CHAPTER XIII
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
It was a bright afternoon and white-edged clouds rolled across the sky before a fresh north-west wind when Helen Festing rode up to a birch bluff on the prairie. The trees made a musical rustling as they tossed their branches, tufted with opening leaves. The sweep of white grass was checkered by patches of green that gleamed when the light touched them and faded as the shadows swept across the plain. There was something strangely invigorating in the air, but when she reached the bluff Helen pulled up her horse and looked about.
She missed the soft blue haze that mellowed the landscape among the English hills. Every feature was sharp and the colors were vivid; ocher, green, and silver gleaming with light. Distant bluffs stood out with sharp distinctness. She thought the new country was like its inhabitants; they were marked by a certain primitive vigor and their character was clearly defined. Neither the land nor the people had been tamed by cultivation yet. One missed the delicate half-tones on the prairie, but one heard and thrilled to the ringing note of endeavor.
When she looked west the land was empty to the horizon, and a flock of big sand-hill cranes planed down the wind. An animal she thought was an antelope moved swiftly through the waves of rippling grass. When she turned east she saw a plume of black smoke roll across the sky and the tops of three elevators above the edge of the plain. It was a portent, a warning of momentous change, in which she and her husband must play their part. What that part would be she could not tell, but the curtain was going up, and on the whole she approved the stage and scenery.
Helen had been some time in Canada and did not feel daunted. The sunshine and boisterous winds were bracing; one felt optimistic on the high plains, and the wide outlook gave a sense of freedom. She had many duties, but did not find them burdensome, or feel the strain of domestic labor she had been warned about. For one thing, her money had enabled Festing to arrange his household better than he had expected and hire useful help.
She took a rough trail through the bluff, picking her way among the holes and rotting stumps, and as she rode out the horse plunged. After calming the startled animal she saw a dirty handkerchief snapping in the wind at the top of a stick. Close by a team cropped the grass and the end of a big plow projected from the back of a wagon. There seemed to be nobody about, but after riding on a few yards she saw a man lying among some bushes with a pipe in his mouth. He looked half asleep, but got up as she advanced, and she stopped her horse with a jerk and tried to preserve her calm. Charnock stood looking at her with a half-embarrassed smile.
“Bob!” she exclaimed. “I didn't think I'd ever meet you.”
“I hope it wasn't a shock, and we were bound to meet sooner or later. The distance between our homesteads isn't great.”