Читать книгу The Mistress of Bonaventure - Harold Bindloss - Страница 7

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It was a hot morning of early summer when I rode up the low rise to my house at Gaspard's Trail. A few willows straggled behind one side of it, but otherwise it rose unsheltered from the wind-swept plain, which, after a transitory flush of greenness, had grown dusty white again. I had been in the saddle since sunrise, when the dewy freshness had infused cheerfulness and vigor into my blood, but now it was with a feeling of dejection I reined in my horse and sat still, looking about me.

The air was as clear as crystal, so that the birches far off on the western horizon cut sharply against the blue. All around the rest of the circle ran an almost unbroken sweep of white and gray, streaked in one place by the dust of alkali rolling up from a strip of bitter water, which flashed like polished steel. Long plow-furrows stretched across the foreground, but even these had been baked by pitiless sunshine to the same monotony of color, and it was well I had not sown the whole of them, for sparse, sickly blades rose in the wake of the harrows where tall wheat should have been. Behind these stood the square log dwelling and straggling outbuildings of logs and sod, all of a depressing ugliness, while two shapeless yellow mounds, blazing under the sunshine, represented the strawpile granaries. There was no touch of verdure in all the picture, for it had been a dry season, which boded ill for me.

Presently a horse and a rider, whose uniform was whitened by the fibrous dust, swung out of a shallow ravine—or coulée, as we called them—and Trooper Cotton cantered towards me. "Hotter than ever, and I suppose that accounts for your downcast appearance," he said. "I've never seen weather like it. Even the gophers are dead."

"It grows sickening; but you are wrong in one respect," I answered ruefully. "All the gophers in the country have collected around my grain and wells. As they fall in after every hearty meal of wheat, we have been drinking them. You are just in time for breakfast, and I'll be glad of your company. One overlooks a good deal when things are going well, but the sordid monotony of these surroundings palls on one now and then."

"You are not the only man who feels it," said the trooper, while a temporary shadow crossed his face. "You have been to Bonaventure too often, Ormesby. Of course, it's delightful to get into touch with things one has almost forgotten, but I don't know that it's wise for a poor man, which is, perhaps, why I allowed Haldane to take me in last night. You, however, hardly come into the same category."

"I shall soon, unless there's a change in the weather," I answered with a frown. "But come in, and tell me what Haldane—or his daughters—said to you."

"I didn't see much of Miss Haldane," said Cotton, as we rode on together. "Of course, she's the embodiment of all a woman of that kind should be; but I can't help feeling it's a hospitable duty when she talks to me. You see I've forgotten most of the little I used to know, and she is, with all respect, uncomfortably superior to an average individual."

I was not pleased with Trooper Cotton, but did not tell him so. "Presumably you find Miss Lucille understands you better?" I answered, with a trace of ill-humor.

The lad looked straight at me. "I'm not responsible for the weather, Ormesby," he said, a trifle stiffly. "Still, since you have put it so, it's my opinion that Miss Lucille Haldane would understand anybody. She has the gift of making you feel it also. To change the subject, however, I was over warning Bryan about his fireguard furrows, and yours hardly seem in accordance with the order."

I laughed, and said nothing further until a man in a big straw hat appeared in the doorway. "Who's that?" asked Cotton, drawing his bridle.

"Foster Lane," I answered. "He came over yesterday."

"Ah!" said the trooper, pulling out his watch. "On reflection, perhaps I had better not come in. I am due at the Cree reserve by ten, and, as my horse is a little lame, I don't want to press him. This time you will excuse me."

His excuse was certainly lame, as I could see little the matter with the horse; and, being short of temper that morning, I answered sharply: "I won't press you; but is it a coincidence that you remember this only when you recognize Lane?"

Trooper Cotton, who was frank by nature and a poor diplomatist, looked uneasy. "I don't want to offend you, Ormesby, but one must draw the line somewhere, and I will not sit down with that man," he said. "I know he's your guest, but you would not let me back out gracefully, and, if it's not impertinent, I'll add that I'm sorry he is."

"I congratulate you on being able to draw lines, but just now I myself cannot afford to be particular," I answered dryly; and when, with a feeble apology, Cotton rode away, it cost me an effort to greet the other man civilly.

As breakfast was ready, he took his place at the table, and glanced at me whimsically. Foster Lane was neither very prepossessing nor distinctly the reverse in appearance. He was stout, and somewhat flabby in face, with straw-colored hair and a thick-lipped mouth; but while his little eyes had a humorous twinkle, there was a suggestion of force as well as cunning about him. He was of middle age, and besides representing a so-styled "development company" was, by profession, land agent, farmers' financier, and mortgage jobber, and, as naturally follows, a usurer.

"Say, I'm not deaf yet, Ormesby," he commenced, with coarse good-humor. "Particular kind of trooper that one, isn't he? Is he another broken-up British baronet's youngest son, or—because they only raise his kind in the old country—what has the fellow done?"

"He's a friend of mine," I answered. "I never inquired of him. Still, I'm sorry you overheard him."

"That's all right," was the answer. "My hide is a pretty thick one; and one needs such a protection in my business. Give a dog a bad name and you may as well hang him, Rancher Ormesby, although I flatter myself I'm a necessity in a new country. How many struggling ranchers would go under in a dry season but for my assistance; and how many fertile acres now growing the finest wheat would lie waste but for me? Yet, when I ask enough to live on, in return, every loafer without energy or foresight abuses me. It's a very ungrateful world, Ormesby."

Lane chuckled as he wiped his greasy forehead, and paused before he continued: "I've been thinking all night about carrying over the loan you mentioned, and though money's scarce just now, this is my suggestion. I'll let you have three-fourths of its present appraised value on Crane Valley, and you can then clear Gaspard's Trail, and handle a working balance. I'd sooner do that than carry over—see?"

I set down my coffee cup because I did not see. I had expected he would have exacted increased interest on the loan due for repayment, and interest in Western Canada is always very high; but it seemed curious that he should wish to change one mortgage for another. It also struck me that if, in case I failed to make repayment, Crane Valley would be valuable to him, it should be worth at least as much to me.

"That would not suit me," I said.

"No?" and Lane spoke slowly, rather as one asking a question than with a hint of menace. "Feel more like letting me foreclose on you?"

"You could not do that, because I should pay you off," I said. "I could do it, though there's no use denying that it would cripple me just now. As of course you know, whatever I could realize on at present, when everybody is short of money and trade at a standstill, should bring twice as much next season. That is why I wish the loan to run on."

"Well!" And Lane helped himself before he answered. "In that case, I'll have to tax you an extra ten per cent. It seems high, but no bank would look at encumbered property or a half-developed place like Crane Valley. Take it, or leave it, at six months' date. That would give you time to sell your fat stock and realize on your harvest."

I fancied there was a covert sneer in the last words, because I had faint hope of any harvest, and answered accordingly. "It seems extortionate, but even so, should pay me better than sacrificing now."

"Money's scarce," said Lane suavely. "I'm going on to Lawrence's, and will send you in the papers. Lend me as good a horse as you have for a day or two."

I did not like the man's tone, and the request was too much like an order; but I made no further comment; though a load seemed lifted from me when he rode away, and I started with my foreman to haul home prairie hay. It was fiercely hot, and thick dust rolled about our light wagon, while each low rise, cut off as it were from the bare levels, floated against the horizon. The glare tired one's vision, and, half-closing my aching eyes, I sank into a reverie. For eight long years I had toiled late and early, taxing the strength of mind and body to the utmost. I had also prospered, and lured on by a dream, first dreamed in England, I grew more ambitious, breaking new land and extending my herds with borrowed capital. That had also paid me until a bad season came, and when both grain and cattle failed, Lane became a menace to my prosperity. It was a bare life I and my foreman lived, for every dollar hardly won was entrusted in some shape to the kindly earth again, and no cent wasted on comforts, much less luxuries; but I had seldom time to miss either of them, and it was not until Haldane brought his daughters to Bonaventure that I saw what a man with means and leisure might make of his life. Then came the reaction, and there were days when I grew sick of the drudgery and heavy physical strain; but still, spurred on alternately by hope and fear, I relaxed no effort.

Now, artificial grasses are seldom sown on the prairie where usually the natural product grows only a few inches high, and as building logs are scarce, implements are often kept just where they last were used. It was therefore necessary to seek hay worth cutting in a dried-out slough, or swamp, and next to find the mower, which might lie anywhere within a radius of four miles or so. We came upon them both together, the mower lying on its side, red with rust, amid a stretch of waist-high grass. The latter was harsh and wiry, heavy-scented with wild peppermint, and made ready for us by the sun.

There were, however, preliminary difficulties, and I had worked myself into a state of exasperation before the rusty machine could be induced to run. After a vigorous hammering and the reckless use of oil the pair of horses were at last just able to haul it, groaning vehemently, through the dried-up swamp. I was stripped almost to the skin by this time, the dust that rose in clouds turned to mire upon my dripping cheeks and about my eyes, while bloodthirsty winged creatures hovered round my head.

"This," said Foreman Thorn, as he wiped the red specks from his face and hands, "is going to be a great country. We can raise the finest insects on the wide earth already. The last time I was down to Traverse a man came along from somewhere with a gospel tent, and from what he said there wasn't much chance for anyone to raise cattle. He'd socked it to us tolerable for half-an-hour at least, when Tompson's Charlie gets up and asks him: 'Did you ever break half-thawn sod with oxen?' 'No, my man; but this interruption is unseemly,' says he. 'It's not a conundrum,' says Charlie. 'Did you ever sleep in a mosquito muskeg or cut hay in a dried-out slough?' and the preacher seeing we all wanted an answer, shakes his head. 'Then you start in and try, and find out that there are times when a man must talk or bust, before you worry us,' says Charlie. But who's coming along now?"

I had been too busy to pay much attention to the narrative or to notice a rattle of wheels, and I looked up only when a wagon was drawn up beside the slough. A smooth-shaven man, with something familiar about his face, sat on the driving-seat smiling down at me.

"Good-morning, Rancher Ormesby. Wanting any little pictures of yourself to send home to friends in the old country?" he said, pointing to what looked like the lens of a camera projecting through the canvas behind him. "I'll take you for half-a-dollar, as you are, if you'll give me the right to sell enlargements as a prairie study."

The accent was hardly what one might have expected from one of the traveling adventurers who at intervals wandered across the country, and I looked at the speaker with a puzzled air. "I have no time to spare for fooling, and don't generally parade half-naked before either the public or my civilized friends," I said.

"Some people look best that way," answered the other, regarding me critically; whereupon Thorn turned round and grinned. "The team and tall grass would make an effective background. Stand by inside there, Edmond. It's really not a bad model of a bare throat and torso, and as I don't know that your face is the best of you, the profile with a shadow on it would do—just so! Say, I wonder did you know those old canvas overalls drawn in by the leggings are picturesque and become you? There—I'm much obliged to you."

A faint click roused me from the state of motionless astonishment his sheer impudence produced, and when I strode forward Thorn's grin of amusement changed to one of expectancy. "You don't want any hair-restorer, apparently, though I've some of the best in the Dominion at a dollar the bottle; but I could give you a salve for the complexion," continued the traveler, and I stopped suddenly when about to demand the destruction of the negative or demolish his camera.

"Good heavens, Boone! Is it you; and what is the meaning of this mummery?" I asked, staring at him more amazed than ever.

"Just now I'm called Adams, if you please," said the other, holding out his hand. "I hadn't an opportunity for thanking you for your forbearance when we met at Bonaventure, but I shall not readily forget it. This is not exactly mummery. It provides me with a living, and suits my purpose. I could not resist the temptation of trying to discover whether you recognized me, or whether I was playing my part artistically."

"Are you not taking a big risk, and why don't you exploit a safer district?" I asked; and the man smiled as he answered: "I don't think there's a settler around here who would betray me even if he guessed my identity, and the troopers never got a good look at me. I live two or three hundred miles east, you see, and the loss of a beard and mustache alters any man's appearance considerably. I also have a little business down this way. Have you seen anything of Foster Lane during the last week or two?"

"Yes," I said. "He has just ridden over from my place to Lawrence's, in Crane Valley."

"You have land there, too," said Boone, as though aware of it already; and when I nodded, added: "Then if you are wise you will see that devil does not get his claws on it. I presume you are not above taking a hint from me?"

I looked straight at him. "I know very little of you except that there is a warrant out for your arrest, and I am not addicted to taking advice from strangers."

Boone returned my gaze steadily without resentment, and I had time to take note of him. He was a tall, spare, sinewy man, deeply bronzed like most of us; but now that he had, as it were, cast off all pertaining to the traveling pedlar, there was an indefinite something in his speech and manner which could hardly have been acquired on the prairie. He did not look much over thirty, but his forehead was seamed, and from other signs one might have fancied he was a man with a painful history. Then he flicked the dust off his jean garments with the whip, and laughed a little.

"I am an Englishman, Rancher Ormesby, and, needless to say, so are you. We are not a superfluously civil people, and certain national characteristics betray you. I fancy we shall be better acquainted, and, that being so, feel prompted to tell you a story which, after what passed at Bonaventure, you perhaps have a right to know. You will stop a while for lunch, anyway, and if you have no objections I will take mine along with you."

I could see no reasonable objection to this, and presently we sat together under the wagon for the sake of coolness, while, when the mower ceased its rattle, the dust once more settled down upon the slough. It was almost too hot to eat; there was no breath of wind, and the glare of the sun-scorched prairie grew blinding.

"I should not wonder if you took most kindly to indirect advice, and there is a moral to this story," said Boone, when I lit my pipe. "Some years ago a disappointed man, who knew a little about land and horses, came out from the old country to farm on the prairie, bringing with him a woman used hitherto to the smoother side of life. He saw it was a good land and took hold with energy, believing the luck had turned at last, while the woman helped him gallantly. For a time all went well with them, but the loneliness and hardship proved too much for the woman, whose strength was of the spirit and not of the body, and she commenced to droop and pine. She made no complaint, but her eyes lost their brightness, and she grew worn and thin, while the man grew troubled. She had already given up very much for him. He saw his neighbors prospering on borrowed capital, and, for the times were good, determined to risk sowing a double acreage. That meant comfort instead of privation if all went well, and, toiling late and early, he sowed hope for a brighter future along with the grain. So far it is not an uncommon story."

I nodded, when the speaker, pausing, stared somberly towards the horizon, for since that English visit I also had staked all I hoped for in the future on the chances of the seasons.

"The luck went against him," the narrator continued. "Harvest frost, drought, and summer hail followed in succession, and when the borrowed money melted the man who held the mortgage foreclosed. He was within his rights in this, but he went further, for while there were men in that district who would, out of kindliness or as a speculation, have bought up the settler's possessions at fair prices, the usurer had his grasp also on them, and when a hint was sent them they did nothing. Therefore the auction was a fraud and robbery, and all was bought up by a confederate for much less than its value. There was enough to pay the loan off—although the interest had almost done so already—but not enough to meet the iniquitous additions; and the farmer went out ruined on to Government land with a few head of stock a richer man he had once done a service to gave him; but the woman sickened in the sod hovel he built. There was no doctor within a hundred miles, and the farmer had scarcely a dollar to buy her necessaries. Even then the usurer had not done with him. He entered proceedings to claim the few head of cattle for balance of the twice-paid debt. The farmer could not defend himself; somebody took money for willful perjury to evade a clause of the homestead exemptions, and the usurer got his order. The woman lay very ill when he came with a band of desperadoes to seize the cattle. They threatened violence; a fracas followed, and the farmer's hands were, for once, unsteady on the rifle he did not mean to use, for when a drunken cowboy would have ransacked his dwelling the trigger yielded prematurely, and the usurer was carried off with a bullet through his leg. The woman died, and was buried on a lonely rise of the prairie; and the man rode out with hatred in his heart and a price upon his head. You should know the rest of the story—but the sequel is to follow. It was not without an effort or a motive I told it you."

I stretched out my hand impulsively towards the speaker. "It is appreciated. I need not ask one name, but the other——"

"Is Foster Lane; and in due time he shall pay in full for all."

Boone's voice, which had grown a trifle husky, sank with the last words to a deeper tone, and the sinewy right hand he raised for a moment fell heavily, tight-clenched, upon his knee. He said nothing further for a while, but I felt that if ever the day of reckoning came one might be sorry for Foster Lane.

Presently he shrugged his shoulders and rose abruptly. "I have a case of pomade to sell the Swedes over yonder, and if my luck is good, some photographs to take," he said, resuming his former manner. "I presume you wouldn't care to decorate your house with tin-framed oleographs of German manufacture. I have a selection, all of the usual ugliness. Whatever happens, one must eat, you know. Well, Lane's gone into Crane Valley, and it happens I'm going that way, too. This, I hope, is the beginning of an acquaintance, Ormesby."

He sold Thorn a bottle of some infallible elixir before he climbed into his tented wagon, and left me troubled as he jolted away across the prairie. One thing, however, I was resolved upon, and that was to pay off Foster Lane at the earliest opportunity. By parting with my best stock at a heavy sacrifice it seemed just possible to accomplish it.