Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 18

Agatha thought that the soft hat, which fell shapelessly over part of Sproatly's face, needed something to replace the discarded band; but in another moment he entered the room. He shook hands with them both.

"You are looking remarkably fresh, but appearances are not invariably to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par," he said with a smile. "I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind?"

"I don't," declared Mrs. Hastings resolutely; "Allen doesn't, either.

Besides, didn't you get into some trouble over that tonic?"

"It was the cough cure," explained Sproatly with a grin. "I sold a man at Lander's one of the large-sized bottles, and when he had taken some he felt a good deal better. Then he seems to have argued the thing out like this: if one dose had relieved the cough, a dozen should drive it out of him altogether, and he took the lot. He slept for forty-eight hours afterward, and when I came across him at the settlement he attacked me with a club. The fault, I may point out, was in his logic.

Perhaps you would like some pictures. I've a rather striking oleograph of the Kaiser. It must be like him, for two of his subjects recognized it. One hung it up in his shanty; the other asked me to hold it out, and then pitched a stove billet through the middle of it. He, however, produced his dollar; he said he felt so much better after what he'd done that he didn't grudge it."

"I'm afraid we're not worth powder and shot," said Mrs. Hastings. "Do you ever remember our buying any tonics or pictures from you?"

"I don't, though I have felt that you ought to have done it." Sproatly, who paused a moment, turned towards Agatha with a little whimsical bow.

"The professional badinage of an unlicensed dealer in patent medicines may now and then mercifully cover a good deal of embarra.s.sment. Miss Ismay has brought something pleasantly characteristic of the Old Country along with her."

His hostess disregarded the last remark. "Then if you didn't expect to sell us anything, what did you come for?"

"For supper," answered Sproatly cheerfully. "Besides that, to take Miss Rawlinson out for a drive. I told her last night it would afford me considerable pleasure to show her the prairie. We could go round by Lander's and back."

"Then you will probably come across her somewhere about the straw-pile with the kiddies."

Sproatly took the hint, and when he went out Mrs. Hastings laughed.

"You would hardly suppose that was a young man of excellent education!"

she exclaimed. "So it's on Winifred's account he has driven over; at first I fancied it was on yours."

Agatha was astonished, but she smiled. "If Winifred favors him with her views about young men he will probably be rather sorry for himself. He lives near you?"

"No," said Mrs. Hastings. "In the summer he lives in his wagon, or under it, I don't know which. Of course, if he's really taken with Winifred he will have to alter that."

"But he has only seen her once--you can't mean that he is serious."

"I really can't speak for Sproatly, but it would be quite in keeping with the customs of the country if he was."

A minute or two later Agatha saw Winifred in the wagon when it reappeared from behind the straw-pile, and Mrs. Hastings turned toward the window.

"She has gone with him," she commented significantly. "Unfortunately, he has taken my kiddies too. If he brings them back with no bones broken it will be a relief to me."

CHAPTER XII

WANDERERS

Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings. When they were driving over to Wyllard's homestead one afternoon, the older woman pulled up her team while they were still some little distance away from their destination, and looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now faintly flecked with green. On the other, plowing teams were scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out behind them.

The great sweep of gra.s.ses that rustled joyously before a glorious warm wind, gleamed luminously, and overhead hung a vault of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, flocks of birds moved up from the south.

"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall back-set," she observed. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly." She glanced toward the place where the teams were hauling unusually heavy plows through the gra.s.sy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against him.

Some of his neighbors, including my husband, would have sown a little less and held a reserve in hand."

Agatha remembered what Wyllard had told her one night on board the _Scarrowmania_, and smiled, for she fancied that she understood the man.

He was not one to hedge, as she had heard it called, or cautiously hold his hand. He staked boldly, but she felt that this was not only for the sake of the money that he might hope to gain. It was part of his nature--the result of an optimistic faith or courage that appealed to her, and sheer love of effort. She also guessed that his was not a spasmodic, impulsive activity. She could imagine him holding on as steadfastly with everything against him, exacting all that men and teams and machines could do. It struck her as curious that she should feel so sure of this; but she admitted that it was the case.

Sitting in the driving-seat of a big machine that ripped broad furrows through the crackling sod, he was approaching them. Four horses plodded wearily in front of the giant plow until he thrust one hand over, and there was a rattle and clanking as he swung them and the machine around beside the wagon. Then he got down, and stood smiling up at Agatha with his soft hat in his hand and the sunlight falling full upon his weather-darkened face. It was not a particularly striking face, but there was something in it, a hint of restrained force and steadfastness, she thought, which Gregory's did not possess, and for a moment or two she watched him covertly.

He wore an old blue s.h.i.+rt, open at the throat and belted into trousers of blue duck, and she noticed the fine symmetry of his spare figure. The absence of any superfluous flesh struck her as in keeping with her view of his character. The man was well-endowed physically; but apart from the strong vitality that was expressed in every line of his pose he looked clean, as she vaguely described it to herself. There was an indefinable something about him that was apparently born of a simple, healthful life spent in determined labor in the open air. It became plainer, as she remembered other men upon whom the mark of the beast was unmistakably set. Mrs. Hastings broke the silence.

"Well," she said, "we have driven over as we promised. I've no doubt you will give us supper, but we'll go on and sit with Mrs. Nansen in the meanwhile. I expect you're too busy to talk to us."

Wyllard laughed, and it occurred to Agatha that his laugh was wholesome as well as pleasant.

"I generally am busy," he admitted. "These horses have been at it since sun-up, and they're rather played out now. I'll talk to you as long as you will let me after supper, which will soon be ready."

Agatha noticed that though the near horse's coat was foul with dust and sweat he laid his brown hand upon it, and it seemed to her that the gentleness with which he did it was very suggestive.

Mrs. Hastings, who had been scrutinizing the field, asked, "What's to be the result of all this plowing if we have harvest frost or the market goes against you?"

"Quite a big deficit," answered Wyllard cheerfully.

"And that doesn't cause you any anxiety?"

"I'll have had some amus.e.m.e.nt for my money."

Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "He calls working from sunrise until it's dark, and afterwards now and then, amus.e.m.e.nt!" She looked back at Wyllard. "I believe it isn't quite easy for you to hold your back as straight as you are doing, and that off-horse certainly looks as if it wanted to lie down."

Wyllard laughed. "It won't until after supper, anyway. There are two more rows of furrows still to do."

"I suppose that is a hint!" Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha when the wagon jolted on.

"That man," she said, "is a great favorite of mine. For one thing, he's fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then runs away with him."

"What do you mean by fastidious?"

"It's a little difficult to define, but I certainly don't mean pernicketty. Of course, there is a fastidiousness which makes one shrink from unpleasant things, but Harry's is the other kind. It impels him to do them every now and then."

Agatha made no answer. She was uneasily conscious that it might not be advisable to think too much about this man, and in another minute or two they reached the homestead. The house was a plain frame building that had grown out of an older and smaller one of logs, part of which remained. It was much the same with the barns and stables, for, while they were stoutly built of framed timber or logs, one end of most of them was lower than the rest, and in some cases consisted of poles and sods. Even to her untrained eyes all she saw suggested order, neatness, and efficiency. The whole was flanked and sheltered by a big birch bluff, in which trunks and branches showed through a thin green haze of tiny opening leaves.

A man whom Wyllard had sent after them took the horses.

Agatha commented on what she called the added-to look of the buildings.

"The Range," said Mrs. Hastings, "has grown rapidly since Harry took hold. The old part represents the high-water mark of his father's efforts. Of course," she added reflectively, "Harry has had command of some capital since a relative of his died, but I never thought that explained everything."

They entered the house, and a gray-haired Swedish woman led them through several match-boarded rooms into a big, cool hall. She left them there for a while, and Agatha was absorbed for a minute or two with her impressions of the house. It was singularly empty by comparison with the few English homesteads that she had seen. There were no curtains nor carpets nor hangings of any kind, but it was commodious and comfortable.

"What can a bachelor want with a place like this?" she asked.