A Prairie Courtship

"And that is?"

"Unconditional surrender. In a little while they'll own you. It's probable that you'll add a wife to them, and then, unless she's a woman of unusual courage, you'll find yourself shackled down to half the formulas you have run away from."

"Still, you get something in return."

"Yes," assented Hunter slowly. "I'm optimist enough to believe that – but it's an elusive quantity. I suppose it depends largely on what you expect."

He stood up and emptied his pipe.

"It's getting late and I have to start again at six to-morrow."

They went back to the house together and Thorne drove away early the next morning. Soon after midday Hunter set out for Graham's Bluff, where he had some business. When he had gone Florence carried a bundle of papers out to a little table placed in the shadow on the veranda, and sitting down before it looked at them with a frown. Most of them were bills, which she had once half thought of showing to her husband, though she had not done so, chiefly because the bankbook which she had recently sent up to be balanced revealed the fact that there was then just eighty dollars standing to her credit. As Florence seldom filled in the counterfoils of the checks she drew, this information had been a painful shock to her. It was evident that she had spent a good deal more money in Montreal than she had supposed, and that she could not pay the bills, and there was no doubt that her husband would be signally displeased.

As a rule he was very patient. She was willing to own that, though she now and then did so with a certain illogical irritation at his complacency; but when it was a question of money he could be inflexible. He had, however, treated her liberally, and to save her the necessity of applying to him he paid so many dollars into her bank twice a year and within that limit left her to control the domestic expenses as she pleased. This, indeed, was what chiefly troubled her, for there should have been enough to her credit to carry her on until harvest, when the next payment would be made. This, however, was unfortunately not the case. There was no doubt that she had to grapple with a financial crisis.

She added up the bills several times and signally failed to make them any less, though it was now perfectly clear that it would not be advisable to show them to her husband. Thrusting them aside, she leaned back in her chair and presently decided, with the renewal of an existing grievance, that the situation was the result of Elcot's absurd retiring habits. If he would only go about with her now and then, or bring a few smart people out in the summer, she might be able to take pleasure in less costly diversions and, to some extent at least, avoid extravagance. On the other hand, however, there were, as she had already realized, one or two reasons why it seemed just as well that Elcot should stay at home. He now looked very much like a farmer, though he had not been reared as one, and she fancied that his rather grim reserve, which was broken now and then by attacks of sardonic candor, was scarcely likely to be appreciated in the world she visited. As a matter of fact, his own relatives with whom she sometimes stayed were in the habit of smiling significantly when they mentioned him. He had, it seemed, flung up excellent prospects when, in spite of his family's protests, he went West with very inadequate means as a prairie farmer. That he had succeeded was, she understood, largely due to the fact that an eccentric relative who agreed with him had subsequently died and left him a few hundred dollars.

In the meanwhile these reflections brought her no nearer a solution of the difficulty. There was a big deficit, and she had no idea how she was to meet it. Then she remembered that when she was married Elcot had among other things settled a certain strip of land on her. He had failed to interest her in its management, though she was pleased to receive the proceeds of its cultivation, which he handed her after each harvest. They were sowing again now, and she had heard that it was possible to sell a crop, or at least to raise money on it in some way, beforehand. She determined to question Nevis, who carried on a general business at the railroad settlement, about the matter when he next drove over, which he had said he would probably do during the next day or two. He might even turn up that afternoon and, as Elcot was out of the way, she wished he would. He was a man of prepossessing appearance and easy manners, and he had now and then paid her a deferential homage which was not unpleasant. Indeed, she had once or twice contrasted him with Elcot, and the comparison had not been altogether in the latter's favor.

Half an hour later he drove up in a light buggy and handed the horse over to one of the teamsters. Then he walked up on the veranda, where Florence was still sitting with the bills before her. Turning around when he had greeted her, he pointed to the plodding teams which moved down the long furrows that ran back from the house.

"I didn't see Elcot at work with the boys as I drove by," he said.

"He is away and probably will not be back until after supper."

"I'm sorry I can't wait so long," Nevis replied, taking the chair to which she pointed. "Anyway, it isn't a matter of much importance, and I'll try to call again."

Florence sent for some tea, though it is seldom that refreshments of any kind are provided between the regular meals on the prairie, and then leaned back in her chair watching him while he sat with his cup in his hand. He was, as she had decided on other occasions, a well-favored man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and, as usual, he was artistically dressed. The hat he had laid on a neighboring chair was a genuine Panama, such as Mexican half-breeds spend months in weaving; his rather tight, light-colored clothes were excellently cut; and once more it struck her with a sense of injury that it was a pity Elcot insisted on attiring himself as his teamsters did.

"I had half expected to find you gone," he said; "you mentioned a visit to Toronto when I last saw you. After all, if your husband can spare you, it must be nice to get away. You must feel that you are rather wasted here."

This was a point on which Florence was convinced already and she did not in the least object to his mentioning it.

"Elcot," she replied dryly, "has his farm."

"Well," responded Nevis, "I'm glad you haven't gone. The rest of us can badly spare the one bright light which shines upon our primitive obscurity."

His hostess did not check him. The man was usually rather daring, and she seldom resented a speech of this kind, no matter from whom it came.

"In any case, I am not going," she informed him. "That" – she pointed to the bundle of papers – "is the reason."

"Bills? Permit me."

Before she could prevent it he took them up and flicked them over. Then he turned and looked at her with a smile in his dark eyes.

"On examination of them I'm inclined to think the reason's a good one."

Florence recognized that he had ventured further in the last few minutes than Elcot would have done in a month before he married her, and, though she was not greatly displeased, she changed the subject, for a time.

"What did you want to see my husband about?" she asked.

"I'm anxious to disarm his opposition to the part I feel like taking in the Bluff Creamery scheme. I'm willing to back the experiment on reasonable terms, but I understand that Elcot's dubious about permitting it; and Thorne has been advising the boys to have nothing to do with me. Rough on a man who's ready to finance them, isn't it?"

Florence did not care whether it was rough or not. Except that she would have liked to spend double her husband's income, financial questions seldom interested her.

"I suppose you wish to do it to encourage them – out of philanthropy?" she suggested with a yawn.

Nevis laughed good-humoredly.

"You can put that question to your husband or Thorne. I'm willing to confess that in these affairs I'm out for business pure and simple, though that doesn't prevent my taking an interest in my friends' difficulties now and then." He tapped the bills with his fingers. "You are at present short of three hundred dollars?"

"I'm short of nine hundred," corrected Florence with candor.

The next question was difficult. In fact, it was one that could not well be put directly, and the man's voice became judiciously sympathetic.

"Wheat sold badly last fall, and Elcot has, no doubt, his share of worries?" he suggested. "You naturally wouldn't like to add to them?"

They looked at each other and Florence was quite aware that he would go a little farther as soon as he had ascertained whether she had any intention of mentioning the deficit to her husband. She also recognized that the fact that she had drawn his attention to the bills would make this seem improbable.

"I'm not sure that I'm so unselfish," she said with a laugh. "In any case, I'm independent; I don't care to bother other people with my troubles."

The man leaned forward, looking at her as though begging a favor.

"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that such a course might be a little rough on some of them. Do you never make an exception?"

"I haven't done so yet."

"Then," said Nevis eagerly, "if you'll try it in this instance I'll tell you what I'll do. The thing's in my line of business and I'll find those nine hundred dollars for you."

Florence sat silent, watching him for a few moments. She meant to agree, and though she quite realized that general opinion would have regarded this as tantamount to placing herself in the man's power, that did not trouble her. She had never yet been in any man's power and she did not intend to be.

"Well," she consented at length; "but it mustn't be a favor."

Nevis tactfully declared that it could be done on a purely business footing, with which object he suggested, after a few judicious questions, that she should give him an order for the delivery of so many bushels of wheat after harvest, which she did. That the document was most informal and merely scribbled on a half-sheet of note-paper did not seem to concern him. Then he wrote her out a check.

"I don't mind saying that I'm going to make eight per cent. out of you, which is enough to content me," he explained. "You see, I never let an opportunity go by."

Florence made no comment. Whether or not he would continue to be content with the mere interest on the money was a question with which she would be competent to deal when it arose.

In a few minutes he prepared to take his departure. He bowed over her hand in a manner that was not common on the prairie, and she watched him with a meaning smile when he drove away.

CHAPTER VIII

A FIT OF TEMPER

It was two days later that Nevis led his worn-out horse up the side of one of the deep ravines which every here and there wind through the prairie. It was then about the middle of the afternoon and almost unpleasantly hot in the sheltered hollow. The crest of it shut out the wind that swept the open levels, and the sunshine struck down between the birches, which were just then unfolding lace-like streamers of tiny leaves. There were no other trees except the willows wrapped in a bright emerald flush along the banks of a little creek.

Nevis felt unpleasantly weary. Although a man of fine proportions, he did not care for physical exertion and avoided it as far as possible; but the commercial instinct was strong in him and he had driven a long way in pursuit of money during the last few days. It was supposed that he picked up a good deal of it in the most unlikely as well as the more obvious places, for he was troubled by few scruples and was endued with the faculty of getting money. He was a young man, evidently of excellent education, though nobody seemed to know where he had received it or where he came from. Beginning as an implement dealer and general mortgage broker on a humble scale two or three years earlier, he had extended his field of operations rapidly.