CHAPTER XXI
GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND
Wheat was still being flung on to a lifeless market when Hawtrey walked out of the mortgage jobber’s place of business in the railroad settlement one bitter afternoon. He had a big roll of paper money in his pocket, and was feeling particularly pleased with himself, for prices had steadily fallen since he had joined in the bear operation Edmonds had suggested, and the result of it had proved eminently satisfactory. This was why he had just given Edmonds a further draft on Wyllard’s bank, with instructions to sell wheat down on a more extensive scale. He meant to operate in earnest now, which was exactly what the broker had anticipated, but in this case Edmonds had decided to let Hawtrey operate alone. Indeed, being an astute and far-seeing man, the broker had gone so far as to hint that caution might be advisable, though he had at the same time been careful to show Hawtrey only those market reports which had a distinctly pessimistic tone. Edmonds was rather disposed to agree with the men who looked forward to a reaction before very long.
Hawtrey glanced about him as he strode down the street. It was wholly unpaved, and deeply rutted, but the drifted snow had partly filled the hollows, and it did not look very much rougher than it would have appeared if somebody had recently driven a plow through it. Along both sides of it ran a rude plank sidewalk, raised a foot or two above the ground, so that foot-passengers might escape the mire of the thaw in spring. Immediately behind the sidewalk squat, weatherbeaten, frame houses, all of much the same pattern, rose abruptly. On some of the houses the fronts, carried up as high as the ridge of the shingled roof, had an unpleasantly square appearance. Here and there a dilapidated wagon stood with lowered pole before a store, but it was a particularly bitter afternoon, and there was nobody out of doors. The place looked desolate and forlorn, with a leaden sky hanging over it and an icy wind sweeping through the streets.
Hawtrey strode along briskly until he reached the open space which divided the little wooden town from the unfenced railroad track. It was strewn with fine dusty snow, and the huge bulk of the grain elevators towered high above it against the lowering sky. A freight locomotive was just hauling a long string of wheat cars out of a sidetrack. The locomotive stopped presently, and though Hawtrey could not see anything beyond the big cars, he knew by the shouts which broke out that something unusual was going on. He was expecting Sally, who was going east to Brandon by a train due in an hour or two.
When the shouts grew a little louder he walked around in front of the locomotive, which stood still with the steam blowing noisily from a valve, and he saw the cause of the commotion. A pair of vicious, half-broken bronchos were backing a light wagon away from the locomotive on the other side of the track, and a fur-wrapped figure sat stiffly on the driving seat. Hawtrey called out and ran suddenly forward as he saw that it was Sally who was in peril.
Just then one of the horses lifted its fore hoofs off the ground, and being jerked back by the pole plunged and kicked furiously, until the other horse flung up its head and the wagon went backward with a run. Then they stopped, and there was a series of resounding crashes against the front of the vehicle. Hawtrey was within a pace or two of the wagon when Sally recognized him.
“Keep off,” she cried, “you can’t lead them! They don’t want to cross the track, but they’ve got to if I pull the jaws off them.”
This was more forcible than elegant, and the shrill harshness of the girl’s voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to Sally’s phraseology. He understood that she would not have his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful, and he reluctantly moved back toward the group of loungers who were watching her.
“I guess you’ve no call to worry about her,” said one of the men. “She’s holding them on the lowest notch, and it’s a mighty powerful bit fixing. Besides, that girl could drive anything that goes on four legs.”