A Prairie Courtship

"No, sir," replied the conductor. "Guess the company had once a notion of making a station here, but they cut it out. It's used as a section-depot and side-track, and now and then a freight pulls up for water. There's a soft spring here, and you can't get good water right along the line. Any kind won't do in a locomotive boiler."

The man was unusually loquacious for a western railroad hand, and Nevis, who had been glancing out at the shadowy sweep of prairie, amid which the straight track lost itself, felt inclined to talk.

"But what's holding us up?" he asked.

"Montreal express. She's on the next section, and it's quite a long one. They side-track everything to let her through."

A thought took shape in Nevis's mind. The point that suggested itself appeared at least worth attention, and he asked a question:

"Would a wire to anybody in the district be sent to the station ahead?"

The conductor said that it would, and added that the man in charge of the place where they were then stopping was called up only in case of necessity to hold a train on the side-track. He explained that although the instruments clicked out any message sent right along the circuit the operators, as a rule, listened only when they got their particular signal. This had a certain significance to Nevis.

"Is there often a freight-train waiting here when you come along?" he asked.

"That's so," said his companion. "We take the section if the Atlantic flyer's late, and they have to cut out the pick-up freight if she's in front of us. When she was standing yonder one night a little while back I saw what struck me as quite a curious thing. Just as we struck the tail switches a man dropped off a caboose coupled on behind the freight-cars; it was good clear moonlight, and I watched him. He kept the train between him and the shack behind you, and started out over the prairie as fast as he could. Then we ran in behind the freight-cars, but as soon as we were clear the engineer pulled them out, and as I looked back the man dropped into the grass like a stone. Bill, who runs this place, was standing outside his shack, and that may have had something to do with it."

"It sounds strange," commented Nevis. "Can you remember when it was?"

The conductor contrived to do so, and Nevis was not astonished when he heard the date. He decided that it would be wise to compare his conclusion with any views his companion might have about the matter.

"It's possible it was only one of the boys stealing a ride," he suggested.

"In that case he needn't have been so scared of Bill," was the answer. "It's most unlikely he'd have got out on the prairie after him. Strikes me the man was mighty anxious nobody should see him. Anyway, I thought no more about the thing, and only remembered it to-night."

Just then the scream of a whistle came ringing up the track, and the conductor pointed to a fan-shaped blaze of brightness which swept up out of the prairie.

"The express; I'll have to get along. We'll be off in two or three minutes now."

Nevis lighted a cigar as soon as he was left alone, and by the time the great express had flashed by with a clash and clatter he felt convinced that Corporal Slaney had erred in assuming that Winthrop had escaped across the frontier. Having arrived at this decision, he strolled back into the lighted car as the train crept out across the switches on to the waste of prairie. He had now something to act upon.

In the meanwhile, a weary man, dressed in somewhat ragged duck, sat one evening outside a tent pitched in the hollow of a prairie coulée, with a letter in his hand. His attitude was suggestive of dejection, but he clenched the paper in hard, brown fingers, and there was an ominous look in his weather-darkened face. It was careworn, though he was young, and his general appearance and expression seemed to indicate that he was a simple man who had borne a burden too heavy for him, until at last he had revolted in desperation against the intolerable load.

A new branch line crept along the side of the shallow coulée, which wound deviously across the great white sea of grass, and the trestles of a half-finished bridge rose, a gaunt skeleton of timber, above the creek that flowed through the valley. A cluster of tents and a galvanized iron shack, with a funnel projecting above it, crowned the crest of a neighboring ridge, and a murmur of voices and laughter rose faintly from the groups of men who lay about them. Winthrop, however, had pitched his camp a little distance from the others, so as to be nearer his work, which consisted in removing the soil from the side of the coulée to make room for the road-bed. He had obtained a team from a neighboring rancher, and a satisfactory rate of payment from the railroad contractor. Indeed, during the last few weeks he had almost fancied that he was at last leaving his troubles behind him, and then that afternoon another blow had suddenly fallen. The letter from Lucy Calvert contained the disturbing news that Nevis, who seemed to have discovered that he had not left Canada, was still in pursuit of him.

Presently two of his comrades from the camp strolled up to his tent and stretched themselves out on the harsh, white grass in front of it. They were attired as he was, and they had toiled hard under a scorching sun all day handling heavy rails, but one was a man of excellent education, and the other had owned a wheat farm until the frost had reaped his crop and ruined him.

"You're looking blue to-night," commented the latter.

"Well," acknowledged Winthrop grimly, "there's a reason. I've put quite a lot of work in on that road-bed the last few weeks, but the trouble is I won't get a dollar unless I stay with it and keep up to specification until next pay-day."

"Of course!" said the man who had spoken. "Why should you want to quit?"

Winthrop glanced at the letter.

"I've had a warning. Guess I'll have to pull out again sudden one of these days."

There was silence for a few moments after this. The men had gone on well together, and within certain limits the toilers in a track-grading camp make friends rapidly, but for all that there are unwritten rules of etiquette in such places, and questions on some points are apt to be resented.

Still, Winthrop's face was troubled, and his expression hinted that it might be a consolation to take somebody into his confidence.

"Creditors?" one of his companions ventured to suggest.

"You've hit it first time, Drakesford. Bondholder who's been bleeding me quite a few years now. Raked in what I made each harvest – left me not quite enough to live on – until I began to see that I'd have to work a lifetime to get clear of him. When I knocked a little off the debt one good year he piled up something else on me. Then I was short last payment, and he shut down on my farm."

Drakesford turned to his companion.

"Ever hear anything like that before, Watson?"

There was a trace of dryness in the other man's smile.

"I have," he answered; "it's not quite new on the prairie. One or two of the boys I know have been through that mill."

He turned toward Winthrop.

"How did the blamed insect first get hold of you?"

"I'd a notion of getting married, and meant to raise a record crop. Went along to the blood-sucker, who was quite willing to back me, and took out a mortgage. Pledged him all the place and stock for what he let me have."

"Probably a third of its value," interposed Drakesford.

"About that," Winthrop agreed. "A big crop might have cleared me then, but we had frost that year, and he commenced to play me. Made me insure stock and homestead in his company – and I guess he stuck me over that. Then I had to buy implements and any stores he sold from him, at about twice the usual figure; and one way or another the debt kept piling up."

"Couldn't you have gone short in your payments before it got too big, and let him sell the place?" suggested Drakesford. "In that case, anything over and above what he advanced would have had to be refunded to you. Still, the man you dealt with would probably have provided for that difficulty."

Watson grinned.

"A sure thing! He wouldn't shut down until it was a year when wheat was cheap and farms were bringing mighty little. Then he'd sell him up and buy the place in through a dummy, 'way down beneath its value. After that he'd rent it out until wheat went up and he'd get twice what he gave for it from some sucker."

It is possible that the farmer had arrived at something very near the truth, but his companion, who still seemed thoughtful, looked at Winthrop.

"When you got notice of foreclosure I suppose you cleared out and left him the place," he said. "How does that give him a hold on you?"

"I sold the team and stock first," replied Winthrop grimly. "He sent the police after me."

The man made a sign of comprehension.

"Naturally! But haven't you got some homestead exemption laws in this part of the country?"

"They don't apply to mortgaged property," Watson broke in. Then he looked up sharply. "But, I guess you've hit it. The debt secured by mortgage wasn't a big one, and the man piled up more on to it afterward. The law would exempt from seizure on that."

Winthrop considered this moodily.

"Well," he answered at length, "suppose you're right. Who's going to take up my case, and where am I to get the money to put up a fight? The only lawyer in the district wouldn't act against the bondholder, and I couldn't get at my mortgage deed anyway. It's in the man's hands, and I haven't a copy. I got out with the price of a few beasts, and left the rest to him." He paused, and clenched a big, brown hand. "If he's wise he'll be content with that, and quit; but you can't satisfy that man. He's got my farm; he's made my life bitter; brought three years of trouble on the girl I meant to marry; and now he's after me again. Seems to me I've laid down under it about long enough!"

He broke off and sat silent a while, gazing out across the prairie toward where the red glow of sunset burned far off on the lonely grassland's rim. Iron shack and clustered tents stood out against it sharply now, and the faint sound of voices that came up through the still, clear air seemed to jar on the man.

"They can laugh," he complained. "I could, once."