Part 25 (1/2)

”Quite easy,” said Fleming dryly. ”What's the matter with your hands?”

Then he went away and left Barbison to his task. It was a particularly repulsive one, but he accomplished it, and spent most of the next few days tr.i.m.m.i.n.g coal, waiting on the fireman, and cleaning out an empty coal-bunker on his hands and knees. It is probable that the sight of Victoria filled him with ineffable relief, and it certainly was not Fleming's fault if this were not the case. As they steamed into the harbor Jimmy sent for him.

”I think you have earned your pa.s.sage, and we're straight,” he said.

”You can go ash.o.r.e when we get in.”

Barbison glanced down at his dilapidated attire. ”Can I go ash.o.r.e this way? I'll ask you a favor. Let me stay until it's dark.”

Jimmy laughed. ”Well,” he said, ”as I scarcely think Mr. Merril will send you back again, you may.”

CHAPTER XVIII

ELEANOR SPEAKS HER MIND

The afternoon was hot and drowsily still when Merril drove his daughter down the dusty road which runs from New Westminster through the Fraser meadows. The team was a fast one, and the man, who had an appointment to keep in Vancouver, did not spare them. There were also reasons why he found rapid motion and the attention the mettlesome horses required a welcome distraction, for just then he was troubled with a certain sense of irritation which was unusual with him.

Merril was not a hot-tempered man; in fact, he owed his commercial success largely to the dispa.s.sionate coolness which rarely permitted his feelings to influence his actions, and it was characteristic of him that while he had a finger in a good many schemes the man himself never figured prominently in connection with any of them. His influence was felt, but he was in one sense rather an abstract force than a dominant personality. It was said of him that he always worked underground, and he certainly never made political speeches or favored the newspapers with his views; while, when the results of his unostentatious efforts became apparent in disaster to somebody, as they usually did, it generally happened that other men incurred the odium. There are, of course, financiers whose enterprises benefit the whole community, since they create new corn-fields and open mines and mills, but Merril's genius was rather of the destructive order, and it was not to anybody's advantage that he knew how to choose his time and instruments well. In person, he was little, somewhat portly, and very neatly dressed, a man who had never been known to lose his temper or force himself upon the citizens' attention.

Still, he was human, after all, and as he sat behind his costly team that afternoon he was thinking somewhat uneasily of the unexpected resistance certain land-jobbers in New Westminster had shown to his demands, and the attack on him which had just appeared in a popular journal. It was the second time the thing had happened, and, though he was not directly mentioned and the statements could scarcely be considered libelous, it was evident that a continuance of them would have the effect of turning the attention of those who read them upon his doings, which was just then about the last thing that he desired.

It accordingly happened that he drove a little faster than he generally did, until as the team swung out of a strip of shadowy bush he saw a jumper-sled loaded high with split-rails on the road close in front of him. He shouted to the man who walked beside the plodding oxen, never doubting that way would be made for him, especially as the teamster looked around. The oxen, however, went straight on down the middle of the road, and it was a trifle too late when Merril laid both hands upon the reins. In another moment there was a crash, and Anthea was almost shaken from her seat. When Merril swung himself down he saw that one wheel had driven hard against the jumper load. Then as he called to Anthea to move the team a pace or two, the patent bus.h.i.+ng squeaked and groaned, and the wheel, after making part of a revolution, skidded on the road. The man who drove the oxen turned and favored him with a little sardonic grin.

”I hope the young lady's not shook too much,” he said.

Anthea, who fancied it was with a purpose he confined this expression of regret, if, indeed, it could be considered such, to herself, was as a matter of fact considerably shaken and very angry.

”Why didn't you get out of the way when you heard my father shout?” she asked.

It was Merril at whom the man looked. ”Well,” he said reflectively, ”I guess that load is heavy, and the oxen have been hauling hard since sun-up, while there's no reason why a rancher shouldn't use the road as well as anybody from the city. You should have pulled up sooner. Anyway, you're not going far like that.”

Merril said nothing, though he could not very well have failed to notice the hint of satisfaction in the last remark. He very seldom put himself in the wrong by any ill-considered utterance, but Anthea was a trifle puzzled when he quietly walked to the horses' heads. She knew that the small ranchers are, for the most part, good-humored and kindly men, while, although she could not be certain that the one before them had contrived the mishap, it was evident that he had done very little to avert it. He made no further observation, and when he led his oxen into a neighboring meadow Merril told the girl to drive the horses slowly toward a ranch they could see ahead, and walked beside the wagon watching the wheel. It would turn once or twice and then stick fast and skid again; but they contrived to reach the ranch, and found a bronzed man in dusty jean leaning on the slip-rails.

”Have you a wagon-jack and a spanner?” asked Merril.

”I have,” said the man, who made no sign of going for them.

”Then I should be obliged if you would lend me them,” said Merril.

The man smiled dryly. ”It can't be done. If that wheel won't turn, Miss Merril can come in and sit with my wife while you go somewhere and get it fixed. That's the most I can do for you.”

”I suppose the man who wouldn't let us pa.s.s back yonder is a friend of yours?” and Merril looked hard at him.

”That's so. Runs this ranch with me. Guess you've seen me once before, though it was your clerk I made the deal with. That's why we're here on rented land making 'bout enough to buy groceries and tobacco. You know how much the ranch you bounced us out of was worth to you. Anyway, you can't have that jack and spanner.”

Anthea flushed with anger, but she saw that her father was very quiet.

”Well,” he said dryly, ”they belong to you, but I'm not sure it wouldn't have been as wise to let me have them.”