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"Well," said Florence, "it was not your fault, and I'm sorry for you. I suppose you had – difficulties – with some of your employers? No doubt one or two of them tried to make love to you?"
Alison made a little gesture of disgust.
"Oh," laughed Florence, "I know. You probably flared out at the offender, and either got your work found fault with or lost your situation. I didn't. After all, a smile costs nothing, though it's a little difficult now and then. In my case, it led to shorter hours, higher wages, an occasional Saturday afternoon trip to the country. I got what I could, and in due time it was generally easy to turn round upon and get rid of the provider. Still, it was just a little humiliating with a certain type of man, and it was a relief when Elcot took me out of it. I try to remember that I owe him that when he gets unusually wearisome, though one must do him the justice to admit that he never refers to it."
Alison sat silent, shrinking from her companion. She had faced a good many unpleasant things during the past few years, but they had wrought but little change in her nature. The part her hostess had played would have been a wholly hateful one to her.
"Where did you come across Thorne?" Florence asked.
Alison told her, and she looked thoughtful.
"When was that? I supposed you had come straight from the station."
"Four days ago," answered Alison unhesitatingly, though she would have much preferred not to mention it.
"Four days! And you have been driving round the country since then with Thorne?"
Alison felt her face grow hot, but her answer was clear and sharp.
"Of course; I couldn't help it. We should have been here earlier, only a horse went lame. In any case, after what you have told me, I cannot see why you should adopt that tone."
Florence raised her brows.
"My dear," she said, "I was a working woman of no account in England when I first met you – but things are rather different now. It doesn't exactly please me that a guest of mine should indulge in an escapade of this description. Doesn't it strike you as hardly fitting?"
Hunter, who had come up the steps unobserved, stopped beside them just then.
"Rubbish!" he said curtly. "It was unavoidable. I've had a talk with Leslie; he told me exactly what delayed him."
Florence waved her hand.
"Oh," she replied, "let it go at that. I couldn't resist the temptation of sticking a pin or two into Alison. What has brought you back?"
"We broke the wagon pole. It didn't seem worth while to put in a new one to-night."
He moved away and left them, and Alison turned to her companion.
"Did he mean Mr. Thorne by Leslie?"
"Of course."
"But isn't his name Maverick?"
"Did you call him that?"
"I can't remember, though I suppose I must have done so. Some of the others certainly did."
Florence looked amused.
"I suppose you haven't an idea what a maverick is?"
Alison said that she had none at all, and her companion proceeded to inform her.
"It's a steer that won't feed and follow tamely with the herd, but goes off or gets wild and smashes things, and generally does what's least desirable. As you have spent some days with him you will no doubt understand why they have fixed the name on Thorne."
Alison glanced at her with a sparkle in her eyes.
"I can only say this. I have met a few men one could look up to – after all, there are good people in the world – but I haven't yet come across one who showed more tact and considerate thoughtfulness than Maverick Thorne."
Florence was evidently amused at this – indeed, to be sardonically amused at something seemed her favorite pose.
"I shouldn't like to disturb that kind of optimism – and here he is; I'll leave you to talk to him. As it happens, Elcot looks rather grumpy, and the mail-carrier has just brought out a sheaf of my bills from Winnipeg which he hasn't seen yet."
She sailed away with a rustle of elaborate draperies, and Thorne sat down.
"I'm going on to the bluff in half an hour," he informed her.
Alison was conscious of a certain hesitation, but there was something to be said.
"How much do I owe you?" she asked.
"Half a dollar."
Alison flushed.
"Why didn't you say four or five dollars?"
"Since you evidently mean to insist on an answer, there are several reasons for my modesty. For one thing, you would have to borrow the money from Mrs. Hunter, which I don't think you would like to do. For another, if you were a Canadian I'd say – nothing – but as you're not used to the country yet you wouldn't care to accept a favor from a stranger."
"But it would be a favor in any case."
"Then you can get rid of the obligation by giving me half a dollar."
The girl looked at him sharply as she laid the silver coin in his hand, but he met her gaze with a whimsical smile.
"Thank you," he said. "I suppose you are going back to Mrs. Farquhar?"
"Yes," replied Alison impulsively. "I believe I am; but I may wait for a few days."
"I think you're wise. You wouldn't find things very pleasant here."
"Why?"
"If you'll permit me to mention it, you're too pretty."
Alison straightened herself suddenly in her chair.
"You don't like Mrs. Hunter, but does that justify you in saying what you have? You can't mean that she would be – jealous?"
"That's exactly what I do mean."
He saw the angry color mantle in the face of the girl, and raised his hand in expostulation.
"Wait a little; I want to explain. First of all, she wouldn't have the slightest cause for jealousy. You're not the kind to give her one, and Elcot Hunter is one of the best and straightest men I know. In fact, that's partly what is troubling me."
"Why should it trouble you?" Alison interrupted.
Thorne appeared to reflect, and, indignant with his presumption as she was, the girl admitted that he did it very well.
"If you urge me for a precise answer, I'm afraid I'll have to confess that I don't quite know. Anyway, because Hunter is the sort of man I have described, he'd try to make things pleasant for you, and there's no doubt that his wife would resent it. Whether she's fond of him at all, or not, I naturally can't say, but she expects him to be entirely at her beck and call, and I don't think she'd tolerate any little courtesies he might show you."
Alison sat silent for a moment or two when he stopped, looking at him with perplexed eyes, though she felt that he was right.
"It's curious, isn't it?" she said at length. "Florence must have had a very unpleasant time in England, where she had to practise the strictest self-denial. One would have thought it would have made her content and compassionate now that she has everything that she could wish for."
"No," responded Thorne, "in a way, it's natural. That kind of life often has the opposite effect. Those who lead it have so much to put up with that if once they escape it makes them determined never even to contemplate doing the least thing they don't like again."
"Oh," declared Alison impulsively, "I shouldn't care to think that."
"Well," said Thorne, with unmoved gravity, "I don't know whether you have had as much to face as you say that she has, though one or two things seem to suggest it, but it certainly hasn't spoiled you."
Then he rose.
"As I want to reach the bluff to-night, I'll get my team harnessed."
Alison watched him go down the steps with a somewhat perplexing sense of regret. She had met the man only four days ago, but she felt that she was parting from a friend.
A few minutes later Florence Hunter called her into the house; and she stayed with her a week before she went to Mrs. Farquhar. She admitted that Florence had given her no particular cause for leaving, but she at least made no objections when Alison acquainted her with her decision.
CHAPTER VI
THORNE CONTEMPLATES A CHANGE
Alison had spent a few days with Mrs. Farquhar without finding the least reason to regret the choice she had made, when one evening Farquhar helped her and his wife into his wagon in front of the little hotel at Graham's Bluff, where he had passed the last half-hour in conversation with an implement dealer. When they had taken their places he drove cautiously down the wide, unpaved street, which was seamed with ruts. On either side of it, straggling and singularly unpicturesque frame houses, destitute of paint or any attempt at adornment, rose abruptly from the prairie, though here and there the usual plank sidewalk ran along the front of them. Alison was convinced that she had rarely seen a more uninteresting place, though she had discovered that its inhabitants were not only quite satisfied with it, but firmly believed in its roseate future. This seemed somewhat curious, as a number of them had come there from the cities, but she did not know then that the optimistic assurance with which they were endued is common in the West, and that it is, as a rule, in due time justified.
Turning a corner, they came out into a wider space from which a riband of rutted trail led out into the wilderness. Farquhar pulled up his team. Close in front of them, a crowd had gathered about a wagon, and a man who stood upon a box in it seemed to be addressing the assembly. Alison could not see his face, and his voice was, for the most part, drowned by bursts of laughter, but he was waving his hands to emphasize his remarks, and this and his general attitude reminded her of the itinerant auctioneers she had now and then seen in the market-place of an English provincial town, though the crowd and the surroundings were in this case very different.
The prairie, which was dusty white, stretched back to the soft red glow of the far horizon, and overhead there was a wonderful blue transparency. The light was still sharp, and the figures of the men stood out with a curious distinctness. Most of them were picturesque in wide, gray hats and long boots, with blue shirt and jacket hanging loose above the rather tight, dust-smeared trousers, though there were some who wore black hats and spruce store clothes. These, however, looked very much out of place.
"Thorne's pitching it to the boys in great style to-night," chuckled Farquhar. "We'll get a little nearer; I like to hear him when he has a good head of steam up."
He started the team, but Alison was sensible of a slight shock of displeasure. She was aware that Thorne sold things, because he had told her so, but she had never seen him actively engaged in his profession, and this kind of thing seemed extremely undignified. She had got rid of a good many prejudices during the past few years, and was, for that matter, in due time to discard some more; but it hurt her to see a friend of hers – and she admitted that she regarded him as such – playing the part of mountebank to amuse the inhabitants of a forlorn prairie town.
Farquhar drew up his team again presently. Alison fancied that Mrs. Farquhar was watching her, and she fixed her eyes upon the crowd and Thorne. His remarks were received with uproarious laughter, but she was quick to notice that there was nothing in what he said that any one could reasonably take exception to.
Presently there was an interruption, for a man in white shirt and store clothing pushed forward through the crowd, with another, who was big and lank and hard-faced, and wore old blue duck, following close behind him.
"Now," exclaimed Farquhar expectantly, "we're going to have some fun. That's Sergeant, the storekeeper, who sells drugs and things, and he's been on Mavy's trail for quite a while. So far, Mavy has generally talked him down, but to-night he's got a backer. Custer has the reputation of being a bad man, and it's generally supposed that he owes Sergeant a good deal of money."
"Hadn't we better drive on if there's likely to be any trouble?" suggested his wife.
Farquhar said that Thorne would probably prove a match for his opponents without provoking actual hostilities, and added that they could go on later if it seemed advisable. Alison laughed when a hoarse burst of merriment followed the orator's last sally.
"It was really witty," she said. "In fact, it's all clever. I wonder how he learned to talk like that."
Mrs. Farquhar smiled.
"It's probably in the blood. I believe one of his close relatives is a bishop."
"It doesn't quite follow," objected Farquhar. "I heard one of them, an English one, in Montreal, who wasn't a patch on Mavy. Anyway, if you want to hold the boys here you have to be clever."
Then a protesting voice broke in upon Thorne's flowing periods.
"Boys," it said, "that man has played you for suckers 'bout long enough, and this kind of thing is rough on every decent storekeeper in the town. We're making the place grow; we're always willing to make a deal when you have anything to sell; and we're generally open to supply you with better goods than he keeps, at a lower figure."
"In my case," Thorne pointed out, "you get amusing tales and sound advice thrown in. You can at any time consult me about anything, from the best way to make your hair curl to the easiest means of getting rid of the mortgage man, which in most cases is to pay his bill."
"I could tell 'way funnier tales than you do when I was asleep," interrupted the storekeeper's friend.
Thorne disregarded this.
"I've nothing to urge against the storekeepers, boys. They're useful to the community – it's possible that they're more useful than I am – but it doesn't seem quite fitting to hold them up as deserving objects of your compassion. If you have any doubt on that point you have only to look at their clothes. I don't like to be personal, but since there are two men here from whom I don't expect very much delicacy, I feel inclined to wonder whether that is a brass watch and guard Mr. Sergeant is wearing."
"No, sir," snapped the other, who was evidently too disturbed in temper to notice the simple trap, "it's English gold. Cost me most of a hundred and twenty dollars in Winnipeg."
Thorne waved his hand.
"That's the point, boys. Mine, which was made in Connecticut, cost five. I think you can see the inference. If you don't, I should like you to ask him where he got the hundred and twenty dollars."
There was applauding laughter, for the men were quite aware that they had furnished it, but Thorne proceeded:
"It's likely that I could buy things of that kind, and keep as smart a team as our friend does, if I struck you for the interest he charges on your held-over accounts."
"That's quite right!" somebody cried. "They don't want no pity. They've got bonds on half our farms. Guess the usual interest's blamed robbery."
Once more the storekeeper lifted up his voice.
"You wouldn't call it that, if you'd ever tried to collect it. You stand out of your money until harvest's in, and then when you drive round the homestead's empty, and somebody's written on the door, 'Sorry I couldn't pack the house off.'"
This was followed by further laughter, for, as Farquhar explained to Alison, pack signifies the transporting of one's possessions, usually upon the owner's back, in most of western Canada, and the notice thus implies that the defaulting farmer had judiciously removed himself and everything of value except his dwelling, before the arrival of his creditor.
"You could shut down on the land, anyway," retorted one man.
"Could I?" Sergeant inquired savagely. "When it's free-grant land, and the man hadn't broke enough to get his patent?"
The crowd, encouraged by a word or two from Thorne, seemed disposed to drift off into a disquisition on the homestead laws, but Sergeant pulled them up.
"We'll keep to the point," he said. "When you buy your drugs at my store you get just what you ask for with the maker's label stuck fast on it. Maverick keeps loose ones, and if you ask him to cure your liver it's quite likely that he'll give you hair-restorer."
