"What's Jack come about?" she asked.

"To say my fastidious relatives want me to go home, which would mean leaving you behind."

She looked at him searchingly, and then laughed.

"And you won't go?"

"That's the message I sent."

Ellice's face softened, though there was a hint of indecision in it.

"You're all right, Cyril, only a bit of a fool."

"A bit?" he said dryly. "I'm the whole blamed hog. But enough of that.

We'll pull out for the homestead to-morrow. I expect Wandle is robbing me."

"He's been robbin' you ever since you bought the ranch. I don't know why you stopped me from gettin' after him."

"He saves me trouble," explained Jernyngham, and they discussed the arrangements for their return.

Prescott, arriving home, had a brief private interview with Colston, who realized with some disappointment that his errand had failed. Then the rancher harnessed a fresh team and proceeded to a sloo where his Scandinavian hired man was cutting prairie hay. An hour or two later Muriel went out on the prairie and walked toward a poplar bluff, in the shadow of which she gathered ripe red saskatoons, and then sat down to look about.

The dazzling blue of the sky was broken by rounded ma.s.ses of silver-edged clouds that drove along before a fresh northwest breeze. Streaked by their speeding shadows, the great plain stretched away, checkered by ranks of marigolds and tall crimson flowers of the lily kind that swayed as the rippling gra.s.ses changed color in the wind. A mile or two distant stood the trim wooden homestead, with a tall windmill frame near by, girt by broad sweeps of dark-green wheat and oats. These were interspersed with stretches of uncovered soil, glowing a deep chocolate-brown, which Muriel knew was the summer fallow resting after a cereal crop. Beyond the last strip of rich color, there spread, shining delicately blue, a great field of flax; and then the dusky green of alfalfa and alsike for the Hereford cattle, standing knee-deep in a flashing lake. The prairie, she thought, was beautiful in summer; its wideness was bracing, one was stirred into cheerfulness and bodily vigor by the rush of its fresh winds. She felt that she could remain contentedly at the homestead for a long time; and then her thoughts centered on its owner.

This was perhaps why she rose and strolled on toward the sloo, though she would not acknowledge that she actually wished to meet him. The man was something of an enigma and therefore roused in her an interest which was stronger because of some of the things she had heard to his discredit.

Following the rows of wheelmarks, she brushed through the wild barley, whose spiky heads whipped her dress, pa.s.sed a chain of glistening ponds, a bluff wrapped in blue shadow, and finally descended a long slope to the basin at its foot where the melting snow had run in spring. Now it had dried and was covered with tall gra.s.s which held many flowers and fragrant wild peppermint.

A team of horses and a tinkling mower moved through its midst, and at one edge Prescott was loading the gra.s.s into a wagon. Engrossed as he was in his task, he did not notice her, and she stood a while watching him. He wore no jacket; the thin yellow shirt, flung open at the neck and tightly belted at the waist, and the brown duck trousers, showed the lithe grace of his athletic figure. His poise and swing were admirable, and he was working with determined energy, his face and uncovered arms the warm color of the soil.

Muriel drew a little closer and he stopped on seeing her. His brown skin was singularly clean, his eyes were clear and steady, though they often gave a humorous twinkle. If this man had ever been a rake, his reformation must have been drastic and complete, because although she had a very limited acquaintance with people of that sort, it was reasonable to conclude that they must bear some sign of indulgence or sensuality.

The rancher had no stamp of either.

He showed his pleasure at her appearance.

"You have had quite a walk," he said. "If you will wait while I put up the load, I'll take you back."

Muriel sat down and watched him fling the gra.s.s in heavy forkfuls on to the growing pile, until at last he clambered up upon the frame supporting it and, pulling some out and ramming the rest back, proceeded to excavate a hollow.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Making a nest for you," he told her with a laugh. "Now, if you'll get up."

While she mounted by the wheel he stood on the edge of the wagon, leaning down toward her. There did not seem to be much foothold, the gra.s.s looked slippery, and the hollow he had made was beyond her reach, but she seized the hand he held out and he swung her up. For a moment his fingers pressed tightly upon her waist, and then she was safe in the hollow, smiling at him as he found a precarious seat on the rack.

"You couldn't see how you were going to get up, but you didn't hesitate,"

he said with a soft laugh, when he had started his team.

"No," she smiled back at him. "Somehow you inspire one with confidence. I didn't think you would let me fall."

"Curious, isn't it?"

She reclined in the recess among the gra.s.s, which yielded to her limbs in a way that gave her a sense of voluptuous ease. Her pose, although scarcely a conventional one, showed to advantage the fine contour of her form; and the lilac-tinted dress that flowed in cla.s.sic lines about her made a patch of cool restful color on the warm ocher of her surroundings.

It was easy to read the man's admiration in his glance, and she became suddenly filled with mischievous daring.

"Cyril," she said, "you are either an excellent actor, or else--"

"I have been maligned. Is that what you meant?"

"I think I did mean something of the kind."

"Then I'm a very poor actor. That should settle the question."

"I've wondered how you became so very Canadian," she said thoughtfully.

"What's the matter with the Canadians?"

"Nothing. I haven't met very many yet, but on the whole I'm favorably impressed by them. They're direct, blunt, perhaps less complex than we are."

"No tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs," he suggested. "They don't muss up good material so that it can hardly be recognized. You can tell what a man is when you see him or hear him talk."

"I don't know," Muriel argued. "I've an idea that it might be difficult, even in Canada."

He let this pa.s.s.

"What do you think of the country?" he asked.

She glanced round. It was late in the afternoon and somewhat cooler than it had been. Half the plain lay in shadow, but the light was curiously sharp. A clump of ragged jack-pines stood on a sandhill miles away, and a lake twinkled in the remote distance. The powerful Clydesdale horses plodded through short crackling scrub; a fine scent of wild peppermint floated about.

"Oh," she responded, "it's delightful! And everybody's so energetic! You move with a spring and verve; and I don't hear any grumbling, though there seems to be so much to do!"

"And to bear now and then: crops wiped out--I've lost two of them. The work never slackens, except in winter, when you sit shivering beside the stove, if you're not hauling in building logs or cordwood through the arctic frost. At night it's deadly silent, unless there's a blizzard howling; the plains are very lonely when the snow lies deep. Don't you think you're better off in England, taking it all 'round?"

He laid respectful fingers on the hem of her skirt, touching the fine material, as if appraising its worth.

"Our wheat-growers' wives and daughters are lucky if they've a couple of moderately smart dresses, but I suppose you have several trunks full of things like this. That and the kind of life it implies must count for something."

"I believe I have," said Muriel with candor, answering his steady inquiring glance. "Still, I've felt that we drift along from amus.e.m.e.nt to amus.e.m.e.nt in a purposeless way, doing nothing that's worth while. There might come a time when one would grow very tired of it."

"It must come and bring trouble then. Here one goes on from task to task, each one bigger and more venturesome than the last; acre added to acre, a gasoline tractor to the horse-plow, another quarter-section broken. Mind and body taxed all day and often half the night. One can't sit down and mope."

This was, she thought, a curious speech for a man who had been described as careless, extravagant, and dissolute; but he was getting too serious, and she laughed.

"You were energetic enough in England, if reports are true. I've often thought of your right-of-way adventure. It must have been very dramatic when you appeared at the garden party covered with fresh tar."

"Sounds like that, doesn't it?" he cautiously agreed. "How do they tell the tale?"

"Something like this--you were at the Hall with Geoffrey when the townspeople were clamoring about Sir Gilbert's closing the path through the wood, and for some reason you a.s.sisted them in attacking the barricade. It had been well tarred as a defensive measure, hadn't it?

Then you returned, triumphant, black from head to foot, when you thought the guests had gone, and plunged into the middle of the last of them--Maud always laughs when she talks about it. Sir Gilbert was somewhere out of sight when you related the rabble's brilliant victory, but he dashed out red in face when he understood and never stopped until he jumped into his motor. I don't think Geoffrey's wife has forgiven you."