The Foreigner Part 42

said the boy.

"Not a bit," said French; "we could sell ten times what we have to sell."

"And why not get ten times the stuff?" cried the boy.

French shrugged his shoulders. It was hard to throw off the old laissez faire of the pioneer.

"All right, Kalman, you go on. I will give you a free hand.

Mackenzie and I will back you up; only don't ask too much of us.

There will be hundreds of teams at work here next year."

"One hundred teams!" exclaimed Kalman. "How much oats do you think they will need? One thousand bushels?"

"One thousand! yes, ten thousand, twenty thousand."

Kalman made a rapid calculation.

"Why, that would mean three hundred acres of oats at least, and we have only twenty acres in our field. Oh! Jack!" he continued, "let us get every horse and every man we can, and make ready for the oats.

Just think! one hundred acres of oats, five or six thousand bushels, perhaps more, besides the potatoes."

"Oh, well, they won't be along to-day, Kalman, so keep cool."

"But we will have to break this year for next," said the boy, "and it will take us a long time to break one hundred acres."

"That's so," said Jack; "it will take all our forces hard at it all summer to get one hundred acres ready."

Eagerly the boy's mind sprang forward into plans for the summer's campaign. His enthusiasm stirred French to something like vigorous action, and even waked old Mackenzie out of his aboriginal lethargy.

That very day Kalman rode down to Wakota to consult his friend Brown, upon whose guidance in all matters he had come more and more to depend.

Brown's Canadian training on an Ontario farm before he entered college had greatly enriched his experience, and his equipment for the battle of life. He knew all about farming operations, and to him, rather than to French or to Mackenzie, Kalman had come to look for advice on all practical details connected with cattle, horses, and crops. The breach between the two men was an unspeakable grief to the lad, and all the greater because he had an instinctive feeling that the fault lay with the man to whom from the first he had given the complete and unswerving devotion of his heart. Without explaining to Kalman, French had suddenly ceased his visits to Wakota, but he had taken care to indicate his desire that Kalman continue his studies with Brown, and that he should a.s.sist him in every way possible with the work he was seeking to carry on among the Galicians. This desire both Brown and Kalman were only too eager to gratify, for the two had grown into a friendship that became a large part of the lives of both. Every Sunday Kalman was to be found at Wakota. There, in the hospitable home of the Browns, he came into contact with a phase of life new and delightful to him. Brown's wife, and Brown's baby, and Brown's home were to him never-ending sources of wonder and joy. That French was shut out from all this was the abiding grief of Kalman's life, and this grief was emphasized by the all-too-evident effect of this exclusion. For with growing frequency French would ride off on Sunday afternoon to the Crossing, and often stay for three or four days at a time. On such occasions life would be to Kalman one long agony of anxiety. Through the summer he bore his grief in silence, never speaking of it even to Brown; but on one occasion, when French's absence had been extended from one Sunday to the next, his anxiety and grief became unsupportable, and he poured it forth to Brown.

"He has not been home for a week, Mr. Brown, and oh! I can't stand it any longer," cried the distracted boy. "I can't stay here while Jack is over there in such a terrible way. I must go to him."

"He won't like it, Kalman," said Brown; "he won't stand it, I am afraid. I would go, but I know it would only offend him."

"I am going down to the Crossing to-day," said Kalman.

"I don't care if he kills me, I must go."

But his experience was such that he never went again, for Jack French in his madness nearly killed the boy, who was brought sadly battered to Brown's hospital, where he lay for a week or more.

Every day, French, penetrated with penitence, visited him, lavishing on the boy a new tenderness. But when Kalman was on his feet again, French laid it upon him, and bound him by a solemn promise that he should never again follow him to the Crossing, or interfere when he was not master of himself. It was a hard promise to give, but once given, that settled the matter for both. With Brown he never discussed Jack French's weakness, but every Sunday afternoon, when in his own home Brown prayed for friends near and dear, committing them into the Heavenly Father's keeping, in their minds, chiefly and before all others was the man whom they had all come to love as an elder brother, and for whose redemption they were ready to lay down their lives. And this was the strongest strand in the bond that bound Kalman and his friend together. So to Brown Kalman went with his plans for the coming summer, and with most happy results.

For through the spring and summer, following Brown's advice and under Kalman's immediate directions, a strong force of Galicians with horse teams and ox teams were kept hard at work, breaking and back-setting, in antic.i.p.ation of an early sowing in the following spring. In the meantime Brown himself was full of work.

The addition to his hospital was almost always full of patients; his school had begun to come back to him again, for the grat.i.tude of his warm-hearted Galician people, in return for his many services to their sick and suffering, sufficed to overcome their fear of the Polish priest, whose unpriestly habits and whose mercenary spirit were fast turning against him even the most loyal of his people.

In the expressive words of old Portnoff, who, it is to be feared, had little religion in his soul, was summed up the general opinion: "Dat Klazowski bad man. He drink, drink all time, take money, money for everyting. He d.a.m.n school, send doctor man h.e.l.l fire,"

the meaning of which was abundantly obvious to both Brown and his wife.

So full of work were they all, both at the ranch and at Wakota, that almost without their knowing it the summer had gone, and autumn, with its golden glorious days, nippy evenings, and brilliant starry nights, Canada's most delightful season, was upon them. Throughout the summer the construction gangs had steadily worked their way north and west, and had crossed the Saskatchewan, and were approaching the Eagle Hill country. Preceding the construction army, and following it, were camp followers and attendants of various kinds. On the one hand the unlicensed trader and whiskey pedlar, the bane of the contractor and engineer; on the other hand the tourist, the capitalist, and the speculator, whom engineers and contractors received with welcome or with scant tolerance, according to the letters of introduction they brought from the great men in the East.

Attached to the camp of Engineer Harris was a small and influential party, consisting of Mr. Robert Menzies of Glasgow, capitalist, and, therefore, possible investor in Canadian lands, mines, and railroads, --consequently, a man to be considered; with him, his daughter Marjorie, a brown-haired maid of seventeen, out for the good of her health and much the better of her outing, and Aunt Janet, maiden sister to Mr. Menzies, and guardian to both brother and niece. With this party travelled Mr. Edgar Penny, a young English gentleman of considerable means, who, having been a year in the country, felt himself eminently qualified to act as adviser and guide to the party. At present, however, Mr. Penny was far more deeply interested in the study of the lights that lurked in Miss Marjorie's brown eyes, and the bronze tints of her abundant hair, than in the opportunities for investments offered by Canadian lands, railroads, and mines.

With an elaborate equipment, this party had spent three months travelling as far as Edmonton, and now, on their way back, were attached to the camp of Engineer Harris, in order that the Scotch capitalist might personally investigate methods of railway construction as practised in Western Canada. At present, the party were encamped at a little distance from the Wakota trail, and upon the sunny side of a poplar bluff, for it was growing late in the year.

It was on a rare October morning that Kalman, rising before the sun, set out upon his broncho to round up the horses for their morning feed in preparation for the day's back-setting. With his dogs at his horse's heels, he rode down to the Night Hawk, and crossed to the opposite side of the ravine. As he came out upon the open prairie, Captain, the n.o.ble and worthy son of Blucher, caught sight of a prairie wolf not more than one hundred yards distant, and was off after him like the wind.

"Aha! my boy," cried Kalman, getting between the coyote and the bluff, and turning him towards the open country, "you have got your last chicken, I guess. It is our turn now."

Headed off from the woods that marked the banks of the Night Hawk Creek, the coyote in desperation took to the open prairie, with Captain and Queen, a n.o.ble fox-hound b.i.t.c.h, closing fast upon him.

Two miles across the open country could be seen the poplar bluff, behind which lay the camp of the Engineer and his travelling companions. Steadily the gap between the wolf and the pursuing hounds grew less, till at length, fearing the inevitable, the hunted beast turned towards the little bluff, and entered it with the dogs only a few yards behind. Alas! for him, the bluff afforded no shelter. Right through the little belt of timber dashed the wolf with the dogs and Kalman hard upon his trail. At the very instant that the wolf came opposite the door of Aunt Janet's tent, Captain reached for the extreme point of the beast's extended tail.

Like a flash, the brute doubled upon his pursuer, snapping fiercely as the hound dashed past. With a howl of rage and pain, Captain clawed the ground in his effort to recover himself, but before he could renew his attack, and just as the wolf was setting forth again, like a cyclone Queen was upon them. So terrific was her impact, that dogs and wolf rolled under the tent door in one snarling, fighting, snapping ma.s.s of legs and tails and squirming bodies. Immediately from within rose a wild shriek of terror.

"Mercy sakes alive! What, what is this? Help! Help! Help! Where are you all? Will some one not come to my help?" Kalman sprang from his horse, rushed forward, and lifted the tent door. A new outcry greeted his ear.

"Get out, get out, you man!" He dropped the flap, fled aghast before the appalling vision of Aunt Janet in night attire, with a ring of curl-papers round her head, driven back into the corner of the tent, and crouched upon a box, her gown drawn tight about her, while she gazed in unspeakable horror at the whirling, fighting ma.s.s upon the tent floor at her feet. Higher and higher rose her shrieks above the din of the fight. From a neighbouring tent there rushed forth a portly, middle-aged gentleman in pyjamas, gun in hand.

"What is it, Katharine? Where are you, Katharine?"

"Where am I? Where but here, ye gowk! Oh, Robert! Robert!

I shall be devoured alive."

The stout gentleman ran to the door of the tent, lifted the flap, and plunged in. With equal celerity he plunged back again, shouting, "Whatever is all yon?"

"Robert! Robert!" screamed the voice, "come back and save me."

"What is this, sir?" indignantly turning upon Kalman, who stood in bewildered uncertainty.

"It is a wolf, sir, that my dogs--"

"A wolf!" screamed the portly gentleman, springing back from the door.

"Go in, sir; go in at once and save my sister! What are you looking at, sir? She will be devoured alive. I beseech you. I am in no state to attack a savage beast."

From another tent appeared a young man, rotund of form and with a chubby face. He was partly dressed, his night-robe being stuffed hastily into his trousers, and he held the camp axe in his hand.

"What the deuce is the row?" he exclaimed. "By Jove! sounds like a beastly dog fight."

"Aunt Janet! Aunt Janet! What is the matter?" A girl in a dressing-gown, with her hair streaming behind her, came rushing from another tent, and sprang towards the door of the tent, from which came the mingled clamour of the fighting dogs and the terror-stricken woman. Kalman stepped quickly in front of her, caught her round the waist, and swung her behind him.

"Go back!" he cried. "Get away, all of you." There was an immediate clearance of the s.p.a.ce in front of the tent. Seizing a club, he sprang among the fighting beasts.

"Oh! you good man! Come here and save me," cried Aunt Janet in a frenzy of relief. But Kalman was too busy for the moment to give heed to her cries. As he entered, a fiercer howl arose above the din. The wolf had seized hold of Captain's upper lip and was grimly hanging on, while Queen was gripping savagely for the beast's throat. With his club Kalman struck the wolf a heavy blow, stunning it so that it released its hold on the dog. Then, catching it by the hind leg, he hauled wolf and hounds out of the tent in one squirming ma.s.s.

"G.o.d help us!" cried the stout gentleman, darting into his own tent and poking his head out through the door. "Keep the brute off. There's my gun."

The girl screamed and ran behind Kalman. The young man with the chubby face dropped his axe and jumped hastily into a convenient wagon.

"Shoot the bloomin' brutes," he cried. "Some one bring me my gun."

But the wolf's days were numbered. Queen's powerful jaws were tearing at his throat, while Captain, having gripped him by the small of the back, was shaking him with savage fury.

"Oh! the poor thing! Call off the dogs!" cried the girl, turning to Kalman.