THE REAPER
The great reaping-machine came swaying over the uneven ground toward
her, along the edge of those glistening acres. A huge arm of iron rose
and fell, catching up the swathes of wheat and flinging them into the
machine, whence they rolled out tied. Six horses harnessed behind
pushed it and a man, perched upon a tiny saddle, steered and
controlled it. The machine was about twenty paces from her when it
came suddenly to a stop. The driver leaped down from his seat. It
seemed to Cynthia that the mechanism must have gone wrong. She
expected to see him bend over a joint or a spring. But he did not
stoop. The moment his feet touched the ground, he ran straight toward
her and very swiftly.
He ran with his head down, and his shoulders bent. It was a heavy rush
rather than a run. Cynthia recoiled. The words of Richard Walton
sprang into her mind, and her hand rose instinctively to her throat.
Could she have forgotten after all to remove the string of pearls? But
she had removed it. And still the man was running toward her. The fear
that she wore the pearls, and the proof that she did not, had followed
so immediately upon his rush that he had as yet covered only half the
ground between them. It was herself he aimed at then. She cast a rapid
glance toward her cart. The Gaucho was leaning down over the opposite
side, and talking to some one who stood by the wheel. A cry would not
bring him to her side in time. She turned, with half a mind to run.
But, though her white skirt reached only to her ankles, it would still
impede her. She turned back and with a beating heart faced him. And a
few feet from her he stopped.
He looked at her, drew a great breath, and cried "Ah!" like a man who
has reached his goal.
"What do you want?" asked Cynthia, and in spite of her efforts her
voice shook.
A South American harvest finds no use for the weak. The man who stood
opposite to her was broad and powerful, with a heavy, coarse face,
burnt to the color of brick by the sun. The sweat streaked it, and the
dirt of many a day clung to it, and it was seamed by exposure. He was
of the men who move from estancia to estancia while the harvest lasts,
working from sunrise to dark, living upon _mate_ tea and roasted
sheep, and earning a pound a day, and thereafter lying soddened in
some den until the last centavo has been squandered. A battered black
hat was pressed low upon his clotted hair; a month's growth of beard
straggled over his chin and cheeks. And his eyes were evil. That, more
than any other quality of the man, Cynthia noticed. Their quick glance
held her. She was terrified.
"What do you want?" she asked a second time, and her voice wavered
still more audibly.
She stood in front of him, her lovely brows, under the big brim of her
straw hat, troubled, and her great eyes wide and alert with fear. She
was in the poise for flight like a startled deer, yet did not dare to
turn to fly. And in the man, as he looked at her, there came a change.
He did not answer her question. But very slowly he smiled, and the
smile was spiteful. He nodded his head at her; a malicious contentment
overspread his face; and from head to heel his eyes inspected her.
They approved her beauty and the simple daintiness of her clothes;
they took note of her slenderness of hand and foot; they remarked the
lines and supple youth of her figure; and through her white frock they
seemed to make sure of the roundness of her limbs. Cynthia grew
suddenly hot with shame. This man was appraising her--nothing less.
Appraising her as if for a market! Her fear dropped from her. She
cried a third time, but with spirit:
"What do you want of me?" and if her voice shook now, it was with a
quiver of indignation.
She heard the thud of a horse's hoofs behind her. The reaper heard it,
too. Without a word, and without any hurry, he turned away from her
and slouched back to his machine. Cynthia's cart the next moment was
driven up to her side. She climbed into it and took the reins. The
encounter had shaken her more than she had thought. She was trembling,
and she drove over the ground quickly, until she saw the slate roof of
the house, flashing like silver, from a clump of dark trees quite
near.
Then she reined in her horse and turned round. Far away at the edge of
the wheat, the man and the machine and the six horses stood out black
like a little toy. The clank and rattle of the iron came to her ears
through the still air, faintly, like the mechanism of a toy. But
Cynthia shivered as she looked back.
"Who is he?" she asked of the old Gaucho. He shrugged his shoulders.
"I do not know him, Senorita. I do not think he was here last year.
They come in herds and go in herds when the corn is stacked."
Up and down, along the glistening line, the man drove his horses and
manipulated his machine. He stopped no more. With each journey a wide
band of wheat went down. Thus he had been working, balanced in his
saddle, since daybreak. So, with but a two hours' rest, he would go
under the burning afternoon sun until darkness came and bade him stop.
To the Gaucho he was one of a herd of men who did the like; for a few
weeks here; then for another few weeks on another estancia further
down the line. But for Cynthia this man stood strangely out from the
herd. He had stopped her, and she did not know why. She sat and
watched his slow, obstinate progression. The persistence, the physical
strength of the man daunted her. There was something of nature's own
relentlessness in his capacity to endure and work. She magnified him,
and was, at the same time, interested and alarmed. For of this she was
sure. He had not stopped her merely because she was a girl, and alone.
He had stopped her because she was herself. She remembered his smile,
his nods of the head, his malice. He had a personal feeling, a
personal animosity. She could not understand it, yet she was sure.
"How long will he stay?" she asked.
"A month," said the Gaucho.
"He was not here last year?"
"I do not recognize him."
"Why, then--" she began and did not finish the question. It was in her
mind to ask, "Why does he hate me?" But she was aware at once that the
Gaucho could not answer it. "And he will stay a month?" she asked
again, uneasily.
"Yes, unless the Senorita wishes him to go. It will be, of course, as
the Senorita wishes."
Cynthia nodded her head. There was a way out of the trouble, to be
sure. But, on the other hand, she would have to say why she wished the
man to go. At the recital of her story Mr. and Mrs. Daventry would be
excited and alarmed. She herself would henceforth be surrounded with
precautions. She determined to say nothing at all about her adventure.
She would be careful during this month where she roamed. The man would
be at work and it would be easy to avoid him. She gathered the reins
again in her hands and drove to the house.