Part 21 (1/2)

”I am, at least, going to try. There will, however, be difficulties.”

Barbara smiled a little. ”There generally are. Still, I think you will get over them.” She looked down again at the tremendous gap, and then met his eyes in a fas.h.i.+on that sent a thrill through him. ”It would be worth while.”

”I almost think it would. Still, it is largely a question of dollars, and I have spent a good many with no great result already.”

”My brother-in-law will not see you beaten. He would throw in as much as the mine was worth before he yielded a point to the timber-righters.”

Brooke noticed the little hardness in her voice, and the sparkle in her eyes. ”If he did, you would evidently sympathize with him?”

”Of course, though it wasn't exactly in that sense I meant it would be worth while. One would naturally sympathize with anybody who was made the subject of that kind of extortion. If there is anything detestable, it is a conspiracy.”

”Still,” said Brooke, reflectively, ”it is in one sense a perfectly legitimate transaction.”

”Would you consider yourself warranted in scheming to extort money from any one?”

Brooke did not look at her. ”It would, of course, depend--upon, for example, any right I might consider I had to the money. We will suppose that somebody had robbed me----”

”Then one who has been robbed may steal?”

Brooke made a little deprecatory gesture while the blood crept to his face. ”I'm afraid I have never given any questions of this kind much consideration. We were discussing the country.”

Barbara laughed. ”Of course. I ought to have remembered. You are so horribly afraid of betraying your sentiments in England that you would almost prefer folks to believe you hadn't any. I am, however, going to venture on dangerous ground again. I think the country is having an effect on you. You have changed considerably since I met you at the ranch.”

”It is possible,” and Brooke met her gaze with a little smile in his eyes. ”Still, I am not quite sure it was altogether the fault of the country.”

Barbara looked down at the canon. ”Isn't that a little ambiguous?”

”Well,” said Brooke, reflectively, ”it is, at least, rather a stretching of the simile, but I saw you first clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, in the midst of a frothing river--and I am not quite sure that you were right when you said it was not a sword you brought me.”

Barbara flashed a swift, keen glance at him, though she smiled. ”Then beware in what quarrel you draw it--if I did. One would expect such a gift to be used with honor. It could, however, be legitimately employed against timber-righters, claim-jumpers, and all schemers and extortioners of that kind.”

She stopped a moment, and looked at him, steadily now. ”Do you know that I am glad you left the ranch?”

”Why?”

”What you are doing now is worth while. You would consider that priggishness in England, but it's the truth.”

”You mean helping your brother-in-law to get ahead of the timber-righters?”

”No,” said Barbara. ”That is not what I mean, though if it is any consolation to you, it meets with my approbation, too.”

”Then what I was doing before was not worth while?”

”That,” said Barbara, with a trace of dryness, ”is a question you can answer best, though I saw no especial evidence of activity of any kind.

The question is--Can you do nothing better still? This province needs big bridges and daringly-built roads.”

”I'm afraid not,” and Brooke smiled a trifle wryly. ”It costs a good many dollars to build a big bridge, and it is apparently very difficult for any man to acquire them so long as he works with his own hands.”

”Still, isn't it worth the effort--not exactly for the dollars?”

Brooke looked at her gravely, with a slight hardening of his lips.