The Mistress of Bonaventure

"Which gates? You are not precise," said my companion, and laughed pleasantly when, smiling, too, I answered, "One might almost say – of Paradise!"

"It must be the Moslem's paradise, then," she said. "Still, I hardly fancy a stalwart prairie rancher would pose well as the Peri, and, by way of consolation, you can remember that there are disappointments within those gates, and those who have acquired knowledge beyond them sometimes envy the illusions of those without. No, you have not changed much in some respects, Mr. Ormesby. You must talk to my sister Lucille – she will agree with you."

Her manner was very gracious, in spite of the badinage; but there was a faint trace of weariness and sardonic humor in her merriment which chilled me. The dark-haired girl I remembered had displayed a power of sympathy and quick enthusiasm which had apparently vanished from my present companion.

"I am curious to hear if you have verified the optimistic views you once professed," she added languidly.

I laughed a little dryly. Being younger then, and led on by a very winsome maiden's interest, I had talked with perhaps a little less than becoming modesty of the possibilities open to a resolute man in the new lands of the West, and laid it down as an axiom that determination was a sure password to success.

"You should be merciful. That was in my callow days," I said. "Nevertheless, with a few more reservations, I believe it is possible for those who can hope and hold on to realize their ambition in this country, whether it be the evolution of a prosperous homestead from a strip of Government land and a sod hovel – or more desirable things. The belief is excusable, because one may see the proof of it almost every day. I even fancied, when in England, that you agreed with me."

There was a faint mischievous sparkle in Miss Haldane's eyes, but she answered with becoming gravity: "Wisdom, as you seem to intimate, comes with age, and it is allowable to change one's opinions. Now it seems to me that all things happen, more often against our will than as the result of it, when the invisible powers behind us decree. For instance, who could have anticipated yesterday that we two should meet to-night at table, or who could say whether this assembly, brought about by a blizzard, may not be the first scene of either a tragedy or a comedy?"

I was more at home when Haldane turned the conversation upon practical matters, such as wheat and cattle, than when discussing abstract possibilities; but I afterwards remembered that my fair companion's speech was prophetic, and, as I glanced about, it struck me that there were dramatic possibilities in the situation. We were a strangely assorted company, and to one who had spent eight years in the wilderness the surroundings were striking. Tall wax candles in silver standards, flickering a little when the impact of the snow-laden gale shook the lonely dwelling, lighted the table. The rest of the long room was wrapped in shadow, save when the blaze from the great open hearth flung forth its uncertain radiance. The light flashed upon cut glass and polished silver, and forced up against the dusky background the faces of those who sat together.

Carson Haldane, owner of Bonaventure, which he occasionally visited, sat at the head of the table, a clean-shaven, dark-haired man of little more than middle age, whose slightly ascetic appearance concealed a very genial disposition. He was a man of mark, a daring speculator in mills and lands and mines, and supposed to be singularly successful. Why he bought Bonaventure ranch, or what he meant to do with it, nobody seemed to know; but he acted in accordance with the customs of the place in which he found himself, and because the distinctions of caste and wealth are not greatly recognized on the prairie there was nothing incongruous in his present company. Sergeant Mackay – lean, bronzed, and saturnine when the humor seized him – now bent his grizzled head with keen gray eyes that twinkled as he chatted to the fresh-faced girl in the simple dress beside him. I knew this was Lucille Haldane, but had hardly glanced at her. Cotton had evidently forgotten that he was a police trooper, and, when he could, broke in with some boyish jest or English story told in a different idiom from that which he generally adopted. He seemed unconscious that he was recklessly betraying himself.

"You must not turn my daughter's head with your reminiscences, Sergeant. She is inclined to be over-romantic already," Haldane said, with a kindly glance at the girl. "Possibly, however, one may excuse her to-night, for you gentlemen live the stories she delights in. By the way, I do not quite understand how you allowed the evildoer to escape, Ormesby."

Being forced to an explanation, I described the scene by the river as best I could, looking at the sergeant a trifle defiantly until, at the conclusion, he said: "I cannot compliment ye, Rancher Ormesby."

I was about to retort, when a clear young voice, with a trace of mischief in its tone, asked: "What would you have done had you been there, and why were you so far behind, Sergeant?"

"We do not ride pedigree horses," said Mackay, a trifle grimly. "I should have shot his beast, an' so made sure of him in the first place."

Then there was a sudden silence, when the girl, who turned upon him with a gesture of indignation, said: "It would have been cruel, and I am glad he got away. I saw his face when he passed us, and it was so drawn and haggard that I can hardly forget it; but it was not that of a bad man. What crime had he committed that he should be hunted so pitilessly?"

Young Cotton colored almost guiltily under his tan as the girl's indignant gaze fell upon him, and for the first time I glanced at her with interest. She was by no means to be compared with her sister, but she had a brave young face, slightly flushed with carmine and relieved by bright eyes that now shone with pity. In contrast to Beatrice's dark tresses the light of the candles called up bronze-gold gleams in her hair, and her eyes were hazel, while the voice had a vibration in it that seemed to awaken an answering thrill. Lucille Haldane reminded me of what her sister had been, but there was a difference. Slighter in physique, she was characterized by a suggestion of nervous energy instead of Beatrice's queenly serenity. The latter moved her shoulders almost imperceptibly, but I fancied the movement expressed subdued impatience, and her face a slightly contemptuous apology, while her father laughed a little.

"You must be careful, Sergeant. My younger daughter is mistress of Bonaventure, and rules us all somewhat autocratically; but, as far as I can gather, your perceptions were tolerably correct in this instance, Lucille," he said. "The man fell into the grip of the usurer, who, as usual, drained his blood; but, while what he did may have been ethical justice, he broke the laws of this country, and perhaps hardly deserves your sympathy."

"No?" said Lucille Haldane, and her eyes glistened. "I wish you had not told us what took place at the river, Mr. Ormesby. Here we sit, warm and sheltered, while that man, who has, perhaps, suffered so much already, wanders, hungry, faint, and bleeding, through this awful cold and snow. Just listen a moment!"

In the brief silence that followed I could hear the windows rattle under the impact of the driving snow and the eerie scream of the blast. I shivered a little, having more than once barely escaped with my life when caught far from shelter under such conditions, and it was borne in upon me that the outlaw might well be summoned before a higher tribunal than an earthly court by morning.

It was Beatrice Haldane, who, with, I noticed, a warning glance at her sister, turned the conversation into a more cheerful channel, and I was well content when some time later she took her place near me beside the hearth, while Lucille opened the piano at her father's request. Possibly neither her voice nor her execution might have pleased a critic; but as a break in our monotonous daily drudgery the music enchanted us, and the grizzled sergeant straightened himself very erect, while a steely glint came into his eyes as, perhaps to atone for her speech at dinner, the girl sang, with fire and pathos, a Jacobite ballad of his own country. Its effect may have been enhanced by the novelty; but there was a power in Lucille Haldane which is held only by the innocent in spirit whose generous enthusiasms are still unblunted, and it seemed to me that the words and chords rang alternately with a deathless devotion and the clank of the clansmen's steel.

"I cannot thank ye. It was just grand," said Mackay, shaken into unusual eloquence, when the girl turned and half-shyly asked if he liked the song, though, as the soft candle light touched it, her face was slightly flushed. "Ye made one see them – the poor lads with the claymores, who came out of the mist with a faith that was not bought with silver to die for their king. Loyal? Oh, ay! starving, ill-led, unpaid, they were loyal to the death! There's a pattern for ye, Trooper Cotton, who, if ye'll mind what he tells ye, will hold Her Majesty's commission some day when Sergeant Mackay's gone. Ye'll excuse me, Miss Haldane, but the music made me speak."

I noticed that Trooper Cotton seemed to flinch a moment at the mention of a commission, as though it recalled unpleasant memories, and that the worthy sergeant appeared slightly ashamed of his outbreak, while Beatrice Haldane showed a quiet amusement at his Caledonian weakness for improving the occasion. Lucille, however, smiled at him again. "I think that is the prettiest compliment I have ever had paid my poor singing," she said naïvely. "But I have done my duty. I wonder if you would sing if we asked you, Mr. Cotton?"

"Lucille is at an impressionable age," Beatrice Haldane said to me. "Later she may find much that she now delights in obsolete and old-fashioned. We have grown very materialistic in these modern days."

"God forbid!" I answered. "And I think the sergeant could tell you true stories of modern loyalty."

"For instance?" and I answered doggedly. "You can find instances for yourself if you try to see beneath the surface. There are some very plain men on this prairie who could furnish them, I think. Did you ever hear of Rancher Dane, who stripped himself of all his possessions to advance the career of a now popular singer? She married another man when fame came to her, and it is said he knew she would never be more than a friend to him from the beginning."

"I have," and the speaker's eyes rested on me with a faint and yet kindly twinkle in them. "He was a very foolish person, although it is refreshing to hear of such men. Even if disappointment follow consummation, aspiration is good for one. It is more blessed to give than to receive, you know."

Here, to the astonishment of his superior officer, Cotton, who played his own accompaniment, broke into song, and he not only sang passably well, but made a special effort to do his best, I think; while I remember reflecting, as I glanced at the lad in uniform and the rich man's daughter, who sat close by, watching him, how strange all this would have seemed to anyone unused to the customs of the prairie. Ours, however, is a new land, wide enough to take in not only the upright and the strong of hand, but the broken in spirit and the outcast whom the older country thrusts outside her gates; and, much more often than one might expect, convert them into sturdy citizens. The past history of any man is no concern of ours. He begins afresh on his merits, and by right of bold enterprise or industry meets as an equal whatever substitute for the older world's dignitaries may be found among us. How it is one cannot tell, but the brand of servitude, with the coarseness or cringing it engenders, fades from sight on the broad prairie.

Beatrice Haldane presently bade me go talk to her sister, and though I did so somewhat reluctantly, the girl interested me. I do not remember all we said, and probably it would not justify the effort to recall it; but she was pleasantly vivacious of speech, and genuinely interested in the answers to her numerous questions. At length, however, she asked, with a half-nervous laugh: "Did you ever feel, Mr. Ormesby, that somebody you could not see was watching you?"

"No," I answered lightly. "In my case it would not be worth while for anybody to do so, you see." And Lucille Haldane first blushed prettily and then shivered, for no apparent reason.

"It must be a fancy, but I – felt – that somebody was crouching outside there in the snow. Perhaps it is because the thought of that hunted man troubles me still," said she.

"He would never venture near the house, but rather try to find shelter in the depths of the ravine – however, to reassure you. I wonder whether it is snowing as hard as ever, Sergeant," I said, turning towards Mackay as I concluded.

The casements were double and sunk in a recess of the thick log walls, over which red curtains were not wholly drawn. I flung one behind my shoulder, and when the heavy folds shut out the light inside I could see for some little distance the ghostly glimmer of the snow. Then, returning to my companion, I said quietly: "There is nobody outside, and I should have seen footprints if there had been."

Presently the two girls withdrew to attend to some household duties, and Haldane, who handed a cigar box around, said to me: "Did you do well last season, Ormesby, and what are your ideas concerning the prospects down here?"

"I was partly fortunate and partly the reverse," I answered. "As perhaps you heard, I put less into stock and sowed grain largely. It is my opinion that, as has happened elsewhere, the plow furrows will presently displace many of the unfenced cattle-runs. It is hardly wise to put all one's eggs into the same basket; but my plowing was not wholly successful, sir."

"It is a long way to Laurentian tide-water, and, assisted by Winnipeg mills, the Manitoba men would beat you," said Haldane, with a shrewd glance at me.

"For the East they certainly would, sir," I answered. "But I see no reason why, if we get the promised railroad, we should not have our own mills; and we lie near the gates of a good market in British Columbia."

Haldane nodded approval, and I was gratified. He was not a practical farmer, but it was said that he rarely made a mistake concerning the financial aspect of any industrial enterprise.

"You may be right. I wish I had taken in the next ranch when I bought Bonaventure. But, from what I gather, you have extended your operations somewhat rapidly. Is it permissible to ask how you managed in respect to capital?"

The speaker's tone was friendly, and I did not resent the question. "I borrowed on interest, sir; after three good seasons I paid off one loan, and, seeing an opportunity, borrowed again. As it happened, I lost a number of my stock; but this year should leave me with much more plowland broken and liabilities considerably reduced."

"You borrowed from a bank?" asked Haldane, and looked a little graver when I answered, "No."

It was, as transpired later, a great pity he spoke again before I told him where I had obtained the money; but fate would have it so.

"I have grown gray at the game you are commencing; but, unless you have a gift for it, it is a dangerous one, and the facilities for obtaining credit are the bane of this country," he said. "I don't wish to check any man's enterprise, but I knew the man who started you, and promised him in his last sickness to keep an eye on you. Take it as an axiom that if you can't get an honest partner you should deal only with the banks. Otherwise the mortgage speculator comes uppermost in the end. He'll carry you over, almost against your wishes, when times are good, but when a few adverse seasons run in succession, he will take you by the throat when you least expect it. Your neighbors are panic-stricken; nobody with money will look at your property, and the blood-sucker seizes his opportunity."

"But if he sold one up under such circumstances he could not recover his loan, much less charges and interest," I interposed; and Haldane laughed.

"A man of the class I'm describing would not wish to recover in that way. He is not short of money, and knows bad seasons don't last forever, so he sells off your property for, say, half its value, recovers most of what he lent, and still – remember the oppressive interest – holds you fast for the balance. He also puts up a dummy to buy the place – at depression value – pays a foreman to run it, and when times improve sells the property on which you spent the borrowed money for twice as much."

Haldane nodded to emphasize his remarks as he leaned forward towards me. "The man you were hunting was handled in a similar fashion, and it naturally made him savage. We are neighbors, Ormesby, and if ever you don't quite see your way out of a difficulty you might do worse than consult me."

He moved towards the others when I thanked him, and left me slightly troubled. I knew his offer was genuine, but being obstinately proud, there were reasons why he would be the last man I should care to ask for assistance in a difficulty. That I should ever have anything worth offering Beatrice Haldane appeared at one time a chimerical fancy; but though her father's words left their impression, I had made some progress along the road to prosperity. Ever since the brief days I spent in her company in England a vague purpose had been growing into definite shape; but that night I had discovered, with a shock, that if the difference in wealth between us had been lessened, she was far removed by experience, as well as culture, from a plain stock-raiser.

CHAPTER III

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

The snow had thinned a little, though it still blew hard, when, before retiring, I borrowed a lantern and made a dash for the stable. The horse which had fallen was a valuable one, and, remembering how stiffly he had moved, I was anxious about him. Winter should have been over, and this was its last effort, but the cold struck through me, and I knew by the depth of the snow that a horse would be a useless incumbrance to the fugitive, who could not have made a league in any direction. He was probably hiding in the ravine, and it appeared certain that he would be captured on the morrow. I was therefore the less surprised when the stolen mare shuffled towards me. The man had at least kept his promise to release her when useless; but I was still slightly puzzled as to how the beast had found her own way to Bonaventure. This meant work for me, and I spent some time in the long, sod-protected building, which was redolent of peppermint in the prairie hay, before returning to the dwelling. My moccasins made no sound as I came softly through the hall, but it was not my fault that, when I halted to turn out and hang up the lantern, voices reached me through an open door.

"You are in charge here, and will see that the lamps and stoves are safe, Lucille," one of them said. "What did you think about our guests?"

"I liked them immensely; the sergeant was simply splendid," answered another voice. "The young trooper was very nice, too. I did not see much of Mr. Ormesby. He talked a good deal to you."