Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 31

"Then if you'll stay I'll cook you supper. I suppose there's nothing to take you home?"

"No," declared Hawtrey with a significant glance at her, "there certainly isn't, Sally. As a matter of fact, I often wish there was."

He saw her sudden uncertainty, which was, however, not tinged with embarra.s.sment, and feeling that he had gone far enough he went out to put up his team. When he returned there was a cloth on the table, and Sally was busy about the stove. He sat down and watched her attentively.

In some respects, he thought she compared favorably with Agatha. She had a nicely molded figure, and a curious lithe gracefulness of carriage which was suggestive of a strong vitality. Agatha's bearing was usually characterized by a certain frigid repose. Then Sally's face was at least as comely as Agatha's, though attractive in a different way, and there was no reserve in it. Sally was what he thought of as human, frankly flesh and blood. Her quick smile was, as a rule, provocative, and never chilled one as Agatha's quiet glances sometimes did.

"Sally," he said, "you've grown prettier than ever."

The girl turned partly towards him with a slow, sinuous movement.

"Now," she replied quickly, "you oughtn't to say those things to me."

Hawtrey laughed; he was usually sure of his ground with Sally.

"Why shouldn't I, when I'm telling the truth?"

"For one thing, Miss Ismay wouldn't like it."

Gregory's face hardened. "I'm not sure she'd mind. Anyway, Miss Ismay doesn't like many things I'm in the habit of doing."

Sally, who had watched him closely, turned away again, but a thrill of exultation ran through her. It had been with dismay she had first heard him speak of his marriage, and she had fled home in an agony of anger and humiliation. That state of mind, however, had not lasted long, and when it became evident that the wedding was postponed indefinitely, she began to wonder whether it was quite impossible that Hawtrey should come back to her. She felt that he belonged to her, although he had never given her any very definite claim on him. She was primitive and pa.s.sionate, but she was determined, and now that he had done what she had almost expected him to do, she meant to keep him.

"You have fallen out?" she inquired, and contrived to keep the anxiety that she was conscious of out of her voice.

The question, and more particularly the form of it, jarred upon Hawtrey, but he answered it.

"Oh, no," he said. "As a matter of fact, Sally, you can't fall out nicely with everybody. Now when we fell out you got delightfully angry--I don't know whether you were more delightful then or when you graciously agreed to make it up again." He laughed. "I almost wish I could make you a little angry now."

Sally had moved nearer him to take a kettle off the stove, and she looked down on him with her eyes s.h.i.+ning in the lamplight. She realized that she would have to fight Miss Ismay for the man; but there was this in her favor--that she appealed directly to one side of his nature, as Agatha, even if she had loved him, could not have attracted him.

"Would you?" she asked. "Dare you try?"

"I might if I was tempted sufficiently."

She leaned upon the table still looking at him mockingly, and she was probably aware that her pose and expression challenged him. Indeed, she could not have failed to recognize the meaning of the sudden tightening of his lips, though she did not in the least shrink from it. She had not the faintest doubt of her ability to keep him at a due distance if it appeared necessary.

"Oh," she taunted, "you only say things."

Hawtrey laughed, and stooping down packed up a package he had brought from the store.

"Well," he said, "after all, I think I'd rather try to please you." He opened the package. "Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?"

The girl's eyes glistened at the sight of the mittens he held out. They were very different from the kind she had been in the habit of wearing, and when he carelessly took out the fur cap she broke into a little cry of delight. Hawtrey watched her with a curious expression. He was not quite sure that he had meant Sally to have the things when he had purchased them, but he was quite contented now. The one gift he had diffidently offered Agatha since her arrival in Canada had been almost coldly laid aside.

In a few minutes Sally laid out supper, and as she waited upon him daintily or filled his cup Hawtrey thrust the misgivings he had felt further behind him. Sally, he thought with a feeling of satisfaction, could certainly cook. When the meal was finished he sat talking about nothing in particular for almost an hour, and then it occurred to him that Sally's mother would be back before very long. She was a person he had no great liking for and he was anxious to go.

"Well," he said, "I must be getting home. Won't you let me see you with that cap on?"

Sally, who betrayed no diffidence, put on the cap, and stood before a dingy mirror with both hands raised while she pressed it down upon her gleaming hair. She flashed a smiling glance at him. It was quite sufficient, and as she turned again Hawtrey slipped forward as softly as he could. She swung around, however, with a flush in her face and a forceful restraining gesture.

"Don't spoil it all, Gregory," she said sharply.

Hawtrey, who saw that she meant it--which was a cause of some astonishment to him--dropped his arms that were held out to embrace her.

"Oh," he said, "if you look at it in that way I'm sorry. Good-night, Sally!"

She let him go, but she smiled when he drove away; and half an hour later she showed the cap and mittens to her mother with significant candor. Mrs. Creighton, who was a severely practical person, nodded.

"Well," she said, "he only wants a little managing if he bought you these, and n.o.body could say you ran after him."

CHAPTER XX

THE FIRST STAKE

A fortnight had slipped by since the evening Hawtrey had spent with Sally, when Winifred and Sproatly once more arrived at the Hastings homestead. The girl was looking jaded, and it appeared that the manager of the elevator, who had all along treated her with a great deal of consideration, had insisted upon her going away for a few days when the pressure of business which had followed the harvest had slackened.

Sproatly, as usual, had driven her in from the settlement.

When the evening meal was finished they drew their chairs close up about the stove, and Hastings thrust fresh birch billets into it, for there was a bitter frost. Mrs. Hastings installed Winifred in a canvas lounge and wrapped a shawl about her.

"You haven't got warm yet, and you're looking quite worn out," she said.

"I suppose Hamilton has still been keeping you at work until late at night?"

"We have been very busy since I was last here," Winifred admitted, and then turned to Hastings. "Until the last week or so there has been no slackening in the rush to sell. Everybody seems to have been throwing wheat on to the market."

Hastings looked thoughtful. "A good many of the smaller men have been doing so, but I think they're foolish. They're only helping to break down prices, and I shouldn't wonder if one or two of the big, long-headed buyers saw their opportunity in the temporary panic. In fact, if I'd a pile of money lying in the bank I'm not sure that I wouldn't send along a buying order and operate for a rise."

Mrs. Hastings shook her head at him. "No," she said; "you certainly wouldn't while I had any say in the matter. You're rather a good farmer, but I haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. Some of our friends have tried it--and you know where it landed them. I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear him."

Hastings laughed. "I should like to point out that most of the farmers in this country are decidedly thin, and have uncommonly little wool on them." Then he turned to the others. "I feel inclined to tell you how Mrs. Hastings made the expenses of her Paris trip; it's an example of feminine consistency. She went around the neighborhood and bought up all the wheat anybody had left on hand, or, at least, she made me do it."

Mrs. Hastings, who had means of her own, nodded. "That was different,"

she declared; "anyway, I had the wheat, and I--knew--it would go up."

"Then why shouldn't other folks sell forward, for instance, when they know it will go down? That's not what I suggested doing, but the point's the same."

"They haven't got the wheat."

"Of course; they wouldn't operate for a fall if they had. On the other hand, if their antic.i.p.ations proved correct, they could buy it for less than they sold at before they had to deliver."

"That," a.s.serted Mrs. Hastings severely, "is pure gambling. It's sure to land one in the hands of the mortgage jobber."

Hastings smiled at the others. "As a matter of fact, it not infrequently does, but I want you to note the subtle distinction. The thing's quite legitimate if you've only got the wheat in a bag. In such a case you must naturally operate for a rise."

"There's a good deal to be said for that point of view," observed Sproatly. "You can keep the wheat if you're not satisfied, but when you try the other plan the margin that may vanish at any moment is the danger. I suppose Gregory has still been selling the Range wheat, Winifred?"