IN THE MOONLIGHT
Angus Moraine flung down his pen impatiently. Leaning back in his chair he turned toward the sunlit window, gazing through it at the distant view of golden wheat as a man will who seeks relief from intolerable thought.
His thought was intolerable. It was growing more and more intolerable as the days passed and the time drew on when he must hand Deep Willows over to his successor.
All the best years of his life had been spent in the making of Deep Willows. All his energy, all that was best in him; these things had been given freely, without stint, without thought of sparing himself in the work, and he believed the result to be a worthy achievement.
But it was not yet finished. He doubted if it would ever be finished. He had dreamed his dreams, and those dreams had carried him into realms of such colossal fancy that he knew, if he lived to a hundred, the time would be wholly inadequate for the fulfilment of his ambitions.
The wealth which must inevitably come in the process of the achievement he had set himself was not the goal he desired to win. He admitted the use of such wealth, and knew that without it the rest must fall to the ground. But his dream was of achievement alone. He had no desire to be remembered for the fortune he had amassed. His absorbing passion was to be thought of, by coming generations, for an achievement unlike that of any other.
Deep Willows was the nucleus about which he had hoped to build his edifice. Vaguely he saw it the center of a world of wheat. He imagined the whole prairie lands of Canada clad in the golden raiment of a perfect wheat harvest. Not merely a farm, but a country of wheat, acknowledging a single control. Nor did it matter to him whose the control so long as his was the making.
This was his dream and now—he saw it fading before his very eyes at the whim of the man he had so long and so faithfully served. The thought of it was intolerable. Sometimes, even, rebellion choked all his friendship, all his loyalty to the man who had made something of the realization of his dreams possible.
But there was just one shadow of hope left to him. It was very slight, very vague, and he hardly understood whither it led, he hardly knew if it were worth serious consideration at all. But the feeling was there; nor would it be denied. If only he knew what far-reaching scheme, with regard to his wife, lay in the back of Hendrie's great head he might feel easier. But he did not know, and, until such schemes were put into practice, he was not likely to know. Still the fact remained; Mrs. Hendrie had been appointed his successor, and, since that appointment, she had fallen from her high place in her husband's regard, or, at least, was tottering on her exalted pedestal.
The thought gave him some slight satisfaction. If—if only something would happen in time. If—only. He felt at that moment he would willingly give half his possessions to be able to search the hidden recesses of Hendrie's secret thought and find out for certain—what was going to happen.
He sighed and stirred restlessly, and, as he did so, a horseman rode past the window and pulled up at his door. Then Angus Moraine did something quite contrary to his rule. He rose swiftly from his chair, and, crossing the room hastily, flung open the door. The horseman was a special messenger he had sent into Everton.
The man was one of his foremen, a young Swede to whom he generally entrusted any confidential duty.
"Well, Jan?" he demanded, with something like cordiality, as the man flung out of the saddle.
The Swede dived one hand into the bosom of his loose cotton shirt.
"One letter, boss," he replied, producing an ordinary business envelope.
"Ah. Anything else?" There was eagerness in Angus's inquiry as he took the letter and read the address in Hendrie's handwriting.
"Guess I took a peek at the hotel register," Jan replied at once.
"Yes?" There was a further quickening of interest in the manager's tone.
"I see the name you wanted. Frank Smith. Guess he registered in at dinner time."
The narrow eyes of the Scot lit.
"At dinner time?"
"Yep. That's how it was marked. Say——"
"Well?"
"He's a tall guy. Sort o' tow hair. Young. Maybe round about twenty?"
Angus nodded.
"Then I see him, too. He was sittin' in the office."
"Good."
There was no doubt as to Moraine's approval now, and Jan felt he had done well.
"Anything else, boss?" he inquired confidently.
Angus remained thinking for some seconds. Then he shook his head.
"Nothing," he said finally.
The Swede mounted his horse. As he was about to ride off Angus detained him.
"Send me over my horse," he said casually. "After that you best get around and see they're setting those 'smudge' fires right. We're going to get a chill to-night. We must do what we can to keep the frost out of the crops."
The man rode off, and Angus turned back into his office.
The manager's mood had entirely changed for the better. A sense of elation had replaced the desperate irritation of a few moments before. Was something going to happen at last? It almost looked like it. Frank Smith had registered at Everton, and here was a letter from Hendrie. A letter. It was not Hendrie's way to write letters with the telegraph handy, and the telephone to his hand. He sat down and tore the envelope open.
It contained eight closely written sheets of very thin paper, and Angus smiled as he realized the writer's purpose. The envelope had appeared quite thin. There had been nothing about it to attract attention from the curious.
Straightening out the sheets he settled himself to the perusal of his chief's letter. It was very long, and full of carefully detailed instructions. Furthermore, it was dated at Gleber, and it also informed him of Frank Smith's arrival in Everton! But these things were only a tithe of what the letter told him. It told him so much that his whole interest was fully engrossed, and a curious wonder at the man who had written it stirred within him. With his first reading of the letter a wild hope leaped within him, and, by the time he had finished his second reading, he realized that he need have no further fears of being banished from Deep Willows.
The "something" he had longed for had happened. The scheming mind of Alexander Hendrie had revealed itself to him. After all, fortune was with him, and it was only necessary for him to carry out the instructions set out in the letter for everything to be as he wished.
But there was no time to indulge in the pleasurable reaction inspired by his letter. His orders were imperative and demanded prompt attention. Therefore he refolded the pages and bestowed them safely. Then, when his horse arrived, he set out at once in the direction of Everton.
Angus Moraine's fears of a summer frost looked like being realized. The night closed down brilliantly fine, with a threatening chill pervading the air. There was no wind, and this was significant. To the weatherwise the sudden dropping of the thermometer was possible at any moment, and the farming world might easily awaken on the morrow to find the harvest prospects destroyed, and the highest grade wheat reduced to something little better than fodder for hogs.
The full moon shone down upon the golden world with a steely gleam upon its cold face, leaving the starry sheet of a cloudless sky rendered almost invisible. It was a dreadfully perfect night, one that might suit lovers, might inspire the romantic, but was anathema to those who lived by the produce of the soil.
The village of Everton was very still and silent amid the woodland shadows in which it lay. The little wooden houses were in darkness, and no sign of life was visible anywhere, except at the hotel, where the yellow lamplight still battled feebly with the overwhelming rays of the brilliant summer moon.
At that moment the whole world seemed to be slumbering peacefully, in the full confidence that no disturbing elements were abroad. Peace—a wonderful peace, such as is only known in close contact with the soil, seemed to reign everywhere. But the mind and heart of man rarely shares in Nature's gentler moods. In waking hours the great battle of life is always raging, and in sleep, restless dreaming pursues its victim. There is little enough of peace for striving humanity.
It was nearly ten o'clock when the glass door of the hotel was pushed open, and a tall man stood gazing out into the brilliant night. The doorway was narrow, and he almost entirely filled it up. The yellow lamplight from behind shone dully upon his fair, bare head, and the cold moonlight shed an artificial pallor upon his good-looking face.
He stood for some moments thus, and his expression was scarcely happy. He seemed lost in some thought which gave him little enough pleasure. Presently he stirred and thrust the prairie hat he held in his hand upon his head, and drew the brim well down over his eyes. Then with a hunch of the shoulders, the deliberate movement as of a man spurring himself to an unpleasant task, he stepped from the doorway out into the full light of the moon.
He strode off down the trail, white in the brilliant light, at the rapid, swinging gait of one whose destination is definite, and who is anxious to reach it with as little delay as possible.
Presently the woodland bluff in the direction of the river swallowed him up, and even the faint sound of his rapid footsteps became lost in the silence that seemed to close over him.
Scarcely had the last sound of his retreating steps died out when the door of a near-by house opened and a man stepped out on to the veranda. This house, like its fellows, was in darkness. Nor was there any light by which to judge his appearance, but that which was shed by the moon. However, this revealed his size, which was much above the average, and showed him to be a man of years and full proportions.
He waited for a moment, gazing about him, then, as another figure appeared round the side of the hotel, he quickly left his veranda and hurried across the intervening space to join the newcomer.
After a few moments' earnest conversation they, too, set off down the trail. But whereas the first man's movements were devoid of any attempt at concealment, these two moved cautiously, even furtively, as though they had no desire for recognition.
Finally the woodland bluff swallowed them up, and all was still again.
But it was not for long. Within ten minutes the hotel door was again thrust open. This time the figure that appeared was a perfectly familiar one. It was Angus Moraine, and he was accompanied by the proprietor of the place. There was apparently nothing unusual about him, except a marked cordiality. He might simply have been terminating his customary evening visit of recreation, for, as he appeared a "hand" brought his horse round from the barn, and stood awaiting the manager's pleasure to mount.
But for once Angus kept him waiting. His cordial mood would not permit of a hurried departure, and he stood talking to his companion for some moments.
"I certainly should think about it, Sharpe," he said earnestly. "Guess I'm not a feller given to slinging hot air. I'd start to build quick. Be first. When a place begins to boom you want to be right there, and—collar the trade before other folks get busy. You want to be the leading hotel, and if my help in the way of patronage and recommendation is worth anything to you—why you can have it."
Lionel K. Sharpe listened eagerly.
"It's real kind of you, Mr. Moraine," he said warmly. "But I'm guessin'' it's a matter of capital. If this place is to boom——"
"Capital?" Angus snorted. "Pshaw, man! It's nothing to raise the capital."
"No—o." The hotel keeper looked dubious. Then he brightened. "Say, maybe you don't fancy comin' in on the deal yourself, Mr. Moraine?" He eyed his guest shrewdly.
The next moment he received a shock. Angus laughed. And his laugh was the most cordial thing Lionel K. Sharpe ever remembered to have heard emanate from the manager of Deep Willows.
"Why, I hadn't thought of it," that individual declared, when his mirth had subsided. Then he became quite serious. "Say, it's not a bad idea though. You see, I'm here a sort of fixture for life, and I guess it wouldn't be half a bad scheme putting my odd cents into a bright enterprise in Everton. Why, yes, I'll think it over, Sharpe, I'll surely think it over."
He stepped from the porch and took his horse from the patient "hired" man, who promptly vanished to his rest in the harness room of the barn. He sprang lightly into the saddle.
"That's a good notion, Sharpe," Angus went on, as he gathered up the reins. "Guess we'd run a cracking hotel together. Well, so long. We'll talk it over later. So long."
He turned his horse about and set off down the trail, and, in a few moments, he, too, was swallowed up by the woodland shadows.