THE HEART OF
CHERRY McBAIN
A Novel
BY
DOUGLAS DURKIN
TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY
LIMITED
Copyright. Canada, 1919.
THE MUSSON BOOK CO., LIMITED
Publishers * * TORONTO
CONTENTS
[Chapter One]
[Chapter Two]
[Chapter Three]
[Chapter Four]
[Chapter Five]
[Chapter Six]
[Chapter Seven]
[Chapter Eight]
[Chapter Nine]
[Chapter Ten]
[Chapter Eleven]
[Chapter Twelve]
[Chapter Thirteen]
[Chapter Fourteen]
[Chapter Fifteen]
[Chapter Sixteen]
[Chapter Seventeen]
[Chapter Eighteen]
THE HEART OF
CHERRY McBAIN
CHAPTER ONE
Although it was late afternoon it was very hot—hot even for August. The horse ambled sleepily up the dusty trail, his head low and his eyes not more than half open. The rein hung loosely over his neck where it had been tossed by the rider who sat dozing in the saddle, his two hands folded across the pommel in front of him. The only alert member of the group, for there were three of these companions of the road, was the dog, a mongrel collie that trotted ahead with tongue hanging, or waited panting in the middle of the trail for the horse and rider to come up.
Suddenly the horse stumbled clumsily and the rider came to himself with a start.
"Steady up, you fool!" he said, and then, as if he regretted the tone in which he had spoken, he leaned forward slightly and passed his hand along the hot neck shining with sweat, and brushed away the big brown flies that clustered about the horse's ears.
He picked up the rein and looked about him. A few yards ahead the trail dipped slowly away to the east in a long winding curve that circled the brow of a little hill. Bringing the horse to a stand, he turned and glanced behind him. To the west the trail fell away and lost itself in a wide valley out of which he had ridden during the afternoon. He got down from the saddle, and tossing the rein over the horse's head to the ground, snapped his fingers to the dog and scrambled up the side of the little hill on his right to where a pile of tumbled tamaracs lay just as they had fallen during a fire that had scorched the hills a year or two before. In a minute he had clambered upon the topmost timber and stood hat in hand looking down into the valley.
As he stood there in the full light of the late afternoon sun anyone catching a glimpse of him from a distance would have been impressed most with the bigness of the man. But with all his bigness he was not heavy-footed nor awkwardly poised. The ease with which he had sprung up the side of the hill, and had leaped from one fallen timber to another until he had reached the spot where he stood, was only possible where strong muscles are well co-ordinated and work together in perfect harmony. And yet as he drew himself up to his full height there was but little there that bespoke agility. He looked heavy except, perhaps, about the hips. His broad shoulders appeared too broad, partly because of the slight stoop forward that seemed to lengthen the line that marked the curve from shoulder to shoulder across the back. His face was the face of a youth—but of a youth grown serious. There was a set to the jaw that seemed to hint at a past in which grim determination had often been his sole resource, and there were lines about the mouth that told of hard living. His eyes were the eyes of a man who has wondered much about things—and was still wondering.
For it had occurred to King Howden—as it has probably occurred to every man sometime or other—that the game was not worth the candle. The significant thing about King's wondering, however, was the fact that it had gone on for months without leading to any other conclusion. In a little less than a month he would be twenty-eight, and he couldn't help feeling that life should be taking shape. Ten years ago, when he had struck out into the world alone, a serious-faced boy whose heart swelled at the prospect of living a great free life in the open places of the world, he had thought that by the time he reached twenty-eight he would have seen some of his dreams, at least, approaching realization. Now as he thought it over, he knew that he had failed, and the knowledge had a strange effect upon him.
Down there where the valley lay filled with the blue haze of late summer, a haze that was touched with silver from the sun—a little village stood hidden among the trees that lined the banks of a small creek that chattered noisily over its shingly bed. It was an odd kind of a village, that. To begin with it had no name. It was known simply as The Town, having sprung into being in a single season as the gathering place of the scores of new settlers from "the outside," the vanguard of the army of nation-builders, eager to secure desirable locations before the railroad should enter and link up the valley with the world at large. For months the settlers had gone in over a hill trail of a hundred and twenty-five miles or more. Gathering their equipment together, they had hitched their teams of sleepy-eyed oxen to prairie schooners and had poked toilsomely along for days over a trail that only the bravest hearts would ever have followed for its entire length. But the reward was a worthy one—a generous plot of virgin soil as fertile as anything the prairies of Western Canada could show.
And so the town had sprung into being at a spot chosen by the men who had blazed the trail. There was a certain native beauty about the place, in its pretty stream that brought the cool, fresh water from the springs in the hills, and in the full-bosomed elms and rustling silver poplars and fragrant balm-o'-gilead that dappled with shadows the surface of the creek, and made a cool retreat for weary travellers coming in hot and dusty from the long trail. Some day—it could not be long now—the steel ribbons of one of Canada's great transcontinental railways would bind the village to the world that lay beyond the hills and then The Town would be no more. Its proud successor would rise up somewhere along the line, and the old place would be forgotten.
In the meantime the place had a distinctive existence of its own. In short—as is the manner with small towns the world over—it had a way with it. King Howden, who had been among the first to come, had watched it grow and had come to know it very well. He knew that, young though the village was, it had its secrets, and when a town talks behind its hand, someone must needs feel uneasy. King's face had grown grave on many occasions during his few months of life in this little frontier town. The villagers were evidently concerned about this big, slow-moving fellow who had nothing much to say to anyone, and who, after delivering his weekly bag of mail into the hands of old man Hurley, the kindly old Government Agent in the place, habitually beat a shy retreat to the little cabin he had built on a quarter section of land that lay west of the town.
And King's face was grave now as he shaded his eyes with one hand in an effort to pierce the haze and get a glimpse of the white tents and the roughly-built huts that stood down there among the trees.
He did not know exactly where he should look to find the town, for it was his first trip over a new trail that led from the railway construction camp to the town. Once every two weeks or so during the summer he had gone out by the long trail and returned with a bag of mail slung behind him. On those longer trips he had often perched himself upon some hill overlooking the valley and dreamed away an hour or so as he thought of the future—and of the past.
Now he was on a new trail. The "end-of-the-steel" had daily crept closer to the valley and at last he had been notified that future deliveries of mail for the settlement would be made at the railway supply camp at the end of the line.
King Howden had loitered during that summer afternoon, and the loitering was not all on account of the heat. There is romance in a new trail that has been freshly-blazed and newly-cleared, and King Howden—though he never would have admitted it even to himself—liked the romance that springs to meet one at every bend in a newly-made roadway.
On a bright day he might have seen the white tents and log cabins of The Town quite easily. But to-day it was quite hidden behind a smoky blue-white curtain that obscured everything beyond a radius of only a few miles.
"Too thick to-day, Sal," he said, addressing the dog as he prepared to get down.
At the sound of her name the dog edged up a little closer along the log and rubbed her nose affectionately against his knee. King smiled slowly and then, instead of getting down to the ground immediately, he squatted low and took the dog's ears in his hands.
"Sal, you old cuss," he said slowly, "look me in the eye. D'you remember the day I took you in? You common old purp, I saved your life when you were nothing but just plain, ornery pup. If I hadn't come along that day and given promises to take you away, gunnysack and all—splash!—you'd been a dead dog, Sal."
He turned the dog's head sideways as he spoke and thrust it downwards violently in imitation of what might have occurred early in the dog's history and so have terminated her career suddenly had he not happened along at the critical moment. The dog blinked her eyes and licked her jaws by way of reply.
"And a dead dog ain't worth speaking about, Sal," he continued. "But you're a sure 'nough live dog even if you are common stuff and not much account. And I like you, Sal,—sure, I like you. I like you for staying round. I like you because you don't squeal. If you were a squealer now—I'd shoot you in a minute."
He bent over and rubbed his head against the animal's face. Then he sprang up.
"Come on, you lazy old cuss, you," he exclaimed quickly. "Don't you know there's a long bit o' trail ahead yet? Come on!"
In a moment he was mounted again and on his way. About twenty miles of trail lay ahead of before he should come to the end of his journey. Although the afternoon was rapidly wearing away and the westering sun already turning red above the valley there was no special cause for hurry. King loved the trail in the long northern evenings when the scent of spruce and tamarac came down from the hills and mingled with the delicate perfume of the prairie roses that came up from the valley. He loved the changing colors deepening in the twilight. He loved to hear the night voices awakening one after another. Often he had taken the trail late in the evening in midsummer to escape the heat of the day and to watch the arc of daylight growing smaller as it shifted its way round to the north in the early night until it hung like the edge of a huge grey disc just showing above the northern-most point of the horizon. He had often watched the disc move eastward and grow again with the hours until it spread out into the glorious dawn of another day, and in his own way he loved it all—for it made him feel that he was a part of the great scheme of things. For a while then he felt sure of himself—and that was a good feeling for King Howden.
Only a few miles more and he would be out on the right-of-way where stood old Keith McBain's construction camp. It made a convenient place for a pause half-way in the trip, and the camp incidentally boasted the best cook on the line—a fact that might have had some bearing upon King's decision to make camp about supper time.
A short three miles farther on, the trail took a little dip to the left down the slope of a wooded ridge and emerged upon the open right-of-way. It was within half an hour of general quitting time and the teamsters had already begun to leave the grade, their sweating horses hurrying quickly away in the dust, with trace-chains clinking and harness rattling. The rest of the gang were still at work clearing the ground of stumps and logs, and roughly levelling the piles of earth that had been thrown up by the "slushers" during the afternoon.
King had stood upon right-of-ways before, but the prospect fascinated him as much to-day as it had done the first day he had ever looked along the narrowing perspective of an open avenue canyoned between two rows of trees, and in the centre a long straight line of grey-brown earth heaped up into a grade. He slipped down from the saddle and walked leisurely along the trail that skirted the side of the right-of-way, his eyes upon the men who went about their work quietly and with no more enthusiasm than one might expect from human beings whose thanks to a benevolent Providence found daily expression in the formula, "another day, another dollar."
King found a bit of innocent diversion in the efforts of four grunting and expostulating workmen who had lifted a log from the ground and were stumbling clumsily with it towards the right-of-way. The log was not so large that four men could not have handled it easily. King smiled as he watched them, and thought to himself that two men could have picked it up and taken it away without great effort. Suddenly a veritable torrent of profanity broke upon his ears, and the foreman who had been standing near rushed up, threw his arms about the log and scattering all four of them, carried it off alone and threw it upon a pile of stumps and roots that stood a few feet back from the trail. King found himself all at once wondering what he himself could have done with a log of the same size.
He came to himself suddenly again at the sound of the foreman's voice and looked round just in time to see Sal leap to one side and run towards him to escape a stick that came hurtling along the ground near the dog's feet. King stepped out quickly to protect the dog. As he did so he saw the foreman standing a few yards away, his face twisted into a grin. For a moment the two men eyed each other. Then King spoke.
"Quit that," he said in a voice that trembled with rising passion.
The foreman's only reply was a few muttered words of profanity that King did not hear, or hearing did not consider worthy of any account. His concern was for the mongrel collie that had narrowly escaped injury, and was now fawning and whining about his legs.
"Don't do that," he said. "She's my dog."
The foreman grinned. "Your dog—what the devil do I care whose dog it is!"
King spoke without moving and his voice was now clear and steady. "You don't need to care—you didn't hit her."
"Well, I tried, didn't I?"
"I say you didn't hit her," King replied slowly, "and I—I don't want you to."
For a moment the two men stood looking at each other silently without moving. King's face was grave and one corner of his mouth twitched a little in anger. The grin never left the face of the foreman; it was still there when he finally turned away and strode towards the men who were at work on the grade a short distance off.
King watched him closely for a while and then stepped back and passed his hand soothingly along the horse's shoulder. Getting down on one knee he drew the dog towards him and patted her head gently.
"Sal, you old mongrel pup, you," he said as if he were on the point of bringing gentle chastisement upon her—but he said no more. Getting up, he threw a backward glance in the direction of the men working on the grade and went on slowly down the trail towards the camp.
When he had gone some distance he stopped suddenly and looked about him as if he feared someone were watching him. On the ground before him was a large, solid tamarac log. He placed his foot upon it and measured it with his eyes from end to end. He kicked the log two or three times to assure himself that it was sound. Then he glanced back again to where the men were working in the distance. When he was sure that no one was watching him he dropped the bridle rein to the ground and bent over the log. Working his great hands under it he closed his arms slowly about the middle and set himself to lift. Gradually he straightened himself till he stood erect, his arms clasped about the log. Then swinging it round till he faced in the opposite direction he carried it steadily to the other side of the trail and dropped it in the underbrush. Measuring it again with his eyes, he kicked it—it was sound to the heart.
"I can do it," he said aloud to himself, "and I believe—if anything—it's a bigger piece."
Even as he spoke he became aware of someone watching him. Something suspiciously like a chuckle came from the bushes near by and he raised his eyes quickly. Not more than a dozen paces away, half-hidden in the shrubbery, stood a girl knee-deep in the matted vines, a sheaf of wild roses in her arms.
For a moment King was unable to stir. It was as if an apparition had suddenly broken in on his imagination—a riotous apparition of dark hair, laughing eyes and delicate pink roses.
When he came to himself he moved back awkwardly and was in the act of lifting the bridle-rein when he was arrested by a burst of laughter that caused him to turn again and stand looking at her, the bridle-rein hanging loosely in his hand. His look was a question—and her only answer was a laugh as she came out from the cover of the bushes and stood upon the log that King had just moved from the other side of the trail. From this position of advantage she looked at him, her eyes almost on a level with his.
"I saw it all," she declared, and King thought the expression on her face was less mischievous now.
"What?" he asked.
"You take a dare from a man and walk away to have it out by yourself with a log."
There was a flash of fire in her eyes as she spoke and King became the victim of mingled anger and self-reproach. While he hesitated to make a reply the girl hopped down from the log and, brushing past him, walked quickly down the trail towards the camp.
When she had gone almost out of easy hearing distance he straightened himself suddenly.
"I didn't!" he called after her, but she paid not the slightest heed.
A minute later he started off for the camp afoot, his horse following behind him. And as he went he thought over the words in which he found nothing but reproach, and worst of all—contempt.
"'You took a dare,'" he repeated, and then to himself he said over and over again, "I didn't—I didn't!"
CHAPTER TWO
A little more than an hour later King left the cook-camp and went to the corral where his horse, well rested from the first half of the journey, stood ready and waiting for him.
He was in the act of throwing the saddle onto the horse when he stopped suddenly and listened. From round the corner of the corral came the sound of voices of men in dispute.
"Any man who tries to call Bill McCartney had better be sure he holds a good hand," the most emphatic of the speakers declared.
In affairs of this kind King Howden had a kind of instinct that he invariably trusted. Something told him that the man whose name he heard was the big foreman whom he had seen on the grade before supper. He felt, too, that he himself was under discussion, and laying the saddle down he walked quietly to the corner and listened for a moment. He had no liking for eavesdropping, and yet—he had not recovered from the sting of the words that had fallen from the lips of the girl; the look of reproach in her dark eyes was still vividly before him. But those words were the words of a girl. When men speak disparagingly of another, the case is a different one.
He stepped round the corner of the corral and stood before a half dozen of McBain's men lounging upon bales of pressed hay, smoking after-supper pipes.
For a moment there was a silence so tense that even King, who might have been prepared for it, began to feel uncomfortable.
"No use bluffin'," said one of the group at last. "We were talkin' about you an' Bill McCartney. Looked for a while like someone was in for a lickin' this afternoon."
King looked at the speaker. He was an old man, too old, really, to be combatting the rigors of camp life. His voice was thin, even high-pitched, but King could not help observing the very apparent effort the old man was making to be pleasant. And yet, the line where King's lips met drew straight and tightened perceptibly.
"My boy," the old man went on, very pleasantly but not patronizingly, "don't bother Bill McCartney. We don't love him none—but we talk when he ain't 'round." He was speaking very directly now and had begun to fill his pipe deliberately. "The boys can tell you about him. There's a hardy youngster here in camp by the name of Lush Currie—"
The old man was interrupted suddenly by the laughter of the other members of the group. At first he seemed ready to join in the chorus he had unwittingly provoked, but he glanced once at King and checked himself immediately. Then he turned to the men with a look in which there was a mingling of anger and appeal.
"Well," he said abruptly, "what are you laughin' at?"
If the remark relieved the old man's embarrassment it certainly did not check the hilarity of the men. But when King stepped forward and looked at them with a slow smile playing about the corners of his lips and drawing the lines of his mouth even more tensely, the laughing ceased at once and the men waited in silence for him to speak.
"Don't you go to making plans for me and this man, McCartney," King said, and his steady gaze seemed to take them all in at once as he spoke. "You better get straight on this—McCartney hasn't done me a speck o' harm—not yet he hasn't."
"Pray goddlemighty hard he don't!" replied one of the men, but the remark elicited scarcely more than a smile from the others—and not even so much as a smile from the old man.
"And I'm not going to lose time praying about it, either," King observed, his eyes upon the speaker.
He turned and went back to his horse, where he proceeded in a leisurely way to adjust the saddle. In a few minutes he was ready to leave, and was on the point of getting up when he heard a step approaching, and pausing to look behind him observed the old man coming round the corner of the corral. He was alone, and as he came forward he took his pipe from his mouth and tapped the bowl gently against the palm of his hand to empty it.
"My name's Gabe Smith," he said in his high, thin voice, "an' yours?"
King gave him his name.
The old man extended his hand cordially, and King, recognizing at once that the overtures were meant to be friendly, could not help feeling warmly towards him. They exchanged a few words that served to confirm King's opinion of the sincerity of old Gabe Smith, and then, getting into his saddle, King turned his horse's head down the trail.
Just once before he urged his horse into a gallop he turned and looked behind him.
"Sal, you!" he called to his dog.
At the summons the dog leaped from the side of the trail and the three went off together in the gathering dusk.
It was, perhaps, only natural that King's mind should dwell more or less upon the disturbing element that, during the past few hours, had come unbidden into his life. Early that afternoon his mind had been occupied mainly with memories of a past that had been woven out of failure and disappointment and shapeless motive. Now, with an open trail before him, his mind was filled with new hopes and strange misgivings.
His misgivings were not without good reason, had he known the full truth. Bill McCartney, the big foreman with Keith McBain's outfit, commanded the respect which hard-fisted men invariably pay to those whose reputation for heavy hitting goes before them wherever they move. When he came to Keith McBain's camp his reputation had preceded him by at least a week. By some mysterious way, for which there is no accounting, the men had been prepared for days against the coming of one who could hit harder than any man west of North Bay. It was not on record that any of the citizens of the town that set the eastern limit to the extent of McCartney's reputation could actually hit harder, or even as hard, as the formidable foreman. It probably never occurred to anyone to carry his investigations so far. It was enough that North Bay should be generally accepted as the point that marked the division between two worlds, in one of which the name of Bill McCartney had never been known, in the other of which his name was mentioned with the deference due to men of his class.
There was probably no fear mingled with that feeling of deference. The men simply knew what Bill McCartney's reputation was, and after the first few searching glances at the new foreman they were prepared to believe what they had been told, and, perhaps, to add something to it by way of coloring it up a little.
Those who were disposed to think conservatively of McCartney's abilities when they first saw him were given an opportunity to correct their estimates somewhere about the third day after his arrival in camp, although only a few were fortunate enough to be on hand when he first proved his ability to live up to his reputation. Before McCartney's arrival the name of "Lush" Currie, a thick-set, bony fellow who had carried off the honors in many a fight to the finish, had always been mentioned with something of the same deference that was now accorded the new foreman. In fact, Currie was one of the few doubters who were unwise enough to have expressed openly their own personal contempt for reputations that were unproved. He spoke once, however, when McCartney was within hearing. The small group who had witnessed the affair afterwards said that "Lush" had spoken very unwisely. No one at the time knew exactly what had occurred—though they worked out all the details with great care later. All agreed that only one blow had been struck, and that blow was McCartney's. Before Currie had a chance to defend himself he was lying in a heap on the ground. Though McCartney waited for him to get up, "Lush" could not find his feet without the help of a couple of men who were standing near, who lifted him and helped him off to his bunk, where for a few days he nursed a broken jaw.
The incident had caused no end of discussion. Some felt that Currie had not been given a square deal—there was such a thing as a fair fight—Currie should have been given some warning. The affair proved nothing so far as Bill McCartney's fighting ability was concerned; it should be fought over again, and undoubtedly would. Others protested that Currie had no right to talk about McCartney unless he wanted to fight—that he should have been prepared for what had happened. He had been warned—he got only what was coming to him, and would probably know better than to seek further trouble.
But "Lush" Currie gave neither promise nor explanation—a fact that, in the opinion of the great majority of Keith McBain's men, proved his wisdom, if it did not add anything to his reputation for courage.
But these were things that King did not know. He only wondered about the man McCartney, in whom he found—though he could not have told why—the embodiment of a new and sinister antagonism. He could not help feeling that somehow powers over which he had no control were dealing the cards, and he had to play the game.
Had it not been for the fact that another—
His mind went back to the laughing eyes of the girl that had spoken to him from the cover of the bushes beside the trail.
Overhead the night-hawks whistled and swooped down with whirring wings above the tree-tops. The damp scent of low mist-filled hollows came to him on the motionless air, mingled with the cool fresh fragrance of the spruce. Little waves of warm air rose from the trail that had lain all day under a burning sky. The occasional call of a distant coyote whined across the plains, and returned in numberless echoes till it broke and died into silence.
Suddenly Sal stopped in the trail and stood looking back, her head up, her ears pricked forward, her tail brushing from side to side. King reined his horse in to a walk and listened. He could hear the rhythmic beat of hoofs on the trail some distance behind him. From the sound they made he knew the rider was coming fast. Curiosity overcame him, and he turned about and waited at a point in the trail from which he could look from cover across a deep hollow to where the trail was visible winding along near the base of the hill. He had been waiting only a few moments when the horse and rider came into view. The light had almost gone by now, but there was still enough left of the long northern summer twilight to make it possible for him to follow the dimly-outlined figures of horse and rider until they suddenly vanished where the trail ran hidden through a stretch of evergreens. When they emerged they were only a few yards away and in full sight. The rider was none other than the girl whose image he had kept before him in the failing twilight.
His first impulse was to turn his horse's head across the trail—he could not believe that the girl he had seen that afternoon was actually in control of the animal she rode. But not more than a dozen paces away the horse planted his feet before him suddenly, stopped with a jerk, and rose on his hind legs. Then with front feet still in the air he pivoted round and bolted away in the opposite direction. King was amazed to see the girl keep her seat, but his amazement increased when, just before reaching the turn, the horse stopped suddenly as he had done before, and wheeling about came up the trail towards him again at the same wild pace. King stood aside this time and caught a glimpse of the girl's face as she shot past him. The expression he saw there was enough to dispel any fears that he might have entertained for her safety. A few yards down the trail the horse turned again, and he saw the girl strike him across the nose with her quirt.
Then for fully ten minutes he watched a battle royal between a slender girl and a horse whose spirit had never been broken. He had seen men breaking horses to the saddle, and he had thrilled to the excitement of it. But this fight was different. The girl who held her seat in the battle that was being fought out before him did her work fearlessly, firmly, and without speaking a word, and King took off his hat and sat watching in silence.
Back and forth they went on the trail, the horse leaping and rearing at the turns, the girl wearing him down gradually with sharp strokes of her quirt across the nose. The horse shook his head at every stroke and came back after each turn with as much apparent determination as ever. The girl kept her place without a smile, her eyes steadily before her, intent on every move.
The end came suddenly. A quick stroke caught the animal just as his front feet were about to leave the ground, and he stood quivering in every limb, champing his bit and shaking his head in an effort to slacken the bridle rein that the girl held firmly in her hand. Then as he stood, trembling and subdued, the girl spoke for the first time, and turning him slowly round brought him down the trail at a walk.
King wanted to cry out in admiration of the superb manner in which the girl had conducted herself in the struggle, but when she came to where he stood she brought her horse to a standstill and turned to him with a smile—and King was dumb.
Women had never been a concern of King Howden's. He had never been able to quite understand their ways, and he had come to the conclusion that if success in life depended upon a man's ability to succeed with women—and he had known many who had advanced such a theory in all seriousness—-then nothing in the world was more inevitable than that he should fail, and fail miserably, sooner or later. He had avoided women generally, and for years had deliberately sought for conditions of living in which he could reasonably hope for a chance to make good without them.
But here was a woman no man could avoid. In one slow glance again he noted the lightning that played in her dark eyes; he caught the wild witchery of her tumbled hair and the beauty of her cheeks, flushed from the excitement of the fight she had just won, and he lost himself in contemplation of the smile that lent an indescribable sweetness to her firm mouth. She was dressed plainly—even roughly—in a waist that revealed the soft whiteness of her neck and throat and the firm round curve of her shoulders and breast, and in a skirt that clung closely to her limbs. But of these things King Howden was only vaguely conscious. He could not take his eyes from her face, with its strange contradiction of flashing eyes and gently smiling mouth.
The girl was the first to speak.
"You must have been riding hard," she said. "I thought I'd never catch up with you."
"Catch up?" King thought to himself, and was at a loss to understand.
"Come on," she said quickly, and before he was able to reply, "I'm going to ride a little way with you."
She drew her rein back, pulled her horse about, touched him lightly on the flank with her quirt, and was off at an easy canter along the trail, leaving King to follow or not as he pleased. With a slow smile of recognition of the somewhat anomalous position he was in, he turned into the trail and rode after her.
When he came up with her he drew his horse in a little and together they rode for the next half hour through little valleys and over gently rounding hills dimly outlined in the failing twilight.
Here and there a rabbit started up in the trail before them and ran its foolish frightened race ahead of them until the dog came and put it to cover in the low underbrush beside the roadway. Occasionally a partridge or a prairie chicken got up suddenly from its dust bath in the middle of the trail and hurried off with much clucking and beating of the wings. Once a coyote stood with pricked ears before them on the trail until the sight of Sal sent him off with a lazy, half defiant lope to a little knoll, where he perched himself and waited while they rode past. They caught the delicate aroma of dew on the grass, and brushed a warm fragrance from the foliage as they swept close to where the trees leaned a little over the trail. Frequently they splashed through little hurrying streams where the cold water ran only a few inches deep, or rode through low meadows where the mist lay like white shrouds and settled lightly above the long grass that carpeted the hollows. And behind them the sky had deepened to a blood-red hue with long ribbons of pale gold stretching along the horizon already far to the north of where the sun had gone down.
They had rounded the brow of a hill and had come out of cover to a point in the trail where it afforded them a wide outlook across a meadowy valley. The girl brought her horse to a stand and King reined in beside her.
"I like this," she said, waving her hand toward the valley.
King looked at her, but she had not so much as turned her head towards him. For the first time he was able to look at her without embarrassment. He was no artist to analyze the fine points of symmetry in face and figure. But he was a man—and the man in him told him that she was beautiful. What he liked best about her was the strength of her beauty. He knew at a glance that she was not of the delicate, clinging kind that practise a languid air and never forget their sex. Here was a girl whose heart-beat was strong with the confidence and the reliance she had learned to place in herself—and every line of her face, every movement of her body, bore evidence to the fact. And yet, as she sat and looked out over the valley half hidden under the mists, there was a soft warmth in her dark eyes that made her presence luminous. For King the girl who sat before him embodied in tangible form, it seemed, all he had ever aspired to, all he had ever even vaguely dreamed of.
Her voice, when she spoke, was not the voice of reproach that she had used earlier in the afternoon. Now it was soft, quiet, even deep.
"I like it, too," he said, in response to her simple expression of admiration for what lay before them. "But you haven't come all this way for that"—he waved his hand gently in the direction of the valley.
She turned to him quickly. "No—I have seen it before—though I don't remember when it was ever so beautiful."
"Nor I," thought King, though he kept his thoughts to himself.
"What is your name?" she asked suddenly and with a directness that brought a smile to King's face.
He told her.
"And I am Cherry McBain—my father is Keith McBain—'Old Silent,' the men call him," she replied. "I came to tell you that I need your help—not for me—for my father."
King looked at her strangely. "But a man," he said slowly, "a man who takes a dare—"
"Don't be silly!" she broke in suddenly. "I only half believed that."
"Don't you think that's bad enough?" replied King.
"Can you fight?" asked the girl abruptly, disregarding his reply.
The smile that had rested upon King's face during the conversation vanished all at once before the old grave look that was habitual with him. He did not answer at once—he turned the question over and over again in his mind.
"Cherry McBain," he said at last, "I'm not used to women—and women's ways." His eyes were looking off across the valley when he spoke, and his voice was like that of a man speaking to himself. "I've known some women—a few—but no woman ever asked me if I could fight—only once—but she was a foolish woman—she wasn't good. No good woman ever asked me that before."
He turned his face towards her slowly and looked at her with searching eyes.
"But you," he said hesitatingly, "you're good, Cherry McBain."
He was silent as he looked at her now, and his lips tightened before he spoke again. "Years ago," he said at last, "I fought, and the man I struck—we were boys then—was a brother. I was not myself—I struck him in anger. When I understood what I had done I left him—left my home and all—and came west. That was ten years ago. I wrote him a letter and he asked me to come back. He said he had forgotten—but I—I could never go back."
"Do you think that's silly too?"
She shook her head.
"I have not hit any man since that day," he said with emphasis. "I can fight—I would fight—quicker for a good woman than anything else."
Cherry McBain held out her hand to him. "I needn't have asked you that," she said. "I didn't know. But promise me that you will come and see my father when you are on your way back—old Gabe has told me you are carrying the mail for the settlement."
King pressed her hand gently.
"I guess I'll come," he said.
A smile brightened the girl's face.
"Come," she said. "We'll have raspberries for tea."
"If it rains wildcats," he declared as he released her hand.
"To-morrow afternoon, then," she said, and the next moment she was gone.
King stood and watched her, hat in hand, until she had vanished from his sight. When the beat of the hoofs on the hard trail was no longer audible he shook his horse's bridle gently and resumed his way.
King did not cease to think of his brother when the last sound of hoof-beats had died in the distance. His conversation with Cherry McBain had started in his mind a train of thought that he could not control.
As long as King could remember, his best friend in all the world, the one he had loved the most—even during that one mad regrettable moment of passion—was his younger brother, Dick. As boys at home in eastern Canada, Dick had always been the lucky one—King's pranks had always been discovered. In the ten long years that had elapsed since King had struck west in shame and humiliation, it was the thought of having left Dick that weighed most heavily upon him. It was the memory of Dick's laughing face that had made his heart burn with remorse whenever he remembered how weak, how foolish he had been. During those ten years his heart had quailed before one fear only—the fear that something might happen to Dick before he could see him again.
And now as he rode alone over the trail that was all but hidden in the heavy dusk, this fear had gripped his heart so fiercely that he was helpless to shake himself free. A nameless dread, a pressing sadness brooded over him. He was seized with a sense of utter loneliness.
Some will say that there is no such thing as presentiment. But when King Howden reached the end-of-the-steel that night and found among the mail a letter for himself announcing the death of his brother, Dick Howden, he was convinced, whether reasonably or not, that voices had spoken to him out of the silence—had been speaking to him, indeed, for years, if he had only heard and tried to understand.
King knew no rest that night. Early in the morning he left the bunkhouse where he had been lying during the night and went out into the open where the light of another day was growing in an eastern sky all rose and gold. He found a path leading into the woods and followed it for some distance among the trees to a spot where it led across a little stream. Here he sat down and for a long time looked at the water and the trees and the changing colors of the sky.
When the red sun pushed its way at last above the tree-tops, there came the sound of men stirring in the camp, and the distant sharp rattle of the wheels of a wagon bumping along over a rough trail. A new day had begun—a day when strong men would go out to work, singing and bantering as they went.
King got up from his place beside the stream and stood with his face to the east. Slowly he lifted his right hand and closed his fingers. Then he laid his left hand over it.
In the east the day was springing.
In his heart there was a prayer—a prayer such as big men speak when they have seen the wrong they have done. And who shall say that the prayer was not heard?
In his face there was a resolve—a resolve that expressed itself in the tightening of the fingers that closed over his right hand. And who shall say that the resolve was not recorded?
CHAPTER THREE
In a country where women are seldom seen, the presence of a pretty girl of twenty-one is a matter worthy of record—even if she is the daughter of a railway construction boss. For Keith McBain, reticent, profane to a frankly amazing degree on those rare occasions when he did speak to his men, was a seasoned old man of his class. Silent and unapproachable—as is the manner of camp bosses—Keith McBain seemed at times the least human of them all. "Old Silent" the men called him, partly on account of an instinctive grudge they all bore him for his mode of hard dealing, and partly, too, on account of a kind of unreasoned affection which they cherished for him because of his rough-handed honesty and his indomitable will. When Old Silent spoke no man spoke back. Not that he was a man to fear physically—he was a small, dyspeptic, nervous man whom anyone of his deep-chested camp-followers could have brushed aside with one hand. It was rather the man's face that they feared, with its black piercing eyes that never shifted their glance when he spoke, and its black sardonic smile that made an impenetrable mask for a soul that no man had ever seen revealed. His men all feared him—some of them hated him—and yet they never left him, once their names had been placed on the pay-roll.
Once only in the memory of those who worked for him had the hope ever arisen that the old contractor's manner might soften and his hard face relax in the presence of the men. Just a year ago, nearly a hundred miles back along the line, Keith McBain had lost his wife after a long illness. She had lingered for weeks in a pathetic fight for life, and the old camp boss had watched by her bedside almost continuously, leaving the oversight of the work wholly in the hands of his foremen. Never had a gang of men worked so hard as those men had worked day after day while Old Silent was absent from his place, not only out of deference to the frail woman who was struggling gamely against too great odds, but out of sheer respect for their old boss whose burden of sorrow was daily growing heavier. And when at last the word came that the struggle was over, the men had sat about very late into the night and had spoken in whispers. Keith McBain had made the grave with his own hands, just off the right-of-way, and had marked the spot with a pile of stones and a rough-hewn cross. Then in the days that followed he had been more silent than ever, more unremitting in his dealing with the men, and, if possible, more profane. And yet every last one of his men could not help knowing that Keith McBain's heart was breaking. His light had burned late into the night—and every night—for months following the day that had brought him his great sorrow.
Cherry McBain had come unannounced into the camp. In fact the men had not known of her existence until she rode into camp one afternoon a couple of weeks before the death of Mrs. McBain. Only a few of the more fortunate among them had had a glimpse of her as she came up the trail escorted by McBain's timekeeper, who had gone out to meet her and bring her to the camp. But the few that had seen her knew at once that she was the daughter of the woman who was dying in Keith McBain's cabin—so striking was the resemblance between mother and daughter.
During the days that immediately followed her arrival Cherry was never seen abroad except late in the evenings when she walked out with her father and came back with her arms laden with wild flowers and fern. But when Keith McBain turned again to resume his duties after the darkest episode of his life had been closed, Cherry McBain wandered alone along the new grade or saddled her horse and explored the trails wherever they led in both directions from the camp.
Men who work a whole season in the woods or on a right-of-way, and at the end of the season fling their total earnings away in one hilarious week or two in the nearest city, are likely to classify women roughly and perhaps quickly, even if for ten months out of every twelve they never hear the sound of a woman's voice. They may sometimes make errors in their classifications, but not often. The first morning that Cherry McBain strolled along the edge of the works and paused here and there to watch the men as they swung their teams round in the ever moving circle that carried the earth away from both sides of the right-of-way to the centre where it was graded up into the first rough form of a road-bed—that morning the men registered their own judgments concerning the daughter of Old Silent. In her dark eyes there was the fearless look of her father, the look that pierced through the surface and saw through the veneer to what lay behind. In her smile there was the essence of her mother's gentle nature—a nature before which men down through the centuries have bowed in silent worship.
But there was something more, something that was her own. Men saw it in her lightning glance and in the quick toss she gave her head when she shook back her wind-blown, dark-brown hair. Not one of the men had been able to tell exactly what it was that was there, but all alike were convinced that while Keith McBain might command obedience in his men and squelch even his foreman with a look or an explosive word or two, he had no look that could have served him in a contest with the will of Cherry McBain.
It was six o'clock by the time King reached McBain's camp on his return trip. In the distance he saw the men leaving the grade and making their way towards the camp, the sound of their voices coming to him with heartening effect after his long silent trip, during which his mind had gone back irresistibly to the days when he and his brother had romped together as boys.
When he came to where the path led from the trail to McBain's cabin he turned abruptly, and getting down from the saddle allowed his horse to follow him while he made his way on foot along the narrow path. The little cabin was built of logs and stood well back from the trail, in the protecting shade of a clump of tamaracs.
Keith McBain was sitting by the doorway, his pipe in his mouth, his eyes turned to the hills that rose up, scraggly and covered with fallen and charred timbers, to the south of the cabin.
King's first feeling was one of pity. The old man who sat there smoking his pipe and musing was a broken man, and every line on his face showed it. There was in his eyes the look of a man whose power of will was almost gone. There was a look of fear in them, a fear lest he should reveal his weakness to others. He had an odd trick of glancing quickly about him as if he wished to assure himself that no one was coming upon him unannounced. His mouth was tight-lipped, his face covered with a short-clipped beard that once had been black but now showed gray and pale against the bloodless cheeks.
And yet, for all the face showed of weakness, King was at once struck by the intensity and the unswerving directness of his gaze when Keith McBain turned to look at him. At first there seemed to be a shadow of suspicion in the grizzled old face, but King could not help observing the slow change to something almost kindly that showed deep in the old man's eyes as he got up and extended his hand.
"Come and sit down," he said. "The girl told me you were coming. She's off somewhere in the hills after berries—come and sit down."
When they had talked a little King was so much moved by the note of pathos that crept into the voice of Keith McBain that he determined at once to share with him the news that he had received only the night before. Evidently Old Silent was in a pensive mood, and King inwardly longed for someone to whom he could speak concerning what had lain heavily on his heart all day.
For a long time after King had spoken, Keith McBain sat without uttering a word.
"Aye, boy, you've suffered a great loss," he said at last, and his gaze was straight before him towards the hill-tops in the distance. As he continued he seemed to be talking to himself rather than to King. "It's hard for men to know what a thing like this means until they have tasted it themselves. For years I have gone out in the morning with men when the light was scarce showing through the swamp and have come in again at night tired after the work of the day to sleep—and make ready for the next day. And I've watched them—all ready for the 'roll out' when the call came at daybreak. And I've marvelled at their punctuality—and their willingness. And then a day would come when one of them wouldn't be in his place. He'd heard the call but couldn't go out. And later—perhaps a few days just—he didn't hear it—and the rest of us were quieter for a while—a little less given to talking; and then things went on very much as usual and we forgot. It's very good to forget."
King was pleased with the complete freedom from restraint that now marked the old man's manner. He talked well, with the merest trace of Scotch accent recognizable in the way he rolled his r's. He paused a moment and King made no attempt to interrupt. Finally he began again.
"Aye—it's good to forget—when you can. But there are times when a man can't forget—not altogether. You and I know that, my boy—we know it too well. And we won't talk about it either—except to mention it in passing. And in passing I want to say that I am very sorry. Where's the use trying to say more—a man can't."
He tapped his pipe gently against his hand and went leisurely about the task of filling it again.
"A straight man—and a clean man," he said gently, "is a rare enough article. As men go, I haven't seen many that could answer to that description. The world is full of good women, my boy—I've seen a few they told me weren't straight and weren't clean, but I've never known any such myself—though I've known a lot of women, too. But the men I've known—"
He paused as if in contemplation of how he should express most effectively what was on his mind. In the interval of silence there was a sound of excited voices and hurried footsteps coming down the path towards the cabin. Looking up King recognized the two men approaching as the camp cook and his assistant. Their differences had apparently reached a head, and they were coming to thresh the matter out before the boss.
In an instant Keith McBain was himself again. Leaping up before the men had come within speaking distance he met them in the pathway and fell upon them with a flow of profanity that not only reduced the two to impotent silence but sent them back along the pathway and up the trail to the camp, the picture of mute dejection and defeat.
When the old contractor returned and took his seat again, he lighted his pipe in bad mood and puffed at it vigorously without speaking a word. It required only a glance at his face to realize that a change had come over him. Keith McBain was Old Silent again and nothing would bring him out of his surly mood.
King got up slowly and started down the footpath that led to the hills back of the cabin. Somewhere back in the shambles of pitched timbers and broken tree-trunks was Cherry McBain. When he came finally to where the path was so dimly marked that he could follow it no farther he climbed to the top of a little knoll and looked in every direction along the face of the hill to see if Cherry were anywhere in sight. Finally, when he had looked for some time in vain, he called and waited until the echoes died away in silence. There was no reply. Getting down from the knoll he scrambled further up the hill. He had seen a patch of grey ground away to the west where the fires of the year before had swept the hills clear of vegetation. In ten minutes he emerged from the cover of the evergreens and looked across the tangled mass of half-burned and fallen timbers. The climb had not been an easy one, and it was only with slight hope that he gave his call again and stood tense and motionless as he listened for a reply. From every side the echoes came back and gradually died away in faint waves that finally settled into stillness. He was about to turn back again and make for the camp, but just once more he called and waited.
Almost immediately and from a surprisingly short distance away Cherry's voice came clear to him across the patch of grey. Turning at once in the direction of the voice he looked and saw her waving her hand to him. In a few moments he was beside her, where she was seated on the ground picking twigs and leaves out of the small pail of berries she held in her lap. She looked up at him and laughed roguishly, then offered him a large red berry which she held up to him between stained finger and thumb.
"Didn't you hear me call the first time?" he asked her.
She dropped her eyes and seemed very intent upon rolling the berries about in a vain search for more leaves. He waited for her answer. Ordinarily he would not have asked the question seriously. Even now he had no thought of accusing her. When she finally spoke he was at a loss to know what was in her mind.
"I—heard—you," she said, very slowly, and the tone of her voice was strange to King.
He waited, not knowing what to say in return, and hoping, too, that she might say something without his prompting her. When he saw that she was not going to speak, he asked another question as directly as he had asked the first.
"Why didn't you answer?"
The next moment he wished with all his heart that he had not spoken. The look she gave him was one in which appeal and disappointment were so deeply mingled that he cursed himself inwardly for his own clumsiness.
"Don't ask me why," she said. Then as she saw the grave look in King's eyes she got up and placed her hand on his arm. "Oh, it has nothing to do with you," she said in a voice that was all softness. "I—I didn't know at first that—that it was you."
Suddenly her manner changed.
"Let's go down now," she said quickly, picking up her pail of berries. "We're going to have tea."
Almost as she spoke the words she was off down the hill at a pace that made King exert himself to keep up with her. She ran along the smooth round timbers and leaped from one to another of the fallen logs so lightly and gracefully that King was put to it to save himself from being completely outstripped. She carried her berries in one hand and her hat in the other, and her hair, blown loose by the breeze, shone in the sunlight—transparent gold against a mass of black.
As he watched her, something of the wonder of their first meeting came back to him. He had never seen a girl so lithe, so wild, so beautiful. There was exultation in her every movement, and her laugh rippled musically as she leaped and climbed and ran along over the most difficult ground. Sometimes she looked back at him as if to make sure that he was following, and he saw her face radiant with life and youth. Once she waited till he came up to her before venturing along a dizzy bit of footing that required care in passing. When he came to her she placed her hand in his and together they went on.
From the look she gave him he scarcely knew whether she wanted help herself or wished to help him. But the clasp of her hand was so firm, so throbbing with vitality, that he wished he might still hold those fingers closed within his own after they had come to level footing. The thought of it sent the blood coursing through his veins, and an impulse started up within him—an impulse that came out of the very depths of his being and made him forget for the time being everything in the world except this moment on a wild hillside with beauty and grace and youth within his reach.
When they reached the evergreens Cherry bounded ahead and left him to follow. The ground was level and soft underfoot and carpeted with cones and needles. Once she stopped suddenly in a little space open to the sky, and stooping down picked a wildflower and held it up to him.
"Not often you find them growing in a place so sheltered as this," she remarked as she gave him the flower.
He took it and looked from the flower, pure, white and soft, to her face. Unconsciously his gaze shifted to her throat, as pure and white and soft as the flower he held in his hand. Then she turned quickly and hurried off again into the cover of the evergreens.
Once she stopped so suddenly and turned so unexpectedly to meet him that he had almost run into her before he could check himself. Then as he stood in questioning attitude she shook her hair back from her face and with a ripple of a laugh was away again before he could speak.
As King followed her an unpleasant thought came suddenly to him. There was one thing he had always dreaded in women. He had never been quite unconscious of the subtle power they exerted—but he had always been suspicious of their motives. There was something so free, so healthful, so simple in Cherry's manner that he was almost disarmed of suspicion. And yet she was so coy, so wilful, so roguish that instinctively he felt himself assuming the defensive—a defensive, too, against himself and the impulses that arose within him and clamored for expression.
Suddenly she stopped and looked down at a small pool of cool fresh water fed from a little spring that bubbled out of the earth just a few yards away. A half dozen large stones lay touching the edge of the water, and before King realized what she was about, she had dropped her berries and hat and was on her knees with her two hands resting on a small boulder, her lips touching the surface of the water. As he looked at her he could not help thinking what a child she was—and how very much older he was. Nor could he think it any less when in a moment she raised her head and glanced up at him with a rare flush in her cheeks.
"Oh, this is good," she cried. "Look—there's a stone for you!"
He smiled slowly, but her spirit was irresistible. He got down beside her, his hands upon a boulder almost touching the stone upon which she was leaning for support.
When they had both drunk from the pool, instead of getting up immediately, they remained where they were, their hands upon the boulders, their eyes fixed upon the smooth surface of the water beneath them. For a moment only they looked, a moment in which both felt a power like a spell that held them gazing into the far depths that lay mirrored in the quiet pool. They were gazing like two children deep down into the depths of the blue skies reflected far below where the white clouds floated beyond the downward pointing tops of evergreens.
All at once, however, King glanced at the face of the girl where it was smiling up at him from the water—and in a moment he was conscious of a change. Though her face was smiling it was grave too, grave even as his, and he knew that in the look each gave the other there were depths that were more unfathomable than the skies—the depths of life itself in all its mystery and serious meaning.
They got up and walked off down the path towards the cabin, strangely silent, both of them. As they emerged from the cover of the woods and came within sight of the cabin only a few yards ahead of them, Cherry stopped and laid her hand quickly upon King's arm. King glanced at her, and then turned in the direction indicated by her eyes. A man was just leaving the doorway of the cabin where old Keith McBain was still sitting. It was McCartney.
For a moment Cherry stood silently watching him, her hand still upon King's arm. Then she started slowly towards the cabin, her eyes still following the movements of the big foreman as he walked down the path that led from the cabin to the camp.
"You wanted to know why I didn't answer when first you called me to-day," she said, almost in a whisper. "Well—I wasn't sure that it was you—I thought it might be him."
There came into her eyes a look of appeal which changed quickly to the look that King had seen there the night before when she had asked him if he could fight. She seemed on the point of speaking, but with an impatient toss of her head she hurried down the pathway, King following closely behind her.
CHAPTER FOUR
In another hour King was ready to take the trail again. Beside him stood Cherry, her own black horse waiting only a few yards away.
A dark cloud had risen in the north-east, and King glanced quickly about him at the skies and at the trees rustling noisily in the little breeze that had sprung up.
"It's like rain," he warned her quietly. "Perhaps you'd better not go this time."
The faintest suspicion of a frown passed quickly over her face, but that was all the reply his warning drew from her. Before he could help her she had stepped upon a low-cut stump and had sprung lightly into the saddle.
Keith McBain watched them from his seat near the doorway.
"I'll be looking for you early, my girl," he said.
"I'll be back before it begins to rain," she replied, and turning her horse about started towards the trail.
King got up at once, pausing a moment to bid the old man good-bye before he followed Cherry.
"Look after yourself," the old fellow replied, "and come in next trip. It'll be dull for you now—and we'd be glad to see you."
"I'll come," King replied. "I'd like to come—and I'd like to hear you talk again."
"And send that girl of mine back before she gets too far away," the old fellow called to King who had already started down the pathway.
The clouds that were gathering behind them as they rode westward seemed to hasten the coming of the darkness, although the sun was just setting when they started. Far up the right-of-way, along which the trail ran for a little distance, the western sky was a blaze of glory between the rows of tall trees that stood back from the grade on either side. Once or twice as they rode along King turned in his saddle to look again at the storm clouds gathering in the east. There was little fear of their being overtaken by the storm—it was still a long way off and was coming up very slowly. And yet King wondered that the girl should be so keen upon taking a ride when at any moment the dark bank of heavy thunder clouds might suddenly rush up and force her to ride back through a drenching rain, to say nothing of the thunder and lightning. But such a possibility apparently never entered the mind of Cherry McBain, or if it did she never showed the least concern about it. She urged her horse forward at a steady pace that made King hurry to keep up. Not till they had covered the whole length of the trail lying along the right-of-way and had gone some distance beyond where it turned into the woods and started up the hill did she draw rein. Then she brought her horse slowly to a walk and turned to look behind her. She had not spoken since she left the cabin, and as King drew up with her he ventured to ask if she didn't think she had gone far enough. The look she gave him by way of reply was enough to make him wish he had not spoken.
"Are you really so anxious to have me go back?" she asked.
It was King's turn to look at her in surprise. There was something more than surprise in his voice, however, when he spoke.
"I guess I must have said what wasn't in my mind to say," he replied very quietly. "I don't think you got me quite right there."
Suddenly she brought her horse to a standstill and slipped out of the saddle to the ground.
"Get down and walk for a little while," she said, looking about her as she spoke. "The rain is a long way off yet and I'm not afraid."
King responded by getting down at once. He stood for a moment with the bridle in his hand and waited for her to come up to him. Then they walked slowly side by side along the trail. For a few minutes they proceeded in silence, King waiting for her to begin.
"I was afraid you might want to send me back," she began at last, "and I didn't want to go. I wanted to talk to you. I want to tell you about my father. You saw him to-night, and you know there is something wrong—you couldn't help knowing that as well as I do."
She was not asking a question. She was merely stating a fact in which she confidently expected King's concurrence. The pause was not to give him an opportunity of replying. She wished only to collect her thoughts, to marshal the parts of the story she was about to tell him.
"My father is a railway construction contractor," she went on after she had walked a few yards without speaking. "The men love him—and they hate him—both at the same time. He's generous and he's straight, and he's good—but he's hard in his dealings and he crushes everyone who opposes him. For years he has taken railway contracts and worked in the woods. I was born in a mining camp out west, where my father was prospecting. When I began to grow up I was allowed to spend only a few weeks each summer in camp with him and mother. The rest of the summer I spent with my aunt in Winnipeg, where I went to school. But I never liked it. I always wanted to be with them in the camp. I loved the life and I loved the men and their rough ways. Most of all, I loved my father—my mother was very quiet and very sweet, but my father and I have always been chums."
She paused a moment to pick up a small stick from the road which she sent whirling along the trail ahead of her.
"One day something happened. My mother told me what she knew about it and my father knows that she told me, but he has never spoken to me about it. Two years ago he left my mother and me in the city and went to the coast with some others to look for gold. One of the men was Bill McCartney, who was a teamster for my father during the previous summer. In the spring they came back unexpectedly. Father had written us to tell us that he had made a good strike, but when he came back there was a change. McCartney was with him, and one night they sat all night long and there were loud words between them. In the morning my father told us that he had lost everything and that McCartney was going back to the coast again. He told mother something that made her cry, but he said, 'A bargain is a bargain—and I count this a good bargain.' Those are the only words I ever heard him speak about the affair. McCartney left that night. After that my mother grew sick—and she never got better. Later I came to camp to be with her, and one night she told me that she was dying—she said her heart was breaking—breaking for my father. She told me that some day McCartney would be back—that she hoped she might die before he came. She died last summer and McCartney came back just a few weeks later."
The muscles in King's arms grew rigid and his hands clenched fiercely as his mind rested upon the fragmentary story that Cherry McBain had told him. Instinctively he felt that Bill McCartney had been in some way the cause of the death of Keith McBain's wife.
"There was something more," she said, suddenly breaking in upon his musing. "When McCartney came back my father made him foreman of the camp and ever since then the control of the work has been gradually passing out of father's hands. To make matters worse, father has been drinking until his very mind is going. Some day, I am afraid, he will drink himself to death. And it is not all on account of the loss of my mother. There is something else. The bargain he made with McCartney did not work out satisfactorily. The claim turned out badly and McCartney came back dissatisfied. And now—though he has never said so openly—he has plans of a different kind. Once he met me alone on the trail—he had followed me without my knowing it—and when he tried to be pleasant to me in his own way, I told him to leave me. He grinned and took me by the arm and then—I struck him with my hand across the face. His expression never changed, but he warned me never to do that again—and he spoke of my father. The next day father came to me—his voice broken—his face haggard; he hadn't slept all night. And he told me not to make McCartney angry. He told me to stay away from him—go back to the city—anything, but to keep out of his way and give him no cause for anger. I told my father that I would not leave him—and I won't. But I can't go anywhere without that man shadowing me. I can't speak to one of the men but he comes and forces his attentions upon me, though he knows that I hate him. One thing—he has never offered to touch me again, and I have never had the heart to tell him what I think. I am always thinking of what may happen—and I can see the fear in my father's eyes."
She came a little closer to King and laid her hand on his arm.
"Some day," she said slowly, and her breast rose and fell fitfully as she spoke, "some day he will not wait any longer. I shall have to make my choice. Either I shall smile on him and accept his attentions—or I shall send him away and bring upon myself the complete ruin of a life that is already broken beyond hope of repair."
A faint rumbling of distant thunder caused them both to stop and look behind them.
"It is something new for me to be afraid. I never was afraid before—only there has been a change—a change that I don't like because I don't know how to meet it. The men in the camp have always been good to me. My mother was good to them and they liked her—and I have tried to be good to them. I have always thought they liked me too. But there are some—we meet them once in a while—who can't stand good treatment. They weren't born for it. And McCartney has got a few of that kind with him."
They had come to a ridge overlooking a valley, a sort of ravine, through which a small stream picked its straggling course between the hills. Dusk had already set in and the stream was only faintly visible.
Without announcing her intentions, Cherry dropped her bridle-rein and left her horse standing on the trail while she led the way to a knoll that commanded a better view of the ravine. For a long time she stood looking to the westward where only a faint arc of light was still left low upon the horizon. Her hat was in her hand and the quiet breeze that came from the east blew a few loose locks of her dark hair about her face. King gazed at her intently, and thought of McCartney.
He had picked up a stout tamarac stick on his way to the knoll. It was almost as thick as his wrist and was sound and dry. Without speaking a word and without twitching a muscle of his face he slowly bent the stick in his two hands until it began to snap. Then he twisted it until the frayed ends parted and he held the two ragged bits of stick in his hands. These he flung into a clump of bushes on the slope below.
Cherry looked at him quietly.
"No," she said slowly, "not that—not that. Some day it may have to come—some day I may call you—but not yet."
King smiled gravely.
"I told you last night about my brother, Dick," he said. "Well—Dick is dead."
"King!"
She had never before called him by his first name.
"Yes—I had a letter last night. It was waiting for me when I got down. But that's all gone now—it's past and settled. But this other thing—it has mixed me some. I didn't think I'd ever want to hit a man again. And I'm not looking for McCartney—not for any man," he said, and his eyes turned to the spot where he had thrown the broken stick. "But no man ever found me running—and Bill McCartney won't."
Cherry laid one hand on his arm and looked at him.
"He has gone to town with a lot of men to-night," she said. "They often ride in on Saturday night—that's why we have been able to ride and talk together. He will be there when you get to town—and all day to-morrow. And listen—I'm not afraid—not afraid for you, nor for me. But I don't want you to meet him yet."
King's reply came quietly and with great deliberation.
"I've been in that town since the first tent was pitched," he observed in a voice that was even and showed no excitement. "I've watched it grow up—and I've gone pretty much where I liked. I guess I'll go on in about the same way."
"Oh, I'm not afraid of that," Cherry replied. "I've told you I'm not afraid for you—and not for myself. But if the break should come—"
"I guess you don't need to worry about that," King remarked. "There won't be any break between me and McCartney—not till there's a reason for it."
Cherry went back again to the trail and taking the bridle-rein in her hand led the way down towards the river. King followed her until they came to the roughly-made bridge that spanned the little stream, a hurriedly constructed bridge of tamarac poles that had been thrown into place by the advance parties of railway workers.
"I have never gone farther than this," said Cherry, when they had come to the centre of the bridge. "I often ride out in the evenings and stand here for a while before going back. Some day I am going on to town, just to see what sort of place you have."
"This is the White Pine," said King. "I have crossed it often higher up. It gets very nasty after two or three days' rain."
Suddenly a flash of lightning reminded them that the storm was approaching. While they talked they had all but forgotten the black clouds rolling up from the east. Cherry got up at once upon the stout log that ran along the side of the bridge to keep the poles in place, and putting one foot into the stirrup drew herself up lightly into the saddle. When she was seated she turned and looked at King.
"We shall ride out again some time," she said, and gave him her hand.
He closed his big hand over her fingers for a moment without speaking. When he was about to turn away she clung still to his hand and looked at him very earnestly.
"Why don't you sometimes talk a little?" she asked.
The abruptness with which she asked the question brought the slow smile back to King's face.
"I'm not good at talking," he replied. "Besides—I like to hear you talk."
King had not ventured before in their short acquaintance to offer a compliment. He did not mean to compliment her now. He was speaking his mind simply, directly, sincerely.
She regarded him strangely for a moment in silence.
"Sometimes," she said at last, "sometimes I think—"
She paused a moment and then withdrew her hand suddenly and wheeling her horse about went off at a gallop down the trail, leaving him gazing after her in wonderment.
When she had passed out of sight he looked once at the clouds before getting into the saddle and then, getting up, he gave a sharp whistle that brought Sal bounding to him, and set off along the trail that led to town. Behind him the storm was coming up rapidly.
"It's you for it now," he said to his horse as he leaned forward and stroked the warm neck.
Only once after that did his voice break the silence of the long ride. The first drops of rain brought him suddenly out of his dreaming.
"If you could only talk!" he said to himself, and his voice was full of impatience.
But King Howden was no talker.
CHAPTER FIVE
The town was in a state of excitement that was not altogether new. In fact, the few score of permanent residents in the place always looked to Saturday night to furnish some little change from the humdrum existence of the week. There is nothing very stirring about sitting in a village—even if it is an outpost of civilization a hundred and twenty-five miles from anywhere—with nothing to do from day to day except to greet the newcomers who arrive from the outside to begin their search for land. But when a couple of red-coated men wearing blue breeches striped on either side with gold, their heads covered with wide-brimmed Stetsons, their feet stoutly booted and spurred—when two such men ride in from over the Saskatchewan border and go clanking down the one street in the place a certain amount of shuffling is almost inevitable.
Nor was the flutter of excitement due to any fear that the "Mounties" were on business bent. Since the jurisdiction of the famous riders of the plains did not extend any farther than the border, their sudden appearance set no one guessing as to who, among the men of the town, was being entertained, a criminal unawares. The place had served as a week-end retreat for the men of the force before, and all such occasions had turned out more or less eventful.
No previous arrangement had been made that would have explained the sudden influx of men who came into town from all over the district to spend the week-end together. But small groups had begun to arrive before the sun had set—some of the settlers had come in during the day from their shacks on lonely homesteads and made a fair-sized reception committee to greet the later arrivals. There were men there from Rubble's survey gang, and a dozen or more from the camp of Keith McBain.
That they should make their rendezvous late in the evening at Mike Cheney's was only natural. There was MacMurray's lodging house, of course, that stood at the end of the street near the river, but no one came to town to eat. Cheney's place stood at the other end of the street—discreetly apart. And those who came and went exercised considerable discretion and talked very little when others were in hearing.
Mike Cheney himself treated his business very philosophically. In a man's country where men were in the habit of taking life none too seriously, there must needs be some place to foregather—so he thought—on the days when the rain drove everyone indoors, and on nights when the rest of the town had gone to bed. Furthermore, there was need of a place of last call for the men on their way to the railway camps or the homesteads. Besides, what were men to do in the winter, with the thermometer dancing back and forth between thirty and forty degrees below zero, if they had to depend solely upon bad tea and weak coffee? Mike declared, and to all intents and purposes he believed, that he served the community in proportion as he was successful in dispensing conviviality among its members. It didn't occur to him to feel abashed that a few held him and his business in abhorrence. Nor did it worry him that he was conducting his business without legal sanction. It would have caused him as much trouble to win the regard of such as held him in contempt as to procure an official document setting the seal of the government's approval on his business. He was content to give little or no heed to either.
And so, without any special announcement, and without any invitation, the visitors took their way, when it was late enough, to the large room at the back of Mike Cheney's place, where they knew they would be made heartily welcome. And to tell the truth, a welcome of some kind was something the men felt the need of. Rain had begun to fall quite heavily—what had looked like a mere thunder shower when it appeared first in the north-east, had steadied down to an all-night rain. And certainly MacMurray's lodging house offered no cheer. No one, furthermore, even cast his eyes a second time in the direction of the two large log buildings the government had erected for immigrants without shelter.
The room at the back of Cheney's place was blue with smoke that rendered almost useless the large kerosene lamp that hung from the ceiling. In one corner of the room a small group were already well into a game of poker. Though the stakes were of necessity low—for what can men do on a dollar a day?—the interest in the game was sufficiently high to attract a half dozen spectators who watched the play in silence and smoked incessantly.
In another corner three or four land-seekers were exchanging opinions of the fine points of the law governing the rights of the "squatter," and the rather intricate regulations that made provision for what is known as "jumping" a claim.
In the corner farthest from the door where Mike Cheney stood at the service of his customers, Big Bill McCartney was listening to what one of the red-coated visitors had to say about the effect of solitude on a man's nerves. The subject was one that evidently appealed strongly to one of MacDougall's men, whose mood was rather too jovial for so early in the evening and whose literary instincts prompted him to attempt the metrical flights of the lines beginning,
"I am monarch of all I survey."
McCartney pushed him back on the bench where he had been sitting and turned to hear something that Cheney was offering to the discussion.
"There's another thing about this country," said Mike, leaning towards McCartney and the red-coat. "It's a-gettin' to some of the boys in a way they never expected."
He paused a moment to wipe up a little water from the table with his cloth.
"Now there was old Bob Nason—he was before your time here, Bill. He was one of the first to come in here when the trail was opened into the valley. There was a good fellow for you—an' a good man too. No better ever put foot on the ground. Saw him heave a barrel of salt into the back end of his wagon—just like that."
Mike used appropriate gestures to show how easily the thing had been done.
"I'd like to have seen you an' him together, Bill," he went on, and a broad smile accompanied his remarks. "Could 'a' give you about all you could handle, Bill, if size counts for anything. Anyhow—poor old Bob came in here one night—it was a night like this—only there was a regular howlin' wind and the rain was heavy. I hears a poundin' at the door—I was all alone—an' I gets up and opens it. An' there stands Old Bob—feet bare—shirt gone—head bare—pants all in rags—an' mud an' water—it was awful!"
He paused in an effort, evidently, to call the picture more vividly to mind.
"An' I says, 'Bob, what's wrong?' An' then I knew right away what it was—from the grin he gave me. But I says, 'Come in an' get something'. An' poor old Bob comes in an' sits down an' starts cryin' like a baby. An' I says, 'Bob, you're lookin' bad,' but he wouldn't talk. I sat with him all night an' the next day we sent him out with a couple of boys that was totin' freight."
For a moment Mike paused while he turned to pick up an empty glass and look at it.
"My God," he said, looking into the glass, "to think of old Bob losin' his head out there—just for the sake of someone to talk to. I'll never forget it."
"It'll get to anyone if he's only left alone long enough," commented the policeman, and he went on to tell of a similar case that had come under his observation in the West.
"There's just one thing this country needs right now, Mike—an' it needs it bad," McCartney offered by way of supplementing what had just been said. As he spoke he held a lighted match in his hand ready to apply to a cigarette he had just rolled.
"You mean—" Cheney waited.
For a moment McCartney was silent while he applied the match to his cigarette.
"I mean—"
The door opened suddenly and a girl stepped into the room.
"——there's the answer," he concluded.
Several of the men glanced up as the door closed and the girl came forward to where Cheney was standing on the corner. He greeted her quite casually.
"Hello, Anne," he said, "you sure picked a good night for strollin'. What's the idea?"
For a moment she said nothing by way of reply as she shook the rain from the cloak that hung loosely about her shoulders. Then she looked round the room at the men.
"Nothin's the idea," she remarked. "It's my night off and—well, where can you go in this place. Slingin' grub's all right—ten hours a day—but you want a change, don't you? Give me a smoke."
The request was addressed to McCartney, who proceeded at once to roll a cigarette while she looked on.
"Nobody in this town let's me in if they know I'm comin'," she remarked in a tone that carried not the slightest trace of regret. She wished simply to record the fact merely.
And a fact it was, for Anne, who was the single waitress at the lodging-house, had been placed in a class by herself in the town, though not a man in it—or woman either—had any facts upon which to base their prejudice.
For a moment only during the process of rolling the cigarette the eyes of McCartney and the girl met. No one in the room saw the exchange of glances and no one could have detected the slightest change of expression in either face.