CHAPTER XVIII

A DELICATE ERRAND

There was a sharp frost outside, and the prairie was white with a thin sprinkle of snow, when a little party sat down to supper in the Hastings homestead, one Sat.u.r.day evening. Hastings sat at the head of the table, Mrs. Hastings at the foot with her little daughters, and Agatha, Sproatly, and Winifred between them. Sproatly and Winifred had just driven over from the railroad settlement, as they did now and then, and that was why the meal, which was usually served early in the evening, had been delayed an hour or so. The two hired men, whom Mrs. Hastings had not kept waiting, had gone out to some task in the barn or stables.

Sproatly took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and laid them on the table. There had been a remarkable change in his appearance, for he now wore store clothes, and the skin coat he had taken off when he came in was a new one. It occurred to Mrs. Hastings that there was a certain significance in this, though Sproatly had changed his occupation some time before, and now drove about the prairie as an agent for certain makers of agricultural implements.

"I called for your mail and Gregory's before we left," he said. "I had to go around to see Hawtrey, which is partly what made us so late, though Winifred couldn't get away as soon as she expected. They have floods of wheat coming in to the elevators and I understand that the milling people can't take another bushel in."

Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha, who understood what the look meant, for Sproatly had hitherto spoken of Winifred circ.u.mspectly as Miss Rawlinson.

Hastings took the papers which Agatha handed to him and laid them aside.

"We'll let them wait until supper's over. I don't expect any news that's particularly good," he said. "The bottom's apparently dropping out of the wheat market."

"Mr. Hamilton can't get cars enough, and we'll have to shut down in another day or two unless they turn up," remarked Winifred. "It's much the same all along the line. The Winnipeg traffic people wired us that they haven't an empty car in the yards. Why do you rush the grain in that way? It's bound to break the market."

Hastings smiled. "Well," he explained, "a good many of us have bills to meet. For another thing, they've had a heavy crop in Manitoba, Dakota and Minnesota, and I suppose some folks have an idea they'll get in first before the other people swamp the Eastern markets. I think they're foolish. It's a temporary scare. Prices will stiffen by and by."

"That's what Mr. Hamilton says, but I suppose the thing is natural. Men are very like sheep, aren't they?"

Mr. Hastings laughed. "Well," he admitted, "we are, in some respects.

When prices break a little we generally rush to sell. One or two of my neighbors are holding on, and it's hardly likely that very much of my wheat will be flung on to a falling market."

"We have been getting a good deal from the Range."

There was displeasure in Hastings' face. "Gregory's selling largely on Harry's account?"

"They've been hauling wheat in to us for the last few weeks," said Winifred.

Agatha noticed that Hastings glanced at his wife significantly, but Mrs.

Hastings interposed and forbade any further conversation on the subject until supper was over. After the table had been cleared Hastings opened his papers. The others sat expectantly silent, while he turned the pages over one after another.

"No," he said, "there's no news of Harry, and I'm afraid it's scarcely possible that we'll hear anything of him this winter."

Agatha was conscious that Mrs. Hastings' eyes were upon her, and she sat very still, though her heart was beating faster than usual. Hastings went on again:

"The _Colonist_ has a line or two about a barque from Alaska which put into Victoria short of stores. She was sent up to an A. C. C. factory, and had to clear out before she was ready. The ice, it seems, was closing in unusually early. A steam whaler at Portland reports the same thing, and from the news brought by a steamer from j.a.pan all communication with Northeastern Asia is already cut off."

No one spoke for a moment or two, and Agatha, leaning back in her chair, glanced around the room. There was not much furniture in it, but, though this was unusual on the prairie, door and double cas.e.m.e.nts were guarded by heavy hangings. The big bra.s.s lamp overhead shed a cheerful light, and birch wood in the stove snapped and cracked noisily, and the stove-pipe, which was far too hot to touch, diffused a drowsy heat. One could lounge beside the fire contentedly, knowing that the stinging frost was drying the snow to dusty powder outside. The cozy room heightened the contrast that all recognized in thinking of Wyllard.

Agatha pictured the little schooner bound fast in the Northern ice, and then two or three travel-worn men crouching in a tiny tent that was buffeted by an Arctic gale. She could see the poles bend, and the tricings strain.

After that, with a sudden transition, her thoughts went back to the early morning when Wyllard had driven away, and every detail of the scene rose up clearly in her mind. She saw him and the stolid Dampier sitting in the wagon, with nothing in their manner to suggest that they were setting out upon a perilous venture, and she felt his hand close tight upon her fingers, as it had done just before the vehicle jolted away from the homestead. She could once more see the wagon growing smaller and smaller on the white prairie, until it dipped behind the crest of a low hill, and the sinking beat of hoofs died away. Then, at least, she had realized that he had started on the first stage of a journey which might lead him through the ice-bound gates of the North to the rest that awaits the souls of sailors. She could not, however, imagine him shrinking from any ordeal. Gripping helm, or hauling in the sled traces, he would gaze with quiet eyes steadfastly ahead, even if he saw only the pa.s.sage from this world to the next. Once more a curious thrill ran through her, and there was pride as well as regret in it.

Presently she became conscious that Hastings was speaking.

"What took you around by the Range, Jim?" he asked.

"Collecting," answered Sproatly. "I sold Gregory a couple of binders earlier in the season, but I couldn't get a dollar out of him." He laughed. "Of course, if it had been anybody else I'd have stayed until he handed over the money, but I couldn't press Gregory too hard after quartering myself upon him as I did last winter, though I'm rather afraid my employers wouldn't appreciate that kind of delicacy."

Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Gregory should have been able to pay.

He thrashed out a moderately good crop."

"About two-thirds of what it should have been, and I've reason for believing that he has been putting up a mortgage. Interest's heavy.

There's another matter. I wonder if you've heard that he's getting rid of two of Harry's hands? I mean Pat and Tom Moran."

"You're sure of that?" Hastings asked sharply.

"Tom told me."

Mrs. Hastings leaned forward suddenly in her chair. "Then," she said, "I'm going to drive across on Monday, and have a few words with Gregory.

Did Moran tell you that Harry had decided to keep the two of them on throughout the year?"

"He wasn't very explicit, but he seemed to feel he had a grievance against Gregory. Of course, in a way, you can't blame Gregory. He's in charge, and it isn't in him to carry out Harry's policy. This fall in wheat is getting on his nerves, and in any case he'd probably have held his hand and cut down the crop next year."

"I do blame him." Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "You will understand that in a general way there's not much that can be done when the snow's upon the ground, and as one result of it the hired man prefers to engage himself for the year. To secure himself from being turned adrift when harvest is over he frequently makes a concession in wages. Now I know Harry intended to keep those two men on, and Tom Moran, who has a little half-cleared ranch back somewhere in the bush of Ontario, came out here tempted by higher wages. I understand he had to raise a few dollars or give the place up, and he left his wife behind. Many of the smaller ranch men can't live upon their holdings. Well, I'm going over on Monday to tell Gregory he has got to keep these two men, and you're coming with me."

Agatha made no reply. In the first place, she knew that if Mrs. Hastings had made any plan she would gain nothing by objecting, and in addition to this she was conscious of a certain desire to go. She felt that if Wyllard had let the men understand that he would not dismiss them, the promise, implied or explicit, must be redeemed. Wyllard would not have attempted to release himself from it--she was sure of that--and it appeared intolerable to her that another man should be permitted to do anything that would unfavorably reflect on him. Somewhat to her relief, Hastings started another topic.

"You have sold quite a few binders and harrows one way or another, haven't you, Jim?" he asked.

Sproatly laughed. "I have," he answered. "As I told the Company's Western representative some time ago, a man who could sell patent medicine to the folks round here could do a good trade in anything. He admitted that my contention sounded reasonable, but I didn't wear store clothes then, and he seemed very far from sure of me. Anyway, he gave me a show, and now I've got two or three complimentary letters from the Company. They've added a few dollars to my salary, and hint that it's possible they may put me in charge of an implement store."

"And you're satisfied?"

"Well," said Sproatly, with an air of reflection, "in some respects, I suppose I am. In others, the thing's galling. You have to report who you've called upon, and, if you couldn't do business, why they bought somebody else's machines. If you can't get a farmer to take you in you have to put up at a hotel. There's no more camping in a birch bluff under your wagon. Besides, you have to wear store clothes."

Hastings glanced at Winifred, and Agatha fancied that she understood what was in his mind.

"Some folks would sooner sleep in a hotel," he remarked, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Then," declared Sproatly, "they don't know very much. They're the kind of men who'd spend an hour every morning putting their clothes on, and they haven't found out that there's no comfort in any garment until you've had to sew two or three flour bag patches on to it. Then think of the splendid freeness of the other way of living. You get your supper when you want it and just as you like it. No tea tastes as good as the kind with the wood smoke in it that you drink out of a blackened can.

You can hear the little birch leaves and the gra.s.ses whispering about you when you lie down at night, and you drive on in the glorious freshness--just when it pleases you--every morning. Now the Company has the whole route and programme plotted out for me. Their clerks write me letters demanding most indelicately why I haven't done this and that."

Winifred looked at him disapprovingly. "Civilization," she said, "implies responsibility. You can't live just as you like without its being detrimental to the community."

"Oh, yes," returned Sproatly with a rueful gesture, "it implies no end of giving up. You have to fall into line, and that's why I kept outside it just as long as I could. I don't like standing in a rank, and," he glanced down at his cloth, "I've an inborn objection to wearing uniform."

Agatha laughed as she caught Hastings' eye. She guessed that Sproatly would be sorry for his candor afterwards, but to some extent she understood what he was feeling. It was a revolt against cramping customs and conventionalities, and she partly sympathized with it, though she knew that such revolts are dangerous. Even in the West, those who cannot lead must march in column with the rank and file or bear the consequences of their futile mutiny. It is a hard truth that no man can live as he pleases.

"Restraint," a.s.serted Winifred, "is a wholesome thing, but it's one most of the men I have met are singularly deficient in. That's why they can't be left alone, but must be driven, as they are, in companies. It's their own fault if they now and then find it a little humiliating."

There was a faint gleam in her eyes, at which Sproatly apparently took warning, for he said no more upon that subject, and they talked about other matters until he took his departure an hour or two later. It was the next afternoon when he appeared again and Mrs. Hastings smiled at Agatha as he and Winifred drove away together.

"Thirty miles is a long way to drive in the frost. I suppose you have noticed that she calls him Jim?" Mrs. Hastings commented. "Anyway, there's a good deal of very genuine ability in that young man. He isn't altogether wild."

"His appearance rather suggested it when I first met him," replied Agatha with a laugh. "Was it a pose?"