Part 24 (1/2)

”No,” said Winston. ”I think it is the load I have to carry I fear the most.”

For the moment Maud Barrington had flung off the bonds of conventionality. ”Lance,” she said, ”you have proved your right to stay at Silverdale, and would not what you are doing now cover a great deal in the past?”

Winston smiled wryly. ”It is the present that is difficult,” he said.

”Can a man be pardoned and retain the offense?”

He saw the faint bewilderment in the girl's face give place to the resentment of frankness unreturned and with a little shake of his shoulders shrank into himself. Maud Barrington, who understood it, once more put on the becoming reticence of Silverdale.

”We are getting beyond our depth, and it is very hot,” she said. ”You have all this hay to cut!”

Winston laughed as he bent over the mower's knife. ”Yes,” he said, ”It is really more in my line, and I have kept you in the sun too long.”

In another few moments Maud Barrington was riding across the prairie, but when the rattle of the machine rose from the sloo behind her, she laughed curiously.

”The man knew his place, but you came perilously near making a fool of yourself this morning, my dear,” she said.

It was a week or two later, and very hot, when, with others of his neighbors, Winston sat in the big hall at Silverdale Grange. The windows were open wide and the smell of hot dust came in from the white waste which rolled away beneath the stars. There was also another odor in the little puffs of wind that flickered in, and far off where the arch of indigo dropped to the dusky earth, wavy lines of crimson moved along the horizon. It was then the season when fires that are lighted by means which no man knows creep up and down the waste of gra.s.s, until they put on speed and roll in a surf of flame before a sudden breeze.

Still, n.o.body was anxious about them, for the guarding furrows that would oppose a s.p.a.ce of dusty soil to the march of the flame had been plowed round every homestead at Silverdale.

Maud Barrington was at the piano and her voice was good, while Winston, who had known what it is to toil from red dawn to sunset without hope of more than daily food, found the simple song she had chosen chime with his mood. ”All day long the reapers.”

A faint staccato drumming that rose from the silent prairie throbbed through the final chords of it, and when the music ceased, swelled into the gallop of a horse. It seemed in some curious fas.h.i.+on portentous, and when there was a rattle and jingle outside other eyes than Winston's were turned towards the door. It swung open presently and Dane came in. There was quiet elation and some diffidence in his bronzed face as he turned to Colonel Barrington.

”I could not get away earlier from the settlement, sir, but I have great news,” he said. ”They have awoke to the fact that stocks are getting low in the old country. Wheat moved up at Winnipeg, and there was almost a rush to buy yesterday.”

There was a sudden silence, for among those present were men who remembered the acres of good soil they had not plowed, but a little grim smile crept into their leader's face.

”It is,” he said quietly, ”too late for most of us. Still, we will not grudge you your good fortune, Dane. You and a few of the others owe it to Courthorne.”

Every eye was on the speaker, for it had become known among his neighbors that he had sold for a fall; but Barrington could lose gracefully. Then both his niece and Dane looked at Winston with a question in their eyes.

”Yes,” he said very quietly, ”it is the turning of the tide.”

He crossed over to Barrington, who smiled at him dryly as he said, ”It is a trifle soon to admit that I was wrong.”

Winston made a gesture of almost impatient deprecation. ”I was wondering how far I might presume, sir. You have forward wheat to deliver?”

”I have,” said Barrington, ”unfortunately a good deal. You believe the advance will continue?”

”Yes,” said Winston simply. ”It is but the beginning, and there will be a reflux before the stream sets in. Wait a little, sir, and then telegraph your broker to cover all your contracts when the price drops again.”

”I fancy it would be wiser to cut my losses now,” said Barrington dryly.

Then Winston did a somewhat daring thing, for he raised his voice a trifle, in a fas.h.i.+on that seemed to invite the attention of the rest of the company.

”The more certain the advance seems to be, the fiercer will be the bears' last attack,” he said. ”They have to get from under, and will take heavy chances to force prices back. As yet they may contrive to check or turn the stream, and then every wise man who has sold down will try to cover, but no one can tell how far it may carry us, once it sets strongly in!”

The men understood, as did Colonel Barrington, that they were being warned, as it were, above their leader's head, and his niece, while resenting the slight, admitted the courage of the man. Barrington's face was sardonic, and a less resolute man would have winced under the implication as he said:

”This is, no doubt, intuition. I fancy you told us you had no dealings on the markets at Winnipeg.”

Winston looked steadily at the speaker, and the girl noticed with a curious approval that he smiled.