The Way of the Strong Part 24

Then came long, silent moments, moments in which heart beat to heart and no spoken word but must have robbed them of something of their rapture. They were moments never to come again as long as both might live. With all the strength of mature years they loved for the first time, and the ripeness of imagination swept them with a perfect storm of delirious joy. They were moments when soul is laid bare to soul, and every nerve and sense is tuned in perfect sympathy. They were moments when the glad outpourings of two hearts mingled in a common flood which swept unchecked, unguided, speeding on to that far dreamland of perfect bliss.

Such moments are mercifully brief, or the balance of mind would soon stand in mortal jeopardy. So it came that later on the harmonious flood, speeding distantly from its source, lessened its frantic speed, and gently fell to a stream of calm delight.

They sat together talking, talking joyously of all those things which concerned the merging of their two lives. For Monica all her troubles, all her self-inflicted tortures were past and done with. There were no shadows. There was nothing on the horizon of her life to mar the sheen of a perfect, sunlit sky.

For the man those moments meant the crowning of his life's ambitions, the crowning of all that was best in him. He asked no more of the G.o.ds of fortune. So the tension of the force which always spurred him was relaxed, and, for the time, at least, he lay supine in the arms of his own dreaming senses, basking in the realms of Love's pleasant sunlight.

Then the spell was finally broken. Sanity was reawakened by the ticking clock, which stood among the trifling ornaments upon Monica's desk. The man became aware of its hands. The irresistible march of time would not be denied. He nodded at the accusing face without any enthusiasm.

"It's nearly seven," he said, with a smile. "Shall we go, or shall we----?"

His voice was caressing, and its caress was hard for the woman to resist. She knew that it was only for her to shake her head, and these moments of delight would be prolonged indefinitely.

The temptation was great. Then, with all a loving woman's understanding of such things, she decided that the sparing of such moments would keep the store longer.

"We'd better go," she said decidedly. Then she deferred to him. "Don't you think so?"

Hendrie smiled happily. It was a new pleasure to find himself obedient to another's whim.

"Yes," he said, promptly acquiescing. "You run along and get your wraps, while I go and see if the car is ready downstairs."

With a final embrace Monica hurried into her bedroom.

Hendrie prepared to depart downstairs. But a final glance at the clock arrested him, and he stood staring at the desk.

Slowly a flush crept into his lean cheeks, and the softness of his steady eyes gave place to the usual cold light with which the man was accustomed to face his world. The coldness changed again to a curious sparkle--a sparkle which would not have found its way there with any other eyes to witness it.

He took a step toward the desk and picked up an embossed silver photograph frame and stared down at the picture it contained. For a moment he only noted the details of the face it portrayed.

It was the picture of a man, a handsome, powerfully built young man, dressed in flannels. The sweater he wore enhanced his wonderfully athletic figure, and added a fine setting for the well-poised head. The photographer had done his work well, for never had Alexander Hendrie looked upon a more perfect picture of magnificent manhood.

The glitter in his eyes hardened, and slowly a deep intense fire grew in their depths. His brows drew together, and he glowered with something like deadly hatred upon the offending picture. Suddenly he replaced it upon the desk, and, with a nervous thrust, his hands sought his trousers pockets, while he deliberately took a step toward the door. But he went no further. He swung about, and picked up the frame again.

At that moment Monica re-entered from the bedroom.

A sudden terror leaped into her eyes as she recognized the silver frame in his hand. One swift glance of his hot eyes left her terror apparent to him. He needed no more. A furious rage mounted to his brain. It was a rage of jealousy. The first pa.s.sion of jealousy he had ever known, and he felt as though he were going mad.

But a powerful restraint, the habit of years, served him. With one jerk of his muscular fingers the back of the frame was torn out, and the photograph removed. Then the frame fell to the floor, and its gla.s.s was shattered.

"Who's picture is this?" he demanded.

Monica strove to steady her shaking limbs. She cleared her throat.

"Why--that's--that's the son of an old friend of mine," she cried desperately. "I've known him all his life."

The man deliberately tore the picture across. He tore it across again.

Then he walked over to the stove. He opened it. One by one he dropped the fragments of Frank Burton's picture into the heart of the glowing coal. Then he reclosed the door.

The next moment Monica was in his arms, and his eyes were devouring her beautiful, frightened face.

"Guess you'll know him no more," he cried, with a laugh, which only seemed to accentuate the fury of his jealousy. "No more. There's just one man in this world for you now, and that man is----"

He broke off and released her. Then, with a sudden return to his normal manner, and all sign of his mad jealousy pa.s.sed, he led her toward the door.

"Say, there's going to be no more shadows around, no more shadows to--spoil things. The car's waiting--ready."

CHAPTER V

IN THE SPRINGTIME

A gray twilight stealing across the sky heralded the coming of day. It was spring upon the flooded prairielands of Canada; a season which is little more than a mere break between an almost sub-tropical summer and the harshest winter the world knows.

In the shadows of dawn the country looked like one vast marshland, rather than the rich pastures and fertile wheat country, which, in days yet to come, will surely fill the stomach of the whole human world.

Wide stretches of water filled the shallow hollows; those troughs between the mountainous rollers of gra.s.s, where the land rose like the swell of a wind-swept ocean.

These wide expanses of water were all that was left of snow to the depth of several feet; and in their turn would soon enough be licked up by a thirsty summer sun. This was the annual fertilizing process which left these hundreds of thousands of square miles capable of a harvest which might well set weeping with envy the toil-worn husbandman of older countries.

Just now it was the feed ground of migratory visitors from the feathered world. Also it had consequently become the happy hunting-ground of every man and boy in the neighborhood capable of carrying a gun. They were all there, waiting in perfect silence, waiting with a patience which nothing else could inspire, for the golden light of day, and the winging of the unsuspecting birds.

The dim, yellow streak on the eastern horizon widened, and the clacking of perhaps a hundred thousand tongues screamed out their joy of life.

Doubtless the affairs of the day were being discussed, quarrels were being satisfactorily adjusted, courtships were in progress, hasty meals and fussy toilets were being attended to. Doubtless in such a vast colony as had settled in the long hay slough, which looked like a broad, sluggish river, the affairs of life were as important as they are among the human denizens of a city. The clatter and hubbub went on, and left the rest of the world indifferent, as such clatter generally does.

Old Sam Bernard and his pupil, Frank Burton, were among the waiting guns. The light was not yet sufficient, and the geese had not yet begun to rise. They were both armed with ten-bore, double-choke guns, the only weapons calculated to penetrate the heavy feathers of such magnificent game. Both were lying full-length upon the sodden highlands which lined the slough, thrilling with the inspiring tension of keen sportsmen. Their half-bred spaniels crouched between them, their silky bodies quivering with joyous excitement, but their well-trained minds permitting no other demonstration. It was a moment worth living for, both for men and dogs.

At last there came a heavy whirring sound down at the water. In a moment a great gray bird sailed up, winging in a wide circle toward Frank's deadly gun. It was the signal waited for. The dogs beat a tattoo with their feathered front feet. A thrill shot down the two men's spines. Both raised their guns, but it was the sharp crack of the younger man's which sent the bird somersaulting to the ground.

Now the whole length of the slough became alive with whirring wings and snapping guns. The panic of the birds was complete. The air was full of c.u.mbersome speeding creatures, winging their way across the danger zone in their unhappy quest of safety. Everywhere they paid the heavy toll demanded of them; and in less than half an hour five hundred brace and more had fallen to the forty-odd guns waiting for them.

But the shoot did not finish there. That was the first rush. That was the pot hunting. The real sport of the morning came with the scattering and high flying of the terrified birds, shooting which required the greatest keenness and skill. Here the older hand had all the best of it, for coolness and judgment alone could fill the bag. The shoot went on well into the morning, and not until the birds became so wild that they utterly refused to come within range did the counting of the bag begin.

By ten o'clock Sam Bernard and his pupil were returning home to the old man's farm in a buckboard laden down with nearly a hundred birds. It had been a great shoot, and Frank's enthusiasm was almost feverish.

"It's the greatest game," he declared. "Forty-seven brace! Say, Sam, shall we get any more of 'em to-morrow?"

Sam flicked the mare with the whip as he shook his gray head.

"Guess not," he said, slowly rolling a chew of tobacco into the other cheek. "They've smelled powder, an' I'd sure say it's a bokay they ain't yearnin' to sniff again. They'll be miles away by mornin'."

"Seems a pity," murmured the blue-eyed giant beside him.

The old man's eyes twinkled.

"Maybe so," he observed. "I used to feel like that. Guess I don't now.