CHAPTER X.
It was the first day of August of that first year on the prairies that Jack and I hitched the oxen to the wagon, threw on board a kit consisting mainly of a change of clothes and a blanket for each of us, said a brave but undemonstrative good-bye to the girls, and turned our faces to the older settlements. We had seen Mrs. Alton's new house—twelve feet square, it was, and eight feet high to the plates—under way; we had Spoof's promise that twice a day he would study the shack at Fourteen with his field glass for the flag that Marjorie would nail to the roof in case of any emergency; we had laid up fuel and supplies against the immediate needs of the girls during our absence, and now we were setting forth to earn what money we could during the short season of high wages. Our own oat field could wait; we would cut it for feed, anyway, and a little frost wouldn't matter.
One thing—two things, to be exact—worried me more on that day of parting than I would have cared to confess. One of those things was Spoof, and the other was Harold Brook, of the Mounted Police. Brook might be expected to call any day on his return journey to headquarters;—I had hoped that that would be over before I left, and many a glance I shot at the sky-line to the north-west of Fourteen, but without catching a glimpse of the red tunic riding down upon us, as it had done once before, apparently out of the heavens.
The subject was a peculiarly difficult one. For days I questioned myself whether or not I should have a frank discussion of it with Jean, but I finally decided to say nothing, at least for the present. It was a thing which I could not even mention without seeming to cast a reflection on Jean's loyalty, and loyalty, as I have discovered, is one of those qualities which does not improve under questioning. Every question aimed at loyalty seems to knock a beam out of its structure, and I began to suspect that I could not spare any beams from my particular air-castle. So I decided on the bold course of taking everything for granted, and when I said good-bye to Jean I gave no hint of the matter that was uppermost in my thoughts. But Jean, being a woman, probably knew all about it; perhaps the extra warmth and pressure of her hand was an answer to the question which I had not the courage to ask.
On the second day out, as we halted on the side of a little knoll to let the oxen graze and to eat our lunch, we were suddenly aware of the rumble of an approaching vehicle and the tones of a lusty voice, lifted in something evidently intended for song. Even before we had identified the "flyin' ants" we caught the burden of the refrain——
"Lived a min-er, a forty-nine-er, An' his daugh-ter, Sweet Marie."
"It's Jake, of all the world!" shouted Jack, and together we rushed down upon him. His pudgy form, sheltered from the hot sun by a broad felt hat, lolled on one end of the seat of his democrat. He was alone, and the springs of the seat, from being often ridden on by one person only, had a way of listing to the right and allowing Jake to find his own centre of gravity. In such matters Jake followed the line of least resistance, and bumped along contentedly on the low end of the seat while the other end projected itself abruptly into the atmosphere. His eyes were closed, or nearly so; a healthy freshet of tobacco juice meandered across his chin, and his red, sunburned face was so expressionless that at first we thought he had not seen us. Not until we were at his very wheel did he pull the horses up and show an interest in the surroundings.
"Hello, Sittin' Crow!" was his greeting. "Dang it, stand still a minute, you piebald lump o' fox-bait"—this to one of the bronchoes, switching at a horse-fly—"don' you know your friends when you meet 'em? Well, how goes it on the gopher ranch?"
We shook hands and made him stop and eat with us. "Well, if you're sure there's no dang'rous Injuns 'roun' here," he demurred.
Jake was fresh charged with Regina gossip, and that of the country for two hundred miles around. The settlers were streaming in, he said, but the country was so big it was just like pouring water in the sea. "Only more profitable," he added, thumping his hip pocket.
"This locatin' game is like a pint flask—all right while it lasts, but it don' get anywhere," Jake continued. "I've made some lumps o' easy money, but while I was doin' it other fellers that I brung into the bald-headed were busy bustin' the sod, an' to-day, dang me, they're better off 'n I am. Fellows with no more brains than a grindstone! Got a farm an' stock an' a wife an' kids, an' let me tell you, Crow, them last two is genooine collaterals. So I figgers to myself, 'Jake, you've trod the primrose cow-path, or whatever it is, long enough. It's time to get down to business.'"
"Yep," said Jake, taking a fresh mouthful of tobacco to give his words time to sink in. "After I saw you fellows trailin' those two fine girls out into the bald-headed I says to myself, 'Jake, this one-horse business is out o' date. Better get into double harness.' So bein' a man of action I wrote out an ad. an' put it in a big paper in the States. Here it is:"
Jake unfolded a scrap of paper from a note-book in which he kept a list of vacant quarter sections and handed it to us to read.
"WANTED—Wife, about 18 hands high, chestnut preferred, sound in wind and limb and built for speed. Good looks not necessary; I'm pretty enough for two. Jake, 148 —— St., Regina, Canada."
"Do you mean to say any fish rose to such a bait as that?" Jack demanded sceptically.
"Fish? Shoals of 'em. Say, in about four days I begun to get as much mail as a new millionaire. An' photographs! I wish I had some to show you, but she—Bella—burned 'em all up. They were what I call pictures o' real life. I got so much mail the postman says to me, 'Whatya doin', Jake; startin' a lottery?' an' I says 'Yep'. Guess I wasn't so far out, at that.
"Well, jus' as I was thinkin' o' goin' to a business college an' hirin' a few dozen stenographers, along comes this telegram." He produced a yellow sheet.
Meet me at Regina station Thursday five p.m. youll know me I am the only one in the world. Bella Donna.
"Well, I reckons right off that Bella Donna is an alibi, or whatever you call a false name, an' that some o' the boys is pullin' a gag on me, but like a fool down I goes to the station, an' there I saw her comin' right up the platform like a sandhill crane out of a marsh. I knew her, jus' like she said, so when she comes up I calls her hand.
"'Madam,' says I, 'are you the lady o' the porous plaster?'
"I'll plaster you,' says she, 'if you give me any o' yer lip. But do you happen to know a Mr. Jake?' says she, gettin' out a paper; 'here's his address.'
"'Know him!' says I. 'I should say so. An' in case you're thinkin' o' marryin' him let me tell you somethin', jus' between friends. Jake buries a wife once a year, reg'lar.'
"'He does, eh?' says she. 'Well, I'm promisin' I'll be a relic' before he's a widower,' says she. 'Relic' is what she said, but it didn't sound right to me.
"'That's bettin' on a cinch,' says I, meanin' that she would get the red ribbon for relics at Regina fair already, but my wit goes over her head, as it of'en does, an' she comes back at me with 'Wha'd' you know 'bout anybody marryin' Mr. Jake?'
"'Everythin', says I, humpin' my wish-bone with importance. 'Jake tells me every thin'. I'm his spiritooal adviser, so to speak, which includes matrimony. The women that wants to marry Jake—lots of 'em rich, too, Madam,' I says. 'I'm steerin' him clear o' them every day,' I says, 'partly out o' sympathy fer them, on accoun' o' his—his severe habits,' I says.
"'Who are you, anyway?' says she, an' with that I flashes my telegram on her. 'I'm the party of the first part,' says I, as they say in the law offices.
"With that she fixes me with an eye that made me think o' Sittin' Crow, f'rocious an' blood-thirsty.
"'So you're Jake,' she says, pullin' herself up 'till all her angles stood out like the haunches of a starved mustang. 'Well, you got a hell of a nerve,' she says.
"I begun to think maybe she was about right, but she gave me no time fer reflections.
"'Where's a preacher?' she says. 'You wanted speed, an' yer goin' to get it.' With that she hustled me over town an' had me married before I knew it, so I'd have to settle fer the supper, as I figgered it out afterward. Then after supper we go to my shack an' she climbs into my business papers like a hound after garbage.
"'Wha'd' you do fer a livin', may I ask?' she says, when she finds nothin' in my papers excep' receipts from the grocer's an' a bunch of letters in answer to my ad. 'This correspondence o' yours is interestin', but I wouldn't take it to be very fillin', she says, 'an' anyway, if this is all you have to do you're out of a job,' she says, an' with that she gathers up my bundles o' letters, photos an' all, an' throws 'em into the fire."
By this time the bacon and potatoes were sputtering in the frying pan and the smell of hot tea lent an extra tang to the prairie air, so Jack served the meal and for awhile Jake's account of his matrimonial exploit was lost in a hubbub of vigorous mastication. Bread and potatoes and bacon, washed down with strong tea, disappeared as though by magic, and in a few minutes Jake was in a mood to resume his narrative.
"'Do!' says I, musterin' all my dignity. 'I'm a specialist—a specialist in land. I know the sections with the weak lungs an' the broken knees an' the spavined joints, an' if a man pays me enough I put him wise, an' if he don' I let him get wise at his own expense,' says I. 'I'm a specialist, an' I charge like a specialist,' I says.
"'Humph!' says she, jus' like that. 'Between your fine words I figger that you pick up a dollar now an' again by tottin' these tenderfoot sod-busters out over the bald-headed.' I dunno where she got it, but she had all the language necessary, an' more. 'Let me see your bank book,' she says.
"So I dug it up, an' it showed a balance in my favor of forty-three dollars an' twenty cents. Fortunate there was nothin' in it about the hundred dollars I owed at the livery stable fer the board o' the flyin' ants, but I let sleepin' dogs lie, as the sayin' is.
"'How old are you, Jake, dear?' she says, all of a sudden as smooth as oil.
"'Forty-three,' I says, perhaps because that was the figger in my mind at the moment, an' I was shavin' it a little, at that.
"'Then you've made a dollar a year—so far,' says she, droppin' back to her nat'ral voice that kind o' sounds like two mill-wheels an' you between 'em. 'You'll die before you're sixty,' she says; 'I can see it in your eyes,' although I wasn't lookin' at her, findin' that rather painful, 'an' leave an estate o' less than sixty dollars. Jake, that wouldn't buy me an outfit fer the funeral, fer believe me I'm goin' to do you justice when the time comes. We're goin' to take a homestead.'
"'Not me,' I says. 'The seat o' my democrat is as near as I want to get to a homestead. They're all right fer sod-busters, but fer a woman o' culture——'
"I thought that would get her, but she was as imperv'ous to compliments as an ox to an oration, so to speak.
"'Very well,' says she. 'If you won't take a homestead, I will.'
"'You can't,' says I, with sudden boldness. 'You ain't a widow.'
"With that she gives me another o' those through-the-gizzard-and-nailed-to-the-wall looks o' hers. 'I will be, in about twenty seconds,' she says, 'if there's any more discussion,' she says. So here we are."
"Have you located?" I asked Jake, when he was silent for a minute, and seemed to have dropped off into meditation.
"Yep. It was easy fer me, knowin' as I do ev'ry willow between the Souris an' the Saskatch'wan. You remember section Sixteen, that you fellows were lookin' at? I didn't figger it was good enough fer you, bein' clients o' mine, but it would do me in a pinch, so I jus' filed on it myself."
"Aha!" said Jack, who was always a little shrewder than I. "So that is why we couldn't get Sixteen. Surely you weren't contemplating matrimony so far back as that?"
"Not exac'ly contemplatin' it, but takin' precautions." Jake admitted.
"Rather lets the wind out of your fine story," was Jack's comment. "How much do we take for gospel, and how much for romance?"
Jake clambered to his feet and struck a pose intended to be heroic. "Behold in me a young bridegroom," he orated. "Would you expec' me, on an auspicious occasion like this, to stick stric'ly to the map? Out o' the fullness o' my heart I have given you good measure."
We expressed the hope that Bella Donna would prove a sticker.
"She will," Jake prophesied. "Of course that ain't her real name; I jus' gave you that fer—fer instance, an' her first name's Bella, so it's half true, which is a pretty good average in this country. Wait 'til you see us, a-chariotin' behind the flyin' ants over to Fourteen an' Twenty-two! I'm figgerin' on organizin' a school distric' right away."
We gave Jake our blessing and watched him ride off in his wobbly democrat with its spring seat up-tilted to larboard and his fat figure settling down like a sack with a hat on it. But Jake was evidently in good spirits, for before he had gone beyond ear-shot we heard him singing,
"O my darling, O my darling, O my darling, Clementine,"
and we knew that all was well with him, at least for the present.
Sitting on the grassy knoll, digesting our lunch by the aid of the straws which each of us was unconsciously chewing, we watched Jake until he was a speck in the distance.
"What do you make of it?" said I at last.
"I'm not saying," was Jack's cautious rejoinder. "Either he's married, or he isn't." Jack had not forgotten the incident of Sittin' Crow.
But we had occasion to be thankful we had fallen in with Jake, for he had been able to direct us to a farmer within a day's drive who hired both us and our oxen for the harvest, or until the beginning of threshing. His name was Keefer; a short, thick-set man of fifty-five, with a stubby whisker turning an iron grey. He received us in his stable yard, hatless and coatless, and with his thumbs hooked under his leather suspenders in the confident manner of one who is accustomed to rely on himself and is not likely to be disappointed.
"I'm a glutton for work," he said, when he had hired us, "and I expect my men to feed hearty at the same trough. I wouldn't put your bulls on a binder on a bet; there's too much side-play to their gait, but I can use 'em discing the summerfallow. You'll have to sleep in the granary, but we all eat together at the house. I'm starting two binders in the morning; I'll expect you to keep up to them, and I'll know by to-morrow night what you're made of."
Keefer was as good as his word. He called us at half past four, while the night was still hanging grey about the buildings, and the stronger stars looked down, cold and steely, through a temperature which had dropped dangerously close to the freezing point. He had an hour's work for us about the stables, and at six we went in to breakfast.
The table was set in the kitchen; Mrs. Keefer and her sixteen-year-old daughter Nellie must have been about almost as early as were we. The breakfast was of oatmeal porridge with milk—the belief that every prosperous farm abounds in cream, is, alas, a delusion;—following the porridge came salt pork and potatoes, with good bread and butter, both the latter the products of the housewifely skill of Mrs. Keefer and her daughter. The table was of boards, covered with oilcloth; Mr. Keefer sat at one end, with a husky chap he called George, his permanent hired man, at his right, and his fourteen-year-old son, Harry, at his left. Jack and I sat opposite, and Mrs. Keefer occupied the seat at the other end of the table from her husband. Nellie did not sit down, but waited on the company until the first table had finished. Apparently there were younger children upstairs, as we heard her admonishing them for their failure to get up; evidently she would eat with them.
"It's early for harvest," Keefer volunteered to us, when he had finished his porridge and was half way through a plate of potatoes and pork. "I didn't figure on it so soon, but the last few days have been hot, and my barley field has come along a-whoopin'. It gives me a chance to try out the binders—and the new hired men."
Keefer smiled as he spoke, but he had a way with him that made us aware that anyone who failed to come up to his standard as a workman would get short shrift around his establishment.
By seven o'clock two binders, each drawn by four magnificent horses, were in the barley field. Keefer drove one team and George the other, and when each had made two rounds we started stooking. I saw Keefer watching us as we started, evidently taking note whether we would follow the binders or go in the opposite direction, and when we did the latter he nodded, as much as to say. "They'll do," and drove on. Although we could not claim to be experienced farm hands we had lived close enough to farm life in the East to be something better than greenhorns, and our summer on the prairie had made us as hard as nails.
We needed both our strength and our fortitude before sundown that night. The barley crop was heavy, and a trifle over-ripe, and the sharp-pointed awns which this cereal throws off had a way of seeking out our vulnerable points that was almost devilish. They crawled under our shirts and into our hair and most particularly through our socks just above the boot-tops. The thermometer during the day hung close to the hundred mark, and as the afternoon wore on we gave way to the temptation to drink heavily from the water keg. It was a forty-acre field, which Keefer was bent upon cutting in one day, not because he needed to but because he had laid that down as a standard for a day's work with two binders. But the horses felt the drag of the first day of harvest as much as we did, and as the field grew smaller they lost more and more time at the corners.
By evening the red rays of the setting sun, hitting squarely in our faces, revealed in Jack's eye a glint of the light of battle such as I had seen there only once or twice, and I knew that nothing short of utter exhaustion would prevent him finishing like a thoroughbred. My own muscles were numb, and now seemed to be working quite mechanically; my clothing was saturated through and through, but I had a strange feeling that the limitations of the human body were suspended and that I could go on permanently, like a machine.
The field grew smaller and smaller, and the shouting of Keefer and George at the tired horses grew more and more insistent, but just as it was almost too dark to see Keefer came down the last stretch with his knives flashing clear on both sides of the remaining ribbon of barley.
"Now," Jack shouted in my ear, "for all that's in you!" And drawing from unsuspected reserves of energy which we had stored about us somewhere we went down the field at a run, setting up the remaining sheaves at a terrific pace. Just as Keefer reached the end of his swath we overtook him, and Jack, seizing the sheaf that was still in the binder, tore it from the knotter and flung it to me where I stood beside a stook waiting to receive it.
Then Keefer did a gracious thing. He climbed down from his binder seat and shook hands with us.
"Boys," he said, "I didn't believe it was in you." Which was a very high compliment from Mr. Keefer.