Part 19 (2/2)

Thereupon the a.s.sembly broke up, and I rode back to Bonaventure, reaching it with the first of the daylight, blackened and singed, while, as it happened, Lucille Haldane was the first person I met.

”Where have you been? Your clothes are all burned!” she said.

”Gaspard's Trail is burned down and I helped to save some of the horses,” I answered wearily; and I never forgot the girl's first startled look. She appeared struck with a sudden consternation. It vanished in a moment, and, though she looked almost guilty, her answer was rea.s.suring.

”Of course; that is just what you would do. But you are tired and must rest before you tell me about it.”

I was very tired, and slept until noon, when I told my story to Haldane and his daughter together. The former made very few comments, but presently I came upon Lucille alone, and laid my hand on her shoulder as I said: ”Do you know that somebody suggested it was I who burned Gaspard's Trail?”

The girl's color came and went under my gaze; then she lifted her head and met it directly. ”I--I was afraid you might be suspected, and for just a moment or two, when you first came in looking like a ghost, I did not know what to think,” she said. ”But it was only because you startled me so.”

”I would not like to think that you could believe evil against me,” I said; and Lucille drew herself up a little. ”Do not be ungenerous. As soon as I could reason clearly I knew it was quite--quite impossible.”

”I hope any work of that kind is,” I said; and Lucille Haldane, turning suddenly, left me.

CHAPTER XV

BEAUTY IN DISGUISE

Winter pa.s.sed very monotonously with us in the sod-house at Crane Valley. When the season's work is over and the prairie bound fast by iron frost, the man whom it has prospered spends his well-earned leisure visiting his neighbors or lounging contentedly beside the stove; but those oppressed by anxieties find the compulsory idleness irksome, and I counted the days until we could commence again in the spring. The goodwill of my neighbors made this possible, for one promised seed-wheat, to be paid for when harvest was gathered in; another placed surplus stock under my charge on an agreement to share the resultant profit, while Haldane sent a large draft of young horses and cattle he had hardly hands enough to care for, under a similar arrangement.

I accepted these offers the more readily because, while prompted by kindness, the advantages were tolerably equal to all concerned. So the future looked slightly brighter, and I hoped that better times would come, if we could hold out sufficiently long. The debt I still owed Lane, however, hung as a menace over me, while although--doubtless because it suited him--he did not press me for payment, the extortionate interest was adding to it constantly. Some of my neighbors were in similar circ.u.mstances, and at times we conferred together as to the best means of mutual protection.

In the meantime the fire at Gaspard's Trail was almost forgotten--or so, at least, it seemed. Haldane, much against his wishes, spent most of the winter at Bonaventure; but his elder daughter remained in Montreal.

Boone, the photographer, appeared but once, and spent the night with us.

He looked less like the average Englishman than ever, for frost and snow-blink had darkened his skin to an Indian's color, and when supper was over I watched him languidly as we lounged smoking about the stove.

Sally Steel had managed to render the sod-house not only habitable but comfortable in a homely way, and though she ruled us all in a somewhat tyrannical fas.h.i.+on, she said it was for our good.

”There's a little favor I want to ask of you, Ormesby, but I suppose you are all in one another's confidence?” said Boone.

”Yes,” I answered. ”We are all, in one sense, partners, with a capital of about ten dollars, and are further united by the fear of a common enemy.”

Boone laughed silently, though his face was a trifle sardonic. ”That is as it should be, and you may have an opportunity for proving the strength of the combination before very long. I have, as I once told you, a weakness for horses and cattle, and I couldn't resist purchasing some at a bargain a little while ago. I want you to take charge of them for me. Here are particulars, and my idea of an equitable agreement.” He laid a paper on the table, and I glanced through it. The conditions were those usual in arrangements of the kind, which were not then uncommon, but though cattle and horses were lamentably cheap, they could not be obtained for nothing, and the total value surprised me.

”We are as honest as most people down this way, and we take one another's word without any use for spilling ink,” observed the irrepressible Sally.

”I once heard of a grasping storekeeper being badly beaten over a deal in b.u.t.ter by a clever young lady,” said Boone; and Steel laughed, while his sister frowned.

”He deserved it, but you seem to know just everything,” she said.

”Some people are born clever, and some handsome; but it is really not my fault,” said Boone, with a smile at Sally. ”For instance, I know what Ormesby is thinking. He is wondering where I got the money to pay for those beasts.”

The laugh was against me, but I answered frankly: ”That was in my thoughts; but I also wondered what I had done to merit the trouble you have taken to do me a kindness.”

”Don't flatter yourself,” said Boone. ”It is a matter of business, and equally possible that I wished to do some other person the opposite. You must decide to-night, because I have a new a.s.sortment of beautifiers and cosmetics in my wagon which I must set about vending to-morrow. They would not, of course, be of any use to Miss Sally, but I am going on to the Swedish settlement where the poor people need them.”

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