Neither of us spoke again for a time, and I remember reflecting that whoever won Lucille Haldane would have a helpmate to be proud of in this world and perhaps, by virtue of what she could teach him, follow into the next. I could think so the more dispa.s.sionately because now both she and her sister were far above me, though, knowing my own kind, I wondered where either could find any man worthy.

So the minutes slipped by while the great express raced on, and blue heavens and silver prairie unrolled themselves before us in an apparently unending panorama. There had been times when I considered such a prospect dreary enough, but it appeared surcharged with a strange glamour that moonlit night.

"Will Miss Haldane return to Bonaventure?" I asked, at length.

"I hardly think so," said the girl. "We have very different tastes, you know; and as father will not keep more than one of us with him, we can both gratify them. Beatrice will leave for England soon, and in all probability will not visit Bonaventure again."

She looked at me with a strange expression as she spoke, and when her meaning dawned on me I was conscious of a heavy shock. I had braced myself to face the inevitable already, but the knowledge was painful nevertheless, and my voice was not quite steady when I said: "You imply that Miss Haldane is to be married shortly?"

"It is not an impossible contingency."

Lucille spoke gravely, and I wondered whether she had guessed the full significance of the intimation. Perhaps my face had grown a little harder, or the tightening of my fingers on the rail betrayed me, for she looked up very sympathetically. "I thought it would be better that you should know."

There was such kindness stamped on her face that my heart went out to her, and it was almost huskily I said: "I thank you. You have keen perceptions."

Lucille smiled gravely. "One could see that you thought much of Beatrice--and I was sorry that it should be so."

Her tone seemed to challenge further speech, and presently I found words again: "It was an impossible dream, almost from the beginning; but I awakened to the reality long ago. Still, nothing can rob me of the satisfaction of having known your sister and you, and your influence has been good for me. One can at least cherish the memory; and even a wholly impossible fancy has its benefits."

The girl colored, and said quietly: "It is not our fault that you overrate us, and one finds the standard others set up for one irksome.

And yet you cannot be easily influenced, from what I know."

"Heaven knows how weak and unstable I have been at times, but I learned much that was good for me at Bonaventure, and should, whatever happens, desire to keep your good opinion," I said.

"I think you will always do that," said the girl, moving towards the door. "It is growing late, but before I go I want to ask you to go to your trial to-morrow with a good courage, and not to be astonished at anything you hear or see. If you are, you must try to remember that we Canadians actually are, as our orators tell us, a free people, and that the prairie farmers do not monopolize all our love of justice."

She brushed lightly past me, and the prairie grew dim and desolate as the door clicked to. I had long dreaded the news just given me, but such expectations do not greatly lessen one's sense of loss. Still, it may have been that my senses were too dulled to feel the worst pain, and I sat down on the top step of the platform with my arm through the railing in a state of utter weariness and dejection, which mercifully acted as an anesthetic. How long I watched the moonlit waste sweep past the humming wheels I do not know; but tired nature must have had her way, for it was early morning when a brakeman fell over me, and by the time the resultant altercation was concluded, the cl.u.s.tered roofs of Empress rose out of the prairie.

CHAPTER XXIII

LIBERTY

Sleep had brought me a brief forgetfulness, but the awakening was not pleasant when I painfully straightened my limbs on the jolting platform, while the twin whistles shrieked ahead. Every joint ached from the previous day's exertions, my borrowed garments were clammy with dew, and I shivered in the cold draught that swept past the slowing cars. The sun had not cleared the grayness which veiled the east, and, frowned down upon by huge elevators which rose higher and higher against a lowering sky, the straggling town loomed up depressingly out of the surrounding desolation. The pace grew slower, a thicket of willows choked with empty cans and garbage slid by, then the rails of the stockyards closed in on each hand, and we jolted over the switches into the station, which was built, as usual, not in, but facing, the prairie town.

There was no sign of life in its ill-paved streets, down which the dust wisps danced; bare squares of wooden buildings, devoid of all ornamentation, save for glaring advertis.e.m.e.nts which emphasized their ugliness, walled them in, and the whole place seemed stamped with the dreariness which characterizes most prairie towns when seen early on a gloomy morning by anybody not in the best of spirits. My fellow-pa.s.sengers were apparently asleep, but I was the better pleased, having no desire for speech, and I dropped from the platform as soon as the locomotive stopped. Hurrying out of the station, I did not turn around until a row of empty farm wagons hid the track, which action was not without results.

One hotel door stood open, but knowing that its tariff was not in accordance with my finances, I pa.s.sed it by and patrolled the empty streets until the others, or a dry goods store, should make ready for business. One of the latter did so first, and when I entered a mirror showed that the decision was not unnecessary. The borrowed jacket was far too small, the vest as much too large, while somebody's collar cut chokingly into my sunburnt neck. Still, the prices the sleepy clerk mentioned were prohibitive, and after wasting a little time in somewhat pointed argument--of which he had the better--I strode out of the store, struggling with an inclination to a.s.sault him. Western storekeepers are seldom characterized by superfluous civility, and there are disadvantages attached to a life in a country so free that, according to one of its sayings, any man who cannot purchase boots may always walk barefooted.

"I don't know what the outfit you've got on cost you, and shouldn't wonder, by the way it fits, if you got it cheap," he said. "We don't turn out our customers like scarecrows, anyway, and if you'd had the money we would have tried to make a decent show of you."

I was nevertheless able, after almost emptying my purse, to replace at least the vest and jacket at a rival establishment, whose proprietor promised to forward the borrowed articles to their legitimate owners. I afterwards discovered that they never received them.

"You look smart as a city drummer, the top half of you, but it makes the rest look kind of mean. You want to live up to that coat," he said, after a critical survey.

"I can't do it at the price, unless you will take your chances of getting paid when the stock go East," I said; and the dealer shook his head sorrowfully.

"We don't trade that way with strangers, and I don't know you."

I was in a reckless mood, and some puerile impulse prompted me to astonish him. "My name is Henry Ormesby!"

The man positively gasped, and then, with Western keenness, prepared to profit by the opportunity. "I'll fit you out all for nothing if you'll walk round to the photographer's and give me your picture with a notice to stick in the window that you think my things the best in town," he said. "It would be worth money every time the prairie boys come in, and I don't mind throwing a little of it into the bargain."

This was exasperating, but I could not restrain a mirthless laugh; and, leaving the enterprising dealer astonished that any man should refuse such an offer, I hurried out of the store; but by the time the breakfast hour arrived all trace of even sardonic humor had left me. It was with difficulty I had raised sufficient ready money for the journey, and there now remained but two or three silver coins in my pocket, while, remembering that the dealer had been justified in pointing out the desirability of a complete renovation, I reflected gloomily that it would be useless, because, in all probability, the nation would shortly feed and clothe me. I also remembered how I had seen men with heavy chains on their ankles road-making before the public gaze in a British Columbian town.

Meanwhile I was very hungry, and presently sat down to a simple breakfast in a crowded room. While waiting a few minutes my eyes fell on a commercial article in a newspaper, which, while noting a revival of trade, deplored the probable abandonment of much needed railroad extension. The writer appeared well posted, and mentioned the road we hoped so much from as one of the works which would not be undertaken. I laid down the journal with a sigh, and noticed that the men about me were discussing the coming trial.

"I expect they'll send Ormesby up," said one man, between his rapid gulps. "Don't know whether he done it, but he threatened the other fellow, and said he'd see him roasted before he helped; while that match-box would fix most anybody up."

"Well, I don't know," observed a neighbor. "The match-box looks bad; but I guess if I'd been burning a place up I shouldn't have forgotten it.

Still, it might be fatal unless he could disown it. As to the other thing, I don't count much on what he said. A real fire-bug would have kept his mouth shut and helped all he was worth instead of saying anything."

"I'm offering five to one he goes up. Any takers?" said the first speaker; and it was significant that, although most Westerners are keen at a bet, n.o.body offered.

"I'd do it for less, 'cept for the match-box," said one.

I managed to finish my breakfast, feeling thankful that--because (so their appearance suggested) those who sat at meat had driven in from the prairie to enjoy the spectacle--none of them recognized me. The odds, in their opinion, were more than five to one against me, and I agreed with them. Slipping out I found Dixon, and reported my presence to the police; and, after what seemed an endless waiting at the court, it was early afternoon when Dixon said to me: "They'll be ready in five minutes, and I want you to keep a tight rein on your temper, Ormesby. I can do all the fancy talking that is necessary. You can keep your heart up, too. There are going to be surprises for everyone to-day."

I was called in a few minutes, and if the court had been thronged on previous occasions, it was packed to suffocation now. It was a bare, ugly, wood-built room, even dirtier than it was dingy. Neither is there anything impressive, save, perhaps, to the culprit, about the administration of Western justice, and I was thankful for a lethargy which helped me to bear the suspense with outward indifference. Nothing striking marked the first part of the proceedings, and I sat listening to the drawl of voices like one in a dream. Some of the spectators yawned, and some fidgeted, until there was a sudden stir of interest as the name "Thomas Wilkins" rang through the court.

"I guess that's the prosecution's trump ace," said a man beneath me.

I became suddenly intent as this witness took his stand. He was of the usual type of Canadian-born farm hand, bronzed and wiry, but not heavily built, and hazarded what I fancied was a meaning glance at me. I could not understand it, for he seemed at once ashamed and exultant.

"I was hired by Rancher Niven to help him at Gaspard's Trail, and remember the night of the fire well. Guess anybody who'd been trod on by a horse and left with broken bones to roast would," he said; and proceeded to confirm Niven's testimony. This was nothing new, and the interest slackened, but revived again when the witness approached the essential part of his story, and I could hear my own heart thumping more plainly than the slow drawling voice.

"I was round at the wreck of the homestead some time after the fire.

Don't know the date, but Niven made a note of it. Kind of precise man he was. The place wasn't all burnt to the ground, and Niven he crawls in under some fallen logs into what had been the kitchen. The door opened right on to the prairie, and anybody could slip in if they wanted to.

Niven grabbed at something on the floor. 'Come along and take a look at this,' says he; and I saw it was a silver match-box he held up. There was 'H. Ormesby' not quite worn off it. Niven he prospects some more, and finds a flattened coal-oil tin. Yes, sir, those you are holding up are the very things. 'We don't use that brand of oil, and buy ours in bigger cans,' says he."

I could see by the spectators' faces it was damaging testimony, and Dixon's serene appearance was incomprehensible, while, for the benefit of those ignorant of Western customs, it may be explained that kerosene is sold in large square tins for the settler's convenience in several parts of the Dominion.

"I went over to the store with Niven next day," continued the witness.

"The man who kept it allowed that Rancher Ormesby was about the only man he sold that brand to in small cans."

There were signs of subdued sensation, and Wilkins continued: "We gave them both to Sergeant Mackay, and by-and-by I was summoned to come here and testify. I came right along; then it struck me it was mean to help in sending up the man who'd saved my life. So I just lit out and hid myself until the police trailed me."

It was news to hear that Lane had no hand in the witness's disappearance; and again he flashed an apparently wholly unwarranted, rea.s.suring glance in my direction. Then, while I wondered hopelessly whether Dixon could shake his testimony, the latter stood up.

"I purpose to ask Thomas Wilkins a few questions later, and will not trouble him about the match-box, being perfectly satisfied as to the accuracy of the facts he states," he said.

I could see the spectators stare at him in surprise, and, wondering if he had lost his senses, settled myself to listen as the storekeeper deposed to selling me oil of the description mentioned, adding reluctantly that very few others took the same size of can. This, and a lengthy speech, closed the prosecutor's case, and it seemed, when he had finished, that nothing short of a miracle could save me. The audience was also evidently of the same opinion.

Dixon commenced feebly by submitting evidence as to my uprightness of character, which his opponent allowed to pa.s.s unchallenged with a somewhat contemptuous indifference. Then he said: "It will be remembered that in his evidence Sergeant Mackay deposed that the witness Niven told him the burning homestead was not insured, and I will call the Western agent of a famous fire office."

The evidence of the gentleman in question was brief and to the point. "I have heard the statement that Gaspard's Trail was not insured, and can't understand it. The witness Niven took out a policy three months before the fire, and sent in his claim straight off to me. The company declined to meet it until this case was settled. Am I quite certain, or can I offer any explanation? Well, here's our premium receipt foil and record of the policy. Can't suggest any explanation, except that somebody is lying."