GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND
Wheat was still being flung on to a lifeless market when Hawtrey walked
out of the mortgage jobber's place of business in the railroad
settlement one bitter afternoon. He had a big roll of paper money in
his pocket, and was feeling particularly pleased with himself, for
prices had steadily fallen since he had joined in the bear operation
Edmonds had suggested, and the result of it had proved eminently
satisfactory. This was why he had just given the latter a further
draft on Wyllard's bank, with instructions to sell wheat down on a
considerably more extensive scale. He meant to operate in earnest now,
which was exactly what the broker had anticipated, but in this case he
had decided to let Hawtrey operate alone. Indeed, being an astute and
far-seeing man he had gone so far as to hint that caution might be
advisable, though he had at the same time been careful to show Hawtrey
only those market reports which had a distinctly pessimistic tone.
Edmonds was rather disposed to agree with the men who looked forward to
a reaction before very long.
Hawtrey glanced about him as he strode down the street. It was wholly
unpaved, and rutted deep, but the drifted snow had partly filled the
hollows up, and it did not look very much rougher than it would have
done if somebody had recently driven a plough through it. A rude plank
sidewalk ran along both sides of it, raised a foot or two above the
ground that foot-passengers might escape the mire of the thaw in
spring, and immediately behind the sidewalk squat, weatherbeaten, frame
houses, all of much the same pattern, rose abruptly. In some of them,
however, the fronts were carried up as high as the ridge of the
shingled roof, giving them an unpleasantly square appearance. Here and
there a dilapidated waggon stood with lowered pole before a store, but
it was a particularly bitter afternoon, and there was nobody in the
street. The place looked desolate and forlorn, with a leaden sky
hanging over it and an icy wind sweeping through the streets.
Hawtrey, however, was used to that, and strode along briskly until he
reached the open space which divided the little wooden town from the
unfenced railroad track. It was strewn with fine dusty snow, and the
huge bulk of the grain elevators towered high above it against the
lowering sky. As it happened, a freight locomotive was just hauling a
long string of wheat cars out of a side-track amidst a discordant
tolling of its bell. It stopped presently, and though Hawtrey could
not see anything beyond the big cars he fancied by the shouts which
broke out that something unusual was going on. He was expecting Sally,
who was going East to Brandon by a train due in an hour or two.
When the shouts grew a little louder he walked round in front of the
locomotive which stood still with the steam blowing noisily from a
valve, and as soon as he had done so he saw the cause of the commotion.
A pair of vicious, half-broken bronchos were backing a light waggon
away from the locomotive on the other side of the track, and a
fur-wrapped figure sat stiffly on the driving seat. Hawtrey called out
and ran suddenly forward as he saw that it was Sally.
Just then one of the horses lifted its fore hoofs off the ground, and
being jerked back by the pole plunged and kicked furiously, until its
companion flung up its head and the waggon went backwards with a run.
Then they stopped, and there was a further series of resounding crashes
against the front of the vehicle. Hawtrey was within a pace or two of
it when Sally recognised him.
"Keep off," she said, "you can't lead them. They don't want to cross
the track, but they've got to if I pull the jaws off them."
This was more forcible than elegant, and the shrill harshness of the
girl's voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to
Sally's phraseology. He, however, recognised that she would not have
his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful,
and he reluctantly moved back towards the group of loungers who were
watching her.
"I guess you've no call to worry about her," said one of them. "She's
holding them on the lowest notch, and it's a mighty powerful bit
fixing. Besides, that girl could drive anything that goes on four
legs."
"Sure," said one of the others. "She's a daisy."
Hawtrey was a little annoyed to notice that in place of being
embarrassed by it Sally evidently rather enjoyed the situation, though
several of the freight train and station hands had now joined the group
of loungers and were cheering her on. He had already satisfied himself
that she had not a trace of fear. In another moment or two, however,
he forgot his slight sense of disconcertion, for Sally, sitting tense
and strung up on the driving seat with a glow in her cheeks and a snap
in her eyes, was wholly admirable. There was lithe grace, virility,
and resolution in every line of her fur-wrapped figure. It is possible
that her appearance would have been less effective in a drawing room,
but in the waggon she was in her place and in harmony with her
surroundings. Lowering sky, gleaming snow, fur-clad men, and even the
big, dingy locomotive, all fitted curiously into the scene, and she
made an imposing central figure as she contended with the half-tamed
team. Hawtrey was conscious of a stirring of his physical nature as he
watched her.
The struggle lasted for several minutes during which the horses plunged
and kicked again, until Sally stood boldly erect a moment while the
waggon rocked to and fro, a tall, straight figure with a tress of
loosened hair streaming out beneath her fur cap, as she swung the
stinging whip. Then it seemed that the team had had enough, for as she
dropped lightly back into the seat they broke into a gallop, and in
another moment the waggon, jolting horribly as it bounced across the
track, vanished behind the locomotive. Gregory heard a shout of
acclamation as he turned and hurried after it.
Sally, however, drove right through the settlement and back outside it
before she could check the horses, and she had just pulled them up in
front of the wooden hotel when Hawtrey reached it. He stood beside the
waggon holding up his hand to her, and Sally, who laughed, dropped
bodily into his arms, which was, as he recognised, a thing that Agatha
certainly would not have done. He set her down upon the sidewalk, and
when a man came out to take the team they went into the hotel together.
"It was the locomotive that did it," she explained. "They were most
too scared for anything, but I hate to be beaten by a team. Ours know
too much to try, but I got Haslem to drive me in. I dropped him at
Norton's, who'll bring him on."
"He oughtn't to have left you with them," said Hawtrey severely.
Sally laughed. "Well," she said, "I'd quit driving if I couldn't
handle any team you or Haslem could put the harness on."
In a general way, the hotels in the smaller prairie settlements offer
one very little comfort or privacy. As a rule they contain two general
rooms, in one of which the three daily meals are served with a
punctuality which is as unvarying as the menu. The traveller who
arrives a few minutes too late for one must wait until the next is
ready. The second room usually contains a rusty stove, and a few
uncomfortable benches; and there are not infrequently a couple of rows
of very small match-boarded cubicles on the floor overhead. The
Occident was, however, a notable exception. For one thing, the
building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to
study the requirements of his guests, who came for the most part from
the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general
lounge, one of which was reserved for the wives or daughters of the
farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing. In
the other, dry-goods travellers were permitted to display their wares,
and, though this was very unusual in that country, any privileged
customer who wished to leave by a train, the departure of which did not
synchronize with the hotel arrangements, was occasionally supplied with
a meal.
It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two
rooms, where the proprietor's wife was just lighting the big lamp. She
smiled at the man, who was, as it happened, a favourite of hers.
"Go right along, and I'll bring your supper up in a minute or two," she
said. "I guess you'll want it after your drive."
Hawtrey strode on down a short corridor towards the second room, but
Sally stopped behind him a moment.
"Is Hastings in town?" she asked. "I thought I saw his new waggon
outside."
"His wife is," said the other woman. "She and Miss Ismay drove in to
buy some things."
Sally asked no further questions. It was evident that Mrs. Hastings
would not start home until after supper, and as the regular hotel meal
would be ready in about half an hour it seemed certain that she would
come back to the hotel very shortly. That left Sally very little time,
for she had no desire that Hawtrey should meet either Mrs. Hastings or
Agatha until she had carried out the purpose she had in hand. It was
at Gregory's special request she had permitted him to drive in to see
her off, and she meant to make the most of the opportunity. She had
long ago regretted her folly in running away from his homestead when he
lay helpless, but things had changed considerably since then.
She said nothing about what she had heard to Hawtrey when she entered
the second room. It was cosily warm and brightly lighted, and the
little table was laid out for two with a daintiness very uncommon on
the prairie. It was a change for Sally to be waited on and have a meal
set before her which she had not made with her own fingers, and she
sank into a chair with a smile of appreciation.
"It's real nice, Gregory," she said. "Supper's never quite the same
when you've had to stand over the stove ever so long getting it ready."
She sighed whimsically. "When I have to do that after working hard all
day I don't want to eat it."
The man felt compassionate. Sally, as he was aware, had to work
unusually hard at the little desolate homestead where she and her
mother perforce undertook a good many duties that do not generally fall
to a woman's share. Creighton, who was getting an old man, was of
grasping nature, and only hired assistance when it was indispensibly
necessary.
"Well," he said, "I'm not particularly fond of cooking either."
Sally glanced at him with a provocative smile, for he had given her a
lead. "Then," she said, "why don't you get somebody else to do it for
you?"
This was, as the man recognised, almost painfully direct, but there was
no doubt that Sally looked very pretty with the faint flush of colour
in her cheeks and the tantalising light in her eyes.
"As a matter of fact, that's a thing I've been thinking over rather
often the last few months," he said, and laughed. "It's rather a pity
you don't seem to like cooking, Sally."
Sally appeared to consider this. "Oh," she said, "it depends a good
deal on who it's for."
Hawtrey became suddenly serious for a moment or two. There was no
doubt that he would at one time have considered it impossible that he
should marry a girl of Sally's description, and even now he had
misgivings. He had, however, almost made up his mind, and he was not
exactly pleased that the proprietor's wife came in with the meal just
then, and stayed to talk awhile.
When she went out he watched Sally with close and what he fancied was
unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was sensible of the
indelicacy of this, he was once more relieved to find that she did
nothing that was actually repugnant to him. After all, there was a
certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation of the
good things set before her only amused him. She was certainly much
more amusing than Agatha had been since she came out to Canada, and her
cheerful laughter had a pleasant ring. When at length the meal was
over she bade him draw her chair up to the stove.
"Now," she said, and pointed to another chair across the room, "you can
sit yonder and smoke. I know you want to."
Hawtrey remembered that Agatha did not like tobacco smoke, and had
always been inclined to exact a certain conventional deference which he
had grown to regard as rather out of place upon the prairie.
"That's a very long way off," he objected.
Sally showed no sign of conceding the point as he had expected, and he
took out his pipe. He wanted to think, for once more instincts deep
down in him stirred in faint protest against what he almost meant to
do. There were also several points that required practical
consideration, and among them were his financial difficulties, though
these did not trouble him so much as they had done a few months
earlier. For a minute or two neither of them said anything, and then
Sally spoke again.
"You're worrying about something, Gregory?" she said.
Hawtrey admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I am. My place is a poor one,
and when Wyllard comes home I shall have to go back to it again.
Things would be so much easier for me just now if I had the Range."
The girl looked at him steadily with reproach in her eyes.
"Oh," she said, "your place is quite big enough if you'd only take hold
and run it as it ought to be run. You could surely do it, Gregory, if
you tried."
The man's resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence
was at variance with his desires. Sally's words were in this case
wholly guileless, as he recognised, and they stirred him. He said
nothing, however, and she spoke again.
"Isn't it worth while, though there are things you would have to give
up?" she said. "You couldn't go away and waste your dollars in
Winnipeg every now and then."
Hawtrey laughed. "No," he admitted; "I suppose if I meant to make
anything of the place that couldn't be done. Still, you see, it's
horribly lonely sitting by oneself beside the stove in the long winter
nights. I wouldn't want to go to Winnipeg if I had only somebody to
keep me company."
He turned towards her suddenly with decision in his face, and Sally
lowered her eyes.
"Don't you think you could get anybody if you tried?" she asked.
"The trouble," said Hawtrey gravely, "is that I have so little to offer
them. It's a poor place, and I'm almost afraid, Sally, that I'm rather
a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don't stay
with things. Still, it might be different if there was any particular
reason why I should."
He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. "Sally,"
he added, "would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make
of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would
probably be very hard work, my dear."
The blood surged into the girl's face, and she looked up at him with
open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened,
was not afraid of anything.
"Oh!" she said; "you really want me?"
"Yes," said Hawtrey quietly; "I think I have wanted you for ever so
long, though I did not know it until lately."
"Then," she said, "I'll do what I can, Gregory."
Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference he had not
expected to feel, for there was something in the girl's simplicity and
the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed
astonishing, laid a restraint on him. Then, as he sat down on the arm
of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished
still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from
him. For one thing, he realised that she meant him to take and keep a
foremost place among his neighbours, and, though Sally had not the gift
of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was
less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude
forcefulness, trying to rouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to
incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he
remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of
confusion crept upon him.
She seemed to recognise it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply.
"What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?" she asked.
Hawtrey smiled in a rather curious fashion. Hitherto she had made her
appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no
doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he
had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was
becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession
of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the
thing seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him.
"My dear," he said, "I can't quite tell you--but you have made me
rather badly ashamed. In some respects, I'm afraid it's a very rash
thing you are going to do."
She looked at him with candid perplexity, and then appeared to dismiss
the subject with a smile.
"There is so much I want to say, and it mayn't be so easy--afterwards,"
she said. "It's a pity the train starts so soon."
"We can get over that difficulty, anyway," said Hawtrey. "I'll come on
as far as I can with you, and get back from one of the way stations by
the Pacific express."
Sally made no objections, and drawing a little closer to him she talked
on in a low voice earnestly.