"That's not going to prove much of a difficulty, particularly as it's one Mrs. Hunter has provided for. As it happens, Hall looked in on us last night, and I gathered that he hadn't a very high opinion of your cookery and catering."
A minute or two later they came out from behind the barn into view of the house and Thorne saw that a bountiful meal was already spread out on the grass in front of it. A man, whose absence he had not noticed, was carrying a kettle and a frying-pan out of the doorway. It was the climax of a day of unexpected happenings and vanishing troubles, and when he looked at Hunter he found it difficult to speak. The latter, however, laughed.
"Mavy," he said, "you sit right down yonder. Supper's ready, and the boys are waiting."
Thorne took his place among the others, who ate in such determined fashion that in a very few minutes there was nothing left of the meal. Then two or three of them gathered up the plates, and the others, lying down on the grass, took out their pipes. In the meanwhile it had grown almost dark, though a few pale streaks of saffron and green lingered low upon the prairie's western verge. The long rows of sheaves stood out dimly upon the stubble, but the standing crop had faded into a blurred and shadowy mass, one edge of which alone showed with a certain distinctness above the sweep of the darkening plain. Near the house, however, a little fire which somebody had lighted—probably because there was not room for all the cooking utensils on Thorne's stove—burned redly between the two birch logs, and its flickering glow wavered across the recumbent figures of the men.
Some of them lay propped up on one elbow, some had stretched themselves out full-length among the grass, and now and then a brown face or uncovered bronzed arm stood out in the uncertain radiance and vanished again. The men spoke in low voices, lazily, wearied with the day's toil, though at irregular intervals a hoarse laugh broke out, and once or twice the howl of a coyote came up faint and hollow out of the waste of prairie. A little apart from the others, Thorne and Hunter sat with their shoulders against the front of the house, talking quietly.
"I'll see you through with the hauling in," Hunter promised. "We'll start right away as soon as the thrashers can give us a load, and in my opinion you should have a reasonable surplus after clearing off Nevis's claim."
"Yes," assented Thorne with deep but languid content; "it looks almost as if another moderately good harvest would wipe out my last obligation and set me solidly on my feet. Once I'm free of Nevis, I don't anticipate any trouble with the other men. So long as they get their interest they'll hold me up for their own sakes."
"That's how it strikes me," Hunter agreed. "They don't run their business on Nevis's lines; which reminds me that I picked up a little information that suggested that he might have to make a change, when I was over at Brandon a week or two ago. I may say that as I had reasons for believing that the man hadn't a great deal of money of his own I've been rather astonished at the way he has gone on from one thing to another during the last few years, until Farquhar told me something which seemed to supply the explanation. He got it from Grantly, who declares that Brand, of Winnipeg, has been backing Nevis all along. Well, I spent an evening with one of the big milling people in Brandon, and he told me it was generally believed that Brand has been severely hit by the fall in wheat. It turns out that he and a few others were at the bottom of the late rally, which, however, only made things worse for them. The point is that if Brand is getting shaky he'll probably call in any money he has supplied to Nevis."
"Nobody would be sorry if he pulled him down altogether."
"It's almost too much to expect," replied Hunter, dismissing the subject with a wave of his hand. "By the way, I had a look round your house after supper, and it's my opinion that you only want a wagon-load of dressed lumber and a couple of carpenters for two or three days to make the place quite comfortable. A few simple furnishings won't cost you much, and you can, of course, add to them as you go on."