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Winston of the Prairie by Harold Bindloss

H >> Harold Bindloss >> Winston of the Prairie




"Enclosed you will find fifty dollars, sent only because you may be
ill. In case of necessity you can forward your doctor's or hotel
bills," it ran.

It was with a wry smile he watched a man ride off towards the
settlement with it. "I shall not be sorry when the climax comes," he
said. "The strain is telling."

In the meanwhile Sergeant Stimson had been quietly renewing his
acquaintance with certain ranchers and herders of sheep scattered
across the Albertan prairie some six hundred miles away. They found
him more communicative and cordial than he used to be, and with one or
two he unbent so far as, in the face of the regulations, to refresh
himself with whisky which had contributed nothing to the Canadian
revenue. Now the lonely ranchers have as a rule few opportunities of
friendly talk with anybody, and as they responded to the sergeant's
geniality, he became acquainted with a good many facts, some of which
confirmed certain vague suspicions of his, though others astonished
him. In consequence of this he rode out one night with two or three
troopers of a Western squadron.

His apparent business was somewhat prosaic. Musquash, the Blackfeet,
in place of remaining quietly on his reserve, had in a state of
inebriation reverted to the primitive customs of his race, and taking
the trail, not only annexed some of his white neighbors' ponies and
badly frightened their wives, but drove off a steer with which he
feasted his people. The owner following came upon the hide, and
Musquash, seeing it was too late to remove the brand from it, expressed
his contrition, and pleaded in extenuation that he was rather worthy of
sympathy than blame, because he would never have laid hands on what was
not his had not a white man sold him deleterious liquor. As no white
man is allowed to supply an Indian with alcohol in any form, the
wardens of the prairie took a somewhat similar view of the case, and
Stimson was, from motives which he did not mention, especially anxious
to get his grip upon the other offender.

The night when they rode out was very dark, and they spent half of it
beneath a birch bluff, seeing nothing whatever, and only hearing a
coyote howl. It almost appeared there was something wrong with the
information supplied them respecting the probable running of another
load of prohibited whisky, and towards morning Stimson rode up to the
young commissioned officer.

"The man who brought us word has either played their usual trick and
sent us here while his friends take the other trail, or somebody saw us
ride out and went south to tell the boys," he said. "Now, you might
consider it advisable that I and one of the troopers should head for
the ford at Willow Hollow, sir."

"Yes," said the young officer, who was quite aware that there were as
yet many things connected with his duties he did not know. "Now I come
to think of it, Sergeant, I do. We'll give you two hours, and then, if
you don't turn up, ride over after you; it's condemnably shivery
waiting for nothing here."

Stimson saluted and shook his bridle, and rather less than an hour
later faintly discerned a rattle of wheels that rose from a long way
off across the prairie. Then he used the spur, and by and by it became
evident that the drumming of their horses' feet had carried far, for,
though the rattle grew a little louder, there was no doubt that whoever
drove the wagon had no desire to be overtaken. Still, two horses
cannot haul a vehicle over a rutted trail as fast as one can carry a
man, and when the wardens of the prairie raced towards the black wall
of birches that rose higher in front of them, the sound of wheels
seemed very near. It, however, ceased suddenly, and was followed by a
drumming that could only have been made by a galloping horse.

"One beast!" said the Sergeant. "Well, they'd have two men, any way,
in that wagon. Get down and picket. We'll find the other fellow
somewhere in the bluff."

They came upon him within five minutes endeavoring to cut loose the
remaining horse from the entangled harness in such desperate haste that
he did not hear them until Stimson grasped his shoulder.

"Hold out your hands," he said. "You have your carbine ready, trooper?"

The man made no resistance, and Stimson laughed when the handcuffs were
on.

"Now," he said, "where's your partner?"

"I don't know that I mind telling you," said the prisoner. "It was a
low down trick he played on me. We got down to take out the horses
when we saw we couldn't get away from you, and I'd a blanket girthed
round the best of them, when he said he'd hold him while I tried what I
could do with the other. Well, I let him, and the first thing I knew
he was off at a gallop, leaving me with the other kicking devil two men
couldn't handle. You'll find him rustling south over the Montana
trail."

"Mount and ride!" said Stimson, and when his companion galloped off,
turned once more to his prisoner.

"You'll have a lantern somewhere, and I'd like a look at you," he said.
"If you're the man I expect, I'm glad I found you."

"It's in the wagon," said the other dejectedly.

Stimson got a light, and when he had released and picketed the plunging
horse, held it so that he could see his prisoner. Then he nodded with
evident contentment.

"You may as well sit down. We've got to have a talk," he said.

"Well," said the other, "I'd help you to catch Harmon if I could, but I
can prove he hired me to drive him over to Kemp's in the wagon, and
you'd find it difficult to show I knew what there was in the packages
he took along."

Stimson smiled dryly. "Still," he said, "I think it could be done, and
I've another count against you. You had one or two deals with the boys
some little while ago."

"I'm not afraid of your fixing up against me anything I did then," said
the other man.

"No?" said Stimson. "Now, I guess you're wrong, and it might be a good
deal more serious than whisky-running. One night a man crawled up to
your homestead through the snow, and you took him in."

He saw the sudden fear in his companion's face before he turned it from
the lantern.

"It has happened quite a few times," said the latter. "We don't turn
any stranger out in this country."

"Of course!" said the Sergeant gravely, though he felt a little thrill
of content as he saw the shot, he had been by no means sure of, had
told. "That man, however, had lost his horse in the river, and it was
the one he got from you that took him out of the country. Now, if we
could show you knew what he had done, it might go as far as hanging
somebody."

The man was evidently not a confirmed law breaker, but merely one of
the small farmers who were willing to pick up a few dollars by
assisting the whisky-runners now and then, and he abandoned all
resistance.

"Sergeant," he said, "it was 'most a week before I knew, and if anybody
had told me at the time, I'd have turned him out to freeze before I'd
have let him have a horse of mine."

"That wouldn't go very far if we brought the charge against you," said
Stimson grimly. "If you'd sent us word when you did know, we'd have
had him."

"Well," said the man, "he was across the frontier by that time, and I
don't know that most folks would have done it, if they'd had the
warning the boys sent me."

Stimson appeared to consider for almost a minute, and then gravely
rapped his companion's arm.

"It seems to me that the sooner you and I have an understanding, the
better it will be for you," he said.

They were some time arriving at it, and the Sergeant's superiors might
not have been pleased with all he promised during the discussion.
Still, he was flying at higher game, and had to sacrifice a little,
while he knew his man.

"We'll fix it up without you, as far as we can, but if we want you to
give evidence that the man who lost his horse in the river was not
farmer Winston, we'll know where to find you," he said. "You'll have
to take your chance of being tried with him if we find you're trying to
get out of the country."

It was half an hour later when the rest of the troopers arrived and
Stimson had some talk with their officer aside.

"A little out of the usual course, isn't it?" said the latter. "I
don't know that I'd have countenanced it, so to speak, off my own bat
at all, but I had a tolerably plain hint that you were to use your
discretion over this affair. After all, one has to stretch a point or
two occasionally."

"Yes, sir," said Stimson. "A good many now and then."

The officer smiled a little and went back to the rest. "Two of you
will ride after the other rascal," he said. "Now, look here, my man,
the first time my troopers, who'll call round quite frequently, don't
find you about your homestead, you'll land yourself in a tolerably
serious difficulty. In the meanwhile, I'm sorry we can't bring a
charge of whisky-running against you, but another time be careful who
you hire your wagon to."

Then there was a rapid drumming of hoofs as two troopers went off at a
gallop, while when the rest turned back towards the outpost. Stimson
rode with them quietly content.




CHAPTER XXIV.

THE REVELATION

Winston's harvesting prospered as his sowing had done, for by day the
bright sunshine shone down on standing wheat and lengthening rows of
sheaves. It was in the bracing cold of sunrise the work began, and the
first pale stars were out before the tired men and jaded horses dragged
themselves home again. Not infrequently it happened that the men wore
out the teams and machines, but there was no stoppage then, for fresh
horses were led out from the corral or a new binder was ready. Every
minute was worth a dollar, and Winston, who had apparently foreseen and
provided for everything, wasted none.

Then, for wheat is seldom stacked in that country, as the days grew
shorter and the evenings cool, the smoke of the big thrasher streaked
the harvest field, and the wagons went jolting between humming
separator and granary, until the later was gorged to repletion and the
wheat was stored within a willow framing beneath the chaff and straw
that streamed from the chute of the great machine. Winston had around
him the best men that dollars could hire, and toiled tirelessly with
the grimy host in the whirling dust of the thrasher and amid the
sheaves, wherever another pair of hands, or the quick decision that
would save an hour's delay, was needed most.

As compared with the practice of insular Britain, there were not half
enough of them, but wages are high in that country, and the crew of the
thrasher paid by the bushel, while the rest had long worked for their
own hand on the levels of Manitoba and in the bush of Ontario, and knew
that the sooner their toil was over the sooner they would go home again
with well-lined pockets. So, generously fed, splendid human muscle
kept pace with clinking steel under a stress that is seldom borne
outside the sun-bleached prairie at harvest time, and Winston forgot
everything save the constant need for the utmost effort of body and
brain. It was even of little import to him that prices moved steadily
upward as he toiled.

At last it was finished, and only knee-high stubble covered his land
and that of Maud Barrington, while, for he was one who could venture
fearlessly and still know when he had risked enough, soon after it was
thrashed out the wheat was sold. The harvesters went home with enough
to maintain them through the winter, and Winston, who spent two days
counting his gain, wrote asking Graham to send him an accountant from
Winnipeg. With him he spent a couple more days, and then, with an
effort he was never to forget, prepared himself for the reckoning. It
was time to fling off the mask before the eyes of all who had trusted
him.

He had thought it over carefully, and his first decision had been to
make the revelation to Colonel Barrington alone. That, however, would,
he felt, be too simple, and his pride rebelled against anything that
would stamp him as one who dare not face the men he had deceived. One
by one they had tacitly offered him their friendship and then their
esteem, until he knew that he was virtually leader at Silverdale, and
it seemed fitting that he should admit the wrong he had done them, and
bear the obloquy, before them all. For a while the thought of Maud
Barrington restrained him, and then he brushed that aside. He had
fancied with masculine blindness that what he felt for her had been
well concealed, and that her attitude to him could be no more than
kindly sympathy with one who was endeavoring to atone for a
discreditable past. Her anger and astonishment would be hard to bear,
but once more his pride prompted him, and he decided that she should at
least see he had the courage to face the results of his wrong-doing.
As it happened, he was given an opportunity, when he was invited to the
harvest celebration that was held each year at Silverdale.

It was a still, cool evening when every man of the community, and most
of the women, gathered in the big dining-room of the Grange. The
windows were shut now, for the chill of the early frost was on the
prairie, and the great lamps burned steadily above the long tables.
Cut glass, dainty china and silver gleamed beneath them amidst the ears
of wheat that stood in clusters for sole and appropriate ornamentation.
They merited the place of honor, for wheat had brought prosperity to
every man at Silverdale who had had the faith to sow that year.

On either hand were rows of smiling faces, the men's burned and
bronzed, the women's kissed into faintly warmer color by the sun, and
white shoulders shone amidst the somberly covered ones, while here and
there a diamond gleamed on a snowy neck. Barrington sat at the head of
the longest table, with his niece and sister, Dane and his oldest
followers about him, and Winston at its foot, dressed very simply after
the usual fashion of the prairie farmers. There were few in the
company who had not noticed this, though they did not as yet understand
its purport.

Nothing happened during dinner, but Maud Barrington noticed that,
although some of his younger neighbors rallied him, Winston was grimly
quiet. When it was over, Barrington rose, and the men who knew the
care he had borne that year never paid him more willing homage than
they did when he stood smiling down on them. As usual he was
immaculate in dress, erect, and quietly commanding, but in spite of its
smile his face seemed worn, and there were thickening wrinkles, which
told of anxiety, about his eyes.

"Another year has gone, and we have met again to celebrate with
gratefulness the fulfillment of the promise made when the world was
young," he said. "We do well to be thankful, but I think humility
becomes us too. While we doubted the sun and the rain have been with
us for a sign that, though men grow faint-hearted and spare their toil,
seed-time and harvest shall not fail."

It was the first time Colonel Barrington had spoken in quite that
strain, and when he paused a moment there was a curious stillness, for
those who heard him noticed an unusual tremor in his voice. There was
also a gravity that was not far removed from sadness in his face when
he went on again, but the intentness of his retainers would have been
greater had they known that two separate detachments of police troopers
were then riding toward Silverdale.

"The year has brought its changes, and set its mark deeply on some of
us," he said. "We cannot recall it, or retrieve our blunders, but we
can hope they will be forgiven us and endeavor to avoid them again.
This is not the fashion in which I had meant to speak to you tonight,
but after the bounty showered upon us I feel my responsibility. The
law is unchangeable. The man who would have bread to eat or sell must
toil for it, and I, in disregard of it, bade you hold your hand. Well,
we have had our lesson, and we will be wiser another time, but I have
felt that my usefulness as your leader is slipping away from me. This
year has shown me that I am getting an old man."

Dane kicked the foot of a lad beside him, and glanced at the piano as
he stood up.

"Sir," he said simply, "although we have differed about trifles and may
do so again, we don't want a better one--and if we did we couldn't find
him."

A chord from the piano rang through the approving murmurs, and the
company rose to their feet before the lad had beaten out the first bar
of the jingling rhythm. Then the voices took it up, and the great hall
shook to the rafters with the last "Nobody can deny."

Trite as it was, Barrington saw the darker flush in the bronzed faces,
and there was a shade of warmer color in his own as he went on again.

"The things one feels the most are those one can least express, and I
will not try to tell you how I value your confidence," he said.
"Still, the fact remains that sooner or later I must let the reins fall
into younger hands, and there is a man here who will, I fancy, lead you
farther than you would ever go with me. Times change, and he can teach
you how those who would do the most for the Dominion need live to-day.
He is also, and I am glad of it, one of us, for traditions do not
wholly lose their force and we know that blood will tell. That this
year has not ended in disaster irretrievable is due to our latest
comrade, Lance Courthorne."

This time there were no musical honors or need of them, for a shout
went up that called forth an answering rattle from the cedar paneling.
It was flung back from table to table up and down the great room, and
when the men sat down, flushed and breathless, their eyes still
shining, the one they admitted had saved Silverdale rose up quietly at
the foot of the table. The hand he laid on the snowy cloth shook a
little, and the bronze that generally suffused it was less noticeable
in his face. All who saw it felt that something unusual was coming,
and Maud Barrington leaned forward a trifle, with a curious throbbing
of her heart.

"Comrades! It is, I think, the last time you will hear the term from
me," he said. "I am glad that we have made and won a good fight at
Silverdale, because it may soften your most warranted resentment when
you think of me."

Every eye was turned upon him, and an expression of bewilderment crept
into the faces, while a lad who sat next to him touched his arm
reassuringly.

"You'll feel your feet in a moment, but that's a curious fashion of
putting it," he said.

Winston turned to Barrington, and stood silent a moment. He saw Maud
Barrington's face showing strained and intent, but less bewildered than
the others, and that of her aunt, which seemed curiously impassive, and
a little thrill ran through him. It passed, and once more he only saw
the leader of Silverdale.

"Sir," he said, "I did you a wrong when I came here, and with your
convictions you would never tolerate me as your successor."

There was a rustle of fabric as some of the women moved, and a murmur
of uncontrollable astonishment, while those who noticed it, remembered
Barrington's gasp. It expressed absolute bewilderment, but in another
moment he smiled.

"Sit down, Lance," he said. "You need make no speeches. We expect
better things from you."

Winston stood very still. "It was the simple truth I told you, sir,"
he said. "Don't make it too hard for me."

Just then there was a disturbance at the rear of the room, and a man,
who shook off the grasp of one that followed him, came in. He moved
forward with uneven steps, and then, resting his hand on a chair back,
faced about and looked at Winston. The dust was thick upon his
clothes, but it was his face that seized and held attention. It was
horribly pallid, save for the flush that showed in either cheek, and
his half-closed eyes were dazed.

"I heard them cheering," he said. "Couldn't find you at your
homestead. You should have sent the five hundred dollars. They would
have saved you this."

The defective utterance would alone have attracted attention, and, with
the man's attitude, was very significant, but it was equally evident to
most of those who watched him that he was also struggling with some
infirmity. Western hospitality has, however, no limit, and one of the
younger men drew out a chair.

"Hadn't you better sit down, and if you want anything to eat we'll get
it you," he said. "Then you can tell us what your errand is."

The man made a gesture of negation, and pointed to Winston.

"I came to find a friend of mine. They told me at his homestead that
he was here," he said.

There was an impressive silence, until Colonel Barrington glanced at
Winston, who still stood quietly impassive at the foot of the table.

"You know our visitor?" he said. "The Grange is large enough to give a
stranger shelter."

The man laughed. "Of course he does; it's my place he's living in."

Barrington turned again to Winston, and his face seemed to have grown a
trifle stern.

"Who is this man?" he said.

Winston looked steadily in front of him, vacantly noticing the rows of
faces turned towards him under the big lamps. "If he had waited a few
minutes longer, you would have known," he said. "He is Lance
Courthorne."

This time the murmurs implied incredulity, but the man who stood
swaying a little with his hand on the chair, and a smile in his
half-closed eyes, made an ironical inclination.

"It's evident you don't believe it or wish to. Still, it's true," he
said.

One of the men nearest him rose and quietly thrust him into the chair.

"Sit down in the meanwhile," he said dryly. "By and by, Colonel
Barrington will talk to you."

Barrington thanked him with a gesture, and glanced at the rest. "One
would have preferred to carry out this inquiry more privately," he
said, very slowly, but with hoarse distinctness. "Still, you have
already heard so much."

Dane nodded. "I fancy you are right, sir. Because we have known and
respected the man who has, at least, done a good deal for us, it would
be better that we should hear the rest."

Barrington made a little gesture of agreement, and once more fixed his
eyes on Winston. "Then will you tell us who you are?"

"A struggling prairie farmer," said Winston quietly. "The son of an
English country doctor who died in penury, and one who from your point
of view could never have been entitled to more than courteous
toleration from any of you."

He stopped, but, for the astonishment was passing, there was negation
in the murmurs which followed, while somebody said, "Go on!"

Dane stood up. "I fancy our comrade is mistaken," he said. "Whatever
he may have been, we recognize our debt to him. Still, I think he owes
us a more complete explanation."

Then Maud Barrington, sitting where all could see her, signed
imperiously to Alfreton, who was on his feet next moment, with
Macdonald and more of the men following him.

"I," he said, with a little ring in his voice and a flush in his young
face, "owe him everything, and I'm not the only one. This, it seems to
me, is the time to acknowledge it."

Barrington checked him with a gesture. "Sit down, all of you. Painful
and embarrassing as it is, now we have gone so far, this affair must be
elucidated. It would be better if you told us more."

Winston drew back a chair, and when Courthorne moved, the man who sat
next to him laid a grasp on his arm. "You will oblige me by not making
any remarks just now," he said dryly. "When Colonel Barrington wants
to hear anything from you he'll ask you."

"There is little more," said Winston. "I could see no hope in the old
country, and came out to this one with one hundred pounds a distant
connection lent me. That sum will not go very far anywhere, as I found
when, after working for other men, I bought stock and took up
Government land. To hear how I tried to do three men's work for six
weary years, and at times went for months together half-fed, might not
interest you, though it has its bearing on what came after. The
seasons were against me, and I had not the dollars to tide me over the
time of drought and blizzard until a good one came. Still, though my
stock died, and I could scarcely haul in the little wheat the frost and
hail left me, with my worn-out team, I held on, feeling that I could
achieve prosperity if I once had the chances of other men."

He stopped a moment, and Macdonald poured out a glass of wine and
passed it across to him in a fashion that made the significance of what
he did evident.

"We know what kind of a struggle you made by what we have seen at
Silverdale," he said.

Winston put the glass aside, and turned once more to Colonel Barrington.

"Still," he said, "until Courthorne crossed my path, I had done no
wrong, and I was in dire need of the money that tempted me to take his
offer. He made a bargain with me that I should ride his horse and
personate him, that the police troopers might leave him unsuspected to
lead his comrades running whisky, while they followed me. I kept my
part of the bargain, and it cost me what I fancy I can never recover,
unless the trial I shall shortly face will take the stain from me.
While I passed for him your lawyer found me, and I had no choice
between being condemned as a criminal for what Courthorne had in the
meanwhile done, or continuing the deception. He had, as soon as I had
left him, taken my horse and garments, so that if seen by the police
they would charge me. I could not take your money, but, though
Courthorne was apparently drowned, I did wrong when I came to
Silverdale. For a time the opportunities dazzled me; ambition drew me
on, and I knew what I could do."

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