"I think you owe him a good deal," said Miss Barrington.

"Yes," said her niece, with a little laugh which appeared to imply a trace of resentment. "I believe I do, but he seemed unusually anxious to relieve me of that impression. He was also good enough to hint that nothing he might have done need prevent me being--the right word is a trifle difficult to find--but I fancy he meant unpleasant to him if I wished it."

There was a little twinkle in Miss Barrington's eyes. "Are you not a trifle hard to please, my dear? Now, if he had attempted to insist on a claim to your grat.i.tude you would have resented it."

"Of course," said the girl reflectively. "Still, it is annoying to be debarred from offering it. There are times, aunt, when I can't help wishing that Lance Courthorne had never come to Silverdale. There are men who leave nothing just as they found it, and whom one can't ignore."

Miss Barrington shook her head. "I fancy you are wrong. He has offended, after all?"

She was pleased to see her niece's face relax into a smile that expressed unconcern. "We are all exacting now and then," said the girl. "Still, he made me promise to give him a fair trial, which was not flattering, because it suggested that I had been unnecessarily harsh, and then hinted this morning that he had no intention of holding me to it. It really was not gratifying to find he held the concession he asked for of so small account. You are, however, as easily swayed by trifles as I am, because Lance can do no wrong since he kissed your hand."

"I really think I liked him the better for it," said the little silver-haired lady. "The respect was not a.s.sumed, but wholly genuine, you see, and whether I was ent.i.tled to it or not, it was a good deal in Lance's favor that he should offer it to me. There must be some good in the man who can be moved to reverence anything, even if he is mistaken."

"No man with any sense could help adoring you," said Maud Barrington.

"Still, I wonder why you believe I was wrong in wishing he had not come to Silverdale?"

Miss Barrington looked thoughtful. "I will tell you, my dear. There are few better men than my brother, but his thoughts, and the traditions he is bound by, are those of fifty years ago, while the restless life of the prairie is a thing of to-day. We have fallen too far behind it at Silverdale, and a crisis is coming that none of us are prepared for. Even Dane is scarcely fitted to help my brother to face it, and the rest are either over-fond of their pleasure or untrained boys. Brave lads they are, but none of them have been taught that it is only by mental strain, or the ceaseless toil of his body, the man without an inheritance can win himself a competence now. This is why they want a leader who has known hardship and hunger, instead of ease, and won what he holds with his own hand in place of having it given him."

"You fancy we could find one in such a man as Lance has been?"

Miss Barrington looked grave. "I believe the prodigal was afterwards a better as well as a wiser man than the one who stayed at home, and I am not quite sure that Lance's history is so nearly like that of the son in the parable as we have believed it to be. A residence in the sty is apt to leave a stain which I have not found on him, though I have looked for it."

The eyes of the two women met, and, though nothing more was said, each realized that the other was perplexed by the same question, while the girl was astonished to find her vague suspicions shared. While they sat silent, Colonel Barrington came in.

"I am glad to see you looking so much better, Maud," he said, with a trace of embarra.s.sment. "Courthorne is still resting. Now, I can't help feeling that we have been a trifle more distant than was needful with him. The man has really behaved very discreetly. I mean in everything."

This was a great admission, and Miss Barrington smiled. "Did it hurt you very much to tell us that?" she asked.

The Colonel laughed. "I know what you mean, and if you put me on my mettle, I'll retract. After all, it was no great credit to him, because blood will tell, and he is, of course, a Courthorne."

Almost without her intention, Maud Barrington's eyes wandered towards the photograph, and then looking up she met those of her aunt, and once more saw the thought that troubled her in them.

"The Courthorne blood is responsible for a good deal more than discretion," said Miss Barrington, who went out quietly.

Her brother appeared a trifle perplexed. "Now, I fancied your aunt had taken him under her wing, and when I was about to suggest that, considering the connection between the families, we might ask him over to dinner occasionally, she goes away," he said.

The girl looked down a moment, for realizing that her uncle recognized the obligation he was under to the man he did not like, she remembered that she herself owed him considerably more, and he had asked for something in return. It was not altogether easy to grant, but she had tacitly pledged herself, and turning suddenly she laid a hand on Barrington's arm.

"Of course, but I want to talk of something else just now," she said.

"You know I have very seldom asked you questions about my affairs, but I wish to take a little practical interest in them this year."

"Yes?" said Barrington, with a smile. "Well, I am at your service, my dear, and quite ready to account for my stewardship. You are no longer my ward, except by your own wishes."

"I am still your niece," said the girl, patting his arm. "Now, there is, of course, n.o.body who could manage the farming better than you do, but I would like to raise a large crop of wheat this season."

"It wouldn't pay," and the Colonel grew suddenly grave. "Very few men in the district are going to sow all their holding. Wheat is steadily going down."

"Then if n.o.body sows there will be very little, and shouldn't that put up the prices?"

Barrington's eyes twinkled. "Who has been teaching you commercial economy? You are too pretty to understand such things, and the argument is fallacious, because the wheat is consumed in Europe; and even if we have not much to offer, they can get plenty from California, Chile, India, and Australia."

"Oh, yes--and Russia," said the girl. "Still, you see, the big mills in Winnipeg and Minneapolis depend upon the prairie. They couldn't very well bring wheat in from Australia."

Barrington was still smiling with his eyes, but his lips were set. "A little knowledge is dangerous, my dear, and if you could understand me better, I could show you where you were wrong. As it is, I can only tell you that I have decided to sell wheat forward and plow very little."

"But that was a policy you condemned with your usual vigor. You really know you did."

"My dear," said the Colonel, with a little impatient gesture, "one can never argue with a lady. You see--circ.u.mstances alter cases considerably."

He nodded with an air of wisdom as though that decided it, but the girl persisted. "Uncle," she said, drawing closer to him with lithe gracefulness, "I want you to let me have my own way just for once, and if I am wrong, I will never do anything you do not approve of again.

After all, it is a very little thing, and you would like to please me."

"It is a trifle that is likely to cost you a good deal of money," said the Colonel dryly.

"I think I could afford it, and you could not refuse me."

"As I am only your uncle, and no longer a trustee, I could not," said Barrington. "Still, you would not act against my wishes?"

His eyes were gentle, unusually so, for he was not as a rule very patient when any one questioned his will, but there was a reproach in them that hurt the girl. Still, because she had promised, she persisted.

"No," she said. "That is why it would be ever so much nicer if you would just think as I did."

Barrington looked at her steadily. "If you insist, I can at least hope for the best," he said, with a gravity that brought a faint color to the listener's cheek.

It was next day when Winston took his leave, and Maud Barrington stood beside him, as he put on his driving furs.

"You told me there was something you wished me to do, and, though it was difficult, it is done," she said. "My holding will be sown with wheat this spring."

Winston turned his head aside a moment, and apparently found it needful to fumble at the fastenings of the furs, while there was a curious expression in his eyes when he looked round again.

"Then," he said, with a little smile, "we are quits. That cancels any little obligation which may have existed."

He had gone in another minute, and Maud Barrington turned back into the stove-warmed room very quietly. Her lips were, however, somewhat closely set.

CHAPTER XII

SPEED THE PLOW

Winter had fled back beyond the barrens to the lonely North at last, and though here and there a little slushy snow still lay soaking the black loam in a hollow, a warm wind swept the vast levels, when one morning Colonel Barrington rode with his niece and sister across the prairie. Spring comes suddenly in that region, and the frost-bleached sod was steaming under an effulgent sun, while in places a hardy flower peeped through. It was six hundred miles to the forests on the Rockies' eastern slope, and as far to the Athabascan pines, but it seemed to Maud Barrington that their resinous sweetness was in the glorious western wind, which awoke a musical sighing from the sea of rippling gra.s.s. It rolled away before her in billows of l.u.s.trous silver-gray, and had for sole boundary the first upward spring of the arch of cloudless blue, across which the vanguard of the feathered host pressed on, company by company, towards the Pole.

The freshness of it all stirred her blood like wine, and the brightness that flooded the prairie had crept into her eyes, for those who bear the iron winter of that lonely land realize the wonder of the reawakening, which in a little s.p.a.ce of days dresses the waste, that has lain for long months white and silent as the dead, in living green.

It also has its subtle significance that the grimmest toiler feels, and the essence of it is hope eternal and triumphant life. The girl felt the thrill of it, and gave thanks by an answering brightness, as the murmuring gra.s.ses and peeping flowerets did, but there was behind her instinctive gladness a vague wonder and expectancy. She had read widely, and seen the life of the cities with understanding eyes, and now she was to be provided with the edifying spectacle of the gambler and outcast turned farmer.

Had she been asked a few months earlier whether the man who had, as Courthorne had done, cast away his honor and wallowed in the mire, could come forth again and purge himself from the stain, her answer would have been coldly skeptical, but now with the old familiar miracle and what it symbolized before her eyes, the thing looked less improbable. Why this should give her pleasure she did not know, or would not admit that she did, but the fact remained that it was so.