The man cast such a glance of genuine pity upon me that it stirred me to faint amusement, rather than resentment, while the snap, as we called it on the prairie, which crept into Sally's eyes usually presaged an explosion.
"If that's so, I guess I prefer to stop just where I am," he said.
We ate our supper almost in silence, and little was spoken afterwards. Sally did her best to rouse us, but even her conversation had lost its usual bite and sparkle, and presently she abandoned the attempt. I lounged in a hide chair beside the stove, and each object my eyes rested on stirred up memories that were painful now. The cluster of splendid wheat ears above the window had been the first sheared from a bounteous harvest which had raised great hopes. I had made the table with my own fingers, and brought out the chairs, with the crockery on the varnished shelf, from Winnipeg, one winter, when the preceding season's operations had warranted such reckless expenditure. The dusty elevator warrant pinned to the wall recalled the famous yield of grain which—because cattle had previously been our mainstay—had promised a new way to prosperity, and now, as I glanced at it, led me back through a sequence of failure to the brink of poverty. Also, bare and plain as it was, that room appeared palatial in comparison with the elongated sod hovel which must henceforward shelter us at Crane Valley.
The memories grew too bitter, and at last I went out into the darkness of a starless night, to find little solace there. I had planned and helped to build the barns and stables which loomed about me—denied myself of even necessities that the work might be better done; and now, when, after years of effort and sordid economy, any prairie settler might be proud of them, all must pass into a stranger's hands, for very much less than their value. Tempted by a dazzling possibility, I had staked too heavily and had lost, and there was little courage left in me to recommence again at the beginning, when the hope which had hitherto nerved me was taken away. Steel and his sister had retired before I returned to the dwelling, and I was not sorry.
The next day broke gloomily, with a threat of coming storm, but, as it drew on, all the male inhabitants of that district foregathered at Gaspard's Trail. They came in light wagons and buggies and on horseback, and I was touched by their sympathy. They did not all express it neatly. Indeed, the very silence of some was most eloquent; but there was no mistaking the significance of the deep murmur that went up when Lane and two men drove up in a light wagon. The former was dressed in city fashion in a great fur-trimmed coat, and his laugh grated on me, as he made some comment to the auctioneer beside him. Then the wagon was pulled up beside the rank of vehicles, and the spectators ceased their talking as, dismounting, he stood, jaunty, genial, and débonnaire, face to face with the assembly.
Even now the whole scene rises up before me—the threatening low-hung heavens, the desolate sweep of prairie, the confused jumble of buildings, the rows of wagons, and the intent, bronzed faces of the men in well-worn jean. All were unusually somber, but, while a number expressed only aversion, something which might have been fear, mingled with hatred, stamped those of the rest. Every eye was fixed on the little portly man in the fur coat who stood beside the wagon looking about him with much apparent good-humor. Lane was not timid, or he would never have ventured there at all; but his smile faded as he met that concentrated gaze. Those who stared at him were for the most part determined men, and even with the power of the law behind him, and two troopers in the background, some slight embarrassment was not inexcusable.
"Good-morning to you, boys. Glad to see so many of you, and I hope you'll pick up bargains to-day," he said; and then twisted one end of his mustache with a nervous movement; when again a growl went up. It was neither loud nor wholly articulate, though a few vivid epithets broke through it, and the rest was clearly not a blessing. Several of the nearest men turned their backs on the speaker with as much parade as possible.
"Don't seem quite pleased at something," he said to me. "Well, it don't greatly matter whether they're pleased or not. May as well get on to business. You've had your papers, and didn't find anything to kick against, Ormesby?"
"It is hardly worth while to ask, considering your experience in such affairs. The sooner you begin and finish, the better I'll be pleased," I said.
The auctioneer's table had been set up in the open with the ticketed implements arranged behind it and the stock and horses in the wire-fenced corral close beside. He was of good repute in his business, and I felt assured of fair play from him, at least, though I could see Lane's purpose in bringing him out from Winnipeg. The latter was too clever to spoil a well-laid scheme by any superfluous petty trickery, and with that man to conduct it nobody could question the legitimacy of the sale. There was an expectant silence when he stood up behind his table.