"He says he likes it thoroughly ripened," Thorne answered with a laugh. "Still, I can't see why a man should be hounded down because he won't do exactly what everybody else does. What do you think, Miss Leigh?"
"It's rather a pity, but I'm afraid men of that kind generally have to pay," replied Alison. "That is, unless they're very strong and fortunate, and then they lead. What was supposed to be a craze of theirs becomes a desirable custom, and the others humbly copy them."
"And if the others won't?" questioned Farquhar.
"Even then, it's perhaps just as well there are a few men with the courage of their convictions who will couch the lance in the face of any opposition that can be brought against them, and ride right home. There must be something in their fancies, and the stir they make clears the air. Stagnation's unwholesome."
Mrs. Farquhar regarded her severely.
"You shouldn't encourage him. It's quite superfluous. He'd charge a locomotive any day with pleasure," she said.
"Well," laughed Thorne, "you will no doubt be consoled to hear that I've come into line. There are now one hundred and sixty acres of virgin prairie recorded in my name, and I believe a carload of sawed lumber and general fixings will arrive at the station in the next few days. When they do, I'll borrow your wagon and hired man to haul them out, though I'll have to camp in a tent until I get my first crop in."
Farquhar and his wife looked astonished, and both laughed when he gravely reproached them for not believing that he would carry out the project which he had already mentioned. Then the two men strolled away toward the barn together, and Alison was left with Mrs. Farquhar. The prairie was wrapped in shadow now, and a half-moon was rising above its eastern rim. It was very still, and there was a wonderful freshness in the chilly air. Looking out upon the vast sweep of dusky grass, it seemed to Alison that this wide country gave one clearness of vision and breadth of character.
"Does Thorne really mean to turn farmer?" she asked at length.
"It looks as if he does," answered Mrs. Farquhar. "Why shouldn't he?"
"I can't think of any reason," replied Alison. "Still, it isn't what I should have anticipated. What can have influenced him?"
"I have a suspicion that he means to get married. He couldn't expect his wife to set up housekeeping in a wagon, though, for that matter, I don't know whether he lives in the vehicle or camps on the ground beside it."
Alison knew, however, and on the whole she was glad that it was too dark for her companion to see her face clearly. It was, for no very ostensible reason, not exactly pleasant to think of Thorne's getting married at all. The idea of his being willing to contemplate marriage, so to speak, in the abstract, as the men who went to Winnipeg for their wives did, was repugnant to her, and the alternative possibility that he had somebody in particular in view already afforded her no great consolation.
"I suppose he wouldn't have very much trouble if that was his idea," she said with a trace of disdain.
"No," responded Mrs. Farquhar; "there would be very little trouble in Leslie Thorne's case. Whatever that man may lack it won't be the love of women."
It occurred to Alison that there was truth in this. She could even confess that the man's light-hearted manner, his whimsical generosity and his daring appealed to her.
"He doesn't seem to get on very well with Florence Hunter," she said reflectively.
Mrs. Farquhar laughed.
"I think I may tell you a secret which Mavy has never guessed. He could have got on a good deal better with Mrs. Hunter had he been anxious to, and she hasn't forgiven him because he didn't realize it."
Alison started, and a warmth crept into her face, but her hostess proceeded:
"I don't mean very much by that. Mrs. Hunter merely wished to – annex – him; to command his respectful homage, which he was quite ready to pay her as Elcot's wife, though that wasn't quite what she intended. There's an unpleasant streak in that woman's nature."
Alison sat silent a moment or two, for she was forced to confess that this sounded correct.
"But Florence can have no complaint against her husband," she objected. "He seems to indulge her and treat her generously."
"That's half the trouble," was the answer. "Some day she'll wear his patience out, and then he'll take the other way – and they'll get on better afterward. However, that's a matter that doesn't concern us." She paused a moment, with a smile. "Anyway, I'm glad you decided to come to me."
"Thank you," said Alison quietly.
She had never regretted her choice. The work she had undertaken was certainly not what she had expected to do when she came to Canada, and she smiled as she remembered the indignation her mother had expressed concerning it in her last letter; but her duties were not unpleasant, and she was growing fond of the unassuming but very sensible people with whom she dwelt. Their view was narrowed by no prejudices, and they disdained pretense; they toiled with cheerful courage and were as cheerfully willing to hold out an open hand to the stranger and the unfortunate. The latter fact was once more made evident when Farquhar, followed by Thorne, strolled up to the door.
"I think I'll start off at sunup and drive over to see how Langton's getting on," he said. "I couldn't very well be back the same night, but you'll have Miss Leigh with you."
"Of course," assented his wife, smiling. "It was only yesterday that you declared you didn't know how you were going to get through with the sowing. I suppose you'll want to take a few things along with you?"
Thorne produced a strip of paper and handed it to her.
"I can't always trust my memory," he explained.
They went into the house, where a light was already burning, and Mrs. Farquhar glanced at the paper with a smile.
"Well," she said, "I suppose I can manage to let you have about half of what you ask for." Then she turned to Alison. "As soon as he mentioned the matter I expected this."
CHAPTER IX
THE RAISING
One afternoon when the prairie was flooded with sunshine and sprinkled with a flush of tender green, Farquhar drove his wife and Alison up to Thorne's new holding. A tent with loose curtain flapping in the breeze stood on a slight rise, with sundry piles of boards and framed timber lying on the grass about it, while Thorne and a young lad stood beside a fire above which a four-gallon coal-oil can hung boiling. His face was smutted and there was grime on his hands; while near him smoke was issuing from a beehive-shaped mass of soil which Mrs. Farquhar informed Alison was an earth oven.
The girl waited behind a few moments when her companions greeted Thorne, looking about her with some curiosity. An oblong of shattered clods, almost hidden by the fresh green blades of oats, stretched across the foreground, and beyond it there was the usual vast sweep of grass. On one side of the plowed land, however, a thin birch bluff in full leaf straggled up the rise, and a little creek of clear water wound through a deep hollow not far away. The situation, she decided, was an attractive one. Then she glanced at the piles of timber, which seemed to be arranged in carefully planned order, and surmised from the quantity of sawdust strewed among the grass that a good deal of work had been done on it by somebody. There was also a row of birch logs, evidently obtained from the bluff, with notches cut in them, and a heap of thin strips of wood which had a sweet resinous smell. These were red-cedar roofing shingles from British Columbia.
Alison strolled forward and joined the group about the fire.
"It will be a couple of hours yet before the boys turn up; and, considering everything, it's just as well," Thorne was explaining. "Still, the bread ought to be ready, and I'd be glad if somebody would get it out to cool. I want the oven for the chickens."
"Where are they?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired.
Thorne suddenly stooped over the big coal-oil can.
"I was almost forgetting them; they're here. Dave should have fished them out some time ago."
Alison glanced into the improvised cauldron and saw to her astonishment what looked like a mass of bedraggled fowls.
"Oh," she cried, "have you boiled them with their feathers on?"
"Well," replied Thorne, somewhat ruefully, "I certainly didn't mean to. In fact, I put them in to bring their feathers off, though I've hitherto generally done it beneath the blow-down valve of a thrashing engine."
He turned to his young companion.
"Be quick! Fish them out!"
The lad did it with a strip of shingle, and when a number of dripping birds were strewed upon the grass Alison was more astonished still.
"Where have their heads gone?" she exclaimed.
"I'll leave Dave to tell you that; I believe it's his first attempt at dressing fowls," chuckled Thorne. "I just sent his employer word that I wanted chickens, and this is how they were brought."
The lad colored, for he was very young.
"Jackson drove off as soon as he'd told Stepney and me to get them," he explained. "We're both of us just out from Toronto, and we didn't know how to set about the thing." He paused and looked at Alison. "I don't mind admitting that neither of us enjoyed it, but it had to be done."
"I must add that he told me he made Stepney use the ax," laughed Thorne.
"I had to hold them, anyway – and that wasn't very much better," retorted the lad.
Thorne turned to Farquhar.
"You'll have to pluck; I dare say Mrs. Farquhar and Miss Leigh will get out the bread and what crockery there is. The boys will probably bring some plates and things along with them; that is, if they're wise."
He moved away and Alison sat down on the grass and laughed.
"I believe he can cook better than I can, but he's primitive in some respects," she commented. "Shall we all have to use the same things if the boys don't bring the cups?"
"Oh, no," Mrs. Farquhar assured her. "He'll no doubt provide a few old fruit cans. Anyway, you must not expect too much of him. He has been working his fingers off for the last six weeks, and as there has been moonlight lately it's very probable that he has cut himself down to an hour or two's sleep. Perhaps you haven't noticed that it shows on him."
As a matter of fact, Alison had done so. She had seen very little of Thorne for the last few weeks, and now it struck her that his face was leaner and browner than it had been and that there were signs of tension in his eyes. Then she glanced at the strip of plowed land and the piles of timber.
"Has he done all that?" she asked.
"Most of it, anyway. Some of the boys helped him when they could, which wasn't very often. I believe he has done about twice as much as Harry considered possible. I've an idea that Mavy is going to open his neighbors' eyes."
Alison glanced at the empty prairie and wondered where the neighbors lived; but just them Mrs. Farquhar called her to the oven, which she opened with a spade, and they raked out several big and somewhat blackened loaves. After that, they proceeded to the tent and busied themselves laying out the provisions it contained.
It was an hour or two later when the guests arrived in dusty rigs of various kinds and different stages of decrepitude, and Alison noticed that those who were accompanied by their wives and daughters also brought baskets with them. They were evidently acquainted with the limitations of bachelor housekeeping. For the most part, however, the new arrivals were young men, deeply bronzed and wiry, though one, whom they seemed to regard as leader, had a lined face and grizzled hair. He gathered them round him when the horses had been unyoked and tethered.
"Boys," he said, "you haven't come here just for fun, though you're going to get that later. In the first place you have to earn your supper." He turned to Thorne. "Will you send us to our places and tell us what to do?"
"No," replied Thorne; "I'd rather leave the thing to the best man on the ground. I'll take my orders from him and stand in among the crowd."
The elder man made a sign of acquiescence, for he now knew where he stood and etiquette was satisfied. He and Thorne walked round and examined the piles of timber. Then he sent the men to their places; one with a hammer here, two or three with long, steel-shod poles there, another with a saw at a corner, and the rest spread out in a row.
"Now," he directed, "if you're ready we'll get the house on end. The girls are watching you!"
They went at the work with a rush, and the little oblong marked out upon the prairie sod became alive with toiling figures. Tall birch posts rose as by magic, with struggling men thrusting with the long pike-poles beneath them; stringers, plates and ties seemed to fly into place; and Alison, sitting on the grass with Mrs. Farquhar, wondered as the skeleton of the house grew moment by moment before her eyes. She had never thought it possible that a dwelling could be built in a night; but the men were clearly on their mettle, and they worked with an almost bewildering activity. They were on the ground one minute, hauling ponderous masses of timber, and the next climbing among the framing; were standing with one foot on a slender beam, or crawling along another on hands and knees. There was a constant thudding of ax-heads on wooden pegs, a sharper ringing of hammers on heavy nails; curt orders broke through the clatter of boards and the persistent crunch of saws. Still, there seemed to be no confusion. Each man knew exactly what to do, for, though houses are by no means invariably raised in this fashion on the prairie, some of the men had learned their work in the bush of Michigan, and some in Ontario. When the hammers clattered more furiously and the skeleton became partly clothed, there were cries of encouragement from the women.
"Jake will have that plate pinned down before your spikes are in!" called one.
"Are you going to let the boys from across the creek get ahead of you?" protested another.
A third ran forward with both hands full of nails.
"They're catching you up!" she shouted. "Get them in! I can't have the laugh put on my man."
Husband, sweetheart and brother responded gallantly, and the pace became faster still, until at length Thorne shouted and waved his hand.
"We're through. It's time to quit," he said. "You've done 'most twice as much as I ever figured on your getting in to-night."
They had worked willingly, but it was evident that most of them were as willing to stop. Hammers, saws, and axes were flung together, and the men stood in groups, hot and gasping, in the early dusk. Thorne walked up to their leader.
"I can only say 'Thank you!' though that doesn't go far enough," he said. "What makes the thing seem more to me is that I haven't the least call on one of you."
There was a murmur of denial and then they waited until he turned to Mrs. Farquhar, though he addressed the company generally.
"Now," he invited, "I'll ask you to come in and look at my place."
He moved on ahead with Mrs. Farquhar, while the others fell in behind; but it seemed that the selection he had made did not satisfy all of them, for there was a laugh when somebody cried:
"She has got a good man already! It isn't a square deal!"
Then, and how it came about Alison was never sure, though she had a suspicion that her employer must have connived at it, Mrs. Farquhar either moved or was quietly pushed aside, and she and Thorne were left to cross the threshold together at the head of the company. This appeared to please his guests, for there was further laughter when another voice cried:
"It's the first time. Didn't they teach you manners in the old country, Mavy? What's the matter with giving her your arm?"
Alison was conscious of a certain embarrassment, but she moved on quietly and shot one swift glance at Thorne. He was looking up at the beams above him, of which she was glad, for she was wondering whether the others attached any particular significance to the fact that she was the first woman to enter his new house with him. Dismissing the question as troublesome, she glanced about her and saw the roof framing cutting black against the soft blue of the night overhead. The house, she supposed, would eventually contain four rooms, two on the ground floor and two above, and though only the principal supports had been placed in position yet, she once more wondered how the man and his companions had accomplished so much.
"What you have done is really astonishing!" she exclaimed. "I suppose you had everything ready, but even then you are not a carpenter or a builder."
Thorne laughed.
"The fact that I can sell patent medicines to people who haven't the least use for them ought to be a guaranty of my ability to do anything in reason."
"He's not quite right," interposed Farquhar, appearing from behind them. "In a general way, the man who's smart at business is good at nothing else. Most of those who are couldn't hammer a nail in. Anyway, Mavy hasn't the least bit of the true commercial instinct in him."
"Haven't I?" Thorne appealed to Mrs. Farquhar. "Is there another man round here who could start off for a month's drive and sell out most of a wagonload of mirrors and gramophones?"
"No," laughed Mrs. Farquhar; "I don't think there is; but that's not quite the point. The proof of commercial ability lies not in the sales but in the margin after them, and you never seemed to get much richer by your efforts. You don't sell your things because you're a smart business man, but because the boys like you."
The rest had evidently heard her, for there were cries of assent, and Alison was conscious of a little thrill of sympathy when Thorne turned to his other guests.
"I should be a proud man if I were quite convinced that that is right."
They assured him of it, and there was no doubt about their sincerity. A few minutes later they trooped out again, when somebody announced that supper was ready. There were neither chairs nor tables, and though the dew was falling they sat down on the grass, while a full moon that had sailed half-way up the heavens poured down a silver light on them. The crockery proved insufficient, and husbands and wives or sweethearts shared each other's cups, but they made an astonishing feast, for the inhabitants of that land eat with the same strenuous vigor with which they work and live.
In the meanwhile Alison became interested in watching the women. They were not very numerous, and one and all were dressed in garments that were obviously the work of their own fingers. They were not bronzed like the men, and even in the moonlight it struck her that their faces lacked the delicate bloom of the average Englishwoman's skin. Their hands were hard, and in most cases reddened; but for all that there was a brightness in their eyes and an optimistic cheerfulness in their manner which she fancied would hardly have characterized such an assembly in the old country.
Then she noticed that one young woman sat at Thorne's side not far away, and that they seemed to be talking confidentially. She could not be sure that they had not one cup between them, and this possibility irritated her. The girl, she confessed, was not ungraceful, although slighter and generally straighter in figure than most young Englishwomen, and she had rather fine hair. It shone lustrously in the moonlight, and there were golden gleams in it. There was also no doubt that she had fine eyes. Alison could think of no reason why Thorne should not talk to whom he liked, but she was, in spite of this, not pleased with what she had noticed.
After a while somebody tuned a fiddle, and when they began dancing on the grass, Alison realized that most of them danced very well. Thorne led her out once, but he seemed preoccupied, and soon afterward he and the girl she had already noticed once more drew apart from the rest. Alison watched them sitting out two dances in the shadow of the house, and she felt curious as to what they had to say to each other. As a matter of fact, Thorne was looking at his companion very thoughtfully just then.
"Lucy," he said, "I'm afraid what Jake has done is going to get him into trouble."
"I tried to make him see that, but he said as they'd seized his homestead he couldn't stay here, and he allowed that, one way or another, he'd paid off all he owed," the girl replied. "Nevis put up all kinds of charges on him and bled him dry the past few years."
"Of course he did," assented Thorne. "Still, that's not likely to count for a great deal in his favor. The trouble is that they could jail him for selling off those cattle after he got notice of foreclosure. What made him do it?"
Lucy looked down.
"You may not have heard that we were to have been married most three years ago, but my father said Jake must wipe off his mortgage first. When he died he left us nothing but the teams and implements, and mother and I tried to run the place with a hired man, but we've been going back ever since, and Jake was getting deeper in debt all the while."
Thorne made a sign of sympathy.
"Now that Nevis has shut down on him, I suppose he's going away to work on the new branch line until he can get hold of another place farther West and send for you."
"Yes," returned Lucy slowly, "now you understand the thing, or, anyway, most of it. Only – " and she looked up at him with appealing eyes – "Jake hasn't got very far yet, and we had word that the police troopers are out after him."
"Where is he?"
Lucy turned and pointed toward the bluff.
"Yonder."
Thorne started, but he sat still again, rather grim in face, and his companion went on:
"He hasn't a horse. He got out in a hurry with no provisions, and if he went into the settlement for some it would put the troopers on to his trail." She laid a hand on Thorne's arm. "Mavy, you're sure not going to let them get him."
"If I'd a grain of sense that's just what I would do; as I haven't, I suppose I must try to get him off. Well, it would be better for several reasons that Jake shouldn't see me, but if you'll stuff a basket with eatables I'll quietly drive a horse round toward the bluff. While you're getting the things together I'll have another dance."
He led out a flushed matron, and when at length he left her breathless, only Alison and one other person saw him slip away over the edge of the hollow through which the creek flowed. There was something in the way he moved that aroused Alison's curiosity, and she walked forward a few yards until she reached the crest of the slope, from which she saw him saddle one of the two hobbled horses that browsed apart from the rest. She wondered why he did so, but it was some relief to notice that the girl he had spoken to was not with him, and when he moved on again toward the bluff she turned back to where the others were.
He reappeared a few minutes later and claimed a dance, which she gave him, and some time had passed when a drumming of hoofs grew rapidly louder and two shadowy figures materialized out of the prairie. Then the music stopped as a couple of mounted police drew bridle in front of the astonished guests. One who carried a carbine across his saddle threw up his hand commandingly.
"Is Jake Winthrop here?" he asked.
"No," answered Thorne, who strode forward; "he certainly is not, Corporal Slaney."
"Have you seen him to-night?"
"I haven't," was the quiet answer.
"Then," said the corporal, "you may be surprised to hear that he was seen heading for this bluff two or three hours ago, and that we struck his trail where he crossed the creek not a mile back."
He turned in his saddle and looked at the others.
"Can you give me any information?"
Their faces were clear in the moonlight, and Alison felt that they at least had nothing to conceal; but the corporal did not look quite satisfied with the assurances they offered him. Addressing two or three, one after another, he interrogated them sharply.
"I'll have to trouble you to lead up your horses, boys," he said at length.
They did it with some grumbling, and when the corporal was convinced that not a beast was missing, he turned to Thorne.
"You keep a team here, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," replied Thorne carelessly, though he had dreaded this question.
The corporal swung round and looked at his companion, who had quietly slipped away for a few minutes when they first rode in.
"There's one beast hobbled by the creek," announced the trooper. "I can see no sign of the other."
The corporal looked at Thorne.
"Do you feel like making any explanation?"
"No. If you have anything against me I'll leave you to prove it."
The corporal then turned to one of the guests.
"You rode in. Where did you put your saddle?"
"On the ground with the rest."
"Can you produce it?"
"No," admitted the man; "I may as well allow that I can't, if the trooper has been round counting them."
The corporal looked at him steadily.
"Well," he said, "what we have to do first of all is to pick up Winthrop's trail. It's quite likely we'll have a word for Thorne and you later."
He spoke to his companion and they rode out across the prairie. When they disappeared, Thorne called to the fiddler to strike up another tune, and the dance went on again.