Spring had come suddenly, as it usually does on the prairie, and the snow was melting fast under a brilliant sun. The bright rays that streamed in through the window struck athwart the glimmering dust motes in the little bare room, and fell, pleasantly warm, upon the man who sat in the deerhide chair. He was a year or two older than Hawtrey, though he had scarcely reached thirty. He was a man of average height, and somewhat spare of figure. His manner was tranquil and his lean, bronzed face attractive. He held a pipe in his hand, and was looking at Hawtrey with quiet, contemplative eyes, that were his most noticeable feature, though it was difficult to say whether their color was gray or hazel-brown, for they were singularly clear, and there was something which suggested steadfastness in their unwavering gaze. The man wore long boots, trousers of old blue duck, and a jacket of soft deerskin such as the Blackfeet dress so expertly; and there was nothing about him to suggest that he was a man of varied experience, and of some importance in that country.
Harry Wyllard was native-born. In his young days he had assisted his father in the working of a little Manitoban farm, when the great grain province was still, for the most part, a wilderness. A prosperous relative on the Pacific slope had sent him to Toronto University, where after a session or two he had become involved in a difference of opinion with the authorities. Though the matter was never made quite clear, it was generally believed that Wyllard had quietly borne the blame of a comrade’s action, for there was a vein of eccentric generosity in the lad. In any case, he left Toronto, and the relative, who was largely interested in the fur business, next sent him north to the Behring Sea. The business was then a hazardous one, for the skin buyers and pelagic sealers had trouble with the Alaskan representatives of American trading companies, upon whose preserves they poached, as well as with the commanders of the gunboats sent up north to protect the seals.
Men’s lives were staked against the value of a fur, edicts were lightly contravened, and now and then a schooner barely escaped into the smothering fog with skins looted on forbidden beaches. It was a perilous life, and a strenuous one, for every white man’s hand was against the traders; there were rangers in fog and gale, and the reefs that lay in the tideways of almost uncharted waters; but Wyllard made the most of his chance. He kept the peace with jealous skippers who resented the presence of a man they might command as mate, but whose views they were forced to listen to when he spoke as supercargo. He won the good-will of sea-bred Indians, and drove a good trade with them; he not infrequently brought his boat loaded with reeking skins back first to the plunging schooner.
He fell into trouble again when they were hanging off the Eastern Isles under double reefs, watching for the Russians’ seals. A boat’s crew from another schooner had been cast ashore, and, as the men were in peril of falling into the Russians’ hands, Wyllard led a reckless expedition to rescue them. He succeeded, in so far that the wrecked sailors were taken off the beach through a tumult of breaking surf; but as the relief crews pulled seaward the fog shut down on them, and one boat, manned by three men, never reached the schooners. The vessels blew horns all night, and crept along the smoking beach next day, though the surf made landing impossible. Then a sudden gale drove them off the shore, and, as it was evident that their comrades must have perished, they reluctantly sailed for other fishing grounds. As one result of this, Wyllard broke with his prosperous relative when he went back to Vancouver.
After that he helped to strengthen railroad bridges among the mountains of British Columbia. He worked in logging camps, and shoveled in the mines, and, as it happened, met Hawtrey, who, tempted by high wages, had spent a winter in the Mountain Province. Wyllard’s father, who had taken up virgin soil in Assiniboia, died soon after Wyllard went back to him, and a few months later the relative in Vancouver also died. Somewhat to Wyllard’s astonishment, his kinsman bequeathed him a considerable property, most of the proceeds of which he sank in acres of virgin prairie. Willow Range was now one of the largest farms between Winnipeg and the Rockies.
“The leg’s getting along satisfactorily?” Wyllard inquired at length.
Hawtrey, who appeared unusually thoughtful, admitted that it was.
“Anyway, it’s singularly unfortunate that I’m disabled just now,” he added. “There’s the plowing to begin in a week or two, and besides that I was thinking of getting married.”
Wyllard was somewhat astonished at this announcement. For one thing, he was more or less acquainted with the state of his friend’s finances. During the next moment or two he glanced meditatively through the open door into the adjoining room, where Sally Creighton was busy beside the stove. The sleeves of the girl’s light bodice were rolled up well above the elbow, and she had pretty, round arms, which were just then partly immersed in dough.
“I don’t think there’s a nicer or more capable girl in this part of Assiniboia,” he remarked.