FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW. PART II. HIS FRIEND'S COUSIN. CHAPTER VII. CALGARY. WE departed. As we drove one could possibly marry? For down the road to the station, I shall never, never go home I saw Patsy's little donkey again." push his nose between the bars of a field-gate and gaze at us. I wish Hilda had sent that donkey away. We slept the night in Liverpool, as the ship was to sail very early in the morning, and we went on board with everybody else in the grey river-fog and electric light. What a noise there was! The big Celtic worked her slow way down the Mersey, and was swallowed up in the fog, hooting forlornly. That is all I can tell about the voyage. The fog in the Mersey was my last glimpse of the upper world. I think I must have been the very first of that huge crowd of passengers to seek the decent seclusion of my berth, and it is certain that I was the last to leave it. As for looking after Hilda. .. But she needed no looking after. She fluttered in and out, pitying me, and bringing me news of all the heartless doings of the other healthy people. I never knew her so active before. She constantly recommended exercise for me. I only shut my eyes. "Hilda," I said once, "do you suppose there is anybody on this side of the world that I must have been better when I said that, to have taken so much practical interest in life. But I don't remember any betterness; only the blank death-in-life below in the ship, and the sudden life-after-death of coming ashore. That was in New York. It wasn't beautiful there, but it was better than beautiful, for it was steady underfoot. We proceeded northward to Montreal, then westward and ever westward to Calgary. Travelling is wonderfully easy in these immense countries, where you get into a palatial kind of train, and have a little saloon to live in, with a dressing-room beside it; and you eat, and sleep, and wake again, and the whole of Canada goes sliding past the windows, while you sit and look at it. That I really liked, and it was even better at night, when there was moonlight. I remember one night, after I had lain down, pulling aside the curtain from my window, and with my head on my pillow, looking out at the white moonlight silvering a great illimitable lake like a sea, with about a hundred islands in it, and pine trees thickly crowding to the shore. I believe that was Lake Champlain. Afterwards came-oh, endless miles and miles, but I never could describe things, and I never try. At least, I try never to try. It was the prairie, as you know. And at last we got to Calgary, in Alberta. This was the end of our journey, but it happened to come in the middle of the night, which made Hilda cross. She had been in angelic mood ever since she set foot in that hideous ship, so I felt forgiving. The hotel, when we reached it, was wide-awake and brightly lighted up. We went to bed, but there wasn't much chance of sleep, for people were ringing bells and stamping about the passages, so that the night seemed rather more active than the day. Consequently next morning Hilda declined to get up, having a headache. But I was in a hurry to see this new world, and so anxious for breakfast that I went down fairly early to the long wooden diningroom, which was set with small tables and full of people. One table had an unoccupied side, where I sat down and asked for coffee. The man who was sitting opposite, reading a paper, raised his head with a start. Who should he be but Bill Gresham ! I was so deeply surprised that I gazed at him, speechlessly, stupidly. I saw him turn very red, and that made me do the same, much to my own annoyance. But he recovered quickly, and gave a delightful smile. Immediately I felt at ease again, and could smile back. It doesn't take me long to recover at any moment. But it was a fact, all the same, that Bill Gresham had a very strong prejudice against me, and I clearly knew it. "How on earth have we managed to meet here?" I asked. I thought I had come to the end of the earth." 66 "Well, I'm one of its inhabitants," said Bill. "I own a little piece of it." "Oh yes, I heard in Kent that you had turned rancher. Where is your ranch? Is it near?" "No, it's seventy miles away. But who told you of it? Old Hunter, I suppose." "No, Tom Milbanke did. Do you know, I have come out with poor Hilda to" He gave a slight groan, but checked it. "I think I had better tell you why we have come." So I told him, trying to make things sound more sensible and connected than they really were. In this I failed. He merely remarked "It was expressly in order to prevent what Mrs Trent is doing now that I brought Patsy back here in December last." His voice had the growl in it which I'm sure is the sign of a very bad temper. Tom Milbanke never growled. Still, I doubt if Tom would have undertaken that journey with Patsy and Hawkins, as Bill volunteered to do. I pondered this between sips of coffee-very indifferent coffee. Bill was pondering too, heavily. "Is there no possible way of putting her off even now? You know David wouldn't have liked this." "If there had been any possible way of putting her off, I shouldn't be here with her to-day. It all arose from Dick Harding's refusal to acceptdo you know about that part?" "Yes, he told me himself," Bill said. "But how did you see him afterwards?" I asked, amazed. 66 66 We are neighbours," Bill said. At least, there is nobody living between us, and that makes neighbourhood here. His ranch is the P.P. and mine is the Bar L, and we are both on Cottonwood Creek, just ten miles apart. It was through Dick that I heard the Bar L was for sale, so I bought it. I'm only a tenderfoot,' of course, but he's an old-timer, and I'm very lucky to have him to steer me through my first year. I should have wasted a pile of money, left to myself." you tell me this? Who was Dick Harding's wife? Is she a white woman or not? Bill looked annoyed, and was slow to answer. "Will "If I don't tell you, some one else will, of course,' he said bluntly. "Her father was white. Her mother was the daughter of a great Indian chief in these parts, called 'Mountain Wolf.' They were Exceedingly handsome, and a model of propriety." "Handsome? Is she like Patsy?” "Not in the least; and you had better remember to call the child Lina, if you can." It's "Well, I'll try. And now I'm going up to Hilda. time that she heard some of these things, and she will certainly want to see you." "She can have that pleasure at dinner-time, if you both choose to come to this table. I have a power of business to get through in the morning." When I told Hilda who had been sitting at my breakfasttable, she wrinkled her forehead. That wrinkle was the exact equivalent of Bill's growl. But I knew enough not to try to make them like each other, these two persons who had both cared for David. His memory divided instead of uniting them, and I knew it always would. The next thing was to go out and have a look at Calgary, and I invited Hilda to come with me. The hotel was perfectly stifling with fumes of stove-heat; but the air outside was icy pure, and after the first gasp or two it made your heart sing, and your head clear, and your feet light. You moved as you would in the first dance after a drink of champagne. The city was what all new cities are, profoundly uninteresting, unless one had business to transact therein. It fairly hummed with business, and the streets were thronged with motor-cars. A great river of clear ice-green water flowed away into the far pale distance, making wide curves of light, and right across the sky to westward stretched the long line of the Rockies, snow-white against the blue, sun-smitten, dazzling, beautiful as a vision. I never imagined such whiteness. I never imagined such a blue. Even Hilda grew silent as she gazed, and and wonder dawned in her face. I had never seen her wonder at any thing before. We came back from this vision in the open sky to the wooden floors of our overheated hotel, which resounded with the tingling of electric bells and the noise of highpitched human voices. The voices belonged to women who sat about, elaborately dressed, swinging themselves in "rockers grouped on the landings of the upper floors, which were further graced with artificial palms and highlycoloured flowers. They all talked together, yet they all listened together. It's a useful accomplishment which Canadian women possess in perfection, but I have never acquired it. When we came down for dinner, there was Bill waiting for us, as I had hoped. It seemed well to me at that moment to forget my handkerchief, and go upstairs again to seek it, so that Hilda and Bill got over their meeting without me. When I came back, they were sitting together, and I heard for the hundredth time poor Hilda's little formula about the necessity for "justifying herself," and this time she added to it "Not that I should mind so much if it were only myself, but it is necessary that David should be justified." Bill only bent his head gravely, and said nothing. No one who has known Hilda for the shortest time ever attempts to argue with her. I could see that the mourning she wore softened his feelings, and made him speak gently to her. There was not the slightest growl in his voice as he explained his plan, and asked us to fall in with it. Evidently he had done some thinking since that breakfast hour with me. "I have been away ten days already," he said, "and I must absolutely get back to the ranch to-morrow, or the men will be out of grub. Could you be ready to start with me by the earliest train? We can get as far as Cry-help by rail; but the rail ends there, and we shall have to drive twenty miles on to the Bar L. There you could spend the night with me, if you will do the ranch so much honour. There is plenty lasted for one long, loud, rattling hour. Considering how quiet and Christian-like was the demeanour of all the hotel guests at the little tables, the amount of noise was surprising. Gradually one realised that this din was the aim and the etiquette of the attendants, who set plates down by shooting them in a clattering run, and dealt out knives and forks with fierce preliminary rattling. It was all a convention, like the softfooted, soft-handed waiting of hotel-servants in London. CHAPTER VIII. The next morning dawned with a strange veiled light, not in the least like the brilliance of the day before. Bill helped us into the early train, remarking with satisfaction the lightness of our bags. "I've a heavy load for the democrat, and I don't want to break the springs," he he explained. We steamed slowly out across the prairie country, on a branch line of the great C.P.R. There was neither light nor colour, the sky darkened, and presently THE BAR L RANCH. |