Bindloss Harold
By Right of Purchase

CHAPTER XXIX
LELAND STRIKES BACK

It was about ten o'clock at night, and Carrie was sitting with Eveline Annersly in the big general room at Prospect. Leland, who had been brought downstairs to be further away from the hot roof, lay asleep in another room that opened off the corridor leading to the kitchen. Almost every man attached to the homestead was away. The threshers were expected on the morrow, for throughout that country the wheat is threshed where it stands in the sheaves, and it had always been a difficult matter to convey the mill and engine across the ravine. The thresher now expected was an unusually large one, and Gallwey had set out with most of the teams to assist the men in charge of it. He had, however, promised to come back with some of the boys that night.

Carrie was a little sleepy, for she had borne her part in the stress of work usual in a Western homestead at harvest time; but she had no thought of retiring until Gallwey arrived. Nothing had been heard of the outlaws since the fire, but since most of the harvesters would require to be paid and sent home in a day or two, there was a good deal of money for the purpose in the house. It seemed that Eveline Annersly was also thinking of it, for presently she looked at her companion with a little smile.

"It is on the whole fortunate my nerves are reasonably good," she said. "It would be singularly inconvenient if Charley's whisky-smuggling friends should visit us to-night. Your bills could, one would fancy, be got rid of more easily than English notes, and I understand there are a good many of them in Charley's room."

Carrie laughed, for she was unwilling to admit she had any apprehensions. She felt that, if she did so, they might become oppressive.

"There are," she said. "A visit to the settlement means two days lost, and Gallwey and I decided to get enough to pay the threshers, too, so as to save another journey. I had expected him back by now."

She rose, and, going out, opened the homestead door. It was a quiet, star-lit night, with no moon in the sky, and the prairie rolled away before her dim and shadowy. Not a sound rose from it. Even the wind was still. As she gazed out across the dusky waste, something in its vastness and silence impressed her as never before. She had grown to love the prairie, but there were times when its desolation reacted almost unpleasantly on her. The homestead, with its barns and stables standing back beneath the stars, seemed so little, an insignificant speck on that great sweep of plain. She roused herself to listen, but no beat of hoofs crept out of the soft darkness, and it was evident that Gallwey was a long way off yet.

Then she turned with a little shiver, and went back into the house. Crossing the big room, she went down the corridor, and softly opened the door of the room where her husband slept. A lamp was burning dimly, and it showed his quiet face, now a trifle haggard and lined with care. Carrie's eyes grew gentle as she looked at him, for he had been very restless and apparently not so well that day, while it was evident to her that his vigour was coming back to him very slowly. Then, as she turned, her eyes rested on the safe, and again a thrill of apprehension ran through her. She was glad that Gallwey had the key.

She went back to the general room, and, though she had not noticed it so much before, found the stillness oppressive. There was not a sound, and, when her companion turned over a paper, the rustle of it startled her.

"I almost wish I had not let Tom Gallwey go," she said. "Still, it was necessary. The threshers couldn't have got their machine here without the boys."

Eveline Annersly looked up. "I certainly wish he had come back, though I suppose he can't be very long now. He told you ten o'clock, I think. In the meanwhile you might find this account of the wedding at Scaleby Garth interesting."

Carrie held out her hand for the paper, but her attention wandered from the description of the scene in the little English church. She had left the outer door open, and found herself listening for a reassuring beat of hoofs; but nothing disturbed the deep silence of the prairie. Half an hour had passed when she straightened herself suddenly in her chair, with her heart beating fast, and saw that Eveline Annersly's face was intent as she gazed towards the door.

"Oh!" she said. "You heard it, too?"

"Yes," said the elder lady, with a tremor in her voice. "It sounded like a step."

In another moment there was no doubt about it, and Carrie rose with a little catching of her breath as a shadowy figure appeared in the hall. For a moment she stood as though turned to stone, and then suddenly roused herself to action as a man came into the room.

He stopped just inside the threshold, a big, dusty man, with a damp, bronzed face; but, as it happened, it was Eveline Annersly his eyes first rested on. He glanced at her suspiciously, and then swung round as he heard a rattle, just in time to see Carrie snatch down her husband's rifle.

She stood very straight, breathless, and a trifle white in face, but there was something suggestive in the way the rifle lay in her left hand. The man could see that a swift jerk would bring the butt in to her shoulder and the barrel in line with him, while the girl's gaze was also disconcertingly fixed and steady. She had stood now and then just outside the woods at Barrock-holme, with a little 16-bore in her hands, getting her share of the pheasants as they came over. The intruder could shoot well enough himself to realise that when the barrel went up her finger would be clenched upon the trigger. His hand was at his belt, but he kept it there, and for a second or two the pair looked at one another. Then he quietly turned round, which argued courage, and called to somebody outside.

"Come in, boys," he said. "Here's a thing we hadn't quite figured on."

Carrie turned when he did, and in another moment she was standing with her back to the door that led to the corridor, while Eveline Annersly, who gasped, looked at her with horror in her eyes.

"What are you going to do?" she said.

Carrie did not look in her direction. She was watching the outer door, and stood tense and still, but with something in her pose that suggested a readiness for swift, decisive movement. In fact, her attitude vaguely reminded her companion of a bent bow, or a snake half coiled to strike. Her face was set, and there was a portentous glint in her very steady eyes. Her voice was harsh, but impressively quiet.

"If they try to get into Charley's room I am going to kill one of them," she said.

Then two other men came in, and one of them made a little half-whimsical gesture.

"Hadn't you better be reasonable, Mrs. Leland?" he said. "We're not going to hurt you."

"What do you want?" asked the girl.

"Money," said the man who had come in first. "Anyway, that's the first thing. You have plenty of it here. Tom Gallwey brought a big wallet out from the settlement a week ago. They're in the safe in the room behind you, too."

Carrie, nervous and overwrought as she was, decided to temporise. Gallwey could not be long, and he had promised to bring some of the boys home with him.

"Well," she said, in a strained voice, "I haven't the key."

One of the men laughed. "That's not going to worry us. If we can't open it with a stick of giant-powder, we'll take the safe along. It's hardly likely to be a big one."

"Then it's only the money you want?"

Carrie's perceptions had never been keener than they were that night, and she saw one of the others glance at his comrade warningly. She also saw the little vindictive gleam in another man's eyes, and she understood. It was not alone to empty Leland's safe they had come, and he lay sick and helpless in the room where it stood. One other thing was also clear to her, and it was that none of them should go in there at any cost.

"Well," said the outlaw, "if we got the money without unpleasantness, it would help to make things pleasanter for everybody, and we're going to get it, anyway. The only two men about this homestead are held up in the stable, and there are quite a few of us here. I guess you had better let us in to the safe."

Carrie moved a trifle, bringing her left arm, which was aching, further forward. "I think there are two keys belonging to the safe," she said. "I wonder if I could remember where the other one is."

She delayed them at least a minute while she appeared to consider, and then the men evidently lost their patience, for one of them turned angrily to their leader.

"We have no use for so much talking, and want to get ahead," he said. "It's a sure thing they wouldn't leave the place empty any length of time with Leland sick, and I guess you're going to have Gallwey and the boys down on you if you stay here long."

One of his comrades growled approvingly. "Oh," he said, "quit talking. If she hasn't got that key on her, she doesn't know where it is. We'll run in and get hold of her. It's even chances she has nothing in the gun."

It was evident that the suggestion commended itself to all of them, but the trouble was that nobody seemed anxious to put it into execution. Carrie pressed down the magazine slide with one hand. It would, however, only move a very little, and she realised that the magazine was almost full. Then she laughed harshly, and the sound jarred on Eveline Annersly's ears.

"Well," she said, "why don't you come?"

Then she started, and endeavoured to put a further restraint upon herself, for it seemed to her that a very faint drumming sound rose from the prairie. None of the others, however, appeared to hear it. In another moment an inspiration seemed to dawn on one of the men.

"Put the lamp out, and we'll get her easy in the dark," he said.

Eveline Annersly failed to check a little startled cry, but Carrie turned towards the leader of the outlaws very quietly.

"Stop a moment," she said. "You daren't hurt a woman. It would raise all the prairie against you; but, if one of you comes near that lamp, I will certainly shoot him."

The leader made a little gesture, half of admiration and half of anger.

"Now," he said, "we've had 'bout enough talking, and your husband spoiled our game when he brought those troopers in. We know who sent for them. Well, we're lighting out for good after we've cleaned his safe out, and done one or two other little things. We don't want to hurt you, but we're not going to be held up by a woman. It's your last chance. Do you mean to be reasonable?"

Carrie was white to the lips, for it was perfectly plain that they intended to have a reckoning, before they went, with the man who had driven them out.

"Keep back from the light!" she said.

Then the outlaw made a little half-impatient gesture of resignation. "Well," he said, "you'll have to get hold of her, boys."

They came forward, but, though that would have been wiser, they did not run. Two of them moved crouchingly, and Carrie could not see the third man. Still, they had only made a pace or two when one of them suddenly straightened himself.

"Look out!" he said; "we're going to have trouble now."

Carrie could not see the door behind her open, but Eveline Annersly saw it, and gasped. Then she laughed, a little hoarse laugh that at any other time would have jarred on those who heard it, as Leland appeared in the opening. He was in pyjamas, and his face was white and haggard. One arm, still bound up, hung at his side, but a big pistol glinted in his other hand. One of the outlaws recoiled, but his comrade sprang towards the lamp. Mrs. Annersly saw Carrie's rifle pitched forward, there was a double detonation, two jarring reports so close together that one could scarcely distinguish between them, and the man nearest the light reeled and struck the table before he sank into a huddled heap on the floor. A streak of blue smoke hovered in the middle of the room, and another filmy cloud floated about the inner door, through which Leland presently lurched, gaunt and pale and grim, with a look in his eyes that Eveline Annersly remembered afterwards with horror. He said nothing whatever, but his pistol blazed, and the room resounded with the quick, whip-like reports. Then there was thick darkness as the light went out. So far as Eveline Annersly, who was the only one who remembered anything, could make out, two of the outlaws retreated towards the door, shouting for their comrades; but they did not reach it, for a voice rang sharply outside.

"Hold up!" it said; "we've got you this time sure."

What took place outside did not appear at once, but a few minutes later somebody came in, calling out for Mrs. Leland, and struck a match. It went out, but another man soon appeared, holding up a lamp, the light of which showed Leland leaning upon the table with an arm round his wife, who was laughing hysterically.

"I didn't hit him, I didn't! You fired first!" she said.

"That's all right," said Leland, soothingly. "Anyway, there's a good deal of life in him yet. I'm quite sure I plugged another of them just before the light went out."

Carrie turned half round, glancing towards the man, who was struggling to raise himself from the floor, and then once more clung to Leland with a little cry.

Then Trooper Standish set down the lamp, and Sergeant Grier came forward, while several hot and dusty troopers stood revealed about the door.

"Is there anybody hurt except this man?" he asked.

Leland said there was nobody so far as he knew, and the Sergeant nodded.

"Then I guess you and Mrs. Leland had better light out of this, while we see what can be done for him and another man the boys have outside. I'll come along and tell you about it later."

Leland began to expostulate. "I've been tied up by the leg long enough, and there are one or two things I want to do right now."

The Sergeant, who ignored him, turned to Carrie with a little dry smile.

"Get him back to his bed, Mrs. Leland, as quick as you can, and send your friend away," he said. "You're going to have no more trouble, but this is no place for you."

Carrie seemed to rouse herself, and with some difficulty led her protesting husband away. Half an hour had passed when the Sergeant and Gallwey, who had arrived in the meanwhile, were admitted to Leland's room. He now lay, partly dressed, in a big chair, for nothing that Carrie could do would induce him to go back to bed again. Grier sat down with a little smile, and Carrie looked at him warningly.

"You are not to excite him," she said.

"Excite me!" said Leland. "It's the one thing that has cured me. I'll be going round with the threshers in a day or two."

"Well," said the Sergeant, "it's quite a simple tale. One of your friends, perhaps a boy who'd worked for you, gave us the office at sun-up, and we started as soon as we heard what the rustlers meant to do. It seems, from what one or two of them have admitted, that they knew the game was up when the new troopers came, and meant to get even with you before lighting out."

"How did they know the boys were away, and what in the name of thunder did Gallwey keep them all this while at the ravine for?" Leland broke in.

Grier raised his hand. "You keep still. I'm telling this thing my own way. How the whisky boys found out more than that is one of the points I'm going to inquire into. Well, we started, and before we were half-way most of the horses were dead played out; and though I went round by a ranch, the boys were out driving cattle, and had only two horses in the stable. I guess we led the horses most of the rest of the way, until, when we were a league off, I rode on with one of the boys. Then, coming in quietly, we saw there was something wrong. While we waited for the boys, we fixed things so that we got our hands on four of the gang. Two of them are the bosses, and one of them wants a doctor, as well as the other man with the bullet in his leg. That's about all there is to it. You're not going to have any more trouble with the rustlers."

"Will the man Charley shot get well?" asked Carrie, with tense anxiety.

The Sergeant smiled. "Oh, yes," he said. "He'll be on his way to Regina jail in a day or two."

He went out with Gallwey by-and-bye, and Carrie sat down by her husband, with a little happy laugh.

"Oh," she said, "that's one trouble done with; and, if you won't excite yourself, Charley, I'll tell you something more. Wheat is going up."

CHAPTER XXX
HARVEST

There was no longer any fierceness in the sunshine, and the day was cloudless and pleasantly cool when Carrie Leland and Eveline Annersly strolled through the harvest field at the middle of afternoon. The aspect of things had changed since the morning Leland had fallen from his binder, for, though there was a little breeze, the wheat no longer rolled before it in rippling waves. It stood piled in long rows of sheaves that gleamed with bronze and gold in a great sweep of ochre-tinted stubble, beyond which the prairie stretched back, dusty white, to the cold blueness of the northern horizon.

The sheaves were, however, melting fast, for waggons piled high with them moved towards a big machine that showed up dimly against a cloud of smoke and dust in the foreground. A long spout rose high above it, pouring down a golden cascade of straw upon a shapeless mound, and a swarm of half-seen figures toiled amidst the dust. The threshers are usually paid by the bushel in that country, and since they have, as they would say, no use for anything but the latest and most powerful engine and mill, it was only by fierce, persistent effort the men of Prospect kept the big machine fed. Its smoke trail drifted far down the prairie, and through the deep hum it made there rose the thud of hoofs and the sounds of human activity, which, it seemed to Carrie Leland as she stood in the bright sunshine under the cloudless sky, had a glad, exultant note in them. It stirred her curiously with its vague suggestion of faith that had proved warranted. Once more there had been a fulfilment of the promise made when the waters dried, and, in spite of drought and scourging hail, the harvest had not failed.

"Ah," she said, "it is easy to be an optimist to-day. It is the looking forward when everything appears against one that is difficult; but, when I remember the springtime, I feel I shall never have any reason to be proud of myself again."

Eveline Annersly's eyes twinkled. "I'm not sure the time you mentioned could have been particularly pleasant to Charley, either."

"Still," said Carrie, with a little sigh, "he held fast to his optimism and worked, while I let the gloom of it overmaster me."

"And now, as the result of it, that machine is threshing out I don't know how many thousand bushels of splendid wheat."

Carrie's eyes grew gentle, and there was a little thrill in her voice. "We have both of us ever so much more than the wheat to be thankful for," she said.

Then she changed the subject abruptly. "Aunt, if you want to catch the New York mail, you will have to answer that letter to-night. You know that neither of us wants you to go."

"Would you like to go back to England?"

Carrie looked at the wheat and great sweep of prairie with glowing eyes. "I think I should be content wherever my husband went. There was a time when I fancied that if we had several good harvests and he sold Prospect, it would be nice to go back with him to the old country, but now I do not know. I seem to have grown since I came out here, and the prairie has, as he would say, got hold of me. It is so big and strenuous, there is so much in this country that is worth doing, and I think Charley is like it in many ways. No, I scarcely fancy he would ever be quite happy in England. But, after all, that is not the question. We want you. Do you feel you must go back again?"

Her companion smiled a little. "I am not altogether sure that I do, but one has to consider a good many things. The house Florence writes about at Cransly is pretty and convenient, and, by sharing expenses, we could live there comfortably enough. Still, you know the life two elderly ladies would lead at Cransly, and after Barrock-holme – and Prospect – there are ways in which it would not appeal to me very strongly."

"Oh, I know," and Carrie laughed. "You would be expected to set everybody a model of propriety, and to rule with the vicar's wife such society as there is in the place. You would have to know the exact shade of graciousness to bestow upon the wife of the local doctor, and how to check the presumptuous advances of the retired tradesman or the daughters of the stranger who settled within your borders. Isn't it all a little small and petty?"

She turned once more to the prairie with a gesture of pride. "Ah," she said, "out here it's only what is essential that comes first. We open our gates to the stranger and give him our best, even when he comes on foot in dusty jean. It's manhood that counts for everything, and Charley and the others are always opening the gates a little wider. We take all who come, the poor and the outcast, and ask no questions. One has only to look round and see what the prairie has made of them. Aunt, I think the greatest thing in human nature is the faith of the optimist. No, I shall stay here, and you will stay with me."

"I think a little would naturally depend upon what Charley wants."

Carrie laughed. "Well," she said, "we will ascertain his views. He is not as a rule very diffident about expressing them."

Tom Gallwey, somewhat lightly dressed, drove up just then in a waggon piled with grain bags.

"Where is Charley?" she asked.

Gallwey smiled. "Lifting four-bushel wheat sacks into a waggon. He has been doing it most of the afternoon, too, and I almost think it would be wise if you looked after him."

He drove on, and Carrie attempted to frown. "Isn't he exasperating?" she said. "The doctor told him he was to take it very easy for at least another month, and he promised me he would do nothing hard."

They went on towards the thresher, walking delicately among the flinty stubble, until they reached the edge of the whirling dust. Overhead the straw was rushing down through a haze of smoke. Below, half-naked men toiled savagely about the big machine. Steam was roaring from the engine, for the threshers were firing recklessly, and the thudding clank of the engine and hum of the clattering mill were almost deafening. There was a constant passing upwards of golden sheaves, a constant downward stream of straw, and the dusty air seemed filled with toiling men and kicking teams.

Then Carrie went forward into the midst of the press, for it was naturally where the activity was fiercest that she expected to find her husband. He was with another harvester pitching up big sacks into a waggon. As a bushel of wheat weighs approximately sixty pounds, it was an occupation that demanded much from the man engaged in it. She touched him on the shoulder, looking at him reproachfully when he swung round and let the bag drop.

"Charley," she said, "you remember your promise?"

The twinkle crept into Leland's eyes. "Oh, yes," he said, "I told you I'd do nothing hard. When you know the trick of it, this thing's quite easy."

It did not appear so to Carrie. "Come away at once," she said. "You are to do no more this afternoon."

Leland made a little whimsical gesture of resignation, but it is possible that he was not altogether sorry; for, though he had recovered rapidly since the affair with the whisky boys, his full strength had not come back, and he had been lifting grain bags for several hours. In any event, he put on his jacket, and, brushing a little of the dust off his person, went away with her. They sat down together with Eveline Annersly, beneath one of the straw-pile granaries that stood in a row amidst the stubble.

"Aunt Eveline is thinking of going away," said Carrie.

Leland started, and there was no doubt that his concern was genuine. "Oh," he said, "the thing's quite out of the question. She told me she was going to stay with us as long as we wanted her."

"I did," said Eveline Annersly. "Still, I really think you can do without me now."

Both Carrie and her husband knew exactly what she meant, but it was the latter who had the courage to admit it.

"Madam – " he began.

Eveline Annersly checked him with a smile. "The title has gone out of fashion, with a few other old-fashioned things you still seem to cling to in the newest West. I do not like it – from you."

Leland made her a bow that included Carrie. "Well," he said, "Aunt Eveline – and that, because of the humanity in it, is, perhaps, a finer title – I'm talking now, and you are going to listen to me. You were kind to me at Barrock-holme, where I was what you call an outsider, and you gave me the greatest thing I ever had, or that ever could come to me. You didn't find it easy. Things were far from promising when you were half-way through, but you stood by me, and now do you think there is anything that would be too much for me to do for you?"

There was a little silence. It was the first time the fact that all three recognised had been put into words, and a faint flush mantled Eveline Annersly's cheeks. Still, her eyes were gentle, and there was no doubt that the bond between the little faded lady, upon whom the stamp of station was plain, and the gaunt prairie farmer, with the hard hands and the bronzed face, sprinkled with the dust of toil, was a wondrous strong one. In England it would, perhaps, have seemed incomprehensible, an anachronism; but amidst the long rows of sheaves he had called up out of the prairie there was nothing strange in their communion. After all, it is manhood that counts in the new Northwest.

"Well," she said, quietly, "it was a great responsibility, and there were times when I was horribly afraid. Still, events have proved me right, and I think it is the greatest compliment I could pay you when I say that it was to make Carrie safe I did it."

Carrie said nothing, but there was faith and confidence in her eyes when she turned them for a moment upon her husband as he spoke again.

"And now you talk of going away," he said. "Aunt Eveline, we want you here always, both of us. You stood by us through the struggle, for it has been a hard one this year, and now I want you to share in the result of it. Oh, I know, in some ways it's a hard country for a woman brought up like you, but things will be different at Prospect with wheat going up, and there's one great argument you can't get over – what Carrie Leland is content with is sufficient for any woman on this earth."

They had just decided that she was to stay, when Sergeant Grier rode up. He swung himself out of the saddle, and tossed Leland a bundle of papers.

"I got one or two at the settlement, and Custer asked me to hand you the rest," he said. "I guess you'll be glad to see that wheat is jumping up. It seems as if everybody was buying. Still, that wasn't what I came to talk about."

"You don't want me at the trial of the rustlers' friends?" asked Leland, impatiently.

Grier laughed. "I guess we'll fix them without you. It's quite easy to find out things, now the gangs are broken up. I heard from Regina the other day, and the man who got the bullet in his leg is already doing something useful – making roads, I think. The other fellow is going out with the work gang as soon as he's strong enough."

"But if they let them out, won't they run away?" asked Carrie.

"I guess not," said the Sergeant, drily. "They hitch a nice little weight to their ankles when it appears advisable, and a warder with a shot-gun keeps his eye on them." Then he turned to Leland. "I want a few particulars about that last fire you had."

"You'll get them after supper. In the meanwhile there's something Tom Gallwey wants to talk to you about. Hadn't you better put up your horse?"

Sergeant Grier appeared willing to do so, for the fare at Prospect was proverbially good. Presently he moved off to the stables. Carrie then remembered that she had several matters to attend to. The commissariat required supervision when there were threshers about. She, however, made Leland promise that he would do nothing further, and left him with Eveline Annersly. He turned to the latter with an apologetic smile as he took up one or two of the papers the Sergeant had brought.

"I'm rather interested in the markets. You don't mind?" he said.

Eveline Annersly said she didn't, and watched him with pleasure as he glanced at the papers in turn, for it was evident that the news was reassuring.

"They've got the bears this time – screwed up tight," he said. "Two of the big men gone under – couldn't get the wheat to cover, and it looks to me as if there is a bull movement everywhere. I can't remember prices ever stiffening this way before when the wheat was pouring in, and, if the bulls can swing the thing over harvest, there's no saying what they may go to."

"I'm glad you're satisfied," said Eveline Annersly. "Still, your observations are not very clear to me."

Leland looked at her with a smile. "The fact is that it seems quite likely I'm going to be comparatively rich. I'm 'most where I stood this time last year already, and if the market doesn't break away under the harvest, prices are going up and up. One thing's certain – Carrie's going to have a month in New York."

He stopped a moment and looked at his companion steadily. "It's rather a curious thing that, when I suggested she might like a run over to Barrock-holme, she didn't seem to want to go. And there's another point that's puzzling me. When I mention the crescent or the pearls, why does she want to change the subject?"

Eveline Annersly decided to tell him. "The two things go together. It happens now and then that a woman has to choose between her relations and her husband. Carrie chose you. Those jewels are, you know, worth a good deal of money, and, while they belong to her, there is reason for believing that, unless she had shown herself resolute, Jimmy would have had them instead. In fact, I have a notion that her father found it distressingly inconvenient to send them. One can raise money on such things in England."