COLONEL BARRINGTON IS CONVINCED
It was not until early morning that Courthorne awakened from the stupor
he sank into soon after Winston conveyed him into his homestead.
First, however, he asked for a little food, and ate it with apparent
difficulty. When Winston came in he looked up from the bed where he
lay, with the dust still white upon his clothing, and his face showed
gray and haggard in the creeping light.
"I'm feeling a trifle better now," he said; "still, I scarcely fancy I
could get up just yet. I gave you a little surprise last night?"
Winston nodded. "You did. Of course, I knew how much your promise was
worth, but in view of the risks you ran, I had not expected you to turn
up at the Grange."
"The risks!" said Courthorne, with an unpleasant smile.
"Yes," said Winston wearily, "I have a good deal on hand I would like
to finish here and it will not take me long, but I am quite prepared to
give myself up now, if it is necessary."
Courthorne laughed. "I don't think you need, and it wouldn't be wise.
You see, even if you made out your innocence, which you couldn't do,
you rendered yourself an accessory by not denouncing me long ago. I
fancy we can come to an understanding which would be pleasanter to both
of us."
"The difficulty," said Winston, "is that an understanding is useless
when made with a man who never keeps his word."
"Well," said Courthorne dryly, "we shall gain nothing by paying each
other compliments, and whether you believe it or otherwise, it was not
by intention I turned up at the Grange. I was coming here from a place
west of the settlement, and you can see that I have been ill if you
look at me. I counted too much on my strength, couldn't find a
homestead where I could get anything to eat, and the rest may be
accounted for by the execrable brandy I had with me. Any way, the
horse threw me and made off, and after lying under some willows a good
deal of the day, I dragged myself along until I saw a house."
"That," said Winston, "is beside the question. What do you want of me?
Money in all probability. Well, you will not get it."
"I'm afraid I'm scarcely fit for a discussion now," said Courthorne.
"The fact is, it hurts me to talk, and there's an aggressiveness about
you which isn't pleasant to a badly-shaken man. Wait until this
evening, but there is no necessity for you to ride to the outpost
before you have heard me."
"I'm not sure it would be advisable to leave you here," said Winston
dryly.
Courthorne smiled ironically. "Use your eyes. Would any one expect me
to get up and indulge in a fresh folly? Leave me a little brandy--I
need it--and go about your work. You'll certainly find me here when
you want me."
Winston, glancing at the man's face, considered this very probable, and
went out. He found his cook, who could be trusted, and said to him,
"The man yonder is tolerably sick, and you'll let him have a little
brandy and something to eat when he asks for it. Still, you'll bring
the decanter away with you, and lock him in whenever you go out."
The man nodded, and making a hasty breakfast, Winston, who had business
at several outlying farms, mounted and rode away. It was evening
before he returned, and found Courthorne lying in a big chair with a
cigar in his hand, languidly debonair but apparently ill. His face was
curiously pallid, and his eyes dimmer than they had been, but there was
a sardonic twinkle in them.
"You take a look at the decanter," said the man, who went up with
Winston, carrying a lamp. "He's been wanting brandy all the time, but
it doesn't seem to have muddled him."
Winston dismissed the man and sat down in front of Courthorne.
"Well?" he said.
Courthorne laughed. "You ought to be a witty man, though one would
scarcely charge you with that. You surmised correctly this morning.
It is money I want."
"You had my answer."
"Of course. Still, I don't want very much in the meanwhile, and you
haven't heard what led up to the demand, or why I came back to you.
You are evidently not curious, but I'm going to tell you. Soon after I
left you, I fell very sick, and lay in the saloon of a little desolate
settlement for days. The place was suffocating, and the wind blew the
alkali dust in. They had only horrible brandy, and bitter water to
drink it with, and I lay there on my back, panting, with the flies
crawling over me. I knew if I stayed any longer it would finish me,
and when there came a merciful cool day I got myself into the saddle
and started off to find you. I don't quite know how I made the
journey, and during a good deal of it I couldn't see the prairie, but I
knew you would feel there was an obligation on you to do something for
me. Of course, I could put it differently."
Winston had as little liking for Courthorne as he had ever had, but he
remembered the time when he had lain very sick in his lonely log hut.
He also remembered that everything he now held belonged to this man.
"You made the bargain," he said, less decisively.
Courthorne nodded. "Still, I fancy one of the conditions could be
modified. Now, if I wait for another three months, I may be dead
before the reckoning comes, and while that probably wouldn't grieve
you, I could, when it appeared advisable, send for a magistrate and
make a desposition."
"You could," said Winston. "I have, however, something of the same
kind in contemplation."
Courthorne smiled curiously. "I don't know that it will be necessary.
Carry me on until you have sold your crop, and then make a reasonable
offer, and it's probable you may still keep what you have at
Silverdale. To be quite frank, I've a notion that my time in this
world is tolerably limited, and I want a last taste of all it has to
offer a man of my capacities before I leave it. One is a long while
dead, you know."
Winston nodded, for he understood. He had also during the grim cares
of the lean years known the fierce longing for one deep draught of the
wine of pleasure, whatever it afterwards cost him.
"It was that which induced you to look for a little relaxation at the
settlement at my expense," he said. "A trifle paltry, wasn't it?"
Courthorne laughed. "It seems you don't know me yet. That was a
frolic, indulged in out of humor, for your benefit. You see, your role
demanded a good deal more ability than you ever displayed in it, and it
did not seem fitting that a very puritanical and priggish person should
pose as me at Silverdale. The little affair was the one touch of
verisimilitude about the thing. No doubt my worthy connections are
grieving over your lapse."
"My sense of humor had never much chance of developing," said Winston
grimly. "What is the matter with you?"
"Pulmonary hemorrhage!" said Courthorne. "Perhaps it was born in me,
but I never had much trouble until after that night in the snow at the
river. Would you care to hear about it? We're not fond of each other,
but after the steer-drivers I've been herding with, it's a relief to
talk to a man of moderate intelligence."
"Go on," said Winston.
"Well," said Courthorne, "when the trooper was close behind me, my
horse went through the ice, but somehow I crawled out. We were almost
across the river, and it was snowing fast, while I had a fancy that I
might have saved the horse, but, as the troopers would probably have
seen a mounted man, I let him go. The stream sucked him under, and,
though you may not believe it, I felt very mean when I saw nothing but
the hole in the ice. Then, as the troopers didn't seem inclined to
cross, I went on through the snow, and, as it happened, blundered
across Jardine's old shanty. There was still a little prairie hay in
the place, and I lay in it until morning, dragging fresh armfuls around
me as I burnt it in the stove. Did you ever spend a night, wet
through, in a place that was ten to twenty under freezing?"
"Yes," said Winston dryly. "I have done it twice."
"Well," said Courthorne, "I fancy that night narrowed in my life for
me, but I made out across the prairie in the morning, and as we had a
good many friends up and down the country, one of them took care of me."
Winston sat silent a while. The story had held his attention, and the
frankness of the man who lay panting a little in his chair had its
effect on him. There was no sound from the prairie, and the house was
very still.
"Why did you kill Shannon?" he asked, at length.
"Is any one quite sure of his motives?" said Courthorne. "The lad had
done something which was difficult to forgive him, but I think I would
have let him go if he hadn't recognized me. The world is tolerably
good to the man who has no scruples, you see, and I took all it offered
me, while it did not seem fitting that a clod of a trooper without
capacity for enjoyment, or much more sensibility than the beast he
rode, should put an end to all my opportunities. Still, it was only
when he tried to warn his comrades he threw his last chance away."
Winston shivered a little at the dispassionate brutality of the speech,
and then checked the anger that came upon him.
"Fate, or my own folly, has put it out of my power to denounce you
without abandoning what I have set my heart upon, and after all it is
not my business," he said. "I will give you five hundred dollars and
you can go to Chicago or Montreal, and consult a specialist. If the
money is exhausted before I send for you, I will pay your hotel bills,
but every dollar will be deducted when we come to the reckoning."
Courthorne laughed a little. "You had better make it seven fifty.
Five hundred dollars will not go very far with me."
"Then you will have to husband them," said Winston dryly. "I am paying
you at a rate agreed upon for the use of your land and small bank
balance handed me, and want all of it. The rent is a fair one in face
of the fact that a good deal of the farm consisted of virgin prairie,
which can be had from the Government for nothing."
He said nothing further, and soon after he went out Courthorne went to
sleep, but Winston sat by an open window with a burned-out cigar in his
hand staring at the prairie while the night wore through, until he rose
with a shiver in the chill of early morning to commence his task again.
A few days later he saw Courthorne safely into a sleeping car with a
ticket for Chicago in his pocket, and felt that a load had been lifted
off his shoulders when the train rolled out of the little prairie
station. Another week had passed when, riding home one evening, he
stopped at the Grange, and as it happened found Maud Barrington alone.
She received him without any visible restraint, but he realized that
all that had passed at their last meeting was to be tacitly ignored.
"Has your visitor recovered yet?" she asked.
"So far as to leave my place, and I was not anxious to keep him," said
Winston, with a little laugh. "I am sorry he disturbed you."
Maud Barrington seemed thoughtful. "I scarcely think the man was to
blame."
"No?" said Winston.
The girl looked at him curiously, and shook her head. "No," she said.
"I heard my uncle's explanation, but it was not convincing. I saw the
man's face."
It was several seconds before Winston answered, and then he took the
bold course.
"Well?" he said.
Maud Barrington made a curious little gesture. "I knew I had seen it
before at the bridge, but that was not all. It was vaguely familiar,
and I felt I ought to know it. It reminded me of somebody."
"Of me?" and Winston laughed.
"No. There was a resemblance, but it was very superficial. That man's
face had little in common with yours."
"These faint likenesses are not unusual," said Winston, and once more
Maud Barrington looked at him steadily.
"No," she said, "of course not. Well, we will conclude that my fancies
ran away with me, and be practical. What is wheat doing just now?"
"Rising still," said Winston, and regretted the alacrity with which he
had seized the opportunity of changing the topic when he saw that it
had not escaped the notice of his companion. "You and I and a few
others will be rich this year."
"Yes, but I am afraid some of the rest will find it has only further
anxieties for them."
"I fancy," said Winston, "you are thinking of one."
Maud Barrington nodded. "Yes. I am sorry for him."
"Then it would please you if I tried to straighten out things for him?
It would be difficult, but I believe it could be accomplished."
Maud Barrington's eyes were grateful, but there was something that
Winston could not fathom behind her smile.
"If you undertook it. One could almost believe you had the wonderful
lamp," she said.
Winston smiled somewhat dryly. "Then all its virtues will be tested
to-night, and I had better make a commencement while I have the
courage. Colonel Barrington is in?"
Maud Barrington went with him to the door, and then laid her hand a
moment on his arm. "Lance," she said, with a little tremor in her
voice, "if there was a time when our distrust hurt you, it has recoiled
upon our heads. You have returned it with a splendid generosity."
Winston could not trust himself to answer, but walked straight to
Barrington's room, and finding the door open, went quietly in. The
head of the Silverdale settlement was sitting at a littered table in
front of a shaded lamp, and the light that fell upon it showed the care
in his face. It grew a trifle grimmer when he saw the younger man.
"Will you sit down?" he said. "I have been looking for a visit from
you for some little time. It would have been more fitting had you made
it earlier."
Winston nodded as he took a chair. "I fancy I understand you, but I
have nothing that you expect to hear to tell you, sir."
"That," said Barrington, "is unfortunate. Now, it is not my business
to pose as a censor of the conduct of any man here, except when it
affects the community, but their friends have sent out a good many
young English lads, some of whom have not been too discreet in the old
country, to me. They did not do so solely that I might teach them
farming. A charge of that kind is no light responsibility, and I look
for assistance from the men who have almost as large a stake as I have
in the prosperity of Silverdale."
"Have you ever seen me do anything you could consider prejudicial to
it?" asked Winston.
"I have not," said Colonel Barrington.
"And it was by her own wish Miss Barrington, who, I fancy, is seldom
mistaken, asked me to the Grange?"
"It is a good plea," said Barrington. "I cannot question anything my
sister does."
"Then we will let it pass, though I am afraid you will consider what I
am going to ask a further presumption. You have forward wheat to
deliver, and find it difficult to obtain it?"
Barrington's smile was somewhat grim. "In both cases you have surmised
correctly."
Winston nodded. "Still, it is not mere inquisitiveness, sir. I fancy
I am the only man at Silverdale who can understand your difficulties,
and, what is more to the point, suggest a means of obviating them. You
still expect to buy at lower prices before the time to make delivery
comes?"
Again the care crept into Barrington's face, and he sat silent for
almost a minute. Then he said, very slowly, "I feel that I should
resent the question, but I will answer. It is what I hope to do."
"Well," said Winston, "I am afraid you will find prices higher still.
There is very little wheat in Minnesota this year, and what there was
in Dakota was cut down by hail. Millers in St. Paul and Minneapolis
are anxious already, and there is talk of a big corner in Chicago.
Nobody is offering grain, while you know what land lies fallow in
Manitoba, and the activity of their brokers shows the fears of Winnipeg
millers with contracts on hand. This is not my opinion alone. I can
convince you from the papers and market reports I see before you."
Barrington could not controvert the unpleasant truth he was still
endeavoring to shut his eyes to. "The demand from the East may
slacken," he said.
Winston shook his head. "Russia can give them nothing. There was a
failure in the Indian monsoon, and South American crops were small.
Now, I am going to take a further liberty. How much are you short?"
Barrington was never sure why he told him, but he was hard pressed
then, and there was a quiet forcefulness about the younger man that had
its effect on him.
"That," he said, holding out a document, "is the one contract I have
not covered."
Winston glanced at it. "The quantity is small. Still, money is very
scarce and bank interest almost extortionate just now."
Barrington flushed a trifle, and there was anger in his face. He knew
the fact that his loss on this sale should cause him anxiety was
significant, and that Winston had surmised the condition of his
finances tolerably correctly.
"Have you not gone quite far enough?" he said.
Winston nodded. "I fancy I need ask no more, sir. You can scarcely
buy the wheat, and the banks will advance nothing further on what you
have to offer at Silverdale. It would be perilous to put yourself in
the hands of a mortgage broker."
Barrington stood up very grim and straight, and there were not many men
at Silverdale who would have met his gaze.
"Your content is a little too apparent, but I can still resent an
impertinence," he said. "Are my affairs your business?"
"Sit down, sir," said Winston. "I fancy they are, and had it not been
necessary, I would not have ventured so far. You have done much for
Silverdale, and it has cost you a good deal, while it seems to me that
every man here has a duty to the head of the settlement. I am,
however, not going to urge that point, but have, as you know, a
propensity for taking risks. I can't help it. It was probably born in
me. Now, I will take that contract up for you."
Barrington gazed at him in bewildered astonishment.
But you would lose on it heavily. How could you overcome a difficulty
that is too great for me?"
"Well," said Winston, with a little smile, "it seems I have some
ability in dealing with these affairs."
Barrington did not answer for a while, and when he spoke it was slowly.
"You have a wonderful capacity for making any one believe in you."
"That is not the point," said Winston. "If you will let me have the
contract, or, and it comes to the same thing, buy the wheat it calls
for, and if advisable sell as much again, exactly as I tell you, at my
risk and expense, I shall get what I want out of it. My affairs are a
trifle complicated and it would take some little time to make you
understand how this would suit me. In the meanwhile you can give me a
mere I O U for the difference between what you sold at, and the price
today, to be paid without interest and whenever it suits you. It isn't
very formal, but you will have to trust me."
Barrington moved twice up and down the room before he turned to the
younger man. "Lance," he said, "when you first came here, any deal of
this kind between us would have been out of the question. Now, it is
only your due to tell you that I have been wrong from the beginning,
and you have a good deal to forgive."
"I think we need not go into that," said Winston, with a little smile.
"This is a business deal, and if it hadn't suited me I would not have
made it."
He went out in another few minutes with a little strip of paper, and
just before he left the Grange placed it in Maud Barrington's hands.
"You will not ask any questions, but if ever Colonel Barrington is not
kind to you, you can show him that," he said.
He had gone in another moment, but the girl, comprehending dimly what
he had done, stood still, staring at the paper with a warmth in her
cheeks and a mistiness in her eyes.