A Prairie Courtship

"I suppose Miss Calvert could be called good-looking?" she suggested.

"That," answered Thorne, with a trace of sharpness, "is not quite the point. She's a girl who has a good deal to contend with and is making a very plucky fight. Whether she's wise in being as fond of Winthrop as she seems to be is another matter; one that doesn't concern us. Anyway, she has difficulties enough without it. It's not easy for two women to make a living out of a farm of the kind they're running when it's burdened with a heavy debt."

Alison could forgive him a good deal for his chivalrous pity, though the fact that it was Lucy Calvert who had excited it still somewhat irritated her. It seemed, however, that he had a little more to say.

"In any case," he added, "I'm glad you told me."

Then he turned back toward the others and she had no opportunity for further speech with him. She noticed, however, that he seemed unusually thoughtful during the rest of the evening.

CHAPTER XIV

WINTHROP'S LETTER

After breakfast the next morning Alison sat sewing in a thoughtful mood. She now genuinely regretted having given Nevis the information about Lucy Calvert, and in addition to this Thorne's reserve on the previous evening somewhat troubled her. He had not thought fit to tell her what he meant to do, but she was convinced that he would do something, and the most obvious course would be to warn Lucy against any attempt which Nevis might make to trace her lover. It was possible that the man might cunningly entrap her into some admission that would be of assistance to him. On the other hand, Alison realized that Thorne's task was not so simple as it appeared on the face of it. Though quick-witted, he was, she suspected, by no means subtle, and she supposed that he would find it difficult to put Lucy on her guard without betraying the part that she had played in the matter. She was quite sure that nothing would induce him to let this become apparent.

It was, however, necessary that Lucy should be warned as soon as possible, and Alison decided that as she was the one who had made the trouble it was she who should set it right. This would be only an act of justice, besides which it would give her an opportunity for forming a clearer opinion of Lucy than she had as yet been able to do. As the result of it all, she obtained Mrs. Farquhar's permission to visit the Calvert homestead, which was not very far away, during the afternoon.

In the meanwhile Nevis had been considering how he could best make use of the information she had supplied him, and his mind was still occupied with the question when he drove across the prairie that afternoon. It was a fiercely hot day, and the wide grassland, which had turned dusty white again, was flooded with dazzling light. The usual invigorating breeze was still, and Nevis's horse had fallen to a walk, pursued by a cloud of flies, when he made out the mail-carrier plodding slowly down the rut-marked trail in front of him. Nevis was quite aware that a prairie mail-carrier is usually more or less acquainted with the affairs of every farmer in the district he visits, and he pulled up when he overtook him.

"What's the matter with your horse?" he asked. "Isn't it stipulated that you should keep one?"

"That's so," assented the man. "The trouble is that you can't get a horse that won't go lame on a round like this. I had to leave him at Stretton's an hour ago."

"Going far?" Nevis asked.

"Round by Mrs. Calvert's to the ravine."

Nevis decided that he was fortunate, but he carefully concealed any sign of satisfaction.

"I can give you a lift as far as the first place, if you like to get in."

The man was glad to do so, and Nevis presently handed him a cigar.

"Do you get letters for all the farms every round?"

"No," replied his companion; "I'm quite glad I don't; guess I'd use up two horses if I did. It saves me a league or two when I can cut out some of my visits."

"Yes," agreed Nevis, who had a purpose in pursuing the topic. "One can understand that. It's the people back from the trail who will give you most trouble. It must be a morning's ride to Boyton's or Walthew's; and Mrs. Calvert's is almost as much off your round. Do you have to go there often?"

The question was asked casually, with no show of interest, and the mail-carrier evidently suspected nothing.

"Most every trip the last few weeks," he replied.

Nevis felt that the scent was getting hot. He made a sign of sympathy.

"That's rough on you; anyway, if you have to pack out any weight," he said. "Some of these people get a good many implement catalogues and circulars from Winnipeg, no doubt?"

"In Mrs. Calvert's case it's one blamed letter takes me most a league off the trail."

Nevis asked no more questions; they did not seem necessary. He had discovered that somebody wrote to Mrs. Calvert or her daughter once a week, and he had no trouble in deciding who it must be. He also remembered that letters bore postmarks, and he had a strong desire to ascertain where Winthrop was then located.

"If you like, I'll hand that letter in," he offered. "I'm calling on Mrs. Calvert anyway, and you can go straight to the next place if you give it to me."

The man hesitated a moment, and then shook his head.

"I'm sorry it can't be done," he said. "It's safer to stick to the regulations, and then if you have any trouble nobody can turn round on you."

Nevis was too wise to urge the point, though he meant, if it could by any means be managed, to get the letter into his hands.

"Well," he assented, "I guess you're right in that."

They drove on to the Calvert homestead, which was rudely built of birch logs sawed in a neighboring bluff, and Nevis sprang down first when an elderly woman with a careworn face appeared in the doorway. The mail-carrier, who followed him more slowly, stood still a moment fumbling in his bag until the woman spoke to him.

"Got something to-day, Steve?"

"I've got it all right," was the answer. "Letter for Lucy. The trouble is to find the thing."

Nevis, standing nearer the house, waited until the man took out an envelope. Then he stretched out his hand, as though willing to save him the trouble of walking up to the door, but the mail-carrier either did not notice the action or was too punctilious in the execution of his duty to deliver the letter to him.

"Here it is, Mrs. Calvert," he said. "Thank you, Mr. Nevis."

He strode away and Nevis turned to the woman with a smile.

"May I come in?" he asked. "I'll leave the horse here; he'll stand quietly."

Mrs. Calvert made no objections, though he noticed that she laid the envelope on a table across the room when he sat down.

"It's two or three years since I was in this house," he began.

"Three," corrected the woman.

"I suppose it is," acknowledged Nevis, who seemed to reflect. "I got on with your husband pleasantly, and I'm sorry in several ways that our connection has been broken off. I don't think the thing was any fault of mine."

Mrs. Calvert did not answer at once. Winthrop was not a great favorite of hers, and although she had made no attempt to turn Lucy against him she had on the other hand not altogether sympathized with the latter's views concerning her present visitor. She remembered that her husband had liked the man, and there was no doubt that the goods he supplied were of excellent quality. Nevis was certainly not scrupulous, and he had treated some of those who dealt with him with harshness, but he at least never descended to any petty trickery over the sale of a machine. For one thing, he was too clever; he recognized that it was not worth his while.

"Well," he added, "I don't like for old friends to leave me, and I decided to look you up again. Will you want a new binder or a back-set plow this fall?"

"We'll want a binder," answered his hostess, who was a woman of somewhat yielding nature. "Still, I guess we'll get it from Grantly."

"His things are good enough, though he stands out for the top price," responded Nevis, who was too wise to disparage openly a rival's goods. "Just now, however, I'm rather loaded up, and the orders aren't coming along, so I'm making a special cut. I'll knock an extra four dollars off the list figure for the binder, and wait for the money until you have hauled in your wheat."

Nobody would have suspected that he did not care in the least whether he secured the order or not, or that he had long ago decided that any business he was likely to do with the woman was not worth his attention. She, however, appeared to consider the offer.

"It's cheap, and that's a fact," she said. "It's most a pity I can't buy the thing from you."

"I suppose that trouble over Winthrop has turned Miss Calvert against me?"

"You have got it," was the answer. "Lucy's mad with you. She runs this place, and she deals with Grantly."