A Prairie Courtship

"It strikes me we're only working around the point and shifting ground," he said. "What makes you believe I don't mean to act straight?"

"What happened in Langton's and Winthrop's case?"

Nevis sat silent a moment or two. There was a vein of vindictiveness in him, but he was avaricious first of all, and he could generally keep his resentment in the background when it was a question of money.

"Are you a friend of either of them?" he asked.

"Not exactly; but I took a certain interest in Winthrop – I liked the man. In fact, I helped him out of a tight place once or twice, and might have done it again, only that I realized the one result would be to put a few more dollars into your pocket. That" – and Hunter smiled – "didn't seem worth while."

"It was a straight deal; I lent him the money at the usual interest. He couldn't have got it cheaper from anybody else."

Hunter looked at him in a curious manner and Nevis wondered somewhat uneasily how much this farmer knew. He had been correct as far as he had gone, but he had, as he recognized, left one opening for attack when he had foreclosed on Winthrop's stock and homestead. There are exemption laws in parts of Canada which to some extent protect the small farmer's possessions from seizure for debt unless he has actually mortgaged them. Winthrop had done this, but the mortgage was not a heavy one, and Nevis had afterward lent him further money, with the deliberate intention of breaking him. When the value of the possessions pledged greatly exceeds what has been advanced on them, which is generally the case, it is now and then profitable to foreclose, even though any excess above the loan realized at the sale must ostensibly be handed to the borrower. There, are, however, means of preventing him from getting very much of it, and though the process is sometimes risky this did not count for much with Nevis.

"Well," said Hunter quietly, "I'm not sure that what you tell me has any bearing on the matter."

This might mean anything or nothing, and Nevis, determining to force an issue, leaned forward confidentially.

"Let's face the point," he replied. "I want a share in this creamery – I can make it pay. There's only you who really counts against me. I may as well own it. Now, can't we come to terms somehow? I merely want you to abandon your opposition, and you would have no difficulty in preventing my doing anything that appeared against the stockholders' interests."

"I've already made up my mind that it would be safer to keep you out of it."

"That's your last word?"

"Yes. I don't mean to be offensive. It's a matter of business."

His companion took up his hat. He had failed, as indeed he had half expected to do, but he bade Hunter good-evening tranquilly and went out with strong resentment in his heart. Henceforward he meant to adopt an aggressive policy, and the farmer who had thwarted him must stand upon his guard. This decision, however, was largely prompted by business reasons, for Nevis had now no doubt that Hunter, who was looked up to as a leader by his neighbors, would use his influence against him in other matters besides the creamery scheme unless something could be done to embarrass or discredit him. The farmer, he thought, was open to attack in two ways – through his wife and through the defaulting debtor he had befriended.

When Hunter walked out of the hotel a few minutes afterward he also was thinking of Winthrop. He found Thorne harnessing his team.

"Did Winthrop ever show you his mortgage deed or any other papers relating to his deal with Nevis?" he asked.

"No," answered Thorne; "I was only in his place three or four times. Why do you ask?"

"There's a point in connection with it that occurs to me; but I dare say he took them with him."

Hunter paused and flashed a quick glance at his companion.

"Do you know where he is?"

"I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't want to, though it's possible that I could find out. The trouble is that if I made inquiries it might set other people – Nevis, for instance – on his trail."

"Yes," assented Hunter, "there's a good deal in that. On the whole, it might be wiser if you kept carefully clear of the thing, particularly if Corporal Slaney feels inclined to move any further in the matter. Well, as I've a long drive before me I must be getting on."

He turned away toward the stables and Thorne grinned cheerfully. He had a respect for the astuteness of this quiet, steady-eyed farmer, and he was disposed to fancy that Nevis would share it before the struggle which he forecasted was over. What was more, he was quite ready to act in any way as Hunter's ally, and he believed that between them they could give the plotter something to think about.

It was getting dark when Hunter reached home and found his wife waiting for him in the general living room. She was evidently a little out of temper.

"You are very late," she said. "I suppose you have been to one of those creamery meetings again?"

Hunter sat down where the lamplight fell upon his face, and there was a trace of weariness in it.

"Yes," he answered; "I had to go. On the whole, I'm glad I did."

"A crisis of some kind? You haven't been increasing your interest in the scheme?"

"No," replied Hunter with a smile; "not in money, anyway. You will, no doubt, be pleased to hear it."

"I am," retorted Florence. "If you had been ready to give those people anything they asked for it wouldn't have been flattering. You're not remarkably generous where I'm concerned."

Hunter made a gesture of protest.

"I'm not giving them anything at all. Once we make it a success I can get back the money I'm putting into the undertaking at any time; and if I don't I expect every bit of it to earn me something."

He looked around at her directly, for he knew where the grievance lay.

"That's a very different matter from handing you a big check for your expenses in Toronto or Montreal."

"Oh, yes," pouted Florence; "the latter would give me pleasure."

She paused and there was a sudden change in her expression.

"Elcot," she added, "can't you realize that now and then you can lay out money without getting anything back for it, and yet find that it pays you well?"

The man looked at her hesitatingly. He knew what this question meant and he was half disposed to yield. Living simply and toiling hard, he had treated her generously in comparison with his means, which, after all, were not large; but he remembered that he had yielded rather often of late and that each concession had merely led to a fresh demand.

"There's a limit, Flo," he said. "Still, if three hundred dollars will meet the case I might stretch a point. I suppose you are determined on that visit to Toronto?"

The woman knew that any further attempt to win him round would fail, and, this being so, it seemed a pity to waste energy on him. The three hundred dollars would by no means suffice for the purpose. This in itself was unpleasant, but in the fact that he could not be induced to make what appeared to be a small sacrifice for her pleasure there lay an extra sting. It was, perhaps, a pity that she had of late given him small cause for suspecting anything of the kind.

"It would be better than nothing," she said coldly, and then leaned back in her chair in a sudden fit of impatience with him and the whole situation.

"I sometimes wonder how I stand with you!" she exclaimed.

"First," declared the man, and he spoke the simple truth; but unfortunately he was not wise enough to content himself with the brief assurance. "Still," he added, "I have other duties."

"To Maverick Thorne, and Winthrop, and everybody in the district generally!"

"Well," replied Hunter, with the hint of weariness creeping back into his expression, "I suppose that more or less fits the case. You have all along been first with me, and I think I have done what I could to please you – and done it willingly. Still, there are these others – I owe them something. When I came here, a poor man, they held out their hands to me; one lent me a team, another, when I had no mower, cut and carried in my hay, and some came over night after night to build my log barn. I think I should have gone under if it hadn't been for them." He looked up at his wife with resolute eyes. "Now that I can pay them back without, in all probability, its costing me a dollar I'm at least going to try."

Florence's lips set scornfully. She had no liking for the surrounding farmers. They were, in her estimation, mere unlettered toilers – simple, unimaginative, brown-faced men who thought about nothing but the seasons and the price of wheat. What was, perhaps, as much to the purpose, she had a suspicion that most of them were not greatly impressed in her favor. Now her husband was, it seemed, anxious to waste his means for their benefit.

"Elcot," she asked abruptly, "has it never occurred to you that you could make more of your life than you are doing here?"

Hunter faced the question humorously.

"It would be astonishing if it hadn't, since you have suggested it more than once, but the answer is in the negative. This place is paying pretty well, and my means would certainly not keep us in Winnipeg, Toronto or Montreal; anyway, not in the comfort with which, after all, you have been surrounded. Of course, I might, for instance, try to run a store, but it doesn't strike me that this would be of much benefit to you. Would the kind of people you like welcome you as readily if your husband were retailing hats or groceries in the neighborhood?"

Florence knew that it was most improbable, though she would not confess it. Instead, she decided to see if it were possible to irritate him.

"After all," she retorted, "there is no great difference between a storekeeper and a farmer. All my city friends know what you are, and I can find no fault with the way they treat me."

Hunter laughed as he glanced down at his hard brown hands and dusty attire.

"The point is that in your case the farmer husband does not put in an appearance. It might be different if he did."

Florence looked at him in silence for a moment or two. Though he had been to the creamery meeting he was very plainly dressed; his bronzed face and battered nails told their own tale of arduous toil in the open, and there was no doubt that he looked a prairie farmer. Yet he was, as she realized now and then, well favored in a way; a man who might have made his mark in a different station, widely read and quietly forceful. Indeed, his inflexibility on certain points, though it sometimes angered her, compelled her deference.

"Oh," she cried at length, "it doesn't cost you much self-denial to stay behind. It's easy for you to be content. You like this life."

"Yes," returned Hunter quietly; "I'm thankful that I do. It's what I was made for. However, I don't wish to force too much of it on you, and so I'll give you a check for the three hundred dollars."

He crossed the room and, opening a desk, sat down at it for a minute or two. Then he came back and laid a strip of paper on the table in front of Florence.

"After all," she conceded, "as I was away a good deal of last winter, it's rather liberal, Elcot."

Hunter, without answering her, went quietly out.

CHAPTER XIII

NEVIS PICKS UP A CLUE

A week had slipped by since the meeting of the creamery committee and it was about the middle of the afternoon when Nevis lay, cigar in hand, in the shadow of a straggling bluff. It was pleasantly cool there and scorching sunshine beat down upon the prairie, across which he had plodded during the last half hour, and he had still some miles to go before he could reach the farm at which he expected to borrow a team. He was not fond of walking, but the man who had driven him out from the settlement, being in haste to reach Graham's Bluff, had set him down some distance from the homestead he desired to visit. Nevis found it advisable to look his clients up every now and then and see how they were getting on. This enabled him to sell to those who were not too deeply in his debt implements and stores at top prices, and to put judicious pressure upon the ones whose payments had fallen behind.

He was, however, thinking of Hunter as he lay full length among the grass with a frown on his face. It seemed desirable to let the man who had deprived him of what looked like a promising opportunity for lining his pockets feel that it would be wiser to refrain from interfering with his affairs in future, and he fancied that if Winthrop, whom Hunter had confessed to befriending, should be brought to trial it would convey a useful hint. This course was also advisable for other reasons. It must be admitted that the bondholder does not always come out on top, especially in bad seasons, and Nevis had already decided that the arrest of Winthrop would serve as a warning to any of his neighbors who might feel tempted to evade their liabilities in a similar fashion. He was still on the absconder's trail, though as yet it had not led him very far.

By and by he heard a soft beat of hoofs and a rattle of wheels, and looking up was pleased to see Mrs. Hunter drive around a corner of the bluff. He had of late been conscious of a growing delight in her company, and, what was almost as much to the purpose, he had partly thought out a plan of attacking her husband through her. He had, however, too much tact to force himself on her, and he lay still, apparently unobservant of her approach until she pulled up the horse.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Resting," replied Nevis, rising to his feet. "I'm going across to Jordan's place. Walking's no doubt healthy, but I'm afraid I'm not fond of it."

He waited to see whether she would take the hint, which he had made as plain as possible, and as he did so a gleam crept into his eyes. Florence had an eye for color and an artistic taste in dress, and she was attired then in filmy draperies of a faint, shimmering green – the color of clear sea-water rippling over sand. They suggested the fine contour of her form and emphasized the shifting tones of burnished copper in her hair and the clearness of her eyes. What she saw in his expression did not appear, but she smiled at him.

"Then if you will get in I can drive you part of the way," she said graciously.

Nevis did not wait for a second invitation and she turned to him when he had taken his place at her side.

"You haven't come back to call on us."

"No," responded Nevis; "I saw your husband at one of the creamery meetings and I'm sorry to own there were one or two matters upon which we couldn't agree."

He watched her to see how she would receive this, but she laughed.

"I'm not responsible for all Elcot's opinions, and I must do him the justice to say that he seldom attempts to force them on me. For all that, I shouldn't wonder if he were right."

Nevis was far too astute to disparage the man he did not like openly to his wife, so he made a sign of assent.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "it's possible that he was. In one sense, he generally is. Elcot's what one might call altruistic; he has a finer perception of ethical right than the rest of us, and one could fancy it occasionally makes difficulties for him. Indeed, it's bound to when he rubs against ordinary mortals who're content to look out for what's going to benefit them."

His companion recognized the truth of this, and, as he had expected, it irritated her. Deep down in her nature there was a hidden respect for the quiet, resolute man who, though he seldom proclaimed them, lived in what she now and then considered too strict compliance with his principles. He recognized his duty toward her and had discharged it, in most respects, with a conscientious thoroughness; but that accomplished, he had also recognized his duty to others, and had unwaveringly insisted on fulfilling this in turn. There, as Nevis had cunningly suggested, lay the grievance. It would have been more pleasant for her, and – she confessed this – in many little ways also for him, had she stood alone in his eyes, instead of merely standing first. There was a marked and often inconvenient distinction between the two things. Now and then his point of view appealed to her, but more often her pride received a jar and she thought of him bitterly when he befriended his neighbors, as she tried to convince herself, at her expense. She could, she felt, have loved the man, and perhaps have made an unconditional surrender to him, but he must first be hers altogether and think of nobody else.

Then Nevis interrupted her thoughts with a veiled purpose, and once more touched the tender spot.

"Most of the boys think a good deal of Elcot, and I guess it's natural. He has given quite a few of them a lift now and then. There's Winthrop and Thorne, for instance – he guaranteed Maverick for a thousand dollars, somebody told me – and now he's putting a good deal more into this creamery scheme. From experience of their habits, I should say he must find that kind of thing expensive now and then. Perhaps, if one might suggest it, that is why he lives as plainly as he does. In a way, it's rather fine of him, though it wouldn't appeal to me."

There was no doubt that any self-denial on her husband's part in which she might be compelled to share did not appeal to Florence either, but she noticed the tact with which Nevis had refrained from supporting his statement by a reference to his loan or the unpaid bills.

"Well," she declared, "I, at least, believe in getting the most one can out of life."

"That," said Nevis, "is my own idea, and it leads up to the question why you haven't gone away yet? Have your husband's benefactions made it impossible?"

He had at last attained his object. Florence had longed for the visit, and had resented the fact that Elcot had not been willing to indulge her in it at any cost. He had certainly given her a check, but, while Toronto is a cheaper place than Montreal, three hundred dollars will not go very far in any Canadian city, at least when one is satisfied with only the best that is obtainable.

"They have certainly helped," she replied curtly.

Nevis recognized that she would not have admitted this had she not been disposed to treat him on a confidential footing, and it was clear that the indignation she had displayed in her answer was directed against her husband and had not been occasioned by his presumption.

"Then," he suggested, "if you really wish to go, there's a way in which it could be managed; though it's an act of self-sacrifice on my part to further such an object."

Florence swallowed the last suggestion and looked at him sharply.

"You mean?"

"I could find you the money – on the same terms as the last." He added the explanation hastily lest her pride should take alarm.

There was silence for a moment, and during it Florence's resentment against her husband grew stronger. She was anxious for the visit, but had he been poor she would have given it up more or less willingly. That, however, was not the case, for, as her companion had cunningly hinted, he was at least rich enough to bestow his favors on men like Winthrop, the absconder, and the pedler Thorne. Now she blamed him for driving her into borrowing from the man at her side.

"I should be glad to have it on those conditions," she said at length.

She pulled up the horse presently while Nevis took out a fountain-pen and his pocketbook, and when she drove on again she held a check of his in her hand. Twenty minutes later he looked around at her as the horse plodded more slowly up a slight rise.

"I think I'll get out here," he said. "It's only half a mile to Jordan's place; you can see the house from the top."

There was not a great deal in the words, but Florence grasped their hidden significance. They conveyed a delicate suggestion that it might not be desirable for her to be seen in his company, and she was quite aware that to fall in with it would imply that there was already something in their relations that must be kept concealed from their neighbors' gaze. For a moment she felt inclined to insist on driving him up to the homestead door, and then the feel of his check in her hand restrained her. She stopped the horse and smiled when he got down.

"Thank you again," she said.

"That's a little superfluous," returned the man. "It's a business deal; but if you can spare a few minutes when you are in Toronto you might manage to write a line. After all, I can, perhaps, ask that much."

"I won't promise," Florence laughed. "Still, it's possible that I may make the effort."

She drove away and Nevis climbed the rise feeling very well satisfied. He had got a firmer hold on Hunter now and he meant to break ground for the next attack by picking up Winthrop's trail. In this also, fortune favored him, for when he drew up his hired rig outside Farquhar's house on the following evening he found that both he and his wife were out. Alison was in, however, and when she said that they would probably reach home shortly he got down and sat a while talking with her on the stoop, which in the summer frequently serves the purpose of a drawing-room at a prairie homestead. Alison had met him once or twice before and was sensible of a slight dislike toward the man, though she could not deny that he was an amusing companion. By and by a girl drove along the trail two or three hundred yards away in a wagon, and he gazed rather hard at her.

"She recognized you, didn't she?" he questioned. "I can't quite fix her."

"Lucy Calvert," Alison informed him.

"It's rather curious that I haven't seen her before, as I should certainly have remembered it, though I had once or twice a deal with her father."

Alison was conscious of a slight irritation, which, indeed, any reference to the girl in question usually aroused in her.

"Then," she said, "if Lucy has any say in the matter you are scarcely likely to do any further business with the family."

Nevis raised his eyebrows.

"I wonder what you mean?"

"Only that it's generally supposed Miss Calvert was to have married Winthrop. Whether she still intends to do so is more than I know."

She was puzzled by the sudden intentness of the man's face and for no particular cause half regretted the speech.

"It's the first time I've heard of it," he said thoughtfully. Then he smiled. "Anyway, she can't be very wise if she's anxious to marry him."

Alison, who had watched him closely, fancied that his smile was meant to cover his interest in the information she had given him. She also noticed how quickly he changed the subject, and they talked about other matters until at last, as Farquhar did not make his appearance, he stood up.

"I'll look in another time," he told her. "It's getting late, and I'm due at the bluff to-night."

Soon after he had driven away Farquhar turned up with his wife and Thorne, and Alison noticed the frown on the latter's face when she informed Mrs. Farquhar of Nevis's visit.

"I'm astonished that you have him here at all," he broke out.

"Why shouldn't I?" his hostess asked.

"That question," returned Thorne, "strikes me as a little superfluous, considering that he's an utterly unscrupulous, scoundrelly vampire. Still, I dare say you can forgive him a good deal for the sake of his appearance."

Mrs. Farquhar laughed.

"The last, I suppose, is after all his chief offense."

Alison saw that this shot had reached its mark by the way Thorne drew down his brows. The man, as she had heard, had a quick temper, but she was not displeased that he should obviously resent the fact that Nevis had spent half an hour in her company. Then, remembering that Winthrop was a friend of Thorne's, she felt a little guilty, and when later on they all sauntered out across the prairie, she drew him aside.

"There's something I think I should mention," she said. "I told Nevis that Miss Calvert was to have married Winthrop. He seemed unusually interested."

Thorne started and looked hard at her.

"What on earth made you do that?" he asked sharply. "Did he lead up to it?"

"No," replied Alison with some reluctance, "I don't think he did. So far as I can remember, I volunteered the information."

There was no doubt about the man's displeasure.

"He certainly would be interested, and I'm very much afraid you have made trouble. But you haven't told me why you did it."