The Bail Jumper Part 17

"I'm awful sorry," said the other, "I am, fer a fact. 'Taint ev'ry day such a chance goes strolling by. But-oh, by the way, I was forgettin'.

Here's somethin' right in your line. Put that few dollars of yours into some A number one top-notch town property an' it'll earn more fer you before the snow flies than your muscles will. Here's somethin' extra good," as he drew a map from his pocket. "See this block-high cla.s.s industrial property. Prices from one hundred to three hundred dollars a lot, tenth down an' ten dollars a month until paid fer; no taxes, interest, or charges of any kind. Here's a fine corner here, facin'

south an' west, overlookin' the town, five hundred dollars fer two lots, that's only fifty dollars you'd need to put up an' we'll sell those lots again for a cool thousand before December. Come along, you're dry after your trip; let's wet this thing a little an' then we'll take an auto out an' show you the stuff."

"Sorry," confessed Burton, rather ashamed to have to refuse, "but I really couldn't handle any of it. I've just four dollars and forty cents in my pocket at this minute, and no more coming until I earn it."

"Sorry too," said the land man, with no abatement of his good humour.

"Sorry both fer you and me. But that really is a great buy. Come an' see me when yer in town. You don't look like a fellow that 'ud stay sod-bustin' long when you can make more money in town in six months than most of these moss-backs ever saw. Here's my card-look me up when yuh get settled an' perhaps I can turn something your way yet. Here's a man I've got to see. So long. Good luck!" and the real estate dealer drilled away through the crowd.

Down the platform a little way a group of men were gathered about an old farmer-a tall, thin, one-time Yankee, typical from top boots to chin whiskers. He was d.i.c.kering with a bunch of new arrivals for labour for his farm. A few foreigners, curious-eyed, gazed at him for a minute or two, their packs on their backs and their chins drooping; then swung away to gravitate to railway construction offices or the town labour department. Half a dozen Anglo-Saxons remained; two Englishmen, in riding breeches, and three or four Eastern Canadians and Americans.

Burton joined the group.

"I came out to learn to fawm, sir," one of the Englishmen was saying. "I should jolly well like to have a gow at it. Is there any gime-er-any-er antelope or-gophahs?"

The farmer chewed a generous ration of tobacco reflectively for some seconds, then expectorated with much accuracy at a fish-plate on the railway. "Ah," he said at length, "there be some game, all right, young man, and there also be some gun experts. Ah got a neighbour out there who's been stuffin' birds an' beasts fer twenty year, an' he's so durn handy with a gun he can wing a gra.s.s-hopper without breakin' a bone. I reckon he's got most every crittur indig'ous to this country in that collection o' his'n. Ah," repeated the farmer, meditatively, "I reckon he has."

"Ah, bah jove, I should like to meet him. A jolly good sort, I should say."

"Yep, not so bad. An' awful accerate with a gun. He'd be glad tuh see yuh, too. But if he caught you walkin' round in them seeder-drills yer wearin' he'd sure enough bag another zoological specimen. An' yu'd loose yerself in a pair o' jeans."

There was a laugh in which all but the Englishmen joined, and they, with a remark about a "lot of bally rough-necks" withdrew themselves from the group.

"I tell you what, Mr. Whiskers," said a young fellow wearing a Stetson and cigarette, "I think I'm just the man you need. Was born on a farm and know the whole deck. Can drive anything from a dog-team to a traction engine. Nothin' in the State had anythin' on me when it came to drivin'."

The farmer focused his eyes on the cigarette with supreme contempt. "If Ah had ye ah'd use ye fer driving all right," he said, speaking with great deliberateness. "Yep. Ah'd use ye fer drivin' posts-if I could fit a handle!"

There was another laugh, but the crowd was thinning down.

"Well, Ah suppose you was brung up on a farm, too?" continued the farmer, addressing a husky looking chap in a cottanade suit and flannel shirt. "Can ye shock?"

"Well I guess I can," said the man addressed. "I was the long-distance shocker of our settlement."

"Use tuh take in shockin', Ah suppose," answered the farmer. "Waal, how many sheaves did they put in the shock, your way about?"

The candidate for the position hesitated a moment. "Well," he ventured at length, "I don't know that I ever counted, but I should say about fifty."

"That'll do fer you," said the farmer. "You're not a shocker. You're a stacker." Then turning to Burton, "Ah suppose you was raised on a farm too?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ever drive a binder?"

"Yes, sir."

"How's binders built-right or left-hand cut?"

"Most of them are left-hand, except McCormicks."

"By hang," said the farmer, addressing an invisible audience, "here's a fellow that knows somethin', anyhow. Say! Now, supposin' you was drivin'

a binder, an' she was kickin' out loose sheaves right along, with the knot all on one end o' the string, what'ud yuh do fer it?"

"I'd sharpen the knotter-knife first," said Burton, "and if that didn't fix it I'd--"

"Thet'll do," interrupted the farmer. "This is my wagon here. Throw in yer bundle an' stretch yerself around town fer an hour, an' then we'll hit the trail. But Ah forgot to tell you, it's fifty miles tuh my farm, an' the comp'ny out there ain't much writ up in the sa.s.siety papers."

"The farther the better," said Burton. There was a touch of bitterness in his voice, and the old man looked at him keenly.

"Love-or law?" he asked, at length.

Burton flushed but did not reply, and the farmer continued, with a sudden kindness in his speech, "Never mind, lad. This country's full of fellows who're tryin' to git away from one or t'other of them two irresistibles-love an' law. But G.o.d help the fellow thet gits. .h.i.t by both. When a chinook crosses the path of a nor'wester there's trouble fer everybody."

Burton accompanied his new employer about the town for a couple of hours. The farmer was making purchases at the stores and implement houses, and as he did not expect to be in the town again until after the threshing it was some time before his business was completed. The young man stood beside him in the store, and his practical knowledge of quality and values astonished the old farmer. At length the purchasing was finished, and with the double wagon-box piled high with groceries, canned goods, dry-goods, hardware, harness, binder twine, machine oil and all the other sundries demanded by the activities of the harvest season, the two men started on their journey farmwards.

The sun was well into the western sky before they left the town, and in the hot July afternoon the horses had to be allowed their pace. The roads were alive with traffic, farmers driving in as much as a hundred miles for their fall supplies. Scores of other wagons, loaded as was this one, were to be seen; great stacks of lumber were dragged slowly along by four- and six-horse teams; a veritable procession of mowers, rakes and binders, some loaded on wagons and some running on their own wheels, stretched along the country road, the procession here and there blocked into divisions by giant steam or gas tractor outfits with their long, slow-crawling caravan of paraphernalia.

Sundown found our travellers approaching a diminutive farm house, where the team of their own accord turned in at the open gate.

"This is whar Zeb Ensley lives," said the farmer. "His shack is small, but his hospitality would fill a hemisphere, an' Ah gen'rally allow to put up with him goin' an' comin'. Zeb's English, but he's past the moultin' stage, an' he's awful white. After an Englishman moults-gits rid of his unnecessary feathers-they ain't no better neighbour."

By this time the team had stopped in front of an enclosure made by standing mill slabs on end, which was all the shelter provided for Mr.

Ensley's horses. The host himself was beside the wheel, and placed a brown hand in the farmer's as the latter clambered down from the high spring seat.

"How are you, Mr. McKay? Back this far, safe, I see, with a big load and a likely looking farm hand. Won't you introduce me?"

"Waal, now, by hang, thet's one thing Ah can't do," said Mr. McKay.

"They ain't been no formalities yet. When Ah find a man 'at knows gee frum haw Ah don't worry much about what he was christened."

"Call me Ray," said Burton, as he threw the inside tugs over the horses'

backs and slipped the tongue from the neck-yoke. "Go into the house and rest, Mr. McKay, and I will put the team away, if Mr. Ensley will show me where."

"Waal, what d'ye think of thet?" said Mr. McKay, slapping his thigh.

"The young fellow's givin' orders already. An' what's more-what's more,"

he repeated, pointing a huge fore-finger at Burton-"what's more, the old man's goin' tuh do as he's told."

Burton unhitched the team and watered them; drew the harness off and rubbed them down with a wisp of hay as Ensley filled the mangers. Then the two men walked to the shack, where they found Mr. McKay with his great boots off and his stockinged feet resting comfortably on the ash-pan of the stove, in which a slab fire burned cheerily. The tea-kettle was singing l.u.s.tily; a saucepan of dried apples simmered on the back of the stove, and presently the appetising smell of frying potatoes and eggs filled the little room. The light from Ensley's single lamp fell on the walls, papered with pictures and cartoons from English publications, with a dry-goods box nailed up for a cupboard, and over the door the miniature a.r.s.enal which always marks the Britisher's home.

Outside the darkness was settling down; the long, persistent twilight of the Canadian summer lingered in the western sky, but the east loomed black and colourless, and a strange night wind sighed mournfully over the endless, sweeping fields of gra.s.s.

CHAPTER XIII-GROPING

"Then I gave him hopes he could not define and fears that he could not flee; And he heard my cry in the long, still night, In my spirit-thrall I held him tight, And his blind soul-eyes craved for the light; But the light he could not see."

_Prairie Born._

Hiram Riles' temper was not improved by driving home through a soaking rain from the Dominion Day sports at Plainville. Hiram's interest in sports at best was purely negative. He enjoyed the discomfiture of the defeated team; he gloated over the player whose costly error brought upon him the wrath of the spectators. At a game Hiram always stood a little to one side, watching, not for brilliant plays, but for errors, and pa.s.sing contemptuous remarks about such of the players as were unfortunate enough to localise his displeasure. There had been only one bright spot in the whole day's experiences. That was the news of the stolen money being found in Burton's trunk. Riles had never forgiven the affair at Grant's, and his nature was such that his hatred grew rather than abated with the pa.s.sage of time. He now felt that his young enemy would be properly covered with shame; he could honourably dismiss the matter from his mind, or at least lay it aside to be revived when Burton regained his liberty. But the storm had interfered with his intended carousal; Riles' appet.i.te rarely got the better of his prudence, and even the reflection that Burton was by this time probably safe in the cells failed to give the pleasure such a happy situation warranted.