Lorimer of the Northwest

CHAPTER IX

A RECKONING

It was some time after the holding up of Carrington Manor before I was able, with Jasper’s assistance, to fulfill my promise to Minnie Fletcher. Jasper knew everybody within fifty miles up and down the C. P. R. Line, and at least as far across the prairie, while they all had a good word for him. So when he heard the story he drove us over to Clearwater, where an elevator had been built beside the track, only to find that the agent in charge of it had already a sufficient staff. He, however, informed us that the manager of a new creamery wanted a handy man to drive round collecting milk from the scattered homesteads who could also help at the accounts and clerking. Such a combination might not have been usual in England, but in the Western Dominion one may find University graduates digging trenches and unfortunate barristers glad to earn a few dollars as railroad hands.

“I guess we’ll fix him up in that creamery,” said Jasper. “The man who runs it was raised not far from the old folks’ place in Ontario,” and we started forthwith on an apparently endless ride across the frozen prairie. Some of our horses are not much to look at, and others are hard to drive, but the way they can haul the light wagons or even the humble ground sleigh along league after league would surprise those not used to them. We spent one night with a Highland crofter in a dwelling that resembled a burrow, for most of it was underground, but the rammed earth walls kept out the cold and the interior was both warm and clean. We spent another in somewhat grim conviviality at the creamery, for the men whose fathers hewed sites for what are now thriving towns out of the bush of Ontario are rather hard and staunch than sprightly.

Still, the manager did his best for us, and said on parting, “Send him right along. I’ll give any friend of yours a show if Jasper will vouch for him. Pay’s no great thing as yet, but he can live on it, and if we flourish he’ll sail ahead with us.”

So we brought Thomas Fletcher out from Winnipeg by joint subscription, and it cost us rather more than we cared about, for he came second class, while at that time Harry and I would have traveled “Colonist,” or on opportunity would have earned our passage by tending stock. If we could spare a dollar in those days we wanted it for our land. The old jauntiness had gone out of Fletcher. He looked worn and thinner, with, I fancied, signs of indulgence in alcohol, but he professed his willingness to work hard at anything that would keep a roof over Minnie’s head. We drove him across to the creamery, and the manager seemed disappointed when he saw him, while on the journey home Jasper said:

“I’ve been sizing up that young man. Strikes me he’s too much like the trash you British are over-fond of dumping on to us. Why can’t your people understand that if a man’s a dead failure over there we don’t want him? Dare say he’s honest, but he’s got no sand. Let that fellow sit up and talk over a glass of rye whiskey and a bad cigar and he’s right there; set him wrestling with a tough job and he’ll double up.”

Jasper posed as a judge of character, and I felt inclined to agree with him. Fletcher had not the appearance of a vicious or dishonest man, but I fancied under pressure of circumstances he might become one.

We built a new stable and barn that winter, hauling suitable logs – and they were very hard to find – ten miles across the prairie, while Harry nearly lost his hands by frost-bite bringing in one load. Nevertheless, and there is leisure in that season, we drove over now and then to Fletcher’s humble dwelling beside the creamery, and were both embarrassed the first time Minnie thanked us with tears in her eyes. Already she was recovering her good looks and spirits, but as Fletcher’s pay would be scanty until spring the odd bags of potatoes and flour we brought them were evidently acceptable. We had received help freely when we needed it, and it seemed only fitting that now we should help others in turn; so we did what little we could, and, as transpired later, it brought trouble on us. Also we managed to pay a few visits to other neighbors who lived at any distance within thirty miles, including a few farms of the Carrington group, where, perhaps especially for Harry’s sake, they made us welcome, and we went twice to Carrington Manor. The second visit was a memorable one.

It was a still, starlit night with an intense frost and a few pale green streamers shimmering in the north, but the big main room of the Manor with its open fireplace and central stove was very warm and snug. Our team was safely stabled, for owing to the distance we could not well return that night, and since the affair with the cattle thieves Colonel Carrington had so far as in him lay been cordial. He sat beside the glowing birch logs, silent and stern of aspect as usual, with a big shaggy hound which I had seen roll over a coyote with a broken spine curled up against his knee, while the firelight flickered redly across his lean, bronzed face. Opposite sat his sister, who partly resembled him, though in her case the Carrington dignity was softened by a winning sympathy. She was an old maid of a fine but perhaps not common type, white-haired and stately, and in all things gracious.

Harry, who was a favorite of hers, knelt with one knee on a wolf-skin rug, turning over a collection of photographs on a low table that she might see, and she smiled at some of his comments. Ormond leaned against the wall behind them interposing whimsical sallies, and casting occasional glances toward Grace and myself. Resigning his commission, he had lately, we understood, purchased land near the Manor. One or two other of the Colonel’s subjects also were present. Being lighted with shaded lamps that shed their soft radiance only where it was wanted, portions of the long room remained in shadow, so Grace and I, sitting near one window, could look out between the looped-back curtains across the prairie. High over the sweep of dimly glimmering snow hung a vault of fathomless indigo. It was not such a sky as one sees in England, but rather a clear transparency where the stars, ranged one behind the other, led the gaze back and lost it in infinity, while at intervals a steely scintillation flickered up from horizon to zenith and then back again. Feathery frost-flowers on the window framed the picture like a screen of delicate embroidery.

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