Part 35 (1/2)

”All right. I will get you a name that you can take. I shall have to go to Allenwood.”

Davies had been watching him keenly.

”Very well,” he said. ”Sign this, and look in again when you have got your friend's signature.”

Three days later Gerald was back in the broker's office.

”Can you negotiate it now?” he asked nervously, producing the paper.

”Yes,” said Davies. ”The name's good enough. I know Harding.”

After deducting a high rate of interest, he gave Gerald the money, and then locked the note away with a look of great satisfaction.

Harding's name was forged, and Davies knew it.

CHAPTER XX

A SEVERE TEST

Winter ended suddenly, as it generally does on the plains, and rain and suns.h.i.+ne melted the snow from the withered gra.s.s. Then the northwest wind awoke, and rioting across the wide levels dried the spongy sod, while goose and crane and duck, beating their northward way, sailed down on tired wings to rest a while among the sloos. For a week or two, when no team could have hauled a load over the boggy trails, Harding was busy mending harness and getting ready his implements. The machines were numerous and expensive, but he had been forced to put off their adjustment because it is risky to handle cold iron in the Canadian frost. He had been unusually silent and preoccupied of late; but Hester, knowing his habits, asked no questions. When he was ready, Craig would tell her what was in his mind, and in the meantime she had matters of her own to think about. All the work that could be done went forward with regular precision, and, in spite of Harding's reserve, there was mutual confidence between the two. Hester was quietly happy, but she was conscious of some regret.

In a few more months she must leave her brother's house and transfer to another the care and thought she had given him. She knew he would miss her, and now and then she wondered anxiously whether any other woman could understand and help him as she had done. Craig had faults and he needed indulging.

Then, too, he sometimes gave people a wrong impression. She had heard him called hard. Although in reality generous and often compa.s.sionate, his clear understanding of practical things made him impatient of incompetence and stupidity. He needed a wider outlook and more toleration for people who could not see what was luminously plain to him. Life was not such a simple matter with clean-cut rules and duties as Craig supposed. Grasping its main issues firmly, he did not perceive that they merged into one another through a fine gradation of varying tones and shades.

Rather late one night Hester sat sewing while Harding was busy at his writing table, his pipe, which had gone out, lying upon the papers. He had left the homestead before it was light that morning to set his steam-plow to work, though n.o.body at Allenwood had taken a team from the stable yet. Devine had told her of the trouble they had encountered: how the soft soil clogged the moldboards, and the wheels sank, and the coulters crashed against patches of unthawed ground. This, however, had not stopped Harding. There was work to be done and he must get about it in the best way he could. At supper time he came home in very greasy overalls, looking tired, but as soon as the meal was finished he took out some papers, and now, at last, he laid down his pen and sat with knitted brows and clenched hand.

”Come back, Craig!” Hester called softly.

He started, threw the papers into a drawer, and looked at his watch.

”I thought I'd give them half an hour, and I've been all evening,” he said, feeling for his pipe. ”Now we'll have a talk. I told Fred to order all the dressed lumber he wanted, and I'd meet the bill. The house he thought of putting up wasn't half big enough; in a year or two he'd have had to build again. Then we want the stuff to season, and there's no time to lose if it's to be ready for you when the harvest's in.”

Hester blushed prettily.

”You have given us a good deal already, Craig. We would have been satisfied with the smaller homestead.”

”Shucks!” returned Harding. ”I don't give what I can't afford. You and Fred have helped to put me where I am, and I'd have felt mean if I hadn't given you a good start off when I'm going to spend money recklessly on another plan. Now that all I need for the summer's paid for, I've been doing some figuring.”

”Ah! You think of buying some of the Allenwood land?”

”Yes,” he said gravely. ”It will be a strain, but now's the time, when the falling markets will scare off buyers. I hate to see things go to pieces, and they want a man to show them how the settlement should be run. They have to choose between me and the mortgage broker. It will cost me a tough fight to beat him, but I think I see my way.”

”But what about Colonel Mowbray?”

”He's the trouble. I surely don't know what to do with him; but I guess he'll have to be satisfied with moral authority. I might leave him that.”

Hester felt sorry for the Colonel. He was autocratic and arbitrary, his ways were obsolete, and he had no place in a land that was beginning to throb with modern activity. She saw the pathetic side of his position; and, after all, the man was of a finer type than the feverish money makers. His ideals were high, though his way of realizing them was out of date.