By and bye a team and a jolting waggon swept into sight, and Mrs.

Hastings rose when the man who drove it pulled his horses up.

"It's Sproatly; I wonder what has brought him here," she said, and as the man who sprang down walked towards the house she gazed at him almost incredulously.

"He's quite smart," she added. "I don't see a single patch on that jacket, and he has positively got his hair cut."

"Is that an unusual thing in Mr. Sproatly's case?" Agatha asked.

"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings. "It's very unusual indeed. What is stranger still, he has taken the old grease-spotted band off his hat, after clinging to it affectionately for the last twelve months."

Agatha fancied that the soft hat, which fell shapelessly over part of Sproatly's face, needed something to replace the discarded band; but in another moment or two he entered the room. He shook hands with them both, and then sat down and smiled.

"You are looking remarkably fresh, but appearances are not invariably to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par," he said. "I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind."

"I don't," said Mrs. Hastings resolutely; "Allen doesn't, either.

Besides, didn't you get into some trouble over that tonic?"

"It was the cough cure," said Sproatly with a grin. "I sold a man at Lander's one of the large-sized bottles and when he had taken some he felt a good deal better. Then he seems to have argued the thing out like this: if one dose had relieved the cough, a dozen should drive it out of him altogether, and he took the lot. He slept for forty-eight hours afterwards, and when I came across him at the settlement he attacked me with a club. The fault, I may point out, was in his logic.

Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph of the Deutcher Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects recognised it. One hung it up in his shanty. The other asked me to hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it.

He, however, produced his dollar; said he felt so much better after what he'd done that he didn't grudge it."

"I'm afraid we're not worth powder and shot," said Mrs. Hastings. "Do you ever remember our buying any tonics or pictures from you?"

"I don't, though I have felt that you ought to have done it," and Sproatly, who paused a moment, turned towards Agatha with a little whimsical inclination. "The professional badinage of an unlicensed dealer in patent medicines may now and then mercifully cover a good deal of embarra.s.sment. Miss Ismay has brought something pleasantly characteristic of the Old Country along with her."

His hostess disregarded the last remark. "Then if you didn't expect to sell us anything, what did you come for?"

"For supper," said Sproatly cheerfully. "Besides that, to take Miss Rawlinson a drive. I told her last night it would afford me considerable pleasure to show her the prairie. We could go round by Lander's and back."

"Then you will probably come across her somewhere about the straw-pile with the kiddies."

Sproatly took the hint, and when he went out Mrs. Hastings laughed.

"You would hardly suppose that was a young man of excellent education?"

she said. "So it's on Winifred's account he has driven over; at first I fancied it was on yours."

Agatha was astonished, but she smiled. "If Winifred favours him with her views about young men he will probably be rather sorry for himself.

He lives near you?"

"No," said Mrs. Hastings; "in the summer he lives in his waggon, or under it, I don't know which. Of course, if he's really taken with Winifred he will have to alter that."

"But he has only seen her once--you can't mean that he is serious."

"I really can't speak for Sproatly, but it would be quite in keeping with the customs of the country if he was."

A minute or two later Agatha saw Winifred in the waggon when it reappeared from behind the strawpile, and Mrs. Hastings turned towards the window.

"She has gone with him," she said significantly. "Unfortunately, he has taken my kiddies too. If he brings them back with no bones broken it will be a relief to me."

CHAPTER XII.

WANDERERS.

Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings when the latter, who was driving over to Wyllard's homestead with her one afternoon, pulled up her team while they were still some little distance away from it, and looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now faintly flecked with green. On the other, ploughing teams were scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out behind them. The great sweep of gra.s.ses that rustled joyously before a glorious warm wind, gleamed almost luminous, and overhead hung a vault of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, skeins and wisps of birds moved up from the south.

"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall back-set," she said. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly." Then she glanced towards where the teams were hauling unusually heavy ploughs through the gra.s.sy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against him. Some of his neighbours, including my husband, would have sown a little less and held a reserve in hand."

Agatha remembered what Wyllard had told her one night on board the _Scarrowmania_, and smiled, for she fancied that she understood the man. He was not one to hedge, as she had heard it called, or cautiously hold his hand. He staked boldly, but she felt that this was not only for the sake of the dollars that he might stand to gain. It was part of his nature--the result of an optimistic faith or courage that appealed to her, and sheer love of effort. She also fancied that his was no spasmodic, impulsive activity. She could imagine him holding on as steadfastly with everything against him, exacting all that men and teams and machines could do. It struck her as curious that she should feel so sure of this; but she admitted that it was the case.

In the meanwhile he was approaching them, sitting in the driving-seat of a big machine that ripped broad furrows through the crackling sod.

Four horses plodded wearily in front of it until he thrust one hand over, and there was a rattle and clanking as he swung them and the machine round beside the waggon. Then he got down, and stood smiling up at Agatha with his soft hat in his hand and the sunlight falling full upon his weather-darkened face. It was not a particularly striking face, but there was something in it, a hint of restrained force and steadfastness, she thought, which Gregory's did not possess, and for a moment or two she watched him un.o.btrusively. She felt she could not help it.

He wore an old blue shirt, open at the throat and belted into trousers of blue duck at the waist, and she noticed the fine symmetry of his somewhat spare figure. The absence of any superfluous fleshiness struck her as in keeping with her view of his character. The man was well-endued physically; but apart from the strong vitality that was expressed in every line of his pose he looked clean, as she vaguely described it to herself. There was, at least, an indefinable something about him that was apparently born of a simple, healthful life spent in determined labour in the open air. It became plainer as she remembered other men she had met upon whom the mark of the beast was unmistakably set. Then Mrs. Hastings broke the silence.

"Well," she said, "we have driven over as we promised. I've no doubt you will give us supper, but we'll go on and sit down with Mrs. Nansen in the meanwhile. I expect you're too busy to talk to us."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we promised!'"]

Wyllard laughed, and it occurred to Agatha that his laugh was wholesome as well as pleasant.

"I generally am busy," he admitted. "These beasts have, however, been at it since sun-up, and they're rather played out now. I'll talk to you as long as you like after supper, which will soon be ready. It's bad economy to ask too much from them."

Agatha noticed that though the near horse's coat was foul with dust and sweat he laid his brown hand upon it, and she supposed she must be fanciful, for it seemed to her that the gentleness with which he did it was very suggestive.

"I wonder if that's the only reason that influences you," she said.

A twinkle crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It seems to me a good one as far as it goes; anyway, I've been driven rather hard myself now and then, and I didn't like it."

"Doesn't that usually result in making one drive somebody else harder to make up for it, when one has the opportunity?"

"If it does it certainly isn't logical. Logic's rather a fine thing when it's sound."

"Then," Mrs. Hastings broke in, "I'll suggest a proposition: what's to be the result of all this ploughing if we have harvest frost or the market goes against you?"

"Quite a big deficit," said Wyllard cheerfully.

"And that doesn't cause you any anxiety?"

"I'll have had some amus.e.m.e.nt for my money."

Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amus.e.m.e.nt!" Then she looked back at Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your back as straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks as if it wanted to lie down."

Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two more rows of furrows still to do."

"I suppose that is a hint," and Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when the waggon jolted on.