AN UNEXPECTED DISASTER
Several weeks had slipped away since the evening Nevis drove out of
Graham's Bluff in search of Corporal Slaney, and there had been no news
of Winthrop, when Thorne plodded across the prairie beside his team,
hauling in a load of dressed lumber for the new creamery. Hunter had
contracted with him to convey the necessary material from the railroad,
and in the interval between sowing and reaping Thorne had found the
arrangement a profitable one. He had a use for every dollar he could
raise, and all through the heat of the summer he had worked double
tides.
It was blazing hot that afternoon, and the wide plain lay scorching
under a pitiless glare. Thorne was not sorry when the Farquhar homestead
with its encircling sea of wheat took shape ahead. The trail led past
it, and, though time was precious to him then, he felt that he could put
up with an hour or two's delay in case Mrs. Farquhar invited him to wait
for supper. It was now a fortnight since he had seen Alison.
The wooden buildings rose very slowly, though he several times urged the
jaded horses. They had made a long haul that day, and the man, who had
trudged at their head since early morning, was almost as weary. On the
odd days that they had spent in the stable he had toiled arduously on
his house and half-finished barn, beginning with the dawn and ceasing at
dark. Now he was grimed with dust and dripping with perspiration, and a
tantalizing cloud of flies hovered over him. All this was a decided
change from driving a few hours daily in a lightly loaded wagon, but
what at first had appeared an almost unexplainable liking for the
constant effort had grown upon him. He would not have abandoned it now
had that course been open to him.
By degrees the sea of grain grew nearer, its edge rising in a clean-cut
ridge above the flat white sweep of dazzling plain. It had changed from
green to pale yellow in the past few weeks, but there were here and
there vivid coppery gleams in it. It promised a bounteous yield when
thrashing was over, and he thought of his own splendid crop with the
clean pride of accomplishment. Then he noticed that a buggy was
approaching from the opposite direction, and when he reached the
homestead a man in white shirt and store clothes had just pulled up his
horse. He shook hands with Thorne, who had already recognized him as a
dealer in implements and general farming supplies from the railroad
settlement.
"Glad I met you. It will save my going on to your place," he said.
Thorne noticed that the man, who was usually optimistic and cheerful,
looked depressed.
"Did you want to see me about something, Grantly?" he asked.
"Yes. To cut it short, I'm going out of business."
The full significance of this announcement did not immediately dawn upon
Thorne.
"I expect most of the boys will regret it as much as I do," he said.
"One could rely on anything sent out from your store, and there's no
doubt that you have always treated us liberally."
"That's just the trouble. I've been too blamed easy with some of you. If
I'd kept a tighter hand on the folks who owed me money it's quite likely
I'd have been able to meet my bills."
"Is it as bad as that?" Thorne inquired with genuine sympathy.
Grantly turned to Farquhar, who had joined them in the meanwhile.
"The fact is, things have been going against me the last three years.
Nevis has been steadily cutting into my trade; but I held on somehow,
expecting that a record harvest or a high market would put me straight.
I'd have been able to get some of my money in again then. In the
meanwhile I was getting behind with the makers who supplied me, and now
one or two of them have pulled me up; I guess it was the hail that
decided them. It's a private compromise, but the point is that Nevis
takes over my liabilities."
Thorne's face suddenly hardened, and Farquhar looked grave.
"It's bad news," said the latter. "Is he paying cash?"
"Part," Grantly answered. "The rest in bills. He has Brand, of Winnipeg,
behind him, and he's good enough. In fact, I believe the man has been
backing Nevis right along." He turned to Thorne. "Anyway, I've got to
give the store up, and you'll have Nevis for a creditor instead of me.
That's really what brought me over. The note you gave me calls for a
good many dollars and it's due very soon."
Thorne endeavored to brace himself after the blow, which had been as
unexpected as it was heavy. He had obtained all his implements and most
of the materials he required for his house-building from Grantly, giving
him a claim upon his possessions as security, in addition to a promise
to pay at a date by which harvest was usually over; but owing to an
exceptionally cold spring, harvest was late that year.
"It was understood that you wouldn't press me if I should be a few weeks
behind," he reminded him.
"That's quite right," Grantly assented. "The trouble is that it was only
a verbal promise, and it won't count for much with Nevis. He's been
after you for some time, and I guess he'll stick to the date on the
note. If you're not ready with the money he'll break you."
Farquhar made a sign of concurrence.
"I'm afraid it's very probable. What are you going to do about it,
Mavy?"
Thorne stood silent for almost a minute, and the bronze faded a little
in his face, which was very grim.
"That note will have to be met. You told Grantly I was to be relied
upon, and I'm not going back on you. It's not my intention to let Nevis
do what he likes with me, either. In a general way, I'd have gone to
Hunter, and I've no doubt that he would have financed me; but that's
quite out of the question now. He has all the trouble he's fit to stand
on his hands already."
"A sure thing," Farquhar agreed.
"Well," Thorne added, "the oats are about ripe, and though I'd rather
they had stood another week or so, I'll put the binder into them at
sunup to-morrow. The wheat should be nearly ready by the time I'm
through, and I'll hire the help I could have borrowed if I had been
able to wait a while. I'll have to let up on the haulage contract and
work right on, almost without stopping, until I can get the thrashers
in; but I'll put the crop on the market before the note is due!"
"You couldn't do it, Mavy, if you worked all night."
Thorne laughed in a harsh fashion.
"Just wait and see! It has to be done! In the meanwhile, please make my
excuses to Mrs. Farquhar for not calling. I must be getting on."
"You can't do anything to-night," Farquhar objected.
"I can ride over to Hall's and get back to my place by sunup with his
team."
He called to his horses, and with a creaking of suddenly tightened
harness the wagon jolted on, but as he passed the door of the homestead
Alison came out. Thorne stopped, while the team slowly plodded forward,
and it seemed to her that there was a striking change in the man.
Nothing in his manner suggested that he had ever regarded life as a
frolic and taken his part in it with careless gaiety. His eyes were very
grave and there was a look she had never seen in them before, while his
face seemed to have set in sharper lines. He looked strangely determined
and forceful; almost, as she thought of it, dominant.
"What is the matter? You are in some trouble?" she exclaimed.
"Yes," said Thorne simply. "Farquhar will no doubt explain the thing.
There's a very tough fight in front of me. I don't think I could have
undertaken it six months ago." He spread out his hands. "It's
unthinkable that I should be beaten!"
Alison felt strangely stirred by something in his voice.
"Then," she urged, "you will have to win! You must; I want you to!"
Thorne looked at her with a gleam in his eyes that set her heart
throbbing painfully fast.
"Now," he laughed, "the thing seems almost easy!"
He turned away after his wagon, and Alison waited until Farquhar came up
with Grantly.
"What has Thorne undertaken?" she asked.
Farquhar smiled.
"I'll try to tell you after supper. In the meanwhile, I can only say
that he seems determined on breaking himself up by attempting a task
that in my opinion is beyond the power of any man on the prairie."
He went into the house with Grantly, and it was an hour or two later
before Alison was able to form a fairly accurate idea of the situation.
Then her heart grew very soft toward Thorne, and she thought of him with
a sense of pride. It was for her sake he had braced himself for this
most unequal fight, and she knew that he meant to win.
In the meanwhile Thorne was urging on his team, and dusk was closing in
when he flung down the lumber from his wagon. After that, he drove
through the soft darkness for two or three hours, and finally roused an
outlying neighbor from his well-earned slumber. The man, descending,
roundly abused him, but became a little mollified when he heard his
story.
"The thing surely can't be done, and just now you can't count on much
help, either. The Ontario boys are only just starting West, and the
first of them will be snapped up before they get to Brandon. Anyway,
I'll come along with you and do what I can." He moved toward a
cupboard. "If you left Farquhar's when you said, you couldn't have got
your supper."
"Now that you mention it," laughed Thorne, "I don't think I did."
His friend set food before him, and an hour later they drove off in the
darkness, leaving Thorne's jaded team behind them. Eventually they
reached his homestead in the early dawn, and Thorne, who had been on
foot most of the time since sunrise on the previous morning, sat down
wearily on the stoop and took out his pipe while he looked about him.
Eager as he was to get to work, he could not begin just yet, for the
night had been clear and cold, and the grain was dripping with the heavy
dew.
He had his back to the house, which was at last almost ready for
habitation, but the half-finished barn and the rude sod stable rose
before him blackly against the growing light. Beyond these, the sweep of
grain stretched back, a darker patch on the shadowy prairie, with
another dusky oblong just discernible on the short grass some distance
away. Determined as he was, his heart sank as he gazed at them. He had
undertaken a task that looked utterly beyond his powers.
Had he been content to begin on his hundred-and-sixty-acre holding on
the scale usual in the case of men with scanty means, he would probably
have had no great trouble in harvesting all the crop he could have
raised; but he had seen enough during his journeyings up and down the
prairie to convince him that there was remarkably little to be made in
this fashion. As a result he had staked boldly, breaking practically all
his land, with hired assistance and the most modern implements that
could be purchased, though this necessitated the borrowing of money. He
had, in addition, secured the use of a neighboring holding, part of
which had been under grain before, from a man who had worked it long
enough to secure his patent and had then discovered that he could earn
considerably more as a subcontractor on a new branch railroad.
In consequence of this, Thorne had a large crop to garner, and very
little time in which to do it, for he was convinced that Nevis would
press for payment immediately the note was due. It could not be met
until the grain was thrashed and sold, and he realized that any delay
would place him in the power of a man who would not fail to make the
utmost use of the opportunity. Besides this, it would render it
impossible for him to obtain any further loans, and he scarcely expected
to finance his operations unassisted for some time yet. It was only
Hunter's guarantee that had made the venture possible, and there was no
doubt in his mind that unless he could satisfy Nevis's claim his career
as a farmer would terminate abruptly before the next month was over.
Then he recalled the months of determined labor he had expended upon the
house and holding, the noonday heat in which he had toiled, and the
chilly dawns when he had gone out, aching all over after a very
insufficient sleep, to begin his task again. Sixteen and often eighteen
hours comprised his working day, and out of them he had spared very few
minutes for cookery. His clothes had gone unmended, and it must be
confessed that he had not infrequently slept in them when he was too
weary to take them off, and that they were by no means regularly washed.
In fact, once or twice when he was about to drive over to the Farquhar
homestead he remembered with a slight shock that it was several days
since he had made any attempt worth mentioning at a toilet. In the
meanwhile, he had grown leaner and harder and browner, while there had
by degrees crept into his face that curious look which one may see now
and then in the faces of monks, highly trained athletes, and even of
those who unconsciously practise asceticism from love of a calling that
makes stern demands on them; a look which, though it does not always
suggest the final triumph of the mind over the body, is never a
characteristic of full-fed, ease-loving men. His eyes were strikingly
clear and unwavering, his weather-darkened skin was singularly clean,
and his whole face had grown, as it were, refined, though the man was as
quickly moved to anger, impatience, or laughter as he had always been.
It would seem that a good many purely human impulses usually survive the
partial subjugation of the flesh, which is, after all, no doubt
fortunate.
He rose stiffly, damp with the dew, when he had smoked one pipe out, and
gazed toward where the sun was rising fiery red above the rim of the
prairie. His expression was very resolute.
"A low dawn, Hall; we'll have all the heat we want by noon," he
commented. "The oats will be drying by the time we're ready with the
team. If you'll look after them I'll oil the binder."
His companion grinned.
"It strikes me the first thing is to set the stove going. Guess if I'm
going to get on a record hustle I want my breakfast."
Thorne frowned impatiently, but he carried an armful of birch billets
into the house, and when half an hour later he called in his companion,
the latter glanced with undisguised disgust at the provisions on the
table and the contents of the frying-pan.
"Well," he ejaculated, "if you can raise steam on that kind of truck, I
most certainly can't. The first of the boys who drives by to the
settlement is going to bring us out something fit to eat, if I have to
pay for it."
"What's the matter with this?" Thorne asked indifferently.
Hall raised a fragment of half-raw pork upon his fork.
"It would be wasting time to tell you, if you can't smell it," he
retorted.
Then he took up a block of bread and banged it down on the table.
"Not a crack in it! You want to bake some more and sell it to the
railroad for locomotive brakes."
Thorne laughed.
"Send for anything you like. Hunter's hired man will probably be going
in."