Winston of the Prairie Part 40

"Sir," he said simply, "although we have differed about trifles and may do so again, we don't want a better one--and if we did we couldn't find him."

A chord from the piano rang through the approving murmurs, and the company rose to their feet before the lad had beaten out the first bar of the jingling rhythm. Then the voices took it up, and the great hall shook to the rafters with the last "n.o.body can deny."

Trite as it was, Barrington saw the darker flush in the bronzed faces, and there was a shade of warmer color in his own as he went on again.

"The things one feels the most are those one can least express, and I will not try to tell you how I value your confidence," he said.

"Still, the fact remains that sooner or later I must let the reins fall into younger hands, and there is a man here who will, I fancy, lead you farther than you would ever go with me. Times change, and he can teach you how those who would do the most for the Dominion need live to-day.

He is also, and I am glad of it, one of us, for traditions do not wholly lose their force and we know that blood will tell. That this year has not ended in disaster irretrievable is due to our latest comrade, Lance Courthorne."

This time there were no musical honors or need of them, for a shout went up that called forth an answering rattle from the cedar paneling.

It was flung back from table to table up and down the great room, and when the men sat down, flushed and breathless, their eyes still s.h.i.+ning, the one they admitted had saved Silverdale rose up quietly at the foot of the table. The hand he laid on the snowy cloth shook a little, and the bronze that generally suffused it was less noticeable in his face. All who saw it felt that something unusual was coming, and Maud Barrington leaned forward a trifle, with a curious throbbing of her heart.

"Comrades! It is, I think, the last time you will hear the term from me," he said. "I am glad that we have made and won a good fight at Silverdale, because it may soften your most warranted resentment when you think of me."

Every eye was turned upon him, and an expression of bewilderment crept into the faces, while a lad who sat next to him touched his arm rea.s.suringly.

"You'll feel your feet in a moment, but that's a curious fas.h.i.+on of putting it," he said.

Winston turned to Barrington, and stood silent a moment. He saw Maud Barrington's face showing strained and intent, but less bewildered than the others, and that of her aunt, which seemed curiously impa.s.sive, and a little thrill ran through him. It pa.s.sed, and once more he only saw the leader of Silverdale.

"Sir," he said, "I did you a wrong when I came here, and with your convictions you would never tolerate me as your successor."

There was a rustle of fabric as some of the women moved, and a murmur of uncontrollable astonishment, while those who noticed it, remembered Barrington's gasp. It expressed absolute bewilderment, but in another moment he smiled.

"Sit down, Lance," he said. "You need make no speeches. We expect better things from you."

Winston stood very still. "It was the simple truth I told you, sir,"

he said. "Don't make it too hard for me."

Just then there was a disturbance at the rear of the room, and a man, who shook off the grasp of one that followed him, came in. He moved forward with uneven steps, and then, resting his hand on a chair back, faced about and looked at Winston. The dust was thick upon his clothes, but it was his face that seized and held attention. It was horribly pallid, save for the flush that showed in either cheek, and his half-closed eyes were dazed.

"I heard them cheering," he said. "Couldn't find you at your homestead. You should have sent the five hundred dollars. They would have saved you this."

The defective utterance would alone have attracted attention, and, with the man's att.i.tude, was very significant, but it was equally evident to most of those who watched him that he was also struggling with some infirmity. Western hospitality has, however, no limit, and one of the younger men drew out a chair.

"Hadn't you better sit down, and if you want anything to eat we'll get it you," he said. "Then you can tell us what your errand is."

The man made a gesture of negation, and pointed to Winston.

"I came to find a friend of mine. They told me at his homestead that he was here," he said.

There was an impressive silence, until Colonel Barrington glanced at Winston, who still stood quietly impa.s.sive at the foot of the table.

"You know our visitor?" he said. "The Grange is large enough to give a stranger shelter."

The man laughed. "Of course he does; it's my place he's living in."

Barrington turned again to Winston, and his face seemed to have grown a trifle stern.

"Who is this man?" he said.

Winston looked steadily in front of him, vacantly noticing the rows of faces turned towards him under the big lamps. "If he had waited a few minutes longer, you would have known," he said. "He is Lance Courthorne."

This time the murmurs implied incredulity, but the man who stood swaying a little with his hand on the chair, and a smile in his half-closed eyes, made an ironical inclination.

"It's evident you don't believe it or wish to. Still, it's true," he said.

One of the men nearest him rose and quietly thrust him into the chair.

"Sit down in the meanwhile," he said dryly. "By and by, Colonel Barrington will talk to you."

Barrington thanked him with a gesture, and glanced at the rest. "One would have preferred to carry out this inquiry more privately," he said, very slowly, but with hoa.r.s.e distinctness. "Still, you have already heard so much."

Dane nodded. "I fancy you are right, sir. Because we have known and respected the man who has, at least, done a good deal for us, it would be better that we should hear the rest."

Barrington made a little gesture of agreement, and once more fixed his eyes on Winston. "Then will you tell us who you are?"

"A struggling prairie farmer," said Winston quietly. "The son of an English country doctor who died in penury, and one who from your point of view could never have been ent.i.tled to more than courteous toleration from any of you."

He stopped, but, for the astonishment was pa.s.sing, there was negation in the murmurs which followed, while somebody said, "Go on!"

Dane stood up. "I fancy our comrade is mistaken," he said. "Whatever he may have been, we recognize our debt to him. Still, I think he owes us a more complete explanation."

Then Maud Barrington, sitting where all could see her, signed imperiously to Alfreton, who was on his feet next moment, with Macdonald and more of the men following him.

"I," he said, with a little ring in his voice and a flush in his young face, "owe him everything, and I'm not the only one. This, it seems to me, is the time to acknowledge it."

Barrington checked him with a gesture. "Sit down, all of you. Painful and embarra.s.sing as it is, now we have gone so far, this affair must be elucidated. It would be better if you told us more."

Winston drew back a chair, and when Courthorne moved, the man who sat next to him laid a grasp on his arm. "You will oblige me by not making any remarks just now," he said dryly. "When Colonel Barrington wants to hear anything from you he'll ask you."

"There is little more," said Winston. "I could see no hope in the old country, and came out to this one with one hundred pounds a distant connection lent me. That sum will not go very far anywhere, as I found when, after working for other men, I bought stock and took up Government land. To hear how I tried to do three men's work for six weary years, and at times went for months together half-fed, might not interest you, though it has its bearing on what came after. The seasons were against me, and I had not the dollars to tide me over the time of drought and blizzard until a good one came. Still, though my stock died, and I could scarcely haul in the little wheat the frost and hail left me, with my worn-out team, I held on, feeling that I could achieve prosperity if I once had the chances of other men."

He stopped a moment, and Macdonald poured out a gla.s.s of wine and pa.s.sed it across to him in a fas.h.i.+on that made the significance of what he did evident.

"We know what kind of a struggle you made by what we have seen at Silverdale," he said.

Winston put the gla.s.s aside, and turned once more to Colonel Barrington.

"Still," he said, "until Courthorne crossed my path, I had done no wrong, and I was in dire need of the money that tempted me to take his offer. He made a bargain with me that I should ride his horse and personate him, that the police troopers might leave him unsuspected to lead his comrades running whisky, while they followed me. I kept my part of the bargain, and it cost me what I fancy I can never recover, unless the trial I shall shortly face will take the stain from me.

While I pa.s.sed for him your lawyer found me, and I had no choice between being condemned as a criminal for what Courthorne had in the meanwhile done, or continuing the deception. He had, as soon as I had left him, taken my horse and garments, so that if seen by the police they would charge me. I could not take your money, but, though Courthorne was apparently drowned, I did wrong when I came to Silverdale. For a time the opportunities dazzled me; ambition drew me on, and I knew what I could do."

He stopped again, and once more there was a soft rustle of dresses, and a murmur, as those who listened gave inarticulate expression to their feelings. Moving a little, he looked steadily at Maud Barrington and her aunt, who sat close together.

"Then," he said, very slowly, "it was borne in upon me that I could not persist in deceiving you. Courthorne, I fancied, could not return to trouble me, but the confidence that little by little you placed in me rendered it out of the question. Still, I saw that I could save some at least at Silverdale from drifting to disaster, and there was work for me here which would go a little way in reparation, and now that it is done I was about to bid you good-by, and ask you not to think too hardly of me."

There was a moment's intense silence until once more Dane rose up, and pointed to Courthorne sitting with half-closed eyes, dusty, partly dazed by indulgence, and with the stamp of dissolute living on him, in his chair. Then he glanced at Winston's bronzed face, which showed quietly resolute at the bottom of the table.