the stables, and Jasper's horse made trouble when I led him out. He knew the signs of the weather and desired to stay there, because they were not promising. Now, though winter is almost Arctic in that region, the snow-fall is capricious and generally much lighter than that further east, though it can come down in earnest now and then. Thus, swept by the wind, the grass was bare on the levels, or nearly so, and there was no passage for steel runners, while our poor waggon, which would have carried us much more snugly swathed in wrappings, had broken down, as when wanted it usually did. So, shivering to the backbone, I swang myself into the saddle and hardened my heart to face the bitter ride. 76 A SOWER OF WHEAT VIII HELD UP IT was very dark, and the wind had the coldness of death in it, while when the lights of Lone Hollow had faded behind the obscurity closed round me like a thick curtain. Still, trusting to an instinctive sense of direction men acquire in that land, I pushed on for the big coule*e one of those deep ravines which fissure the prairie and much resemble a railway cutting. This one was larger than the rest, and Carrington Manor stood near one end of it. The horse had. evidently little liking for the journey, and did his best to shorten it, while I had hard work to keep my mittened hands from freezing as we swept onwards through the night. In places a thin carpet of snow-dust muffled the beat of hoofs, and there was no sound but the mournful shrilling of the wind, which emphasised the great emptiness and sense of desolation until I almost felt that I had ridden out of our busy life into primeval chaos. We are inclined to be superstitious upon the prairie, which is not greatly to be wondered at. Fifty yards from the lighted homestead in winter-time there is only an overpowering loneliness, where Death with his ally the Frost King reign supreme ; while, living closer to nature, we learn that there are even yet many mysteries, and man plays but a small part in the business of the universe. Still, for a time the warmth within me kept out the frost ; for Grace Carrington's hand HELD UP 77 had rested in mine, and I understood how the thought of service sustains the North-West troopers in their lonely vigil. They served the nation, but I was serving Grace. Presently even this consolation grew fainter, and the spell of the white wilderness oppressed my spirits ; for the air was filled with warning, and I knew that heavy snow was not far off. Sometimes very silently a dim shadow flitted past, and the horse started, snorting as he quickened his pace with the white steam whirling behind him. It may have been a coyote, or perhaps a timber wolf; for though the antelope had departed south, the settlers said that both from the bush of the Saskatchewan and beyond the Cypress hills the lean and grizzled beasts had come down into the prairie. Nevertheless, their noiseless passage harmonised with the surroundings ; and at last I grew thankful for a slight drowsiness which blunted the imagina- tion. But there were other riders out on the waste that night, and, with one hand on the slung rifle, I reined the horse in as three white-sprinkled figures came up at a gallop. Generally, so far as anything human is concerned, the prairie is as safe at midnight, if not safer, than a street in London town ; but because game is plentiful there is generally a gun in the waggon, and when the settlers ride out they often carry a rifle at their back. * Halt ! ' cried a voice I recognised ; and there was a jingle of steel as two skin-wrapped troopers of the North- West Police wheeled their horses on either side of me, while another, who spoke with authority, grasped my bridle. Even in that darkness I could see the ready carbines, and, knowing what manner of men these riders were, was glad I could meet them peaceably. ' Your name and business,' said the voice of Sergeant Macfarlane ; and a disappointed laugh followed my reply as that worthy added, 4 Then if ye have no' been raiding 78 A SOWER OF WHEAT Coombs lately ye can pass, friend. Seen no one on the prairie ? I'm sorry. Four cattle-lifting Rustlers held up Clearwater Creek, and we're going south for the next post to head them off from the boundary. Well, time is precious. A fair journey til ye. It's a very bitter night, and snowing beyond.' With a faint clatter they vanished again ; and I did not envy them their long ride to the next post, with a blizzard brewing. When his work is over or the snow comes down the settler may sleep snugly and sound, or lounge in tranquil contentment beside the twinkling stove, while, as the price of his security, the North-West Police, snatching sometimes a few hours' rest under the grey cloud in a trench of snow, and sometimes riding a grim race with death, keep watch and ward over the vast territories. We do not rear desperadoes on the prairie, though some few are sent to us, mostly from across the frontier of the great Republic. Neither do they take root and flourish among us, because ours is a hard country and there are not many men worth robbing in it. However, there had been trouble over the border when the rich Cattle Barons strove to crowd the poor man out, and the hardest hit among the latter lay in wait with murderous Winchester for the op- pressor. I do not know the wrongs and rights of the whole question ; neither were details of every skirmish published by the American press ; but cruel things were done by either side, and it took a strong force of United States cavalry to restore order. Then broken men who had lost their livelihood, and some with a price upon their heads, made their name a terror on both sides of the frontier and kept the troopers busy. So I was glad those particular outlaws had journeyed south, and even more pleased still when I reached the coulee, for the cold was increasing and the ride had grown HELD UP 79 inexpressibly dreary. It was warmer down in the hollow among the trees, but so black that it was the horse rather than I which avoided them, while now and then a branch lashed my forehead like a whip. There were cypress among them resembling solid masses of gloom, and the wind howled weirdly ; but at last I blundered up the winding trail into sight of Carrington Manor. The big log-and-frame-built house was dark and silent, and though I knew at least the majority of its inhabitants were at Lone Hollow the sight depressed me. Then, just as we drew clear of the trees, I checked the horse, for, silhouetted blackly against the sky, a single mounted figure kept watch over it. Perhaps it was instinctive caution, or it may have been Grace's uneasiness had infected me, for I led Jasper's horse back into the coulee and hitched him to a tree, then, unslinging the rifle, stood still shivering as I watched the figure. There was something sinister about it, and it might have been frozen stiff but for a faint rattle as the horse moved its head, while once I caught a rigid line across the saddle which suspiciously resembled a rifle. Then, recalling what Sergeant Macfarlane had said, I knew that while the police rode hot-foot towards the boundary the Rustlers had doubled on their tracks to hold up Carrington Manor. It also struck me that as the main trail ran straight across the prairie the watcher knew nothing about the bridle-path through the coulee. In any case, it was plainly my duty to reach the homestead and render assistance if I could. I made sure the Winchester cylinder was filled with cartridges by pressing back the slide, and then crept cautiously, with the dark trees for a background, towards the building, observing as I did so that the latter rendered the scout invisible to anyone approaching by the direct trail. Then, stooping low, I crossed the bare space which divided 8o A SOWER OF WHEAT me from the house, trusting that a humming bullet might not overtake me, and reached it safely with a heart that beat at twice its usual speed. It is one thing to face danger in hot blood, but it is quite another and much more unpleasant matter to slink through the darkness wondering whether a foe one cannot see is following each movement with a rifle. Neither is there any chance of hitting back in such cases ; for it is my opinion, from watching a stricken deer, that at short ranges the blow comes almost simul- taneously as the optic nerve records the flash and before the ear has caught the explosion. All this I considered as I flattened myself against the wall for I was by no means braver than my fellows and presently, yard by yard, wormed myself along it until I passed a corner. There a light shone out across the snow from a window, and I am perfectly willing to admit that I crawled towards it on hands and knees, for angry voices now reached me, and I knew if I raised myself and the watcher had changed his position he could see me. I reached the sill at last with the rifle clenched in one mittened hand, and while I debated on my next procedure heard Colonel Carrington say slowly and fiercely, * I will neither sign nor tell you.' Then, reflecting that while one can always see into a lighted room those inside it cannot see out, I determined to risk the scout's vigilance, and raised my head cautiously, for it was plain that something quite unusual went on inside. It was a kind of ante-room on one side of the entrance, which the ruler of Carrington used as an office or study, I looked into, and he sat in a basket chair with a frown upon his face and disdain in his eyes, while a burly man murHed in wrappings leaned on the table opposite him, holding a rifle, the muzzle of which was turned towards the Colonel's breast. But there was no sign of fear about him, and I had heard the settlers say that nothing living could make HELD UP 8 i Colonel Carrington flinch. An open cheque-book and some note-paper lay beside an inkstand on the table, and another armed ruffian stood near the stove. The door of the hall close by stood partly open, and their voices were audible through it. c I guess it's quite simple, but you make us tired,' the latter said. ' You'll tell us where the chest is, and just fill in that cheque, with a letter vouching for the bearer and explaining why you want so much in a hurry. Then, as I said before, you'll ride south with us a day or two while we arrange for cashing it, after which we'll let you go safely, on our honour.' Colonel Carrington laughed sardonically, and I could fancy his thin lips curling under the gray moustache before he answered : * I hardly consider that a sufficient guarantee. Again, I will neither sign nor tell you where the chest is. Confusion to you ! ' ' You're a hard man,' said the other almost admiringly. 1 If we'd had you to head us we'd have bluffed off Uncle Sam's troopers at the Cypress range. Still, we've no time for fooling, and if Jim finds the chest without you we'll risk putting up the price a thousand dollars or so. Jim is tolerably handy at finding things. See here, you have got to sign it, and sign it now, before this Winchester makes a mess of you.' The Colonel glanced at the rifle coolly as he answered : 4 I fail to see what good that would do. My handwriting is peculiar ; you couldn't imitate it, while you would certainly be hanged when the troopers laid hands upon you.' This was incontrovertible logic, and the two outlaws drawing apart conferred with each other softly, while I debated what I should do. The casement was a double one, but I felt sure I could drive a bullet through one of G 82 A SOWER OF WHEAT them. Still, even under the circumstances it looked too much like murder, and to this day I have never taken the life of a man, though occasionally forced into handling one roughly. Before any decision could be arrived at a tramp of feet in the hall showed that somebody approached under a burden. c Keep the muzzle on him,' said one. ' I guess Jim has found the coffer, and we'll make sure of that. I'll help him to cinch it on the horse if we can't open it. Colonel, we'll have to fine you the further thousand dollars.' But I realised it was high time to vacate that position unless I wished the couple to discover me, and so slipped back into the shadow, just in time, as they strode out carrying something. I watched them vanish into the blackness, heard the scout answer their hail, and then crawled back swiftly towards the door this time. A glance through the window in passing showed me that the remaining outlaw stood with his back towards the entrance, and his eyes fixed on the Colonel. The door was half- closed when I reached it, and for a moment I stood there shortening my grip on the rifle and gathering my breath ; then with a bound I drove it inwards, and whirled aloft the butt of the Winchester. The outlaw twisted round upon his heels, but he moved an instant too late, for even as his fingers tightened on the trigger the steel heel-plate descended in the centre of his face, and I felt something crunch in under it. He staggered sideways, there was a crash as the rifle exploded harmlessly, and before he could recover I had him by the neck and hurled him half-choked through the door. I had the sense to slam it and slip the bolt home, then, while I stood panting, the Colonel prepared to improve our position. 4 Close those shutters and screw down the wing-nut hard,' he said, hanging the lamp close beside the door. HELD UP 83 Now, stand here in the shadow. I am much obliged to you, but you should have made certain of that fellow.' It was only natural that he should feel resentment ; but there was a cold vindictiveness in his tone which made me realise it was as well for the outlaw I had not left him in the room. Then he spoke again : ' We have two good weapons ; that rascal's cylinder is charged I saw him fill it out of my own bandolier, and there is an armoury in the other room. They took me by surprise in Western parlance, got the drop on me. Of course they'll come back, but all the doors and windows are fast, and we could hear them breaking in, while in this kind of work the risk is with the aggressor.' A pounding on the door cut him short, and a hoarse voice reached us partly muffled : ' We're about sick of fooling, and mean solid business now,' it said. ' Open, and be quick about it, before we smash that door down and try moral suasion by roasting both of you.' * You should have stayed when you were in,' was the ironical answer. ' No doubt you have observed the light under the door. Well, the first man across the threshold will get a bullet through him before he even sees us. Haven't you realised yet that this undertaking is too big for you ? ' ' Curse him ; he's busted my best teeth in. Hunt round and find something for a battering ram,' cried another voice, but though the assailants had possibly not caught all the answer, they evidently understood the strength of our position, for we heard them moving away. ' Gone to open the chest in the stables ; they won't find much in it,' said Colonel Carrington. ' They will try a fresh move next time. Mr. Crosfield, of Fairmead, are you not ? I wish to express my obligations again.' He took it very coolly, as it appeared he took everything, G 2 84 A SOWER OF WHEAT and smiled curiously as, glancing at his watch, he said half- aloud : * Well, there are worse things than a clean swift ending, and there was a time when I would not have stepped aside to let death pass. But I apologise, Mr. Crosfield, for inflicting such talk on you. Hope we shall be friends if we come safely out of this. The cheque, yes, we'll put it away. It might have saved trouble to sign it, but you see it was her mother's money, and I only hold it in trust for my daughter. Neither are we so rich as some suppose us to be.' His grim face relaxed, and his voice sounded differently when he spoke of Grace, while a few moments passed before he added : * It cannot be far off the dawn, and there's not a soul in Carrington except you and I. Grace took all my people with her to help at Lone Hollow. So, unless you are inclined to stalk them, which I would hardly suggest, as they might be too clever for you, we must wait our friends' arrival and make the best of it.' I had no inclination whatever to try the stalking. To take a kneeling shot at an unsuspecting man seemed under any circumstances almost a crime ; so we sat each with a rifle laid across his knees, and for the first time in two years I tasted excellent tobacco. But the vigil grew trying. The house seemed filled with whispers and mysterious noises, while my throat grew dry, and the Colonel laughed when once I moved sharply as a rat scurried behind the wainscot. Neither of us felt inclined to talk, and our eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the door, until at last the lamp seemed to rise and fall with each respiration. Then the Colonel approached the window as though listening, after glancing once more at his watch. 4 It must be daybreak, and I hear something,' he said. 4 There is probably one of them watching, but we must chance it,' and he moved softly towards the door, while HELD UP 85 when we stood outside the cold of the morning went through me like a knife. Still a rapid beat of horse hoofs rose out of the big coulee, and it was evident the outlaws had heard them, for we saw two men busy with the horses at the stable door, while two more disappeared behind the bank of sods which walled off the vegetable garden. What their purpose was, unless they meant to check any accession to our strength while their comrades escaped with the coffer, was not apparent. It was blowing strongly now, and the air thick with falling snow, but I made out two riders who resembled Harry and Ormond coming towards us at a gallop, with another horseman some distance behind. Then a hoarse shout reached us ' Stop right there, and wheel your horses before we plug you.' 1 could not see into the hollow beneath the wall because it was some distance off and the snow whirled about it, but I could imagine the Winchester barrel resting on the sods while a steady eye stared through the sights, and knew that neither Ormond nor Harry carried weapons. So I started at a flounder towards them, roaring as I went, ' Go back for your life, go back ! ' They evidently did not hear me, though we were after- wards to hear the reason for an apparent act of madness. Harry was always reckless, and Ormond coolly brave, while as I ran I saw the two horses flying at the wall. A streak of red flame blazed out low down in the snow, a mounted man passed me leading two horses, and I neither knew nor cared if he noticed me, for I felt suddenly dizzy, wondering if the bullet had gone home. Neither did I hear any report at all, for my whole attention was concentrated upon the black shapes of the riders breast high beyond the wall. Then one beast rose into the air, and I saw Ormond swing a riding crop round backwards as though for the sword cut from behind the shoulder. A soft thud followed, Harry's 86 A SOWER OF WHEAT horse cleared the sods like a bird, and I blazed off my rifle at a venture towards the hollow as they thundered neck and neck past me. It was clear that empty-handed they had ridden either over or through the foe. After that events followed too rapidly to leave a clear impression. A pair of half-seen figures which appeared at the other end of the hollow scrambled for the empty saddles, and one seemed to help his companion. Then they vanished into the whirling haze, and Colonel Carrington's Winchester rapped as he emptied the magazine at the flying foe, while by the time the new arrivals had mastered their excited beasts there was only a narrow circle of prairie shut in by blinding snow. ' Very glad to find you safe, sir,' said Ormond. ' We met the Blackfoot who peddles moccasins, and he told us he had seen four men he thought were Stevens' gang heading for Carrington, so we pushed on as fast as we could. Perhaps if we three went on with rifles we might overtake them.' Harry looked eager, and I was willing, but Colonel Carrington was wisest, for he said : * You have done gallantly, but it would be only throwing lives away. The snow is coming in earnest, and it strikes me they have gone to their account unless they find shelter in a coulee.' Then they dismounted, and a hired man, who had lagged behind through indifferent horseflesh and no fault of his own, was despatched to prepare breakfast, while it was a merry party which assembled round the table, and even the ruler of Carrington's grim face relaxed. * I am glad to make the acquaintance of both of you,' he said. ' You will make the best of Carrington I hope for a day or two.' We were nothing loth, for twenty miles of deepening snow lay between us and our homestead, where we had little HELD UP 87 to do, while to complete my satisfaction Grace and her train arrived in the Lone Hollow sleigh early next morning, and on hearing the story her eyes glistened as she thanked me. * I am so glad I sent you,' she said, * and I feel I owe my father's safety, perhaps his life, to you. It is a debt I can never repay.' It was late that afternoon when another sleigh drew up before the Carrington gate, and three white-sheeted troopers lifted a heavy burden out of it. The thing, which seemed a shapeless heap of snow and wrappings, hung limply between them as they carried it into the hall, while it was Sergeant Angus Macfarlane who explained their errand. 'Lay him down there gently, boys,' he said. 'No, stand back, Miss Carrington, these kind o' sights are no for you. We found him in a coulee after yon Blackfoot pedlar had told us Stevens had fooled us, and ye'll mind it's no that easy to fool the North- West Police. He's one o' the gang, but the poor soul's got several ribs broken, an' after lying out through the blizzard I'm thinking he's near his end. It's a long ride to the outpost, forbye we have no comforts. Maybe ye'll take him ay, I ken he's a robber, but ye cannot leave him to perish in the snow.' He flung back the wrappings, and before I could stop her Grace bent down over the drawn white face with the red froth on the lips, while Ormond said quietly : ' Very bad, poor devil ! I fancied Robin's hoofs struck something that yielded when he made a landing. You will take him in if it's only to oblige me, sir.' Grace stood upright with tender compassion shining in her wet eyes as she fixed them on the old man. ' I am a woman now, father,' she said, * and I would like to help to cure him if it can be done. Bring him forward, Sergeant Angus. Geoffrey, you know something of surgery.' * I don't make war on dying men. You will do whatever 88 A SOWER OF WHEAT pleases you, Grace,' the ruler of Carrington answered, indifferently. They carried their burden into another room, and I waited beside the stove, with two faces stamped upon my memory. The one was that of the wounded man with its contraction of pain and glassy stare, and the other the countenance of Grace Carrington transfigured for a moment by a great pity that added to its loveliness. Still, the coming of this unexpected guest cast a gloom upon us, and we seldom saw Grace, while Ormond, who seemed to know a little of everything, once said on passing : * I have fixed him up as well as I could, but I think a broken rib has pierced his lung, and he's sinking rapidly. However, Miss Carrington is doing her best, and he could not have a more efficient nurse.' It was late in the afternoon when, on tapping at the door in search of tidings, Ormond called me in. The daylight was fading, but I could see the limp, suffering shape on the bed, and Grace sitting near the window, leaning forward as though listening. ' Light-headed at times ! ' said Ormond ; * but he was asking for you. Do you feel any easier now ? Here's another enquirer anxious to hear good news of you.' The man turned his drawn face towards me, and tried to smile as he said : * I guess you're very good. Hope you don't bear malice. You oughtn't to anyhow nearly broke my neck when you fired me through the doorway. All in the way of business, and I'm corralled now.' I bent my head with a friendly gesture, for even I could read death in his face, and the outlaw, glancing towards Grace, added : * If I'd known you, Missy, we'd never have held this homestead up. White folk all through, and you're a prairie daisy. What made me do it ? Well, I guess that's a long story, and some of it might HELD UP 89 scare you. A big man froze me off my land, and someone rebranded my few head of stock. Law ! we don't count much on that ; it's often the biggest rascals corral the offices, and we just laid for them with the rifle. They were too many for us and this is the end of it.' Grace moved towards him whispering something I could not catch, but the man smiled feebly, and I heard the grim answer : * No ; I guess it's rather too late for that. I lived my own way, and I can die that way too. Don't back down on one's partners ; kind of mean, isn't it ? And if it's true what you're saying I'll just accept my sentence. Going out before the morning ; but I sent two of the men who robbed me to perdition first.' Ormond raised his hand for silence, and again I could hear the shrilling of the bitter wind that was never still. Then he said softly : ' You are only exciting him, and had better go,' and with a last glance at Grace's slender figure stooping beside the bed I went out softly. It was nearly midnight and a cold creepiness pervaded everything when he joined the rest of us round the stove. 4 Gone ! ' he said simply. * Just clenched his hand and died. There was some fine material wasted in that man. Well, I think he was wronged somehow, and I'm sorry for him.' We turned away in silence, for a shadow rested upon Carrington, while the outlaw lay in state in the homestead he had helped to rob until the North-West Police bore what was left of him away. But before that time we rode back to our own holding, and I saw nothing for half the journey, thinking over the words Grace Carrington spoke to me on parting. 90 A SOWER OF WHEAT IX A RECKONING IT was some time after the holding up of Carrington Manor before with Jasper's assistance I was able to fulfil my promise to Minnie Fletcher. Jasper knew everybody within fifty miles up and down the C. P. R. line, and at least as far across the prairie, while they all had a good word for him. So when he heard the story he drove us over to Clearwater, where an elevator had been built beside the track, only to find that the agent in charge of it had already a sufficient staff. He, however, informed us that the manager of a new creamery wanted a handy man to drive round collecting milk from the scattered homesteads who could also help at the accounts and clerking. Such a combination might not have been usual in England, but in the Western Dominion one may find University graduates digging trenches and unfortunate barristers glad to earn a few dollars as railroad hands. * I guess we'll fix him up in that creamery,' said Jasper. 4 The man who runs it was raised not far from the old folks' place in Ontario,' and we started forthwith on an apparently endless ride across the frozen prairie. Some of our horses are not much to look at, and others are hard to drive, but the way they can haul the light waggons or even the humble ground sleigh along league after league would .surprise those not used to them. We spent one night with a Highland crofter in a dwelling which resembled a burrow, for most of it was underground, but the rammed earth A RECKONING 91 walls kept out the cold and the interior was both warm and clean. We spent another in somewhat grim conviviality at the creamery, for the men whose fathers hewed sites for what are now thriving towns out of the bush of Ontario are rather hard and staunch than sprightly. Still, the manager did his best for us, and said on parting, * Send him right along. I'll give any friend of yours a show if Jasper will vouch for him. Pay's no great thing as yet, but he can live upon it, and if we flourish he'll sail ahead with us.' So we brought Thomas Fletcher out from Winnipeg by joint subscription, and it cost us rather more than we cared about, for he came second class, while at that time Harry and I would have travelled * Colonist,' or on oppor- tunity have earned our passage tending stock. If we could spare a dollar in those days we wanted it for our land. The old jauntiness had gone out of him. He looked worn and thinner, with, I fancied, signs of indulgence in alcohol, but professed his willingness to work hard at anything which would keep a roof over Minnie's head. We drove him across to the creamery, and the manager seemed dis- appointed when he saw him, while on the journey home Jasper said : < I've been sizing that young man up. Strikes me he's too like the trash you British are over-fond of dumping on to us. Why can't your folks understand that if a man's a dead failure over there we don't want him ? Daresay he's honest, but he's got no sand. Let that fellow sit up and talk over a glass of rye whiskey and a bad cigar and he's right there ; set him wrestling with a tough job and he'll double up.' Jasper posed as a judge of character, and I felt inclined to agree with him. Fletcher had not the appearance of a vicious or dishonest man, but I fancied under pressure of circumstances he might become one. 92 A SOWER OF WHEAT We built a new stable and barn that winter, hauling suitable logs and they were very hard to find ten miles across the prairie, while Harry nearly lost his hands by frost-bite bringing one load in. Nevertheless, and there is leisure in that season, we drove over now and then to Fletcher's humble dwelling beside the creamery, and were both embarrassed the first time Minnie thanked us with tears in her eyes. Already she was recovering her good looks and spirits, but as Fletcher's pay would be scanty until spring the odd bags of potatoes and flour we brought them were evidently acceptable. We had received help freely when we needed it, and it seemed only fitting that now we should help others in return, so we did what little we could, and, as transpired later, it brought trouble upon us. Also we managed to pay a few visits to other neigh- bours who lived at any distance within thirty miles, includ- ing a few farms of the Carrington group, where, perhaps especially for Harry's sake, they made us welcome, and twice to Carrington Manor. The second visit was a memorable one. It was a still starlit night with an intense frost and a few pale green streamers shimmering in the north, but the big main room of the Manor with its open fireplace and central stove was very warm and snug. Our team was also safely stabled, for owing to the distance we could not well return that night, while since the affair with the cattle thieves Colonel Carrington had so far as in him lay been cordial. He sat beside the glowing birch logs silent and stern of aspect as usual, with a big shaggy hound which I had seen roll over a coyote with a broken spine curled up against his knee, while the firelight flickered redly across his lean, bronzed face. Opposite sat his sister, who partly resembled him, though in her case the Carrington dignity was softened by a winning sympathy. She was an old A RECKONING 93 maid of a fine but perhaps not common type, white-haired and stately, and in all things gracious. Harry, who was a favourite of hers, knelt with one knee on a wolf-skin rug, turning over a collection of photographs on a low table that she might see, and she smiled at some of his comments. Ormond leaned against the wall behind them interposing whimsical sallies, and cast occasional glances towards myself and Grace. Resigning his com- mission, he had lately, we understood, purchased land thereabouts. One or two other of the Colonel's subjects were present, while, being lighted with shaded lamps which shed their soft radiance only where it was wanted, portions of the long room remained in shadow, so Grace and I, sitting near one window, could look out between the looped- back curtains across the prairie. High over the sweep of dimly glimmering snow hung a vault of fathomless indigo. It was not such a sky as one sees in England, but rather a clear transparency where the stars, ranged one behind the other, led the gaze back and lost it in infinity, while at intervals a steely scintillation flickered up from horizon to zenith and then back again. Also feathery frost-flowers on the window framed the picture like a screen of delicate embroidery. I do not think either of us said much, but I felt we had a kindred interest in the spectacle. Within there was warmth and light and life ; outside, impressive silence reigned unbroken, with the coldness of the grave. Yet there was one man who, poorly nourished and still more poorly clad, had the courage to cross long leagues of frozen prairie on foot, for presently we heard a knocking at the door, and after an altercation with somebody outside a stranger walked with uneven steps into the room. White crystals sprinkled his old English coat, a most inadequate protection against such weather, while his breath was frozen 94 A SOWER OF WHEAT about the collar, and the fur cap he could scarcely hold in one stiffened hand was of the cheap and rubbishy description Jew pedlars retail to the new arrival in Winnipeg. His age might have been fifty, but he had been bent by toil or sick- ness, and his pinched face was a study in itself. Anxiety, suspense, and fierce determination seemed written upon it. 'I'm wanting Ralph Crosfield, who came out from England. They told me he was here,' he said, and clutched at the table, for, as often happens, the change of temperature had been too much for him. Then I recollected what Jasper, who had been in to Winnipeg, told me a day or two before. ' I looked in at the Tecumseh house, and the clerk mentioned that a wild man from the old country had been asking for you. Wouldn't answer any questions ; a lunatic of some sort the clerk reckoned.' Nevertheless, as I stood up by the window I had no suspicion of the truth, though perhaps Harry had, for, drawing forward a chair, he said : ' Feeling dizzy, are you not ? Better sit down. But before we answer I would like to know who you are, and what you want with him.' ' What has that to do with thee ? ' was the fierce answer. c I'm wanting Ralph Crosfield, and if he's alive in Canada I'll find him.' I stepped out into the lamplight, saying : ' You need not search far. With your permission, Miss Carrington ! Now I am only a guest here, and will you follow me ? ' The drawn face twitched, his left hand was clenched, and the other fumbled inside the breast of the threadbare coat as the old man turned to meet me. * No ; here before them all I'll ask thee,' he said hoarsely. ' I'm Adam Lee of Stoney Clough. Where's my daughter, Minnie Lee, that left her home to follow thee ?' The words seemed to break in on the warmth and harmony like a blast of Arctic cold, and sudden silence A RECKONING 95 followed them. Colonel Carrington leaned forward with an angry glitter in his eyes, Miss Carrington watched me in cold surprise, and Grace well, I do not care to recall her face. Once afterwards I saw her look the same, and was thankful that her scornful glance rested upon another man. Then, while I stood bolt upright, staring at the speaker, and wondering how I could make the matter plain, others intervened, for Ormond, turning towards Colonel Carrington, said, ' I fancy, sir, this is not the place for er such explanations. They might prove embar- rassing.' Colonel Carrington glanced at his sister, who followed by the rest had already risen from her chair, beckoning to Grace, but Harry broke in. 4 1 agree with Captain Ormond in part,' he said, ( but this is a serious matter. We have all of us unfortunately heard the charge, and in fairness to Mr. Crosfield we should hear him refute it. It's either a cruel mistake, sir, or gratuitous malice, and I would stake my last dollar upon his honour. A few words will suffice.' It was a kindly thought of Harry's, and the Colonel nodded. < You will excuse us, Jessy,' he said. * Geoffrey, as a matter of fairness he is perfectly right. Now, sir, for the space of two minutes will you restrain your impatience and follow us ? ' But Adam Lee of Stoney Clough thought differently. I had never seen him before, but knew him well by reputa- tion ; for, though not born there, he was one of the erratic ultra-reformers one may find in many an English industrial town. They have left all regular creeds and parties behind, and look for the regeneration of an iniquitous world by some fantastic new religion, or the subversion of all existing authorities. Some, it is true, live lives of self- denial, and die, worn out by disappointment, of a broken 96 A SOWER OF WHEAT heart at last, but the rest develop into fanatics of savage bigotry. * No ; I've followed him weary and hungry for many days,' he said. ' He doesn't leave my sight until he has answered me. Stop ; you that sit warm in luxury, pam- pering your sinful bodies and grinding the poor, you shall hear what one of your kind has done, and judge between us. The tale will be good for you. Shall the rich rob us of our children, as they rob us of our bread ? ' He flung one arm out as he spoke, and there was a rude power in voice and gesture which commanded attention. Neither was his accent now altogether that of Lancashire, for Lee, as is not uncommon, would sometimes speak a purer English than the local vernacular. Miss Carrington glanced past him towards the door, irresolute, and Grace leaned forward staring at him as though fascinated, while perhaps I of all the others found the sentiment familiar. It was the same spirit which, trammelled by poverty and ignorance, stirs many a man weary of a hopeless struggle for better things, and blazes into strange coruscations of eloquence in market-square orations and from the platforms of conventicles where men whose religion is a thing of terror worship the jealous God of the Hebrews. ' Nay, sit still and hear.' The words fell as though they were an order. ' I am a poor man, a maker of shoes for the poor who could not always buy them, and I had one daughter. She was all I had, and I wrestled with the devil for her that she might escape perdition through the snare of beauty. But the nephew of a rich man cast desiring eyes upon her, and Satan helped him. He might well be strong and comely, for he fed on the finest, while when trade was bad half of us went cold and hungry in Stoney Clough ; but he .was filled with the wiles of the devil and the lusts of the flesh, so when there were plenty of his own kind to choose among A RECKONING 97 he tempted the poor man's daughter who worked for a pittance in his uncle's mill. Her mother died ; they mocked me at the chapel ; and I have come four thousand miles to find him, but now and here he shall answer. Ralph Crosfield of Orb Mill, where is Minnie Lee ? ' His hand was clear of the threadbare coat now ; some- thing glinted in it, and I looked into the muzzle of a pistol. But Geoffrey Ormond, in spite of his surface languidness, was quick of thought and action, and with swift dexterity gripped his right arm from behind. Then, and we were never quite sure how it happened, though the weapon was evidently a cheap Belgian revolver, and perhaps the hammer shook down, there was a ringing crash, a cry from Grace, a tinkle of falling glass, and Adam Lee stood empty-handed, while Ormond, who flung down the smoking weapon, said coolly : * It is safer with me. These things are dangerous to people who don't understand them, and you may be thankful that, without perhaps intending it, you are not a murderer.' * Thank you, Geoffrey,' said Colonel Carrington. ' Lee, sit down. I don't know what your religious or political crazes are, and it does not matter, but I have rather more power here than an English magistrate, and if you move again, by the Lord I'll send you in irons to Winnipeg for attempted murder. Mr. Crosfield, I am not inclined to thank you, but if you have any explanation you had better give it him.' Lee, I learned, was a fearless man, with the full courage of his somewhat curious convictions, but there were few who could withstand Colonel Carrington, and, half-dazed, half-savage, he did his bidding, while again every eye in the room was turned upon me as I said slowly : * Minnie Lee was certainly employed in my uncle's mill in Lanca- shire, but on my word of honour nothing ever passed between us that all the world might not hear. She married H 98 A SOWER OF WHEAT a former clerk there, one Thomas Fletcher, secretly, and at present lives with him at the Willow Lake creamery. I met her at the Elktail hotel, where she was a waitress, for the first time in Canada, and at her request helped to find her husband the situation. She promised to write home, but evidently did not do so.' * It is perfectly true,' said Harry. * I was present at that meeting. If our visitor has any doubts on the subject he has only to ride over there and see.' Lee gasped for breath, recovered himself, and strode towards me with fingers trembling and his eyes blood- shot. * Is it true ? ' he said. ' I know thy vain pride in an honour that can stoop to steal the honour of the poor ; it is only women thy kind tell lies to. Here, before these wit- nesses, tell me again, is it Gospel true ? ' He seemed half-crazed by excitement and over-fatigue, while his relief was evidently tempered by a fear that we might yet be bent on duping him ; but I pitied him in all sincerity, for whatever were his foibles it was evident that this broken-down wreck of humanity with the warped intellect loved his daughter, while as I wondered what would most quickly set his mind at rest Harry said stiffly : c We do not lie to anyone, and we are poor men, too. At least we work for a bare living harder than many English poor. On his friend's word as well, in deference to your prejudices, we'll say an honest man Mr. Crosfield has told you nothing but the truth. You will find Mrs. Fletcher safe and well at the Willow Lake creamery.' 4 Then I'm going there now,' was the answer. ' I thank thee for the story. No, I don't want the pistol. It was the devil tempted me to bring it, but it was only to force the truth from him, and it went off of itself.' * You are somewhat premature,' said Colonel Carrington. A RECKONING 99 ' We haven't quite done with you. As I said, I hold myself responsible for the peace of Carrington, and though I am inclined to believe it was an accident, you can't ride twenty miles hungry at midnight. You came here without my invitation, and you have customs of your own, but you'll certainly get lost and frozen on the prairie if you leave this house before to-morrow morning.' They stood facing each other, a curious contrast, the pinched and bowed cobbler and the army officer, but there was the same stubborn pride in both ; for with a quaint dignity, which in some measure covered its discourtesy, the former made answer in the tongue of the spinning country, * I thank thee, but I take no favours from the rich. Thou and the others like thee have all the smooth things in this life, though even they cannot escape the bitterness that is hidden under them. Well, maybe thou'lt find a difference in the next. Good night to thee.' He marched out, we heard the door crash to, and the Colonel smiled curiously as he said : * I dare say he is right. I almost hope at times we will. An interesting character, slightly mad, I think ; heard of such people, but I never met them.' This was evidently true, for the lot of Colonel Car- rington had not been cast among the alleys of a spinning town where the heavens are blackened by factory smoke, and as the silver value changes in the East there is hunger among the operatives. In such places the mind of many a thinking man, worn keen as it were by poor living, sickened by foulness and monotony, makes fantastic efforts to reach beyond its environment, and occasionally hurries its owner to the brink of what some call insanity, and perhaps is not so. Then one lonely and pathetic figure, with bent head and shambling gait, grew smaller down the white waste of prairie, until when it vanished Grace said : * I am very sorry II 2 ioo A SOWER OF WHEAT for him, but the poor old man will never reach Willow Lake on foot, even if he could find the way. He must have walked many miles already, and he will be frozen before morning. Someone must go after him.' c If you will allow us, Miss Carrington, I think we had better take our leave and drive him there on our homeward way. I am sorry that all this happened under your roof,' I said. ' Harry, we must hurry before we lose him ; ' and Colonel Carrington answered coldly, < I am inclined to agree with you.' Brief leavetakings followed. Miss Carrington was cordial, but, and it may have been exaggeration of sentiment, I dare not look at Grace with the shadow of such a charge hanging over me. Neither, I think, did the Colonel shake hands with me, while when the sleigh sped hissing down the beaten trail Harry said : * Ralph, you almost make one angry. Of course, she is too high for you ; but there was no reason you should look like a convicted felon when we took the trouble to demonstrate your innocence. Con- fusion to Thomas Fletcher and all his works, I say ! Why should that invertebrate wastrel have turned up to plague us so ? ' Now some time had elapsed before we got the horses harnessed, because they objected strenuously, and several branching trails crossed the prairie, so we spent a much longer space than I liked in driving through the bitter cold before we found my late accuser sitting under a copse of willows, and apparently waiting his death. As the settlers say when it freezes on the prairie, you can't fool with that kind of cold. Also I remember Harry for some reason swore profanely. 4 Get in, and we'll take you straight to Willow Lake,' he said, lifting the unfortunate man, who had already almost lost the use of his limbs, and answered with his teeth chat- A RECKONING 101 taring : c You two are very good ; I couldn't drag myself further ; walked there from Elktail to-day, and I felt main drowsy. What brought thee after me ? From one of thy sort I never expected it.' ' I don't care what you expected,' said Harry briefly, ' so you needn't trouble to tell me. Get into these furs here before you freeze to death ; another half-hour would have made an end of you.' The team had travelled far already that day, but they responded to Harry's encouragement gallantly. The cold bit deep, however, and I could scarcely move a limb when, towards midnight, with a hiss of runners and jingle of bells, we came into sight of Fletcher's shanty by Willow Lake. As luck would have it a light still shone in the window, and he opened the door when Harry and I made shift to draw some wrappings over the team. It grieved me to leave the poor beasts waiting there, for I found it difficult even to speak. ' It's Mr. Crosfield, Minnie,' Fletcher shouted ; and before I could intervene a woman's shape filled the lighted door, while Harry said softly, < Confound it ! I hoped to have got out before the play commenced.' * We have brought you a visitor, Minnie,' I said. * You must not be surprised. There's nothing too strange to happen in a new country. Harry, help me with him ; ' and between us we half carried Lee inside, for all the strength had gone out of him. The hot room reeled about me, and there was a drumming in my head, but with an effort I said, * It's your father, Minnie. You forgot the letter, and he came over to Carrington in search of me.' She dropped the stove-iron in her hand with a startled cry. Fletcher blinked at us stupidly, and the old man sat down with one elbow on the table and his head drooping forward limply, while for a moment or two afterwards no 102 A SOWER OF WHEAT one moved, and the ticking of a nickelled clock almost maddened me. Then the woman came forward timidly with the word ' Father ' on her lips, and Lee, groaning as though in pain, checked her with a gesture, ' Who is this man here, lass ? ' he said. c My husband, Thomas Fletcher ; you ought to remem- ber him. We were married before I left home,' she said ; and Harry coughed, while Lee said hoarsely, ' I thank the Lord for it ; lass, thou hast acted cruelly, but we'll say no more of that. I've left all I had to find thee, and now I'm only glad.' There were tears in Minnie's eyes as she leaned over him with one arm round his shoulder, but I also fancied there was a flash of resentment in them too. ' If you had listened that night before you said what you said, all might have been so different,' she answered. * But I'm so glad to see you, and hungry for news. How did you leave mother, and the shop ? I don't care to hear about the chapel.' < Thy mother is dead. The Lord took her,' the old man answered solemnly, though as yet the warmth brought only pain to him. * I'll hear no word against the chapel. Nay,' as the woman straightened herself with a cry, ' she grieved sorely ; but it was the typhoid, and to the last she would hear no ill of thee. The shop, I sold it ; and maybe there's harness to mend, and saddles, that will earn my bread in this country. I'm an old broken man, and a little will content me. A weary time of struggle and black shame I've suffered for thee ; but now there's nought that matters when I find thee so.' * We must go,' I said. .* Our team is freezing and we can't afford to lose them ; ' and Minnie, touching her father, said, *You should thank Mr. Crosfield. Forty miles at least he has driven to-day, and there's another fifteen before A RECKONING 103 him ;' but ere he could turn I bundled Harry out of the door, and two minutes later we were flying across the prairie. ' I'm sorry for the old man,' said Harry. * Fletcher didn't look delighted, and perhaps it's not to be wondered at. As to Minnie, she'll probably cry over him all night long ; but I hardly fancy she has quite forgiven him. It's not a nice thing, either, when you think of it. And I suppose it cost the old fanatic a fearful wrench to give up what he considered his mission to reform that benighted town. Lord, what fools it's true we mortals are.' I was too drowsy and cold to answer, and how we got the team into the stables or even found Fairmead I do not remember ; but we probably did it by force of habit and it was high noon next day before we awakened. io 4 A SOWER OF WHEAT A FORWARD POLICY GRACE and I met often again before the thaw in spring put an end to all thoughts of amusement. Each time she seemed to place me on a more friendly footing, and I laid myself out to cultivate the good will of the Carrington settlers, in the hope of meeting her at their gatherings, for they at least enjoyed themselves during the winter. Some of the younger gallants regarded me with evident hostility ; but I could afford to smile at them, because, though the heiress of Carrington was gracious to all, she seemed to find more pleasure in my company than in their attentions. Still, at last even Harry grumbled when, half-frozen and with a worn-out team, I reached Fairmead at dawn. 4 We'll want another pair of horses if this is to continue,' he said. ' Ralph, it's not my business, but I'm afraid you are laying up trouble for yourself.' There were, however, disappointments, for now and then I drove long leagues through whirling snow or bitter frost only to find that Grace was not present, and it was on one of these occasions I betrayed my secret to her aunt, Miss Carrington. She had been visiting an outlying farm, and though there were others whom the duty devolved upon I insisted on driving her home. In my case it was an inestimable privilege, for by good fortune Grace -might be waiting to welcome her. I had been silent all evening, and when with a hissing beneath the steel runners A FORWARD POLICY 105 and a rhythmic beat of hoofs we swept on under radiant moonlight, Miss Carrington made some jesting comment upon it. Perhaps the exhilarating rush through the cold, still air had stirred me into undue frankness, for I answered : * Grace was not there, and nothing seems the same without her. She brings an atmosphere of brightness with her, and one learns to miss it. What would this prairie look like if a cloud obscured the moon ? ' Miss Carrington smiled a little, glancing at me keenly, as she said : ' A pretty simile ! It was more than I expected after your rueful looks to-night. But you are not singular. There are others in the Carrington settlement who think the same young men with many rich acres and wealthy kinsfolk behind them at home.' Her voice changed, and I think the last part was intended to have its meaning, but a sudden impulse overcame my reason, and I answered rashly : c That may well be, but there are none among them who would work or starve for her as I would do. I am only a poor settler, but with one purpose always before him a determined man may ac- complish much. However, I never meant to tell you or anyone this until I and my partner have accomplished something ; and yet perhaps I have said too much not to finish.' Miss Carrington moved in her wrappings so that she could meet my eyes, but when I returned her gaze steadily it was a relief to find rather sympathy than anger in her face. < I think you have,' she said, with gentleness. So, tightening my grip on the reins, I continued dog- gedly : * Then, even at the risk of seeming a presumptuous fool, you shall hear it all. This new land is for the strong and enterprising, who will stake their best on success within it, and with the hope I have before me I must succeed. So while brain and sinew hold out neither drought, nor frost, io6 A SOWER OF WHEAT nor hardship shall turn me aside until until I am more equal in worldly possessions with Colonel Carrington. Others have risen from obscurity to hold many acres before, and somehow I feel that I shall do so too. But if I owned half the Dominion it would be little to offer Miss Carrington, and without her my present holding would content me.' Then I ended slowly, ' I wonder if, even in that case, there would be any chance for me ? ' My companion's face was grave under the moonlight, but she touched my arm with a friendly gesture, as she answered : * Those are a young man's words, and I suppose some would call them foolish ; but though I am old I like the spirit in them. After all, even in these days, we have not done with romance, and a stout heart is often better than land and property. Grace is like you in many ways ; she takes life seriously, and I fancy sees, as I do, that some of us are spending our best on pleasure in Carrington. My brother is a stern, proud man, and yet, as you say, the good things come to those who can fight and wait for them. More I cannot tell you.' ' Thank you, Miss Carrington,' I answered, feeling that for ever afterwards she had made me her servant. ' Now, please forget it all until some day I say the same thing to Colonel Carrington, and you will forgive me for ever telling you,' but her eyes were troubled as she turned her face away. We reached the manor safely, but I caught no glimpse of Grace, and Colonel Carrington hardly troubled to thank me, while Harry pitied the team when I led them into our stable. A few days afterwards, when we spent all one afternoon discussing finances and our programme for spring, he agreed with me when, contrary to my usual caution, I suggested we should make a plunge that year by purchasing a gang-plough and hiring more horses, then, giving a bond upon the homestead and expected crop, sink the last dollar A FORWARD POLICY 107 we could raise in sowing the utmost acreage and breaking more sod on the free land we had pre-empted. There was a sporting instinct in Harry which made him willing to run risks I would generally have avoided. Now, however, I was bent on playing a bold game, trusting in the axiom that those who nothing venture cannot expect to win. Also, on the prairie the credit system is universal, and though some abuse it, it has its advantage. For instance, the settler may obtain seed, implements, and provisions on a promise to pay with interest after harvest, and thus he is enabled to break an extra quantity of virgin soil. If the crop is good all benefit alike dealer, maker of implements, and grower of wheat ; while if the grain fails, instead of one man to bear it there are several to divide the loss. So we pledged our credit up to the hilt, and, though at times I grew grave as I wondered what would happen if there was hail or frost, we commenced work in earnest with the first of the thaw, and drilled in grain enough to leave us an ample profit if all went well. Then we would double our sowing next year, and, so Harry said, in a few seasons rise to affluence. It was a simple programme, and fortunes have been made in that way ; but, as we were to find, it also leads to disaster occasionally. It was a gray day in spring, and a cold wind swept the grasses as I stood beside the double yoke of oxen and the great breaker plough, when Colonel Carrington, who was passing that way, rode towards me across the prairie. Also, while I wondered what his errand was, I saw two mounted figures outlined against the sombre sky on the crest of a distant rise, whom I recognised as Grace and Captain Ormond. He rode a splendid bay horse, and after the first greeting sat looking down upon me ironically a space, erect, soldierly, and immaculately neat down to the bur- nished stirrups and the toes of his speckless boots. Under io8 A SOWER OF WHEAT no circumstances did the Colonel forget that he once com- manded a famous regiment, and now ruled drastically over Carrington, while I must have appeared a sufficiently homely object, in battered slouch hat and torn blue over- alls, with the mire clinging to my leggings. * You are staking heavily on the weather this year ; I wonder what for,' he said, glancing down the long furrows, and I felt there was a warning in it, for this man seldom wasted words. * The last time I passed it struck me you had better, as they say here, go slow and not risk a surety on the chance of what you can never attain to. It takes capital to farm on a large scale, you know. By the way, I came to tell you that we will not want the disc-harrows, so you can keep them until your work is finished, and as Miss Carrington Miss Grace Carrington is going to England shortly we shall be occupied with preparations for some time. This will save you wasting precious hours riding over just now in the busy season. Well, I must join the others. Good-day to you.' He wheeled his horse with a parting salutation, a slender figure waved a hand to me from the crest of the rise before it sank below the sky-line, and that was the last I saw of Grace Carrington for many a day, while breathing hard I watched the horseman grow smaller across the prairie. Her father sometimes delighted to speak in metaphor, and I could not fail to recognise it was a plain hint he had, perhaps in grim kindness, given me. For a moment I wondered if I should have made him listen in turn, and was glad I had not, for his words stung me like a whip, and it would not have helped matters if I had spoken my mind to him. Then, shaking myself together, I called to the oxen, reflecting that many a formerly poor man had married the daughter of even a greater than Colonel Carrington, while if it was a matter of land and money that A FORWARD POLICY 109 divided us, every extra furrow brought me so much nearer her. Still, I was graver than usual, even until the ploughing was done, and Harry, not knowing the reason, commented satirically upon it. The thaw came early that year, and the latter snow had been light, while steady dry weather followed it, and there were times when I felt I would have given several years of my life for rain. It came, and, though there was not much of it, as if by magic tender grain stood a hand's breadth above the black loam, while I watched it lengthen daily with my heart in my eyes, and grew feverishly anxious about the weather. Many things depended on the success of that crop. Then suddenly it was summer, the hottest summer for ten seasons our neighbours said, and I wondered how we would manage to cut hay for our own beasts, and the teams we had purchased conditionally, because long grass was scanty. Assistance was equally scarce, for, seeing us reach out towards prosperity, our friends evidently con- sidered we were now well able to help ourselves. It was done somehow, though often for a week together we worked all day and most of the night, until there was only an hour or two left before the dawn, and I lay wide awake, too overstrung and fatigued to sleep. Once, too, in the burning heat of noon I fell from the waggon in a state of limp collapse, and there were occasions when Harry lay for long spaces with a paler colour than usual gasping in the shade. We could spare little time for cooking, or a tedious journey to bring in provisions, so when one thing ran out we made shift with the rest. Still, we kept Sunday, and once Harry laughed as he said : ' I'm thankful there is a Fourth Commandment, because without it we should have caved in utterly. Do you know we've been living on potatoes, tea, and porridge every meal for the last ten days ? It's doubtful whether we can hold out until no A SOWER OF WHEAT harvest, and you'll remember it's then the pace grows killing.' For the first time I noticed his face was very thin under the sun-burn, and perhaps he read my thoughts, for he laughed as he said : c We have taken on too big a contract, Ralph, but once in we'll carry it through. Still, I wish I had been born with the frame of a bullock, like you.' I lay in a hide chair ten hours together that Sunday, only moving to light the stove for Harry, or consume another pint of strong green tea, which is generally our sole indulgence on the prairie. It might not, however, have suited fastidious palates, because the little squirrel-like gophers which abounded everywhere, burrowing near by, fell into the well by scores, and we had no leisure to fish them out. Neither is there any mistaking the flavour of gopher extract. Meantime it grew hotter and drier, and I had to admit to myself that the crop might have been better, while Harry, to hide his misgivings, talked cheerfully about higher prices, until at last the crisis came. I awoke one morning with an unusual feeling of chilli- ness, sprang upright, and saw that the first rays of the red sun scintillated upon something that was not dew among the grass, and with a cry strode over to Harry's berth- Even half-asleep he could read the fear in my face, and when he asked, ' What is it ? ' I scarcely knew my own voice as I answered hoarsely, * Frost ! ' We ran out half-dressed, and when we stood by the edge of the tall wheat, which was already turning yellow, we knew that the destroyer had breathed upon our grain, and that every stately head contained its percentage of shrivelled berries. Still, it might sell under a lower grading yet if there was no more frost. But the frost came twice again and on the third sunrise I stood staring across the blighted crop with despairing eyes, while my hands would A FORWARD POLICY in tremble in spite of my will. Few men had laboured as Harry and I had done ; indeed, it was often only the hope of winning Grace Carrington that sustained me, while now I was poorer far than when first I landed in Canada. Neither dare I contemplate what the result of my folly would be to Harry. But Harry, who seldom thought of himself, laid his hand affectionately on my shoulder. ' Poor old Ralph ! ' he said. ' Well, we did our best, and there's room for us somewhere in this wide country. I suppose it is hopeless absolutely ? ' * Quite ! ' I answered, trying to steady my voice. ' We can leave it with a clear conscience to the gophers. How- ever, we might earn a little with the teams to feed us through the winter, and strike out next spring for British Columbia. The new railroad people are open to let track- grading contracts, you know. Lend me your double- barrel ; I'm in no mood for talking, and an all-day tramp after prairie chicken may help to steady me.' I took down the old weapon ; it was a muzzle-loader, and called our little English terrier Grip. He was rather a nuisance than otherwise when stalking prairie fowl, but an affectionate beast, and I felt glad of his company. Then for several hours I strode on across the prairie, hardly seeing the clattering coveys at which Grip barked furiously, and might have wandered on until midnight but that when skirting a grove of willows he must most foolishly follow the trail of a coyote. Now, the prairie wolf, though timorous enough where a man is concerned, is generally willing to try conclusions with even a powerful dog, and when presently a great snarling commenced I burst at full speed through the willows. It was high time, for the coyote had pinned the terrier down, and there was barely opportunity to pitch the gun up and take a snapshot at its shoulder before my pet's struggles would have ended. ii2 A SOWER OF WHEAT Then I ran in through the smoke to find the wounded beast still held the hapless dog, and as the other barrel was also empty I swang the butt aloft and brought it down crashing on its head. But the coyote was not quite van- quished yet, for I felt its teeth meet almost in my leg, and stumbled head foremost over it, after which for a few moments there was a mixed-up scuffle, until with one hand closing on the hairy throat I got another chance to bring the gun-butt down. Then the beast lay still, flecked all over with blood and foam, while my hands and clothes were torn, and there were crimson patches about me. Grip whined and licked my bleeding fingers when I lifted all that seemed left of him, and he presented a sorry spectacle. Nevertheless, for some curious reason that struggle had done me good, and I limped home carrying the dog, with a wound in my leg, considerably more cheerful than when I left it. I even laughed as Harry, meeting me in the doorway, said, * Good heavens, Ralph, what have you been doing ? you look like a butcher.' 4 It's a case of inherent savagery, a return to the instincts of barbaric days,' I answered. * I've been killing a coyote with my hands, and feel better for it. But don't ask questions ; I'm almost famished.' We fared well that evening, for there was no need of hurry now, and when the meal was over sat talking long in the little room. Already the nights were closing in and the coolness outside invigorated like wine, but we felt the sight of the blighted wheat would not improve our spirits. So I stated my views as clearly as I could, ending with forced cheerfulness, though I meant every syllable of it, 4 We are not beaten yet, and if we must go under we'll make at least another tough fight of it.' Meanwhile Harry covered several sheets of paper with figures, until at last he said, * You are perfectly right. The A FORWARD POLICY 113 homestead, stock, and implements will have to go ; but I think we'll ask our largest creditors to give us time while we see what we can do at the track-grading. It's possible, but not likely, we might earn enough to make some arrangement to commence again. However, to con- sider the probable, there'll be a meeting of creditors, and perhaps enough after the sale to buy us a Colonist ticket to British Columbia. Anyway, we'll ride out to-morrow and call upon the road surveyor.' It may have been because we were young, or the suspense had brought its own reaction, but a faint hope commenced to spring up within us, and now, when at least we knew the worst, we were both of us more tranquil than we had been for the last three days, while I slept peacefully until Harry roused me with the news that breakfast was ready. We started at noon, and before the sun crossed the meridian next day found the surveyor busy beside the new steel road which stretched out from the trunk line so many fathoms daily across the prairie. He was a native Canadian, emphatic in gesture, curt in speech, with, as we say here, a snap about him, and looked us over critically as I explained that we were willing to work for him. I fancied there was satisfaction in his gaze, and this was not unlikely, for we were both lean, hard, and bronzed, while our old stained canvas garments told their own tale of sturdy toil. 'Guess I could let you a track-grading contract,' he said meditatively. ' We find the scoops, you find the teams and take all risks, but it's pay up when you're through. We've no use on this road for the men who when they strike a hard streak just turn their contract up.' ' What we begin we'll finish,' I answered with emphasis, while Harry smiled and raised a warning hand unseen by n 4 A SOWER OF WHEAT the surveyor. * Neither hard work nor hard luck is new to us, and if it wasn't for the latter we wouldn't be here.' * Glad to hear it,' said the surveyor drily, * you look like that. Well, here's the schedule ; glance through it ; then you can come back to-morrow and we'll sign the agree- ment. But you'll have to rustle and keep the rail-bed ready ; this road's going right through to Green Lake before the winter.' I ran my eye down the list of stipulations respecting the work to be done at so much per rod, with allowance for extra depth scooped out through the rises per cubic ton, saw there should be a profit in it from what little I knew, and tossed the sheet to Harry, answering, * Our time is precious, and if my partner is willing we'll sign it now. As to what we look like, I'll thank you to remember that has nothing to do with you.' * I apologise ; meant it as a compliment,' said our future employer, who was grimed thick with sweat and dust, and Harry answered lightly, * We are much obliged to you ; my partner is quick in temper. But you know you can't get teams or men for love or money now when harvest's coming on, and so we're going to strike you for another two cents per measure.' * Might stretch that far,' said the other after more figuring, 'but somehow we'll take it out of you. Here, fill your distinguished names into this, and if you like to take it there's another lot it's hauling in birch logs for stump piles and fencing purposes.' We signed both papers, and on leaving the surveyor found a man in old blue over-alls, whose appearance sug- gested the Briton, waiting for us near the construction train which had just come up with its load of rails and rail-layers. ' Did you get the grading contract ? ' he asked ; and A FORWARD POLICY 115 when Harry nodded continued : * Then as a preliminary I'll introduce myself, Ellsworthy Johnston, one-time Barrister, and, as the surveyor classified me, general roustabout. Had a bush ranch in British Columbia and came to grief over it by fooling time away gold prospecting. Rode in and asked yonder eloquent autocrat for a contract, but he didn't see it. Said, and he explained it wasn't flattery, I looked too much of a gentleman, and in consequence if I liked I could shovel ballast at one dollar seventy-five daily. Now shovel- ling ballast grows monotonous, and one gets a confounded back-ache over it, so if you're agreeable I'll fling in a small sum and my services as junior partner.' * We're not too rich,' said Harry, * and we'll talk it over,' while when somebody in authority called, ' Get a move on there, Sam Johnsing, before the flies eat you. Guess the rails are growing rusty while you're resting,' with a smile of whimsical resignation our new acquaintance hurried away. We made a bargain with him to the satisfaction of all concerned that evening, and next morning Harry rode away to divide our few head of stock among our neighbours and hire if possible one or two among those whose crops had also suffered from frost. The latter, like the devastat- ing hail, performs its work erratically, wiping out one man's grain and sparing his neighbours'. Meanwhile I found plenty to do making arrangements to commence our work upon the track. 12 n6 A SOWER OF WHEAT XI ON THE RAILROAD IT was a hot autumn morning when we prepared to commence our task of railroad building, the last forlorn hope between ourselves and ruin. Harry and I stood each beside our teams, which were harnessed to a great iron scoop or scraper designed to tear out a heavy load of spoil at each traverse. This we would pile in the slight hollows, so that, sinking a few feet through the rises and raised slightly above each depression, the road-bed might run straight and level across the prairie. A group of sinewy, dusty men waited about the line of flat cars loaded with rails close behind, while a plume of black smoke curled aloft from the huge locomotive in a dingy column against the blue of the sky. This, with the cluster of tents and shanties, was all that broke the white grass land's empty monotony. The surveyor, who was perhaps dustier than any, leaned against the engine's buffer-frame close beside me, mopping his face, which was also smeared with soot, and surveyed us complacently, for with our assistants we formed, so far as outward appearances went, a workman-like if somewhat disreputable company. Water was scarce that season and too precious to waste in superfluous washing, while we had little leisure to spare on even much- needed repairs to our garments. Still, we were alert, hard, and eager, while after the preceding anxiety it was with improved spirits we found ON THE RAILROAD 117 definite work before us, with what was better still definite pay at the end of it. 4 Well, they've finished the line posts ; I guess you can start in,' said the surveyor. * You look as if you could keep those scoops from rusting, and good luck go with you* Stir round and heave those rails down, boys ! ' Then with a crack of whips we started, and it was with satisfaction I heard the trampling hoofs bite into the sod and the bright steel edges rip through the matted roots. Soft earth and tangled grasses filled the iron scoop behind, the air vibrated with the strident clang of rails, and the locomotive engineer performed an inspiriting solo upon his whistle, while the rest of our party followed to finish the wake we left with their shovels. Somewhat improved appliances are used in railroad building now, but though it had limitations the scraper did excellent work in its day. All went well and smoothly for at least a month, and our hearts grew lighter every day, while each time the big locomotive came clattering up we had another length of road-bed ready for the rails, and the surveyor commented on our progress with frank approval. He also did so to some purpose in his reports to Winnipeg, as subsequently transpired, while occasionally, when we lounged languidly contented under the dew-damped canvas at nights, Harry would figure with the end of a pencil how much we had already placed to our credit. 'We are doing well, Ralph,' he said the last time it happened, with a smile that lighted his sunny face. ' There's enough to pay off those folks in Brandon now, and with luck before the frost comes we'll manage to settle with the worst of the rest. It's almost a pity we didn't try the railroad sooner, but ' and here he glanced with a twinkle in his eye at me * we came out to work our own land, and it's your intention to add acre to acre until n8 A SOWER OF WHEAT Fairmead's one of the biggest farms in the Territories, isn't it ? ' * Yes,' I answered soberly. < God willing, if health and strength hold out,' and in his own expressive way Harry shook hands with me. Harry's hand harmonised with the rest of him, and hands are characteristic of their owners' temperament as well as faces. It was small and shapely, one might call it almost feminine, but its touch conveyed the subtle impression of courage and nervous energy, while I wondered what the woman who reared him would think if she saw those toughened and ingrained fingers now. Neither were words needed, for Harry's actions had each their meaning, and that grasp seemed to say that in this I was leader and whatever happened he would loyally follow me. Then he added softly, ' Yes with your reservation we will do it.' But uninterrupted good fortune seldom lasts long, or at least it seldom did with us, and presently the line ran into a big coulee which wound through what we call hills upon the prairie that is to say, a ridge of slightly higher levels swelling into billowy rises. In the Western Dominion the rivers, instead of curving round the obstacles they encounter, generally go through, though whether they find the gorges or fret them out is beyond me. In the latter case, judging from what one sees in British Columbia, they must have worked hard for countless centuries. The hollow as usual was partly filled with birches and willows, which hampered us, for they must be cut down and the roots grubbed up, while when at last we had scooped a strip of road-bed out of the slanting side it seemed as if disaster again meant to overtake us. Autumn had melted into Indian summer, but it was still hot one afternoon, when with the perspiration dripping from me I whirled and drove the keen axe into a silver ON THE RAILROAD 119 birch's side, seldom turning my eyes from the shower of white chips, because looking up between the slender stems one could see the black smoke of a thrasher streaking the prairie. The crops of the man who employed it had escaped damage, and as those of many had been spoiled by frost I knew he would reap a handsome profit on every bushel. I did not grudge it him, but the contrast with our failure troubled me. My throat was parched and dried up, for we had finished all the water they brought us in by train, and no man could drink of the shrunken creek, which was alkaline. It flowed down from one of those curious lakes to be found upon the Western prairie, where clouds of biting dust which smarts one's eyes and nostrils intolerably rise up like smoke from the white crust about the margin of the waters, whose colour is a vivid greenish blue. I stepped aside a moment to let the construction train with its load of rails roll past, and stood leaning on the axe wiping the perspiration out of my eyes until Harry's shout rang out warningly. Then through the strident scream of brakes and roar of blown-off steam an ominous rumbling commenced round a bend ; there was a rush of flying foot- steps, and Harry shouted again. I ran forward down the newly-laid track, and when I halted, breathless, my first sensation was one of thankfulness followed by dismay. Harry was struggling to hold an excited team not far away, and it was evident he and the rest were safe, but it was also equally plain we must gather our courage to meet another blow. Under no circumstances could much if any profit have been made on that portion of the line which traversed the coulee, but we took it with the rest, while now the road-bed we had painfully scooped out had been swept away and lay a chaotic mass of debris, some sixty yards below, for, loosened by the excavation, the side of the ravine had slipped down bodily. 120 A SOWER OF WHEAT ' I'm glad you and the teams are safe,' was all I could find to say when Harry met me, for I struggled against an inclination to do either of two things. One was to sit down and groan despairingly, and the other to abuse every- thing upon the Canadian prairie. Harry at first said nothing. He was panting heavily, but another man answered for him : * I guess you might be, and only for your partner's grit the teams wouldn't have been. When we saw the whole blame ravine tumbling in the only thing that struck us was to light out quick, and we did it in a hurry, not stopping to think. Something else struck your partner, too, a devastatin' load of dirt coming down on the teams, and he went back for them. Cut the traces of one scraper you can see the blame thing busted in the bottom there ; then there was a roar and she came down solid with a rush, while we did the shouting when he brought them safe at a gallop out of the dust.' ' That's a side issue,' said Harry very gravely, ' and the main one is serious. Ralph, if all this slope is going to slip down it means disaster to us. You see, after what was said when we took the contract, we couldn't well back out of it, even if we wanted to. Hallo, here's his majesty the surveyor on his trolley.' With a clatter of wheels the light frame raced down the slight incline, and unloaded its occupants violently when it ran into the back of the construction train which they had just stopped in time. We did not, however, follow it, because we wanted time to think, while both our faces were anxious when the surveyor returned. * I'm afraid it's a hard case one of those things no man can figure on ahead give you my word we never expected this,' he said. ' That bank looked solid enough, but there's more of it just waiting to go, and the whole track will have to be set back several yards or so. Any way, it's par- ON THE RAILROAD 121 ticularly hard on you. Remembering what I told you, have you settled yet what you are going to do ? ' ' Yes,' I answered slowly. * We made the agreement, and we mean to keep it. Hire more men and teams if what we have won't do. Somehow we've got to finish out- bargain, and get our money back, and we'll come to the end of the ravine some day. Isn't that your view, Harry ? ' * Of course ! ' said Harry, as the surveyor turned in his direction. By this time we had fallen into our respective parts. When there was need of judicious speech or care in matters financial it was Harry's tact or calculations which solved the difficulty, while when it came to a hard grapple with natural difficulties I led the way. Again the surveyor glanced from one to the other before he said : ' There's grit in both of you. After all, what you think does not affect the question ; a contract's a contract, and we hold the whip hand over you, but I'm glad to see you take it that way.' The surveyor, as we were to learn, was a man of dis- cernment, and he may have been making an experiment, but my blood was up, and I answered stiffly : * The whip hand has nothing to do with it. We will carry out our agreement, because we pledged ourselves to do so, but if we hadn't ten railroad companies would not make us, and we're open to defy any man in the Dominion, director or surveyor, to force an injustice upon us.' The autocrat was not in the least angry, and smiled drily as he said, 'I believe you. Well, I make no promises, but if you're not above all assistance I guess I might help you. You can lay off and rest your teams for two days any way, while I turn loose the shovellers ; then you'll want all the energy that's in you.' Under different circumstances we might have enjoyed that holiday. As it was I lay still in the sunshine all day, 122 A SOWER OF WHEAT disconsolately staring across the prairie down the track that was apparently going to complete our discomfiture, and smoking until my mouth was blistered, while where Harry went to I did not know. On the second evening, however, our new partner, who had been back to the main line for supplies, came in, and listened with apparent unconcern while we explained matters to him. Acting under impulse, I even suggested that we might release him from his unfortunate bargain, but he laughed as he answered : * It's generous, but it can't be done. Experiences of this kind are not new to me, and I'm a Jonah, as I warned you. Still, when bad luck follows one everywhere floods on the Fraser, cattle-sickness, snow coming heavy just when one is finding signs of gold you know there's no earthly use running away from it, and it's wisest to laugh at fortune and stay right where you are. Daresay we'll come out on the right side yet ; and if we don't, in fifty years it won't make much difference. Now try to look less like guests at a funeral, and talk of something cheerful.' I made some moody answer and envied him his way of taking things, while Harry tried to smile, and Johnston, lifting down a banjo, commenced a plantation ditty, which he sang with so much spirit that presently he had most of the shovel gang for an appreciative audience. Then there were roars of laughter when he stood in the entrance of the tent and, with the utmost solemnity, made them a ridi- culous speech. After this they went away to their canvas dwellings, and I knew that Ellsworthy Johnston was one of those born soldiers of fortune who extract the utmost brightness from an arduous life, and, meeting each reverse with a smiling face, cheerfully bear their ill-rewarded share in the development of Greater Britain beyond the seas. One may find a good many of them upon the Western prairie. ON THE RAILROAD 123 We recommenced work next morning, and, under the delicious still coolness of the Indian summer, increased the strain on nerve and muscle and cut down the grocery bill, though I insisted upon feeding the horses even better than before. It is never economy to stint one's working cattle, especially when one demands the utmost from them, besides being a procedure which is distasteful to any merciful man. But, though we had to hire more horses, wondering how we would ever pay for them when the contract was finished, the track crept on along the treacherous slope, where we scooped out a double width as basis, winding among the birches in glistening, sinuous curves, while the end of the valley grew nearer every day. Again Harry and I lapsed into the excitement of a race against adversity, because unless we were well out on the open prairie before winter bound the sod into the likeness of concrete there could be no hope of even partly recouping our loss. Even Johnston seemed infected with our spirit ; but while we generally worked in dogged silence, he had ever a jest upon his lips. One evening and the days were shortening all too rapidly when I sat tired and dejected on an empty provision case, a rail-layer brought in several letters, and, as usual, they were all for me. Harry stood bare-armed, with the dust still thick upon him, just outside the entrance of the tent, holding a spider over our little stove, and glanced half regretfully towards the budget. No one ever seemed to write to Harry. The first was from Jasper. He had visited Brandon and Winnipeg on business, and wrote in his usual off-hand style. ' I've been in to see those dealers, taking my best broker along, to convince them we only raised solid men in this section,' it ran. * Thought I'd enlighten them about you, and the broker laid himself out to back me. He gets all 124 A SOWER OF WHEAT my business see ? while you can't beat a Winnipeg broker at real tall talking. I should say we impressed them considerable ; or perhaps it was the big cigars and the spread at the hotel. Said they'd sense enough to know a straight man when they saw him, and they'd give you plenty time to pay in. So all you've got to do is to sail right on with the track-grading. The boys were saying down to Elktail that Fletcher and his father-in-law don't get on, and there's going to be trouble there presently. I think the old man started in to reform him, and Fletcher don't like unlimited reform.' 'Just like Jasper,' said Harry. 'A woman's heart, and the strength of three ordinary men. Still, when Jasper starts in with a rush no man can say where he'll finish, and we may hear next that he has been all round Winnipeg on our account borrowing money.' Then the new partner, who was splitting firewood close by, laid down his axe as he said : * You'll introduce me to Jasper some day. From what you say, he is a man worth knowing.' There were two more letters, and the next my fingers trembled as I opened it was from Grace. It was dated from Starcross House, in Lancashire, and written in frank friendliness, expressing regret for our misfortune, which, it seemed, she had heard about, ending : ' But by this time you will have learned that there are ups and downs in every country, and I know you both have the courage to face the latter. So go on with a stout heart, believing that I and all your other friends look for your ultimate success.' To this there was a postscript : ' I met your cousin, Miss Crosfield, the other day, and was sorry to find her very pale and thin. She had just recovered from a serious illness, and seemed troubled when I told her how you had lost your harvest.' I placed the thin sheets reverently in an inside pocket, ON THE RAILROAD 125 and read them afterwards over and over again, because I might not answer them. She had written out of kindly sympathy when the news of our trouble first reached her, and that was all ; while T felt I could not write a mere formal note of thanks and more than this was out of the question now. Nevertheless, I was thankful for her good wishes, and then stood silent under the starlight, staring down the misty coule*e and thinking of Cousin Alice as mechanically I stripped the envelope from the following one. She had always been ailing, even in the days when we were almost as brother and sister ; and now I longed that I could comfort her as in my periodical fits of restlessness she used to soothe me. That, however, was impossible, for my cousin was part of the sheltered life I had left behind across the sea, and I was in Western Canada with a very uncertain future before me. Then, moving back into the light of the lamp, I read the last letter, and, with a gasp of astonishment, handed it to Harry, saying, * I can make nothing of this. Who in the wide world can have sent the money ? ' He laid down the spider, and, bending until the glow from the tent door fell upon the paper, read : ' Mr. Ralph Crosfield, of Fair mead.