Part 2 (1/2)
Winston sat still a moment, and it was not avarice which prompted him when he said, ”Considering the risk one hundred dollars is very little.”
”Of course,” said Courthorne. ”Still, it isn't worth any more to me, and there will be your expenses. If it doesn't suit you, I will do the thing myself and find the boys another guide.”
He spoke indifferently, but Winston was not a fool, and knew that he was lying.
”Turn your face to the light,” he said sharply.
A little ominous glint became visible in Courthorne's eyes, and there was just a trace of darker color in his forehead, but Winston saw it and was not astonished. Still, Courthorne did not move.
”What made you ask me that?” he said.
Winston watched him closely, but his voice betrayed no special interest as he said, ”I fancied I saw a mark across your cheek. It seemed to me that it had been made by a whip.”
The deeper tint was more visible on Courthorne's forehead, where the swollen veins showed a trifle, and he appeared to swallow something before he spoke. ”Aren't you asking too many questions? What has a mark on my face to do with you?”
”Nothing,” said Winston quietly. ”Will you go through the conditions again?”
Courthorne nodded. ”I pay you one hundred dollars--now,” he said.
”You ride south to-morrow along the Montana trail and take the risk of the troopers overtaking you. You will remain away a fortnight at my expense, and pa.s.s in the meanwhile for me. Then you will return at night as rancher Winston, and keep the whole thing a secret from everybody.”
Winston sat silent and very still again for more than a minute. He surmised that the man who made the offer had not told him all and there was more behind, but that was, after all, of no great importance. He was prepared to do a good deal for one hundred dollars, and his bare life of effort and self-denial had grown almost unendurable. He had now nothing to lose, and while some impulse urged him to the venture, he felt that it was possible fate had in store for him something better than he had known in the past. In the meanwhile the cigar he held went out, and the striking of a match as Courthorne lighted another roused him suddenly from the retrospect he was sinking into. The bitter wind still moaned about the ranch, emphasizing its loneliness, and the cedar s.h.i.+ngles rattled dolefully overhead, while it chanced that as Winston glanced towards the roof his eyes rested on the suspended piece of rancid pork which, with a little flour and a few potatoes, had during the last few months provided him with sustenance. It was of course a trifle, but it tipped the beam, as trifles often do, and the man who was tired of all it symbolized straightened himself with a little mirthless laugh.
”On your word of honor there is nothing beyond the risk of a few days'
detention which can affect me?” he said.
”No,” said Courthorne solemnly, knowing that he lied. ”On my honor.
The troopers could only question you. Is it a deal?”
”Yes,” said Winston simply, stretching out his hand for the roll of bills the other flung down on the table, and, while one of the contracting parties knew that the other would regret it bitterly, the bargain was made. Then Courthorne laughed in his usual indolent fas.h.i.+on as he said, ”Well, it's all decided, and I don't even ask your word. To-morrow will see the husk sloughed off and for a fortnight you'll be Lance Courthorne. I hope you feel equal to playing the role with credit, because I wouldn't entrust my good fame to everybody.”
Winston smiled dryly. ”I fancy I shall,” he said, and long afterwards recalled the words. ”You see, I had ambitions in my callow days, and it's not my fault that hitherto I've never had a part to play.”
Rancher Winston was, however, wrong in this. He had played the part of an honest man with the courage which had brought him to ruin, but there was now to be a difference.
CHAPTER III
TROOPER SHANNON'S QUARREL
There was bitter frost in the darkness outside when two young men stood talking in the stables of a little outpost lying a long ride back from the settlement in the lonely prairie. One leaned against a manger with a pipe in his hand, while the spotless, softly-gleaming harness hung up behind him showed what his occupation had been. The other stood bolt upright with lips set, and a faint grayness which betokened strong emotion showing through his tan. The lantern above them flickered in the icy draughts, and from out of the shadows beyond its light came the stamping of restless, horses and the smell of prairie hay which is pungent with the odors of wild peppermint.
The two lads, and they were very little more, were friends, in spite of the difference in their upbringing, for there are few distinctions between caste and caste in that country where manhood is still esteemed the greatest thing, and the primitive virtues count for more than wealth or intellect. Courage and endurance still command respect in the new Northwest, and that both the lads possessed them was made evident by the fact that they were troopers of the Northwest police, a force of splendid cavalry whose duty it is to patrol the wilderness at all seasons and in all weathers, under scorching sun and in blinding snow.
The men who keep the peace of the prairie are taught what heat and thirst are, when they ride in couples through a desolate waste wherein there is only bitter water, parched by pitiless sunrays and whitened by the intolerable dust of alkali. They also discover just how much cold the human frame can endure, when they lie down with only the stars above them, long leagues from the nearest outpost, in a trench scooped in the snow, and they know how near one may come to suffocation and yet live through the gra.s.s fires' blinding smoke. It happens now and then that two who have answered to the last roster in the icy darkness do not awaken when the lingering dawn breaks across the great white waste, and only the coyote knows their resting-place, but the watch and ward is kept, and the lonely settler dwells as safe in the wilderness as he would in an English town.
Trooper Shannon was an Irishman from the bush of Ontario; Trooper Payne, English, and a scion of a somewhat distinguished family in the old country, but while he told n.o.body why he left it suddenly, n.o.body thought of asking him. He was known to be a bold rider and careful of his beast, and that was sufficient for his comrades and the keen-eyed Sergeant Stimson. He glanced at his companion thoughtfully as he said, ”She was a pretty girl. You knew her in Ontario?”
Shannon's hands trembled a little. ”Sure,” he said. ”Larry's place was just a mile beyont our clearing, an' there was never a bonnier thing than Ailly Blake came out from the old country--but is it need there is for talking when ye've seen her? There was once I watched her smile at ye with the black eyes that would have melted the heart out of any man. Waking and sleeping they're with me still.”