"Say!" the giant ejaculated, shocked. "You don't reckon she'd take it
that way?"
Carter judiciously considered the question, and after mature
deliberation replied: "I've seen breach-of-promise suits swing on less.
But I reckon you're safe enough--if you explain your motive."
The giant sighed his relief. "Did you ever give a gal anything,
Carter?"
"Did I? Enough to stock a farm if 'twas collected."
"How'd you go about it?"
"Why, jes' give it to her. You're bigger'n she is; kain't hurt you."
"Oh, Lordy, I don't know." Bender sighed again. "It's surprising what
them small things kin do to you. Say, there's a good feller. You take
it in?"
But Carter sternly refused, and five minutes later Bender might have
been seen, stern and rigid from the desperate nature of his enterprise,
sitting on one of Helen's soap-boxes. In the hour he talked with
Morrill, he never once relaxed a death-grip on his hat. His eye never
once strayed towards Helen, and it was late that evening when she found
the kerchief under his box.
It speaks well for her that she did not laugh at its gorgeous colors;
and her smile as she scribbled a little note of thanks that was
delivered by Carter was far too tender for ridicule. Truly she was
learning.
*VI*
*THE SHADOW*
Down a half-mile furrow that gleamed wetly black against the dull brown
of "broken" prairie, Carter followed his oxen. He was "back-setting,"
deep-ploughing the sod that had lain rotting through the summer. For
October, it was hot; an acrid odor, ammoniacal from his sweating beasts,
mingled with the tang of the soil and the strong hay scent of scorching
prairies. Summer was making a desperate spurt from winter's chill
advance, and, as though realizing it, bird, beast, insects, as well as
men, went busily about their business. The warm air was freighted with
the boom of bees, vibrated to the whir of darting prairie-chicken, the
yells of distant ploughmen; for, stimulated by an answer from the
railroad gods, the settlers were striving to add to their wheat acreage.
"In certain contingencies," the general manager answered the petition,
"we will build through Silver Creek next summer."
Judging by a remark dropped to his third assistant, "uncertain" would
have expressed his meaning more correctly. "A little hope won't hurt
them, and ought to go a long way in settling up the country.
By-the-way, who signed these statistics? Cummings? That wasn't the
tall Yankee who spoke so well. He never would have sent in such a
jumble."
Blissfully ignorant, however, of railroad methods, the settlers
interpreted the guarded answer as an iron promise. Forgetting Carter's
part in getting them a hearing, Cummings and his fellows plumed
themselves upon their diplomacy, took to themselves the credit--in which
they evidenced the secret malevolence that a rural community holds
against the man who rises above its intellectual level. Human
imperfection is invariable through the ages. Plebeian Athens ostracised
the just Aristides. Similarly, Silver Creek evidenced its petty
jealousy against its best brains. "Oh, he's too damned smart!" it
exclaimed, whenever Carter was mentioned for the council, school
trustee, or other public office, nor paused to consider its logic.
Slowly, with heavy gaspings, the oxen stopped at the end of the furrow,
and as he sat down on the plough while they rested, Carter blessed the
happy chance that had caused him to "break" clear down to Morrill's
boundary. Helen sat in the shade of her cabin, thus affording him
delicious glimpses of a scarlet mouth, slightly pursed over her sewing,
a loose curl that glowed like a golden bar amid the creamy shadows of
her neck, the palpitant life of the feminine figure. Small wonder that
he lingered on that turn.
"It's that warm," he hypocritically remarked, fanning himself, "those
poor critters' tongues are hanging to their knees."
The girl bowed to hide her smile. "They always seem to tire at this end
of the field."
"Discerning brutes," he answered, nowise nonplussed.