By Right of Purchase

"Wheat's down another cent, with sellers prevailing," he said, pointing to several newspapers on the table. "It's 'most a pity I had fixed up to put in the big crop. Things are quiet in Russia, and that means a good crop; they've had rain in California, and the kind of season they wanted in Argentina, India, and Australia. It seems to me the whole thing's going to turn on the States' crop this year. From what I've been reading here, they're a little scared about sowing in the Dakotas and Minnesota. They'd swamp out all the markets if wheat jumped up just now."

"It shows very little sign of doing it," said Gallwey. "Things are going to be a little serious as it is. A short crop in the States would give values a fillip, but the trouble is that if they have frost or hail we are likely to get it, too."

Leland smiled drily. "Well," he said, "if the market doesn't stiffen, we can only go under. It would hurt to give up Prospect, but it could be done. In the meanwhile, I've been wondering about that waggon. It took me quite a while to screw the lock-nut on with the big box-spanner, and the thing never loosened of itself."

"I don't think it did. The last time you drove in to the settlement, your waggon was standing probably four or five hours behind the Occidental. I think I'd try to find out if anybody borrowed one of Porter's spanners when I went in again. How long was it after you threw Jasper out, when you drove away?"

"About five minutes."

"Well, it's quite possible he did it before. I suppose you haven't asked yourself how Jasper makes a living. He never seems to be doing anything, and I believe it isn't difficult to buy whisky at the settlement. Thanks to our beneficent legislature, whoever keeps it makes an excellent profit."

Leland's face grew a trifle harder, and he closed one brown hand. "The same thing struck me, and I guess you're right. It seems I have a good deal against me this year. The market would have been bad enough without the rustlers."

Gallwey rose and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You can count on me, Charley, whatever comes along. There are others, too. It isn't only the whisky men who feel they have to get even with you. You'll get what you like to ask for, teams, men to harvest for you, and, though it's scarce in this country, even money."

He turned away a trifle abruptly, and Leland felt a thrill of gratitude. He had many friends on the prairie, and knew the worth of them, though it did not occur to him that he had done quite sufficient to warrant their good-will. Just then he was most clearly sensible that there was much against him.

Presently Carrie came in, looking very dainty and alluring in an evening gown. She had not yet discarded all the social conventions to which she had been accustomed at Barrock-holme. Leland felt a stirring of his blood as he looked at her. He rose and stood waiting, as she watched him gravely, a faint flush in her cheeks.

"Charley," she said, and he thought how seldom she used his name, "I have a difficult thing to do, but it would not be honest to shirk it. I must ask you to forgive me for what I said when you told me about the waggon."

"Why?"

The colour grew in the girl's face. "Mrs. Custer has told me that her husband saw you."

Leland smiled somewhat bitterly. "You find it easier to believe Tom Custer than me?"

"Please wait. What could I think when you told me? I was at the settlement that morning, and saw your cut lips when you stood on the verandah."

The man started a little, but he promptly recovered from his astonishment, and looked at her with twinkling eyes.

"Now I understand," he said. "You were a little disgusted with me. The men you are used to wouldn't have thrown any one they couldn't agree with out of a hotel."

"No. Still, there are cases when the provocation may be too strong for one."

"It is quite often that way with me. I'm afraid I am a little short in temper."

He leant upon the table, as though he had nothing more to say, and Carrie recognised that he did not mean to tell her what had led up to the outbreak. Whether this was due to pride or generosity she did not know, but the fact made its impression upon her. Her husband was, it seemed, sure enough of his own purposes to disregard what others thought of him; but there was a certain sting in the reflection. A desire on his part to stand well in her estimation would have been more gratifying. Still, she overcame the slight sense of mortification.

"You haven't told me what the provocation was," she said.

"No," said Leland, with a little quiet smile. "It wouldn't be quite the thing to worry you with an explanation every time I lose my temper. I do it now and then."

"Ah," said Carrie, "don't you care, then, what I think of you? Still, in this case, I needn't ask you. Mrs. Custer told me that, too. That is why I felt I must ask you to forgive me for presuming to blame you. I want to be just, and I was in my wilfulness horribly far from being so."

"You want to be just? That was the only reason?"

The girl saw the tension in his face, and stood silent, swayed by a whirl of confused sensations. She would not admit there was another reason, though something in her nature clamoured for a breaking down of the restraint between them. She had looked down on this man and wantonly wounded him, while he had shown her what she realised was a splendid generosity and borne her scorn in silence. It was once more his independent silence that troubled her, and she felt just then that she would sooner have had him compel her to acknowledge that he was not what she had striven to think him.

"Well," he said, a trifle sadly, "I suppose I must not expect too much."

The girl's heart smote her. She knew just what he wanted her to say, but she could not say it, and yet she meant to do all she had undertaken.

"There is a little more, and it must be said," she said. "I know part, at least, of what those men said of me."

She stopped, and, holding herself rigidly, though one hand which she had laid on the table quivered a little, looked at him steadily.

"If I could only prove them wrong, but I can't," she said.

A deep flush crept into Leland's face, and the veins rose swollen on his forehead, while he grasped her shoulder almost roughly.

"Do you know what you are saying?" he asked.

"That I married you because we were poor at Barrock-holme. It was a horrible wrong I did you – and you have made me ashamed."

The relief that swept into the man's face somewhat puzzled her, but she had seen the anger and suspense in it a moment earlier, and her heart throbbed painfully. After all, though she did not understand what had troubled him, it seemed that he did care very much indeed.

"My dear," he said quietly, "if you think you have done me any wrong, it is wiped out now. Perhaps, some day, you will go a little further than you have done to-night, and I must try to wait for it. That is all I have to say, and this is becoming a little painful to both of us."

He turned slowly away, and Carrie moved towards the door, but, when she reached it, she stopped and looked back at him.

"One can be a little too generous now and then," she said.

Then the door closed, and Leland stood still, leaning on the table, with thoughtful eyes.

"I don't know if that was a lead or not, and I don't seem able to think just now," he said. "I'm not running Prospect, it's driving me, and I'm ground down mind and body by the load of wheat I'm carrying."

CHAPTER XIV

THE OUTLAWS STRIKE BACK

The brief spring was merging suddenly, earlier even than usual, into summer, and it was a still, oppressive night when Leland sat, somewhat grim in face, in a mortgage and land broker's office at the railroad settlement. The little, dusty room, with its litter of papers and survey prints, was very hot, and Leland, who had just come in from the dusk, was a trifle dazed by the light the kerosene lamp flung down. He had in his hand two or three letters the broker had given him, and glanced at one of them moodily, only with difficulty fixing his attention on it. He had toiled with feverish activity that spring, and at last the strain was telling, for his head ached, and he felt limp and weary. It had, too, been dry weather ever since he put the first plough into the ground, and that night there was an oppressive tension in the atmosphere.

Macartney, the land-broker, sat opposite him, a gaunt, keen-eyed man, with a thin jacket over his white shirt. Leland knew him for an upright man, though nobody is supposed to be particularly scrupulous in the business he followed.

"You are looking a little played out," he said. "I can give you some ice and soda, but it's partly due to your own efforts that I've nothing else. Whisky can, I believe, be had, but, in the face of the fall in land and wheat, the figure the few men want who venture to keep it is prohibitive."

He filled a tumbler from the fountain on the side-table, and dropped in a lump of ice. Leland drained it thirstily.

"I've been round since sun-up, and have driven forty miles," he said, putting down the empty glass. "I guess it's the weather, for a thing of that kind shouldn't have troubled me. Not a blade of wheat up yet, and the seed-beds all clods and dust. There are very few of us going to escape the frost in the fall."

Macartney nodded sympathetically. "If I come out a hundred cents on the dollar when harvest's over, it's rather more than I expect," he said. "My stake's in land and wheat, and I couldn't unload anything except at a smart loss just now. In the circumstances, it seems to me that Bruce is making you a reasonable offer."

"I'm not likely to raise on it from anybody else," and Leland frowned as he glanced at the letter. "Still, if I let him have the cattle, I can't stock the ranch again. They should have cleared me quite a few thousand dollars, if I could have held on, and sold them fat in the fall."

"If I were in your place and could hold on, I would. Still, you have to have some money in hand. The banks won't look at land, and I couldn't raise you anything on mortgage except at a crippling interest."

"That's just my trouble, I haven't got any cash."