"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Keith. "Has he anything of interest to say?"
"He mentions that he is going back to Africa sooner than he expected because the officer above him has suffered so much from the climate that he has asked to be relieved of his post. Captain Sedgwick believes this will give him a chance of advancement."
"Then I"ve no doubt he"ll make the most of it. I suppose he doesn"t waste much pity on his unfortunate chief? The man"s personal interest stands first with him."
"Isn"t that the usual thing with men?"
"There are exceptions. Colonel Challoner, for instance, threw up his career when he found he was forced to act against his convictions, and I"ve a suspicion that another man I know made as great a sacrifice.
However, Sedgwick will make every effort to get the vacant post, and I wonder whether he told Mrs. Chudleigh how matters stood. She may have had a letter before you did."
Millicent knew her employer"s penetration, but did not understand the drift of her remarks.
"I dare say he wrote to her. She told us they were old friends. But why should it interest you?"
"It does," Mrs. Keith rejoined. "I have a habit of putting things together and drawing my conclusions, though, of course, I"m now and then mistaken. Whether I"m right or not in the present instance time will show, but I must try to watch the woman when we go home." Then she added sharply: "As you have torn it up, you don"t mean to answer Sedgwick"s letter?"
"No," said Millicent, with a trace of colour; "I don"t think it needs a reply."
Mrs. Keith made a sign of agreement. "On the whole," she said pointedly, "I should imagine that to be a wise decision."
On reaching Saguenay, Mrs. Keith spent the first morning sitting outside her hotel. Rugged mountains with dark belts of pines straggling up their sides were spread about her, but she gave the wild grandeur of the landscape scanty attention as she consulted the engagement book in her hand. It contained a list of the friends she wished to entertain and the visits she had thought of making in England during the winter, and she wondered which could be shortened and whom she could put off, because it might be desirable to spend some time in Shropshire.
Margaret Keith was a strong-willed woman who had led a busy life, but now, when she had resolved to retire into the background and rest, it looked as if she might again be forced to take an active part in affairs. She had enjoyed her Canadian trip, but during the last week or two it had begun to lose its interest, and she was conscious of a call to be up and doing. She suspected Mrs. Chudleigh, she doubted Sedgwick, and she was disturbed by the way the unfortunate affair on the Indian frontier had cropped up again. Somehow, she felt Colonel Challoner"s peace was threatened, which could not be permitted. For many years she had cherished a warm liking for him, and long ago, when he was a young lieutenant, she could have made him hers. Family arrangements, complicated by the interests of landed property, had, however, stood in the way. Challoner was not free to marry as he pleased; he had been taught that the desire of the individual must be subordinated to the welfare of the line, and when he first met Margaret Keith, who was beautiful then, it was too late for him to rebel. She let him go, but he had always had a place in her heart, and now they were firm and trusted friends.
During her stay at Saguenay, Mrs. Chudleigh made two or three attempts to extract some further information about the Challoners but without success, and one day, soon after she had left, Mrs. Keith sent Millicent for a list of steamer sailings.
"This place is very pretty, but we have been here some time and I"m beginning to think of home," she said.
"One of the Empresses sails next week," said Millicent, returning with the card. "Mr. Gordon told me this morning that Mrs. Chudleigh went in the _Salmatian_ the day before he left Quebec."
"Did she?" Mrs. Keith rejoined. "Well, perhaps you had better write to the Montreal office about our berths." Then, for the call had grown clearer, she smiled as the girl went away, and added: "It might be wiser to keep the woman in sight."
CHAPTER VIII
THE PRAIRIE
A strong breeze swept the wide plain, blowing fine sand about, when Blake plodded beside the jaded Indian pony that drew his Red-river cart. It was loaded with preserved provisions, camp stores, and winter clothes, and he had bought it and the pony because that seemed cheaper than paying for transport. The settlement for which he was bound stands near the northern edge of the great sweep of gra.s.s which stretches across central Canada, and means of communication between it and the outer world were scarce. Harding, accordingly, had agreed to the purchase of the animal with the idea of selling it afterwards to one of the settlers.
Since leaving the railroad they had spent four days upon the trail, which sometimes ran plain before them, marked by dints of wheels among the wiry gra.s.s, and sometimes died away, leaving them at a loss in a wilderness of sand and short poplar scrub, through which Blake steered by compa.s.s. Now it was late in the afternoon and the men were tired of battling with the wind which buffeted their sunburned faces with sharp sand. They were crossing one of the high steppes of the middle prairie towards the belt of pines and muskegs which divides it from the barrens of the North. The broad stretch of fertile loam, where prosperous wooden towns are rising fast among the wheatfields, lay to the south of them, and the arid tract they journeyed through had so far no attraction for even the adventurous homestead pre-emptor.
They found it a bleak and cheerless country, crossed by the ravines of a few sluggish creeks, the water of which was unpleasant to drink, and dotted at long intervals by ponds bitter with alkali. In places, stunted poplar bluffs cut against the sky, but, for the most part, there was only a rolling waste of dingy gra.s.s. The trail was heavy, the wheels sank deep in sand as they climbed a low rise, and, to make things worse, the rounded, white-edged clouds which had scudded across the sky since morning were gathering in threatening ma.s.ses. This had happened every afternoon, but now and then the cloud ranks had broken, to pour out a furious deluge and a blaze of lightning. Harding anxiously studied the sky.
"I guess we"re up against another thunderstorm," he said. "My opinion of the mid-continental climate is singularly mean, but I"d put this strip of Canada near the limit. Our Texan northers are fierce when they come along, but here it blows all the time."
"We"ll make camp, if you like; I don"t feel very fresh," Blake replied.
"Not here," snapped Harding, "Where I stop I sleep, and I"ve no use for sheltering under the cart. Last time we tried it the pony stampeded and the wheel went over my foot. The tent"s no good; you"d want a chain to stop its blowing away. We"ll go on until we bring up to lee of a big, solid bluff."
"Very well," Blake agreed. "I daresay we ought to find one in the hollow we got a glimpse of from the last rise, but we haven"t had to put up with much discomfort yet."
"It"s a matter of opinion; you haven"t limped forty miles on a bad foot, but I"m not complaining," Harding rejoined, "In fact, I"ve most been happy since we left the depot. It"s something to feel that you have started; doing nothing takes the sand out of me."
Blake had once or twice suggested that his comrade should ride, but the pony was overburdened and Harding refused. He explained that they could not expect to sell it in a worn-out condition, but his partner suspected him of sympathy for the patient beast.
They crossed the ridge and seeing a wavy line of trees in the wide hollow, quickened their pace. The soil was firmer, the scrub the wheels crushed through was short, and the trail led smoothly down a slight descent. This was comforting, because half the sky was barred with leaden cloud and the parched gra.s.s gleamed beneath it lividly white, while the light that struck a ridge-top here and there had a sinister luridness. It was getting cold and the wind was dropping, which was not a favourable sign.
Pushing the cart through the softer places, dragging the jaded pony by the head, they hurried on and at length plunged through a creek with the trees close in front. A few minutes later they tethered the pony to lee of the cart and set up their tent. Then, while Blake was rummaging out provisions and Harding searching the bluff for dry sticks, they heard a beat of hoofs and a man rode up, leading a second horse. He got down and throwing a bundle off his saddle hobbled the beasts before he turned to Blake.
"From the south? You"re for Sweet.w.a.ter?" he said.
Blake told him he had guessed correctly, and asked how far they had still to go.
"You ought to make it in a day and a half," said the other. "I"ll ride in with you; run a store and hotel there, but feel I want to get out on the prairie now and then, and as a horse was missing I went after him.
A looker, isn"t he?"
Blake admired the animal, and suggested that the stranger had better join them instead of cooking a separate supper. The fellow, who told them that his name was Gardner, had a good-humoured, sunburned face and an honest look. The prairie was now wrapped in inky gloom, and there was an impressive stillness except for the occasional rustle of a leaf, but when Harding came out of the bluff with a load of wood a puff of icy wind suddenly stirred the gra.s.s. The harsh rustle it made was followed by a deafening crash, and a jagged streak of lightning fell from the leaden clouds; then the air was filled with the roar of driving hail. It swept the wood, rending leaves and smashing twigs, while the men crouched inside the straining tent and a constant blaze of lightning flickered about the gra.s.s. By and by the thunder died away and the hail gave place to torrential rain, while the slender trees rocked in the blast and small branches drove past the tent. This lasted some minutes, after which the rain ceased suddenly and a fierce red light streamed along the saturated gra.s.s from the huge sinking sun.
Harding, who had brought the wood into the tent, took it out and with the stranger"s help soon made a fire.
It was getting dark, though a band of transcendental green still burned upon the prairie"s western edge when they finished supper and, sitting round the fire, took out their pipes. The hobbled horses were quietly grazing near them.
"That"s undoubtedly a fine animal," Blake remarked. "Is it yours?"
"No; it belongs to Clarke"s Englishman."
"Who"s he? It"s a curious way to speak of a fellow."
"It fits him," said the other. "Guess he"s Clarke"s, hide and bones, and that"s all there"ll be when the doctor has done with him. He"s a sucker the doctor taught farming and then sold land to."
"Then who"s the doctor?" Harding inquired.
"That"s not so easy to answer, but he"s a man you want to be friends with if you stay near the settlement. Teaches farming to tenderfoot young Englishmen and Americans; finds them land and stock to start with, and makes a mighty good thing out of it. Goes to Montreal now and then, but whether it"s to look up fresh suckers or on the jag is more than I know."
"We met a fellow called Clarke at the _Windsor_ not long since. What"s he like?"
Gardner described him and Harding said, "That"s the man."
"Then I can"t see what he was doing at the _Windsor_; an opium joint would have been more in his line."
"Does the fellow live at Sweet.w.a.ter?" Blake asked.
"Has a farm, and runs it well, about three miles back, but he"s away pretty often in the North and at a settlement on the edge of the bush country. Don"t know what he does there, and they"re a curious crowd; Dubokars, Russians of sorts, I guess."
Blake had seen the Dubokars in other parts of Canada and had found them an industrious people, leading, from religious convictions, a remarkably primitive life. There were, however, fanatics among them, and he understood that these now and then led their followers into outbreaks of emotional extravagance.
"They make good settlers, as a rule," he said. "But, as they don"t speak English, how does the fellow get on with them?"