Winston of the Prairie Part 11

"But we expected you would stay here a day or two. Your place is not ready," she said.

Winston smiled at her. "I think I am wise. I must feel my way."

Miss Barrington was won, and, making no further protest, signed to Dane. "You will take Mr. Courthorne home with you," she said. "I would have kept him here, but he is evidently anxious to talk over affairs with some one more of his age than my brother is."

Dane appeared quite willing, and, an hour later, Winston sat, cigar in hand, in a room of his outlying farm. It was furnished simply, but there were signs of taste, and the farmer who occupied it had already formed a good opinion of the man whose knowledge of his own profession astonished him.

"So you are actually going to sell wheat in face of the Colonel's views?" he said.

"Of course!" said Winston simply. "I don't like unpleasantness, but I can allow no man to dictate my affairs to me."

Dane grinned. "Well," he said, "the Colonel can be nasty, and he has no great reason for being fond of you already."

"No?" said Winston. "Now, of course, my accession will make a difference at Silverdale, but I would consider it a friendly act if you will let me know the views of the colony."

Dane looked thoughtful. "The trouble is that your taking up the land leaves less for Maud Barrington than there would have been.

Barrington, who is fond of the girl, was trustee for the property, and after your--estrangement from your father--everybody expected she would get it all."

"So I have deprived Miss Barrington of part of her income?"

"Of course," said Dane. "Didn't you know?"

Winston found it difficult to answer. "I never quite realized it before. Are there more accounts against me?"

"That," said Dane slowly, "is rather a facer. We are all more or less friends of the dominant family, you see."

Winston laid down his cigar and stood up. "Now," he said, "I generally talk straight, and you have held out a hand to me. Can you believe in the apparent improbability of such a man as I am in the opinion of the folks at Silverdale getting tired of a wasted life and trying to walk straight again? I want your answer, yes or no, before I head across the prairie for my own place."

"Sit down," said Dane with a little smile. "Do you think I would have brought you here if I hadn't believed it? And, if I have my way, the first man who flings a stone will be sorry for it. Still, I don't think any of them will--or could afford it. If we had all been saints, some of us would never have come out from the old country."

He stopped and poured out two gla.s.ses of wine. "It's a long while since I've talked so much," he said. "Here's to our better acquaintance, Courthorne."

After that they talked wheat-growing and horses, and when his guest retired Dane still sat smoking thoughtfully beside the stove. "We want a man with nerve and brains," he said. "I fancy the one who has been sent us will make a difference at Silverdale."

It was about the same time when Colonel Barrington stood talking with his niece and sister in Silverdale Grange. "And the man threw that trick away, when it was absolutely clear who had the ace--and wished me to believe that he forgot!" he said.

His face was flushed with indignation, but Miss Barrington smiled at her niece. "What is your opinion, Maud?"

The girl moved one white shoulder with a little gesture of disdain.

"Can you ask--after that! Besides, he twice willfully perverted facts while he talked to me, though it was not in the least necessary."

Miss Barrington looked thoughtful. "And yet, because I was watching him, I do not think he plays cards well."

"But he was a professional gambler," said the girl.

The elder lady shook her head. "So we--heard," she said. "My dear, give him a little time. I have seen many men and women--and can't help a fancy that there is good in him."

"Can the leopard change his spots?" asked Colonel Barrington, with a grim smile.

The little white-haired lady glanced at him as she said quietly, "When the wicked man--"

CHAPTER IX

COURTHORNE DISAPPEARS

Supper was cooking when Lance Courthorne sat beside the glowing stove in the comfortless general room of a little wooden hotel in a desolate settlement of Montana. He had a good many acquaintances in the straggling town, where he now and then ran a faro game, though it was some months since he had last been there, and he had ridden a long way to reach it that day. He was feeling comfortably tired after the exposure to the bitter frost, and blinked drowsily at the young rancher who sat opposite him across the stove. The latter, who had come out some years earlier from the old country, was then reading a somewhat ancient English newspaper.

"What has been going on here lately?" asked Courthorne.

The other man laughed. "Does anything ever happen in this place? One would be almost thankful if a cyclone or waterspout came along, if it were only to give the boys something to talk about. Still, one of the girls here is going to get married. I'm not sure old man Clouston finds it helps his trade quite as much as he fancied it would when he fired his Chinamen and brought good-looking waitresses in. This is the third of them who has married one of the boys and left him."

"What could he expect!" and Courthorne yawned. "Who's the man, and have I seen the girl?"

"I don't think you have. So far as I remember, she came since you were here last, and that must be quite a while ago. n.o.body seems to know where Clouston got her from, and she's by no means communicative about her antecedents; but she's pretty enough for any man, and Potter is greatly stuck on her. He sold out a week or two ago--got quite a pile for the ranch, and I understand he's going back to the old country.

Any way, the girl has a catch. Potter's a straight man, and most of us like him."

He turned over his paper with a little laugh. "It doesn't interest you? Well, if you had lived out at Willow six years as I have you'd be glad of anything to talk about, if it was only the affairs of one of Clouston's waitresses."

Courthorne yawned again openly and took from his pocket a letter that he had received the day before at another little town to which, in accordance with directions given, it had been forwarded him. It was from one of his whisky-running comrades and had somewhat puzzled him.

"There's about one hundred dollars due you, and we're willing to pay up," it ran. "Still, now we hear you're going back east to the Silverdale settlement it's quite likely you won't want them as much as the rest of us do. It's supposed to be quite a big farm you have come into."

Courthorne was a little troubled, as well as perplexed. He had certainly not gone to Silverdale and had no notion of doing so, though he had distant relatives there, while, so far as he knew, n.o.body had left him a farm of any kind. He had promised the whisky runners a guide on the night of Trooper Shannon's death, and as it was dark when, m.u.f.fled in Winston's furs, he met the men--who were, as it happened, for the most part new adherents, it seemed probable that they had not recognized him or had any reason to believe it was not Winston himself who was responsible for the trooper's death. It was not a very unusual thing for one of the smaller farmers to take a part in a smuggling venture now and then. Still, the letter left him with an unpleasant uncertainty.

By and by his companion looked up from his paper again.

"You came from my part of the old country, I think?" he said, "I see a man of your name has died there lately, and he seems to have left a good deal of property. Here's a list of the bequests."

He stopped a moment, and with another glance at it handed Courthorne the paper. "I notice your own name among them, and it's not a common one."

Courthorne stretched out his hand for the paper, and his face became intent as he read: "It is with regret many of our readers will hear of the death of Mr. Geoffrey Courthorne, well known in this vicinity as a politician with Imperialistic views and a benefactor of charitable schemes. Among the bequests are . . .and one of the farms in the Silverdale colony he established in Western Canada to Lance Courthorne."

He laid down the paper and sat rigidly still for a minute or two, while his companion glanced at him curiously.

"Then," said the latter, "it's you!"

"It is," said Courthorne dryly. "I'm much obliged to you for showing me the thing, but I'd be still more obliged if you wouldn't worry me with any questions just now."

His companion made a little gesture of comprehension as he moved away, and Courthorne leaned back in his chair with his eyes half-closed. He could now understand his whisky-smuggling comrade's letter, for it was evident that Winston was going to Silverdale. Indeed, Courthorne could not see what other course was open to the rancher, if he wished to preserve his safety. Still, Courthorne was aware that farming, as carried on at Silverdale, was singularly unprofitable, and he had a somewhat curious confidence in the honesty of the man he had deceived.

Winston, he decided, no doubt believed that he was drowned the night Trooper Shannon died, and had been traced as Courthorne by some Winnipeg lawyer acting for the executors.

Then Clouston came in to announce that supper was ready, and Courthorne took his place among the rest. The men were store-keepers of the settlement, though there were among them frost-bronzed ranchers and cattle-boys who had come in for provisions or their mail, and some of them commenced rallying one of their comrades who sat near the head of the table on his approaching wedding. The latter bore it good-humoredly, and made a sign of recognition when Courthorne glanced at him. He was a big man, with pleasant blue eyes and a genial, weather-darkened face, though he was known as a daring rider and successful breaker of vicious horses.

Courthorne sat at the bottom of the table, at some distance from him, while by and by the man at his side laughed when a girl with a tray stopped behind them. She was a very pretty girl with big black eyes, in which, however, there lurked a somewhat curious gravity.