Part 9 (1/2)

Agatha turned to him.

”I understand that Gregory is recovering rapidly?” she said.

Wyllard a.s.sured her that Hawtrey was convalescing, and Agatha said quietly, ”He wants me to go out to him.”

Wyllard felt that if a girl of that sort had promised to marry him he would not have sent for her, but would have come in person, if he had been compelled to pledge his last possessions, or crawl to the tideway on his hands and knees. For all that he was ready to defend his friend.

”I'm afraid it's necessary,” he said. ”Gregory was quite unfit for such a journey when I left, and he must be ready to commence the season's campaign with the first of the spring. Our summer is short, you see, and with our one-crop farming it's indispensable to get the seed in early.

In fact, he will be badly behind as it is.”

This was not particularly tactful, since, without intending it, he made it evident that he felt his comrade had been to some extent remiss; but Agatha smiled.

”Oh,” she replied, ”I understand! You needn't labor with excuses. But doesn't the same thing apply to you?”

”It certainly did. Now, however, things have become a little easier. My holding is larger than Gregory's, and I have a foreman who can look after it for me.”

”Gregory said that you were a great friend of his.”

Wyllard seized this opportunity. ”He was a great friend of mine and I like to think it means the same thing. In fact it's reasonably certain that he saved my life for me.”

”Ah!” exclaimed Agatha; ”that is a thing he didn't mention. How did it come about?”

Wyllard was glad to tell the story. He was anxious to say all he honestly could in Hawtrey's favor.

”We were at work on a railroad trestle--a towering wooden bridge, in British Columbia. It stretched across a deep ravine with great boulders and there was a stream in the bottom of it. He stood high up on a staging close beneath the rails. A fast freight, a huge general produce train came down the track, with one of the new big locomotives hauling it, and when the cars went banging by above us we could hardly hold on to the bridge. The construction foreman was a hustler, and we had to get the spikes in. I was swinging the hammer when I felt the plank beneath me slip. The train, it seems, had jarred loose the bolt around which we had our las.h.i.+ngs. For a moment I felt that I was going down into the gorge, and then Gregory leaned out and grabbed me. He had only one free hand to do it with, and when he felt my weight one foot swung out from the stringer he had sprung to. It seemed certain that I would pull him with me, too. We hung like that for a s.p.a.ce--I don't quite know how long.”

He paused for a moment, apparently feeling the stress of it again, and there was a faint thrill in his voice when he went on.

”It was then,” he said, ”I knew just what kind of man Gregory Hawtrey was. Anybody else would have let me go; but he held on. I got my hand on some of the framing, and he swung me on to the stringer.”

He saw the gleam in Agatha's eyes. ”Oh!” she cried, ”that is just what he must have done. He was like that always--impulsive, splendidly generous.”

Wyllard felt that he had succeeded, though he knew that there were men on the prairie who called his comrade slackly careless, instead of impulsive. Agatha spoke again.

”But Gregory wasn't a carpenter,” she said.

”In those days when money was scarce we had to be whatever we could.

There wasn't much specialization of handicrafts out there then. The farmer whose crop was ruined took up the railroad shovel, or borrowed a saw from somebody and set about building houses, or anything else that was wanted.”

”Of course!” replied Agatha. ”Besides, he was always wonderfully quick.

He could learn any game by just watching it a while. He did all he undertook brilliantly.”

It occurred to Wyllard that Gregory had, at least, made no great success of farming; but that occupation, as practiced on the prairie, demands a great deal more than quickness and what some call brilliancy from the man who undertakes it. He must, as they say out there, possess the capacity for staying with it--the grim courage to hold fast the tighter under each crus.h.i.+ng blow, when the grain shrivels under the harvest frost, or when the ragged ice hurtling before a roaring blast does the reaping. It was, however, evident that this girl had an unquestioning faith in Gregory Hawtrey, and once more Wyllard felt compa.s.sionate towards her. He wondered if she would have retained her confidence had Hawtrey spent those four years in England instead of Canada, for it was clear from the contrast between her and her picture that she had grown in many ways since she had given her promise to her lover. He had said what he could in Hawtrey's favor, but now he felt that something was due to the girl.

”Gregory told me to explain what things are like out there,” he said. ”I think it is because they are so different from what you are accustomed to that he has waited so long. He wanted to make them as easy as possible for you, and now he would like you to realize what is before you.”

He was surprised at the girl's quick comprehension, for she glanced around the luxurious room with a faint smile.

”You look on me as part of--this? I mean it seems to you that I fit in with my surroundings, and would be in harmony only with them?”