Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 7

CHAPTER VI

HER PICTURE

Wyllard stayed at the inn three days without seeing anything more of the girl whom he had met beside the stream, although he diligently watched for her. He had long felt it was his duty to communicate with the relatives of the lad that he had befriended, and the fact that he had found the girl's photograph in the young Englishman's possession made it appear highly probable that she could a.s.sist him in tracing the family.

Apart from this, he could not quite a.n.a.lyze his motives for desiring to see more of the Englishwoman, though he was conscious of the desire. Her picture had been a companion to him in his wanderings, and now and then he had found a certain solace in gazing at it. Now that he had seen her in the flesh he was willing to admit that he had never met any woman who had made such an impression on him.

It was, of course, possible for him to call at the vicarage, but though he meant to adopt that course as a last resort, there were certain objections to it. He did not know the girl's name, and there was n.o.body to say a word for him. So far as his experience went, the English were apt to be reticent and reserved to a stranger. It seemed to him that, although the girl might give him the information which he required, their acquaintance probably would terminate then and there. She would, he decided, be less likely to stand upon her guard if he could contrive to meet her casually without prearrangement.

On the fourth day fortune favored him, for he came upon her endeavoring to open a tottering gate where a stony hill track led off from the smooth white road. As it happened, he had received a letter from Mrs.

Hastings that morning, fixing the date of her departure, and it was necessary for him to discharge the duty with which Hawtrey had saddled him as soon as possible. The Grange, where he understood Miss Ismay was then staying, lay thirty miles away across the fells, and he had decided to start early on the morrow. That being the case, it was clear that he must make the most of this opportunity; but he realized that it would be advisable to proceed circ.u.mspectly. Saying nothing, he set his shoulder to the gate, and lifting it on its decrepit hinges swung it open.

"Thank you," said the girl. Remembering that the words were the last that she had said to him, she smiled, as she added: "It is the second time you have appeared when I was in difficulties."

In spite of his resolution to proceed cautiously, a twinkle crept into Wyllard's eyes, and suggested that the fact she had mentioned was not so much of a coincidence as it probably appeared. She saw the look that told her what he was thinking, and was about to pa.s.s on, when he stopped her with a gesture.

"The fact is, I have been looking out for you the last three days," he confessed.

He feared the girl had taken alarm at this candid statement, and spread his hands out deprecatingly. "Won't you hear me out?" he added. "There's a matter I must put before you, but I won't keep you long."

The girl was a little puzzled, and naturally curious. It struck her as strange that his admission should have aroused in her very little indignation; but she felt that it would be unreasonable to suspect this man of anything that savored of impertinence. His manner was rea.s.suring, and she liked his face.

"Well?" she said inquiringly.

Wyllard waved his hand toward a big oak trunk that lay just inside the gate.

"If you'll sit down, I'll get through as quick as I can," he promised.

"In the first place, I am, as I told you, a Canadian, who has come over partly to see the country, and partly to carry out one or two missions.

In regard to one of them I believe you can help me."

The girl's face expressed a natural astonishment.

"I could help you?"

Wyllard nodded. "I'll explain my reasons for believing it later on," he said. "In the meanwhile, I asked you a question the other night, which I'll now try to make more explicit. Were you ever acquainted with a young Englishman, who went to Canada from this country several years ago? He was about twenty then, and had dark hair and dark eyes. That, of course, isn't an unusual thing, but there was a rather curious white mark on his left temple. If he was ever a friend of yours, that scar ought to fix it."

"Oh!" cried the girl, "that must have been Lance Radcliffe. I was with him when the scar was made--ever so long ago. We heard that he was dead.

But you said his name was Pattinson."

"I did," declared Wyllard gravely. "Still, I wasn't quite sure about the name being right. He's certainly dead. I buried him."

His companion made an abrupt movement, and he saw the sudden softening of her eyes. There was, however, only a gentle pity in her face, and nothing in her manner suggested the deeper feeling that he had half expected.

"Then," she said, "I am sure that his father would like to meet you.

There was some trouble between them--I don't know which was wrong--and Lance went out to Canada, and never wrote. Major Radcliffe tried to trace him through a Vancouver banker, and only found that he had died in the hands of a stranger who had done all that was possible for him." She turned to Wyllard with a look which set his heart beating faster than usual. "You are that man?"

"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "I did what I could for him. It didn't amount to very much. He was too far gone."

Briefly he repeated the story that he had told to Hawtrey, and, when he had finished, her face was soft again, for what he said had stirred her curiously.

"But," she commented, "he had no claim on you."

Wyllard lifted one hand with a motion that disclaimed all right to commendation. "He was dying in the bush. Wasn't that enough?"

The girl made no answer for a moment or two. She had earned her living for several years, and she was to some extent acquainted with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are hard men in Canada the small farmers and ranchers of the West--and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific slope--are as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them the sick or worn-out stranger is seldom turned away. Watching the stranger covertly, she understood that this man whom she had seen for the first time three days before had done exactly what she would have expected of him.

"I saw a great deal of Lance Radcliffe--when I was younger," she said.

"His people still live at Garside Scar, close by Dufton Holme. I presume you will call on them?"

Wyllard said that he purposed doing so, as he had a watch and one or two other mementos that they might like to have, and she told him how to reach Dufton Holme by a round-about railway journey.

"There is one point that rather puzzles me," she said, after she had made it plain how he was to find the Radcliffe family. "How did you know that I could tell you anything about him?"

Wyllard thrust his hand into his pocket, and took out a little leather case.

"You are by no means a stranger to me," he remarked as he handed her the photograph. "This is your picture; I found it among the dead lad's things."

The girl, who started visibly, flashed a keen glance at him. It was evident that he had not intended to produce any dramatic effect. She flushed a little.

"I never knew he had it," she a.s.serted. "Perhaps he got it from his sister." She paused, and then, as if impelled to make the fact quite clear, added, "I certainly never gave it to him."

Wyllard smiled gravely, for he recognized that while she was clearly grieved to hear of young Radcliffe's death, she could have had no particular tenderness for the unfortunate lad.

"Well," he said, "perhaps he took it in the first place for the mere beauty of it, and it afterwards became a companion--something that connected him with the Old Country. It appealed in one of those ways to me."

Again she flashed a sharp glance at him, but he went on unheeding:

"When I found it I meant to keep it merely as a clew, and so that it could be given up to his relatives some day," he added. "Then I fell into the habit of looking at it in my lonely camp in the bush at night, and when I sat beside the stove while the snow lay deep upon the prairie. There was something in your eyes that seemed to encourage me."

"To encourage you?"

"Yes," Wyllard a.s.sented gravely, "I think that expresses it. When I camped in the bush of the Pacific slope we were either out on the gold trail--and we generally came back ragged and unsuccessful after spending several months' wages which we could badly spare--or I was going from one wooden town to another without a dollar in my pocket and wondering how I was to obtain one when I got there. For a time it wasn't much more cheerful on the prairie. Twice in succession the harvest failed. Perhaps Lance Radcliffe felt as I did."

The girl cut him short. "Why didn't you mention the photograph at once?"

Wyllard smiled at her. "Oh," he explained, "I didn't want to be precipitate--you English folk don't seem to like that. I think"--and he seemed to consider--"I wanted to make sure you wouldn't be repelled by what might look like Colonial _brusquerie_. You see, you have been over snow-barred divides and through great shadowy forests with me. We've camped among the boulders by lonely lakes, and gone down frothing rapids. I felt--I can't tell you why--that I was bound to meet you some day."

His frankness was startling, but the girl showed neither astonishment nor resentment. She felt certain that this stranger was not posing or speaking for effect. It did not occur to Wyllard that he might have gone too far, and for a moment or two he leaned against the gate, while she looked at him with what he thought of as her gracious English calm.

Pale suns.h.i.+ne fell upon them, though the larches beside the road were rustling beneath a cold wind, and the song of the river came up brokenly out of the valley. An odor of fresh gra.s.s floated about them, and the dry, cold smell of the English spring was in the air. Across the valley dim ghosts of hills lighted by evanescent gleams rose out of the east wind grayness with shadowy grandeur.

Then Wyllard aroused himself. "I wonder if I ought to write Major Radcliffe and tell him what my object is before I call," he said. "It would make the thing a little easier."

The girl rose. "Yes," she a.s.sented, "that would, perhaps, be wiser." She glanced at the photograph which was still in her hand. "It has served its purpose. I scarcely think it would be of any great interest to Major Radcliffe."

She saw his face change as she made it evident that she did not mean to give the portrait back to him. There was, at least, one excellent reason why she would not have her picture in a strange man's hands.

"Thank you," she said, "for the story. I am glad we have met; but I'm afraid I have already kept my friends waiting for me."