"Where'er Endeavour bares her arm,
And grapples with the Things To Be,
At desk or counter, forge or farm,
On veldt or prairie, land or sea,
And men press onward, undismayed,
The Empire Builder plies his trade."
_The Empire Builders._
What explanation Burton made of his agitation he never quite remembered.
He knew he had said something about a remarkable likeness to a friend of
his, but he felt that his behaviour at best had had only a lame excuse.
Kate, however, had accepted it with the frankness that had marked her
attitude toward him since the day they first met, and had rattled on her
tribute to Myrtle Vane, to every word of which Burton inwardly said
amen. But when she mentioned that they still corresponded regularly, and
that she expected a letter by the next mail, he found himself battling
with conflicting emotions. It was plain that he must tell her all or
nothing; either he must take her into his life or he must go out of
hers. He knew that he loomed big in the world of this farmer's daughter,
and that when she next wrote to Myrtle she would tell about this Ray,
her discovery. The name would excite Miss Vane's interest,
identification would surely come, sooner or later. And what would this
girl from whom he had torn himself under the shadow of the law and who
was in very reality more to him than existence itself--what would she say
when she knew of his life as a fugitive from justice, a betrayer of his
bondsman, whose regard for her had been so slight that he had deserted
her under the fear of his own punishment--what would she say when she
knew he had cast off all responsibility for the past and to-day was
living in happiness, the trusted friend of her trusted friend? He saw
his life crumbling about him like a house of cards. He saw only too
plainly how his desertion of the girl he loved would cost him the
friendship of the girl he so much admired.
Burton excused himself to Miss McKay as soon as he could. He walked to
the stables, and, finding himself unobserved, plunged down into the deep
gulley. Here he strode on and on, his mind at first in a turmoil of
confusion. Gradually the exercise calmed his brain and he was able to
think more clearly. And the clearer he saw his position the less he
liked it. Two courses were possible; to disappear and try again to lose
himself, probably by taking up a homestead far back from the centres of
civilization; or to make a clean breast of the whole thing to Kate. But
what would she think of him when she knew the truth? Suppose she
believed in his innocence, of which he had every confidence, would her
attitude change when she knew him to be a fugitive from the law--an
innocent man who lacked the moral courage to prove his innocence or
accept the inevitable? That afternoon he had felt that he could tell her
all; that night he knew that he could tell her nothing.
And yet the idea of unexplained disappearance was unbearable to him. He
felt that he owed it to his friends here, whose home had been such an
oasis to him in his desert of bad fortune, to relieve their minds of any
doubt as to his personal safety. He now remembered that this thought had
not occurred to him when he fled from Plainville, and the blood slowly
mounted to his forehead. But he would not repeat that cruelty; whatever
came he would have an interview with Mr. McKay.
He returned to the house. The cowboys were still absent, and Kate, after
searching for him in vain, had gone riding alone. He found Mr. McKay
still on the kitchen porch, and floundered into his task.
"I have come, Mr. McKay, to tell you that I must leave here, at once. I
have just heard--that is, I have just had information which makes it
imperative that I leave without an hour's delay. The heavy end of the
harvest is over. I hope you will get along without trouble. Good-bye."
"But, boy, hang it, there's somethin' wrong about this. Bad news?"
"Yes, news that takes me away, and any news that forces me to leave your
home is bad news."
"But you will come back, Ray? You'll be back when your troubles--when
things is straightened up with you?"
"I don't know."
The farmer sat back in his chair and drew deeply at his pipe for a full
minute, his eyes slightly elevated and his brow knit in thought. When he
spoke the words came slowly, as though each had been chosen after
deliberation.
"Waal, Ray, if your affairs take yuh away from here, tain't my affairs
tah hold yuh back. But Ah thought of talkin' kind of confidential with
yuh one of these days, an' it may as well be now. Ah've held down this
claim fer twenty-one years, boy, an' Ah reckon Ah've about attained my
majority. An' Ah notice Ah don't climb a cayuse or handle a pitchfork
quite as spry as Ah once did. Ah've been lookin' fer some one to take
part of the load offa me, an' when Ah saw how you knew farm work, an'
how yuh shaped intuh the collar, Ah kind a' figured Ah'd found my man at
last. Ah reckon my plans has kinda been upset again."
"I am sure I appreciate what you have suggested," said Ray. "If things
shape up so--but the fact is, I can promise nothing, say nothing--at
present. Some day, perhaps. And now, good-bye, and say good-bye to
Kate."
"I'm thinkin' it would sound better from your lips. But there's a little
money comin' to yuh."
"I had forgotten that," said Burton, quite truthfully. "I suppose it may
come in handy."
The old man walked to his desk and took out a pocket-book, from which he
drew a number of bills. These he placed in Burton's hand, who, with a
word of thanks, shoved them in his pocket without counting.
"Ah calculated yuh'd rather have bills than a cheque," said the old man,
and there was something in his voice which made Ray feel that after all
he had disguised very little from his employer.
The two men's hands met in a moment's firm grasp, and the next Burton
knew he was tramping down the road he had first seen that summer evening
six weeks before.
Once fairly on the road Burton began to cast about for some definite
plan of action. He determined he would walk into town and there
ascertain where homestead lands were available. Then he would go to the
nearest Dominion Lands Office and file on a quarter section away in some
remote region, where there would be little chance of his identity being
discovered. Here he would commence life anew, under a new name, as he
felt it would not be safe to file as Raymond Burton, and here he would
hope in the years to come to outgrow and outlive the tragedy of his
young life.
A friendly haystack loomed through the gathering dusk, and Burton slept
in its shelter until morning. He awoke stiff and hungry, and half
regretted his refusal to accept Mr. McKay's offer of a horse and saddle.
But he remembered a farmhouse a few miles along the road, and there he
was given breakfast. He pressed on vigorously through the day, and
before another nightfall turned in at Zeb Ensley's shack. The Englishman
was watering his horses at the well, but he looked up and recognised his
visitor of a few weeks previous.
"Hello, Ray!" he called, cheerily. "On your way back to town? I suppose
Mr. McKay's work is advanced sufficiently to let you go, although, upon
my word, I confess I thought you'd likely become a permanent part of his
organisation. Especially," he added, with a sly twinkle in his eye,
"especially as I happen to have met that young daughter of his."
"Well, it didn't work out that way, Mr. Ensley, although she's as fine a
girl----"
"Mr. Ensley only visits here on Sundays," interrupted the other. "The
gentleman in charge is known as Zeb. But let us get these plugs in and
then we'll see what the cook can do for us. Fried eggs, I expect, with
warmed potatoes and dried apples, table d'hote." He was unbuckling the
horses' harness as he spoke, and presently slipped it from their backs
and turned them loose for the night.
Once inside the shanty Burton discovered that "the cook" was Ensley
himself. But no time was wasted in conventions, and in a few minutes a
plain but appetising supper was on the table. "Come, dig in," was the
host's invitation, and there was a lull in the conversation as the
hungry men plied the viands.
"So you've left McKay's," said Ensley, after the first insistent demands
of appetite had been satisfied. "Where are you bound for now--back East?"
"No, I think of taking up a homestead, as soon as I can get a map
showing open land, and learn where I may make application."
"Good!" said the Englishman, with genuine enthusiasm. "I'm always glad
to see bright fellows taking to the homesteads. Most fathers think they
do their boys a favour when they coop them up in an office or a shop,
but I tell you where this country wants its bright men, some of them, at
any rate, is out on the sod. There is a mob of little interests growing
up, each with its little coterie of promoters and parasites, but the big
industry here will always be agriculture, and it is the big industry
that needs the big brains. Besides, where is the life of town or city
that a free man would accept in exchange for a hundred and sixty acres
to grow in? I always have an eye for the homestead openings, and perhaps
you can get all the information you want right here."
After the meal was over Ensley spread a number of maps but recently
issued by the Department of the Interior on the table, and enlightened
Burton on the details of the regulations. "Now here," he said, "is a
fine stretch of land, of which I have first hand knowledge, as I cross
it every fall when I take a few days off for goose shooting. There's no
better soil in the West. It's about sixty miles from here, and nearly a
hundred miles from a railway, but they're building new lines through
this country as fast as they can buy the labour and the steel, and you
are sure to have a road near by in a few years. Now it's a little early
for goose hunting, but the ducks are at their best, and there is a
chance of a few chicken. Suppose we hitch up to-morrow and make a trip
out there to look over the land?"
"Oh, I couldn't permit you to go to so much trouble, Mr.--Zeb."
"No permission needed," laughed the other. "It's my buckboard and my
horses, and you ride with me if you will. We leave in the morning at
seven. There's no time to lose," he continued, consulting the contents
of a large envelope, "as these lands are to be opened for entry exactly
eight days from to-morrow, and you'd better be at the land office at
least a couple of days ahead. I shouldn't wonder but there's men--and
women too, maybe--lined up there waiting now, but most of them are eager
to file on the land closer in. They haven't been out that far, and they
don't know what they're missing. Now there'll be a ten dollar fee to
pay--you have a little money?" Burton nodded. "Very well. If you're
short, say so. There'll be some other expenses too. You'll have to line
up before the door of the land office and stay there night and day to
hold your place. Caterers will bring you food if you are willing to pay
for the service, and you can perhaps hire a man to stand in your place
part of the time, but be sure he's honest, or he may give it up to
someone else. Then, of course, you have a little land to break each
year, and certain improvements to make in the way of building a house or
the like, and in three years if you can show that you have lived on the
property six months in each twelve and complied with the other
regulations you will receive from the Government a certificate of title
to the property."
They talked about many details in connection with homestead life,
talked, indeed, long after they were in bed, while a coyote howled to
his mate across the plain and a waxing moon slanted its soft light
through the single square window of the shanty.
Five days later Burton walked down the street to the Land Office. At
first he thought there must be a riot or disturbance of some sort in
front of the buildings, but on arrival found that the crowd was genial
and orderly, and arranged in single file in the form of a half circle
before the building. Where the end of the half circle came back to the
curb the line extended along the sidewalk. Burton walked slowly the
length of the line, looking curiously into the faces of these patient
waiters; men of all nationalities, Canadian, American, British
Islanders, German, Russian, French, Austrian, Pole, Italian, Hungarian,
Scandinavian, Chinamen--here they were gathered from the corners of the
globe and waiting patiently through night and day, through heat and
cold, through wind and rain, through any trial and any hazard for the
God-sent privilege, born of a new country, of calling the land beneath
their feet their own. There were tired faces there, faces where the
cheek bones stood rugged under a tawny skin and the eyes glowed under
deep foreheads--faces of men from the ballast gang and the sewer gang,
from the tie camp and the grading camp--men who had sweat hard in the hot
sun for the few dollars necessary to stake them to home and title of
their own. Here and there a woman was seen in the line, seated on soap
box or suit case, complacently knitting or engaged with her fancy work.
But they were all good-natured. This human material, combustible as
powder, seemed as innocent as dry sand. And Burton learned that their
good nature and their complacence was due to one fact only--their
confidence that whatever was done would be done in conformity with the
law and with absolute fairness to all concerned. Once shake that
confidence, and you have dropped the spark into what you thought was
sand!
Presently he reached the end of the line, and it was not until then that
he realised that he was a part of this organisation, a link in this
chain which stretched resolute and immovable along the street. Strange
soldiers of fortune they were; men and women who feared neither the
wilderness nor the hardships of the pioneer; volunteers who marched out
to the sunset to wrest an existence from the unknown. Fit sires and
mothers these for the race that shall answer the questions of the next
century!
Burton seated himself on the curb beside the last of the line. A
Chinaman advanced with a basket of sandwiches and a pot of tea. Burton
satisfied his hunger and thirst and paid the modest bill. A news-vendor
sold him a magazine, and he sat down to while away the time until the
doors should be opened and those at the head of the column should file
in to register on the land of their choice.
The day waned and night settled in. Burton began to feel the need of a
blanket, and hired a boy to buy him one at a store. A street lamp burned
overhead and he bought an evening newspaper. Its touch seemed strange to
his fingers--it was so long since he had handled a newspaper fresh from
the press. He glanced over the black headlines, but found little of
interest. What were the papers talking about, anyway? In the last two
months he had fallen entirely out of touch with what is called the
events of the world. In a company of well read men he would have seemed
ignorant. And yet in his heart he felt that these last few weeks had
brought him closer to life, closer to the real things of the world, than
ever he had been before.
He turned over the inside pages idly until his eye, attracted by a
familiar word, fell on a paragraph in an obscure corner. In a moment his
attention was rivetted to the item, as he read:
"Plainville. The first Assize Court to be held in the town of
Plainville will open on Monday. The docket will be a light one,
consisting only of minor cases. The principal local interest
centres about a charge against Raymond Burton of stealing $2,000
from the safe of his employer, one of the leading merchants of
this place. The employer himself was so satisfied of Burton's
innocence that he went his bail, but the young man has
completely disappeared, and the confiding employer seems likely
to forfeit his bond. The stolen money, however, was recovered,
having been found in Burton's trunk by a detective engaged on
the case."
He read the paragraph again and again. The words seemed to burn into his
brain. Here was a dispatch, evidently sent through the regular news
channels, and no doubt appearing in every daily paper in the country, a
despatch that branded him not only as a thief--the words suggested no
question as to his guilt--but as a fugitive from justice and a bail
jumper. It placed him in the light of a criminal, and Gardiner in that
of a martyr. It was thrown broadcast to the world. He was beginning to
learn the awful truth that publicity has more terrors than the
penitentiary. If one could go to jail quietly, without any fuss, without
any crowds, without cameras or photographs or reporters or newspapers,
and return in the same way, it might be bearable. But this--this was
worse than any sentence within the province of the Court. What would the
public think? What would his friends think? What would _she_ think? What
_could_ she think?
Burton sat and pondered, gazing down the long street and seeing only his
own checkered career. Where would not this thing follow him? He had
thought himself safe at McKay's; he had fled from the farmer's home like
a frightened child from a whipping. He had thought to lose himself on a
homestead; on the very threshold of his hew life the tale of his shame
was thrust in his face. From somewhere a sentence came into his mind.
"Be sure your sin will find you out." But he had not sinned. That was
the rub. He was innocent--yes, as innocent as the thoughtless
correspondent who sent that despatch. But stay; does an innocent man
jump his bail? Something seemed to say to Burton that at that moment an
innocent man becomes a guilty one. And the load of his guilt seemed
mounting up. He had left Gardiner to pay the price of his
unfaithfulness. There was no evading that, although he had not thought
of it in that light before. In the eyes of the world he was already a
criminal. And yet to go back--what would that avail? Every evidence--every
circumstance, was against him. To go back would simply be to have the
Court confirm the sentence already passed by public opinion.
He gazed down the long street into the darkness. Presently a red light
showed at the end, a trifle to the left, where it glowed in narrow
streaks through the ranks of the telephone poles. It grew quickly in
volume, and Burton at first thought it was a fire; but soon he knew it
to be the rising moon. The scene stirred something in his memory; some
vague recollection of the past. And then it burst upon him, and he saw
again the sun setting through the stately elms at Crotton's Crossing;
the blood, and the bars. And then behind it all rose that quiet,
thoughtful face which guarded the end of every avenue of his thought.
He put his head between his hands and wept.
A man who had sat down beside him, but after him, having arrived late
that evening, straightened up and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Wot's the matter, hold chap?" he asked in a low voice, that their
sleeping neighbours might not hear. "Wot's the matter? Got a pine, or
somethink, or are you 'omesick?"
In the dim light Burton could not distinguish the face, but the voice he
would have known anywhere.
"London!" he cried, as he threw his arms about the astonished boy and
hugged him like a child.
Then were a few moments of golden silence; then a few words of
explanation.
When they spoke of home Burton's first question was for Miss Vane.
"Hi left 'er with a 'eavy 'eart," said Wilfred, "but still 'oping. Ho,
Hi sy, 'ere is somethink she sent you."
The boy produced his little pocket-book and Burton struck a match, for
the shop lights were off and the street was in partial darkness.
Presently the lad located a little torn piece of printed paper.
Burton took it curiously. "Why, that's only a scrap of paper," he said.
"That's wot she sent. 'Give 'im that,' she said, 'an' tell 'im hif 'e
lives Hi look for 'im back to stand 'is trial.'"
"Hold a match!" cried Burton, excitedly. "Here, strike this and hold
it."
The flame sputtered for a moment, then grew into a steady little light,
and Burton placed the scrap of paper where the rays fell to the best
advantage. And his eyes rested on the printed words:
"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by Life's unchanging sea."