CHAPTER X
INTO THE FARTHER WEST
For the first time in his life Harris surrendered his purpose to thejudgment of his son, and as they drove homeward along the dusty trailin the heat of the day the consciousness came home to him that Allanwas right. To have used his gun would, of course, have been madness;he had never seriously intended doing anything so rash, although forone impetuous moment his passion had made him irresponsible. And, ashe thought it all over, he concluded that nothing was to be gained bypursuit of the runaways. There was only one west-bound train in theday; he could not give chase until the morrow, and they would be ableto lead him by twenty-four hours as long as he cared to keep up thepursuit. True, he might telegraph ahead to the police, but that meantpublicity, and would probably be ineffectual in the end. She had goneof her own free will, and although his heart hurt even under hisanger, now that she had gone she might stay. She had left a goodhome, a fond father, and a share in the family estate for a--hiredman--and she might now make the best of her bargain. Harris assuredhimself, with absolute sincerity, that he had done his duty in thematter, and that in exchange for all his kindness his daughter hadtreated him very badly indeed.
During the drive homeward his thoughts persistently turned to theshare his wife had had in Beulah's departure, and his feeling towardMary grew more and more hostile. Not that he altogether disbelievedher when she professed ignorance of the young couple's intention; hecould not go so far as to think that she had lied to him, but he wasinwardly convinced that she had at least an inkling of their plans,and that, so far from attempting to dissuade them, she was really insympathy with their wild escapade. Harris was very fond of his wife,who had shared with him all the hardships of pioneer life, and who,he admitted, had been a faithful and devoted helpmeet, and herdesertion of him in the present crisis was therefore all the less tobe excused or condoned. He resolved, however, that there should be noopen breach between them; he would neither scold nor question her,but would impress her with his displeasure by adopting a cold,matter-of-fact, speak-when-your spoken-to attitude toward her.
Under the circumstances it was not remarkable that Harris's workbegan to loom larger than ever in his life. The space left vacant byhis daughter he filled with extra energy driving the great ploughsthrough the mellow summer-fallow. A new tank-man was engaged, and therumble of the engine was heard up and down the fields from earlymorning until dark. From his wife he held aloof, speaking withstrained courtesy when speech was necessary. She, in turn, schooledfor years in self-effacement, hid her sorrow in her heart, and wentabout her work with a resignation which he mistook for cheerfulness,and which confirmed him in his opinion that she knew more of Beulah'sintentions than she had cared to admit. Only with Allan his relationsremained unchanged; indeed, the attachment between the two grewdeeper than ever. The young man avoided any reference to Beulah; whathe felt in his own heart he kept to himself, but the father shrewdlyguessed that he laid the whole blame on Travers.
So the summer wore on; the black bosom of the fallow field widenedday by day, and the smell of growing wheat filled the dew-ladenevening air. The picnic season, the time of athletic competitions,baseball matches, and rural sociability, rolled by, but Harrisscarcely knew of its passing. He had long ago ceased to take anypersonal interest in the frivolities of the neighbourhood; he saw inpicnics and baseball games only an unprofitable misuse of time, andwhen he thought of them at all it was to congratulate himself thatAllan was not led away by any such foolishness. Finding no greathappiness in his own home, he had fallen into the way of walking overto Riles's on Sunday afternoons, and the two spent many hours indiscussion of their proposed land-seeking expedition.
Meanwhile Mary plodded along with her housework, toiling doggedlyfrom five in the morning until half-past nine or ten at night.Beulah's departure had left all the labours of the home upon herhands; her husband had made no suggestion of securing help, and shehad not asked any. The new man made no offer to milk any of the cows;a dozen hours in the field was day enough for him, and whatever timewas over he spent smoking cigarettes in the shelter of the barn.Allan occasionally did help with the milking, and more frequentlywith turning the separator, but it was so late when he stopped hiswork in the field she was sorry for him, and tried to have the milkcleared away before he arrived on the scene. One or two postcards shehad had from Beulah, but they brought no great information. They camein the open mail; her husband was welcome to read them if he chose,but as he had sought his own company exclusively since Beulah'sdeparture she made no attempt to force them upon him.
At last one morning came a letter, a big fat letter, left in by aneighbour passing by, as the custom was for any settler going to townto bring out the mail for those who lived along his route. She torethe envelope open nervously and devoured its contents with hungryeyes.
"My DEAR MOTHER,
"Here I am, in the shadow of the Rockies. That may sound poetical,but it's a literal fact. It is still early in the evening, but thesun has disappeared behind the great masses to the west, and thevalley which my window overlooks is filling up with blackness. TheArthurses are pure gold, and I have told them everything. They don'tblame anyone, not even father. How is he? Slaving as usual, Isuppose.
"Well, I must tell you about my trip. When I left the house thatnight I had no idea where I was going, but the simplest thing seemedto be to go first to Plainville. The North Star led that way, and itseemed a good guide to follow. As I walked the lights came out in theArctic sky--a great bow of them, swelling and fading in theirdelicate tints. I watched them and plodded along, trying not to thinkvery much about anything.
"You've no idea how heavy that suit-case got, but I took my time, asthere was nothing to gain by reaching town before daylight. When Igot there it struck me it might be a good plan to have somebreakfast, so I walked round to Goode's boarding-house. Mrs. Goodewas bustling about, and received me with open arms. 'Well, my Land!if it ain't Beulah Harris!' she exclaimed--she always called meBeulah--'Goodness, child, what are you doing about this early in themorning? But there, I needn't ask, knowin' what a worker your fatheris. I'll be bound he drove you in before sunrise to lose no time withhis ploughin'. Well, that's what makes the mare go. I wish my man hadsome of it--he's snorin' up on the second floor at this minute liketo lift the shingles. I often say to myself, 'For the little he doesand the lot he eats the Lord knows what keeps him so thin.' It's agrievance of Mrs. Goode's that her husband won't fatten up; shethinks it's a reflection on her cooking. 'And with your suit-case!You'll be taking the train? West, is it, or East? But you'll behungry, child. Take off your things there while I see to my buns--Ialways give the boarders hot buns for breakfast--' you know how sherattles on. But she's a good soul, if a bit conceited over herlooking, and wouldn't take a cent for my keep either. Of course shedidn't wait for me to answer her questions, and she really suggestedthe plan which I took. After breakfast I went over to the station,and asked what the fare was to Arthurs' station; I found I had enoughmoney for the trip, and I bought a ticket without further ado.
"I won't try to tell you all about my trip--it would take a book. Butwhat a country it is! Of course I had learned in school that therewas about two feet of map between the Red River and the Rockies, butthere's only one way to know how big it is, and that's to travel it.If you've got any imagination at all a trip over these enormousprairies must set it stirring. For the most part there's nosettlement; not a house, nor stack, nor any sign of life. Pretty muchlike Manitoba was, I guess, when you first saw it, but bigger, andgrander, and more suggestive of the future. You see, Manitoba hasmade good, for all the doubters, and this bigger West will do thesame, on a bigger scale. As we rolled along through that unbrokenprairie, with here and there a great herd of horses or cattle in thedistance, I felt at last that I was really beginning to live. Notthat I was doing anything grander than running away from home, butstill that feeling came over me--the feeling that here was a countrywhere things were going to happen, and that I was going to
play somepart in their happening.
"Well, if I ramble on like this it'll be a real book after all.Calgary is the big cow-town of the West, just beginning to aspire tohigher--or lower (there's a real question there)--civilization, andmixing schaps and silks on its streets in a strange struggle betweenthe past and the future. But my stay there was short, as I was ableto catch my branch train with little delay, and that night saw me atArthurs' nearest station. The homestead rush is on here in earnest;the trains are crowded, mostly with Americans, and the hotels aresimply spilling over. They're a motley crowd, these homesteaders.Down with us, you know, the settlers were looking for homes, and achance to make a living, but up here they're out for money--the longgreen, they call it. Their idea is to prove up and sell their lands,when they will either buy more or leave the country. But the greatpoint is that they are after money rather than homes. They belong toa class which has been rushing for a generation ahead of a wave ofhigh land values--I heard a man say that in the train, and I made anote of it--they're rovers by birth and training, with no great homeinstinct! To them one place is as good as another--provided alwaysthere's money to be made there--and one flag is almost as good asanother. Of course this will right itself in time; the first flood ofland-seekers are soil-miners, but the second are home-builders--theman said that too; you see I'm picking things up; I want to knowabout something besides the weather--and when that second flood comesthis country won't know itself.
"But to come back to the hotel; that's what I did when I had taken agood walk about the little town, and admired myself almost homesicklooking at fine horses tied to hitching-posts and fine men swaggeringabout in the abandon of cow-boy costumes. One thing I have learnedalready, and the discovery shocked me a little at first; the cow-boyconsiders himself better clay than the farmer--the 'sod-buster' hecalls him--and treats him with good-humoured contempt. I wanted toask someone about Arthurs, and I didn't like to inquire in the hotel.There was a lot of drinking going on there. But near the door weretwo young men talking, and I overheard one of them mention Arthurs'name. Pulling myself together, I asked him if he could tell me whereArthurs lived.
"'Yes, miss,' he answered, lifting a big hat and showing when hespoke a clean set of teeth. 'It's twenty-five miles up the river.Were you expecting him to meet you?'
"I explained that I had intended to drop in on them by surprise, butI had had no idea they lived so far from town.
"'Oh, that's not far,' he said. 'Can you ride?'
"Everybody here rides horseback. It's the standard means oflocomotion. And the women ride astride. I was a bit shocked at first,but you soon get used to it. But twenty-five miles is different froma romp round the pasture-field, so I said I was afraid not.
"'Arthurs is coming down with the buck-board,' remarked the otherman. 'I passed him on the trail as I came in.'
"Sure enough, a little later Arthurs himself drew up at the hotel. Iwouldn't have known him, but one of the young men pointed him out,and it would have done you good to see how he received me.
"'And you are Jack and Mary's daughter,' he said, taking both myhands in his, and holding me at arm's length for a moment. Then,before I knew it, he had drawn me up and kissed me. But I didn'tcare. All of a sudden it seemed to me that I had found a real father.It seems hard to say it, but that is how I felt.
"Well, he just couldn't keep away from me all evening. He showered mewith questions about you and father, which I answered as well as Icould, but I soon found I couldn't keep my secret, so I just up andtold him all. He was very grave, but not cross. 'You need time tothink things over, and to get a right perspective,' he said, 'and ourhome will be yours until you do.'
"We drove home the next day, up a wonderful river valley, deep intothe heart of the foothills, with the blue mountains always beckoningand receding before us. Mrs. Arthurs was as surprised and delightedas he had been, and I won't try to tell you all the things she saidto me. She cried a little, too, and I'm afraid I came near helpingher a bit. You know the Arthurs lost their little girl before theyleft Manitoba, and they have had no other children. They both seemedjust hungry.
"There's nothing so very fine about their home, except the spiritthat's inside it. I can't describe it, but it's there--a certainleisurely way of doing things, a sense that they have made work theirservant instead of their master. And still they're certainly notlazy, and they've accomplished more than we have. When they leftManitoba in the early days, discouraged with successive frosts, theycame right out here into the foothills with their few head of stock.Now their cattle are numbered in thousands, and they have about atownship of land. And still they seem to live for the pure happinessthey find in life, and only to think of their property as a secondaryconsideration.
"Now I really must close. Mrs. Arthurs sends a note, and I'm quitesure it's an invitation. Oh, mother, what could be lovelier! Nowdon't say you can't. Father has plenty of money; let him hire ahousekeeper for a while. The change will do him good.
"Love to you, dearest, and to Allan, if he still thinks of me.
"BEULAH.
"P.S.--I forgot to mention that Jim Travers left Plainville on thesame train as I did. He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw methere. I told him I was going West on a visit, but I don't know howmuch he guessed. Said he was going West himself to take up land, buthe wanted to call on some friends first, and he got off a fewstations from Plainville. Between you and me, I believe he changedhis plan so that the incident--our being on the train together, youknow--could not be misunderstood if the neighbours got to know of it.It would be just like Jim to do that."
With Beulah's letter was a short but earnest note from LilianArthurs, assuring the mother of her daughter's welfare, and pressingan invitation to spend the autumn in the glorious scenery and weatherof the foothill country. Mary Harris read both letters over again,with frequent rubbing of her glasses. Love for her daughter, desireto see her old friend once more, and growing dissatisfaction withconditions at home, all combined to give weight to the invitation soearnestly extended. "If I only could!" she said to herself. "If Ionly could! But it would cost so much."
The dinner was late that day, and Harris was in worse humour thanusual. He had just broken a plough-beam, which meant an afternoon'sdelay and some dollars of expense. When he had started his meal hiswife laid the full envelope before him. "A letter from Beulah," shesaid.
Without a word he rose from the table, took the letter in his hand,and thrust it into the kitchen range. A blue flame slowly cut roundthe envelope; the pages began to curl like dry leaves in autumn, andpresently the withered ghost of the missive shrank away in the dullglare of the coal fire behind.