Winston of the Prairie Part 28

"I scarcely fancy you are well enough, but if you must go, I wonder whether you would do a good turn to Alfreton?" she said. "The lad has been speculating--and he seems anxious lately."

"It is natural that they should all bring their troubles to you."

Maud Barrington laughed. "I, however, generally pa.s.s them on to you."

A trace of color crept into the man's face, and his voice was a trifle hoa.r.s.e as he said, "Do you know that I would ask nothing better than to take every care you had, and bear it for you?"

"Still," said the girl, with a little smile, "that is very evidently out of the question."

Winston rose, and she saw that one hand was closed as he looked down upon her. Then he turned and stared out at the prairie, but there was something very significant in the rigidity of his att.i.tude, and his face seemed to have grown suddenly careworn when he glanced back at her.

"Of course," he said quietly. "You see, I have been ill, and a little off my balance lately. That accounts for erratic speeches, though I meant it all. Colonel Barrington is still in Winnipeg?"

"Yes," said the girl, who was not convinced by the explanation, very quietly. "I am a little anxious about him, too. He sold wheat forward, and I gather from his last letter has not bought it yet. Now, as Alfreton is driving in to-morrow, he could take you."

Winston was grateful to her, and still more to Miss Barrington, who came in just then, while he did not see the girl again before he departed with Alfreton on the morrow. When they had left Silverdale a league behind, the trail dipped steeply amid straggling birches to a bridge which spanned the creek in a hollow, and Winston glanced up at the winding ascent thoughtfully.

"It has struck me that going round by this place puts another six miles on to your journey to the railroad, and a double team could not pull a big load up," he said.

The lad nodded. "The creek is a condemned nuisance. We have either to load light when we are hauling grain in, and then pitch half the bags off at the bottom and come back for them--while you know one man can't put up many four-bushel bags--or keep a man and horses at the ravine until we're through."

Winston laughed. "Now, I wonder whether you ever figured how much those little things put up the price of your wheat."

"This is the only practicable way down," said the lad. "You could scarcely climb up one side where the ravine's narrow abreast of Silverdale."

"Drive round. I want to see it," said Winston. "Call at Rushforth's for a spool of binder twine."

Half an hour later Alfreton pulled the wagon up amid the birches on the edge of the ravine, which just there sloped steep as a railway cutting, and not very much broader, to the creek. Winston gazed at it, and then handed the twine to the hired man.

"Take that with you, Charley, and get down," he said. "If you strip your boots off you can wade through the creek."

"I don't know that I want to," said the man.

"Well," said Winston, "it would please me if you did, as well as cool your feet. Then you could climb up, and hold that twine down on the other side."

The man grinned, and, though Alfreton remembered that he was not usually so tractable with him, proceeded to do Winston's bidding. When he came back there was a twinkle of comprehension in his eyes, and Winston, who cut off the length of twine, smiled at Alfreton.

"It is," he said dryly, "only a little idea of mine."

They drove on, and reaching Winnipeg next day, went straight to Graham the wheat-broker's offices. He kept them waiting some time, and in the meanwhile men with intent faces pa.s.sed hastily in and out through the outer office. Some of them had telegrams or bundles of papers in their hands, and the eyes of all were eager. The corridor rang with footsteps, the murmur of voices seemed to vibrate through the great building, while it seemed to Alfreton there was a suggestion of strain and expectancy in all he heard and saw. Winston, however, sat gravely still, though the lad noticed that his eyes were keener than usual, for the m.u.f.fled roar of the city, patter of messengers' feet, ceaseless tinkle of telephone call bells, and whir of the elevators, each packed with human freight, all stirred him. Hitherto he had grappled with nature, but now he was to test his judgment against the keenest wits of the cities, and stand or fall by it, in the struggle that was to be waged over the older nations' food.

At last, however, a clerk signed to them from a doorway, and they found Graham sitting before a littered table. A man sat opposite him with the telephone receiver in his hand.

"Sorry to keep you, but I've both hands full just now. Every man in this city is thinking wheat," he said. "Has he word from Chicago, Thomson?"

"Yes," said the clerk. "Bears lost hold this morning. General buying!"

Just then the door swung open and a breathless man came in. "Guess I scared that clerk of yours who wanted to turn me off," he said. "Heard what Chicago's doing? Well, you've got to buy for me now. They're going to send her right up into the sky, and it's 'bout time I got out before the bulls trample the life out of me."

"Quite sure you can't wait until to-morrow?" asked Graham.

The man shook his head. "No, sir. When I've been selling all along the line! Send off right away, and tell your man on the market to cover every blame sale for me."

Graham signed to the clerk, and as the telephone bell tinkled a lad brought in a message. The broker opened it. "New York lost advance and recovered it twice in the first hour," he read. "At present a point or two better. Steady buying in Liverpool."

"That," said the other man, "is quite enough for me. Let me have the contracts as soon as they're ready."

He went out, and Graham turned to Winston. "There's half-a-dozen more of them outside," he said. "Do you buy or sell?"

Winston laughed. "I want to know which a wise man would do."

"Well," said Graham, "I can't tell you. The bulls rushed wheat up as I wired you, but the other folks got their claws in and worried it down again. Wheat's anywhere and nowhere all the time, and I'm advising n.o.body just now. No doubt you've formed your own opinion."

Winston nodded. "It's the last of the grapple, and the bears aren't quite beaten yet, but any time the next week or two the decisive turn will come. Then, if they haven't got out, there'll be very little left of them."

"You seem tolerably sure of the thing. Got plenty of confidence in the bulls?"

Winston smiled. "I fancy I know how Western wheat was sown this year better than any statistician of the ring, and it's not the bulls I'm counting on, but those millions of hungry folks in the old country.

It's not New York or Chicago, but Liverpool the spark is coming from."

"Well," said Graham, "that's my notion, too, but I've no time for anybody who hasn't grist for me just now. Still, I'd be glad to come round and take you home to supper if you haven't the prejudice, which is not unknown at Silverdale, against eating with a man who makes his dollars on the market and didn't get them given him."

Winston laughed, and held up a lean brown hand. "All I ever had until less than a year ago, I earned with that. I'll be ready for you."

He went out with Alfreton, and noticed that the lad ate little at lunch. When the meal was over, he glanced at him with a smile through the cigar smoke.

"I think it would do you good to take me into your confidence," he said.

"Well," said Alfreton, "it would be a relief to talk, and I feel I could trust you. Still, it's only fair to tell you I didn't at the beginning. I was an opinionated a.s.s, you see."

Winston laughed. "I don't mind in the least, and we have most of us felt that way."

"Well," said the lad, "I was a little short of funds, and proud of myself, and when everybody seemed certain that wheat was going down forever, I thought I saw my chance of making a little. Now I've more wheat than I care to think of to deliver, the market's against me. If it stiffens any further, it will break me; and that's not all, you see.

Things have gone tolerably badly with the folks at home, and I fancy it took a good deal of what should have been the girls' portion to start me at Silverdale."

"Then," said Winston, "it's no use trying to show you how foolish you've been. That is the usual thing, and it's easy; but what the man in the hole wants to know is the means of getting out again."

Alfreton smiled ruefully. "I'm tolerably far in. I could just cover at to-day's prices if I pledged my crop, but it would leave me nothing to go on with, and the next advance would swamp the farm."

"Well," said Winston quietly, "don't buy to-day. There's going to be an advance that will take folks' breath away, but the time's not quite ripe yet. You'll see prices knocked back a little the next day or two, and then you will cover your sales to the last bushel."

"But are you sure?" asked the lad, a trifle hoa.r.s.ely. "You see, if you're mistaken, it will mean ruin to me."

Winston laid his hand on his shoulder. "If I am wrong, I'll make your losses good."

Nothing more was said on that subject, but Alfreton's face grew anxious once more as they went up and down the city. Everybody was talking wheat, which was not astonis.h.i.+ng, for that city, and the two great provinces to the west of it, lived by the trade in grain, and before the afternoon had pa.s.sed they learned that there had been a persistent advance. The lad's uneasiness showed itself, but when they went back to the hotel about the supper hour Winston smiled at him.

"You're feeling sick?" he said. "Still, I don't fancy you need worry."