She did not find it easy, nor, though he made the effort, did Hawtrey. There was a restraint that he chafed at upon him, for he had when he first saw her been struck by the change in the girl. She was graver than he remembered her, and, it seemed, very much more reserved. He had tried and failed, as he thought of it, to strike a spark out of her. She did not respond, and he became uneasily conscious that he could not talk to her as he could, for instance, to Sally Creighton. There was something wanting in him or her, but he could not at the moment tell what it was. Still, he said, things would be different next day, for the girl was evidently very weary.

In the meanwhile, the creeping dusk settled down upon the wilderness. The horizon narrowed in, and the stretch of grass before them grew dim. The trail they now drove into seemed to grow rapidly rougher, and it was quite dark when they came to the brink of a declivity still at least a league from the Hastings's homestead. It was one of the steep ravines that seam the prairie every here and there, with a birch bluff on the sides of it, and a little creek flowing through the hollow.

Hawtrey swung the whip when they reached the top, and the team plunged furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and plunge. The other beast flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, and there was a great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen branches as they drove in among the birches. Then the team stopped, and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily among the undergrowth, while another thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels grew louder behind them up the trail. In a minute or two he came back and lifted Agatha down.



"It's the trace broken. I had to make the holes with my knife, and the string's torn through," he said. "Voltigeur got it round his feet, and, as usual, tried to bolt. Anyway, we'll make the others pull up and take you in."

They went back to the trail together, and reached it just as Hastings reined in his team. He got down and walked back with Hawtrey to the latter's waggon. It was a minute or two before they reappeared again, and Mrs. Hastings, who had got down in the meanwhile, drew Hawtrey aside.

"I almost think it would be better if you didn't come any further to-night," she said.

"Why?" the man asked sharply.

"I can't help thinking that Agatha would prefer it. For one thing, she's rather jaded, and wants quietness."

"You feel sure of that?"

There was something in the man's voice which suggested that he was not quite satisfied, and his companion was silent a moment.

"It's good advice, Gregory," she said. "She'll be better able to face the situation after a night's rest."

"Does it require much facing?" Hawtrey asked drily.

Mrs. Hastings turned from him with a sign of impatience. "Of course it does. Anyway, if you're wise you'll do what I suggest, and ask no more questions."

Then she got into the waggon, and Hawtrey stood still beside the trail, feeling unusually thoughtful when they drove away.



CHAPTER XI.

AGATHA'S DECISION.

It was with an expectancy which was slightly toned down by misgivings that Hawtrey drove over to the homestead where Agatha was staying the next afternoon. The misgivings were, perhaps, not unnatural, for he had been chilled by the girl's reception of him on the previous day, and her manner afterwards had, he felt, left something to be desired. Indeed, when she drove away with Mrs. Hastings he had felt himself a somewhat injured man.

His efforts to mend the harness, and extricate the waggon in the dark, which occupied him for an hour, had, however, partly helped to drive the matter from his mind, and when he reached his homestead rather late that night he went to sleep, and slept soundly until sunrise, which was significant. Hawtrey was, at least, a man who never brooded over his troubles beforehand, and this was, perhaps, one reason why he did not always cope with them successfully when they could no longer be avoided.

When he had made his breakfast he, however, became sensible of a certain pique against both Mrs. Hastings and the girl, which led him to remember that he had no hired man, and that there was a good deal to be done. He decided that it might be well to wait until the afternoon before he called on them, and for several hours he drove his team through the crackling stubble. His doubts and irritation grew weaker as he did so, and when at length he drove into sight of Hastings's homestead, his buoyant temperament was commencing to reassert itself. Clear sunshine streamed down upon the prairie out of a vault of cloudless blue, and he felt that after all any faint shadow that might have arisen between him and the girl could be readily swept away.

He was, however, a little less sure of this when he saw her. Agatha sat near an open window, in a scantily furnished match-boarded room, and she, at least, as it happened, had not slept at all. Her eyes were heavy, but there was a look of resolution in them which seemed out of place just then, and it struck him that she had lost the freshness which had characterised her in England.

She rose when he came in, and then, to his astonishment, drew back a pace or two when he moved impulsively towards her.

"No," she said, with a hand raised restrainingly, "you must hear what I have to say, and try to bear with me. It is a little difficult, Gregory, but it must be said at once."

The man stood still, almost awkwardly, looking at her with consternation in his face, and for a moment she looked steadily at him. It was a painful moment, for she was just then gifted with a clearness of vision which she almost longed to be delivered from. She saw that the impression which had brought her a vague sense of dismay on the previous afternoon was wrong. The trouble was that he had not changed at all. He was what he had always been, and she had merely deceived herself when she had permitted her girlish fancy to endue him with qualities and graces which he had, it seemed, never possessed. There was, however, no doubt that she had still a duty towards him.

He spoke first with a trace of hardness in his voice.

"Then," he said, "won't you sit down. This is naturally a little—embarrassing—but I'll try to listen."

Agatha sank into a seat by the open window, for she felt physically worn-out, and there was a task she shrank from before her.

"Gregory," she said, "I feel that we have come near making what might prove to be a horrible mistake."

"We?" said Hawtrey, while the blood rose into his weather-darkened face. "That means both of us."

"Yes," said Agatha, with a quietness that cost her an effort.

Hawtrey spread his hands out forcibly. "Do you want me to admit that I've made one?"

"Are you quite sure you haven't?"

She flung the question at him sharply in tense apprehension, for, after all, if the man was sure of himself, there was only one course open to her. He leaned upon the table, gazing at her, and as he did so his indignation melted, and doubts commenced to creep into his mind.

She looked weary, and grave, and almost haggard, and it was a fresh, light-hearted girl he had fallen in love with in England. The mark of the last two years of struggle was just then plain on her, though, while he did not recognise this, it would pass away again. He tried to realise what he had looked for when he had asked her to marry him, and could not do so clearly; but there was in the back of his mind a half-formulated notion that it had been a cheerful companion, somebody to amuse him. She scarcely seemed likely to do the latter now. He was, however, not one of the men who can face a crisis collectedly, and his thoughts became confused, until one idea emerged from them. He had pledged himself to her, and the fact laid a certain obligation upon him. It was his part to over-rule any fancies she might be disposed to indulge in.

"Well," he said stoutly, "I'm not going to admit anything of that kind. The journey has been too much for you. You haven't got over it yet." He lowered his voice, and his face softened. "Aggy, dear, I've waited four years for you."

That stirred her, for it was certainly true, and his gentleness had also its effect. The situation was becoming more and more difficult, for it seemed impossible to make him understand that he would in all probability speedily tire of her. She now recognised that, but to make it clear that she could never be satisfied with him was a thing she shrank from.

"How have you passed those four years?" she asked, to gain time.

For a moment his conscience smote him. He remembered the trips to Winnipeg, and the dances to which he had attended Sally Creighton. It was, however, evident that Agatha could have heard nothing of Sally.

"I spent them in hard work. I wanted to make the place more comfortable for you," he said. "It is true"—and he added this with a twinge of uneasiness, as he remembered that his neighbours had done much more with less incentive—"that it's still very far from what I would like, but things have been against me."

The speech had a far stronger effect than he could have expected, for Agatha remembered Wyllard's description of what the prairie farmer had to face. Those four years of determined effort and patient endurance, which was how she pictured them, counted heavily against her in the man's favour. It flashed upon her that, after all, there might have been some warrant for the view she had held of Gregory's character when he had fallen in love with her. He was younger then, there must have been latent possibilities in him, but the years of toil had killed them and hardened him. It was for her sake he had made the struggle, and now it seemed unthinkable that she should renounce him because he came to her with the dust and stain of it upon him. For all that, she was possessed with a curious, sub-conscious feeling that she would involve them both in disaster if she yielded. Something warned her that she must stand fast.

"Gregory," she said, "I seem to know that we should both be sorry afterwards if I kept my promise."

Hawtrey straightened himself with a smile she recognised. She had liked him for it once, for it had then suggested the joyous courage of untainted youth. Now, however, it struck her as only hinting at empty, complacent assurance. She hated herself for the fancy, but it would not be driven away.

"Well," he said, "I'm quite willing to face that hazard. I suppose this diffidence is only natural, Aggy, but it's a little hard on me."

"No," said the girl sharply, with a strained look in her eyes, "it's horribly unnatural, and that's why I'm afraid. I should have come to you gladly, without a misgiving, feeling that nothing could hurt me if I was with you. I wanted to do that, Gregory—I meant to—but I can't." Then her voice fell to a tone that had vibrant regret in it. "You should have made sure—married me when you last came home."

"But I'd nowhere to take you. The farm was only half-broken prairie, the homestead almost unhabitable."

Agatha winced at this. It was, no doubt, true, but it seemed horribly petty and commonplace. His comprehension stopped at such details as these, and he had given her no credit for the courage which would have made light of bodily discomfort.

"Do you think—that—would have mattered? We were both very young then, and we could have faced our troubles and grown up together. Now we're not the same. You let me grow up alone."



Hawtrey spread his hands out. "I haven't changed."

He contented himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There was no spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the surface. There was no depth in him.

"Aggy," he added humbly, when he should have been dominantly forceful, "it is only a question of a little time. You will get used to me."

"Then," and the girl clutched at the chance of respite, "give me six months from to-day. It isn't very much to ask, Gregory."

The man wrinkled his brows. "It's a great deal," he answered slowly. "I seem to feel that we shall drift further and further apart if once I let you go."

"Then you feel that we have drifted a little already?"

"I don't know what has come over you, Aggy, but there has been a change. I'm what I was, and I want to keep you."

Agatha rose and turned towards him rather white in face. "Then if you are wise you will not urge me now."

Hawtrey met her gaze for a moment, and then made a sign of acquiescence as he turned his eyes away. He recognised that this was a new Agatha, one whose will was stronger than his. Yet he was half-astonished that he had yielded so readily.

"Well," he said, "if it must be, I can only give way to you, but I must be free to come over here whenever I wish." Then a thought seemed to strike him. "But you may have to go away," he added, with sudden concern. "If I am to wait six months, what are you to do in the meanwhile?"

The girl smiled wearily. Now the respite had been granted her, the question he had raised was not one that caused her any great concern.

"Oh," she said, "we can think of that later, I have borne enough to-day. This has been a little hard upon me, Gregory."

"I don't think it has been particularly easy for either of us," said Hawtrey, with a trace of grimness. "Anyway, it seems that I'm only distressing you." He smiled wryly. "It's naturally not what I had expected to do. I'll come back when I feel I've quite grasped the situation."

He moved a pace or two nearer, and taking one of her hands swiftly stooped and kissed her cheek.

"My dear," he said, "I only want to make it as easy as I can. You'll try to think of me, favourably."

Then he went out and left her sitting with a troubled face beside the open window. A little warm breeze swept into the almost empty room, and outside a blaze of sunshine rested on the prairie. It was torn up with wheel ruts about the house, for the wooden building rose abruptly without fence or garden from the waste of whitened grass. Close to it there stood a birch-log barn or stables, its sides curiously ridged and furrowed where the trunks were laid on one another, roofed with wooden shingles that had warped into hollows here and there. Further away there rose another long building, apparently of sod, and a great shapeless yellow mound with a domed top towered behind the latter. It was most unlike a trim English rick, besides being bigger, and Agatha wondered what it could be. As a matter of fact, it was a not uncommon form of granary, the straw from the last thrashing flung over a birch-pole framing.

Behind that there ran a great breadth of knee-high stubble, blazing ochre and cadmium in the sunlight. It had evidently extended further than it did, for a blackened space showed where a fire had been lighted to destroy it. Here Hastings, clad in blue duck, with long boots, was ploughing, plodding behind his horses, which stopped now and then when the share jarred against a patch of still frozen soil. Further on two other men silhouetted in blue against the whitened grass drove spans of slowly moving oxen that hauled big breaker ploughs, and the lines of clods that lengthened behind them gleamed in the sunlight a rich chocolate-brown. Beyond them the wilderness ran unbroken to the horizon.

Agatha gazed at it all vacantly, but the newness and strangeness of it reacted upon her. She felt very desolate and lonely, and by and bye remembered that she had still to grapple with a practical difficulty. She could not stay with Mrs. Hastings indefinitely, and she had not the least notion where to go or what she was to do. She was leaning back in her chair wearily with half-closed eyes when her hostess came in and looked at her with a smile that suggested comprehension. Mrs. Hastings was thin, and seemed a trifle worn, but she had shrewd, kindly eyes. Just then she wore a plain print dress which was dusted here and there with flour.

"So you have sent him away?" she said.

It was borne in upon Agatha that she could be candid with this woman who she fancied had already guessed the truth.

"Yes," she said, "for six months. That is, we are not to decide on anything until they have expired. I felt we must get used to each other. It seemed best."

"To you. Did it seem best to Gregory?"

A flush crept into Agatha's face. Though his acquiescence had been a relief to her, she felt that after all he might have made a more vigorous protest.

"He gave in to me," she said.

Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Well," she said, "I believe you were wise, but that opens up another question. What are you going to do in the meanwhile?"

"I don't know," said Agatha wearily. "I suppose I shall have to go away—to Winnipeg, most probably. I could teach, I think."

"How are you and Gregory to get used to each other if you go away?"

Agatha made a little helpless gesture. "I hadn't looked at it in that light."

"Are you very anxious to get used to him?"

Agatha shrank from the question; but there was a constraining kindliness in her companion's eyes.

"I daren't quite think about it yet. I mean to try. I must try. I seem to be playing an utterly contemptible, selfish part, but I could not marry him—now!"

Her hostess quietly crossed the room, and sat down by her side.

"My dear," she said, "as I told you, I think you are doing right, and in some respects I believe I know how you feel. Everybody prophesied disaster when I came out to join Allen from a sheltered home in Montreal, and at the beginning my life here was not easy to me. It was all so different, and there were times when I was afraid, and my heart was horribly heavy. If it hadn't been for Allen I think I should have given in and broken down. He understood, however. He never failed me."

Agatha's eyes grew misty, and she turned her head away.

"Yes," she said, "that would make it wonderfully easier."

"You must forgive me," said her companion. "It was tactless, but I didn't mean to hurt you. Well, one difficulty shouldn't give us very much trouble. Why shouldn't you stay here with me?"

Agatha turned towards her abruptly with a relief in her face from which it, however, faded again. She liked this woman, and she liked her husband, but she remembered that she had no claim on them.

"Oh," she said, "it is out of the question."

"Wait a little. I'm proposing to give you quite as much as you will probably care to do. There are my two little girls to teach, and I think they have rather taken to you. I can scarcely find a minute to do it myself, and, as you have seen, there is a piano which has after all only a few of the notes broken. Besides, we have only one Scandinavian maid who smashes everything that isn't made of indurated fibre, and I'm afraid she'll marry one of the boys in a month or two. It was only by sending the kiddies to Brandon and getting Mrs. Creighton, a neighbour of ours, to look after Allen, who insisted on me going, that I was able to get to Paris with some Montreal friends. In any case, you'd have no end of duties."

"You are doing this out of—charity?"

Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Allen wrote some friends of his in Winnipeg to send me anybody out a week or two ago."

The girl's eyes shone mistily. "Oh," she said, "you have lifted one weight off my mind."

"I think," said Mrs. Hastings, "the others will also be removed in due time."

Then she talked cheerfully of other matters, and Agatha listened to her with a vague wonder, which was, however, not altogether justified, at her good fortune in falling in with such a friend, for there are in that country a good many men and women who resemble this farmer's wife in one respect. Unfettered by conventions they stretch out an open hand to the stranger and the outcast. Toil has brought them charity in place of hardness, and still retaining, as some of them do, the culture of the cities, they have outgrown all the petty bonds of caste. The wheat-grower and the hired man eat together, his wife or daughter mends the latter's clothes, and he, as the natural result of it, not infrequently makes the farmer's cause his own. Rights are good-humouredly conceded in place of being fought for, and the sense of grievance and half-veiled suspicion are exchanged for an efficient co-operation. It must, however, be admitted that there are also farmers of another kind, from whom the hired man has occasionally some difficulty in extracting his covenanted wages by personal violence. That, too, fails now and then.

By and bye a team and a jolting waggon swept into sight, and Mrs. Hastings rose when the man who drove it pulled his horses up.

"It's Sproatly; I wonder what has brought him here," she said, and as the man who sprang down walked towards the house she gazed at him almost incredulously.

"He's quite smart," she added. "I don't see a single patch on that jacket, and he has positively got his hair cut."

"Is that an unusual thing in Mr. Sproatly's case?" Agatha asked.

"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings. "It's very unusual indeed. What is stranger still, he has taken the old grease-spotted band off his hat, after clinging to it affectionately for the last twelve months."

Agatha fancied that the soft hat, which fell shapelessly over part of Sproatly's face, needed something to replace the discarded band; but in another moment or two he entered the room. He shook hands with them both, and then sat down and smiled.

"You are looking remarkably fresh, but appearances are not invariably to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par," he said. "I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind."

"I don't," said Mrs. Hastings resolutely; "Allen doesn't, either. Besides, didn't you get into some trouble over that tonic?"

"It was the cough cure," said Sproatly with a grin. "I sold a man at Lander's one of the large-sized bottles and when he had taken some he felt a good deal better. Then he seems to have argued the thing out like this: if one dose had relieved the cough, a dozen should drive it out of him altogether, and he took the lot. He slept for forty-eight hours afterwards, and when I came across him at the settlement he attacked me with a club. The fault, I may point out, was in his logic. Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph of the Deutcher Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects recognised it. One hung it up in his shanty. The other asked me to hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it. He, however, produced his dollar; said he felt so much better after what he'd done that he didn't grudge it."

"I'm afraid we're not worth powder and shot," said Mrs. Hastings. "Do you ever remember our buying any tonics or pictures from you?"

"I don't, though I have felt that you ought to have done it," and Sproatly, who paused a moment, turned towards Agatha with a little whimsical inclination. "The professional badinage of an unlicensed dealer in patent medicines may now and then mercifully cover a good deal of embarrassment. Miss Ismay has brought something pleasantly characteristic of the Old Country along with her."

His hostess disregarded the last remark. "Then if you didn't expect to sell us anything, what did you come for?"

"For supper," said Sproatly cheerfully. "Besides that, to take Miss Rawlinson a drive. I told her last night it would afford me considerable pleasure to show her the prairie. We could go round by Lander's and back."

"Then you will probably come across her somewhere about the straw-pile with the kiddies."

Sproatly took the hint, and when he went out Mrs. Hastings laughed.

"You would hardly suppose that was a young man of excellent education?" she said. "So it's on Winifred's account he has driven over; at first I fancied it was on yours."

Agatha was astonished, but she smiled. "If Winifred favours him with her views about young men he will probably be rather sorry for himself. He lives near you?"

"No," said Mrs. Hastings; "in the summer he lives in his waggon, or under it, I don't know which. Of course, if he's really taken with Winifred he will have to alter that."

"But he has only seen her once—you can't mean that he is serious."

"I really can't speak for Sproatly, but it would be quite in keeping with the customs of the country if he was."

A minute or two later Agatha saw Winifred in the waggon when it reappeared from behind the strawpile, and Mrs. Hastings turned towards the window.

"She has gone with him," she said significantly. "Unfortunately, he has taken my kiddies too. If he brings them back with no bones broken it will be a relief to me."



CHAPTER XII.

WANDERERS.

Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings when the latter, who was driving over to Wyllard's homestead with her one afternoon, pulled up her team while they were still some little distance away from it, and looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now faintly flecked with green. On the other, ploughing teams were scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out behind them. The great sweep of grasses that rustled joyously before a glorious warm wind, gleamed almost luminous, and overhead hung a vault of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, skeins and wisps of birds moved up from the south.

"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall back-set," she said. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly." Then she glanced towards where the teams were hauling unusually heavy ploughs through the grassy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against him. Some of his neighbours, including my husband, would have sown a little less and held a reserve in hand."

Agatha remembered what Wyllard had told her one night on board the Scarrowmania, and smiled, for she fancied that she understood the man. He was not one to hedge, as she had heard it called, or cautiously hold his hand. He staked boldly, but she felt that this was not only for the sake of the dollars that he might stand to gain. It was part of his nature—the result of an optimistic faith or courage that appealed to her, and sheer love of effort. She also fancied that his was no spasmodic, impulsive activity. She could imagine him holding on as steadfastly with everything against him, exacting all that men and teams and machines could do. It struck her as curious that she should feel so sure of this; but she admitted that it was the case.

In the meanwhile he was approaching them, sitting in the driving-seat of a big machine that ripped broad furrows through the crackling sod. Four horses plodded wearily in front of it until he thrust one hand over, and there was a rattle and clanking as he swung them and the machine round beside the waggon. Then he got down, and stood smiling up at Agatha with his soft hat in his hand and the sunlight falling full upon his weather-darkened face. It was not a particularly striking face, but there was something in it, a hint of restrained force and steadfastness, she thought, which Gregory's did not possess, and for a moment or two she watched him unobtrusively. She felt she could not help it.

He wore an old blue shirt, open at the throat and belted into trousers of blue duck at the waist, and she noticed the fine symmetry of his somewhat spare figure. The absence of any superfluous fleshiness struck her as in keeping with her view of his character. The man was well-endued physically; but apart from the strong vitality that was expressed in every line of his pose he looked clean, as she vaguely described it to herself. There was, at least, an indefinable something about him that was apparently born of a simple, healthful life spent in determined labour in the open air. It became plainer as she remembered other men she had met upon whom the mark of the beast was unmistakably set. Then Mrs. Hastings broke the silence.

"Well," she said, "we have driven over as we promised. I've no doubt you will give us supper, but we'll go on and sit down with Mrs. Nansen in the meanwhile. I expect you're too busy to talk to us."



Wyllard laughed, and it occurred to Agatha that his laugh was wholesome as well as pleasant.

"I generally am busy," he admitted. "These beasts have, however, been at it since sun-up, and they're rather played out now. I'll talk to you as long as you like after supper, which will soon be ready. It's bad economy to ask too much from them."

Agatha noticed that though the near horse's coat was foul with dust and sweat he laid his brown hand upon it, and she supposed she must be fanciful, for it seemed to her that the gentleness with which he did it was very suggestive.

"I wonder if that's the only reason that influences you," she said.

A twinkle crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It seems to me a good one as far as it goes; anyway, I've been driven rather hard myself now and then, and I didn't like it."

"Doesn't that usually result in making one drive somebody else harder to make up for it, when one has the opportunity?"

"If it does it certainly isn't logical. Logic's rather a fine thing when it's sound."

"Then," Mrs. Hastings broke in, "I'll suggest a proposition: what's to be the result of all this ploughing if we have harvest frost or the market goes against you?"

"Quite a big deficit," said Wyllard cheerfully.

"And that doesn't cause you any anxiety?"

"I'll have had some amusement for my money."

Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amusement!" Then she looked back at Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your back as straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks as if it wanted to lie down."

Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two more rows of furrows still to do."

"I suppose that is a hint," and Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when the waggon jolted on.

"That man," she said, "is a great favourite of mine. For one thing, he's fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then runs away with him."

"What do you mean by fastidious?"

"It's a little difficult to define, but I certainly don't mean pernicketty. Of course, there is a fastidiousness which makes one shrink from unpleasant things, but Harry's is the other kind. It impels him to do them every now and then."

Agatha made no answer. She was uneasily conscious that it might not be advisable to think too much about this man, and in another minute or two they reached the homestead. The house was a plain frame building that had apparently grown out of an older and smaller one of logs, part of which remained. It was much the same with the barns and stables, for while they were stoutly built of framed timber or logs one end of most of them was lower than the rest, and in some cases consisted of poles and sods. Even to her untrained eyes all she saw suggested order, neatness, and efficiency. The whole was flanked and sheltered by a big birch bluff, in which trunks and branches showed up through a thin green haze of tiny opening leaves, though here and there uncovered twigs still cut in lace-like tracery against the blue of the sky.

A man whom Wyllard had sent after them took the horses, and when she got down Agatha commented on what she called the added-to look of the buildings.

"The Range," said Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of some capital since a relative of his died, but I never thought that explained everything."

Then they entered the house, and a grey-haired Swedish woman led them through several match-boarded rooms into a big, cool hall. She left them there for awhile, and Agatha was busy for a minute or two with her impressions of the house. It was singularly empty by comparison with the few English homesteads she had seen. There were neither curtains nor carpets nor hangings of any kind, but it was commodious and comfortable.

"What can a bachelor want with a place like this?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Hastings; "perhaps it's Harry's idea of having every thing proportionate. The Range is quite a big, and generally a prosperous, farm. Besides, it's likely that he doesn't contemplate remaining a bachelor for ever. Indeed, Allen and I sometimes wonder how he has escaped so long."

"Is that the right word?" Agatha asked.

"It is," said her companion with a laugh. "You see, he's highly eligible from our point of view, but at the same time he's apparently invulnerable. I believe," she added drily, "that's the right word, too."

Then the Swedish housekeeper appeared again, and they talked with her until she retired to bring the six o'clock supper. Soon after it was laid out Wyllard and the men came in. He was attired as when Agatha had last seen him, except that he had evidently brushed himself and put on a store jacket. He led his guests to the head of the long table, but the men—and there were a number of them—sat below, and had evidently no diffidence about addressing question or comment to their employer.

They ate with a somewhat voracious haste, but that appeared to be the custom of the country, and Agatha could find no great fault with their manners or conversation. The latter was, for the most part, quaintly witty, and some of them used what struck her as remarkably fitting and original similes. Indeed, as the meal proceeded she became curiously interested in the men and their surroundings.

The windows were open wide, and a sweet, warm air swept into the barely furnished room. The spaciousness of the latter impressed her, and she was pleased with the evident unity between these brown-faced, strong-armed toilers and their leader. He sat, self-contained, but courteous and responsive to all alike, at the head of his table, and though that is, as she had discovered, in most respects an essentially democratic country, she felt that there was something almost feudal in the relations between him and his men. She could not imagine them being confined to the mere exaction of so much labour and the expectation of payment of wages due. She was also pleased that he had not changed his dress, which would, she felt, have been a singularly unfitting action. In fact, so strong was her interest that she was almost astonished when the meal was over, though it must be admitted that most of the men rose and went out in fifteen minutes. Afterwards she and Mrs. Hastings talked with the housekeeper for awhile, and an hour had slipped away when Wyllard suggested that he should show her the sloo beyond the bluff.

"It's the nearest approach to a lake we have until you get to the alkali tract," he said.

Agatha went with him through the shadow of the wood, and when at length they came out of it he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house and ploughing were hidden now, and they were alone on the slope to a slight hollow, in which half a mile of gleaming water lay. Its surface was broken here and there, by tussocks of grass and reeds, and beyond it the prairie ran back unbroken, a dim grey waste, to the horizon. The sun had dipped behind the bluff, and the sky had become a vast green transparency. There was no wind now, but a wonderful exhilarating freshness crept into the cooling air, and the stillness was only broken by the clamour of startled wildfowl which presently sank again. Agatha could see them paddling in clusters about the gleaming sloo.

"Those are ducks—wild ones?" she asked.

"Yes," said Wyllard; "duck of various kinds. Most of them the same as your English ones."

"Do you shoot them?"

Agatha was not greatly interested, but he seemed disposed to silence, and she felt, for no very clear reason, that it was advisable to talk of something.

"No," he said, "not often, anyway. If Mrs. Nansen wants a couple I crawl down to the long grass with the rifle and get them for her."

"The rifle? Doesn't the big bullet destroy them?"

"No," said Wyllard. "You have to shoot their head off or cut their neck in two."

"You can do that—when they're right out in the sloo?" asked Agatha, who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle than a shot-gun, which spreads its charge.

Wyllard smiled. "Generally; that is, if I haven't been doing much just before. It depends upon one's hands. We have our game laws, but as a rule nobody worries about them, and, anyway, those birds won't nest until they reach the tundra by the Polar Sea. Still, as I said, we never shoot them unless Mrs. Nansen wants one or two for the pot."

"Why?"

"I don't quite know. For one thing, they're worn out; they just stop here to rest."

His answer appealed to the girl. It did not seem strange to her that the love of the lower creation should be strong in this man, who had no hesitation in admitting that the game laws were no restraint to him. For the most part, at least, when these Lesser Brethren sailed down out of the blue heavens worn with their journey he gave them right of sanctuary.

"They have come a long way?" she asked.

Wyllard pointed towards the South. "From Florida, Cuba, Yucatan; further than that, perhaps. In a day or two they'll push on again towards the Pole, and others will take their places. There's a further detachment arriving now."

Looking up, Agatha saw a straggling wedge of birds dotted in dusky specks against the vault, of transcendental green. It coalesced, drew out again, and dropped swiftly, and the air was filled with the rush of wings; then there was a harsh crying and splashing, and she heard the troubled water lap among the reeds until deep silence closed in upon the sloo again.

"I wonder," she said, "why they do it?"

A rather curious smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "It's their destiny: they're wanderers and strangers without a habitation: there's unrest in them. After a few months on the tundra mosses to gather strength and teach the young to fly, they'll unfold their wings to beat another passage before the icy gales. Some of us, I think, are like them!"

Agatha could not avoid the personal application. It would have appeared less admissible among her friends at The Grange, but she felt that the constraints of English reticence were out of place in the wilderness.

"You surely don't apply that to yourself," she said. "You certainly have a habitation—the finest, isn't it, on this part of the prairie?"

"Yes," said Wyllard slowly; "I suppose it is. I've now had a little rest and quietness, too."

This did not appear to call for an answer, and Agatha sat silent.

"Still," he said, "I have a feeling that some day the call will come, and I shall have to take the trail again." He paused, and looked at her before he added, "It would be easier if one hadn't to go alone, or, since that would be necessary, if one had at least something to come back to when the journey was done."

"It would be necessary?" said Agatha, who was rather puzzled by his steady gaze.

"Yes," he said with a somewhat impressive gravity, "the call will come from the icy North if it ever comes at all."

There was another brief silence, and Agatha wondered what he was thinking of until he went on again.

"I remember how I last came back from there. We were rather late that season, and out of our usual beat when the gale broke upon us between Alaska and Asia in the gateway of the Pole. We ran before it with a strip of the boom-foresail on her and a jib that blew to ribands every now and then. She was a little schooner of ninety tons or so, and for most of a week she scudded with the grey seas tumbling after her, white-topped, out of the snow and spume. They ranged high above her taffrail curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching her screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let her fall off or claw up, the next one would have made an end of her. He was knee deep half the time in icy brine, and his hands had split and opened with the frost, but the sweat dripped from him as he clung to the jarring wheel. One of those helmsmen—perhaps two—had another trouble which preyed on them. They were thinking of the three men they had left behind.

"Well," he added, "we ran out of the gale, and I had bitter words to face when we reached Vancouver. As one result of it I walked out of the city with four or five dollars in my pocket—though there was a share due to me. Then I rode up into the ranges in an open car to mend railroad bridges in the frost and snow. It was not the kind of home-coming one would care to look forward to."

"Ah," said Agatha, "it must have been horribly dreary?"

The man met her eyes. "Yes," he said, "you—know. You came here from far away, I think a little weary, too, and something failed you. Then you felt yourself adrift. There were—it seemed—only strangers round you, but you were wrong in one respect; you were by no means a stranger to me."

He had been leaning against a birch trunk, but now he moved a little nearer, and stood gravely looking down on her.

"You have sent Gregory away?" he said.

"Yes," said Agatha, and, startled as she was, it did not strike her that the mere admission was misleading.

Wyllard stretched his hands out. "Then won't you come to me?"

The blood swept into the girl's face. For the moment she forgot Gregory, and was only conscious of an unreasoning impulse which prompted her to take the hands held out to her. Then she rose and faced the man, with burning cheeks.

"You know nothing of me," she said. "Can you think that I would let you take me—out of charity?"

"Again you're wrong—on both points. As I once told you, I have sat for hours beside the fire beneath the pines or among the boulders with your picture for company. When I was worn-out and despondent you encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all, however, though it's difficult to speak of such things to you. There were times when as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide, all one's physical nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labour. The pay-days came round, and opportunities were made for us—to forget what we had borne, and had still to bear, in the snow and the icy water. Then you laid a restraining hand on me. I could not take your picture where you could not go. Is all that to count for nothing?"

Then he spread his hands out forcibly. "As to the other question: can't you get beyond the narrow point of view? We're in a big, new country where the old barriers are down. We're merely flesh and blood—red blood—and we speak as we feel. Admitting that I was sorry for you—I am—how does that tell against me—or you? There's one thing only that counts at all: I want you."

Agatha was stirred, and almost dismayed at the effect his words had on her. He had spoken with a force and passion that had nearly swept her away with it. The vigour of the new land throbbed in his voice, and, flinging aside all cramping restraints and conventions, he had, as he had said, claimed her as flesh and blood. There was no doubt that her nature responded, and it was significant that Gregory had faded altogether out of her mind; but there was, after all, pride in her, and she could not quite bring herself to look at things from his standpoint. All her prejudices and her sense of fitness were opposed to it. For one thing, he had taken the wrong way when he had admitted that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she shrank from the shadow of the thought that she would marry him—for shelter. It brought her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered the haste with which marriages were, it seemed, arranged on the prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost compelled her to yield to him passed away, she remembered that it was scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was intolerable that he should think she would be willing to fall into his arms merely because he had held them out to her.

"It's a little difficult to get beyond one's sense of what is fit," she said. "You—I must say it again—can't know anything about me. You have woven fancies about that photograph, but you must recognise that I'm not the girl you have, it seems, created out of them. In all probability she's wholly unreal, unnatural, visionary." She contrived to smile, for she was recovering her composure. "Perhaps it's easy when one has imagination to endow a person with qualities and graces that could never belong to them. It must be easy"—and though she was unconscious of it, there was a trace of bitterness in her voice—"because I know I could do it myself."

Again the man held his hands out. "Then," he said simply, "won't you try? If you can only feel sure that the person has them it's possible that he could acquire one or two."

Agatha drew back, disregarding this. "Then I've changed ever so much since that photograph was taken."

Wyllard admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I recognised that; you were a little immature then. I know that now—but all the graciousness and sweetness in you has grown and ripened. What is more, it has grown just as I seemed to know it would do. I saw that clearly the day we met beside the stepping-stones. I would have asked you to marry me in England only Gregory stood in the way."

Then the colour ebbed suddenly out of the girl's face as she remembered.

"Gregory," she said in a strained voice, "stands in the way still. I didn't send him away altogether. I'm not sure I made that clear."

Wyllard started, but he stood very still again for a moment or two.

"I wonder," he said, "if there's anything significant in the fact that you gave me that reason last? He failed you in some way?"

"I'm not sure that I haven't failed him; but I can't go into that."

Again Wyllard stood silent awhile. Then he turned to her with the signs of a strong restraint in his face.

"Gregory," he said, "is a friend of mine; there is, at least, one very good reason why I should remember it, but it seems that somehow he hadn't the wit to keep you. Well, I can only wait in the meanwhile, but when the time seems ripe I shall ask you again. Until then you have my promise that I will not say another word that could distress you. Perhaps I had better take you back to Mrs. Hastings now."

Agatha turned away, and they walked back together silently through the bluff.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE SUMMONS.

Mrs. Hastings was standing beside her waggon in the gathering dusk when Agatha and Wyllard joined her, and when the latter had helped them up she looked down at him severely as she gathered up the reins.

"By this time Allen will have had to put the kiddies to bed," she said. "Christina, as you might have borne in mind, goes over to Branstock's every evening. Anyway, you'll drive across and see him about that team as soon as you can; come to supper."

"I'll try," said Wyllard with a certain hesitation; and Mrs. Hastings turned to her companion as they drove away.

"Why did he look at you before he answered me?" she asked, and laughed, for there was just light enough left to show the colour in Agatha's cheek. "Well," she added, "I told Allen he was sure to be the first."

Agatha looked at her in evident bewilderment, but she nodded. "Yes," she said, "of course, I knew it would come. Everybody knows by now that you have fallen out with Gregory."

"But, as I told you, I haven't fallen out with him."

"Then you certainly haven't married him, and if you have said 'No' to Harry Wyllard because you would sooner take Gregory after all, you're a singularly unwise young woman. Anyway, you'll have to meet him when he comes to supper. Allen's fond of a talk with Harry; I can't have him kept away."

"I was a little afraid of that," said Agatha quietly. "What makes the situation more difficult is that he told me he would ask me again."

Mrs. Hastings appeared thoughtful. "In that case he will in all probability do it; but I don't think you need feel diffident about meeting him, especially as you can't help it. He'll wait and say nothing until he considers it advisable."

She changed the subject, and talked about other matters until they reached the homestead; but as the weeks went by Agatha found that what she had told her was warranted.

Wyllard drove over every now and then, but she was reassured by his attitude. He greeted her with the quiet cordiality which had hitherto characterised him, and it went a long way towards allaying the embarrassment she was conscious of at first. By and bye, however, she felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the disturbing possibility that he might at some future time once more adopt the role of lover. In the meanwhile, she realised that in face of the efforts she made to think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory; and she had, as it happened, two further offers of marriage before the wheat had shot up a hand's breadth above the rich black loam. This was a matter of regret to her, and, though Mrs. Hastings assured her that the "boys" would get over it, she was rather shocked to hear that one of them had shortly afterwards involved himself in difficulties by creating a disturbance in Winnipeg.

The wheat, however, was growing tall when, at Mrs. Hastings's request, she drove over with her again to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when they reached it, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together she wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff and towards the sloo, which had almost dried up now, and it was with a curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard had said to her there. Through them all there ran a regret that she had not met him four years earlier.

That, however, was a train of thought she did not care to indulge in, and in order to get rid of it she walked more briskly up a low rise where the grass was already turning white again, over the crest of it, and down the side of another hollow. The prairie rolled just there in wide undulations as the sea does when the swell of a distant gale under-runs a glassy calm. She had grown fond of the prairie, and its clear skies and fresh breezes had brought the colour to her cheeks and given her composure, though there were times when the knowledge that she was no nearer a decision in regard to Gregory weighed upon her like a chill depressing shadow. She had seen very little of him, and he had not been effusive then. What he felt she could not tell, but it had been a relief to her when he had ridden away again. Then for a while he faded to an unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind.

That afternoon the prairie stretched away before her gleaming in the sunlight tinder a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and for the first time she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow at the foot of it, where there had been another sloo. It had, however, evidently dried up weeks ago, and as there were men and horses moving amidst the dust she supposed that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows longer in such places than it does upon the levels. She went on another half-mile, and then sat down some distance off, for she had already walked further than she had intended. She could now see the men more clearly, and though it was fiercely hot they were evidently working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing and bare brown arms appeared among the white and ochre tinting of the grass that seemed charged with brightness, and the sounds of their activity came up to her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of the mowers, the crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of waggon wheels.

By and bye a great mound of gleaming grass overhanging two half-seen horses moved out of the sloo, and she watched it draw nearer until she made out Wyllard sitting in a depression in the front of it. She sat still until he pulled the team up close beside her and looked down with a smile.

"It's 'most two miles to the homestead. If you could manage to climb up I could make you a comfortable place," he said.

Agatha held her hands up with one foot upon a spoke of the wheel as the man leaned down, and next moment she was strongly lifted and felt his supporting hand upon her waist. Then she found herself standing upon a narrow ledge clutching at the hay while he tore out several big armfuls of it and flung it back upon the rest.



"Now," he said, "I guess you'll find that a snug enough nest."

She sank into it with at least a certain sense of physical satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm, scented with the aromatic odours of wild peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath her limbs. Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she fancied she had seen a sudden sign of tension in the man's face when he had for a moment held her on the edge of the waggon. Unobtrusively she flashed a glance at him, and was reassured. He was looking straight before him with unwavering eyes, and his face was as quiet as it usually was again. Neither of them said anything until the team moved on. Then he turned to her.

"You won't get jolted much," he said. "They've been at it since four o'clock this morning."

"That," said Agatha, "must have meant that you rose at three."

Wyllard smiled. "As a matter of fact, it was half-past two. There was no dew last night, and we started early. I've several extra teams this year, and there's a good deal of hay to cut. Of course, we have to get it in the sloos or any damp place where it's long. We don't sow grass, and we have no meadows like those there are in England."

Agatha understood that he meant to talk about matters of no particular consequence, as he usually did. There was, as she had noticed, a vein of almost poetic imagination in this man, and his idea that she had been with him through the snow of the lonely ranges and the gloom of the great forests of the Pacific slope appealed to her, merely as a pretty fancy, in particular. He had, however, of late very seldom given it rein, and sitting close beside him among the yielding hay she decided that it was wiser to let him talk about his farm.

"But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven't you?" she said.

"I had, but he left me three or four days ago. It's a pity in several ways, since I've taken up rather more than I can handle this year."

"Then why didn't you keep him?"

There was a certain grimness in Wyllard's laugh. "Martial was a little muleish, and I'm afraid I'm troubled with a shortness of temper now and then. We had a difference of opinion as to the best way to drive the mower into the sloo, and he didn't seem to recognise that he should have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys were standing by, I had to insist upon him getting out of the saddle."

He had turned a little further towards her, and Agatha noticed that there was a bruise upon one side of his face. After what he had just told her the sight of it jarred upon her, though she would not admit that there was any reason why it should do so. She could not deny that on the prairie a resort to physical force might be warranted by the lack of any other remedy, but it hurt her to think of him descending to an open brawl with one of his men.

Then it occurred to her that the other man had in all probability suffered more, and this brought her a certain sense of satisfaction which she admitted was more or less barbarous. She had made it clear that Wyllard was nothing to her, but she could not help watching him as he lay among the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face, which, though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring—she felt that was the best word—to look at. The dusty shirt and old blue trousers, as she had already noticed, accentuated the long, clean lines of his figure, and she realised with a faint sense of anger that his mere physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, appealed to her. This was, she recognised, an almost repugnant thing, a feeling to be judiciously checked, but it would obtrude itself. After all, in spite of her fastidiousness, she was endued with most of the characteristics of flesh and blood.

"You must have a good deal to look after alone," she said.

"Oh yes," said Wyllard; "I'm making my biggest effort this year. We've sown at least a third more than I've ever done before, and I've bought a big bunch of horses, too. If all goes satisfactorily we should reap a record harvest, but in the meanwhile the thing's rather a pull. One can't let up a minute; there's always something to be done, and a constant need for supervision."

"Suppose you neglected the latter?"

Wyllard smiled. "Then I'm 'most afraid there'd be the biggest kind of smash."

After that they talked of other matters of no great consequence, for both of them were conscious of the necessity for a certain reticence; and when they reached the homestead Agatha joined Mrs. Hastings, while Wyllard pitched the hay off the waggon. He, however, came in to supper presently with about half of the others, and they all sat down together in the long, barely furnished room. Wyllard seemed unusually animated, and drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout of whimsical badinage, but he looked up sharply when, by and bye, a beat of hoofs rose from the prairie.

"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants?" he said. "I certainly don't expect anybody."

The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for the sod was hard and dry. Then it broke off, and Agatha saw Wyllard start as a man came into the room. He was a little, thick-set man with a weather-darkened face, dressed in rather old blue serge, and he looked and walked like a seaman. In another moment or two he stood still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A little thrill of disconcertion ran through Agatha, for she felt she knew what this stranger's errand must be.

Then Wyllard rose, and walked towards the man with outstretched hand.

"Sit right down and get some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden in from the railroad," he said. "We'll talk afterwards."

The stranger nodded. "I'm from Vancouver," he said; "had quite a lot of trouble tracing you."

He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take his horse, went back to his seat, but he was rather silent during the rest of the meal. When it was over he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the stranger into a smaller room pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar box on the table.

"Now you can get ahead," he said.

The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed it to his companion.

"That's what I came to bring you," he said quietly.

Wyllard's eyes grew very grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip of willow which will grow close up to the limits of the eternal ice, and it bore a rude representation of the British ensign union down, which signifies "In distress." Besides this there were one or two indecipherable words scratched on it, and three common names rather more clearly cut. Wyllard recognised every one of them.

"How did you get it?" he asked, in tense suspense.

The sailorman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of paper cut from a chart. He flattened it out on the table, and it showed, as Wyllard had expected, a strip of the Kamtchatkan coast.

"I guess I needn't tell you where that is," he said, and pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it me. He was up there late last season well over on the western side. A north-easterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of her. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail. Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept heading them from the east she sidled away down south through the Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which explains why Dunton only fetched Vancouver a week ago."



"But the message?"

"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove her to not far off the beach with ice about, and a Husky came down on them in some kind of boat."

"A Husky?" said Wyllard, who knew he meant an Esquimaux.

"That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and he had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message from three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out how long ago."

"Dunton tried for them?"

"How could he? She'd hardly look at the wind, and the ice was piling up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two with the floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and blew him out."

He had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose, stood leaning on his chair-back very grim in face.

"That," he said, "must have been eight or nine months ago."

"It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the boat."

"It's unthinkable," said Wyllard. "The thing can't be true."

His companion gravely produced a little common metal watch made in Connecticut, and worth some five or six dollars. Opening it he pointed to a name scratched inside it.

"You can't get over that," he said simply.

Wyllard strode up and down the room, and when he sat down again with a clenched hand laid upon the table he and the sailorman looked at each other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a little gesture.

"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?"

"I'm going for them."

The sailorman smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start right away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner."

He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. "Well," he said, "I'm coming with you, but you'll have to buy my ticket to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty with a blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me. Sealing's not what it used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later. I won't keep you from your friends."

Wyllard went out and left him, and though he did not see Mrs. Hastings just then he came upon Agatha sitting outside the house. She glanced at his face when he sat down beside her.

"Ah," she said, "you have had the summons."

Wyllard nodded. "Yes," he said, "that man was the skipper of a schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three men are."

Then he told her quietly what he had heard, and the girl was conscious of a very curious thrill.

"You are going up there to search for them?" she said. "Won't it cost you a great deal?"

She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his expression was very resolute.

"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my dollars are locked up in this crop, and there's need of constant watchfulness and effort until the last bushel's hauled in to the elevators. It probably sounds egotistical, but now I've got rid of Martial I can't put my hand on any one as fit to see the thing through as I am. Still, I have to go for them. What else could I do?"

"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia, or your authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?"

Wyllard's smile was somewhat grim. "It wouldn't be wise to give them an opportunity. For one thing, they've had enough of sealing cases, and that isn't astonishing. We'll say they applied for the persons of three British subjects who are supposed to be living somewhere in Russian Asia—and for that matter I couldn't be sure that two of them aren't Americans—the Russians naturally enquire what the men were doing there. The answer is that they were poaching the Russians' seals. Then the affair on the beach comes up, and there's a big claim for compensation and trouble all round. It seems to me the last thing those men—they're practically outlaws—would desire would be to have a Russian expedition sent up on their trail. They would want to lie hidden until they could somehow get off again."

"But how have they lived up there? The whole land's frozen, isn't it, most of the year?"

"They'd sealing rifles, and the Koriaks make out farther north in their roofed-in pits. One can live on seal and walrus meat and blubber."

Agatha shivered. "But they'd no tents, or furs, or blankets. It's horrible to imagine it."

"Yes," said Wyllard, gravely, "that's why I'm going for them."

Agatha sat still a moment. She could realise the magnitude of the sacrifice he was making, and in some degree the hazards that he must face. It appealed to her with an overwhelming force, but she was also conscious of a strange dismay. Then she turned to him with a flush of colour in her cheeks and her eyes shining.

"Oh," she said, "it's splendid!"

Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them."

Then somewhat to Agatha's relief Mrs. Hastings came out of the house, and Wyllard moved away towards the stable to bring out her team.



CHAPTER XIV.

AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE.

It was two days later when Agatha, coming back from a stroll across the prairie with the two little girls, found Mrs. Hastings awaiting her at the homestead door.

"I'll take the kiddies. Harry Wyllard's here, and he seems quite anxious to see you, though I don't know what he wants," she said.

She flashed a searching glance at the girl, whose face, however, remained expressionless. It was, at least, not often that Agatha's composure broke down.

"Anyway," she added, "you had better go in. Allen has been arguing with him the last half-hour, and can't get any sense into him. It seems to me the man's crazy; but he might, perhaps, listen to you."

"I think that's scarcely likely," said Agatha quietly.

Her companion made a sign of impatience. "Then," she said, "it's a pity. Anyway, if he speaks to you about his project you can tell him that it's altogether unreasonable."

She drew aside, and Agatha walked into the room in which she had had one painful interview with Gregory. Wyllard, who was sitting there, rose as she came in, and half-consciously she contrasted him with her lover. Then what Mrs. Hastings had once predicted came about, for Gregory did not bear that comparison favourably. Indeed, it seemed to her that he grew coarser and meaner in person and character. Then she turned to Wyllard, who stood quietly watching her.

"Nellie Hastings or her husband has been telling you what they think of my idea?" he said.

Agatha admitted it. "Yes," she said. "Their opinion evidently hasn't much weight with you."

"I wouldn't go quite so far as that, but you might have gone a little further than you did. Haven't you a message for me?" Then he smiled before he added, "You were sent to denounce my folly—and you can't do it. If you trusted your own impulses you would give me your benediction instead."

Agatha, who was troubled with a sense of regret, noticed that there was a suggestive wistfulness in his face.

"No," she said slowly, "I can't denounce it. For one reason, I have no right of any kind to force my views on you."

"You told Nellie Hastings that?"

It seemed an unwarranted question, but the girl admitted it candidly.

"In one sense I did. I suggested that there was no reason why you should listen to me."

Wyllard smiled again. "Nellie and her husband are good friends of mine, but sometimes our friends are a little too officious. Anyway, it doesn't count. If you had had that right, you would have told me to go."

Agatha felt the warm blood rise to her cheeks. It seemed to her that he had paid her a great and sincere compliment in taking it for granted that if she had loved him she would still have bidden him undertake his perilous duty.

"Ah," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps I should not have been brave enough."

It was not a judicious answer. She quite realised that, but she felt that she must speak with unhesitating candour.

"After all," she added, "can you be quite sure that this thing is your duty?"

The man laughed in a rather grim fashion. "No," he said, "I can't. In fact, when I sit down to think I can see at least a dozen reasons why it doesn't concern me. In a case of this kind that's always easy. It's just borne in upon me—I don't know how—that I have to go."

Agatha crossed to the window and sat down. She knew there was more to follow, and it seemed advisable to secure whatever there might be in her favour in a pose of physical ease. Besides, where she stood the glare of light flung back by the white and dusty grass outside struck full upon her face, and she did not want the man to read every varying expression. He leaned upon a chair-back looking at her gravely.

"Well," he said, "we'll go on a little further. It seems better that I should make what's in my mind quite clear to you. You see, I and Captain Dampier start in a week."

Agatha was certainly conscious of a thrill of dismay, but the man proceeded quietly. "We may be back before the winter, but it's also quite likely that we may be ice-nipped before our work is through, and in that case it would be a year at least before we reach Vancouver. In fact, there's a certain probability that all of us may leave our bones up there. Now, there's a thing I must ask you. Is it only a passing trouble that stands between you and Gregory? Are you still fond of him?"

The girl felt her heart beating unpleasantly fast. It would have been a relief to assure herself that she was as fond of Gregory as she had been, but she could not do it.

"That," she said, "is a point on which I cannot answer you."

"We'll let it go at that. The fact that Gregory sent me over for you implied a certain obligation. How far events have cleared me of it I don't know—and you don't seem willing to tell me. But I fancy there is now less cause than there was for me to thrust my own wishes into the background, and, as I start in another week, the situation has forced my hand. I can't wait as I had meant to do, and it would be a vast relief to know that I had made your future safer than it is before I go. Will you marry me at the settlement the morning I start?"

Half-conscious, as she was, of the unselfishness which had prompted this suggestion, Agatha turned and faced him in hot anger.

"Can you suppose for a moment that I would agree to that?" she asked.

"Wait," said the man gravely. "Try to look at it quietly. First of all, I want you. You know that—though you have never shown me any tenderness, you can't doubt it—but I can't stay to win your liking. I must go away. Then, as things stand, your future is uncertain; and as my wife it would, at least, be safer. However badly the man I leave in charge of the Range may manage there would be something saved out of the wreck, and I would like to make that something yours. As I said, I may be away a year, perhaps eighteen months, and I may never come back. If I don't, the fact that you would bear my name could cause you no great trouble. It would lay no restraint on you in any way."

Agatha looked him steadily in the eyes, and spoke as she felt. "We can't contemplate your not coming back. It's unthinkable."

"Thank you," said Wyllard, still with the grave quietness she wondered at. "Then I'm not sure that my turning up again would greatly complicate the thing. There would, at least, be one way out of the difficulty. You wouldn't find the situation intolerable if I could make you fond of me."

The girl broke into a little, high-strung laugh that had a tinge of bitterness in it.

"Oh," she said, "aren't you taking too much for granted? Am I really to believe you are making this fantastic offer seriously? Do you suppose I would marry you—for your possessions?"

"It sounds bloodless? Perhaps it is in one way, but you wouldn't always find me that. Just now, because my hand is forced, I am only anticipating things. If I live, you will some day have to choose between me and Gregory. In this case he must hold his own if he can."

"Against what you have offered me?" She flung the question at him.

He looked at her with his face set and the signs of restraint very plain on it.

"I expect I deserved that. I wanted to make you safe. It's the most pressing difficulty."

The bitterness was still in the girl's eyes.

"So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only one." Then her anger seemed to carry her away. "Oh," she said, "do you imagine that an offer of the kind you have made me, made as you have made it, would lead anyone to love you?"

Wyllard smiled. "When I first saw your picture, and when I saw you afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem to have got rid of it, I love you better as you are. There is, however, one thing I must ask again, and it's your clear duty to tell me. Are you fonder of Gregory than you feel you ever could be of me?"

Agatha's eyes fell. She felt she could not look at him just then, nor could she answer his question honestly as she almost wished to.

"At least, I am bound to him until he releases me."

"Ah," said Wyllard, "that is what I was most afraid of. All along it hampered me, and in it you have the reason for my bloodlessness. It is another reason why I should go away."

"For fear that you should tempt me from my duty?"

The man's expression changed, and there crept into his eyes a gleam of the passion that she knew he was capable of.

"My dear," he said, "I seem to know that I could make you break faith with that man. You belong to me. For three years you have been everywhere with me, but we will let that go. I must go away, and Gregory will have a clear field, but the probability is in favour of me coming back again, and then, if he has failed to make the most of it, I'll enforce my claim."

He turned and seized one of her hands, holding it strongly against her will.

"That is my last word. At least, you will let me think that when I go up yonder into the mists and snow I shall take your good wishes for my success away with me."

She lifted her face, which was flushed, and once more looked him steadily in the eyes.

"They are yours, most fervently," she said. "It would be intolerable that you should fail."

He smiled very gravely, and let her hand fall. "After all," he said, "one can only do what one can."

Then he went out without another glance at her, and not long afterwards Mrs. Hastings, who was endued with a reasonable measure of curiosity, found occasion to enter the room.

"You have said something to trouble Harry?" she began.

Agatha contrived to smile. "I'm not sure he's greatly troubled. In any case, I told him I would not marry him—for the second time."

"He has given up his crazy notion, thee?"

"He never suggested doing that."

Mrs. Hastings made a little sign of compassionate astonishment.

"Oh," she said, "he's mad."

"I believe I told him he was bloodless. At least, that was how he interpreted what I said."

Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Harry Wyllard bloodless! My dear, can't you see that the restraint he now and then practises is the sign of a tremendous vitality? Still, the man's mad. Did he tell you that he means to leave Gregory in charge of Willow Range?"

Agatha was certainly astonished at this, but Mrs. Hastings nodded. "It's a fact," she said. "He asked him to meet him here to save time, and"—she turned towards the window—"there's his waggon now."

She moved towards the door, and then turned again. "Is there any blood—red blood we will call it—or even common-sense in you? You could have kept that man here if you had wanted."

"No," said Agatha, "I don't think I could. I'm not even sure that if I'd had the right I would have done it. He recognised that."

Mrs. Hastings looked at her very curiously. "Then," she said, "you have either a somewhat extraordinary character, or are in love with him in a way that is beyond most of us. In any case, I can't help feeling that you will be sorry for what you have done some day."

Next moment the door closed with a bang, and Agatha was left alone endeavouring to analyse her sensations during her interview with Wyllard, which was difficult, for they had been confused and fragmentary. She had certainly been angry with him, but the cause for this was much less apparent, though there were one or two half-sufficient explanations. For one thing, it was almost intolerable to feel that he had evidently taken it for granted that the greater security she would enjoy as his wife would appeal to her, though there was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, his reserve had been at least perplexing, and it was borne in upon her that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him had he spoken with fire and passion. The restraint, however, had been evident, and he could not have practised it unless there had been something to hold in check; and then it became apparent that it was more important to ascertain his motives than her own.

If the man had been fervently in love with her, why had he not insisted on that fact, she asked. Could it have been because he had with the fantastic generosity, which he was evidently capable of, been willing to leave his comrade unhandicapped with an open field? That, however, seemed too much to expect from any man. Then there was the other explanation that he preferred to leave the choice wholly to her lest he should tempt her too strongly to break faith with Gregory, which brought the blood to her face as it had done already, since it suggested that he fancied he had only to urge her sufficiently and she would yield. There was, it seemed, no satisfactory explanation at all. Only the fact remained that he had made her a somewhat dispassionate offer of marriage, and had left her to decide, which she had done.

As it happened, Wyllard could not just then, at least, have made the matter very much clearer. Shrewdly practical, as he was, in some respects, there were times when he acted blindly, merely doing without reasoning what he sub-consciously felt was right. This had more than once involved him in disaster, but it is, perhaps, fortunate that there are others like him, for, after all, in the long run the failures of such men now and then prove better than the dictates of calculating wisdom.

In any case, Agatha found a momentary relief from her thoughts as she watched Hawtrey get down from his waggon and approach the house. The change in him was plainer than it had ever been, which may have been because she had now a standard of comparison. He was tall and well-favoured, and he moved with a jaunty and yet not ungraceful swing; but it almost seemed to her that this was merely the result of an empty self-sufficiency. There was, she felt, no force behind it which when the strain came would prove that jaunty bearing warranted. He was smiling, and for some reason his smile appeared a trifle inane, while there was certainly a hint of sensuousness in his face. It suggested that the man might sink into self-indulgent coarseness. She, however, remembered that she was still pledged to him, and determinedly brushed these thoughts aside, until she heard his footsteps inside the house, when she became possessed of a burning curiosity as to what Wyllard had to say to him, which, however, remained unsatisfied.

In the meanwhile, Hawtrey entered a room where Wyllard sat awaiting him with a paper in his hand.

"I asked you to drive over here because it would save time," he said. "I have to go in to the railroad at once. Here's a draft of the scheme I suggested. You had better tell me if there's anything you're not quite satisfied with."

He threw the paper on the table, and Hawtrey, who took it up, perused it.

"I'm to farm and generally manage the Range on your behalf," he said. "My percentage to be deducted after harvest. I'm empowered to sell out grain or horses as appears advisable, and to have the use of teams and implements for my own place when occasion requires it."

He looked up. "I've no fault to find with the thing, Harry. It's generous."

"Then you had better sign it, and we'll get Hastings to witness it in a minute or two. In the meanwhile there's a thing I have to ask you. How do you stand in regard to Miss Ismay?"

Hawtrey pushed his chair back noisily. "That," he said, "is a subject on which I'm naturally not disposed to give you any information. How does it concern you?

"In this way. Believing that your engagement must be broken off I asked Miss Ismay to marry me."

Hawtrey was clearly startled, but in a moment or two he smiled.

"Of course," he said, "she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, our engagement isn't broken off. It's merely extended."

They looked at each other in silence for a moment or two, and there was a curious hardness in Wyllard's eyes. Then Hawtrey spoke again.

"In view of what you have just told me why did you want to put me of all people in charge of the Range?" he said.

"I'll be candid," said Wyllard. "For one thing, you held on when I was slipping off the trestle that day in British Columbia. For another, you'll make nothing of your own holding, and if you run the Range as it ought to be run it will put a good many dollars into your pocket, besides relieving me of a big anxiety. If you're to marry Miss Ismay, I'd sooner she was made reasonably comfortable."

Hawtrey looked up with a flush in his face.

"Harry," he said, "this is extravagantly generous."

"Wait," said Wyllard; "there's a little more to be said. I can't be back before the frost, and I may be away eighteen months. While I am away you will have a clear field—and you must make the most of it. If you are not married when I come back I shall ask Miss Ismay again. Now"—and he glanced at his comrade steadily—"does this stand in the way of your going on with the arrangement we have arrived at?"

There was a rather tense silence for a moment or two, and then Hawtrey broke it.

"No," he said; "after all, there is no reason why it should do so. It has no practical bearing upon the other question."

Wyllard rose. "Well," he said, "if you will call Allen Hastings in we'll get this thing fixed up."

The document was duly signed, and a few minutes later Wyllard drove away; but Mrs. Hastings contrived to have a few words with Hawtrey before he did the same.

"I've no doubt that Harry took you into his confidence on a certain point," she said.

"Yes," admitted Hawtrey; "he did. I was a little astonished, besides feeling rather sorry for him. There is, however, reason to believe that he'll soon get over it."

"You feel sure of that?" and Mrs. Hastings smiled.

"Isn't it evident? If he had cared much about her he certainly wouldn't have gone away."

"You mean you wouldn't?"

"No," said Hawtrey, "there's no doubt of that."

His companion smiled again. "Well," she said drily, "I would like to think you were right about Harry; it would be a relief to me."

Hawtrey, who said nothing further, presently drove away, and soon after he did so Agatha approached Mrs. Hastings.

"There's something I must ask you," she said. "Has Gregory consented to take charge of Wyllard's farm?"

"He has," said her companion in her dryest tone.

Agatha's face flushed, and there was a flash in her eyes.

"Oh," she said, "it's almost insufferable!"

Then she turned and left Mrs. Hastings without another word.

She only saw Wyllard once again, and that was when he called at the homestead early one morning. He got down from the waggon where Dampier sat, and shook hands with her and Allen and Mrs. Hastings. Very few words were spoken, and she could not remember what she said, but when he swung himself up again and the waggon jolted away into the white prairie she went back to the house with her heart beating unpleasantly fast and a very curious feeling of depression.



CHAPTER XV.

THE BEACH.

For a fortnight after they reached Vancouver Wyllard and Dampier were very busy. They had various difficulties to contend with, for while they would have preferred to slip away to sea as quietly as possible a British vessel's movements are fenced about with many formalities, and they did not wish to ship a white man who could be dispensed with. Wyllard fancied there were sailormen and sealers in Vancouver and down Puget Sound who would have gone with him, but there was a certain probability of their discussing their exploits afterwards in the saloons ashore, which was about the last thing that he desired. It appeared essential that he should avoid notoriety as much as possible.

He had further trouble about obtaining provisions and general necessaries, for considerably more attention than the free-lance sealers cared about was being bestowed upon the North just then, and he did not desire to rouse the curiosity of the dealers as to why he was filling his lazaret up with Arctic stores. He obviated that difficulty by dividing his orders among the whole of them, and buying as little as possible. Dampier, however, proved an adept at the difficult business, and eventually the schooner Selache crept out from the Narrows at dusk one evening under all plain sail, painted a pale green, with her big main-boom raking at least a fathom beyond her taffrail. There were then Wyllard, Dampier, and two other white men on board her. A week later she sailed into a deep, rock-walled inlet on the western coast of Vancouver Island with a settlement at the top of it, where the storekeeper made no difficulty about selling Wyllard all his flour and canned goods at higher figures than there was any probability of his obtaining from the local ranchers.

Then the Selache slid down the inlet again, and lay for several days in a forest-shrouded arm near the mouth of it, while, when she once more dropped her anchor off a Siwash rancherie far up on the wild West coast, she was painted a dingy grey, and her sawn-off boom just topped her stern. One does not want a great main-boom in the northern seas, and a big mainsail needs men to handle it. Wyllard, however, shipped several sea-bred Indians who had made wonderful perilous voyages on the trail of the seal and halibut in open canoes. All of them had, as it happened, also sailed in sealing schooners. Their comrades sold him furs, and filled part of the hold up with redwood billets and bark for the stove, for he had not considered it advisable to load too much Wellington coal. Then he pushed out into the waste Pacific, and when once a beautiful big white mail boat reeled by him, driving with streaming bows into an easterly gale, he sent back a message to his friends upon the prairie. It duly reached them, for some three weeks afterwards Allen Hastings, opening The Colonist, which he had ordered from Victoria as soon as Wyllard sailed, read out to his wife and Agatha a paragraph in the shipping news:

"Empress of India, from Yokohama, reports having passed small grey British schooner, flying——" There followed several code letters, the latitude and longitude, and a line apparently by the water-front reporter: "No schooner belonging to this city allotted the signal in question."

Hastings smiled as he laid down the paper. "No," he said, "that signal's Wyllard's private code. Agatha, won't you reach me down my map of the Pacific? It's just behind you."

Then he looked round, and noticed the significant smile in his wife's eyes, for the girl had already turned towards the shelf where he kept the lately purchased map.

The easterly gale, however, did not last, for the wind came out of the west and north, and sank to foggy calms when it did not blow wickedly hard. This meant that the Selache's course was all to windward, and though they drove her at it unmercifully under reefed boom-foresail, main trysail, and a streaming jib or two, with the brine going over her solid forward, she had made little when each arduous day was done. They were drenched to the skin continuously, and lashed by stinging spray. Cooking except of the crudest kind was out of the question, and sleep would have been impossible to any but worn-out sailormen. Even then, they were often roused in the blackness of the night, when she lay with her lee rail under, and would not lift it out, to get another reef in, or crawl out on plunging bowsprit washed by icy seas to haul a burst jib down. It was even more trying, glad as they were of the respite in some respects, to lie rolling wildly on the big smooth undulations that hove out of the windless calm, while everything in her banged to and fro, and when the breeze came screaming through the fog or rain they sprang to make sail again.

Fate seemed dead against them, as it was certain that, if their purpose was suspected, the hand of every white man they might come across would be; but they held on over leagues of empty ocean while the season wore away, until once more the wind freshened easterly, and they ran for a week under boom-foresail and a jib, with the big grey combers curling as they foamed by high above her rail. Then the wind fell, and Dampier, who got an observation, armed his deep-sea lead, and finding shells and shoal water came aft to talk to Wyllard with the strip of Dunton's chart.

Wyllard, who was clad in oilskins, stood, a shapeless figure, by the wheel, with his face darkened and roughened by cold and stinging brine. There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-grey sea opened up beyond them beneath the dripping jibs. Then the bows would go down again, and all that was visible was the fore-shortened slope of deck and the breast of the big undulation that hove itself up ahead. The Selache was carrying everything and lurching over the steep swell at some four knots an hour.

Dampier stopped near the wheel, and glanced at Wyllard's oilskins.

"You'll have to take them off. It's stuffed boots and those Indian seal-gut things or furs from now on," he said. "That leather cuff's chewing up your hand."

"We'll cut that out," said Wyllard; "it's not to the point. Can't you get on?"

Dampier grinned. "We're on soundings, and they and Dunton's longitude most agree. With this wind we should pick the beach up in the next two days. Next question is, where those men were?"

"Where they are," said Wyllard.

"If they've pushed on it's probably a different thing, though if they'd food yonder I don't quite see why they'd want to push on anywhere. It wouldn't be south, anyway. They'd run up against the Russians there."

"We've decided that already."

"I'm admitting it," said the skipper. "There's the other choice that they've gone up north. It's narrower across to Alaska there, and it's quite likely they might have a notion of looking out for one of the steam whalers. The Koriaks up yonder will have boats of some kind. If they're skin ones like those the Huskies have they might sledge them on the ice."

It was a suggestion that had been made several times already, but both the men realised that there was in all probability very little to warrant it. Wyllard had wasted no time endeavouring to learn what was known about the desolation on the western shore of the Behring Sea. He had bought a schooner and set out at once. It, however, appeared almost impossible to him that any three men could haul the skin boats and supplies they would need far over hummocky ice.

"The point is that we'll have to fix on some course in the next few days," added his companion. "Say we run in to make inquiries"—and a gleam of grim amusement crept into his eyes—"what are we going to find? A beach with a roaring surf on it, and if we get a boat through, a desolate, half-frozen swamp behind it. It's quite likely there are people in the country, Koriaks or Kamtchadales, but if there are they'll probably move up and down after what they get to eat like the Huskies do, and we can't hang on and wait for them. Most any time next month we'll have the ice closing in."