"I think," he said, "that's the best way of hiding the stain."
Alison opened the parcel, and was conscious of a curious thrill, in which pleasure and embarrassment were mingled, when she found a pair of gloves inside. It was the first gift he had made her.
"Thank you," she murmured. "They fit me, too. How did you guess the size?"
"Oh," laughed Thorne, "it was very simple. I just asked for the smallest pair they had in the store."
Then Mrs. Farquhar came up, and he helped her and Alison into the wagon.
CHAPTER XXIII
AN UNEXPECTED DISASTER
Several weeks had slipped away since the evening Nevis drove out of Graham's Bluff in search of Corporal Slaney, and there had been no news of Winthrop, when Thorne plodded across the prairie beside his team, hauling in a load of dressed lumber for the new creamery. Hunter had contracted with him to convey the necessary material from the railroad, and in the interval between sowing and reaping Thorne had found the arrangement a profitable one. He had a use for every dollar he could raise, and all through the heat of the summer he had worked double tides.
It was blazing hot that afternoon, and the wide plain lay scorching under a pitiless glare. Thorne was not sorry when the Farquhar homestead with its encircling sea of wheat took shape ahead. The trail led past it, and, though time was precious to him then, he felt that he could put up with an hour or two's delay in case Mrs. Farquhar invited him to wait for supper. It was now a fortnight since he had seen Alison.
The wooden buildings rose very slowly, though he several times urged the jaded horses. They had made a long haul that day, and the man, who had trudged at their head since early morning, was almost as weary. On the odd days that they had spent in the stable he had toiled arduously on his house and half-finished barn, beginning with the dawn and ceasing at dark. Now he was grimed with dust and dripping with perspiration, and a tantalizing cloud of flies hovered over him. All this was a decided change from driving a few hours daily in a lightly loaded wagon, but what at first had appeared an almost unexplainable liking for the constant effort had grown upon him. He would not have abandoned it now had that course been open to him.