Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 34

Hawtrey strode along briskly until he reached the open s.p.a.ce which divided the little wooden town from the unfenced railroad track. It was strewn with fine dusty snow, and the huge bulk of the grain elevators towered high above it against the lowering sky. A freight locomotive was just hauling a long string of wheat cars out of a sidetrack. The locomotive stopped presently, and though Hawtrey could not see anything beyond the big cars, he knew by the shouts which broke out that something unusual was going on. He was expecting Sally, who was going east to Brandon by a train due in an hour or two.

When the shouts grew a little louder he walked around in front of the locomotive, which stood still with the steam blowing noisily from a valve, and he saw the cause of the commotion. A pair of vicious, half-broken bronchos were backing a light wagon away from the locomotive on the other side of the track, and a fur-wrapped figure sat stiffly on the driving seat. Hawtrey called out and ran suddenly forward as he saw that it was Sally who was in peril.

Just then one of the horses lifted its fore hoofs off the ground, and being jerked back by the pole plunged and kicked furiously, until the other horse flung up its head and the wagon went backward with a run.

Then they stopped, and there was a series of resounding crashes against the front of the vehicle. Hawtrey was within a pace or two of the wagon when Sally recognized him.

"Keep off," she cried, "you can't lead them! They don't want to cross the track, but they've got to if I pull the jaws off them."

This was more forcible than elegant, and the shrill harshness of the girl's voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to Sally's phraseology. He understood that she would not have his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful, and he reluctantly moved back toward the group of loungers who were watching her.

"I guess you've no call to worry about her," said one of the men. "She's holding them on the lowest notch, and it's a mighty powerful bit fixing.

Besides, that girl could drive anything that goes on four legs."

"Sure," said one of the others. "She's a daisy."

Hawtrey was annoyed to notice that in place of being embarra.s.sed Sally evidently rather enjoyed the situation, though several of the freight-train and station hands had now joined the group of loungers and were cheering her on. He had already satisfied himself that she had not a trace of fear. In another moment or two, however, he forgot his slight sense of disapproval, for Sally, sitting tense and strung up on the driving seat with a glow in her cheeks and a snap in her eyes, was wholly admirable. There was lithe grace, strength, and resolution in every line of her fur-wrapped figure. It is possible that her appearance would have been less effective in a drawing-room, but in the wagon she was in her place and in harmony with her surroundings. Lowering sky, gleaming snow, fur-clad men, and even the big, dingy locomotive, all fitted curiously into the scene, and she made an imposing central figure as she contended with the half-tamed team. Hawtrey was conscious of a tumult of emotion as he watched her.

The struggle with the team lasted for several minutes, during which the horses plunged and kicked again, until Sally stood boldly erect a moment while the wagon rocked to and fro. Her tall, straight figure was commanding and her face with a tress of loosened hair streaming out beneath her fur cap was glowing with excitement. Again and again she swung the stinging whip. Then it seemed that the team had had enough, for as she dropped lightly back into the seat the bronchos broke into a gallop, and in another moment the wagon, jolting noisily as it bounced across the track, vanished behind the locomotive. Gregory heard a shout of acclamation as he turned and hurried after it.

Sally drove right through the settlement and back outside it before she could check the horses, and she had just pulled them up in front of the wooden hotel when Hawtrey reached it. He stood beside the wagon holding up his hand to her, and Sally, who laughed, dropped bodily into his arms, which was, as he realized, a thing that Agatha certainly would not have done. He set Sally down upon the sidewalk, and when a man came out to take the team Hawtrey took her into the hotel.

"It was the locomotive that did it," she explained. "They were most too scared for anything, but I hate to be beaten by a team. Ours know too much to try, but I got Haslem to drive me in. I dropped him at Norton's, who'll bring him on."

"He oughtn't to have left you with them," said Hawtrey severely.

Sally laughed. "Well," she replied, "I'd quit driving if I couldn't handle any team you or Haslem could put the harness on."

The hotels in the smaller prairie settlements offer one very little comfort or privacy. As a rule they contain two general rooms, in one of which the three daily meals are served with a punctuality which is as unvarying as the menu. The traveler who arrives a few minutes too late for one meal must wait until the next is ready. The second room usually contains a rusty stove, and a few uncomfortable benches; and there are not infrequently a couple of rows of very small match-boarded cubicles on the floor overhead. The Occident was, however, a notable exception.

For one thing, the building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to study the requirements of his guests, who came from the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general lounging place on the first floor, one of which was reserved for the wives and daughters of the farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing. In the other, dry-goods traveling men were permitted to display their wares, and privileged customers who wished to leave by a train, the departure of which did not correspond with the hotel arrangements, were occasionally supplied with meals.

It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two rooms, where the proprietor's wife was just lighting the big lamp. The woman smiled at Gregory, who was a favorite of hers.

"Go right along, and I'll bring your supper up in a minute or two," she said. "I guess you'll want it after your drive."

Hawtrey strode on down a short corridor towards the second room, but Sally stopped behind him a moment.

"Is Hastings in town?" she asked. "I thought I saw his new wagon outside."

"His wife is," said the other woman. "She and Miss Ismay drove in to buy some things."

Sally asked no further questions. It was evident that Mrs. Hastings would not start home until after supper, and as the regular hour meal would be ready in about half an hour it seemed certain that she would come back to the hotel very shortly. That left Sally very little time, for she had no desire that Hawtrey should meet either Mrs. Hastings or Agatha until she had carried out the purpose she had in hand. It was at Gregory's special request that she had permitted him to drive in to see her off, and she meant to make the most of the opportunity. She had long ago regretted her folly in running away from his homestead when he lay helpless, but things had changed considerably since then.

When she entered the second room, she said nothing to Hawtrey about what she had heard. The room was cozily warm and brightly lighted, and the little table was laid for two with a daintiness very uncommon on the prairie. It was a change for Sally to be waited on and to have a meal set before her which she had not prepared with her own fingers, and she sank into a chair with a smile of appreciation.

"It's real nice, Gregory," she remarked. "Supper's never quite the same when you've had to stand over the stove ever so long getting it ready."

She sighed. "When I have to do that after working hard all day I don't want to eat."

The man felt compa.s.sionate. Sally, as he was aware, had to work unusually hard at the desolate homestead where she and her mother perforce undertook a great many duties that do not generally fall to a woman. Creighton, who was getting to be an old man, was of a grasping nature, and hired a.s.sistance only when it was indispensable.

"Well," Hawtrey responded, "I'm not particularly fond of cooking either."

Sally glanced at him with a provoking smile, for he had given her a lead. "Then," she asked with a coquettish raising of the eyebrows, "why don't you get somebody else to do it for you?"

This was, as Gregory recognized, almost painfully direct, but there was no doubt that Sally looked very pretty with the faint flush of color in her cheeks and the tantalizing light in her eyes.

"As a matter of fact, that's a thing I've been thinking over rather often the last few months," he said, and he laughed. "It's rather a pity you don't seem to like cooking, Sally."

Sally appeared to consider this. "Oh," she said, "it depends a lot on who it's for."

Hawtrey became suddenly serious for a moment or two. There was no doubt that at one time he would have considered it impossible that he should marry a girl of Sally's description, and even now he had misgivings. He had, however, almost made up his mind, and he was not exactly pleased that the proprietor's wife came in with the meal, and stayed to talk a while.

When the woman went out he watched Sally with close and what he imagined was un.o.btrusive attention while she ate, and though he was aware of the indelicacy of his scrutiny, he was relieved to find that she did nothing that was actually repugnant to him. There was a certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation of the good things set before her only amused him. She was certainly much more companionable than Agatha had been since she came out to Canada, and her cheerful laughter had a pleasant ring.

When at last the meal was over Sally bade Gregory draw her chair up to the stove.

"Now," she said, as she pointed to another chair across the room, "you can sit yonder and smoke. I know you want to."

Hawtrey remembered that Agatha did not like tobacco smoke, and always had been inclined to exact a certain conventional deference which he had grown to regard as rather out of place upon the prairie.

"My chair's a very long way off," he objected.

Sally showed no sign of conceding the point as he had expected, and he took out his pipe. He wanted to think, for once more instincts deep down in him stirred in faint protest against what he almost meant to do.

There were also several points that required practical consideration, and among them were his financial difficulties, though these did not trouble him so much as they had done a few months earlier. For a minute or two neither of them said anything, and then Sally spoke again.

"You're worrying about something, Gregory," she said.

Hawtrey admitted it. "Yes," he replied, "I am. My place is a poor one, and when Wyllard comes home I shall have to go back to it again. Things would be so much easier for me just now if I had the Range."

The girl looked at him steadily with reproach in her eyes.

"Oh," she said, "your place is quite big enough if you'd only take hold and run it as it ought to be run. You could surely do it, Gregory, if you tried."

The man's resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence was at variance with his desires. Sally's words were in this case wholly guileless, as he recognized, and they stirred him. He made no comment, however, and she spoke again.

"Isn't it worth while, though there are things you would have to give up?" she asked. "You couldn't go away and waste your money in Winnipeg every now and then."

Hawtrey laughed. "No," he admitted; "I suppose if I meant to make anything of the place that couldn't be done. Still, you see, it's horribly lonely sitting by oneself beside the stove in the long winter nights. I wouldn't want to go to Winnipeg if I had only somebody to keep me company."

He turned towards her suddenly with decision in his face, and Sally lowered her eyes.

"Don't you think you could get anybody if you tried?" she inquired.

"The trouble," said Hawtrey gravely, "is that I have so little to offer.

It's a poor place, and I'm almost afraid, Sally, that I'm rather a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don't stay with things.

Still, it might be different if there was any particular reason why I should."

He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. "Sally,"

he added, "would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would probably be very hard work, my dear."