MAVERICK THORNE
Alison slept soundly that night. The blow had been so heavy and
unexpected that it had deadened her sensibility, and kindly nature had
her way. Besides, the very hard berth she occupied was at least still,
and she was not kept awake by the distressful vibration that had
disturbed her in the Colonist car. Awakening refreshed in the morning,
she sallied out to purchase provisions for the day, and was unpleasantly
astonished at the cost of them. She had yet to learn that a dollar goes
a very little way in a country where rents and wages are high.
Returning to the emigrant quarters which were provided with a
cooking-stove, she made a frugal breakfast, and then after a
conversation with an official who gave her all the information in his
power, she spent the day offering her services at stores and hotels and
offices up and down the city. Nobody, however, seemed to want her. It
was, she learned, a time of general bad trade, for the wheat harvest, on
which that city largely depends, had failed the previous year.
Day followed day with much the same result, until Alison, who never
looked back upon them afterward without a shiver, had at last parted
with most of her slender stock of garments to one of the Jew dealers who
then occupied a row of rickety wooden shacks near the station at
Winnipeg. He gave her remarkably little for them; and one night she sat
down dejectedly in the emigrant quarters to grapple with the crisis. By
and by a girl who had traveled in the same car and had spoken to her now
and then sat down beside her.
"Nothing yet?" she asked.
"No," said Alison wearily; "I have heard of nothing that I could turn my
hands to."
"Then," advised her companion, "you'll just have to do the same as the
rest of us. You're almost as good-looking as I am." She lowered her
voice a little. "I dare say you have noticed that those Norwegians have
gone?"
Alison had noticed that, and also that two or three lean and wiry men
with faces almost blackened by exposure to the frost had been hanging
about the emigrant quarters for a day or two preceding the disappearance
of the girls. The blood crept into her cheeks as she remembered it, but
her companion laughed, somewhat harshly.
"Oh," she explained, "they're married and gone off to farm; but what I
want to tell you is that I'm going to follow their example to-morrow.
It's quite straight. We're to be married in the morning. He says he's
got a nice house, and he looks as if he'd treat me decently." She laid
her hand on Alison's arm, and seemed to hesitate. "A neighbor, another
farmer, came in with him--and he hasn't found anybody yet."
Alison shrank from her, white in face now, with an almost intolerable
sense of disgust, but in another moment or two the blood surged into her
cheeks, and her companion made a half-ashamed gesture.
"Oh, well," she said, "I think you're foolish, but I won't say any more
about it. Besides, I had only a minute or two. Charley's waiting in the
street for me now."
She withdrew somewhat hastily, and Alison sat still, almost too troubled
to be capable of indignation, forcing herself to think. One thing was
becoming clear; she must escape from Winnipeg before the unpleasant
suggestion was made to her again, perhaps by some man in person, and go
on farther West. After all, she had one friend, the one her mother had
persecuted, living somewhere within reach of a station which she had
discovered was situated about three hundred miles down the line, and
Florence might take her in, for a time at least. She decided to set out
and try to find her the next day. Rising with sudden determination, she
walked across to the station to make inquiries about the train, and as
she reached it a man strode up to her. It was evident that he meant to
speak, and as there was just then no official to whom she could appeal,
she drew herself up and faced him resolutely. He was a young man, neatly
dressed in store clothes, though he did not look like an inhabitant of
the city, and he had what she could not help admitting was a pleasant
expression.
"You're Miss Leigh," he said, taking off his wide gray hat, and his
intonation betrayed him to be an Englishman.
"How did you learn my name?" Alison asked chillingly.
"I made inquiries," he confessed. "The fact is, I asked Miss Carstairs
to get me an introduction, and to tell the truth I wasn't very much
astonished when she said you wouldn't hear of it."
Alison recognized now that the man was the one her companion had alluded
to as her prospective husband's neighbor, and for a moment she felt
that she could have struck him. That feeling, however, passed. There was
a hint of deference in his attitude; he met the one indignant glance she
flashed at him, which was somehow reassuring, and since she could not
run away ignominiously she stood her ground.
"That's why I thought I'd make an attempt to plead my cause in person,"
he added.
"What do you want?" Alison asked in desperation, though she was quite
aware that this was giving him a lead.
The man's gesture seemed to beseech her forbearance.
"I'm afraid it will sound rather alarming, but in the first place I'd
better--clear the ground. The plain truth is that I want a wife."
"Oh," cried Alison, "how dare you say this to me!"
"Well," he answered quietly, "the fact that I expected you to look at it
in that way was one of the things that influenced me. A self-respecting
girl with any delicacy of feeling would naturally resent it; but I'm not
sure yet that it's altogether an insult I'm offering you. Let me own
that I've been here some little time, and that I've spent a good deal of
it in watching you." He raised his hand as he saw the indignation in her
eyes. "Give me a minute or two, and then if you think it justified you
can be angry. I want to say just this. We live in a pretty primitive
fashion on our hundred-and-sixty-acre holdings out on the prairie, and
conventions don't count for much with us. What is more to the purpose,
we are forced to make some irregular venture of this kind if we think of
marrying. Now, I have a comparatively decent place about two hundred
miles from here, and my wife would not have to work as hard as you would
certainly have to do in a hotel or store. That's to begin with. To go
on, I don't think I've ever been unkind to any one or any thing, and,
though it must seem a horrible piece of assurance, I said the day I saw
you get out of the train that you were the girl for me. I would do what
I could, everything I could, to make things smooth for you."
Alison felt that, strange as it seemed, she could believe him. The man
did not look as if he would be unkind to any one. What was more, he was
apparently a man of some education.
"Now," he added, "what I should like to do is this. I'd find you
quarters in a decent boarding-house, and just call and take you round to
show you the city for an hour or two each afternoon. I'd try to satisfy
you as to--we'll say my mode of life and character, and you could,
perhaps, form some idea of me. I don't want to form any idea of
you--I've done that already. Then if my offer appears as repugnant as
I'm afraid it does now, I'd try to take my dismissal in good part; and I
think I could find you a post in a creamery on the prairie, if you would
care for it."
He broke off, and Alison wondered at herself while he stood watching her
anxiously. Her anger and disgust had gone. She could see the ludicrous
aspect of the situation, but that was not her clearest impression, for
she felt that this most unconventional stranger was, after all, a man
one could have confidence in. Still, she had not the least intention of
marrying him.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "What you suggest is, however, quite out
of the question."
The man's face fell, and she felt, extraordinary as it seemed, almost
sorry that she had been compelled to hurt him; but once more he took off
his soft hat.
"Well," he said, "I suppose I must accept that, and--though I don't know
if it's a compliment--I shall go back alone. There's just another
matter. If you have any knowledge of business I could have you made
clerk at the creamery."
Urgent as her need was, Alison would not entertain the proposal. She
felt that it would be equally impossible to accept a favor from or to
live near him.
"No," she replied; "it is generous of you, but I am going West
to-morrow."
The man, saying nothing further, turned away, and she thought of him
long afterward with a feeling of half-amused good-will. It was the first
offer of marriage she had ever had, made in a deserted, half-lighted
station by a man to whom she had never spoken until that evening. She
was to learn, however, that the strangeness of any event naturally
depends very largely on what one has been accustomed to, and that one
meets with many things which at least appear remarkable when one
ventures out of the beaten track.
She went on with the west-bound train the next afternoon, and early in
the morning alighted at a wayside station which consisted of one wooden
shanty and a big water-tank. A cluster of little frame houses stood
beneath the huge bulk of two grain elevators beyond the unfenced track,
which ran straight as the crow flies across a bare, white waste of
prairie. As the train sped out along this and grew smaller and smaller
Alison stood forlornly beside the half-empty trunk which contained the
remnant of her few possessions. She had then just two dollars in her
pocket. It was a raw, cold morning, for spring was unusually late that
year, and a bitter wind swept across the desolate waste. In a minute or
two the station-agent came out of the shanty and looked at her with
obvious curiosity.
"I guess you've got off at the right place?" he said in a manner which
made the words seem less of a statement than an inquiry.
Alison asked him if he knew a Mr. Hunter who lived near Graham's Bluff,
and how it was possible to reach his homestead.
"I know Hunter, but the Bluff is quite a way from here," the man
replied. "The boys drive in now and then, and a freighter goes through
with a wagon about once a fortnight."
He saw the girl's face fall, and added, as though something had suddenly
struck him:
"There's a man in the settlement who said he was going that way to-day
or to-morrow, and it's quite likely that he'd drive you over. Guess you
had better ask for Maverick Thorne at the hotel."
Alison thanked him and, crossing the track, made for the rude frame
building he indicated. Her thin boots were very muddy before she reached
it, for there was no semblance of a street and the space between the
houses and elevators was torn up and deeply rutted by wagon wheels. She
now understood why a high plank sidewalk usually ran, as she had
noticed, along the front of the buildings in the smaller prairie towns.
It was with a good deal of diffidence that she walked into the hotel and
entered a long and very barely furnished room which just then was
occupied by a group of men.
Several of them wore ordinary city clothes and were, she supposed,
clerks or storekeepers in the little town; but the rest had
weather-darkened faces and their garments were flecked with sun-dried
mire and stained with soil, while the dilapidated skin coats thrown down
here and there evidently belonged to them. Some were just finishing
breakfast and the others stood lighting their pipes about a big rusty
stove. The place reeked of the smell of cooking and tobacco smoke, and
looked very comfortless with its uncovered walls and roughly boarded
floor. There was, however, no bar in it, and it was consoling to see a
very neat maid gathering up the plates.
"Is Mr. Maverick Thorne here just now?" she asked the girl.
She was unpleasantly conscious that the men had gazed at her with some
astonishment when she walked in, and it was clear that they had heard
her inquiry, because several of them smiled.
"Quit talking, Mavy. Here's a lady asking for you," said one, and a man
who had been surrounded by a laughing group moved toward her.
She glanced at him apprehensively, for after her recent experience she
was signally shy of seeking a favor from any of his kind. He was a tall
man, bronzed and somewhat lean, as most of the inhabitants of the
prairie seemed to be, and the state of his attire was not calculated to
impress a stranger in his favor. His long boots were caked with mire and
the fur was coming off the battered cap he held in one hand; his blue
duck trousers were rent at one knee and a very old jacket hung over his
coarse blue shirt. Still, his face was reassuring and he had whimsical
brown eyes.
"Mr. Thorne?" she said.
The man made her a respectful inclination, which was not what she had
expected.
"At your command," he replied.
She stood silent a moment or two, hesitating, and he watched her
unobtrusively. He saw a jaded girl in a badly creased and somewhat
shabby dress who nevertheless had an air of refinement about her which
he immediately recognized. Her face was delicately pretty and cleanly
cut, though it was weary and a little anxious then, and she had fine
hazel eyes. Still, the red-lipped mouth was somehow determined and there
was a hint of decision of character in the way she looked at him from
under straight-drawn brows. Her hair, as much as he could see of it, was
neither brown nor golden, but of a shade between, and he decided that
the contrast between the warm color in her cheeks and the creamy
whiteness of the rest of her face was a little more marked than usual,
as indeed it was, for Alison was troubled with a very natural
embarrassment just then.
"I want to go to Graham's Bluff," she said. "The man at the station told
me that you were driving there."
He did not answer immediately, and she awaited his reply in tense
anxiety. It was evident that she could not stay where she was, even if
she had been possessed of the means to pay for such rude accommodation
as the place provided, which was not the case. In the meanwhile it
occurred to the man that she looked very forlorn in the big, bare room,
and something in her expression appealed to him. He was, as it happened,
a compassionate person.
"Well," he replied, "I could take you, though as I've a round to make it
will be quite a long drive. I had thought of starting this afternoon,
but we had perhaps better get off in the next hour or so."
He turned to the girl who was gathering up the plates.
"Won't you try to get this lady some breakfast, Kristine?"
The girl said that she would see what she could do, but Alison was not
aware until afterward that it was only due to the fact that the man was
a favorite in the place that food was presently set before her. The
average Westerner gets through his breakfast in about ten minutes; and
as a rule the traveler who arrives at a prairie hotel a few minutes
after a meal is over must wait with what patience he can command until
the next is ready.
In any case, Alison was astonished when porridge and maple syrup, a thin
hard steak and a great bowl of potatoes, besides strong green tea and a
dish of desiccated apricots stewed down to pulp, were laid in front of
her. It was most unlike an English breakfast, but she was to learn that
there is very little difference between any of the three daily meals
served in that country. Its inhabitants, who rise for the most part at
sunup, do not require to be tempted by dainties, which is fortunate,
since they could not by any means obtain them, and in a land where the
liquor prohibition laws are generally applied and men work twelve and
fourteen hours daily, morning appetizers are quite unnecessary.
In the meanwhile Thorne and his companions had disappeared, for which
Alison was thankful, though they left an acrid reek of tobacco smoke
behind them; but when Kristine presently demanded fifty cents she
realized with a fresh pang of anxiety that she had now just a dollar and
a half in her possession, and she scarcely dared contemplate what might
happen if Florence Hunter should not be disposed to welcome her. Besides
this, there was the unpleasant possibility that the man might expect
more than she could pay him for driving her to Graham's Bluff, and it
was with some misgivings that she rose when he appeared an hour later to
intimate that the team was ready.
Going out with him she saw two rough-coated horses apparently
endeavoring to kick in the front of a high, four-wheeled vehicle, until
they desisted and backed it violently into the side of the hotel. There
are various rigs, as they term them--buckboards, sulkies and the humble
bob-sleds--in use in that country, but the favorite one is the narrow,
general-purpose wagon mounted on tall slender wheels, which will carry a
moderate load though light enough to go reasonably fast.
Thorne helped Alison up, and as he swung himself into the vehicle
several loungers hurled laughing questions at him.
"Aren't you going to trade that man the gramophone? You'd get him sure
in half an hour," called one.
"Webster wants a tonic that will fix his wooden leg," cried another; and
a third suggested that a Chinaman in the vicinity was open to purchase
some hair-restorer. Alison did not know then that, probably because he
wears only one tail of it, a Chinaman's hair usually grows without the
least assistance three feet long.
Thorne smiled at them and then, calling to Kristine, who was standing
near the door, he leaned down and handed her a bottle which he took from
an open case.
"I guess you haven't much use for anything of this kind, but that elixir
will make your cheeks bloom like peaches if you rub it in," he informed
her. "I sold some round Stanbury down the line not long ago and there
wasn't an unmarried girl near the place when I next came along."
"There was only two before, and one of them was cross-eyed," said a
grinning man.
Thorne, without answering this, told Alison to hold fast and flicked the
horses with the whip. They plunged forward at a mad gallop, scattering
clods of half-dried mud, and the wagon bounced violently into and out of
the ruts. It seemed to leap into the air when the wheels struck the
rails as they crossed the track, and then Thorne's arms grew rigid and
there was a further kicking and plunging as he pulled the team up
outside the little station shed. A man who appeared from within
condescended to hand Alison's light trunk up, which she did not know
then was a very great favor, and in another moment or two they were
flying out across the white waste of prairie.
It ran dead level, like a frozen sea, to where it met the crystalline
blueness that hung over it, for the grasses which had lain for months in
the grip of the iron frost shone in the sunlight a pale silvery gray.
There was not a trail of smoke or a house on it, only here and there a
formless blur that was in reality a bluff of straggling birches or a
clump of willows, and, to complete the illusion, when Alison looked
around by and by, the houses had sunk down beneath the rim and only the
bulk of the wheat elevators rose up like island crags against the sky.
It was, however, warm at last, and a wonderful fresh breeze which had
the quality of an elixir in it rippled the whitened grass. Alison felt
her heart grow lighter. The vast plain was certainly desolate, but it
had lost its forbidding grimness. It had no limit or boundary; one felt
free out there and cares and apprehensions melted in the sunshine that
flooded it. She began to understand why she had seen no pinched and
pallid faces in this new land. Its inhabitants laughed whole-heartedly,
looked one in the eyes, and walked with a quick, jaunty swing. They
seemed alert, self-confident, optimistic and quaintly whimsical. It was
hard to believe there was not some nook in it that she could fill.
In the meanwhile she was becoming more reassured about her companion.
She decided that his age was twenty-six and that he had a pleasant face.
His eyes were clear and brown and steady, his nose and lips clearly cut,
and there was a suggestive cleanness about his deeply bronzed skin which
was the result of a simple and wholesome life led out in the wind and
the sun. Alison was puzzled, however, by something in both his manner
and his voice that hinted at a careful upbringing and intelligence. It
certainly was not in keeping with his clothes or his profession, which
was apparently that of a pedler. She had already noticed the nerve and
coolness with which he controlled the half-broken team.
"I'm afraid you started before you were quite ready," she said at
length.
The man laughed.
"I might have planted a gramophone on to one of the boys and a few
bottles of general-purpose specifics among the rest. They are"--his eyes
twinkled humorously--"quite harmless. Anyway, I've no doubt I can unload
them on to somebody next time. So far, at least, I haven't any rivals in
this neighborhood."
"Then you sell things?"
"Anything to anybody. If I haven't got what the buyer wants I promise to
bring it next journey, or bewilder him with an oration until he gives
me a dollar for something he has no possible use for. That, however,
isn't a thing you can do very frequently, which is why some folks in my
profession fail disastrously. They can't realize that if you sell a man
what he doesn't want too often he's apt to turn out with a club on the
next occasion." He paused and sighed whimsically. "If I hadn't been
troubled with a conscience I could have been running a store by now.
That is, it must be added, if I had wanted to."
"You find a conscience handicaps you?" Alison inquired, for she was half
amused and half interested in him.
"I'm afraid it does. For instance, I came across a man with a badly
sprained wrist the other day and he offered me two dollars for anything
that would cure it. Now it would have been singularly easy to have
affixed a different label to my unrivaled peach-bloom cosmetic and have
supplied him with a sure-to-heal embrocation. As it was, I got my supper
at his place and recommended cold-water bandages. There was another man
I cured of a broken leg, and I resisted the temptation to brace him up
with hair-restorer."
"What remedy did you use for the broken leg?"
"Splints," said Thorne dryly, "after I'd set it."
"But isn't that a difficult thing? How did you know how to go about it?"
"Oh, I'd seen it done."
"On the prairie?"
"No," replied Thorne, with a rather curious smile; "in an Edinburgh
hospital."
Something in his manner warned her that it might not be judicious to
pursue her inquiries any further, though she was, without exactly
knowing why, a little curious upon the point. It occurred to her that if
he had been a patient in the hospital the injured man would in all
probability not have been treated in his sight, while it seemed somewhat
strange that he should now be peddling patent medicines in Canada had he
been qualifying for his diploma. He, however, said nothing more, and
they drove on in silence for a while.