By Right of Purchase

She pushed him gently away from her. "Now go and get ready for supper. I will be down presently."

Leland went away with glad obedience. When Eveline Annersly came in later, she found Carrie once more attired very plainly, and the casket locked. Her eyes were a trifle hazy, but she looked up with a smile.

"I shall not put them on again, but I do not mind," she said. "They will go to ploughing and harrowing next season. There is something to be done beforehand, and I want you to come in to the railroad station with me to-morrow."

They went down to supper, during which Carrie was unusually talkative. When Eveline Annersly left them after the meal was over, she turned to her husband.

"Charley," she said, "you could get along alone for two or three days, if I went into Winnipeg?"

"I could," said Leland. "Still, I wouldn't like it. But what do you want to go there for?"

"Well," said Carrie, reflectively, "there are two or three things I want, and one or two I have to do – business things at the bank. I had a letter from Barrock-holme, you know. I suppose those bankers are really trustworthy people?"

Leland laughed. "Oh, yes, I think they could be trusted with anything you were likely to put into their hands."

"Well," said Carrie, "perhaps I will tell you what it is by and by. In the meanwhile, since I am going to-morrow, there are several things I have to see to."

Starting next morning with Eveline Annersly, she was on the following day ushered into the manager's room at Leland's bank. The gentleman who sat there appeared a trifle astonished when he saw her, as though he had scarcely expected to see the stamp of refinement and station on Leland's wife. He drew out a chair for her, and urbanely asked what he could do for her. Carrie laid a casket and a small bundle of papers upon the table.

"I think you are acquainted with my husband?" she said.

"Certainly," said the banker. "We have had the pleasure of doing business with Mr. Leland of Prospect for a good many years."

"Then," said Carrie, decisively, "you are on no account to tell him about any business you may do for me – that is, unless I give you permission to do so."

The banker concealed any astonishment he may have felt, merely saying that it was his part to fall in with his clients' wishes. Carrie held out a pass-book.

"I suppose I could have this money any time I wished?" she said.

"Certainly. You have only to write a cheque for it."

Carrie opened a paper, and handed it to him. "I have had it all explained to me, but I am afraid I don't understand it very well," she said. "Until I was married I could get only a little of the money as my trustees gave it to me, and they put the rest into an English bank for me. I have the book here. You will see how much the dividends and interest come to every year."

The banker studied the document carefully. Then he took the pass-book she handed him. "Well," he said, "you can do whatever you like with it now. Quite a sum of money has accumulated."

"I could put it into your bank here?"

"Of course. I should be glad to arrange it for you. You would also get more interest for it than you seem to have done in England."

"Then I want you to do it. You lend people money. I wonder if you could let me have as much now as I would get in the next four or five years. Of course, you would charge me for doing it."

The banker smiled a little, and shook his head as he glanced at the document. "You will excuse my mentioning that the interest on the money involved is only to be paid – to you."

"Ah," said Carrie, "of course, I might die, and then, I remember, it would go back again. Still, that only makes what I want to do more necessary. I suppose I could make over to my husband all the money there is in the English bank and anything else that really belongs to me? That is, I could put it into his account here? You see, I don't want him to know – anything about it for a little while."

The banker reflected. He had done business for years with Leland and considered him a friend. This dainty woman's devotion to her husband appealed to him. He decided that he might, for once, go a little further than was usual from a business point of view. "Well," he said, reflectively, "I think I should wait a little. If you kept the money in your own name, you could hand him as much as you thought advisable at any time it appeared necessary. On the whole, I fancy that would be wiser."

"Why?"

Again the banker pondered. Nobody knew better than he how many of the wheat-growers were near ruin that year, and he had naturally an accurate notion of what would probably happen to Leland when, after harvest, the wheat of the West was thrown train-load by train-load upon a lifeless market.

"I think there are a good many reasons why it is sound advice I am offering you. For one thing, wheat is still going down, you see."

Carrie made a little gesture of comprehension, for financial difficulties had formed a by no means infrequent topic at Barrock-holme. "Yes," she said quietly, "I understand. You will get the money and put it to my name. But there is another thing. Will you please open that casket?"

The man did so, and appeared astonished when he saw its contents. "These things are very beautiful," he said.

"You could lend me part of their value?" asked Carrie, with a little flush in her face.

The man looked thoughtful. The smaller banking houses in the West are usually willing to handle any business they can get, but precious gems are not a commodity with which they are intimately acquainted.

"They would have to be valued, and I fancy that could only be done in Montreal," he said. "After getting an expert's opinion, we could, I think, advance you a reasonable proportion of what he considered them worth. Shall I have it done?"

"Of course," said Carrie, and went out ten minutes later with a sense of satisfaction. She found Eveline Annersly waiting, and smiled as she greeted her. "I have been arranging things, and perhaps I can help Charley, after all. I am afraid he will want it," she said. "Now, if you wouldn't mind very much, we can get the west-bound train this afternoon. I am anxious to get back to Prospect again."

Eveline Annersly would have much preferred to spend that night in a comfortable hotel, instead of in a sleeping-car, but she made no protest. After lunch, they spent an hour or two in the prairie city, waiting until the train came in. Ridged with mazy wires and towering telegraph-poles, and open to all winds, Winnipeg stands at the side of its big, slow river in the midst of a vast sweep of plain. Boasting of few natural attractions, there is the quick throb of life in its streets. As Carrie and her aunt made their way through bustling crowds, past clanging cars, they gradually observed an undertone of slackness in the superficial activity about them. The faces they met were sombre, and there were few who smiled. The lighthearted rush of a Western town was missing. Loungers hung about the newspaper offices, and bands of listless immigrants walked the streets aimlessly. Carrie had heard at Prospect that it was usually difficult in the Northwest to get men enough to do the work, and this air of leisure puzzled her.

There was, however, a reason for this lack of enterprise. Winnipeg lives by its trade in wheat, selling at a profit to the crowded East, and scattering its store-goods broadcast across the prairie. Just then, however, the world appeared to possess a sufficiency of wheat and flour, and the great mills were grinding half-time or less, while it happened frequently that Western farmers, caught by the fall in values, could not meet their bills. When this happens, there is always trouble from the storekeepers and dealers in implements who have supplied them throughout the year. Carrie caught the despondent tone, wondering why she did so, since she felt that it would not have impressed her a little while ago. Perhaps it was because she had then looked upon the toilers with an uncomprehending pity that was half disdain, and she had since gained not only sympathy but appreciation. She stopped outside the newspaper office where a big placard was displayed.

"Smitten Dakota wails," it read. "Crops devastated. Thunder and hail. Ice does the reaping in Minnesota."

"Oh," she said. "I must have a paper."

Eveline Annersly smiled a little. It was between the hours of issue, and the wholesale office did not look inviting, but Carrie went in, and a clerk, who gazed at the very dainty lady with some astonishment, gave her a paper.

"Now," she said, "we will go on to the depôt. I must sit down and read the thing."

By the time she had mastered the gist of it, the big train was rolling out with her amidst a doleful clanging of the locomotive bell. It was momentous enough. The hail, which now and then sweeps the Northwest, had scourged the Dakotas and part of Minnesota, spreading devastation where it went. Meteorologists predicted that the disturbance would probably spread across the frontier. Carrie laid down the paper and glanced out with a little shudder of apprehension at the sliding prairie, into which town and wires and mills were sinking. She was relieved to see that there hung over it a sweep of cloudless blue.

"There are hundreds ruined, and whole crops destroyed," she said. "Perhaps the men who sowed them worked as hard as Charley. It would be dreadful if it came to us."

"I am afraid it would," said Eveline Annersly. "Still, I don't think it would have troubled you when you first came out. That is not so very long ago, is it?"

Carrie smiled. "I think I have grown since then," she said.

CHAPTER XXII

HAIL

A thin crescent moon hung low in the western sky. The prairie was wrapped in silent shadows. Leland stood outside the homestead, with the bridle of an impatient horse in his hand, and talked with his wife. There was only one light in the house behind them, and everything was very still, but Leland knew that two men who could be trusted to keep good watch were wide awake that night. The barrel of a Marlin rifle hung behind his shoulders, glinting fitfully when it caught the light as he moved. Without thinking of what he was doing, he fingered the clip of the sling.

"The moon will be down in half an hour, and it will be quite dark before I cross the ravine near Thorwald's place," he said. "Jim Thorwald is straight, and standing by the law, but none of us are quite sure of all of his boys. Anyway, we don't want anybody to know who's riding to the outpost."

Carrie laid her hand upon his arm. "I suppose you must go, this once at least."

"Of course!" said Leland with a smile. "If I'm wanted, I must go again. The trouble's spreading."

"Then," said Carrie, "why can't they bring more troopers in? Why did you ever have anything to do with it, Charley?"