THE SUMMONS.
Mrs. Hastings was standing beside her waggon in the gathering dusk when
Agatha and Wyllard joined her, and when the latter had helped them up
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," said Wyllard with a certain hesitation; and Mrs. Hastings
turned to her companion 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 colour in Agatha'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."
"Then 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 him when he
comes to supper. Allen's fond of a talk with Harry; I can't have him
kept away."
"I was a little afraid of that," said Agatha quietly. "What makes the
situation more difficult is that he told me he would ask me again."
Mrs. Hastings appeared thoughtful. "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; but as the weeks went by Agatha found that what
she 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
characterised him, and it went a long way towards allaying the
embarrassment she was conscious of at first. By and bye, however, she
felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the disturbing possibility
that he might at some future time once more adopt the rôle of lover.
In the meanwhile, she realised that in face of the efforts she made to
think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory; and
she had, as it happened, two further 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's request,
she drove over with her again to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when
they reached it, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together
she wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff
and towards the sloo, 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 them all there ran a regret that she
had not met him four years earlier.
That, however, was a train of thought she did not care to indulge in,
and in order to get rid of it she walked more briskly up a low rise
where the grass was already turning white again, over the crest of it,
and down the side of another hollow. The prairie rolled just there in
wide undulations as the sea does when the swell of a distant gale
under-runs a glassy calm. She had grown fond of the prairie, and its
clear skies and fresh breezes had brought the colour 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 upon her like
a chill depressing shadow. She had seen very little of him, and he had
not been effusive then. What he felt she could not tell, but it had
been a relief to her when he had ridden away again. Then for a while
he faded to an unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind.
That afternoon the prairie stretched away before her gleaming in the
sunlight tinder a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down
the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and for the first
time she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow at the foot
of it, where there had been another sloo. It had, however, evidently
dried up weeks ago, and as there were men and horses moving amidst 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 some distance off, for she had
already walked further than she had intended. 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 ochre 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 waggon wheels.
By and bye a great mound of gleaming grass overhanging two half-seen
horses moved out of the sloo, and she watched it draw nearer until she
made out Wyllard sitting in a depression 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 'most 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 wheel as the
man leaned down, and next moment she was strongly lifted and 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 rest.
[Illustration: "Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down,
and the next moment she was strongly lifted."]
"Now," he said, "I guess you'll find that a snug enough nest."
She sank into it with at least a certain sense of physical
satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm, scented with the aromatic
odours 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 she had seen a sudden sign of tension in the man's face when he
had for a moment held her on the edge of the waggon. Unobtrusively she
flashed a glance at him, and was reassured. He was looking straight
before him with unwavering eyes, and his face was as quiet as it
usually was again. Neither of them said anything until the team moved
on. Then he turned to her.
"You won't get jolted much," he said. "They've been at it since four
o'clock this morning."
"That," said Agatha, "must have meant 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 sloos 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. There was, as she had noticed, a vein
of almost poetic imagination in this man, 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, merely as a
pretty fancy, in particular. He had, however, of late very seldom
given it rein, and sitting close beside him among the yielding hay she
decided that it was wiser to let him talk about his farm.
"But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven't
you?" she said.
"I had, but he left me three or four days ago. It's a pity in several
ways, since I've taken up rather more than I can handle this year."
"Then why didn't you keep him?"
There was a certain grimness in Wyllard's laugh. "Martial was a little
muleish, 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 sloo, and he didn't seem to recognise that he should
have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys were standing by, I
had to insist upon him 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 do so. 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 descending to
an open brawl with one of his men.
Then it occurred to her that the other man had in all probability
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 among the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face, which,
though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring--she felt that
was the best word--to look at. The dusty shirt and old blue trousers,
as she had already noticed, accentuated the long, clean lines of his
figure, and she realised with a faint sense of anger that his mere
physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, appealed to her.
This was, she recognised, an almost repugnant thing, a feeling to be
judiciously checked, but it would obtrude itself. After all, in spite
of her fastidiousness, she was endued with most of the characteristics
of flesh and blood.
"You must have a good deal to look after alone," she said.
"Oh yes," said Wyllard; "I'm making my biggest effort this year. We've
sown at least a third more than I've ever done before, and I've bought
a big bunch of horses, too. If all goes satisfactorily we should reap
a record harvest, but in the meanwhile the thing's rather a pull. One
can't let up a minute; there's always something to be done, and a
constant need for supervision."
"Suppose you neglected the latter?"
Wyllard smiled. "Then I'm 'most afraid there'd be the biggest kind of
smash."
After that they talked of other matters 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 waggon. He, however, came in to supper
presently with about half of the others, and they all sat down together
in the long, barely furnished room. Wyllard seemed unusually animated,
and drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout of whimsical badinage, but he looked
up sharply when, by and bye, a beat of hoofs rose from the prairie.
"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants?" he said. "I certainly
don't expect anybody."
The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for
the sod was hard and dry. Then it broke off, and Agatha saw Wyllard
start as a man came into the room. He was a little, thick-set man with
a weather-darkened face, dressed in rather old blue serge, and he
looked and walked like a seaman. In another moment or two he stood
still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A little
thrill of disconcertion ran through Agatha, for she felt she knew what
this stranger's errand must be.
Then Wyllard rose, and walked towards the man with outstretched hand.
"Sit right down and get 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 said; "had quite a lot
of trouble tracing you."
He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take his horse, went
back to his seat, but he was rather silent during the rest of the meal.
When it was over he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the
stranger into a smaller room pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar box
on the table.
"Now you can get ahead," he said.
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 said quietly.
Wyllard's eyes grew very grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip
of willow which will grow close up to the limits of the 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 recognised every one of them.
"How did you get it?" he asked, in tense suspense.
The sailorman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of
paper cut from a chart. He flattened it 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," he said, and pointed to the
parallel of latitude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it me. He was
up there late last season well over on the western side. A
north-easterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of
her. 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 only fetched Vancouver a week ago."
[Illustration: "'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said,
and pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across."]
"But the message?"
"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove her to not far
off the beach with ice about, and a Husky came down on them in some
kind of boat."
"A Husky?" said Wyllard, who knew he meant an Esquimaux.
"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? She'd 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."
He had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose, stood leaning on his
chair-back very grim in face.
"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," said Wyllard. "The thing can't be true."
His companion gravely produced a little common metal watch made in
Connecticut, and worth some 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, and when he sat down again with a
clenched hand laid upon the table he and the sailorman looked at each
other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a little
gesture.
"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?"
"I'm going for them."
The sailorman 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 said, "I'm coming 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 it used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later. I won't
keep you from your friends."
Wyllard went out and left him, and though he did not see Mrs. Hastings
just then 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 said, "that man was the skipper of a
schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three
men are."
Then he told her quietly what he had heard, and the girl was conscious
of a very curious thrill.
"You are going up there to search for them?" she said. "Won't it cost
you a great deal?"
She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his
expression was very resolute.
"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my dollars are
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 for them. What else could I do?"
"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia, or your
authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?"
Wyllard's smile was somewhat grim. "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 enquire what the men were
doing there. The answer is that they were poaching 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's frozen, isn't it,
most of the year?"
"They'd 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'd no tents, or furs, or blankets. It's
horrible to imagine it."
"Yes," said Wyllard, gravely, "that's why I'm going for them."
Agatha sat still a moment. She could realise the magnitude of the
sacrifice 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. Then she turned to him with a flush of
colour in her cheeks and her eyes shining.
"Oh," she said, "it's splendid!"
Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them."
Then somewhat to Agatha's relief Mrs. Hastings came out of the house,
and Wyllard moved away towards the stable to bring out her team.