Part 11 (1/2)

”I fancy,” observed Laura half wistfully, ”that is, in several respects, fortunate.”

Then she went on again, and though Gordon felt exceedingly compa.s.sionate, he frowned and closed one hand.

”It's a sure thing I'll have to tell Waynefleet what kind of a man he is,” he said.

CHAPTER IX

GORDON SPEAKS HIS MIND

It was a nipping morning, and the clearing outside the ranch was flecked with patches of frozen snow, when Waynefleet sat s.h.i.+vering in a hide chair beside the stove. The broken viands upon the table in front of him suggested that he had just made a tolerable breakfast, but his pose was expressive of limp resignation, and one could have fancied from the look in his thin face that he was feeling very sorry for himself. Self-pity, in fact, was rather a habit of his, and, perhaps, because of it, he had usually very little pity to spare for anybody else. He looked up when, flushed and gasping, his daughter came in with two heavy pails of water. She s.h.i.+vered visibly.

”It would be a favour if you would shut that door as soon as you can,”

said Waynefleet. ”As I fancy I have mentioned, this cold goes right through me. It occurred to me that you might have come in a little earlier to see if I was getting my breakfast properly.”

Laura, who glanced at the table, thought that he had acquitted himself reasonably well, but she refrained from pointing out the fact, and, after shutting the door, crossed the room to her store-cupboard, and took out a can of fruit which she had set aside for another purpose.

Waynefleet watched her open it and made a little sign of impatience.

”You are very clumsy this morning,” he said.

The girl's hands were wet and stiff with cold, but she quietly laid another plate upon the table before she answered him.

”Charly is busy in the slas.h.i.+ng, and I don't want to take him away, but there are those logs in the wet patch that ought to be hauled out now the ground is hard,” she said. ”I suppose you don't feel equal to doing it to-day?”

”No,” said Waynefleet with querulous incisiveness, ”it is quite out of the question. Do I look like a man who could reasonably be expected to undertake anything of that kind just now?”

It occurred to Laura that he did not look as if there was very much the matter with him, and she stood still a minute considering. As Gordon had said, it was she who managed the ranch, and she recognized that it was desirable that the trees in question should be dragged out of the soft ground while the frost lasted. Still, there was the baking and was.h.i.+ng, and it would be late at night before she could accomplish half she wished to do, if she undertook the task in question. While she thought over it her father spoke again.

”I wish you would sit down,” he said. ”I feel I must have quietness, and your restless habits jar upon me horribly.”

That decided her, and slipping into her own room, she put on an old blanket coat, and went out quietly. She walked through the orchard to the little log stable where the working oxen stood, and, after patting the patient beasts, shackled a heavy chain to the yoke she laid upon their brawny necks. Then, picking up a handspike, she led them out, and for an hour walked beside them, tapping them with a long pointed stick, while they dragged the big logs out of the swamp. Now and then it taxed all her strength to lift the thinner end of a log on the chain-sling with a handspike, but she contrived to do it until at length one heavier than the others proved too much for her. She could hear the ringing of the hired man's axe across the clearing, but there was a great deal for him to do, and, taking up the handspike again, she strained at it.

She heard footsteps behind her, and she straightened herself suddenly.

She turned and saw Gordon watching her with a curious smile. Tall and straight and supple, with a ruddy, half-guilty glow on her face, she stood near the middle of the little gap in the Bush, the big dappled oxen close at her side. The wintry sunlight, which struck upon her, tinted the old blanket dress a s.h.i.+ning ochre, and the loose tress of red-gold hair, which had escaped from beneath her little fur cap, struck a dominant tone of glowing colour among the pale reds and russets of the fir-trunks and withered fern.

Gordon shook his head reproachfully. ”Sit down a minute or two, and I'll heave that log on to the sling,” he said. ”This is not the kind of thing you ought to be doing.”

Laura, who was glad of the excuse, sat down on one of the logs, while the man leaned against a fir and gravely regarded her.

”The work must be done by somebody, and my father is apparently not very well again,” she explained. ”Charly has his hands full in the slas.h.i.+ng. We must get it cleaned up, if it is to be ploughed this spring.”

”Nasmyth contrived to look after all these things. Why didn't you keep him? The man didn't want to go away.”

The colour deepened in Laura's face, and Gordon, who saw it, made a sign of comprehension. ”Well,” he added, ”I suppose that wasn't a thing one could expect you to tell me, though I don't quite see why you shouldn't think of yourself now and then. You know it wasn't on your own account you sent him away.”

”How does this concern you?” she asked.

Gordon flung one hand out. ”Ah,” he said, ”how does it concern me?”