THE SUMMONS
Mrs. Hastings was standing beside her wagon in the gathering dusk when
Agatha and Wyllard joined her. After Wyllard had helped the two women
into the vehicle she looked down at him severely as she gathered up the
reins.
"By this time Allen will have had to put the kiddies to bed," she said.
"Christina, as you might have borne in mind, goes over to Branstock's
every evening. Anyway, you'll drive across and see him about that team
as soon as you can; come to supper."
"I'll try," promised Wyllard with a certain hesitation. Mrs. Hastings
turned to Agatha as they drove away.
"Why did he look at you before he answered me?" she asked, and laughed,
for there was just light enough left to show the color in the girl's
cheek. "Well," she added, "I told Allen he was sure to be the first."
Agatha looked at her in evident bewilderment, but she nodded. "Yes," she
said, "of course, I knew it would come. Everybody knows by now that you
have fallen out with Gregory."
"But, as I told you, I haven't fallen out with him."
"You certainly haven't married him, and if you have said 'No' to Harry
Wyllard because you would sooner take Gregory after all, you're a
singularly unwise young woman. Anyway, you'll have to meet Harry when he
comes to supper. Allen's fond of a talk with him; I can't have him kept
away."
"I was a little afraid of that," replied Agatha slowly. "What makes the
situation more difficult is that he told me he would ask me again."
Mrs. Hastings was thoughtful for a moment. "In that case he will in all
probability do it; but I don't think you need feel diffident about
meeting him, especially as you can't help it. He'll wait and say nothing
until he considers it advisable."
She changed the subject, and talked about other matters until they
reached the homestead.
As the weeks went by Agatha found that what Mrs. Hastings had told her
was warranted. Wyllard drove over every now and then, but she was
reassured by his attitude. He greeted her with the quiet cordiality
which had hitherto characterized him, and it went a long way towards
allaying the embarrassment of which she was conscious at first. By and
by, however, she felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the
disturbing possibility that he might at some future time once more adopt
the role of lover.
In the meanwhile, she realized that despite the efforts she made to
think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory. She
had two other offers of marriage before the wheat had shot up a hand's
breadth above the rich black loam. This was a matter of regret to her,
and, though Mrs. Hastings assured her that the "boys" would get over it,
she was rather shocked to hear that one of them had shortly afterwards
involved himself in difficulties by creating a disturbance in Winnipeg.
The wheat, however, was growing tall when, at Mrs. Hastings' request,
Agatha drove over to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when they reached the
homestead, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together, the
girl wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff
and towards the slough, which had almost dried up now, and it was with a
curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard
had said to her there. Through all her thoughts ran a regret that she
had not met him four years earlier.
Regrets, however, were useless, and in order to get rid of them she
walked more briskly up a low rise of ground where the grass was already
turning white again, over the crest of the hill, and down the side to
another hollow. The prairie rolled in wide undulations as the sea does
when the swell of a distant gale underruns a glassy calm. Agatha had
grown fond of the prairie. Its clear skies and fresh breezes had brought
the color to her cheeks and given her composure, though there were times
when the knowledge that she was no nearer a decision in regard to
Gregory weighed heavily upon her. She had seen very little of him and he
had not been effusive then. She could not guess what his feelings might
be, but it had been a relief to her when he had ridden away from the
home of the Hastingses. For a while after she saw him he faded to an
unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind.
On this afternoon when Agatha tried to put out of her mind the
disturbing reflections that came to her as she walked, the prairie
stretched away before her, gleaming in the sunlight under a vast sweep
of cloudless blue. She was half-way down the long slope when a clash and
tinkle reached her, and she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the
hollow where there had been another slough, which evidently had dried up
weeks before. As men and horses were moving amid the dust she supposed
that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows longer in such places
than it does upon the levels. She went on another half-mile, and then
sat down, for she had walked farther than she had intended to go. She
could now see the men more clearly, and, though it was fiercely hot,
they were evidently working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing
and bare brown arms appeared among the white and ocher tinting of the
grass that seemed charged with brightness, and the sounds of their
activity came up to her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of
the mowers, the crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of wagon
wheels.
A great mound of gleaming grass, overhanging two half-seen horses, moved
out of the slough, and she watched it draw nearer until she made out
Wyllard sitting in the front of it. She sat still until he pulled the
team up close beside her and looked down with a smile.
"It's almost two miles to the homestead. If you could manage to climb up
I could make you a comfortable place," he said.
Agatha held her hands up with one foot upon a spoke of the wheels as
Wyllard leaned down, and next moment she was lifted upwards. She felt
his supporting hand upon her waist. Then she found herself standing upon
a narrow ledge, clutching at the hay while he tore out several big
armfuls of it and flung it back upon the top of the load.
[Illustration: "THE NEXT MOMENT SHE WAS LIFTED UPWARDS" (Page 146)]
"Now," he announced, "I guess you'll find that a snug enough nest."
She sank into it with a sense of physical satisfaction. The grass was
soft and warm; it was scented with the aromatic odors of wild
peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath her limbs.
Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she fancied that she
had seen a sudden sign of feeling in Wyllard's face when he had held her
for a moment on the ledge of the wagon. She glanced at him and was
reassured. He was looking straight before him with unwavering eyes, and
his face was set and quiet. Neither of them spoke until the team moved
on. Then he turned to her.
"You won't be jolted much," he assured her. "They've been at it since
four o'clock this morning."
"That," replied Agatha, "must mean that you rose at three."
Wyllard smiled. "As a matter of fact, it was half-past two. There was no
dew last night, and we started early. I've several extra teams this
year, and there's a good deal of hay to cut. Of course, we have to get
it in the sloughs or any damp place where it's long. We don't sow grass,
and we have no meadows like those there are in England."
Agatha understood that he meant to talk about matters of no particular
consequence, as he usually did. She had noticed a vein of poetic
imagination in him, and his idea that she had been with him through the
snow of the lonely ranges and the gloom of the great forests of the
Pacific slope appealed to her. Since the day when he told her that he
loved her he had spoken only of commonplace subjects. Sitting close
beside him in the hay she decided to let him talk about his farm, while
she listened half-absently.
"But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven't
you?" she asked, going back to the subject of his early rising.
"I had, but he left me three or four days ago. It's a pity, since I've
taken up rather more than I can handle this year."
"Then why didn't you keep him?"
"Martial was a little mulish, and I'm afraid I'm troubled with a
shortness of temper now and then. We had a difference of opinion as to
the best way to drive the mower into the slough, and he didn't seem to
recognize that he should have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys
were standing by, I had to insist upon his getting out of the saddle."
He had turned a little further towards her, and Agatha noticed that
there was a bruise upon one side of his face. After what he had just
told her the sight of it jarred upon her, though she would not admit
that there was any reason why it should. She could not deny that on the
prairie a resort to physical force might be warranted by the lack of any
other remedy, but it hurt her to think of him as descending to an open
brawl with one of his men.
Then it occurred to her that the other man in all probability had
suffered more, and this brought her a certain sense of satisfaction
which she admitted was more or less barbarous. She had made it clear
that Wyllard was nothing to her, but she could not help watching him as
he lay back against the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face,
which, though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring. The
dusty shirt and old blue trousers accentuated the long, clean lines of
his figure, and she realized with a faint sense of anger that his mere
physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, stirred her heart. She
recognized a feeling to be judiciously checked. After all, in spite of
her denial of it, she was endowed with power to love as women close to
nature love, with an emotion all-encompassing and not subject to cold
reasoning.
They talked of trifles of no great consequence, for both of them were
conscious of the necessity for a certain reticence; and when they
reached the homestead Agatha joined Mrs. Hastings, while Wyllard pitched
the hay off the wagon. He came in to supper presently with about half of
his men, and they all sat down together in the long, barely furnished
room. Wyllard was unusually animated. He drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout
of whimsical badinage, which was interrupted when a beat of hoofs rose
from the prairie.
"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants," remarked Wyllard. "I
certainly don't expect anybody."
The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for
the sod was hard and dry. It stopped suddenly and Agatha saw Wyllard
start as a man came into the room. He was a little, thick-set man with a
seamed and tanned face. He was dressed in rather old blue serge, and he
walked as if he were a seaman.
The stranger stood still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set
tight. A thrill of apprehension ran through Agatha, for she felt that
she knew what this stranger's errand must be.
Wyllard rose and walked towards the man with outstretched hand.
"Sit right down and have some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden
in from the railroad," he said. "We'll talk afterwards."
The stranger nodded. "I'm from Vancouver," he announced, "had quite a
lot of trouble tracing you."
He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take the newcomer's
horse, went back to his seat, but he was very quiet during the remainder
of the meal. When supper was finished he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse
him, and leading the stranger into a smaller room, pulled out two chairs
and laid a cigar on the table.
"Now you can get ahead," he said laconically.
The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed
it to his companion.
"That's what I came to bring you," he remarked.
Wyllard's eyes grew grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip of
willow which grows close up to the limits of eternal ice, and it bore a
rude representation of the British ensign union down, which signifies
"In distress." Besides this there were one or two indecipherable words
scratched on it, and three common names rather more clearly cut. Wyllard
recognized every one of them.
"How did you get it?" he asked, in tense suspense.
The seaman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of paper
cut from a chart. He flattened the paper out on the table, and it
showed, as Wyllard had expected, a strip of the Kamtchatkan coast.
"I guess I needn't tell you where that is," the seaman said, as he
pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it
to me. He was up there late last season well over on the western side. A
northeasterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of
their ship. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a
jury mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and
that being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail.
Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept
heading them from the east she sidled away down south through the
Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which
explains why Dunton fetched Vancouver only a week ago."
"But the message?"
"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove to not far off
the icy beach, and a Husky came down on them in some kind of boat."
"A Husky?" repeated Wyllard, who knew the seaman meant an Esquimau.
"That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a
Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and he
had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They
couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message from
three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out how
long ago."
"Dunton tried for them?"
"How could he? His vessel would hardly look at the wind, and the ice was
piling up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two
with the floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and
blew him out."
The stranger had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose with a quick
gesture of deep anxiety, stood leaning on his chairback. His face was
grave.
"That," he said, "must have been eight or nine months ago."
"It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the
boat."
"It's unthinkable," declared Wyllard. "The thing can't be true."
The seaman gravely produced a little common metal watch made in
Connecticut, and worth five or six dollars. Opening it, he pointed to a
name scratched inside it.
"You can't get over that," he said simply.
Wyllard strode up and down the room. When he sat down again with a
clenched hand laid upon the table he and the seaman looked at each other
steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a significant
gesture.
"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?"
"I'm going for them."
The sailor smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start right
away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner."
He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair.
"Well," he answered, "I'm going with you, but you'll have to buy my
ticket to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty
with a blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me.
Sealing's not what is used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later.
I won't keep you from your friends."
Wyllard left the sailor and though he did not find Mrs. Hastings
immediately, he came upon Agatha sitting outside the house. She glanced
at his face when he sat down beside her.
"Ah," she said, "you have had the summons."
Wyllard nodded. "Yes," he replied, "that man was the skipper of a
schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three men
are."
He told her what he had heard, and the girl was conscious of mingled
admiration and fear, the fear of losing him from her everyday life.
"You are going up there to search for them?" she asked. "Won't it cost
you a great deal?"
She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his
expression was resolute.
"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my money is locked up
in this crop, and there's need of constant watchfulness and effort until
the last bushel's hauled in to the elevators. It probably sounds
egotistical, but now I've got rid of Martial I can't put my hand on any
one as fit to see the thing through as I am. Still, I have to go without
delay. What else could I do?"
"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia or your
authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?"
Wyllard shook his head. "It wouldn't be wise to give them an
opportunity. For one thing, they've had enough of sealing cases, and
that isn't astonishing. We'll say they applied for the persons of three
British subjects who are supposed to be living somewhere in Russian
Asia--and for that matter I couldn't be sure that two of them aren't
Americans--the Russians naturally inquire what the men were doing there.
The answer is that they were poaching for the Russians' seals. Then the
affair on the beach comes up, and there's a big claim for compensation
and trouble all round. It seems to me the last thing those men--they're
practically outlaws--would desire would be to have a Russian expedition
sent up on their trail. They would want to lie hidden until they could
somehow get off again."
"But how have they lived up there? The whole land is frozen, isn't it,
most of the year?" she questioned.
"They had sealing rifles, and the Koriaks make out farther north in
their roofed-in pits. One can live on seal and walrus meat and blubber."
Agatha shivered. "But they had no tents, nor furs, nor blankets. It's
horrible to imagine it."
"Yes," agreed Wyllard gravely; "that's why I'm going for them."
Agatha sat still a moment. She could realize the magnitude of the
sacrifice that he was making, and in some degree the hazards that he
must face. It appealed to her with an overwhelming force, but she was
also conscious of a strange dismay. She turned to him with a flush of
color in her cheeks and her eyes shining.
"Oh," she said, "it's splendid."
Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them."