The Bail Jumper Part 9

Hiram Riles and his wife lived on a farm about two miles from the Grant homestead. They had come out from the East in the early days, when Riles was a strong, sinewy fellow to whom money-getting had not yet become a mania, and his wife still retained some of the roses and some of the sentiment of youth. But it's a hardy rose that survives twenty years of pioneer life, and it's a deep-rooted sentiment that can weather prosperity unelevated by culture and unsweetened by self-sacrifice. And in the Riles' home culture had come to be a thing misunderstood, and self-sacrifice a thing unknown. There was only one end in life-to make money; and there was only one way this could be done-by labour which amounted to slavery, and stinginess which amounted to theft. Nothing which could not be expressed in dollars and cents had any value to Riles; no doctrine but mammon-worship had any part in his creed.

The years had dragged on and he had prospered after the standard of the world, gaining money and losing everything that money cannot buy.

Quarter section had been added to quarter section, bought when land was cheap and paid for by dint of untiring labour and at the sacrifice of physical comforts and mental advantages which Riles considered of no moment. But as, labouring from dawn to dusk, he added quarter to quarter, the time came when even his dauntless energy could not keep up with the growth of the farm. True, his wife helped him to the limit of her strength, driving the plough and the binder, stooking in the fields, or, drenched to the waist, working in the garden on days when the rain prevented harvesting, and milking her dozen cows after the neighbours were in bed. She was a model wife, as Riles admitted, but even in the admission he took rather more credit to himself for selecting and "breaking her in" than he allowed to her for her strength and industry.

But when their combined efforts could no longer furnish the labour needed on the farm, Riles found it necessary to get a hired man. It took him months to make up his mind that the expenditure was unavoidable, but at length he drove to town and announced to a group of idle men that he was looking for a good strong man, not afraid of work, and would pay twenty dollars a month, board and keep.

Riles honestly believed that as soon as he made this offer all the idle men in the town would crowd around him competing for the position, and he was not prepared for the indifference with which they regarded it.

"Well, who wants it?" he demanded. "Speak up quick, I got no time to lose. I've a field of oats there waitin' stookin', and if you fellows don't want the job there's lots that does. Who's comin'?"

n.o.body moved, and at last one of the men said, "I guess you better try somewhere else, Mr. Riles. Everybody here seems to know you."

"They do, hey? And what of it? Ain't I good? Don't I pay my bills? Just yuh walk down to the bank and ask 'em if Hiram Riles ever turned down a bill he owed, and I guess you'll find--"

"I wasn't thinking about the bills," the man replied. "You pay them because you have to. You're worth it, and you can't get out of it. But you're as much a slave-driver as ever cracked a whip over a n.i.g.g.e.r in a cotton field. n.o.body 'at knows you'll work for you. You better get a green Englishman-some poor fool that doesn't know any more than be a victim for a blood-sucker of your cla.s.s."

With an oath Riles jumped from his buckboard and struck a savage blow at the frank labourer, but years of hardship in the fields had taken greater toll than he guessed. The fist he aimed at the face of his critic cut a circle in thin air as a sledge-hammer blow caught Riles under the jaw and he fell with tremendous force against a hub of the buckboard. When he staggered to his feet the flesh of his forehead was cut in two and the eyes lobed forward as though they would fall out.

Riles had the wound dressed by a doctor and met the evening train, where he engaged a harvester just out from Ontario. They drove home through the darkness, the hired man so tired with three days and nights of b.u.mping in a slat-seated colonist car that he would have fallen out of the buckboard had Riles not held him in. When the horses were stabled the new comer was shown to his bedroom, which was reached by climbing up steps nailed to the studs of the shanty where Riles and his wife lived.

In the loft was a little window looking out of a gable, a straw mattress covered with two discarded horse-blankets lay in a corner, and a kitchen chair, from which the back had been broken, completed the furniture of the little room. It was, however, also used as a store-house for old clothes and for drying vegetables, and the mice scampered in great excitement at the approach of the lantern.

Long before daylight Riles wakened the hired man by thumping the wall with a stick of firewood. "Come, yuh barnyard savage," he said, in his playful humour, "roll out. Do yuh think I'm goin' to pay yuh twenty dollars a month to _sleep_? Get down here an' get at those oats, an' be quick about it, or I'll fire yuh before noon."

The sleepy harvester crawled out of the musty blankets, drew on his clothes, and opened his suit-case. From a jumble of socks and underwear he drew a revolver and a murderous-looking knife. Slinging the suit-case by a strap over his shoulder, with the knife between his teeth, the revolver in one hand and the lantern in the other, he made the precipitous descent into the kitchen.

"What in thunder does this mean?" demanded the astonished Riles, as he caught sight of the animated a.r.s.enal.

"I'm going after those oats," the man replied, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"They're wild oats, ain't they?"

"No, they're not wild oats, my smart young fellow. They're tame oats, if yuh know the difference."

"Then if they're tame oats," said the other, in a wheedling tone, "if they're tame oats, don't you think, Mr. Riles, if we were careful, we might manage to sneak up on them in daylight?" And before the astonished Riles could find an answer the hired man continued, "Ta, ta, Mr. Riles.

Much obliged for the night's lodging. Hope you catch the oats," and had swung out into the darkness to find his way back to town.

His first experience with hired men was rather disconcerting, but out of it dawned an important light. The illumination came upon Riles as he stooked the oats himself that forenoon. After dinner he drove back to town and called casually upon Bill Perkins, the lawyer. It was no part of Riles' policy to encourage any such useless cla.s.s as lawyers or doctors by paying a fee, but he usually succeeded in getting the desired information in process of conversation, and without appearing to have sought it. He had already benefited several times by advice given by Perkins in this way, and the lawyer had determined to be even with him.

Perkins was busy with a transfer of land when Riles dropped in, and for a few minutes the conversation was of crops and harvest and the weather.

Skilfully enough the farmer introduced the subject of hired help, lamenting how difficult it was to get good men and how the hired men now-a-days took all the profit from the farm and left the owner with the expense, in all of which Perkins concurred. As he was about to leave the office Riles remarked-

"Oh, by the way, I guess there'll be a job fer one o' yuh fellows one o'

these days. I heard this mornin' of a hired man quittin' work before the month was up, and the farmer wouldn't pay him, an he's goin' to have the law on him. How'll a case o' that kind come out, do yuh think?"

"If the servant left without due provocation before the period of his employment had expired, he will have difficulty in collecting his wages."

"I was thinkin' so, Mr. Perkins. Well, it's a fine afternoon, an' I must be gettin' back."

"Just a minute, Mr. Riles," the lawyer called, as his client was stepping out of the office. "There is a small fee for the information just given you. Five dollars, please."

"Five devils!" shouted Mr. Riles. "You go to --. I beg yer pardon, Mr.

Perkins. I didn't mean to be so out-spoken, but yer little joke kinda took me by surprise. Ha! ha! a very good one, too. There's no bein' even with a lawyer."

"It's no joke, Mr. Riles. You've been sponging your legal advice around this office long enough. To-day you will pay for it or I will collect it at court."

"I'll pay it, will I? I'll see yuh in h.e.l.l first," said the farmer, now thoroughly beside himself.

"Very well," said Perkins. "There'll be no trouble here. But if it isn't paid by Sat.u.r.day night you know what will happen."

Riles started down town in a rage, and Perkins reached for his telephone.

"Mr. Bradshaw? h.e.l.lo, Bradshaw, this is Perkins speaking. Just had a visit from Riles-sponging advice as usual. Socked him a fiver and threatened if he didn't come through by Sat.u.r.day night I'd have him up.

He's mad enough to eat the town, but he'll likely be round to you. Fix him plenty.... That's right, George, go to it." Mr. Perkins set down his telephone, sat back in his chair, and indulged in one of the few hearty smiles to which he found occasion to treat himself.

Meanwhile Riles, stampeding down town, reached the door of Bradshaw's office. Bradshaw stood on the step drinking in the afternoon autumn sunshine. The warm rays rested graciously on his slightly bald cranium.

"Good-day, Mr. Riles. How is it you're not cutting to-day?"

Riles collected himself, and forced a smile. "A little business in town, Mr. Bradshaw. I've just been in talkin' with that measly opposition o'

yours, and what d'ye s'pose the cur did?"

"Who, Perkins? Oh, you can never tell what he'll do. I gave it up long ago."

"Well, sir, we was just talkin' about things in general an' I told him likely there'd be a case one of these days about a man quittin' before his time was up, an' I asked him how'd it likely come out. He said the quitter would lose, an' yuh can eat me, Bradshaw, if he didn't try to charge me five dollars fer it, and threatened soot if I didn't pay by Sat.u.r.day night."

Bradshaw laughed. "You can never be up to Perkins," he said. "But I must say it serves you right for going to him at all. Why didn't you come to me in the first place?"

"That's what I will do next time, you may be sure. But he can't collect that five, can he, George?"

"I'm afraid he can, Hiram. Yes, I rather think you'd better settle with him."

"Well, it's a strange law. Lawyers get everything their own way."

"Once in awhile it happens that way," Mr. Bradshaw agreed. "And when you're settling anyway there will be a ten-spot coming to me."

"To you? For what?"

"Legal advice," answered Mr. Bradshaw, placing his thumbs in the upper pockets of his vest with an air of great complacency. "Haven't I just told you you'd have to pay it?"

Riles was so dumbfounded that he pulled out ten dollars, threw it at the smiling lawyer, and proceeded down street without a word.

But having paid fifteen dollars for legal advice Riles was too shrewd a business man not to profit by it. That night he engaged another "barnyard savage," being careful to hire him for a month. The man worked for four days and quit. Riles refused to pay him any wages, and hired another stranger on the same terms. In this way he was able to get through the fall without any direct outlay for help.

But the system was not very satisfactory. Too much time was lost hunting for new men, and the labourers always quit before they got into Riles'

way of managing the farm. The suggestion of the man who knocked him into the wheel of the buckboard stayed with him almost as tenaciously as the scar he then received. "Hire a green Englishman-some poor fool that doesn't know any more than be a victim of a blood-sucker of your cla.s.s."

Of course the words were rather strong-even Riles objected to them-but the sentiment was all right. Besides, it was doing the Englishman a good turn. It brought him away from a congested country and gave him an insight into life in a new land. With industry and application even an Englishman might become-_might become_-as prosperous and successful a farmer as he himself! There was something for a young man to look forward to!

A good scheme had been worked by one or two of Riles's neighbours. These men-transplanted Englishmen themselves-who, to tell the truth, had made a very indifferent success of agriculture, had hit upon the idea of giving instruction to young Englishmen of good family in the art of farming as it is practised in the Canadian West. They had no difficulty in finding fond fathers who, for reasons that need not be entered into here, were anxious that their sons should have a "colonial" experience, and were willing to pay from fifty to two hundred pounds a head per year (according to the state of the paternal exchequer and the desirability of the exodus) for the board, lodging and instruction of their sons in the "colony." Of course it never occurred to these worthy parents that there are state-controlled inst.i.tutions for giving just the instruction needed, where their sons would be brought in contact with the best influences in the land. Even had they known of these inst.i.tutions they would probably have preferred to place their young hopefuls with some old acquaintance whose Munchausian reports of his success in Canada were accepted as gospel, but whose real accomplishments consisted mainly in supporting the brewery and dodging the bailiff-two occupations which usually go hand in hand.

But Riles was not of the blood. He knew no one in England, and one or two advances which he made to the English neighbours mentioned with a view to "getting in on a good thing" were met with a coldness which amounted to a rebuff. There remained only one thing to be done-adopt a Barnardo boy. Riles would have much preferred a grown-up man, but on consultation with some of the neighbours who had adopted these boys he was a.s.sured that they could be depended upon to do as much work as a man, and were more easily controlled. Twenty years ago the latter consideration would not have appealed to Riles, but he recalled the incident where he received his scar, and he knew enough about Englishmen to know that if they excelled in anything it was in their ability to protect themselves from physical damage, and incidentally to administer a thrashing to their a.s.sailants. On the whole, perhaps a boy would suit his purpose better.