Harding of Allenwood Part 32

"I'm not ill."

"Then you're anxious."

"I must confess that I have something to think about."

"I know," said Beatrice. "Things look black just now. With the wheat market falling----"

"What do you know about the market?" Mowbray asked in surprise.

"I read the newspapers and hear the boys talk. They're brave and take it carelessly, but one feels----"

Mowbray gave her a keen glance.

"Well, what do you feel?"

"That I'd like to help you in any way I can. So far, I've taken all you have given me and done nothing in return."

"You can help," he answered slowly. "It would ease my mind if you married Brand."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Not that! I'm sorry, but it's impossible."

He made a gesture of resignation.

"Well, I can't force you."

Beatrice was silent a moment.

"It's hard to refuse the only big thing you have ever asked," she said hesitatingly. "I really want to help, and I feel humiliated when I see how little I can do. Mrs. Broadwood and Hester Harding can manage a farm; Broadwood says he only began to make money after he married." She paused, seeing Mowbray's frown, and went on with a forced smile: "However, I can at least cease to be an expense. I have cost you a great deal one way and another, and now you must give me nothing more."

"I'm afraid I may have to cut down your allowance," he answered gloomily.

"That's one thing I can save you." She looked at him with diffident eagerness. "I've been thinking a good deal lately, and I see that if wheat keeps getting cheaper it may be serious for us all. Couldn't we take precautions?"

"What kind of precautions?"

"Oh, I can't tell you that--I don't know enough about farming. But perhaps we could make some changes and economies; break more land, for example."

"If we lose on what we have broken already, how shall we economize by plowing more?"

"It sounds logical; but can't you save labor and reduce the average expense by working on a large scale?"

"Perhaps. But it needs capital."

"A few new horses and bigger plows wouldn't cost very much. We are spending a good deal of money on other things that are not directly useful."

Mowbray looked at her with an ironical smile and Beatrice felt confused.

She remembered that she had staunchly defended her father's conservative att.i.tude to Harding, and now she was persuading him to abandon it.

"This is a new line for you to take," he said. "I should like to know what has suggested it. Has Mrs. Broadwood converted you, or have you been talking to the Americans?"

"I meet Mr. Harding now and then, and he generally talks about farming."

"I suppose you can't avoid the fellow altogether, but politeness is all that is required. He has a habit of exaggerating the importance of things, and he can only look at them from his point of view."

Beatrice felt guilty. Her father had not forbidden her speaking to the man; he trusted her to remember what was due to her station. She could imagine his anger were he to suspect that she had allowed Harding to make love to her.

"Kenwyne and Broadwood seem to agree with him," she urged.

"They're rank pessimists; you mustn't listen to them. Try to be as economical as you can; but leave these matters alone. You don't understand them."

She went to her room, feeling downcast. She had failed to influence him, but it was partly her fault that she had been unable to do so. She had wasted her time in idle amus.e.m.e.nts, and now she must take the consequences. n.o.body except Harding would listen when she wished to talk about things that mattered. She felt ashamed of her ignorance and of her utter helplessness. But perhaps she might learn; she would ask Hester Harding to teach her.

CHAPTER XVIII

COVERING HIS TRAIL

It was bitterly cold in the log-walled room at the back of the settlement store where Gerald Mowbray sat by the red-hot stove. His deerskin jacket and moccasins were much the worse for wear, and his face was thin and darkened by the glare of the snow. For the past month he had been traveling with a survey party through the rugged forest-belt of Northern Ontario, living in the open in Arctic weather, until the expedition had fallen back on the lonely settlement to get fresh supplies.

All round the rude log-shacks, small, ragged pines, battered by the wind, and blackened here and there by fire, rose from the deep snow that softened the harsh contour of the rocky wilderness. This is one of the coldest parts of Canada. The conifers that roll across it are generally too small for milling, and its penetration is remarkably difficult, but a silver vein accounted for the presence of a few hard-bitten miners.

Occasionally they ran some risk of starving when fresh snow delayed the transport of provisions, and it was only at irregular intervals that a mail reached them. An Indian mail-carrier had, however, arrived shortly before the survey party, and Gerald had a letter in his hand, and a Montreal newspaper lay beside him. The letter troubled him. He was thankful to be left alone for a few minutes, for he had much to think about.

Hardship and fatigue had no attractions for him, but he had grown tired of the monotony of his life at the Grange, and as qualified surveyors were not plentiful in the wilds, the authorities had been glad to obtain the services of an engineer officer. Though he was only an a.s.sistant, the pay was good, and he had thought it wise to place himself out of his creditors' reach. Unfortunately, some of the more persistent had learned where he had gone, and the letter contained a curt demand for the settlement of an account. Gerald could not pay it, but the newspaper brought a ray of hope. He had speculated with part of the money his father had once given him to pay his debts, and the mining shares he bought had turned out worthless. Now, however, they were unexpectedly going up; it seemed that the company had at last tapped a vein of promising ore. If he could hold out, he might be able to liquidate his most pressing debts. But this creditor's demand was peremptory and he could not see how he was to gain time. He wished the men whose harsh voices reached him from the store would stop talking. They were rough choppers, of whose society he had grown very tired; and the taciturn surveyor was not a much better companion.

The surveyor came in before Gerald found a solution of his difficulties.

He was a big, gaunt man. Throwing off his ragged furs he sat down in a broken chair and lighted his pipe.

"Thermometer's at minus fifty, but we must pull out at sun-up," he remarked. "Now, as I have to run my corner-line as ordered and the grub we've been able to get won't last long, I can't take all the boys and hunt for that belt of farming land."

"Supposit.i.tious, isn't it?" Gerald suggested. "We've seen nothing to indicate there being any soil up here that one could get a plowshare into. Still, the authorities have rather liberal ideas of what could be called cultivatable land."

"That's so," the surveyor agreed. "Where I was raised they used to say that a bushman can get a crop wherever he can fire the seed among the rocks with a shotgun. Anyway, the breeds and the Indians talk about a good strip of alluvial bottom, and we've got to find out something about it before we go back."

"It will be difficult to haul the stores and camp truck if you divide the gang."

"Sure; but here's my plan." The surveyor opened a rather sketchy map. "I take the sleds and follow the two sides of the triangle. I'll give you the base, and two packers. Marching light, by compa.s.s, you'll join me where the base-line meets the side; but you'll do no prospecting survey unless you strike the alluvial bottom."

"What about provisions?"

"You can carry enough to see you through; the cache I made in advance is within a few marches of where we meet."

It was not a task that appealed to Gerald. It would be necessary to cross a trackless wilderness which only a few of the Hudson Bay half-breeds knew anything about. He must sleep in the snow with an insufficient camp outfit, and live on cut-down rations, with the risk of starving if anything delayed him, because the weight he could transport without a sledge was limited.

He would have refused to undertake the journey only that a half-formed plan flashed into his mind.

"Suppose I miss you?" he suggested.