Ranching for Sylvia Part 7

The car, glaringly lighted by huge lamps, was crowded and very hot, and after a while George went out on to the rear platform for a breath of air. The train had now left the city, and glancing back as it swung around a curve, he wondered how one locomotive could haul the long row of heavy cars. Then he looked out across the wide expanse of gra.s.s that stretched away in the moonlight to the dim blur of woods on the horizon. Here and there clumps of willows dotted the waste, but it lay silent and empty, without sign of human life. The air was pleasantly fresh after heavy rain; and the stillness of the vast prairie was soothing by contrast with the tumult from which they had recently escaped.

Lighting his pipe, George leaned contentedly on the rail. Then remembering what the Canadian had said, he thought of his old friend Marston, a man of charm and varied talents, whom he had long admired and often rather humbly referred to. It was hard to understand how d.i.c.k had failed in Canada, and harder still to see why he had made his plodding comrade his executor; for George, having seldom had occasion to exert his abilities, had no great belief in them. He had suffered keenly when Sylvia married d.i.c.k, but the homage he had offered her had always been characterized by diffidence, springing from a doubt that she could be content with him; and after a sharp struggle he succeeded in convincing himself that his wound did not matter if she were happier with the more brilliant man. He had entertained no hard thoughts of her: Sylvia could do no wrong. His love for her sprang rather from respect than pa.s.sion; in his eyes she was all that a woman ought to be.

In the meanwhile his new friends were discussing him in a car farther back along the train.

"I'm glad I had that Englishman by me in the crowd," the man remarked.

"He's cool and kept his head, did what was needed and nothing else. I allow you owe him something for bringing you through."

"Yes," said the girl; "he was quick and resolute." Then reserving the rest of her thoughts, she added: "His friend's amusing."

"Percy? Oh, yes," agreed her father. "Nothing to notice about him--he's just one of the boys. The other's different. What that fellow takes in hand he'll go through with."

"You haven't much to form an opinion on."

"That doesn't count. I can tell if a man's to be trusted when I see him."

"You're generally right," the girl admitted. "You were about Marston.

I was rather impressed by him when he first came out."

Her father smiled.

"Just so. Marston had only one trouble--he was all on top. You saw all his good points in the first few minutes. It was rough on him that they weren't the ones that are needed in this country."

"It's a country that demands a great deal," the girl said thoughtfully.

"Sure," was the dry reply. "The prairie breaks the weak and shiftless pretty quick; we only have room for hard men who'll stand up against whatever comes along."

"And do you think that description fits the Englishman we met?"

"Well," said her father, "I guess he wouldn't back down if things went against him."

He went out for a smoke, and the girl considered what he had said. It was not a matter of much consequence, but she knew he seldom made mistakes, and in this instance she agreed with him. As it happened, George's English relatives included one or two clever people, but none of them held his talents in much esteem. They thought him honest, rather painstaking, and good-natured, but that was all. It was left for two strangers to form a juster opinion; which was, perhaps, a not altogether unusual thing. Besides, the standards are different in western Canada. There, a man is judged by what he can do.

CHAPTER V

THE PRAIRIE

After a hot and tedious journey, George and his companion alighted one afternoon at a little station on a branch line, and Edgar looked about with interest when the train went on again. A telegraph office with a baggage-room attached occupied the middle of the low platform, a tall water-tank stood at the end, and three grain elevators towered high above a neighboring side-track. Facing the track, stood a row of wooden buildings varying in size and style: they included a double-storied hotel with a veranda in front of it, and several untidy shacks. Running back from them, two short streets, thinly lined with small houses, led to a sea of gra.s.s.

"Sage b.u.t.te doesn't strike one as a very exhilarating place," George remarked. "We'll stroll round it, and then see about rooms, since we have to stay the night."

They left the station, but the main street had few attractions to offer. Three stores, with strangely-a.s.sorted, dusty goods in their windows fronted the rickety plankwalk; beyond these stood a livery stable, a Chinese laundry, and a few dwelling-houses. Several dilapidated wagons and buggies were scattered about the uneven road.

In the side street, disorderly rows of agricultural implements surrounded a store, and here and there little board dwellings with wire mosquito-doors and net-guarded windows, stood among low trees. Farther back were four very small wooden churches. It was unpleasantly hot, though a fresh breeze blew clouds of dust through the place.

"I've seen enough," said Edgar. "The b.u.t.te isn't pretty; we'll a.s.sume it's prosperous, though I haven't noticed much sign of activity yet.

Let's go to the hotel."

When they reached it, several untidy loungers sat half asleep in the shade of the veranda, and though they obstructed the approach to the entrance none of them moved. Pa.s.sing behind them, George opened a door filled in with wire-mesh, and they entered a hot room with a bare floor, furnished with a row of plain wooden chairs. After they had rung a bell for several minutes, a man appeared and looked at them with languid interest from behind a short counter.

"Can you put us up?" George inquired.

"Sure," was the answer.

The man flung down a labeled key, twisted round his register, which was fitted in a swivel frame, and handed George a pen.

"We want two rooms," Edgar objected.

"Can't help that. We've only got one."

"I suppose we'd better take it. Where can one get a drink?"

"Bar," replied the other, indicating a gap in a neighboring part.i.tion.

"They're laconic in this country," Edgar remarked.

"Ever since I arrived in it, I've felt as if I were a mere piece of baggage, to be hustled along anyway without my wishes counting."

"You'll get used to it after a while," George consoled him.

Entering the dark bar, Edgar refreshed himself with several ice-cooled drinks, served in what he thought were unusually small gla.s.ses. He felt somewhat astonished when he paid for them.

"Thirst's expensive on the prairie," he commented.

"Pump outside," drawled the attendant. "It's rather mean water."

They went upstairs to a very scantily furnished, doubled-bedded room.

George, warned by previous experience, glanced around.

"There's soap and a towel, anyway; but I don't see any water," he remarked. "I'll take the jar; they'll have a rain-tank somewhere about."

Edgar did not answer him. He was looking out of the open window, and now that there was little to obstruct his view, the prospect interested him. It had been a wet spring, and round the vast half-circle he commanded the prairie ran back to the horizon, brightly green, until its strong coloring gave place in the distance to soft neutral tones.

It was blotched with crimson flowers; in the marshy spots there were streaks of purple; broad squares of darker wheat checkered the sweep of gra.s.s, and dwarf woods straggled across it in broken lines. In one place was the gleam of a little lake. Over it all there hung a sky of dazzling blue, across which great rounded cloud-ma.s.ses rolled.

Edgar looked around as George came in with the water.

"That's great!" he exclaimed, indicating the prairie; and then, turning toward the wooden town, he added: "What a frightful mess man can make of pretty things! Still, I've no doubt the people who built the b.u.t.te are proud of it."

"If you talk to them in that style, you'll soon discover their opinion," George laughed; "but I don't think it would be wise."

Soon afterward a bell rang for supper, and going down to a big room, they found seats at a table which had several other occupants. Two of them, who appeared to be railroad-hands, were simply dressed in trousers and slate-colored shirts, and when they rested their elbows on the tablecloth, they left grimy smears. George thought the third man of the party, who was neatly attired, must be the station-agent; the fourth was unmistakably a newly-arrived Englishman. As soon as they were seated, a very smart young woman came up and rattled off the names of various unfamiliar dishes.

"I think I'll have a steak; I know what that is," Edgar told her.

She withdrew, and presently surrounded him with an array of little plates, at which he glanced dubiously before he attacked the thin, hard steak with a nickeled knife which failed to make a mark on it. When he made a more determined effort, it slid away from him, sweeping some greasy fried potatoes off his plate, and he grew hot under the stern gaze of the girl, who reappeared with some coffee he had not ordered.

"Perhaps you had better take it away before I do more damage, and let me have some fish," he said humbly.