Part 38 (1/2)
The binders were clanking through the wheat when I next met Haldane at Crane Valley. Having embarked upon his new career with characteristic energy, he rode over from Bonaventure with his daughter to watch our harvesting, and incidentally came near bewildering me with his questions. Some of them were hard to answer, and I felt a trace of irritation, as well as surprise, that a few hours' observation should enable him to hit upon the best means of overcoming difficulties which had cost me months of experimenting to discover.
Thorn, I remember, stared at him in wonder, and afterwards observed: ”You and I have just got to keep on trying until we find out the best way of fixing things, and if our way's certain, it's often expensive.
That man just chews on his cigar, and it comes to him. When I take up my located land and get worried about the money, I'm going to try cigar-smoking.”
”You will have considerably less of it if you experiment with the brand that Haldane keeps,” I answered, jerking the lines, and my binder rolled on again behind the weary team. When each minute was worth a silver coin, we dare not spare the beasts, and I had worn out four of them in as many days, and then sat almost nodding in the driving seat, with a deep sense of satisfaction in my heart which I was too tired to express.
Oat sheaves ridging the bleached prairie blazed in yellow ranks before my heavy eyes, and each heave of the binder's arms flung out behind me a truss of golden wheat. The glare was blinding, for we worked under the full heat of a scorching afternoon, as we had done, and would do, by the pale light of the moon. Thick dust rolled about us, clogging my lashes and fouling the coats of the beasts, while the crackle of the flinty stems, the rasp of shearing knives, the rhythm of trampling hoofs, and the clink of metal throbbing harmoniously through the drowsy heat, were flung back by other machines at work across the grain. There is, however, a limit to human powers, and I must have been driving mechanically, and nearly asleep, when a clicking warned me that it was time to fit another spool of twine. I remember that during the operation I envied the endurance of the soulless, but otherwise almost human, machine.
Steel came up with his binder before it was completed, a creak and thud and tinkle swelling in musical crescendo as the jaded team loomed nearer through the dust. There was a flash of varnished wood that rose and fell, and twinkling metal, and I saw the driver sitting stiffly with hands, that were almost blackened, clenched on the lines, peering straight before him out of half-closed eyes, while the moisture that ran from his forehead washed copper-tinted channels through the grime. It was by an effort he held himself to his task; but that was nothing unusual, for the prairie does not yield up her riches lightly, and by the golden wake he left behind him the effort was justified. The earth had been fruitful that season, and harvest had not failed; while, having sown in deep dejection, uncertain who would reap, it was a small thing to strain one's strength to the utmost to gather the bounteous yield. We were already free, and every revolution of the binder's arms set us so much farther on the road to prosperity.
Twice I jerked the lines, but the team stood still; and I was preparing to encourage them more vigorously, when Haldane and his daughter approached. Both had insisted on my leaving them to their own devices, and now Lucille appeared to regard the beasts and myself compa.s.sionately.
”They look very tired, and they have done so much,” she said, glancing down the long rows of piled-up grain. ”Is not that sufficient to justify your resting a little?”
”I am afraid not,” I answered with a somewhat rueful smile. ”You see, prosperity has made us greedy, while all the grain cut up to the present belongs to Lane.”
The girl looked indignant--Haldane thoughtful. ”I have been wondering whether you would feel inclined to contest his claim for the balance of the debt,” he said. ”Considering that he has taken from you twice the value of his loan, and the story in Miss Redmond's book, you might be ethically and legally justified.”
”No,” I said. ”I made the bargain, and I intend to keep my part of it.
That accomplished, I shall have the fewer scruples about using every effort to utterly crush the man. All we cut henceforward is my own, and I can only repeat that I should be glad to devote every bushel to help forward his defeat.”
”I think you are right,” said Lucille Haldane, with a trace of pride in her approval, though her eyes were mischievous as she continued: ”It is, however, unfortunate you are so very busy, because, as father is riding, and as the team are a little wild, we hoped you would drive them home for me.”
I climbed down from the iron saddle, shouting to Steel, and Lucille smiled demurely. ”We could not tear you away from that machine when you would grudge every minute,” she said. ”Remember that Bonaventure is a long way off, and, even if we allowed it, you could hardly return before to-morrow.”
I nevertheless fancied she was pleased at my eagerness, and, for Haldane had pa.s.sed on, I felt suddenly oppressed by the recognition of what I owed her. Yet had it been possible I should not have lightened the debt.
I looked down at her gravely, noticing how young and fresh and slender she seemed--bright as the blaze of suns.h.i.+ne in which she stood--and then I pointed towards the long ranks of sheaves and the sea of stately ears.
”I am not in the least inconsistent, and should not be if every moment were thrice as precious,” I said. ”I remember most plainly that you gave me all this. Strange as it may seem, it is, nevertheless, perfectly true.”
The girl blushed prettily, and then glanced from me towards the tired horses and the standing machine, after which her eyes rested with approval on the stalwart form of Thorn, who came up urging on his plodding team.
”It would be something to be proud of, if one could believe you, Rancher; but I am not wholly pleased with the last part of the speech,”
she said, with a faint, half-mocking inclination of the head. ”I can guess what you are thinking, and you are a trifle slow to learn. Women are very well in their own place, are they not? However, you find it perplexing when they will not stay there, but, because some of them grow tired of breathing incense, they descend and interfere in masculine affairs. It is truly strange that there should be more forces in the world than those centered in big dusty men and splendid horses!”
”You must be a witch; but I am learning by degrees,” I said. And the girl laughed merrily.
”You have not progressed very far, to judge by the comparison. Witches were usually pictured as malevolent, old, and ugly.”
”I meant a beneficent fairy; but the surprise was not quite unnatural,”
I said. ”Who could suspect in such a slender and fragile person the power she possesses to banish gloom and poverty? Legions of men and horses could not accomplish so much.”
”Now you go too far in the opposite direction,” and my companion shook her head. ”It is the sense of balance you need.”
The sun-blaze turned the cl.u.s.tered hair under her wide hat into the likeness of burnished gold--the gold of our own Northwest, with a coppery warmth in it--but the light in her hazel eyes eclipsed its brilliancy. The lithe figure fitted its gorgeous background of yellow radiancy, and again I felt all my pulses quicken as I paid Haldane's daughter silent homage. Magnificent as the wheat, alike to eye and understanding, when one remembered its mission, her presence seemed the crown and complement of all that splendid field. It was hard to refrain from telling her so, and possibly my voice was not pitched quite in its normal key when I said: ”It is short of the truth, but there is just one thing I should like to know, and that is whether any other motive than pure benevolence prompted you.”
”Why?”
Then I answered boldly: ”Because it would be worth the rest to fancy that in some small measure it was due to individual goodwill towards Rancher Ormesby.”