The Girl from Keller's Part 43

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 cl.u.s.ter 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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.

Charnock's skin-coat was ragged, his mittens were tattered, and his long boots badly worn. He looked tired and unkempt, but Sadie's eyes were soft as she studied him.

"Your face is very thin, but I don't like it less," she said. "You haven't come back the same, Bob; I think you have grown."

"Perhaps the pains account for the thinness," Charnock answered with a smile. "Anyway, you ought to be satisfied, because you tried to make me grow, and in a sense I was very small when I left you. But we won't be sentimental and I want to change my clothes."

He found fresh clothes ready, and when he came back his slippers, pipe, and a recent newspaper occupied their usual place. Sitting down with a smile of content, he lazily looked about.

"This is remarkably nice," he said. "The curious thing is that I feel as if I'd only left the house five minutes since. Everything I want is waiting, although you didn't know I was coming."

"I knew you would come some day, and come like this, without letting me know."

"And so you kept everything ready?" Charnock rejoined. "Well, I imagine that's significant! But you see, I didn't know I could leave camp until the day before I started, and then it looked as if I'd get here as soon as the mail."

Sadie gave him a quick glance. "Then something happened that made you leave?"

"Something did happen, but nothing bad. However, it's a long story and I've not had much to eat."

"Supper will be ready in five minutes, and I've got something that you like."

"Ah!" said Charnock, "I suppose that means you kept the thing I like ready, too?"

They talked about matters of no importance until the meal was over, and then Sadie made him sit down by the stove and light his pipe.

"Now," she said, "you can tell me all you did at the construction camp, and leave nothing out."

Charnock was frank. He knew Sadie understood him, perhaps better than he understood himself, and if his narrative gave her any pleasure, he thought she deserved it. Moreover, when he wanted he talked rather well, making his meaning clear without saying too much. When he finished she gave him a level glance.

"You're surely a bigger man, Bob! I see that, not only by what you have done but by what you think."

"Well," said Charnock, twinkling, "I'm glad you're satisfied, but you'll probably find out that there's room for improvement yet."

"I suppose you must joke," Sadie rejoined with mild reproof. "But what about Festing? Doesn't he meant to come back until the job's finished?"

"So far as I could gather, he does not. I tried tactfully to persuade him he was acting like a fool and imagine he sees a glimmer of the truth. All the same, he's obstinate."

Sadie was silent for a minute, knitting her brows, and then looked up.

"You have only three days; I suppose I mustn't keep you after that?"

"It mightn't be prudent. If I stay longer, I shall, no doubt, feel unequal to going back at all. My industrious fit's very recent and good resolutions fail."

"Pshaw!" said Sadie. "Try to be serious. I must see Helen to-morrow and can't take you. She may have a message for her husband."

"Couldn't she write the message, if you went after I had gone?"

"NO," said Sadie firmly. "She must send it now."

Charnock looked hard at her and nodded. "Well, perhaps it's a good plan.

Meddling is sometimes dangerous, but one can trust you."

Sadie, wrapped in furs, drove across the prairie next afternoon, and found Helen at home. The latter looked rather forlorn and dispirited, and Sadie felt that she had undertaken a delicate task.

"Bob has come home for three days," she said by and by. "He can't stop longer, but I thought you'd like to know how they are getting on with their contract."

"Stephen writes to me," Helen replied with a hint of sharpness.

"I guess he does," Sadie agreed. "Still, from what Bob says, they haven't much time for letters, and he talked to me about the work all last evening. He could leave when Stephen couldn't because he's the junior partner and doesn't know much about railroading yet."

Helen smiled, rather curiously. "Do you feel you must explain why your husband came home and mine did not?"

For a moment or two Sadie hesitated. It looked as if she had not begun well, but she braced herself. If her tact were faulty, she would try frankness.

"Yes," she said; "in a way that was what I did come to explain, though it's difficult. In the first place, I know why Stephen couldn't come."

Helen waited, and then, as Sadie seemed to need some encouragement, said, "Very well. I think I'd like to be convinced."

"The reason Bob came and Stephen stayed begins with the difference between them. We know them both, and I want to state that I'm quite satisfied with Bob. That had to be said, and now we'll let it go. But they are different. Bob will work for an object; for dollars, to feel he's making good, or to please me. Your husband must work, whether he had an object or not, because that's the kind of man he is."

"Bob's way is easier understood," Helen rejoined. "Besides, Stephen is working for money enough to farm again on the old large scale."

"He is; but you don't understand yet, and I want to show you why he feels he has got to farm. Stephen's the kind we have most use for in this country. In fact, he's my kind; perhaps I know him better than you.

Give him a patch of pine-scrub or a bit of poor soil in a sand-belt and he'd feel it his duty to cultivate it, no matter how much work it cost.

Show him good wheat land lying vacant or rocks that block a railroad, and he won't rest till he starts the gang-plow or gets to work with giant-powder. He can't help it; the thing's born in him. Like liquor or gambling, only cleaner!"

"But when such a man marries----"

"What about his wife? Well, she must help all she can or stand out and let him work alone. It's a sure thing she can't stop him."

Helen pondered, and then remarked: "Stephen is not your kind, as you said. You wanted to leave the prairie and live in a town."

"I certainly did, but I didn't know myself. Though I wanted to meet smart people and wear smart clothes, to push Bob on and see him make his mark in big business or perhaps in politics. Now I know I really wanted power; to order folks about and get things done."

"You found you must give up your ambitions."