Part 30 (1/2)

Gordon joined in the lawyer's laugh, but I broke in: ”You have not answered my second question.”

”Well!” and the rancher smiled mischievously. ”You're so mighty particular that I don't know what to say. Still, things looked pretty tolerable last time I was down to Crane Valley.”

Dixon accompanied us to the station when it was time to catch the train, and as he stood on the car platform said to me: ”It's probably no use to tell you not to worry, but I'd sit tight in my saddle and think as little as possible about this trouble if I were you.”

He dropped lightly from the platform, cigar in hand, as the train pulled out, and, though most unlike the traditional lawyer in speech or agility, left me with a rea.s.suring confidence in his skill.

It was early morning when I rode alone towards Crane Valley, feeling, in spite of Dixon's good advice, distinctly anxious. It is true that Thorn and Steel were both energetic, but no man can drive two teams at once, and it was my impression that, having more at stake, I could do considerably more in person than either of them. I had small comfort in the reflection that, after all, the question how much had been accomplished was immaterial, because there was little use in sowing where, while I lay in jail, an enemy might reap, and I urged my horse when I drew near the hollow in which the homestead lay, and then pulled him up with a jerk. Gordon had said things had been going tolerably well, but this proved a very inadequate description. The plowed land had all been harrowed and sown, and beyond it lay the shattered clods of fresh breaking, where I guessed oats had been sown under the sod newly torn from the virgin prairie. Ten men of greater endurance could not have accomplished so much, and I sat still, humbled and very grateful, with eyes that grew momentarily dim, fixed on the wide stretch of black soil steaming under the morning sun. It seemed as though a beneficent genie had been working for my deliverance while I lay, almost despairing, in the grip of the law.

Then Steel, springing out from the door of the sod-house, came up at a run, with Thorn behind him. It was strangely pleasant to see the elation in their honest faces, and Steel's shout of delight sent a thrill through me.

”This is the best sight I've seen since you left us,” he panted, wringing my hand. ”Thorn's that full up with satisfaction he can't even run. We knew Dixon and Adams would see you through between them.”

”Has Dixon been down here?” I asked, for the lawyer had not told me so; and Thorn, who came up, gasped: ”Oh, yes; and a Winnipeg man he sent down went round with Adams 'most everywhere. Say, did you strike Niven for compensation?”

”No,” I answered, a trifle ruefully. ”I am only free on bail, and not acquitted yet.”

Steel's jaw dropped, and his dismay would have been ludicrous had it not betrayed his whole-hearted friends.h.i.+p, while Thorn's burst of sulphurous language was an even more convincing testimony. Again I felt a curious humility, and something enlarged in my throat as I looked down at them.

”If I can't stand Lane off with you two and the rest behind me I shall deserve all I get, and we must hope for the best,” I said. ”But if you could handle three teams each you could not have done all this.”

Thorn, who was not usually vociferous in expressing his sentiments, appeared glad of this diversion, and, after a glance at the plowed land, strove to smile humorously. ”Think you could have done it any better yourself?”

”It's a fair hit,” I answered. ”You know exactly how much I can do. Let me down easily. How did you manage it?”

”We didn't manage anything,” said Thorn. ”No, sir. The boys, they did it all. Everybody came or sent a hired man, and blame quaint plowing some of them cow-chasers done. Put up a dollar sweepstake and ran races with the harrows, they did, and Steel talked himself purple before he stopped them. They've busted the gang-plow, and one said he ought to have been a dentist by the way he pulled out the cultivator teeth.”

”And where did you come in?” I asked, and duly noted the effort it cost Steel to follow his comrade's lead.

”We just lay back and turned the good advice on,” he said. ”Tom, he led the prayer meeting when, after supper, they turned loose on Lane. Oh, yes, we rode in and out for provisions. Sally, she would have the best in the settlement, and sat up all night cooking. Don't know how you'll feel when you see the grocery bill.”

”I can tell you now,” I said. ”I feel that there's nothing in the whole Dominion too good for them--or you--and I'd be glad, if necessary, to sell my s.h.i.+rt to pay the bill.”

We went on to the house together, and Sally, hiding her disappointment, plunged with very kindly intentions into a spirited description of her visitors' feats. ”That's a testimonial,” she said, pointing through the window to an appalling pile of empty tins. ”I just had to get them when some of the boys brought their own provisions in. I set one of them peeling potatoes all night to convince him.”

”Peeling potatoes?” I interpolated; and Steel, smiling wickedly, furnished the explanation.

”Sally was busy in the shed when he came along, and wanted to help her considerable. 'Feel like peeling half a sackful?' says Sally; and when the fool stockman allowed he'd like it better than anything, says she, 'Then, as I'm tired, you can.' She just left him with it, while she talked to the other man; but there was grit in him, and he peeled away until morning. Wanted to marry her, too, he did.”

Sally's glance foreboded future tribulation for the speaker, and Thorn frowned; but Steel, disregarding it, concluded gravely: ”Dessay he might have done it, but he heard Sally turn loose on me one day, and took warning.”

In spite of the shadow hanging over me, it was good to be at home, and perhaps the very uncertainty as to its duration made the somewhat sordid struggle of our life at Crane Valley almost attractive. Lane, it seemed only too probable, would crush us in the end, but there was satisfaction in the thought that every hour's work well done would help us to prolong our resistance. So the days of effort slipped by until I received a notice to present myself at court on a specified date, and, there being much to do, I delayed my departure until the last day. Steel insisted on accompanying me to the railroad, but protested against the time of starting. ”One might fancy you were fond of jail by the hurry you're in to get back to it,” he said. ”We could catch the cars if we left hours later.”

”It's as well to be on the right side,” I said; for I had been in a state of nervous impatience all day. Wilkins had been found, and now that a decision appeared certain, I grew feverishly anxious to learn the best--or the worst.

It was a day in early summer when we set out and pushed on at a good pace, though already the sun shone hot. Steel, indeed, suggested there was no need for haste, but after checking my beast a little, I shot ahead again. ”It might be your wedding you were going to!” he said.

We had covered part of the distance left to traverse on the second day when a freighter's lumbering ox-team crawled out of a ravine, and Steel pulled up beside him. ”I don't know if you're mailing anything East, but you're late if you are,” said the teamster.

”Then there's something wrong with the sun,” said Steel. ”If he's keeping his time bill we're most two hours too soon.”