I. The Park Lands
II. A Deputation
III. The Trail
IV. The Coyote Snaps
V. Jenny
VI. The Shadow
VII. Mr. Flynn Steps into the Breach
VIII. When April Smiled Again
IX. The Devil
X. Friction
XI. The Frost
XII. The Break
XIII. The Camp
XIV. The Red Teamster
XV. Travail
XVI. A House-party
XVII. --And Its Finale
XVIII. The Persistence of the Established
XIX. The Wages of Sin
XX. --Is Death
XXI. Persecution
XXII. Denunciation
XXIII. The Charivari
XXIV. Without the Pale
XXV. The Sunken Grade
XXVI. Winnipeg
XXVII. The Nature of the Cinch
XXVIII. The Strike
XXIX. The Bluff
XXX. Fire
XXXI. Wherein the Fates Substitute a Change of Bill
XXXII. The Trail Again
*THE SETTLER*
*I*
*THE PARK LANDS*
The clip of a cutting axe flushed a heron from the bosom of a reedy lake
and sent him soaring in slow spirals until, at the zenith of his flight,
he overlooked a vast champaign. Far to the south a yellow streak marked
the scorched prairies of southern Manitoba; eastward and north a spruce
forest draped the land in a mantle of gloom; while to the west the woods
were thrown with a scattering hand over a vast expanse of rolling
prairie. These were the Park Lands of the Fertile Belt--a beautiful
country, rich, fat-soiled, rank with flowers and herbage, once the
hunting-ground of Cree and Ojibway, but now passed to the sterner race
whose lonely farmsteads were strewn over the face of the land. These
presented a deadly likeness. Each had its log-house, its huge tent of
firewood upreared against next winter's drift, and the same yellow
strawstacks dotted their fenceless fields. One other thing, too, they
had in common--though this did not lie to the eye of the heron--a
universal mortgage, legacy of the recent boom, covered all.
At the flap of the great bird's wing a man stepped from the timber and
stood watching him soar. He was a tall fellow, lean as a greyhound,
flat-flanked, in color neither dark nor fair. His eyes were deep-set
and looked out from a face that was burned to the color of a brick. His
nose was straight and large, cheeks well hollowed; the face would have
been stern but for the humor that lurked about the mouth. Taken
together, the man was an excellent specimen of what he was--a young
American of the settler type.
"Gone plumb out of sight," he muttered, rubbing his dazzled eyes. "An'
he wasn't no spring chicken. Time to feed, I reckon."
A few steps carried him to his team, a rangy yoke of steers which were
tied in the shade. Having fed them, he returned to his work and chopped
steadily until, towards evening, his wagon was loaded with poplar rails.
Then hitching, he mounted his load and "hawed" and "geed" his way
through the forest. As he came out on the open prairie the metallic
rattle of a mower travelled down the wind. Stopping, he listened, while
a shadow deepened his tan.
"Comes from Morrill's big slough," he muttered, whipping up the oxen.
"Who'll it be?"
Morrill, his near neighbor, was sick in bed, and the rattle could only
mean that some one was trespassing on his hay rights--or rather the
privilege which he claimed as such--for trespass such as he suspected
was simply the outward sign of a change in the settlement's condition.
In the beginning the first-comers had found an abundance of natural
fodder growing in the sloughs, where, for lack of a water-shed, the
spring thaws stored flood-waters. There was plenty then for all. But
with thicker settlement anarchy ensued. New neighbors grabbed sloughs
on unsettled lands, which old-timers had sealed to themselves, and so
forced them to steal from one another. Morrill and the man on the wagon
had "hayed" together for the last three seasons, which fact explained
the significance he attached to the rattle of the alien mower.
"It's Hines!" he muttered when, five minutes later, he sighted the mower
from the crown of a roll. "The son of a gun!"
The man was running the first swath around a mile-long slough which lay
in the trough of two great rolls. It was a pretty piece of hay, thick,
rank, and so long that one might have tied two spears together across a
horse's back. Indeed, when the settler rattled down the bank and
stopped his oxen they were hidden to the horns, which fact accounted for
Hines not seeing them until his team brought against the load.
"Hullo!" he cried, startled. "Didn't expect to see you, Carter!"
"Don't reckon you did," the settler replied. The shadow was now gone
from his face. Cool, cheerful, unconcerned, he sat in the mower's path,
swinging an easy leg.
Hines gave him an uneasy glance. "Been cutting poles?" he asked,
affecting nonchalance.
"Yes. Corral needed raising a couple of rails," Carter carelessly
answered.
Encouraged, Hines made an observation about the crops which the other
answered, and so the talk drifted on until Hines, feeling that he had
established a footing, said, "Well, I must be moving." But as he backed
his horses to drive around, the steers lurched forward and again blocked
the way.
"Pretty cut of hay this." Carter ignored the other's savage glance.
"Ought to turn Morrill thirty tons, don't you reckon?"
Hines shuffled uneasily in the mower seat. "I didn't allow," he
growled, "as Morrill would want hay this year?"
"No?" The monosyllable was subtly sarcastic.
Hines flushed. "What kin a dead man do with hay?" he snarled.
"Is Morrill dead?"
"No! But Doc Ellis tol' me at Stinkin' Water as he couldn't live
through winter." He almost yelled it; opposition was galling his savage
temper.
"So you thought you'd beat the funeral?" Carter jeered. "Savin' man!
Well--he ain't dead yet?"
The challenge was unmistakable. But though brutal, ferocious as a wolf,
Hines shared the animal's preferences for an easy prey. Corner him and
he would turn, snarling, but his was the temper which takes no chances
with an equal force. Now he lived up to his tradition. Viciously
setting his teeth, he awaited the other's action.
But Carter was in no hurry. Leaning back on his load, he sprawled at
ease, turning his eyes to the fathomless vault above. Time crept on.
The oxen ceased puffing and cropped the grass about them, the horses
switched impatience of the flies. The sun dropped and hung like a split
orange athwart the horizon, the hollows blued with shadows, which
presently climbed the knolls and extinguished their golden lights. Soon
the last red ray kindled the forest, silver specks dusted the darkening
sky, only the west blushed with the afterglow.
Hines tired first. "Quitting-time," he growled, backing his horses.
"Took you a long time to find it out," Carter drawled, giving the words
a significance the other had not intended. "But grace is always waiting
for the sinner. So long! But say!" he called after the disappearing
figure, "if you hear any one inquiring after this slough, you can tell
them as Merrill's goin' to cut it to-morrow."
Whipping up his oxen, he swung up the bank and headed south on Merrill's
hay trail. Fresh from their rest, the steers stepped out to a lively
rattling of chains, and in a quarter of an hour stopped of their own
volition before his cabin.
As Carter entered, the sick man leaned on his elbow and looked up at his
magnificent inches: he loomed like a giant in the gloom of the cabin.
There was envy in the glance but no spite. It was the look the sick
bestow on the rudely healthy. For Carter's physique was a constant
reminder to Morrill of his own lost strength--he had been a college
athlete, strong and well set-up, the kind of man to whom women render
the homage of a second lingering glance. Three years ago, inherited
lung trouble had driven him from the Eastern city in which he had laid
the foundation of a pretty law practice, but the dry air and open life
of the central plains had not checked the ravages of the disease.
Still, though but the wraith of his former self, he had kept a brave
face, and now he cheerfully answered Carter's greeting.
"Cast your eye over this," he said, holding out an open letter. "It's
from my sister Helen."
Handling it as tenderly as though it were a feather from the wing of
love, Carter held the letter to the lamp. It was written in a small,
feminine hand which took all manner of flourishes unto itself as it ran
along the lines. Carter regarded them with a look in which surprise
struggled with respect. "Oh, shore!" he laughed at last. "Them curly
cues is mighty pretty, Bert, but it would take too long for me to cipher
'em out. What's it all about?"
"She's coming out. Arrives in Lone Tree day after to-morrow."
"Phew!" Carter whistled. "Short notice."
He thoughtfully stroked his chin. Lone Tree lay sixty miles to the
south and the Eastern mail-train came in at noon. But this was not the
cause of his worry. His ponies could cover the distance within the time.
But there was Hines. If he did not try the slough, others might.
Morrill mistook his silence.
"I hate to ask you to go," he said, hesitatingly. "You've done so much
for me."
"Done nothing," the big man laughed. "'Twasn't that. Jes' now I warned
Hines off that big slough o' yours, an' I intended to begin cutting it
to-morrow morning."