Hawtrey's Deputy

Agatha went with him through the shadow of the wood, and when at length they came out of it he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house and ploughing were hidden now, and they were alone on the slope to a slight hollow, in which half a mile of gleaming water lay. Its surface was broken here and there, by tussocks of grass and reeds, and beyond it the prairie ran back unbroken, a dim grey waste, to the horizon. The sun had dipped behind the bluff, and the sky had become a vast green transparency. There was no wind now, but a wonderful exhilarating freshness crept into the cooling air, and the stillness was only broken by the clamour of startled wildfowl which presently sank again. Agatha could see them paddling in clusters about the gleaming sloo.

"Those are ducks – wild ones?" she asked.

"Yes," said Wyllard; "duck of various kinds. Most of them the same as your English ones."

"Do you shoot them?"

Agatha was not greatly interested, but he seemed disposed to silence, and she felt, for no very clear reason, that it was advisable to talk of something.

"No," he said, "not often, anyway. If Mrs. Nansen wants a couple I crawl down to the long grass with the rifle and get them for her."

"The rifle? Doesn't the big bullet destroy them?"

"No," said Wyllard. "You have to shoot their head off or cut their neck in two."

"You can do that – when they're right out in the sloo?" asked Agatha, who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle than a shot-gun, which spreads its charge.

Wyllard smiled. "Generally; that is, if I haven't been doing much just before. It depends upon one's hands. We have our game laws, but as a rule nobody worries about them, and, anyway, those birds won't nest until they reach the tundra by the Polar Sea. Still, as I said, we never shoot them unless Mrs. Nansen wants one or two for the pot."

"Why?"

"I don't quite know. For one thing, they're worn out; they just stop here to rest."

His answer appealed to the girl. It did not seem strange to her that the love of the lower creation should be strong in this man, who had no hesitation in admitting that the game laws were no restraint to him. For the most part, at least, when these Lesser Brethren sailed down out of the blue heavens worn with their journey he gave them right of sanctuary.

"They have come a long way?" she asked.

Wyllard pointed towards the South. "From Florida, Cuba, Yucatan; further than that, perhaps. In a day or two they'll push on again towards the Pole, and others will take their places. There's a further detachment arriving now."

Looking up, Agatha saw a straggling wedge of birds dotted in dusky specks against the vault, of transcendental green. It coalesced, drew out again, and dropped swiftly, and the air was filled with the rush of wings; then there was a harsh crying and splashing, and she heard the troubled water lap among the reeds until deep silence closed in upon the sloo again.

"I wonder," she said, "why they do it?"

A rather curious smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It's their destiny: they're wanderers and strangers without a habitation: there's unrest in them. After a few months on the tundra mosses to gather strength and teach the young to fly, they'll unfold their wings to beat another passage before the icy gales. Some of us, I think, are like them!"

Agatha could not avoid the personal application. It would have appeared less admissible among her friends at The Grange, but she felt that the constraints of English reticence were out of place in the wilderness.

"You surely don't apply that to yourself," she said. "You certainly have a habitation – the finest, isn't it, on this part of the prairie?"

"Yes," said Wyllard slowly; "I suppose it is. I've now had a little rest and quietness, too."

This did not appear to call for an answer, and Agatha sat silent.

"Still," he said, "I have a feeling that some day the call will come, and I shall have to take the trail again." He paused, and looked at her before he added, "It would be easier if one hadn't to go alone, or, since that would be necessary, if one had at least something to come back to when the journey was done."

"It would be necessary?" said Agatha, who was rather puzzled by his steady gaze.

"Yes," he said with a somewhat impressive gravity, "the call will come from the icy North if it ever comes at all."

There was another brief silence, and Agatha wondered what he was thinking of until he went on again.

"I remember how I last came back from there. We were rather late that season, and out of our usual beat when the gale broke upon us between Alaska and Asia in the gateway of the Pole. We ran before it with a strip of the boom-foresail on her and a jib that blew to ribands every now and then. She was a little schooner of ninety tons or so, and for most of a week she scudded with the grey seas tumbling after her, white-topped, out of the snow and spume. They ranged high above her taffrail curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching her screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let her fall off or claw up, the next one would have made an end of her. He was knee deep half the time in icy brine, and his hands had split and opened with the frost, but the sweat dripped from him as he clung to the jarring wheel. One of those helmsmen – perhaps two – had another trouble which preyed on them. They were thinking of the three men they had left behind.

"Well," he added, "we ran out of the gale, and I had bitter words to face when we reached Vancouver. As one result of it I walked out of the city with four or five dollars in my pocket – though there was a share due to me. Then I rode up into the ranges in an open car to mend railroad bridges in the frost and snow. It was not the kind of home-coming one would care to look forward to."

"Ah," said Agatha, "it must have been horribly dreary?"

The man met her eyes. "Yes," he said, "you – know. You came here from far away, I think a little weary, too, and something failed you. Then you felt yourself adrift. There were – it seemed – only strangers round you, but you were wrong in one respect; you were by no means a stranger to me."

He had been leaning against a birch trunk, but now he moved a little nearer, and stood gravely looking down on her.

"You have sent Gregory away?" he said.

"Yes," said Agatha, and, startled as she was, it did not strike her that the mere admission was misleading.

Wyllard stretched his hands out. "Then won't you come to me?"

The blood swept into the girl's face. For the moment she forgot Gregory, and was only conscious of an unreasoning impulse which prompted her to take the hands held out to her. Then she rose and faced the man, with burning cheeks.

"You know nothing of me," she said. "Can you think that I would let you take me – out of charity?"

"Again you're wrong – on both points. As I once told you, I have sat for hours beside the fire beneath the pines or among the boulders with your picture for company. When I was worn-out and despondent you encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all, however, though it's difficult to speak of such things to you. There were times when as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide, all one's physical nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labour. The pay-days came round, and opportunities were made for us – to forget what we had borne, and had still to bear, in the snow and the icy water. Then you laid a restraining hand on me. I could not take your picture where you could not go. Is all that to count for nothing?"

Then he spread his hands out forcibly. "As to the other question: can't you get beyond the narrow point of view? We're in a big, new country where the old barriers are down. We're merely flesh and blood – red blood – and we speak as we feel. Admitting that I was sorry for you – I am – how does that tell against me – or you? There's one thing only that counts at all: I want you."

Agatha was stirred, and almost dismayed at the effect his words had on her. He had spoken with a force and passion that had nearly swept her away with it. The vigour of the new land throbbed in his voice, and, flinging aside all cramping restraints and conventions, he had, as he had said, claimed her as flesh and blood. There was no doubt that her nature responded, and it was significant that Gregory had faded altogether out of her mind; but there was, after all, pride in her, and she could not quite bring herself to look at things from his standpoint. All her prejudices and her sense of fitness were opposed to it. For one thing, he had taken the wrong way when he had admitted that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she shrank from the shadow of the thought that she would marry him – for shelter. It brought her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered the haste with which marriages were, it seemed, arranged on the prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost compelled her to yield to him passed away, she remembered that it was scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was intolerable that he should think she would be willing to fall into his arms merely because he had held them out to her.

"It's a little difficult to get beyond one's sense of what is fit," she said. "You – I must say it again – can't know anything about me. You have woven fancies about that photograph, but you must recognise that I'm not the girl you have, it seems, created out of them. In all probability she's wholly unreal, unnatural, visionary." She contrived to smile, for she was recovering her composure. "Perhaps it's easy when one has imagination to endow a person with qualities and graces that could never belong to them. It must be easy" – and though she was unconscious of it, there was a trace of bitterness in her voice – "because I know I could do it myself."

Again the man held his hands out. "Then," he said simply, "won't you try? If you can only feel sure that the person has them it's possible that he could acquire one or two."

Agatha drew back, disregarding this. "Then I've changed ever so much since that photograph was taken."

Wyllard admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I recognised that; you were a little immature then. I know that now – but all the graciousness and sweetness in you has grown and ripened. What is more, it has grown just as I seemed to know it would do. I saw that clearly the day we met beside the stepping-stones. I would have asked you to marry me in England only Gregory stood in the way."

Then the colour ebbed suddenly out of the girl's face as she remembered.

"Gregory," she said in a strained voice, "stands in the way still. I didn't send him away altogether. I'm not sure I made that clear."

Wyllard started, but he stood very still again for a moment or two.

"I wonder," he said, "if there's anything significant in the fact that you gave me that reason last? He failed you in some way?"

"I'm not sure that I haven't failed him; but I can't go into that."

Again Wyllard stood silent awhile. Then he turned to her with the signs of a strong restraint in his face.

"Gregory," he said, "is a friend of mine; there is, at least, one very good reason why I should remember it, but it seems that somehow he hadn't the wit to keep you. Well, I can only wait in the meanwhile, but when the time seems ripe I shall ask you again. Until then you have my promise that I will not say another word that could distress you. Perhaps I had better take you back to Mrs. Hastings now."

Agatha turned away, and they walked back together silently through the bluff.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SUMMONS

Mrs. Hastings was standing beside her waggon in the gathering dusk when Agatha and Wyllard joined her, and when the latter had helped them up she looked down at him severely as she gathered up the reins.

"By this time Allen will have had to put the kiddies to bed," she said. "Christina, as you might have borne in mind, goes over to Branstock's every evening. Anyway, you'll drive across and see him about that team as soon as you can; come to supper."

"I'll try," said Wyllard with a certain hesitation; and Mrs. Hastings turned to her companion as they drove away.

"Why did he look at you before he answered me?" she asked, and laughed, for there was just light enough left to show the colour in Agatha's cheek. "Well," she added, "I told Allen he was sure to be the first."

Agatha looked at her in evident bewilderment, but she nodded. "Yes," she said, "of course, I knew it would come. Everybody knows by now that you have fallen out with Gregory."

"But, as I told you, I haven't fallen out with him."

"Then you certainly haven't married him, and if you have said 'No' to Harry Wyllard because you would sooner take Gregory after all, you're a singularly unwise young woman. Anyway, you'll have to meet him when he comes to supper. Allen's fond of a talk with Harry; I can't have him kept away."

"I was a little afraid of that," said Agatha quietly. "What makes the situation more difficult is that he told me he would ask me again."

Mrs. Hastings appeared thoughtful. "In that case he will in all probability do it; but I don't think you need feel diffident about meeting him, especially as you can't help it. He'll wait and say nothing until he considers it advisable."

She changed the subject, and talked about other matters until they reached the homestead; but as the weeks went by Agatha found that what she had told her was warranted.

Wyllard drove over every now and then, but she was reassured by his attitude. He greeted her with the quiet cordiality which had hitherto characterised him, and it went a long way towards allaying the embarrassment she was conscious of at first. By and bye, however, she felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the disturbing possibility that he might at some future time once more adopt the rôle of lover. In the meanwhile, she realised that in face of the efforts she made to think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory; and she had, as it happened, two further offers of marriage before the wheat had shot up a hand's breadth above the rich black loam. This was a matter of regret to her, and, though Mrs. Hastings assured her that the "boys" would get over it, she was rather shocked to hear that one of them had shortly afterwards involved himself in difficulties by creating a disturbance in Winnipeg.

The wheat, however, was growing tall when, at Mrs. Hastings's request, she drove over with her again to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when they reached it, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together she wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff and towards the sloo, which had almost dried up now, and it was with a curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard had said to her there. Through them all there ran a regret that she had not met him four years earlier.

That, however, was a train of thought she did not care to indulge in, and in order to get rid of it she walked more briskly up a low rise where the grass was already turning white again, over the crest of it, and down the side of another hollow. The prairie rolled just there in wide undulations as the sea does when the swell of a distant gale under-runs a glassy calm. She had grown fond of the prairie, and its clear skies and fresh breezes had brought the colour to her cheeks and given her composure, though there were times when the knowledge that she was no nearer a decision in regard to Gregory weighed upon her like a chill depressing shadow. She had seen very little of him, and he had not been effusive then. What he felt she could not tell, but it had been a relief to her when he had ridden away again. Then for a while he faded to an unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind.

That afternoon the prairie stretched away before her gleaming in the sunlight tinder a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and for the first time she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow at the foot of it, where there had been another sloo. It had, however, evidently dried up weeks ago, and as there were men and horses moving amidst the dust she supposed that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows longer in such places than it does upon the levels. She went on another half-mile, and then sat down some distance off, for she had already walked further than she had intended. She could now see the men more clearly, and though it was fiercely hot they were evidently working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing and bare brown arms appeared among the white and ochre tinting of the grass that seemed charged with brightness, and the sounds of their activity came up to her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of the mowers, the crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of waggon wheels.

By and bye a great mound of gleaming grass overhanging two half-seen horses moved out of the sloo, and she watched it draw nearer until she made out Wyllard sitting in a depression in the front of it. She sat still until he pulled the team up close beside her and looked down with a smile.

"It's 'most two miles to the homestead. If you could manage to climb up I could make you a comfortable place," he said.

Agatha held her hands up with one foot upon a spoke of the wheel as the man leaned down, and next moment she was strongly lifted and felt his supporting hand upon her waist. Then she found herself standing upon a narrow ledge clutching at the hay while he tore out several big armfuls of it and flung it back upon the rest.

"Now," he said, "I guess you'll find that a snug enough nest."

She sank into it with at least a certain sense of physical satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm, scented with the aromatic odours of wild peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath her limbs. Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she fancied she had seen a sudden sign of tension in the man's face when he had for a moment held her on the edge of the waggon. Unobtrusively she flashed a glance at him, and was reassured. He was looking straight before him with unwavering eyes, and his face was as quiet as it usually was again. Neither of them said anything until the team moved on. Then he turned to her.

"You won't get jolted much," he said. "They've been at it since four o'clock this morning."

"That," said Agatha, "must have meant that you rose at three."

Wyllard smiled. "As a matter of fact, it was half-past two. There was no dew last night, and we started early. I've several extra teams this year, and there's a good deal of hay to cut. Of course, we have to get it in the sloos or any damp place where it's long. We don't sow grass, and we have no meadows like those there are in England."

Agatha understood that he meant to talk about matters of no particular consequence, as he usually did. There was, as she had noticed, a vein of almost poetic imagination in this man, and his idea that she had been with him through the snow of the lonely ranges and the gloom of the great forests of the Pacific slope appealed to her, merely as a pretty fancy, in particular. He had, however, of late very seldom given it rein, and sitting close beside him among the yielding hay she decided that it was wiser to let him talk about his farm.

"But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven't you?" she said.

"I had, but he left me three or four days ago. It's a pity in several ways, since I've taken up rather more than I can handle this year."

"Then why didn't you keep him?"

There was a certain grimness in Wyllard's laugh. "Martial was a little muleish, and I'm afraid I'm troubled with a shortness of temper now and then. We had a difference of opinion as to the best way to drive the mower into the sloo, and he didn't seem to recognise that he should have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys were standing by, I had to insist upon him getting out of the saddle."

He had turned a little further towards her, and Agatha noticed that there was a bruise upon one side of his face. After what he had just told her the sight of it jarred upon her, though she would not admit that there was any reason why it should do so. She could not deny that on the prairie a resort to physical force might be warranted by the lack of any other remedy, but it hurt her to think of him descending to an open brawl with one of his men.

Then it occurred to her that the other man had in all probability suffered more, and this brought her a certain sense of satisfaction which she admitted was more or less barbarous. She had made it clear that Wyllard was nothing to her, but she could not help watching him as he lay among the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face, which, though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring – she felt that was the best word – to look at. The dusty shirt and old blue trousers, as she had already noticed, accentuated the long, clean lines of his figure, and she realised with a faint sense of anger that his mere physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, appealed to her. This was, she recognised, an almost repugnant thing, a feeling to be judiciously checked, but it would obtrude itself. After all, in spite of her fastidiousness, she was endued with most of the characteristics of flesh and blood.

"You must have a good deal to look after alone," she said.

"Oh yes," said Wyllard; "I'm making my biggest effort this year. We've sown at least a third more than I've ever done before, and I've bought a big bunch of horses, too. If all goes satisfactorily we should reap a record harvest, but in the meanwhile the thing's rather a pull. One can't let up a minute; there's always something to be done, and a constant need for supervision."

"Suppose you neglected the latter?"

Wyllard smiled. "Then I'm 'most afraid there'd be the biggest kind of smash."

After that they talked of other matters of no great consequence, for both of them were conscious of the necessity for a certain reticence; and when they reached the homestead Agatha joined Mrs. Hastings, while Wyllard pitched the hay off the waggon. He, however, came in to supper presently with about half of the others, and they all sat down together in the long, barely furnished room. Wyllard seemed unusually animated, and drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout of whimsical badinage, but he looked up sharply when, by and bye, a beat of hoofs rose from the prairie.

"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants?" he said. "I certainly don't expect anybody."

The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for the sod was hard and dry. Then it broke off, and Agatha saw Wyllard start as a man came into the room. He was a little, thick-set man with a weather-darkened face, dressed in rather old blue serge, and he looked and walked like a seaman. In another moment or two he stood still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A little thrill of disconcertion ran through Agatha, for she felt she knew what this stranger's errand must be.

Then Wyllard rose, and walked towards the man with outstretched hand.

"Sit right down and get some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden in from the railroad," he said. "We'll talk afterwards."

The stranger nodded. "I'm from Vancouver," he said; "had quite a lot of trouble tracing you."

He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take his horse, went back to his seat, but he was rather silent during the rest of the meal. When it was over he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the stranger into a smaller room pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar box on the table.

"Now you can get ahead," he said.

The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed it to his companion.

"That's what I came to bring you," he said quietly.

Wyllard's eyes grew very grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip of willow which will grow close up to the limits of the eternal ice, and it bore a rude representation of the British ensign union down, which signifies "In distress." Besides this there were one or two indecipherable words scratched on it, and three common names rather more clearly cut. Wyllard recognised every one of them.