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Thorne apparently went out after this and Alison lay still for a time while her hostess clattered about the room. She was troubled by what she had heard, for although she recognized that she had need of it, there was something unpleasant in the fact that she was indebted to this stranger's charity. He had confessed that he was sorry for her. Rising a little later she breakfasted with the others, and then, when Thorne went out to harness his team, she diffidently asked the woman what she owed her.
"Nothing," was the uncompromising reply.
"But – " Alison began, and the woman checked her.
"We're not running a hotel. You can stop right now."
Alison realized that expostulation would be useless, and this, as a matter of fact, was in one respect a relief to her, for just then there were but two silver coins in her possession. A few minutes later Thorne helped her into the wagon and they drove away.
The prairie was flooded with sunlight, and it was no longer monotonously level. It stretched away before her in long, billowy rises, which dipped again to vast shallow hollows when the team plodded over the crest of them, and here and there little specks of flowers peeped out among the whitened grass or there was a faint sprinkling of tender green. The air was cool yet, and exhilarating as wine. Alison, refreshed by her sound sleep, rejoiced in it, and it was some time before she spoke to her companion.
"I felt slightly embarrassed," she said. "That woman would let me pay nothing for my entertainment. She can't have very much, either."
"She hasn't," replied Thorne. "Her husband had his crop hailed out last fall. Still, you see, that kind of thing is a custom of the country. They're a hospitable people, and, in a general way, when you are in need of a kindness, you're most likely to get it from people who are as hard up as you are." He paused with a whimsical smile. "One can't logically feel hurt at the other kind for standing aside or shutting their eyes, but when they proceed to point out that if you had only emulated their virtues you would be equally prosperous, it becomes exasperating, especially as it isn't true. So far as my observation goes, it isn't the practice of the stricter virtues that leads to riches."
"Why didn't you say your experience?" Alison inquired. "It's the usual word."
"It would suggest that I had tried the thing, and I'm afraid that I've only watched other people. To get knowledge that way is considerably easier. But I presume I was taking too much for granted in supposing that you had – any reason for agreeing with my previous observation."
Alison felt that this was a question delicately put, so that if it pleased her she could avoid a definite reply. She did not in the least resent it, and something urged her to take this stranger into her confidence.
"If you mean that I don't know what it is to be poor you are wrong," she confessed. "At the present moment I'm unpleasantly close to the end of my resources."
"But you said that you were going to Mrs. Hunter's."
"I don't know whether she will take me in. I shouldn't be astonished if she didn't."
The man saw the warmth in her face and looked at her thoughtfully.
"Well," he said, "you have courage, and that goes quite a way out here. I don't think you need be unduly anxious, in any case."
He flicked the team with his whip and by and by they reached a straggling birch bluff on the crest of a steeper slope. A rutted trail led between the trees, and as the team moved a little faster down the dip the wagon jolted sharply. Then one of the beasts stumbled, plunged, and recovered itself again, and Thorne, seizing Alison's arm as she was almost flung from her seat, pulled them up and swung himself down. Looking over the side she saw him stoop and lift one of the horse's feet. It was a few minutes before he came back again.
"A badger hole," he explained. "Volador fell into it. An accident of that kind makes trouble now and then."
He drove slowly for the next few miles, but, so far as Alison noticed, the horse showed no sign of injury, and it was midday when they stopped for a meal beside a creek which wound through a deep hollow. On setting out again, however, the horse began to flag and Thorne, who got down once or twice in the meanwhile, was driving at a walking pace when they reached a birch bluff larger than the last one. He pulled the team up and springing to the ground looked at Alison a few minutes later.
"Volador's going very lame," he said. "It would be cruelty to drive him much farther."
Alison was conscious of a shock of dismay. Sitting in the wagon on the crest of the rise she could look down across the birches upon a vast sweep of prairie, and there was no sign of a house anywhere on it. It almost seemed as if she must spend the night in the bluff.
"What is to be done?" she asked.
"Can you ride?"
Alison said she had never tried, and the man's expression hinted that the expedient he had suggested was out of the question.
"Do you think you could walk sixteen miles?" he asked.
"I'm afraid I couldn't," Alison confessed, though if the feat had appeared within her powers she would gladly have attempted it.
"Then you'll have to camp here in the wagon, though I can fix it up quite comfortably."
He held up his hand.
"You may as well get down, and we'll set about making supper."
She was glad that he spoke without any sign of diffidence or hesitation, which would have suggested that he expected her to be embarrassed by the situation, though this was undoubtedly the case. It seemed to her that his manner implied the possession of a certain amount of tact and delicacy. For all that, she looked out across the prairie with her face turned away from him when she reached the ground.
"Now," he said presently, handing down a big box, "if you will open that and fill the kettle at the creek down there among the trees, I'll bring some branches to make a fire."
She moved away with the kettle, and when she came back the horses had disappeared and she could hear the thud of her companion's ax some distance away in the bush. When he reappeared with an armful of dry branches she had laid out a frying-pan, an enameled plate or two, a bag of flour, a big piece of bacon, which, however, seemed to be termed pork in that country, and a paper package of desiccated apples. She was looking at them somewhat helplessly, for she knew very little about cooking. Thorne made a fire between two birches which he hewed down for the purpose, and laid several strips of pork in the frying-pan, which she heard him call a spider. These he presently emptied out on to a plate laid near the fire, after which he poured some water into a basin partly filled with flour.
"Flapjacks are the usual standby in camp," he informed her. "If I'd known we would be held up here I'd have soaked those apples. Do you mind sprinkling this flour with a pinch or two of the yeast-powder in yonder tin, though it's a thing a sour-dough would never come down to."
"A sour-dough?" inquired Alison, doing as he requested.
"An old-timer," explained Thorne, who splashed himself rather freely as he proceeded to beat up the flour and water. "Sour-dough has much the same significance as unleavened bread, only that our pioneers kept on eating it more or less regularly in the land of promise. For all that, I wouldn't wish for better bread than the kind still made with a preparation of sour potatoes and boiled-down hops stirred in with the flour. In this operation, however, the great thing is to whip fast enough."
He splashed another white smear upon his jacket, and rubbed it with his hand before he poured some of the mixture into the hot spider, out of which he presently shook what appeared to be a very light pancake. Three or four more followed in quick succession, and then he poured water on to the green tea and handed Alison a plate containing two flapjacks and some pork. She found them palatable. Even the desiccated apples, which from want of soaking were somewhat leathery, did not come amiss, and the flavor of the wood smoke failed to spoil the strong green tea. Then Thorne poured a little hot water over the plates, and as there was no vessel that would hold them, she overruled his objections when she volunteered to go down and wash them thoroughly in the creek. When she came back she found that he had made up a clear fire and spread out a blanket as a seat for her.
"You are satisfied now?" he asked.
Alison smiled. She was astonished to find herself so much at ease with him.
"Yes," she answered; "I felt that I could at least wash the plates. In a way, it wasn't altogether my fault that I could do nothing else. You see, I was never taught to cook."
"Isn't that rather a pity?" Thorne suggested.
"It's more," said Alison with what was in her case unusual warmth. "It's an injustice. Still, there are thousands of us brought up in that way yonder, and when some unexpected thing brings disaster we are left to wonder what use we are to anybody. I suppose," she added, "the answer must be – none."
Thorne expressed no opinion on this point, but presently took out his pipe.
"You won't mind?" he asked. "I suppose they taught you something?"
"Yes," answered Alison; "accomplishments. I can play and sing indifferently, and paint simple landscapes if there are no figures in them – because figures imply serious study. I can follow a French conversation if they don't speak fast, and read Italian with a dictionary. Before any of these things will bring a girl in sixpence she must do them excellently, and they seem very unlikely to be of the least service in this part of Canada."
She was angry with herself for the outbreak as soon as she had spoken, as it seemed absurd that she should supply a stranger with these personal details; but the longing to utter some protest against the half-education which had been merely a handicap during the last three bitter years was too much for her. Thorne, however, made a sign of sympathetic comprehension.
"Yes," he assented, "that kind of thing's rather a pity. Did you never learn anything – practical?"
"Shorthand," replied Alison. "I can generally, though not always, read what I've written, if it hasn't exceeded about eighty words a minute. Then I can type about two-thirds as fast as one really ought to, and can keep simple accounts so long as neatness is not insisted on. I naturally had to learn all this after I left home. It seems to me that to bring up English girls in such a way is downright cruelty."
Thorne laughed.
"It's not remarkably different in our case. There's a man in a town not far along the line who used to shine at the Oxford Union and is now uncommonly glad to earn a few dollars by his talents as an auctioneer; that's how they estimate oratory on the prairie. There's another who devoted most of his time at Cambridge to physical culture, and as the result of it he gets pretty steady employment on the railroad track as a ballast shoveler."
Then he changed his tone.
"Have you any idea as to what you will do if you don't stay with Mrs. Hunter?"
"No," confessed Alison, somewhat ruefully.
"Well," said Thorne, "as I believe I mentioned, I don't think you need worry about the matter. It's very probable that some of the small wheat-growers' wives would be glad to have you."
"But I can't even sew decently."
The man's eyes twinkled.
"In a general way, they're too busy to be fastidious."
There was silence for a little after this and Alison cast one or two swift unobtrusive glances at her companion, who lay smoking opposite her on the other side of the fire. The sun now hung low above the great white waste and the red light streamed in upon them both between the leafless birches. Again she decided that he had a pleasant face and, what was more, in spite of his attire, his whole personality seemed to suggest a clean and wholesome virility.
She had seen that he could be gentle, in the sick child's case, and she suspected that he could be generous, but there was something about him that also hinted at force. Then she remembered some of the men with whom she had been brought into unpleasant contact in the cities – many who bore the unmistakable mark of the beast, the cheap swagger of others, and the inane attempts at gallantries which some of the rest indulged in. They were not all like that, she realized; there were true men everywhere; but now that her first shrinking from the grim and lonely land was lessening it seemed to her that it had, in some respects at least, a more bracing influence on those who lived in it than that other still very dear one on which she had turned her back. Then she realized that she was, after all, appraising its inhabitants by a single specimen. She had yet to learn that they are now and then a little too aggressively proud of themselves in western Canada, though it must be said that the boaster is usually ready to pour out the sweat of tensest effort with ax and saw or ox-team to prove his vaunting warranted.
After a while the sun dipped and it grew chilly as dusk crept up from the hazy east across the leagues of grass. Thorne brought her another blanket to lay over her shoulders, and lying down again relighted his pipe. There was not a breath of wind, and though she could hear the knee-hobbled horses moving every now and then the silence became impressive. She felt impelled to break it presently, for it seemed to her that casual conversation would lessen the probability of the somewhat unusual situation having too marked an effect on either of them.
"How is it that you have so many provisions in your wagon?" she asked.
Thorne laughed.
"I live in it all summer."
"And you drive about selling things? Is it very remunerative?"
"No," admitted Thorne dryly; "I can't say that it is; but, you see, I like it. I'm afraid that I've a rooted objection to staying in one place very long, and while I can get a meal and the few things I need by selling an odd bottle of cosmetic, a gramophone, or a mirror, I'm content." He made a humorous gesture. "That's the kind of man I am."
Then he stood up.
"It's getting rather late and you'll find the wagon fixed up ready. If you hear a doleful howling you needn't be alarmed. It will only be the coyotes."
He disappeared into the shadows and Alison turned away toward the wagon.
CHAPTER IV
THE FARQUHAR HOMESTEAD
When she reached the wagon Alison found it covered by a heavy waterproof sheet which was stretched across a pole. Loose hay had been strewn between a row of wooden cases and one side of the vehicle and the space beneath the sheeted roof was filled with a faint aromatic odor, which she afterward learned was the smell of the wild peppermint that grows in the prairie grass. When she had spread one blanket on the hay the couch felt seductively soft, and she sank into it contentedly. Tired as she was, however, she did not go to sleep immediately, for it was the first night she had ever spent in the open, and for a time the strangeness of her surroundings reacted on her.
The front of the tent was open, and resting on one elbow she could see the sinking fires still burning red among the leafless trees, and the pale wisps of smoke that drifted among their spectral stems. At the foot of the slope there was a wan gleam of water and beyond that in turn the prairie rolled away, vast and dim and shadowy, with a silver half-moon hanging low above its eastern rim. To one who had lived in the cities, as she had done, the silence was at first so deep as to be almost overwhelming, but by degrees she became conscious that it was broken by tiny sounds. There was a very faint, elfin tinkle of running water, a whispering of grasses that bent to the little cold breeze which had just sprung up, and the softest, caressing rustle of the lace-like birch twigs. Then, as the moon rose higher the vast sweep of wilderness and sky gathered depth of color and became a wonderful nocturne in blue and silver.
In the meanwhile a pleasant warmth was creeping through her wearied body and she began to wonder with a sense of compunction how many blankets Thorne possessed, and where he was. It was at least certain that he was nowhere near the fire, for she had carefully satisfied herself on that point. Then a wild, drawn-out howl drifted up to her across the faintly gleaming prairie and she started and held her breath, until she remembered that Thorne had said there was no reason why she should be alarmed if she heard a coyote. He was, she felt, a man one could believe. The beast did not howl again, but she continued to think of her companion as her eyes grew heavy. There was no doubt that he had a pleasant voice and a handsome face. Then her eyes closed altogether and her yielding elbow slipped down among the hay.
The sun was where the moon had been when she opened her eyes again. Climbing down from the wagon she saw no sign of Thorne. A bucket filled with very cold water, however, stood beneath a tree, where she did not remember having noticed it on the previous evening, and a towel hung close by. A few minutes later she took down the towel and glanced at it dubiously. It was by no means overclean and she wondered with misgivings what the man did with it. It seemed within the bounds of possibility that he dried the plates on it and, what was worse, that he might do so again. In the meanwhile, however, the hair on her forehead was dripping and the water was trickling down her neck, so she shut her eyes tight and applied the towel, after which she concealed it carefully in the wagon.
A quarter of an hour later Thorne appeared and she was relieved upon one point at least. Whether he had slept with blankets or without them, he did not look cold, and his appearance indeed suggested that he had been in the neighboring creek. She was astonished to notice that he had brushed himself carefully and had sewed up the rent in the knee of his overalls. Clothes-brushes, she correctly supposed, were scarce on the Canadian prairie, but it seemed probable that he would require a brush of some kind to clean his horses.
"If you wouldn't mind laying out breakfast I'll make a fire and catch the team," he said. "It's a glorious morning; but once the winter's over we have a good many of them here."
"Yes," assented Alison; "everything is so delightfully fresh."
His eyes rested on her for a moment and she was unpleasantly conscious that her dress was badly creased and crumpled as well as shabby; but he did not seem to notice this.
"That," he said, "is what struck me a minute or two ago."
He busied himself about the fire, and when he strode away through the bluff in search of the horses she heard him singing softly to himself. She recognized the aria, and wondered a little, for it was not one that could be considered as popular music.
They had breakfast when he came back and both laughed when she prepared the flapjacks under his direction. She felt no restraint in this stranger's company. Indeed, she was conscious of a pleasant sense of camaraderie, which seemed the best name for it, though she had hired him to drive her to Mrs. Hunter's and was very uncertain as to whether she could pay him.
He harnessed the team when the meal was over and explained that although Volador was still lame they might contrive to reach Graham's Bluff at sundown by proceeding by easy stages, and Alison tactfully led him on to talk about himself as they drove away. Though there were one or two points on which he was reserved, he displayed very little diffidence, which, however, is a quality not often met with among the inhabitants of western Canada.
"Well," he said with an air of whimsical reflection in answer to one question, "I suppose my chief complaint is an excess of individuality. They beat it out of you with clubs in England, unless you're rich – really rich – when you can, of course, do anything. On the other hand, the man who is merely stodgily prosperous is hampered by more rules than anybody else. This is, I must explain, another notion I've arrived at by observation and not from experience."
"One supposes that a certain amount of uniformity and subordination is necessary to progress," commented Alison.
"Oh, yes," agreed Thorne; "that's the trouble. Progress marches with massed battalions and makes so much dust that it's not always able to see where it's going. Perhaps it's that or the bewildering change of leaders that renders so much countermarching unavoidable."
"Then you prefer to act with the vedettes and skirmishers?"
"No," said Thorne; "not that exactly. Some of us are more like the camp-followers. We collect our toll on the booty and when that's too difficult we live on the country. After all, mine's an ancient if not a very respectable calling. There were always pilgrims, minstrels and pedlers."
"It can't be a luxurious life."
Thorne looked amused.
"Are you quite sure you didn't mean a useful one?"
Alison felt uncomfortable, because this idea had been in her mind.
"I'll answer the question, anyway," continued Thorne. "These people and those in the wheat-growing lands across the frontier work twelve and fourteen hours every day. It's always the same unceasing toil with them – they have no diversions. We go round and carry the news from place to place, tell them the latest stories, and now and then sing to them. We don't tax them too much either – a supper when they're poor – a dollar for a mirror or a bottle of elixir, which it must be confessed most of them have no possible use for."
"Did you never do anything else?" Alison inquired; "that is, in Canada?"
"Oh, yes," replied her companion. "I was clerk in an implement store which I walked out of at its proprietor's request after an attack of injudicious candor. You see, a rather big farmer came in one day and spent most of the morning examining our seeders and pointing out their defects. Then he inquired why we had the assurance to demand so much for our implement when he could buy a very much better one several dollars cheaper. I asked him if he was sure of that, and when he said he was I suggested that it would be considerably wiser to go right away and buy it instead of wasting his time and mine. The proprietor desired to know how we expected him to make a living if we talked to customers like that, and I pointed out that we couldn't do so anyway by answering insane questions."
Alison laughed delightedly. She felt that this was not mere rodomontade, but that the man was perfectly capable of doing as he had said.
"Had you any more experiences of the same kind?" she asked.
"I was shortly afterward projected out of a wheat broker's office."
"Projected?"
Thorne grinned.
"I believe that describes it. You see, they were three to one; but I took part of the office fittings along with me. I must own that I lost my temper and insulted them."
"But why did you do so?"
