We recommenced work the next morning, and, under the delicious still coolness of the Indian summer, we increased the strain on nerve and muscle and cut down the grocery bill, though I insisted on feeding the horses even better than before. It is never economy to stint one’s working cattle, especially when one demands the utmost from them, besides being a procedure which is distasteful to any merciful man. However, though we had to hire more horses, wondering how we would ever pay for them when the contract was finished, the track crept on along the treacherous slope, where we scooped out a double width as basis, winding among the birches in glistening, sinuous curves, while the end of the valley grew nearer every day. Again Harry and I lapsed into the excitement of a race against adversity, because unless we were well out on the open prairie before winter bound the sod into the likeness of concrete there could be no hope of even partly recouping our loss. Even Johnston seemed infected with our spirit; but while we generally worked in dogged silence, he had ever a jest on his lips.
One evening—and the days were shortening all too rapidly—when I sat tired and dejected on an empty provision case, a rail-layer brought in several letters, and, as usual, they were all for me. Harry stood bare-armed, with the dust still thick upon him, just outside the entrance of the tent, holding a spider over our little stove, and glanced half regretfully toward the budget. No one ever seemed to write to Harry. The first was from Jasper. He had visited Brandon and Winnipeg on business, and wrote in his usual off-hand style.
“I’ve been in to see those dealers, taking my best broker along, to convince them that we only raised solid men in this section,” it ran. “Thought I’d enlighten them about you, and the broker laid himself out to back me. He gets all 125 my business—see?—while you can’t beat a Winnipeg broker at real tall talking. I should say we impressed them considerably; or perhaps it was the big cigars and the spread at the hotel. Said they’d sense enough to know a straight man when they saw him, and they’d give you plenty time to pay in. So all you’ve got to do is to sail right on with the track-grading. The boys were saying down to Elktail that Fletcher and his father-in-law don’t get on, and there’s going to be trouble there presently. I think the old man started in to reform him, and Fletcher don’t like unlimited reform.”
“Just like Jasper,” said Harry. “A woman’s heart, and the strength of three ordinary men. Still, when Jasper starts in with a rush no man can say where he’ll finish, and we may hear next that he has been all round Winnipeg on our account borrowing money.”
Then the new partner, who was splitting firewood close by, laid down his axe as he said: “Hope you’ll introduce me to Jasper some day. From what you say, he is a man worth knowing.”
There were two more letters, and the next—my fingers trembled as I opened it—was from Grace. It was dated from Starcross House, in Lancashire, and written in frank friendliness, expressing regret for our misfortune, which, it seemed, she had heard about, and ending: “But by this time you will have learned that there are ups and downs in every country, and I know you both have the courage to face the latter. So go on with a stout heart, believing that I and all your other friends look for your ultimate success.” To this there was a postscript: “I met your cousin, Miss Lorimer, the other day, and was sorry to find her very pale and thin. She had just recovered from a serious illness, and seemed troubled when I told her how you had lost your harvest.” 126
I placed the thin sheets reverently in an inside pocket, and read them afterward over and over again, because I might not answer them. She had written out of kindly sympathy when the news of our trouble first reached her, and that was all; while I felt I could not write a mere formal note of thanks—and more than this was out of the question now. Nevertheless, I was thankful for her good wishes, and then I stood silent under the starlight, staring down the misty coulée and thinking of Cousin Alice as mechanically I stripped the envelope from the next letter. She had always been ailing, even in the days when we were almost as brother and sister; and now I longed that I might comfort her as in my periodical fits of restlessness she used to soothe me. That, however, was impossible, for my cousin was part of the sheltered life I had left behind across the sea, and I was in Western Canada with a very uncertain future before me.
Then, moving back into the light of the lamp, I read the last letter. With a gasp of astonishment, I handed it to Harry, saying: “I can make nothing of this. Who in the wide world can have sent the money?”
He laid down the spider, and, bending until the glow from the tent door fell on the paper, read:
“Mr. Ralph Lorimer, of Fairmead.