Winston of the Prairie Part 29

Then Graham appeared and claimed him, and it was next morning when he saw Alfreton again. He was breakfasting with Colonel Barrington and Dane, and Winston noticed that the older man did not appear to have much appet.i.te. When the meal was finished he drew him aside.

"You have covered your sales, sir?" he asked.

"No, sir," said Barrington. "I have not."

"Then I wonder whether it would be presumption if I asked you a question?"

Barrington looked at him steadily. "To be frank, I fancy it would be better if you did not. I have, of course, only my own folly to blame for believing I could equal your natural apt.i.tude for this risky amus.e.m.e.nt which I had, and still have, objections to. I was, however, in need of money, and seeing your success, yielded to the temptation.

I am not laying any of the responsibility on you, but am not inclined to listen to more of your suggestions."

Winston met his gaze without embarra.s.sment. "I am sorry you have been unfortunate, sir."

Just then Dane joined them. "I sat up late last night in the hope of seeing you," he said. "Now, I don't know what to make of the market, but there were one or two fellows who would have bought my estimated crop from me at a figure which would have about covered working expenses. Some of the others who did not know you were coming in, put their affairs in my hands too."

"Sell nothing," said Winston quietly.

It was an hour later when a messenger from Graham found them in the smoking-room, and Colonel Barrington smiled dryly as he tore up the envelope handed him.

"'Market opened with sellers prevailing. Chicago flat!'" he read.

Dane glanced at Winston somewhat ruefully, but the latter's eyes were fixed on Colonel Barrington.

"If I had anything to cover I should still wait," he said.

"That," said Dane, "is not exactly good news to me."

"Our turn will come," said Winston gravely.

That day, and during several which followed it, wheat moved down, and Dane said nothing to Winston, about what he felt, though his face grew grimmer as the time went on. Barrington was quietly impa.s.sive when they met him, while Alfreton, who saw a way out of his difficulties, was hard to restrain. Winston long afterwards remembered that horrible suspense, but he showed no sign of what he was enduring then, and was only a trifle quieter than usual when he and Alfreton entered Graham's office one morning. It was busier than ever, while the men who hastened in and out seemed to reveal by att.i.tude and voice that they felt something was going to happen.

"In sellers' favor!" said the broker. "Everybody with a few dollars is hammering prices one way or the other. Nothing but wheat to be heard of in this city. Well, we'll simmer down when the turn comes, and though I'm piling up dollars, I'll be thankful. Hallo, Thomson, anything going on now?"

"Chicago buying," said the clerk. "Now it's Liverpool! Sellers holding off. Wanting a two-eighths more the cental."

The telephone bell tinkled again, and there was a trace of excitement in the face of the man who answered it. "Walthew has got news ahead of us," he said. "Chicago bears caved in. Buying orders from Liverpool broke them. Got it there strong."

Winston tapped Alfreton's shoulder. "Now is the time. Tell him to buy," he said. "We'll wait outside until you've put this deal through, Graham."

It was twenty minutes before Graham came out to them. "I'll let you have your contracts, Mr. Alfreton, and my man on the market just fixed them in time," he said. "They're up a penny on the cental in Liverpool now, and n.o.body will sell, while here in Winnipeg they're falling over each other to buy. Never had such a circus since the trade began."

Alfreton, who seemed to quiver, turned to his companion, and then forgot what he had to tell him. Winston had straightened himself, and his eyes were s.h.i.+ning, while the lad was puzzled by his face. Still, save for the little tremor in it his voice was very quiet.

"It has come at last," he said. "Two farms would not have covered your losses, Alfreton, if you had waited until to-morrow. Have supper with us, Graham--if you like it, lakes of champagne."

"I want my head, but I'll come," said Graham, with a curious smile. "I don't know that it wouldn't pay me to hire yours just now."

Then Winston turned suddenly, and running down the stairway shook the man awaiting him by the arm.

"The flood's with us now," he said. "Find Colonel Barrington, and make him cover everything before he's ruined. Dane, you and I, and a few others, will see the dollars rolling into Silverdale."

Dane found Barrington, who listened with a grim smile to what he had to tell him.

"The words are yours, Dane, but that is all," he said. "Wheat will go down again, and I do not know that I am grateful to Courthorne."

Dane dare urge nothing further, and spent the rest of that day wandering up and down the city, in a state of blissful content, with Alfreton and Winston. One of them had turned his losses into a small profit, and the other two, who had, hoping almost against hope, sown when others had feared to plow, saw that the harvest would repay them beyond their wildest expectations. They heard nothing but predictions of higher prices everywhere, and the busy city seemed to throb with exultation. The turn had come, and there was hope for the vast wheat lands it throve upon.

Graham had much to tell them when they sat down to the somewhat elaborate meal Winston termed supper that night, and he nodded approvingly when Dane held out his gla.s.s of champagne and touched his comrade's.

"I'm not fond of speeches, Courthorne, and I fancy our tastes are the same," he said. "Still, I can't let this great night pa.s.s without greeting you as the man who has saved not a few of us at Silverdale.

We were in a very tight place before you came, and we are with you when you want us from this time, soul and body, and all our possessions."

Alfreton's eyes glistened, and his hand shook a little as he touched the rim of Winston's goblet.

"There are folks in the old country who will bless you when they know,"

he said. "You'll forget it, though I can't, that I was once against you."

Winston nodded to them gravely, and, when the gla.s.ses were empty, shook hands with the three.

"We have put up a good fight, and I think we shall win, but, while you will understand me better by and by, what you have offered me almost hurts," he said.

"What we have given is yours. We don't take it back," said Dane.

Winston smiled, though there was a wistfulness in his eyes as he saw the faint bewilderment in his companions' faces.

"Well," he said slowly, "you can do a little for me now. Colonel Barrington was right when he set his face against speculation, and it was only because I saw dollars were badly needed at Silverdale, and the one means of getting them, I made my deal. Still, if we are to succeed as farmers we must market our wheat as cheaply as our rivals, and we want a new bridge on the level. Now, I got a drawing of one, and estimates for British Columbia stringers, yesterday, while the birches in the ravine will give us what else we want. I'll build the bridge myself, but it will cheapen the wheat-hauling to everybody, and you might like to help me."

Dane glanced at the drawing laid before him, but Alfreton spoke first.

"One hundred dollars. I'm only a small man, but I wish it was five,"

he said.

"I'll make it that much, and see the others do their share," said Dane, and then glanced at the broker with a curious smile.

"How does he do it--this and other things? He was never a business man!"

Graham nodded. "He can't help it. It was born in him. You and I can figure and plan, but Courthorne is different--the right thing comes to him. I knew the first night I saw him, you had got the man you wanted at Silverdale."

Then Winston stood up winegla.s.s in hand. "I am obliged to you, but I fancy this has gone far enough," he said. "There is one man who has done more for you than I could ever do. Prosperity is a good thing, but you, at least, know what he has aimed at stands high above that.

May you have the Head of the Silverdale community long with you!"

CHAPTER XIX

UNDER TEST

The prairie lay dim and shadowy in the creeping dusk when Winston sat on a redwood stringer near the head of his partly-finished bridge.

There was no sound from the hollow behind him but the faint gurgle of the creek, and the almost imperceptible vibration of countless minute wings. The birches which climbed the slope to it wound away sinuously, a black wall on either hand, and the prairie lying gray and still stretched back into the silence in front of him. Here and there a smoldering fire showed dully red on the brink of the ravine, but the tired men who had lighted them were already wrapped in heavy slumber.