One day, as they were eating their supper of sour bread and canned beans, Gearheart irritatedly broke out: "Ans, why don't you git married? It 'u'd simplify matters a good 'eal if you should. 'Old Russ'

is no good."

"What's the matter with _your_ gittin' married?" replied Anson, imperturbably pinching oil the cooked part of the loaf, skilfully leaving the doughy part.

"I ain't on the marry; that's all."

"Neither am I."

"Well, you ought to be."

"Don't see it."

"Well, now, let me show it. We can't go on this way. I'm gittin' so poor you can count my ribs through my shirt. Jest think how comfortable it would make things! No more awful coffee; no more canned baked beans; no more cussed, infernal, everlastin', leathery flapjacks; no more soggy bread--confound it!" Here he seized the round inner part of the loaf, from which the crust had been flaked, and flung it through the open door far down toward the garden.

"Bert! that's the last bit of bread we've got in the house."

"What's the odds? We couldn't eat it."

"We could 'a' baked it over."

"We _could_ eat dog, but we don't," replied Bert gloomily. His temper was getting frightful of late.

"We'll be all right when Flaxen comes back," said Ans, laughing.

"Say, now, you've said that a thousand times this winter. You know well enough Flaxen's out o' this. We ain't countin' on her," blurted Gearheart, just in the mood to say disagreeable things.

"Wha' d' y' mean? Ain't she comin' back in June?"

"Probably; but she won't stay."

"No: that's so. She'll have to go back in September; but that's three months, an' we may sell out by that time if we have a good crop.

Anyway, we'll live high fer a spell. We ought to have a letter from her to-night, hadn't we?"

"I'm goin' down to see, if you'll wash the dishes."

"All right. Take a horse."

"No: the horses are tired. I'll foot it."

"Wal, ain't you too?"

"Want anythin' from the store?"

"Yes: git a hunk o' bacon an' some canned corn, tomatoes, an' some canned salmon; if y' think we can stand the pressure, bring home a can o' peaches."

And so Gearheart started off for town in the dusk, afoot, in order to spare the horse, as though he had not himself walked all day long in the soft, muddy ground. The wind was soft and moist, and the light of the stars coming out in the east fell upon Ins upturned eyes with unspeakable majesty. Yet he saw them but dimly. He was dreaming of a face which was often in his mind now--a face not unlike Flaxen's, only older, more glorified, more womanly. He was asking himself some searching questions to-night as his tired limbs dragged themselves over the gra.s.sy road.

What was he toiling for, anyway? What mattered all this terrible tramping to and fro--was it an end or only a means? Would there ever come anything like satisfaction of desire? Life for him had been a silent, gloomy, and almost purposeless struggle. He had not looked forward to anything very definite, though vaguely he had hoped for something better.

As his eyes fell upon the twinkling, yellow lights of the village his thoughts came back to Flaxen and to the letter which he expected to receive from her. He quickened his steps, though his feet were sore and his limbs stiff and lame.

The one little street presented its usual Sat.u.r.day-night appearance.

Teams were hitched to the narrow plank walk before the battlemented wooden stores. Men stood here and there in listless knots, smoking, talking of the weather and of seeding, while their wives, surrounded by shy children, traded within. Being Sat.u.r.day night, the saloons were full of men, and shouts and the clink of beer mugs could be heard at intervals. But the larger crowd was gathered at the post-office: uncouth farmers of all nationalities, clerks, land-sharks, lawyers, and giggling girls in couples, who took delight in mingling with the crowd.

Judge Sid Balser was over from Boomtown, and was talking expansively to a crowd of "leading citizens" about a scheme to establish a horse-car line between Boomtown and Belleplain.

Colonel Arran, of the Belleplain _Argus_, in another corner, not ten feet away, was saying that the judge was "a scoundrel, a blow-hard, and would down his best lover for a pewter cent," to all of which the placid judge was accustomed and gave no heed.

Bert paid no attention to the colonel or to the judge, or to any of this buzzing. "They are just talking to hear themselves make a noise, anyway. They talk about building up the country--they who are a rope and a grindstone around the necks of the rest of us, who do the work."

When Gearheart reached his box he found a large, square letter in it, and looking at it saw that it was from Flaxen directed to Anson. "Her picture, probably," he said as he held it up. As he was pushing rapidly out he heard a half-drunken fellow say, in what he thought was an inaudible tone:

"There's Gearheart. Wonder what's become of his little Norsk."

Gearheart turned, and pushing through the crowd, thrust his eyes into the face of the speaker with a glare that paralysed the poor fool.

"What's become o' your sense?" he snarled, and his voice had in it a carnivorous note.

With this warning he turned contemptuously and pa.s.sed out, leaving the discomfited rowdy to settle accounts with his friends. But there was a low note in the ruffian's voice, an insinuating inflection, which stayed with him all along the way home, like a bad taste in the mouth.

He saw by the aid of a number of these side-lights of late that Flaxen never could come back to them in the old relation; but how could she come back?

Gearheart stopped and gazed thoughtfully upward. She must come back as the wife of Ans or himself. "Pooh! she is only a child," he said, snapping his finger and walking on. But the insistence remained. "She is not a child--she is a maiden, soon to be a woman; she has no relatives, no home to go to but ours after her two or three years of schooling are over. It must still be her home; no breath of scandal shall touch her if I can prevent it; and after her two years are up"--after a long, motionless reverie he strode forward--"she shall choose between us."

There had grown up between the two friends of late a constraint, or, to be more exact, Gearheart had held himself in before his friend, had not discussed these problems with him at all. "Ans is just like a boy," he had said to himself; "he don't seem to understand the case, and I don't know as it's my duty to enlighten him; he either feels very sure about her, or he has not understood the situation."

He was thinking this now as he strode across the spongy sod toward the lighted windows of the shanty. The air was damp and chill, for the ice was not yet out of the ponds or swamps of tall gra.s.ses. An occasional prairie-c.o.c.k sent forth a m.u.f.fled, drowsy "boom"; low-hung flights of geese, gabbling anxiously, or the less-orderly ducks, with hissing wings, swept by overhead, darkly limned against the stars. There was a strange charm in the raw air. The weary man almost forgot his pain as he drew deep breathings of the night.

It was significant of the restraint that had grown up between him and Anson that he held the letter from Flaxen unopened in his hand simply because it was directed to his friend. He knew that it was as much to him as to Anson, and yet, feeling as he had of late, he would not open it, for he would have been angry if Anson had opened one directed to him. He simply judged Anson by himself.

The giant was asleep when he entered. His great, s.h.a.ggy head lay beside the lamp on his crossed arms. Bert laid the letter down beside him and shook him.

"h.e.l.lo! got back, hey?" the sleeper said, rousing up sluggishly.

"Anything?" Then he caught sight of the letter. "Oh, bless her little heart! Wonder what it is? Picture, bet my hat!" Here he opened it.

"Gee-whittiker, thunder and turf, gosh-all--Friday!--look a-there!

Ain't she growed!" he yelled, holding the picture by the corner and moving it into all sorts of positions. "That's my little girl--our Flaxen; she can't grow so purty but what I'd know her. See that hair done up on the top of her head! Look at that dress, an' the thingumajigs around her neck! Oh, she's gittin' there, Smith, hey?"

"She's changing pretty fast," said Bert listlessly.

"Changin' fast! Say, ol' man, what's the matter with you? Are y' sick?"

"I'm played out, that's all."

"Darn my skin! I should think y' would be, draggin' all day, an' then walkin' all o' four mile to the post-office. Jest lay down on the bed there, ol' boy, while I read the letter to yeh. Say, ol' man, don't you git up in the mornin' till you please. I'll look after the breakfast,"

insisted Anson, struck with remorse by the expression on Bert's face.

"But here's the letter. Short an' sweet."

DEAR BOYS [Bless the little fist that wrote that!]. I send my picture. I think it is a nice one. The girls say it flatters me, but Will says it don't [What the devil do we care what Will says?]--I guess it does, don't you? I wish I had a picture of you both; I want to show the girls how handsome you are [she means me, of course. No, confound it] how handsome you are both of you. I wish you would send me your pictures both of you. I ain't got much to say. I will write again soon.