Winston of the Prairie by Harold Bindloss

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WINSTON OF THE PRAIRIE

by

HAROLD BINDLOSS

Author of _Alton of Somasco_, _The Cattle-Baron's Daughter_,
_The Dust of Conflict_, etc.

Illustrated by W. Herbert Dunton

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers New York

1907

[Illustration: Cover Art]

[Frontispiece: Floundering on foot beside them
he urged the team through the powdery drifts.]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. RANCHER WINSTON
II. LANCE COURTHORNE
III. TROOPER SHANNON'S QUARREL
IV. IN THE BLUFF
V. MISS BARRINGTON COMES HOME
VI. ANTICIPATIONS
VII. WINSTON'S DECISION
VIII. WINSTON COMES TO SILVERDALE
IX. COURTHORNE DISAPPEARS
X. AN ARMISTICE
XI. MAUD BARRINGTON'S PROMISE
XII. SPEED THE PLOW
XIII. MASTERY RECOGNIZED
XIV. A FAIR ADVOCATE
XV. THE UNEXPECTED
XVI. FACING THE FLAME
XVII. MAUD BARRINGTON IS MERCILESS
XVIII. WITH THE STREAM
XIX. UNDER TEST
XX. COURTHORNE BLUNDERS
XXI. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW
XXII. COLONEL BARRINGTON IS CONVINCED
XXIII. SERGEANT STIMSON CONFIRMS HIS SUSPICIONS
XXIV. THE REVELATION
XXV. COURTHORNE MAKES REPARATION
XXVI. WINSTON RIDES AWAY
XXVII. REINSTATEMENT

ILLUSTRATIONS

FLOUNDERING ON FOOT BESIDE THEM HE URGED THE TEAM
THROUGH THE POWDERY DRIFTS . . . . . Frontispiece

MAUD BARRINGTON LAUGHED A LITTLE

HE COULD SEE THE WHEAT ROLL IN SLOW RIPPLES BACK
INTO THE DISTANCE

[Transcriber's note: The "He could see..." illustration
was missing from the book used to prepare this e-text.]

CHAPTER I

RANCHER WINSTON

It was a bitter night, for the frost had bound the prairie in its iron
grip, although as yet there was no snow. Rancher Winston stood
shivering in a little Canadian settlement in the great lonely land
which runs north from the American frontier to Athabasca. There was no
blink of starlight in the murky sky, and out of the great waste of
grass came a stinging wind that moaned about the frame houses
clustering beside the trail that led south over the limited levels to
the railroad and civilization. It chilled Winston, and his furs,
somewhat tattered, gave him little protection. He strode up and down,
glancing expectantly into the darkness, and then across the unpaved
street, where the ruts were plowed a foot deep in the prairie sod,
towards the warm red glow from the windows of the wooden hotel. He
knew that the rest of the outlying farmers and ranchers who had ridden
in for their letters were sitting snug about the stove, but it was
customary for all who sought shelter there to pay for their share of
the six o'clock supper, and the half-dollar Winston had then in his
pocket was required for other purposes.

He had also retained through all his struggles a measure of his pride,
and because of it strode up and down buffeted by the blasts until a
beat of horsehoofs came out of the darkness and was followed by a
rattle of wheels. It grew steadily louder, a blinking ray of
brightness flickered across the frame houses, and presently dark
figures were silhouetted against the light on the hotel veranda as a
lurching wagon drew up beneath it. Two dusky objects, shapeless in
their furs, sprang down, and one stumbled into the post office close by
with a bag, while the other man answered the questions hurled at him as
he fumbled with stiffened fingers at the harness.

"Late? Well, you might be thankful you've got your mail at all," he
said. "We had to go round by Willow Bluff, and didn't think we'd get
through the ford. Ice an inch thick, any way, and Charley talked that
much he's not said anything since, even when the near horse put his
foot into a badger hole."

Rude banter followed this, but Winston took no part in it. Hastening
into the post office, he stood betraying his impatience by his very
impassiveness while a sallow-faced woman tossed the letters out upon
the counter. At last she took up two of them, and the man's fingers
trembled a little as he stretched out his hand when she said:

"That's all there are for you."

Winston recognized the writing on the envelopes, and it was with
difficulty he held his eagerness in check, but other men were waiting
for his place, and he went out and crossed the street to the hotel
where there was light to read by. As he entered it a girl bustling
about a long table in the big stove-warmed room turned with la little
smile.

"It's only you!" she said. "Now I was figuring it was Lance
Courthorne."

Winston, impatient as he was, stopped and laughed, for the
hotel-keeper's daughter was tolerably well-favored and a friend of his.

"And you're disappointed?" he said. "I haven't Lance's good looks, or
his ready tongue."

The room was empty, for the guests were thronging about the post office
then, and the girl's eyes twinkled as she drew back a pace and surveyed
the man. There was nothing in his appearance that would have aroused a
stranger's interest, or attracted more than a passing glance, as he
stood before her in a very old fur coat, with a fur cap that was in
keeping with it held in his hand.

His face had been bronzed almost to the color of a Blackfeet Indian's
by frost and wind and sun, but it was of English type from the crisp
fair hair above the broad forehead to the somewhat solid chin. The
mouth was hidden by the bronze-tinted mustache, and the eyes alone were
noticeable. They were gray, and there was a steadiness in them which
was almost unusual even in that country where men look into long
distances. For the rest, he was of average stature, and stood
impassively straight, looking down upon the girl, without either grace
or awkwardness, while his hard brown hands suggested, as his attire
did, strenuous labor for a very small reward.

"Well," said the girl, with Western frankness, "there's a kind of stamp
on Lance that you haven't got. I figure he brought it with him from
the old country. Still, one might take you for him if you stood with
the light behind you, and you're not quite a bad-looking man. It's a
kind of pity you're so solemn."

Winston smiled. "I don't fancy that's astonishing after losing two
harvests in succession," he said. "You see there's nobody back there
in the old country to send remittances to me."

The girl nodded with quick sympathy. "Oh, yes. The times are bad,"
she said. "Well, you read your letters, I'm not going to worry you."

Winston sat down and opened the first envelope under the big lamp. It
was from a land agent and mortgage broker, and his face grew a trifle
grimmer as he read, "In the present condition of the money market your
request that we should carry you over is unreasonable, and we regret
that unless you can extinguish at least half the loan we will be
compelled to foreclose upon your holding."

There was a little more of it, but that was sufficient for Winston, who
knew it meant disaster, and it was with the feeling of one clinging
desperately to the last shred of hope he tore open the second envelope.
The letter it held was from a friend he had made in a Western city, and
once entertained for a month at his ranch, but the man had evidently
sufficient difficulties of his own to contend with.

"Very sorry, but it can't be done," he wrote. "I'm loaded up with
wheat nobody will buy, and couldn't raise five hundred dollars to lend
any one just now."

Winston sighed a little, but when he rose and slowly straightened
himself nobody would have suspected he was looking ruin in the face.
He had fought a slow losing battle for six weary years, holding on
doggedly though defeat appeared inevitable, and now when it had come he
bore it impassively, for the struggle which, though he was scarcely
twenty-six, had crushed all mirth and brightness out of his life, had
given him endurance in place of them. Just then a man came bustling
towards him, with the girl, who bore a tray, close behind.

"What are you doing with that coat on?" he said. "Get it off and sit
down right there. The boys are about through with the mail and
supper's ready."

Winston glanced at the steaming dishes hungrily, for he had passed most
of the day in the bitter frost, eating very little, and there was still
a drive of twenty miles before him.

"It is time I was taking the trail," he said.

He was sensible of a pain in his left side, which, as other men have
discovered, not infrequently follows enforced abstinence from food, but
he remembered what he wanted the half-dollar in his pocket for. The
hotel-keeper had possibly some notion of the state of affairs, for he
laughed a little.

"You've got to sit down," he said. "Now, after the way you fixed me up
when I stopped at your ranch, you don't figure I'd let you go before
you had some supper with me?"

Winston may have been unduly sensitive, but he shook his head. "You're
very good, but it's a long ride, and I'm going now," he said.
"Good-night, Nettie."

He turned as he spoke, with the swift decision that was habitual with
him, and when he went out the girl glanced at her father reproachfully.

"You always get spoiling things when you put your hand in," she said.
"Now that man's hungry, and I'd have fixed it so he'd have got his
supper if you had left it to me."

The hotel-keeper laughed a little. "I'm kind of sorry for Winston
because there's grit in him, and he's never had a show," he said.
"Still, I figure he's not worth your going out gunning after, Nettie."

The girl said nothing, but there was a little flush in her face which
had not been there before, when she busied herself with the dishes.

In the meanwhile Winston was harnessing two bronco horses to a very
dilapidated wagon. They were vicious beasts, but he had bought them
cheap from a man who had some difficulty in driving them, while the
wagon had been given him, when it was apparently useless, by a
neighbor. The team had, however, already covered thirty miles that
day, and started homewards at a steady trot without the playful kicking
they usually indulged in. Here and there a man sprang clear of the
rutted road, but Winston did not notice him or return his greeting. He
was abstractedly watching the rude frame houses flit by, and wondering,
while the pain in his side grew keener, when he would get his supper,
for it happens not infrequently that the susceptibilities are dulled by
a heavy blow, and the victim finds a distraction that is almost welcome
in the endurance of a petty trouble.

Winston was very hungry, and weary alike in body and mind. The sun had
not risen when he left his homestead, and he had passed the day under a
nervous strain, hoping, although it seemed improbable, that the mail
would bring him relief from his anxieties. Now he knew the worst, he
could bear it as he had borne the loss of two harvests, and the
disaster which followed in the wake of the blizzard that killed off his
stock; but it seemed unfair that he should endure cold and hunger too,
and when one wheel sank into a rut and the jolt shook him in every
stiffened limb, he broke out with a hoarse expletive. It was his first
protest against the fate that was too strong for him, and almost as he
made it he laughed.

"Pshaw! There's no use kicking against what has to be, and I've got to
keep my head just now," he said.

There was no great comfort in the reflection, but it had sustained him
before, and Winston's head was a somewhat exceptional one, though there
was as a rule nothing in any way remarkable about his conversation, and
he was apparently merely one of the many quietly-spoken, bronze-faced
men who are even by their blunders building up a great future for the
Canadian dominion. He accordingly drew his old rug tighter round him,
and instinctively pulled his fur cap lower down when the lights of the
settlement faded behind him and the creaking wagon swung out into the
blackness of the prairie. It ran back league beyond league across
three broad provinces, and the wind that came up out of the great
emptiness emphasized its solitude. A man from the cities would have
heard nothing but the creaking of the wagon and the drumming fall of
hoofs, but Winston heard the grasses patter as they swayed beneath the
bitter blasts stiff with frost, and the moan of swinging boughs in a
far-off willow bluff. It was these things that guided him, for he had
left the rutted trail, and here and there the swish beneath the wheels
told of taller grass, while the bluff ran black athwart the horizon
when that had gone. Then twigs crackled beneath them as the horses
picked their way amidst the shadowy trees stunted by a ceaseless
struggle with the wind, and Winston shook the creeping drowsiness from
him when they came out into the open again, for he knew it is not
advisable for any man with work still to do to fall asleep under the
frost of that country.

Still, he grew a trifle dazed as the miles went by, and because of it
indulged in memories he had shaken oft at other times. They were
blurred recollections of the land he had left eight years ago, pictures
of sheltered England, half-forgotten music, the voices of friends who
no longer remembered him, and the smiles in a girl's bright eyes. Then
he settled himself more firmly in the driving seat, and with numbed
fingers sought a tighter grip of the reins as the memory of the girl's
soft answer to a question he had asked brought his callow ambitions
back.

He was to hew his way to fortune in the West, and then come back for
her, but the girl who had clung to him with wet cheeks when he left her
had apparently grown tired of waiting, and Winston sent back her
letters in return for a silver-printed card. That was six years ago,
and now none of the dollars he had brought into the country remained to
him. He realized, dispassionately and without egotism, that this was
through no fault of his, for he knew that better men had been crushed
and beaten.

It was, however, time he had done with these reflections, for while he
sat half-dazed and more than half-frozen the miles had been flitting
by, and now the team knew they were not very far from home. Little by
little their pace increased, and Winston was almost astonished to see
another bluff black against the night ahead of him. As usual in that
country, the willows and birches crawled up the sides and just showed
their heads above the sinuous crest of a river hollow. It was very
dark when the wagon lurched in among them, and it cost the man an
effort to discern the winding trail which led down into the blackness
of the hollow. In places the slope was almost precipitous, and it
behooved him to be careful of the horses, which could not be replaced.
Without them he could not plow in spring, and his life did not appear
of any especial value in comparison with theirs just then.

The team, however, were evidently bent on getting home as soon as
possible, and Winston's fingers were too stiff to effectively grasp the
reins. A swinging bough also struck one of the horses, and when it
plunged and flung up its head the man reeled a little in his seat.
Before he recovered the team were going down-hill at a gallop. Winston
flung himself bodily backwards with tense muscles and the reins
slipping a trifle in his hands, knowing that though he bore against
them with all his strength the team were leaving the trail. Then the
wagon jolted against a tree, one horse stumbled, picked up its stride,
and went on at a headlong gallop. The man felt the wind rush past him
and saw the dim trees whirl by, but he could only hold on and wonder
what would take place when they came to the bottom. The bridge the
trail went round by was some distance to his right, and because the
frost had just set in he knew the ice on the river would not bear the
load even if the horses could keep their footing.

He had not, however, long to wonder. Once more a horse stumbled, there
was a crash, and a branch hurled Winston backwards into the wagon,
which came to a standstill suddenly. When he rose something warm was
running down his face, and there was a red smear on the hand he lighted
the lantern with. When that was done he flung himself down from the
wagon dreading what he would find. The flickering radiance showed him
that the pole had snapped, and while one bronco still stood trembling
on its feet the other lay inert amidst a tangle of harness. The man's
face grew a trifle grimmer as he threw the light upon it, and then
stooping glanced at one doubled leg. It was evident that fate which
did nothing by halves had dealt him a crushing blow. The last faint
hope he clung to had vanished now.

He was, however, a humane man, and considerate of the beasts that
worked for him, and accordingly thrust his hand inside the old fur coat
when he had loosed the uninjured horse, and drew out a long-bladed
knife. Then he knelt, and setting down the lantern, felt for the place
to strike. When he found it his courage almost deserted him, and
meeting the eyes that seemed to look up at him with dumb appeal, turned
his head away. Still, he was a man who would not shirk a painful duty,
and shaking off the sense of revulsion turned again and stroked the
beast's head.

"It's all I can do for you," he said.

Then his arm came down and a tremor ran through the quivering frame,
while Winston set his lips tightly as his hand grew warm. The thing
was horrible to him, but the life he led had taught him the folly of
weakness, and he was too pitiful to let his squeamishness overcome him.

Still, he shivered when it was done, and rubbing the knife in the
withered leaves, rose, and made shift to gird a rug about the uninjured
horse. Then he cut the reins and tied them, and mounting without
stirrups rode towards the bridge. The horse went quietly enough now,
and the man allowed it to choose its way. He was going home to find
shelter from the cold, because his animal instincts prompted him, but
otherwise almost without volition, in a state of dispassionate
indifference. Nothing more, he fancied, could well befall him.

CHAPTER II

LANCE COURTHORNE

It was late when Winston reached his log-built house, but he set out
once more with his remaining horse before the lingering daylight crept
out of the east to haul the wagon home. He also spent most of the day
in repairing it, because occupation of any kind that would keep him
from unpleasant reflections appeared advisable, and to allow anything
to fall out of use was distasteful to him, although as the wagon had
been built for two horses he had little hope of driving it again. It
was a bitter, gray day with a low, smoky sky, and seemed very long to
Winston, but evening came at last, and he was left with nothing between
him and his thoughts.

He lay in a dilapidated chair beside the stove, and the little bare
room through which its pipe ran was permeated with the smell of fresh
shavings, hot iron, and the fumes of indifferent tobacco. A
carpenter's bench ran along one end of it, and was now occupied by a
new wagon pole the man had fashioned out of a slender birch. A Marlin
rifle, an ax, and a big saw hung beneath the head of an antelope on the
wall above the bench, and all of them showed signs of use and glistened
with oil. Opposite to them a few shelves were filled with simple
crockery and cooking utensils, and these also shone spotlessly. There
was a pair of knee boots in one corner with a patch partly sewn on to
one of them, and the harness in another showed traces of careful
repair. A bookcase hung above them, and its somewhat tattered contents
indicated that the man who had chosen and evidently handled them
frequently, possessed tastes any one who did not know that country
would scarcely have expected to find in a prairie farmer. A table and
one or two rude chairs made by their owner's hands completed the
furniture, but while all hinted at poverty, it also suggested neatness,
industry and care, for the room bore the impress of its occupier's
individuality as rooms not infrequently do.

It was not difficult to see that he was frugal, though possibly from
necessity rather than taste, not sparing of effort, and had a keen eye
for utility, and if that suggested the question why with such
capacities he had not attained to greater comfort the answer was
simple. Winston had no money, and the seasons had fought against him.
He had done his uttermost with the means at his disposal, and now he
knew he was beaten.

A doleful wind moaned about the lonely building, and set the roof
shingles rattling overhead. Now and then the stove crackled, or the
lamp flickered, and any one unused to the prairie would have felt the
little loghouse very desolate and lonely. There was no other human
habitation within a league, only a great waste of whitened grass
relieved about the homestead by the raw clods of the fall plowing, for,
while his scattered neighbors for the most part put their trust in
horses and cattle, Winston had been among the first to realize the
capacities of that land as a wheat-growing country.

Now, clad in well-worn jean trousers and an old deerskin jacket, he
looked down at the bundle of documents on his knee, accounts unpaid, a
banker's intimation that no more checks would be honored, and a
mortgage deed. They were not pleasant reading, and the man's face
clouded as he penciled notes on some of them, but there was no weakness
or futile protest in it. Defeat was plain between the lines of all he
read, but he was going on stubbornly until the struggle was ended, as
others of his kind had done, there at the western limit of the furrows
of the plow and in the great province farther east which is one of the
world's granaries. They went under and were forgotten, but they showed
the way, and while their guerdon was usually six feet of prairie soil,
the wheatfields, mills, and railroads came, for it is written plainly
on the new Northwest that no man may live and labor for himself alone,
and there are many who realizing it instinctively ask very little and
freely give their best for the land that but indifferently shelters
them.

Presently, however, there was a knocking at the door, and though this
was most unusual Winston only quietly moved his head when a bitter
blast came in, and a man wrapped in furs stood in the opening.

"I'll put my horse in the stable while I've got my furs on. It's a
bitter night," he said.

Winston nodded. "You know where the lantern is," he said. "There's
some chop in the manger, and you needn't spare the oats in the bin. At
present prices it doesn't pay to haul them in."

The man closed the door silently, and it was ten minutes before he
returned and, sloughing off his furs, dropped into a chair beside the
stove. "I got supper at Broughton's, and don't want anything but
shelter tonight," he said. "Shake that pipe out, and try one of these
instead."

He laid a cigar case on the table, and though well worn it was of
costly make with a good deal of silver about it, while Winston, who
lighted one, knew that the cigars were good. He had no esteem for his
visitor, but men are not censorious upon the prairie, and Western
hospitality is always free.

"Where have you come from, Courthorne?" he said quietly.

The other man laughed a little. "The long trail," he said. "The
Dakotas, Colorado, Montana. Cleaned up one thousand dollars at Regent,
and might have got more, but some folks down there seemed tired of me.
The play was quite regular, but they have apparently been getting
virtuous lately."

"And now?" said Winston, with polite indifference.

Courthorne made a little gesture of deprecation.

"I'm back again with the rustlers."

Winston's nod signified comprehension, for the struggle between the
great range-holders across the frontier and the smaller settlers who
with legal right invaded their cattle runs was just over. It had been
fought out bitterly with dynamite and rifles, and when at last with the
aid of the United States cavalry peace was made, sundry broken men and
mercenaries who had taken the pay of both parties, seeing their
occupation gone, had found a fresh scope for their energies in
smuggling liquor, and on opportunity transferring cattle, without their
owner's sanction, across the frontier. That was then a prohibition
country, and the profits and risks attached to supplying it and the
Blackfeet on the reserves with liquor were heavy.

"Business this way?" said Winston.

Courthorne appeared to consider a moment, and there was a curious
little glint in his eyes which did not escape his companion's
attention, but he laughed.

"Yes, we're making a big run," he said, then stopped and looked
straight at the rancher. "Did it ever strike you, Winston, that you
were not unlike me?"

Winston smiled, but made a little gesture of dissent as he returned the
other's gaze. They were about the same height and had the same English
type of face, while Winston's eyes were gray and his companion's an
indefinite blue that approached the former color, but there the
resemblance, which was not more than discernible, ended. Winston was
quietly-spoken and somewhat grim, a plain prairie farmer in appearance,
while a vague but recognizable stamp of breeding and distinction still
clung to Courthorne. He would have appeared more in place in the
States upon the southern Atlantic seaboard, where the characteristics
the Cavalier settlers brought with them are not extinct, than he did
upon the Canadian prairie. His voice had even in his merriment a
little imperious ring, his face was refined as well as sensual, and
there was a languid gracefulness in his movements and a hint of pride
in his eyes. They, however, lacked the steadiness of Winston's, and
there were men who had seen the wild devil that was born in Courthorne
look out of them. Winston knew him as a pleasant companion, but
surmised from stories he had heard that there were men, and more women,
who bitterly rued the trust they had placed in him.

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