A Prairie Courtship

"I'm not giving them anything at all. Once we make it a success I can get back the money I'm putting into the undertaking at any time; and if I don't I expect every bit of it to earn me something."

He looked around at her directly, for he knew where the grievance lay.

"That's a very different matter from handing you a big check for your expenses in Toronto or Montreal."

"Oh, yes," pouted Florence; "the latter would give me pleasure."

She paused and there was a sudden change in her expression.

"Elcot," she added, "can't you realize that now and then you can lay out money without getting anything back for it, and yet find that it pays you well?"

The man looked at her hesitatingly. He knew what this question meant and he was half disposed to yield. Living simply and toiling hard, he had treated her generously in comparison with his means, which, after all, were not large; but he remembered that he had yielded rather often of late and that each concession had merely led to a fresh demand.

"There's a limit, Flo," he said. "Still, if three hundred dollars will meet the case I might stretch a point. I suppose you are determined on that visit to Toronto?"

The woman knew that any further attempt to win him round would fail, and, this being so, it seemed a pity to waste energy on him. The three hundred dollars would by no means suffice for the purpose. This in itself was unpleasant, but in the fact that he could not be induced to make what appeared to be a small sacrifice for her pleasure there lay an extra sting. It was, perhaps, a pity that she had of late given him small cause for suspecting anything of the kind.

"It would be better than nothing," she said coldly, and then leaned back in her chair in a sudden fit of impatience with him and the whole situation.

"I sometimes wonder how I stand with you!" she exclaimed.

"First," declared the man, and he spoke the simple truth; but unfortunately he was not wise enough to content himself with the brief assurance. "Still," he added, "I have other duties."

"To Maverick Thorne, and Winthrop, and everybody in the district generally!"

"Well," replied Hunter, with the hint of weariness creeping back into his expression, "I suppose that more or less fits the case. You have all along been first with me, and I think I have done what I could to please you – and done it willingly. Still, there are these others – I owe them something. When I came here, a poor man, they held out their hands to me; one lent me a team, another, when I had no mower, cut and carried in my hay, and some came over night after night to build my log barn. I think I should have gone under if it hadn't been for them." He looked up at his wife with resolute eyes. "Now that I can pay them back without, in all probability, its costing me a dollar I'm at least going to try."

Florence's lips set scornfully. She had no liking for the surrounding farmers. They were, in her estimation, mere unlettered toilers – simple, unimaginative, brown-faced men who thought about nothing but the seasons and the price of wheat. What was, perhaps, as much to the purpose, she had a suspicion that most of them were not greatly impressed in her favor. Now her husband was, it seemed, anxious to waste his means for their benefit.

"Elcot," she asked abruptly, "has it never occurred to you that you could make more of your life than you are doing here?"

Hunter faced the question humorously.

"It would be astonishing if it hadn't, since you have suggested it more than once, but the answer is in the negative. This place is paying pretty well, and my means would certainly not keep us in Winnipeg, Toronto or Montreal; anyway, not in the comfort with which, after all, you have been surrounded. Of course, I might, for instance, try to run a store, but it doesn't strike me that this would be of much benefit to you. Would the kind of people you like welcome you as readily if your husband were retailing hats or groceries in the neighborhood?"

Florence knew that it was most improbable, though she would not confess it. Instead, she decided to see if it were possible to irritate him.

"After all," she retorted, "there is no great difference between a storekeeper and a farmer. All my city friends know what you are, and I can find no fault with the way they treat me."

Hunter laughed as he glanced down at his hard brown hands and dusty attire.

"The point is that in your case the farmer husband does not put in an appearance. It might be different if he did."

Florence looked at him in silence for a moment or two. Though he had been to the creamery meeting he was very plainly dressed; his bronzed face and battered nails told their own tale of arduous toil in the open, and there was no doubt that he looked a prairie farmer. Yet he was, as she realized now and then, well favored in a way; a man who might have made his mark in a different station, widely read and quietly forceful. Indeed, his inflexibility on certain points, though it sometimes angered her, compelled her deference.

"Oh," she cried at length, "it doesn't cost you much self-denial to stay behind. It's easy for you to be content. You like this life."

"Yes," returned Hunter quietly; "I'm thankful that I do. It's what I was made for. However, I don't wish to force too much of it on you, and so I'll give you a check for the three hundred dollars."

He crossed the room and, opening a desk, sat down at it for a minute or two. Then he came back and laid a strip of paper on the table in front of Florence.

"After all," she conceded, "as I was away a good deal of last winter, it's rather liberal, Elcot."

Hunter, without answering her, went quietly out.

CHAPTER XIII

NEVIS PICKS UP A CLUE

A week had slipped by since the meeting of the creamery committee and it was about the middle of the afternoon when Nevis lay, cigar in hand, in the shadow of a straggling bluff. It was pleasantly cool there and scorching sunshine beat down upon the prairie, across which he had plodded during the last half hour, and he had still some miles to go before he could reach the farm at which he expected to borrow a team. He was not fond of walking, but the man who had driven him out from the settlement, being in haste to reach Graham's Bluff, had set him down some distance from the homestead he desired to visit. Nevis found it advisable to look his clients up every now and then and see how they were getting on. This enabled him to sell to those who were not too deeply in his debt implements and stores at top prices, and to put judicious pressure upon the ones whose payments had fallen behind.

He was, however, thinking of Hunter as he lay full length among the grass with a frown on his face. It seemed desirable to let the man who had deprived him of what looked like a promising opportunity for lining his pockets feel that it would be wiser to refrain from interfering with his affairs in future, and he fancied that if Winthrop, whom Hunter had confessed to befriending, should be brought to trial it would convey a useful hint. This course was also advisable for other reasons. It must be admitted that the bondholder does not always come out on top, especially in bad seasons, and Nevis had already decided that the arrest of Winthrop would serve as a warning to any of his neighbors who might feel tempted to evade their liabilities in a similar fashion. He was still on the absconder's trail, though as yet it had not led him very far.

By and by he heard a soft beat of hoofs and a rattle of wheels, and looking up was pleased to see Mrs. Hunter drive around a corner of the bluff. He had of late been conscious of a growing delight in her company, and, what was almost as much to the purpose, he had partly thought out a plan of attacking her husband through her. He had, however, too much tact to force himself on her, and he lay still, apparently unobservant of her approach until she pulled up the horse.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Resting," replied Nevis, rising to his feet. "I'm going across to Jordan's place. Walking's no doubt healthy, but I'm afraid I'm not fond of it."

He waited to see whether she would take the hint, which he had made as plain as possible, and as he did so a gleam crept into his eyes. Florence had an eye for color and an artistic taste in dress, and she was attired then in filmy draperies of a faint, shimmering green – the color of clear sea-water rippling over sand. They suggested the fine contour of her form and emphasized the shifting tones of burnished copper in her hair and the clearness of her eyes. What she saw in his expression did not appear, but she smiled at him.

"Then if you will get in I can drive you part of the way," she said graciously.

Nevis did not wait for a second invitation and she turned to him when he had taken his place at her side.

"You haven't come back to call on us."

"No," responded Nevis; "I saw your husband at one of the creamery meetings and I'm sorry to own there were one or two matters upon which we couldn't agree."

He watched her to see how she would receive this, but she laughed.

"I'm not responsible for all Elcot's opinions, and I must do him the justice to say that he seldom attempts to force them on me. For all that, I shouldn't wonder if he were right."

Nevis was far too astute to disparage the man he did not like openly to his wife, so he made a sign of assent.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "it's possible that he was. In one sense, he generally is. Elcot's what one might call altruistic; he has a finer perception of ethical right than the rest of us, and one could fancy it occasionally makes difficulties for him. Indeed, it's bound to when he rubs against ordinary mortals who're content to look out for what's going to benefit them."

His companion recognized the truth of this, and, as he had expected, it irritated her. Deep down in her nature there was a hidden respect for the quiet, resolute man who, though he seldom proclaimed them, lived in what she now and then considered too strict compliance with his principles. He recognized his duty toward her and had discharged it, in most respects, with a conscientious thoroughness; but that accomplished, he had also recognized his duty to others, and had unwaveringly insisted on fulfilling this in turn. There, as Nevis had cunningly suggested, lay the grievance. It would have been more pleasant for her, and – she confessed this – in many little ways also for him, had she stood alone in his eyes, instead of merely standing first. There was a marked and often inconvenient distinction between the two things. Now and then his point of view appealed to her, but more often her pride received a jar and she thought of him bitterly when he befriended his neighbors, as she tried to convince herself, at her expense. She could, she felt, have loved the man, and perhaps have made an unconditional surrender to him, but he must first be hers altogether and think of nobody else.

Then Nevis interrupted her thoughts with a veiled purpose, and once more touched the tender spot.

"Most of the boys think a good deal of Elcot, and I guess it's natural. He has given quite a few of them a lift now and then. There's Winthrop and Thorne, for instance – he guaranteed Maverick for a thousand dollars, somebody told me – and now he's putting a good deal more into this creamery scheme. From experience of their habits, I should say he must find that kind of thing expensive now and then. Perhaps, if one might suggest it, that is why he lives as plainly as he does. In a way, it's rather fine of him, though it wouldn't appeal to me."

There was no doubt that any self-denial on her husband's part in which she might be compelled to share did not appeal to Florence either, but she noticed the tact with which Nevis had refrained from supporting his statement by a reference to his loan or the unpaid bills.

"Well," she declared, "I, at least, believe in getting the most one can out of life."

"That," said Nevis, "is my own idea, and it leads up to the question why you haven't gone away yet? Have your husband's benefactions made it impossible?"