The Impostor Part 35

"Well," said Courthorne, "I fancy that night narrowed in my life for me, but I made out across the prairie in the morning, and as we had a good many friends up and down the country, one of them took care of me."

Witham sat silent a while. The story had held his attention, and the frankness of the man who lay panting a little in his chair had its effect on him. There was no sound from the prairie, and the house was very still.

"Why did you kill Shannon?" he asked at length.

"Is any one quite sure of his motives?" said Courthorne. "The lad had done something which was difficult to forgive him, but I think I would have let him go if he hadn't recognized me. The world is tolerably good to the man who has no scruples, you see, and I took all it offered me, while it did not seem fitting that a clod of a trooper without capacity for enjoyment, or much more sensibility than the beast he rode, should put an end to all my opportunities. Still, it was only when he tried to warn his comrades he threw his last chance away."

Witham shivered a little at the dispa.s.sionate brutality of the speech, and then checked the anger that came upon him.

"Fate, or my own folly, has put it out of my power to denounce you without abandoning what I have set my heart upon, and after all it is not my business," he said. "I will give you five hundred dollars and you can go to Chicago or Montreal, and consult a specialist. If the money is exhausted before I send for you, I will pay your hotel bills, but every dollar will be deducted when we come to the reckoning."

Courthorne laughed a little. "You had better make it seven-fifty. Five hundred dollars will not go very far with me."

"Then you will have to husband them," said Witham dryly. "I am paying you at a rate agreed upon for the use of your land and small bank balance handed me, and want all of it. The rent is a fair one in face of the fact that a good deal of the farm consisted of virgin prairie, which can be had from the Government for nothing."

He said nothing further, and soon after he went out Courthorne went to sleep, but Witham sat by an open window with a burned-out cigar in his hand, staring at the prairie while the night wore through, until he rose with a shiver in the chill of early morning to commence his task again.

A few days later he saw Courthorne safely into a sleeping car with a ticket for Chicago in his pocket, and felt that a load had been lifted off his shoulders when the train rolled out of the little prairie station. Another week had pa.s.sed, when, riding home one evening, he stopped at the Grange, and, as it happened, found Maud Barrington alone. She received him without any visible restraint, but he realized that all that had pa.s.sed at their last meeting was to be tacitly ignored.

"Has your visitor recovered yet?" she asked.

"So far as to leave my place, and I was not anxious to keep him," said Witham with a little laugh. "I am sorry he disturbed you."

Maud Barrington seemed thoughtful. "I can scarcely think the man was to blame."

"No?" said Witham.

The girl looked at him curiously, and shook her head. "No," she said.

"I heard my uncle's explanation, but it was not convincing. I saw the man's face."

It was several seconds before Witham answered, and then he took the bold course.

"Well?" he said.

Maud Barrington made a curious little gesture. "I knew I had seen it before at the bridge, but that was not all. It was vaguely familiar, and I felt I ought to know it. It reminded me of somebody."

"Of me?" and Witham laughed.

"No. There was a resemblance, but it was very superficial. That man's face had little in common with yours."

"These faint likenesses are not unusual," said Witham, and once more Maud Barrington looked at him steadily.

"No," she said. "Of course not. Well, we will conclude that my fancies ran away with me, and be practical. What is wheat doing just now?"

"Rising still," said Witham, and regretted the alacrity with which he had seized the opportunity of changing the topic when he saw that it had not escaped the notice of his companion. "You and I and a few others will be rich this year."

"Yes, but I am afraid some of the rest will find it has only further anxieties for them."

"I fancy," said Witham, "you are thinking of one."

Maud Barrington nodded. "Yes; I am sorry for him."

"Then it would please you if I tried to straighten out things for him?

It would be difficult, but I believe it could be accomplished."

Maud Barrington's eyes were grateful, but there was something that Witham could not fathom behind her smile.

"If you undertook it. One could almost believe you had the wonderful lamp," she said.

Witham smiled somewhat dryly. "Then all its virtues will be tested to-night, and I had better make a commencement while I have the courage. Colonel Barrington is in?"

Maud Barrington went with him to the door, and then laid her hand a moment on his arm. "Lance," she said, with a little tremor in her voice, "if there was a time when our distrust hurt you, it has recoiled upon our heads. You have returned it with a splendid generosity."

Witham did not trust himself to answer, but walked straight to Barrington's room, and finding the door open went quietly in. The head of the Silverdale settlement was sitting at a littered table in front of a shaded lamp, and the light that fell upon it showed the care in his face. It grew a trifle grimmer when he saw the younger man.

"Will you sit down?" he said. "I have been looking for a visit from you for some little time. It would have been more fitting had you made it earlier."

Witham nodded as he took a chair. "I fancy I understand you, but I have nothing that you expect to hear to tell you, sir."

"That," said Barrington, "is unfortunate. Now, it is not my business to pose as a censor on the conduct of any man here, except when it affects the community, but their friends have sent out a good many young English lads, some of whom have not been too discreet in the old country, to me. They did not do so solely that I might teach them farming. A charge of that kind is no light responsibility, and I look for a.s.sistance from the men who have almost as large a stake as I have in the prosperity of Silverdale."

"Have you ever seen me do anything you could consider prejudicial to it?" asked Witham.

"I have not," said Colonel Barrington.

"And it was by her own wish Miss Barrington, who, I fancy, is seldom mistaken, asked me to the Grange?"

"Is is a good plea," said Barrington. "I cannot question anything my sister does."

"Then we will let it pa.s.s, though I am afraid you will consider what I am going to ask a further presumption. You have forward wheat to deliver, and find it difficult to obtain it?"

Barrington's smile was somewhat grim. "In both cases you have surmised correctly."

Witham nodded. "Still, it is not mere inquisitiveness, sir. I fancy I am the only man at Silverdale who can understand your difficulties, and, what is more to the point, suggest a means of obviating them. You still expect to buy at lower prices before the time to make delivery comes?"

Again the care crept into Barrington's face, and he sat silent for almost a minute. Then he said, very slowly, "I feel that I should resent the question, but I will answer. It is what I hope to do."

"Well," said Witham, "I am afraid you will find prices higher still.

There is very little wheat in Minnesota this year, and what there was in Dakota was cut down by hail. Millers in St. Paul and Minneapolis are anxious already, and there is talk of a big corner in Chicago.

n.o.body is offering again, while you know what land lies fallow in Manitoba, and the activity of their brokers shows the fears of Winnipeg millers with contracts on hand. This is not my opinion alone.

I can convince you from the papers and market reports I see before you."

Barrington could not controvert the unpleasant truth he was still endeavouring to shut his eyes to. "The demand from the East may slacken," he said.

Witham shook his head. "Russia can give them nothing. There was a failure in the Indian monsoon, and South American crops were small.

Now, I am going to take a further liberty. How much are you short?"

Barrington was never sure why he told him, but he was hard pressed then, and there was a quiet forcefulness about the younger man that had its effect on him. "That," he said, holding out a doc.u.ment, "is the one contract I have not covered."