“That's all right,” said Norton. “I'll get the papers drawn up and send them over for you to sign.”
They went out, and as they climbed the hill Charnock remarked: “This may turn out a big thing, partner. Are you going home before we start?”
Festing looked up sharply, with a disturbed air. “No. To begin with, I've got to be about because the thing is big.”
“Then, as matters are going smoothly now, I'll leave you for a week.”
“I can manage for a week and one of us must stay. But why d'you want to leave?”
“On the whole, I think one of us had better go,” Charnock answered with some dryness. “If you don't mind, I'll get off to-morrow.”
He started next morning, in the caboose of a returning supply train, and Festing, who went to see him off, stood for a few minutes on the snowy track while the rattle of wheels and snorting of the locomotive died away. Bob had made a curious remark when he talked about going, and Festing wondered what he meant, but dismissed the matter and went back to his work.
It was a bitter afternoon when Charnock got down at the little prairie station that was marked by a water-tank, the agent's shack, and the lower frames of three unfinished grain elevators. He hired a rig at the livery stable, and borrowing a fur-robe started on his drive across the plain. The landscape was empty and featureless except for the gray smears of distant bluffs. Nothing moved on the white expanse, and there was no sound but the measured thud of the horses' feet; the air was still and keen with frost. When the cluster of wooden houses sank behind a gradual rise, the wavy, blue riband of the trail was the only sign of human activity in the frozen wilderness.
The snowfall, however, is generally light on the Western plains, and the trail was good. Its smooth surface was dusty rather than slippery and the team went fast. Everything was different from the varied grandeur of the mountains; the eye found no point to rest upon, and the level snow emphasized the loneliness. In spite of the thick driving-robe, the cold bit through Charnock's worn-out clothes, but he was conscious of a strange and almost poignant satisfaction. This was not because he was at heart still something of a sybarite and had borne many hardships on the railroad; he was going home and in an hour or two Sadie would welcome him. It was curious, but when he married Sadie he had not thought she could inspire him with the feeling he had now. But he had learned her value and understood something of what she had done for him.
When it got dark he urged the horses and tried to control his impatience. Later he felt his heart beat as he drove round the corner of a shadowy bluff and saw his home-lights twinkle across the snow. A hired man came out to take the team, he got down, nearly too numbed to move, and as he stumbled up the steps Sadie met him with a cry of delight. She drew him in and when he stood, half-dazed by the brightness and change of temperature, in the well-warmed room, she took her arm from round his neck and moved back a pace or two.