“For the old man’s sake,” said Jernyngham. “I want you to take the Colstons out to your place and entertain them for a day or two; they won’t stay long. They’re coming in by the West-bound this evening.”
“Then,” exclaimed Prescott, “they’ll be here in half an hour, if the train’s on time! If there are any points you can give me about your family history, you had better be quick!”
“In the first place, I was rather a wild youngster, with an original turn of mind and was supposed to be a bit of a rake, though that wasn’t correct—my eccentricities were harmless then. Your word ‘maverick’ describes me pretty well: I didn’t belong to the herd; I wouldn’t be rounded up with the others and let them put the brand on. That’s no doubt why they credited me with vices I didn’t possess.” Jernyngham laughed. “Still, you mustn’t overdo the thing; you want delicately to convey the idea that you’re now reformed. The part requires some skill; it’s a pity you’re not smarter. Jack. But let me think——”
He went into a few details about his family, and then Prescott left him and, after giving an order to have his team ready, proceeded to the station. It was getting dark, but the western sky was still a sheet of wonderful pale green, against which the tall elevators stood out black and sharp. The head-lamp of a freight locomotive flooded track and station with a dazzling electric glare, the rails that ran straight and level across the waste gleaming far back in the silvery radiance. This helped Prescott to overcome his repugnance to his task, as he remembered another summer night when he had attempted to hurry his team across the track before a ballast train came up. Startled by the blaze of the head-lamp and the scream of the whistle, one of the horses plunged and kicked; a wheel of the wagon, sinking in the loose ballast, skidded against a tie; and Prescott stood between the rails, struggling to extricate the beasts, while the great locomotive rushed down on them. There was a vein of stubborn tenacity in him and it looked as if he and the horses would perish together when Jernyngham came running to the rescue. How they escaped neither of them could afterward remember, but a moment later they stood beside the track while the train went banging by, covering them with dust and fragments of gravel. Prescott admitted that he owed Jernyngham something for that.
Nevertheless there was no doubt that the part he had undertaken to play would be difficult. He could see its humorous side, but he had not been a prodigal; indeed he was by temperament and habit steady-going and industrious. The son of a small business man in Montreal, he had after an excellent education abandoned city life and gone west, where he had prospered by frugality and hard work. He was by no means rich, but he was content and inclined to be optimistic about the future.
When he reached the station, he found that the usual crowd of loungers had gathered to watch the train come in. Lighting his pipe, he walked up and down the low platform, wondering uneasily how he would get through the next few days. Jernyngham, he felt, had placed him in a singularly embarrassing position.