Lorimer of the Northwest Part 11

In different circ.u.mstances we might have enjoyed that holiday. As it was, I lay still in the suns.h.i.+ne all day, disconsolately staring across the prairie down the track that was apparently going to complete our discomfiture, and smoking until my mouth was blistered. Where Harry went to I did not know. On the second evening, however, our new partner, who had been back to the main line for supplies, came in, and listened with apparent unconcern while we explained matters to him. Acting under impulse, I even suggested that we might release him from his unfortunate bargain, but he laughed as he answered:

"You're generous, but it can't be done. Experiences of this kind are not new to me, and I'm a Jonah, as I warned you. Still, when bad luck follows one everywhere--floods on the Fraser, cattle-sickness, snow coming heavy just when one is finding signs of gold--you know there's no earthly use running away from it, and it's wisest to laugh at fortune and stay right where you are. Dare say we'll come out on the right side yet; and if we don't, in fifty years it won't make much difference. Now try to look less like guests at a funeral, and talk of something cheerful."

I made some moody answer and envied him his way of taking things, while Harry tried to smile, and Johnston, lifting down a banjo, commenced a plantation ditty, which he sang with so much spirit that presently he had most of the shovel gang for an appreciative audience. Then there were roars of laughter when he stood in the entrance of the tent and, with the utmost solemnity, made them a ridiculous speech. After this they went away to their canvas dwellings, and I knew that Ellsworthy Johnston was one of those born soldiers of fortune who extract the utmost brightness from an arduous life, and, meeting each reverse with a smiling face, cheerfully bear their ill-rewarded share in the development of Greater Britain beyond the seas. One may find a good many of them on the Western prairie.

We recommenced work the next morning, and, under the delicious still coolness of the Indian summer, we increased the strain on nerve and muscle and cut down the grocery bill, though I insisted on feeding the horses even better than before. It is never economy to stint one's working cattle, especially when one demands the utmost from them, besides being a procedure which is distasteful to any merciful man. However, though we had to hire more horses, wondering how we would ever pay for them when the contract was finished, the track crept on along the treacherous slope, where we scooped out a double width as basis, winding among the birches in glistening, sinuous curves, while the end of the valley grew nearer every day. Again Harry and I lapsed into the excitement of a race against adversity, because unless we were well out on the open prairie before winter bound the sod into the likeness of concrete there could be no hope of even partly recouping our loss. Even Johnston seemed infected with our spirit; but while we generally worked in dogged silence, he had ever a jest on his lips.

One evening--and the days were shortening all too rapidly--when I sat tired and dejected on an empty provision case, a rail-layer brought in several letters, and, as usual, they were all for me. Harry stood bare-armed, with the dust still thick upon him, just outside the entrance of the tent, holding a spider over our little stove, and glanced half regretfully toward the budget. No one ever seemed to write to Harry. The first was from Jasper. He had visited Brandon and Winnipeg on business, and wrote in his usual off-hand style.

"I've been in to see those dealers, taking my best broker along, to convince them that we only raised solid men in this section," it ran.

"Thought I'd enlighten them about you, and the broker laid himself out to back me. He gets all my business--see?--while you can't beat a Winnipeg broker at real tall talking. I should say we impressed them considerably; or perhaps it was the big cigars and the spread at the hotel. Said they'd sense enough to know a straight man when they saw him, and they'd give you plenty time to pay in. So all you've got to do is to sail right on with the track-grading. The boys were saying down to Elktail that Fletcher and his father-in-law don't get on, and there's going to be trouble there presently. I think the old man started in to reform him, and Fletcher don't like unlimited reform."

"Just like Jasper," said Harry. "A woman's heart, and the strength of three ordinary men. Still, when Jasper starts in with a rush no man can say where he'll finish, and we may hear next that he has been all round Winnipeg on our account borrowing money."

Then the new partner, who was splitting firewood close by, laid down his axe as he said: "Hope you'll introduce me to Jasper some day. From what you say, he is a man worth knowing."

There were two more letters, and the next--my fingers trembled as I opened it--was from Grace. It was dated from Starcross House, in Lancas.h.i.+re, and written in frank friendliness, expressing regret for our misfortune, which, it seemed, she had heard about, and ending: "But by this time you will have learned that there are ups and downs in every country, and I know you both have the courage to face the latter. So go on with a stout heart, believing that I and all your other friends look for your ultimate success." To this there was a postscript: "I met your cousin, Miss Lorimer, the other day, and was sorry to find her very pale and thin. She had just recovered from a serious illness, and seemed troubled when I told her how you had lost your harvest."

I placed the thin sheets reverently in an inside pocket, and read them afterward over and over again, because I might not answer them. She had written out of kindly sympathy when the news of our trouble first reached her, and that was all; while I felt I could not write a mere formal note of thanks--and more than this was out of the question now. Nevertheless, I was thankful for her good wishes, and then I stood silent under the starlight, staring down the misty coulee and thinking of Cousin Alice as mechanically I stripped the envelope from the next letter. She had always been ailing, even in the days when we were almost as brother and sister; and now I longed that I might comfort her as in my periodical fits of restlessness she used to soothe me. That, however, was impossible, for my cousin was part of the sheltered life I had left behind across the sea, and I was in Western Canada with a very uncertain future before me.

Then, moving back into the light of the lamp, I read the last letter. With a gasp of astonishment, I handed it to Harry, saying: "I can make nothing of this. Who in the wide world can have sent the money?"

He laid down the spider, and, bending until the glow from the tent door fell on the paper, read:

"Mr. Ralph Lorimer, of Fairmead.

Sir,--We have received the sum of one thousand dollars, from a correspondent whose ident.i.ty we are not at liberty to reveal, to place to your credit. If you prefer, you may regard this amount as an unsecured loan and repay it with current interest on opportunity.

Otherwise it is unconditionally at your disposal, and we will have pleasure in honoring your drafts to that extent.

-------- -------- Agent for the Bank of Montreal."

"You are a lucky man," said Harry. "What will you do with it?" And I answered with some hesitation:

"I don't exactly know. Tell them to send it back, most likely. We can both take care of ourselves without depending on other people's charity like remittance men. And what right has any unknown person to send money to me?

My friends in England have apparently cast me off utterly, and in no case would I accept a favor from them. Still, I should like to discover who sent it."

"It's some one who knows your little--we'll say peculiarities," answered Harry dryly. "I sometimes wonder, Ralph, what makes you so confoundedly proud of yourself. Can't you take it in the spirit it's evidently meant, and be thankful? You are not overburdened with worldly riches at present, anyway."

To this I made no answer. We needed money badly enough--that at least was certain; and after our frugal repast I marched up and down the line, thinking it over, and then, chiefly for Harry's sake, I decided to accept the sum as a loan. It would materially help to lighten that other crus.h.i.+ng load of debt; and though growing more and more puzzled, I felt, as Harry did, there was yet a great kindness behind it.

CHAPTER XII

THE UNEXPECTED

On the first opportunity we paid off the most pressing of our creditors, and continued our labor with greater cheerfulness, working double tides when there was moonlight, scooping out the line along the sides of the coulee, though we lost more than I cared to calculate on every yard of it.

As we did so the days grew shorter and shorter, and often in the mornings there was a keen frost in the air. It was a losing game, but we had given our bond and played it out stubbornly, while Johnston, who worked as hard as either now, cheered us with witty anecdote and quaint philosophy after each especially disappointing day. Then one evening when the surveyor sat with us, as he did occasionally, a man approached the tent.

"There's a curious critter hunting round for you," he said, "looks most like a low-down played-out Britisher. He's wanting Contractor Lorimer, and won't lie down until he finds him."

"Adam Lee of Stoney Clough for a dollar; I've been expecting him," said Harry, with a low whistle. "You needn't go, surveyor. Have you been fascinating any more young damsels, Ralph? Larry, will you be kind enough to show his reverence in."

The man grinned as he went out, and presently Lee stood before us. He looked a little stronger than when I last saw him, but there was trouble in his face, and, when I explained to the rest who he was, he sat down and commenced his story. Life is generally hard to such as he, and living close packed together in the hive of a swarming town, with their few joys and many sorrows open for every eye to see, they lose the grace of reticence.

"I set up a st.i.tching shop in a shed against Tom Fletcher's house," he said. "There were none of my kin left in the wide world but Minnie, and, if I wasn't a burden, I wanted to live near her. They brought me saddles and harness to sew, and I earned a little, but I was main anxious for Thomas Fletcher. The l.u.s.t of strong drink was in him, and he had sinful fits of temper, raging like one demented when I told him to cast out the devil. 'I'll cast out thee an' thy preaching into perdition,' he said.

Then Minnie must tell me if I was too good for her husband, and only making trouble, they did not want me there, and I saw that sometimes Tom Fletcher scowled with angry eyes at her after I had spoken to him faithfully. So, because it is an ill thing to cause strife between man and wife, I left my daughter--and I had come half across the world to find her. They told me there were lots of men and horses working on the new railway, and I wondered if there was anything I could do that would keep me. They said Ralph Lorimer was a big contractor--an' there was doubt between us, but I have forgiven thee."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure!" said Harry. "The question is, however, what can you do?" and the old man answered eagerly:

"Anything, if it's saddles or harness or mending shoes. I can cut things in hardwood and sharpen saws too, and I'll work for a trial for nothing but my keep."

I looked down at him compa.s.sionately, for he was old and broken in spirit, and would plainly starve if turned adrift on the prairie, while as I did so the surveyor broke in:

"You had better take him!"

Then, deciding that perhaps he could help us in some small degree, and that we might spare a few dollars to give him, even if he only kept us in whole shoes, I answered: "Well, well see what you can do, and you can camp in the other tent. There's a set of worn-out harness for a beginning to-morrow; and if you go right across you'll just be in time for supper."

He thanked us with effusion, and when he went out Harry said lightly: "We have made a very bad bargain, of course, but I dare say we can manage to raise all he will cost us. Naturally, I feel inclined to do something for the old man, but that confounded Fletcher exasperates me. His shadow has been over you ever since you started in this country, and, I suppose it's foolish, but I feel that some day he'll do you a greater injury. However, at present I almost sympathize with his action. It isn't cheerful to have a future state of brimstone held up before one continually."

"When I said you had better take him, I didn't mean at your own expense,"

interposed the surveyor, "but that in the circ.u.mstances it would come better so. I guess we'll squeeze him somehow on to the pay-roll of the Company. Heard all about the whole thing from some one. Who?--oh, General Jackson, how should I remember? Kind of religio-political crank, isn't he?

Well, I've seen some inventive geniuses among the species, and while we're driving straight ahead we can find use for a man if he's honest and handy finicking round the ch.o.r.es. Still, that has nothing to do with what I'm coming to. We have room for straight live men on this road, and I've been watching you two. Guess you've been losing heavy, and you stuck right down to it. Now, this branch is going to be froze up presently, and they've sent for me to finish a mining loop among the mountains of British Columbia; when some one else has fooled a tough job they generally do.

They listen at headquarters when I get up to talk, and the question is, will you bring along your outfit and haul rocks and lumber in the ranges for me? This time we'll try to make the deal a better one for you. We'll square up and pay off on what you've done so far; it will cut the loss, because there's more of the coulee, and there'll be hard frost before you're out on the prairie. Now, I've been talking straight--what have you to say?"

I looked around at the others. Harry beamed approval, Johnston nodded indifferently, and I felt a thrill of satisfaction as I turned to the railroad autocrat.

"We will come," I said simply.

"That's good," was the laconic answer. "Don't think you'll regret it," and with a nod to each of us the man who in a few moments had made a great change in our destiny was gone.

"On the up-grade now!" said Johnston, "but don't lose your heads. The great man paid you a tremendous compliment, Ralph, and that kind of thing isn't usual with him; but take it coolly. More people get badly busted, as they say in this benighted country, by sudden success than by hard luck!"

It was good to lounge in the tent door that evening, and remember that there would be no more dreary awakenings to a day of profitless labor; but perhaps it was the cool night wind and the frosty glitter of the stars that helped to check the rush of hot, hopeful fancies through my brain. I had learned already to distrust any untested offer of prosperity.

For another week nothing of moment happened, and then we spent an hour one morning with the surveyor and a gray-haired gentleman from Winnipeg. He differed from the former in many ways, and spoke with a deliberate urbanity, but I felt that he also spoke with authority and was quietly taking stock of us. We signed several papers, a receipt among them, and it was only then that I realized what that unfortunate coulee had cost us, while, when at last we went out, the surveyor said:

"You have made a good impression, and that man's favorable opinion may mean great things to you. I shouldn't wonder if you cashed a good many big pay drafts before we have finished with you."

"I hope so," I answered grimly. "At present we are rather poorer than when we commenced the work, and whomever the new railroad benefits it has done only harm to us. That, however, is in no way your fault, and having started we're going on to see the end of it."

"Good man!" said the surveyor with a significant smile. "I shouldn't be too previous. You have six days to straighten up your business;" and after a brief conference with Harry I departed for Fairmead and Winnipeg.

Our few cattle were thriving among the herds of our neighbors, to whom we made over our stock of prairie hay. The homestead would doubtless take care of itself until we were ready to return there, as prairie homesteads often have to do; while, whether it was owing to Jasper's eloquence or to other causes, I found our remaining creditors both reasonable and willing to meet us as far as they could. So I came back with a satisfactory report, and the same evening we gathered those who worked for us about the tent, and when we had handed each a roll of dollar bills Harry laid the position before them.

"We sunk all that was left in this contract," he said, "and now when we are transferred to British Columbia we set out almost empty-handed, with the wrong kind of balance. It seems only fair I should tell you this frankly. If you decide to come with us we will, if all goes well, pay at present rates for the services of men and teams. On the other hand, if there is any unforeseen difficulty we may have nothing to pay with, and if any one wishes to go back to his holding I should only say he's sensible.