Lorimer of the Northwest Part 34

"No," he answered, with some confusion. "I guess there's no place in the Dominion where I should sooner go."

"Well, then, why don't you come?" I asked; and the big man hesitated still, inspecting his boots, until, facing round toward me, he said: "I've been figuring it mightn't be good for me. I'm a plain man with a liking for straight talk, Ralph--so are you--and it might make things easier if I were to tell you. It's Miss Aline that scared me."

I burst out laughing, but Jasper did not join; then I waited somewhat astonished until he continued: "She's the flower of this prairie, and she's got a mighty cute head of her own. I never could stand them foolish women. So I came, and I would have come every day, until Harry chipped in, and that set me thinking. I said, 'You stop there and consider, Jasper, before it's too late, and you're done for.'"

I frowned at this, but Jasper added: "You don't get hold exactly--what I meant was this: I'm a big rough farmer, knowing the ways of wheat and the prairie, and knowing nothing else. She's wise, and good, and pretty, way up as high as the blue heaven above me. Even if she'd take me--which, being wise, she wouldn't--the deal wouldn't be fair to her. No; it couldn't anyway be fair to her. Then I saw Harry with his clever talk and pretty ways, and I said, 'That's the kind of man that must mate with her.

Go home to your plowing, Jasper, before it becomes harder, and you make a most interesting fool of yourself.' So I went home, and I'm going to stop there, Ralph Lorimer, until the right man comes along. Then--well, I'll wish Miss Aline the happiness I could never have given her."

"You are a very good fellow, Jasper," I said, and pitied my old friend as he departed ruefully. He had acted generously, and though I hardly fancy Aline would have accepted him, in any case, I knew that she might have chosen worse. There are qualities which count for more than the graces of polish and education, especially in new lands, but Harry possessed these equally, and, as Jasper had said, Aline and he had much more in common.

Then it also occurred to me that there was some excuse for Colonel Carrington. The cases were almost parallel, and to use my friend's simile Grace Carrington was also as high as the blue heavens above her accepted lover. Still, if I had not the Ontario man's power of self-abnegation, and had forgotten what was due to her, she had said with her own lips that she could be happy with me, and I blessed her for it.

What transpired at Lone Hollow also provided food for thought. Lyle and several of the supporters of the creamery scheme awaited me there.

"We have practically decided to accept your estimates," Lyle said, "but it seems advisable to make one or two alterations, and we want you to ride over with us to Green Mountain to-morrow and make a survey of a fresh site that one of the others seems to think favorable. After we decide on a place for the buildings, and a few other details, we'll ask you to attend a meeting which we expect to hold at the Manor. The matter will have to be discussed with Colonel Carrington."

"Then I should sooner you excuse me. I'm afraid that my presence might prejudice the Colonel," I replied, and several of the others laughed.

"He's prejudiced already," said one. "Still, we are growing rather tired of the Colonel's opposition to whatever he does not suggest himself, and we mean to build the creamery. You will have to face your share of the unpleasantness with the rest of us."

I almost regretted that I had furnished the estimates, but it was too late and I could not very well draw back now; so, promising to attend, I returned to Fairmead in a thoughtful mood. Aline bantered me about my absent-mindedness, and desired to learn the cause of it, but as Harry was there and it partly concerned Jasper's explanation I did not enlighten her. Strange to say, I had never pictured Harry as a suitor for my sister, but now I could see only advantages in the union for both of them, and, what was perhaps as much to the purpose, advantages for me. I expected to bring Grace to Fairmead sooner or later, and she and Aline were, I felt, too much alike in one or two respects to agree.

On the following day I rode over to Green Mountain with Lyle and three or four of his friends. We had a measuring chain with us as well as one or two instruments that I had learned how to use when railroad building, and it was afternoon when we got to work plotting out the alternative site for the creamery that one of the others had considered more favorable on account of its convenience to running water. The term Mountain is used somewhat vaguely on the prairie, and Green Mountain could scarcely be called a hill. It was a plateau of no great height dotted with a dense growth of birches and seamed by ravines out of one of which a creek that would supply the creamery with power came swirling.

We alighted on the birch bluff that stretched out some distance into the prairie from the foot of the plateau, and spent an hour or so before we decided that the new site was more favorable than the other. Then Lyle turned to me.

"Hadn't we better run our line through and mark it off now that we're here?" he suggested.

I agreed, and as one of the men had brought two or three saws and axes in a wagon we set about it. The men from Carrington, however, were not very proficient at the work and a good deal of the chopping fell to me. The bush was rather thick, and I spent an hour in tolerably arduous labor before our base line was clear. Then I sat down on a slender fallen birch while Lyle and the rest went back to the wagon for some provisions they had brought. It was evident that we could not get home for supper.

It was a still afternoon, and the sound of the creek rang across the shadowy birches with an almost startling distinctness. That end of the line had, however, nearly reached the verge of the prairie. Presently another sound that rapidly grew louder reached my ears. It was the rhythmic beat of approaching hoofs, and for no very definite reason it brought me a trace of uneasiness. However, I sat still with my pipe in my hand until the drumming of hoofs that grew very close stopped suddenly, and then turning sharply I saw Colonel Carrington striding through the bush. He stopped near my side, and n.o.body would have supposed from his appearance that the sight of me or the fallen trees afforded him any pleasure.

Three or four slender birches lay close at my feet, and here and there another was stretched across the line I had driven. Carrington's face grew hard, and a little portentous sparkle crept into his eyes as he looked at them. Then he turned to me.

"Mr. Lorimer," he said, "will you be kind enough to explain why you are cutting my timber without permission?"

"I have done it at Mr. Lyle's request, sir," I said.

Now I do not know how Carrington had heard of what was going on, but his answer made it evident that he had.

"Ah, I had partly expected this. Will you tell Lyle that I want him at once!"

It was not a request but a command flung at me with a curt incisiveness that brought the blood to my face, and I was never quite sure afterward why I went. Still, it was usually difficult for even those who disliked him most to disobey Colonel Carrington. In any case, I found Lyle and the others, and came back with them outside the bluff which was the easier way. Carrington, however, had evidently grown impatient, and I saw Lyle's lips set tight when he and three or four of the younger men who I heard afterward were rather indebted to the Colonel rode out from the shadow of the bluff. One of my companions smiled expressively, but nothing was said until Carrington drew bridle a few yards away. He sat impa.s.sively still with one hand on his hip and a handful of young lads behind him, and there was silence for a few moments while the two parties looked at each other.

It was not exactly my quarrel, but I could feel the tension.

Lyle stood close beside me quietly resolute, but one or two of his comrades looked half-ashamed and as though they wished themselves anywhere else, while the lads who rode with Carrington were manifestly uneasy.

Still, the grim, erect figure sitting almost statuesque on the splendid horse dominated the picture. At length Carrington indicated me with a glance which, though I was ashamed of the fact afterward, made me wince.

"This man tells me that it is by your authority he is cutting down my timber," he said.

"He is quite correct in that, sir," answered Lyle.

"Ah," said Carrington, and his voice was very sharp, "you did not consider it necessary to ask my sanction?"

Lyle looked at his companions, and it was evident that they realized that the time for decisive action had come. The Colonel clearly meant to a.s.sert his authority, and I fancied that he would not hesitate to overstep it if this appeared advisable. He had, however, ridden them on the curb too long, and his followers' patience was almost at an end. Still, it requires a good deal of courage suddenly to fling off a yoke to which one has grown accustomed, and I sometimes think that if Carrington had been a trifle less imperious and Lyle had not stood fast then his companions once more would have deferred to their ruler and the revolt would never have been made. Perhaps Lyle recognized this for his answer seemed intended to force the matter to an issue.

"We were afraid it would be withheld, sir," he said.

Carrington understood him, for I saw the blood creep into his face. "So you decided to dispense with it?"

"I should have preferred to put it another way, but it amounts to that,"

said Lyle, and there was a murmur of concurrence from the rest which showed that their blood was up.

"Then you may understand that it is refused once for all," said Carrington. "I will not have another birch felled on Green Mountain. Now that you know my views there is an end of it."

He was wrong in this. The end which I think must have proved very different from what he could have expected had not yet come. He had taken the wrong way, for those whom he addressed were like himself mettlesome Englishmen of the ruling caste, and while they had long paid him due respect they were not to be trampled on. They stood fast, and losing his temper he turned to them in a sudden outbreak of fury.

"Why don't you go?" he thundered, and pointed to the saws and axes. "Take those--things along with you."

None of them moved except Lyle who stepped forward a pace or two.

"There is a little more to be said, sir. You have refused your sanction, but bearing in mind a clause or two in the charter of the settlement I'm not quite sure it's necessary. In one sense Green Mountain is not exactly yours."

"Not mine!" and Carrington stared at him in incredulous astonishment. Then he seemed to recover himself and smiled in an unpleasant fas.h.i.+on. "Ah," he said, "you have been reading the charter, but there are several points that evidently you have missed. For one thing, it vests practically complete authority in me, and my decision as to any changes or the disposal of any of the Carrington land can only be questioned by a three-fourths majority of a general a.s.sembly. I have not heard that you have submitted the matter to such a meeting."

"I have not done so, sir," answered Lyle.

There was, I thought, still a faint chance of a compromise, but Carrington flung it away.

"Then," he said, "I choose to exert my authority, and I think that I have already told you to leave Green Mountain."

Lyle apparently recognized that the Colonel had the best of it on what one might call a point of law, but the way the latter used the word "told"

would, I think, have stirred most men to resistance. It was far more expressive than if he had said commanded. Lyle stood quite still a moment or two looking at the Colonel with wrinkled brows.

"If you will listen to me for a few minutes, sir," he said at length.

"No!" interrupted Carrington. "It would be a waste of time. You know my views. There is nothing more to be said."

Then he committed the crowning act of folly as tightening his grasp on his bridle he turned to the lads behind him.

"Drive them off!" he said.

The half-contemptuous command was almost insufferably galling. Carrington might have been dealing with mutinous dusky troopers instead of free Englishmen who farmed their own land, and the lads who had at first appeared disposed to side with him hesitated. He swung around in the saddle and looked at them.

"Must I speak twice?" he asked.

He turned again raising the heavy riding crop he carried, and I expected to see the big horse driven straight at Lyle, but one of the lads seized his leader's bridle just in time.

"Hold on, sir," he cried, and then while the big horse plunged he flung a few words at my companion.