The Land of Strong Men Part 53

With Faith he took long rides into the foothills, along faint, old trails first beaten by the feet of the long-vanished elk, through deep timber where towering, seal-brown trunks shot fifty feet in the air without a limb and met in dense, needle-foliage above, and the horses'

feet fell without sound; beside creeks fed by the h.o.a.ry, old glaciers which far away glinted gray, and ridged, and fissured, relics of the ancient ice-cap which once overlay and over-rode the land. To Faith these trips were a novelty, opening a fresh world new and wonderful.

Incidentally they showed her husband to advantage, in a new light and her trust in him strengthened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _To Faith these trips were a novelty, opening a world new and wonderful._]

In such surroundings Angus was at home, adequate, competent. His knowledge of them amazed Faith, though there was nothing at all wonderful about it, since he had lived in the open all his life and consorted with men who had done likewise. His camps were always comfortable and sheltered. He constructed deep beds in which one sank luxuriously. Rain or shine he was a wizard with a fire and a frying pan, building browned and feathery bannocks in a minimum of time, the doughG.o.ds he mixed were marvels, his mulligan a thing to dream of. All was accomplished without hurry and without fuss. She saw the results without quite appreciating the method.

Another thing which impressed her was his apparent ability to make the horses comprehend his wishes. When he spoke to them he seldom raised his voice. When trouble developed he was infinitely patient; when punishment was necessary he inflicted it without temper. Faith saw no signs of the "divil" of which Mrs. Foley had spoken. If he existed at all he dwelt deep, in the dungeons of the man's being, securely chained.

It was natural that she should take pride in her husband's physique. His body was hard, lean, in the condition of an athlete's in training. Her fingers pressing his forearm made scarcely an impression. Once, as he bent to heave out of the way fallen timber which blocked the trail, she placed her hands upon his back. He turned his head.

"Lift!" she said, and beneath her hands she felt the long, pliant muscles spring and tauten and harden. On another occasion a bowlder had fallen upon the trail, partially embedding itself. It was possible to go around, but he would not. Finally he worried out the rock and rolled it down the hillside.

"Heavy?" she queried.

"Pretty heavy. The trouble was I couldn't get hold of it."

"Do you know how strong you are?" she questioned.

"Why, no," he admitted. "That is, I don't know just what I can lift, if that is what you mean, nor what I could pack for say a mile if I had to.

There's a good deal of knack in that sort of thing--balance and distribution of weight, and the development of a certain set of muscles by keeping at it. There are men who can pack five hundred on a short portage. I've heard of eight hundred--but I don't know."

Faith thought she had known Angus before marriage. But in the companionship of the trail and beside the evening fires beneath the stars she learned that her knowledge of him had been superficial. She found that the country rock of his reserve hid unsuspected veins of tenderness, of poesy and of melancholy. But though he possessed these softer veins--and she reflected that it should be her task to develop them--the man himself was essentially hard and grim. His outlook, when she came to know it, proved primitive, the code which governed him simple and ancient--the old, old code of loyalty to friends, and in the matter of reprisals eye for eye and tooth for tooth.

"But that is not right," she urged when he had set forth this latter belief. "We are told to return good for evil."

Angus smiled grimly. "We may be told to do so," he said, "and we are told to turn the other cheek to the smiter. That is all very well when the evil or the blow is unintentional, sort of by accident. But when a man does you harm on purpose, out of meanness, the best way to show him he has made a mistake is to get back at him hard."

"Which makes him hate you all the more."

"Maybe. But it makes him mighty careful what he does."

"But don't you see," she argued, "that if there were no such thing as forgiveness--if everybody paid back everybody for injuries in the same coin--the whole world would be at feud and at war. We should go back to savagery."

"And don't you see," he responded, "that if men knew they could get away with anything without a comeback the world wouldn't be much better.

There are men and nations who are decent, and there are both who are not. These have to be kept down. If they ruled, it would be terrorism."

"There would be the law; there must be the law, of course. That would protect people."

"The law has too much red tape about it. In the old days things were better. Then a man packed his own law."

"The gun? A horrible state of affairs! Barbarism!"

"Well, it made men careful. Now you take Braden. With the help of the law he is going to get our ranch for a fraction of its value. I am not kicking about that. But he blew up my ditch. I don't mean he did it himself, but he framed it, though I can't prove it. If it wasn't for the law I would go and twist the truth out of him, and then I would settle with the men who did it. And then there's your ranch. I know it must be Braden who wants to buy that. I'd find out about that, too. There's something wrong. He's trying to put something over." His fist clenched suddenly. "The rotten crooks!" he growled. "They've got me. But let them try any dirty work on _you_!"

Secretly, Faith worried a little about the future, the more because Angus seemed utterly careless of it. He had utterly refused to allow her to sell her ranch and apply the proceeds to satisfy Braden's claim. If he had any definite plans for the future he would not talk of them. With what money he would have from the sale of stock and various chattels there would be enough for a start elsewhere. But when and where and how that start should be made was up to Angus.

"Shouldn't we be making some definite plans?" she asked.

"I suppose we should," he admitted. "But I've always planned and worried, and the best I've made out of it all is to land in this mess.

Now and then I've asked myself what was the use of it."

"But that's no state of mind for a man," she protested. "That's lie down and quit. You're not that sort, surely?"

"I didn't think I was," he said slowly. "I thought I had sand and staying power. But I'm tired. Lord, you don't know how tired I am--and sore! Every thought I've had for years has been for the old place. And now to lose it! It sort of upsets me--temporarily. I'm deliberately not thinking, nor planning. When the place is sold it will be different.

Till then I'm going to loaf, body and mind, for all I'm worth."

Though she thoroughly disapproved of this state of mind, Faith said no more. Time drew on. And one night Angus announced that loafing was done.

"Now I'll get into the collar for another stretch of years," he said.

"To-morrow we'll start back. I want to be at the sale, to see who will bid the place in."

"It will be like turning the knife, won't it?"

"Yes, but I can take my medicine. Then I'll sell off the stock, turn everything I can into cash, fix up you and Jean somewhere and go cruising."

"Cruising?"

"Prospecting for new ground somewhere. The farther away the better. I want a lot of land--cheap. I'm out to make a stake--to found a fortune for the Mackay family."

"You'll take me with you."

"No."

"Please!"

"Better not, old girl. I may have to cover a lot of ground before I find what I'm looking for, and the traveling will be rough. It's better for me to go alone."

Faith did not press. She recognized the truth of what he said. But she realized as they rode down out of the hills what a difference already his absence would make in her life.

CHAPTER XXIX

SUDDEN DEATH

Though G.o.dfrey French's habits could not be called studious his private room was known as his "study," which possibly was as good as any other name. The furnishings of the room were of comfortable solidity. Since the room served as an office in which he transacted such business as he had, there was a desk with many pigeon holes, and backed against the wall stood a small safe.

Outside it was dark, and the rising wind was beginning to sigh with a promise of breeding weather. But in the study, lit by a shade lamp, its owner and Mr. Braden were comfortably seated. Beside them stood a small table bearing a decanter, a siphon and a box of cigars.

Mr. Braden helped himself to the whiskey. His drinking was strictly private, but he indulged rather more frequently than of old, and in larger doses. Somehow he seemed to require them. As for G.o.dfrey French, he took his Scotch as he took his tea, as he had been taking it all his life, and with no more visible effect.

But as Mr. Braden looked at French he seemed to have aged in the last few weeks. The features seemed more prominent, the keen face leaner and more deeply lined, the cold, blue eyes more weary and more cynical.

"You look a little pulled down," Mr. Braden commented. "Perhaps a change would do you good."