A Prairie Courtship

"It is because it is so precious that I shrink from involving you in the disaster that is hanging over me. I am a ruined, discredited man, and in a few more weeks I will be driven out of my homestead without a dollar. It will be three or four years at least before I can struggle to my feet again."

"Is that so very dreadful, Mavy?" Alison smiled. "I almost think that in the things that count the most many of you are, after all, more bound by traditions than we are. Your wildest flight was the driving about the prairie with a load of patent medicines, and now your imagination is bounded by a homestead and household comforts. You could teach a woman to love you, and then go away, driven by some fantastic point of honor, because you could not realize that her views might be wider than yours."

"I could hardly suppose that you would care to live in a wagon."

"I did it once – and it was not so very dreadful. I really think, if it were needful, I could do it again."

She leaned forward toward him.

"It would be very much worse, Mavy, if you went away and left me behind."

At length he came toward her and seized both her hands.

"Dear," he cried, "I have tried to do what I felt I ought – and now I'm not sorry that I find I'm not strong enough. I can't tell you how I want you – but I'm afraid you could not face what you would have to bear with me."

"Try!" said Alison simply.

He drew her to him with an exultant laugh.

"I've done what I could, and it seems I've failed. Now let Nevis turn me out and I'll almost thank him. After all, there are many worse places than a camp beside the wagon in the birch bluff."

Alison was not at all convinced that it would end in that, and indeed she did not mean it to if she could help it; but in another moment she felt his arms about her and his lips hot upon her face, and it was half an hour later when they left the homestead together. The sun had dipped, and the vast dim plain stretched away before them under a vault of fading blue, but she drove very slowly while Thorne walked beside the buggy for almost a league.

As a result of this, it was very late when she reached the homestead, and she was relieved when Mrs. Farquhar came out alone as she got down. The light fell upon the girl's face as she approached the doorway, and her companion flashed a smiling glance at her.

"I suppose you have been to Thorne's place?"

"Yes," answered Alison quietly. "I am going to marry him."

Mrs. Farquhar kissed her.

"It's very good news. Still, from what I know of Mavy and how he's situated, I'm a little astonished that you were able to arrange it."

"Why do you put it that way?" Alison asked with a start.

Her companion laughed.

"My dear, I'm only glad that you had sense enough not to let him go. That man would be afraid of even a cold air blowing on you. Anyway, you have got the one husband I would most gladly have given you to."

Then she drew Alison into the house and called to Farquhar.

"Harry, take the horse in, and it isn't necessary for you to hurry back."

She drew Alison out a chair and sat down close beside her.

"The first thing you have to do is to drive over and see Florence Hunter. Her husband's the only person who can pull Mavy out of this trouble."

"I had thought of that."

"I believe it's necessary. We can't let Mavy be turned out now, and if he won't ask a favor of a man who would grant it willingly if he could, somebody must do it for him."

Then she laid her hand caressingly on the girl's shoulder.

"I haven't been so pleased for a very long while. Keep a good courage. We'll find some means of outwitting Nevis."

CHAPTER XXVI

OPEN CONFESSION

It was about the middle of the afternoon when Alison reached the Hunter homestead, and she was slightly astonished when, on inquiring for Florence, a maid informed her that the latter was busy and could not be with her for some minutes. Alison had imagined from what she had seen on previous visits that in the warm weather Florence invariably spent her afternoons reclining in a canvas chair on the veranda. A couple of chairs stood on it when she arrived, and after the maid had gone she drew one back into the shadow, and sitting down looked out across the great stretch of grain in front of the house.

All round the edge of it there were scattered men and teams, but they were moving very slowly, and almost every minute the clatter of one or another of the binders ceased and she saw stooping figures busy in front of the machine. Though she could not make out exactly what they were doing, the state of the harvest-field seemed to explain why the delays were unavoidable. Great patches of the wheat lay prone; the part that stood upright looked tangled and torn, and there were wide stretches from which it had partially disappeared, leaving only ragged stubble mixed with crumpled straw. Alison had, however, seen other crops that had been wholly wiped out by the scourging hail. She waited about a quarter of an hour before Florence appeared, looking rather hot and dressed with unusual plainness.

"You'll have to excuse me for keeping you, but I'm glad you came," she said. "I've been busy since seven o'clock this morning, and now that I've a little leisure it's a relief to sit down."

A gleam of amusement crept into Alison's eyes, and her companion evidently noticed it.

"It is rather a novelty in my case," she laughed. "On the other hand, there's no doubt that the exertion is necessary. The waste that has been going on in this homestead is positively alarming."

It cost Alison an effort to preserve a becoming gravity. Florence, who had presided over the place for several years, spoke as if the fact she mentioned, which had been patent to those who visited her for a considerable time, had only dawned upon her very recently.

"You are trying to set things straight?" she suggested.

"It threatens to prove a difficult task, but I'm making the attempt while I feel equal to it; and there's a certain interest even in looking into household accounts. For instance, I had an idea this morning that promised to save me three or four dollars a month, but when I mentioned it to Elcot he only grinned. There are one or two respects in which I'm afraid he's a little extravagant."

Alison laughed outright. The idea that Florence, who had hitherto squandered money with both hands, should trouble herself about the saving of three dollars and complain of her self-denying husband's extravagance was irresistibly amusing.

"When did the desire to investigate affairs first get hold of you?" she asked.

"I believe that it was when I came back from Toronto," answered Florence thoughtfully. "Afterward we had the hail, and it became clear at once that there would have to be some cutting down of our expenses." Her face grew suddenly anxious as she glanced toward the grain. "That," she added, "ought to explain why the subject's an interesting one to me."

Alison was somewhat puzzled. There were signs of a change in her companion, who hitherto had, so far at least as she had noticed, taken only a very casual interest in her husband's affairs.

"Yes," she replied, "it does. I was very sorry when I heard about it."

Florence made a little abrupt gesture, as though in dismissal of the topic.

"What brought you over? You haven't been very often."

It was difficult to answer offhand, and Alison proceeded circuitously.

"You and I were pretty good friends in England, weren't we?"

"Of course," assented Florence. "You stood by me when your mother turned against me, and I've always had an idea that you suffered for it. We'll admit the fact. What comes next?"

Her manner was abrupt, but that was not infrequently the case, and Alison, who was fighting for her lover, was not readily daunted.

"Well," she said, "I have never troubled you for any favors in return."