"My dear," she said, "if he does come you must put him off."

"Why?" Agatha asked, in a low, strained voice.

"For one thing, because we want to keep you." Mrs. Hastings looked at her with a very friendly smile. "Are you very anxious to make it up with Gregory?" A shiver ran through the girl. "Oh," she exclaimed, "I can't answer you that! I must do what is right!"

To her astonishment, Mrs. Hastings drew her a little nearer, stooped and kissed her.

"Most of us, I believe, have that wish, but the thing is often horribly complex," she said. "Anyway, you must put Gregory off again, if it's only for another month or two. I fancy you will not find it difficult."

She turned away, thus ending the conversation, but her manner had been so significant that Agatha, who did not sleep well that night, decided, if it was possible, to act on the well-meant advice.

It happened that a little dapper man who was largely interested in the land agency and general mortgage business spent that evening with Hawtrey in Wyllard's room at the Range. He had driven around by Hawtrey's homestead earlier in the afternoon, and had deduced a good deal from the state of it, though this was a point he kept to himself.

Now he lay on a lounge chair beside the stove smoking one of Wyllard's cigars and un.o.btrusively watching his companion. There was a roll of bills in his pocket with which Gregory had very reluctantly parted.

"In view of the fall in wheat it must have been rather a pull for you to pay me that interest," he remarked.

"It certainly was," Hawtrey admitted with a rueful smile. "I'm sorry it had to be done."

"I don't quite see how you made it," persisted the other man. "What you got for your wheat couldn't have done much more than cover working expenses."

Hawtrey laughed. He was quite aware that his visitor's profession was not one that was regarded with any great favor by the prairie farmers, but he was never particularly cautious, and he rather liked the man.

"As a matter of fact, it didn't, Edmonds," he confessed. "You see, I practically paid you out of what I get for running this place. The red wheat Wyllard raises generally commands a cent or two a bushel more from the big milling people than anything put on the market round here."

Edmonds made a sign of agreement. He had without directly requesting him to do so led Hawtrey into showing him around the Range that afternoon, and having of necessity a practical knowledge of farming he had been impressed by all that he had noticed. The farm, which was a big one, had evidently been ably managed until a recent date, and he felt the strongest desire to get his hands on it. This, as he knew, would have been out of the question had Wyllard been at home, but with Hawtrey, upon whom he had a certain hold, in charge, the thing appeared by no means impossible.

"Oh, yes," he replied. "I suppose he was reasonably liberal over your salary."

"I don't get one. I take a share of the margin after everything is paid."

Edmonds carefully noted this. He was not sure that such an arrangement would warrant one in regarding Hawtrey as Wyllard's partner, but he meant to gather a little more information upon that point.

"If wheat keeps on dropping there won't be any margin at all next year, and that's what I'm inclined to figure on," he declared. "There are, however, ways a man with nerve could turn it to account."

"You mean by selling wheat down."

"Yes," said Edmonds, "that's just what I mean. Of course, there is a certain hazard in the thing. You can never be quite sure how the market will go, but the signs everywhere point to still cheaper wheat next year."

"That's your view?"

Edmonds smiled, and took out of his pocket a little bundle of market reports.

"Other folks seem to share it in Winnipeg, Chicago, New York, and Liverpool. You can't get behind these stock statistics, though, of course, dead low prices are apt to cut the output."

Hawtrey read the reports with evident interest. All were in the same pessimistic strain, and he could not know that the money-lender had carefully selected them with a view to the effect he hoped to produce.

Edmonds, who saw the interest in Hawtrey's eyes, leaned towards him confidentially when he spoke again.

"I don't mind admitting that I'm taking a hand in a big bear operation,"

he said. "It's rather outside my usual business, but the thing looks almost certain."

Hawtrey glanced at him with a gleam in his eyes. There was no doubt that the prospect of acquiring money by an easier method than toiling in the rain and wind appealed to him.

"If it's good enough for you it should be safe," he remarked. "The trouble is that I've nothing to put in."

"Then you're not empowered to lay out Wyllard's money. If that was the case it shouldn't be difficult to pile up a bigger margin than you're likely to do by farming."

Hawtrey started, for the idea had already crept into his mind.

"In a way, I am, but I'm not sure that I'm warranted in operating on the market with it."

"Have you the arrangement you made with him in writing?"

Hawtrey opened a drawer, and Edmonds betrayed no sign of the satisfaction he felt when he was handed an informally worded doc.u.ment.

He perused it carefully, and it seemed to him that it const.i.tuted Hawtrey a partner in the Range, which was satisfactory. He looked up thoughtfully.

"Now," he said, "while I naturally can't tell what Wyllard contemplated, this paper certainly gives you power to do anything you think advisable with his money. In any case, I understand that he can't be back until well on in next year."

"I shouldn't expect him until late in the summer, anyway."

There was silence for a moment or two, and during it Hawtrey's face grew set. It was unpleasant to look forward to the time when he would be required to relinquish the charge of the Range, and of late he had been wondering how he could make the most of the situation. Then Edmonds spoke again.

"It's almost certain that the operation I suggested can result only one way, and it appears most unlikely that Wyllard would raise any trouble if you handed him several thousand dollars over and above what you had made by farming. I can't imagine a man objecting to that kind of thing."

Hawtrey sat still with indecision in his eyes for half a minute, and Edmonds, who was too wise to say anything, leaned back in his chair.

Then Hawtrey turned to the drawer again with an air of sudden resolution.

"I'll give you a check for a couple of thousand dollars, which is as far as I care to go just now," he announced with studied carelessness.

He took a pen, and Edmonds watched him with quiet amus.e.m.e.nt as he wrote.

As a matter of fact, Hawtrey was in one respect, at least, perfectly safe in entrusting the money to him. Edmonds had deprived a good many prairie farmers of their possessions in his time, but he never stooped to any crude trickery. He left that to the smaller fry. Just then he was playing a deep and cleverly thought-out game.

He pocketed the check that Hawtrey gave him, and then discussed other subjects for half an hour or so before he rose to go.

"You might ask them to get my team out. I've some business at Lander's and have ordered a room there," he said. "I'll send you a line when there's any change in the market."

CHAPTER XXI

GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND

Wheat was still being flung on to a lifeless market when Hawtrey walked out of the mortgage jobber's place of business in the railroad settlement one bitter afternoon. He had a big roll of paper money in his pocket, and was feeling particularly pleased with himself, for prices had steadily fallen since he had joined in the bear operation Edmonds had suggested, and the result of it had proved eminently satisfactory.

This was why he had just given Edmonds a further draft on Wyllard's bank, with instructions to sell wheat down on a more extensive scale. He meant to operate in earnest now, which was exactly what the broker had antic.i.p.ated, but in this case Edmonds had decided to let Hawtrey operate alone. Indeed, being an astute and far-seeing man, the broker had gone so far as to hint that caution might be advisable, though he had at the same time been careful to show Hawtrey only those market reports which had a distinctly pessimistic tone. Edmonds was rather disposed to agree with the men who looked forward to a reaction before very long.

Hawtrey glanced about him as he strode down the street. It was wholly unpaved, and deeply rutted, but the drifted snow had partly filled the hollows, and it did not look very much rougher than it would have appeared if somebody had recently driven a plow through it. Along both sides of it ran a rude plank sidewalk, raised a foot or two above the ground, so that foot-pa.s.sengers might escape the mire of the thaw in spring. Immediately behind the sidewalk squat, weatherbeaten, frame houses, all of much the same pattern, rose abruptly. On some of the houses the fronts, carried up as high as the ridge of the shingled roof, had an unpleasantly square appearance. Here and there a dilapidated wagon stood with lowered pole before a store, but it was a particularly bitter afternoon, and there was n.o.body out of doors. The place looked desolate and forlorn, with a leaden sky hanging over it and an icy wind sweeping through the streets.