Thrice Armed Part 25

"Quite easy," said Fleming dryly. "What's the matter with your hands?"

Then he went away and left Barbison to his task. It was a particularly repulsive one, but he accomplished it, and spent most of the next few days tr.i.m.m.i.n.g coal, waiting on the fireman, and cleaning out an empty coal-bunker on his hands and knees. It is probable that the sight of Victoria filled him with ineffable relief, and it certainly was not Fleming's fault if this were not the case. As they steamed into the harbor Jimmy sent for him.

"I think you have earned your pa.s.sage, and we're straight," he said.

"You can go ash.o.r.e when we get in."

Barbison glanced down at his dilapidated attire. "Can I go ash.o.r.e this way? I'll ask you a favor. Let me stay until it's dark."

Jimmy laughed. "Well," he said, "as I scarcely think Mr. Merril will send you back again, you may."

CHAPTER XVIII

ELEANOR SPEAKS HER MIND

The afternoon was hot and drowsily still when Merril drove his daughter down the dusty road which runs from New Westminster through the Fraser meadows. The team was a fast one, and the man, who had an appointment to keep in Vancouver, did not spare them. There were also reasons why he found rapid motion and the attention the mettlesome horses required a welcome distraction, for just then he was troubled with a certain sense of irritation which was unusual with him.

Merril was not a hot-tempered man; in fact, he owed his commercial success largely to the dispa.s.sionate coolness which rarely permitted his feelings to influence his actions, and it was characteristic of him that while he had a finger in a good many schemes the man himself never figured prominently in connection with any of them. His influence was felt, but he was in one sense rather an abstract force than a dominant personality. It was said of him that he always worked underground, and he certainly never made political speeches or favored the newspapers with his views; while, when the results of his unostentatious efforts became apparent in disaster to somebody, as they usually did, it generally happened that other men incurred the odium. There are, of course, financiers whose enterprises benefit the whole community, since they create new corn-fields and open mines and mills, but Merril's genius was rather of the destructive order, and it was not to anybody's advantage that he knew how to choose his time and instruments well. In person, he was little, somewhat portly, and very neatly dressed, a man who had never been known to lose his temper or force himself upon the citizens' attention.

Still, he was human, after all, and as he sat behind his costly team that afternoon he was thinking somewhat uneasily of the unexpected resistance certain land-jobbers in New Westminster had shown to his demands, and the attack on him which had just appeared in a popular journal. It was the second time the thing had happened, and, though he was not directly mentioned and the statements could scarcely be considered libelous, it was evident that a continuance of them would have the effect of turning the attention of those who read them upon his doings, which was just then about the last thing that he desired.

It accordingly happened that he drove a little faster than he generally did, until as the team swung out of a strip of shadowy bush he saw a jumper-sled loaded high with split-rails on the road close in front of him. He shouted to the man who walked beside the plodding oxen, never doubting that way would be made for him, especially as the teamster looked around. The oxen, however, went straight on down the middle of the road, and it was a trifle too late when Merril laid both hands upon the reins. In another moment there was a crash, and Anthea was almost shaken from her seat. When Merril swung himself down he saw that one wheel had driven hard against the jumper load. Then as he called to Anthea to move the team a pace or two, the patent bus.h.i.+ng squeaked and groaned, and the wheel, after making part of a revolution, skidded on the road. The man who drove the oxen turned and favored him with a little sardonic grin.

"I hope the young lady's not shook too much," he said.

Anthea, who fancied it was with a purpose he confined this expression of regret, if, indeed, it could be considered such, to herself, was as a matter of fact considerably shaken and very angry.

"Why didn't you get out of the way when you heard my father shout?" she asked.

It was Merril at whom the man looked. "Well," he said reflectively, "I guess that load is heavy, and the oxen have been hauling hard since sun-up, while there's no reason why a rancher shouldn't use the road as well as anybody from the city. You should have pulled up sooner. Anyway, you're not going far like that."

Merril said nothing, though he could not very well have failed to notice the hint of satisfaction in the last remark. He very seldom put himself in the wrong by any ill-considered utterance, but Anthea was a trifle puzzled when he quietly walked to the horses' heads. She knew that the small ranchers are, for the most part, good-humored and kindly men, while, although she could not be certain that the one before them had contrived the mishap, it was evident that he had done very little to avert it. He made no further observation, and when he led his oxen into a neighboring meadow Merril told the girl to drive the horses slowly toward a ranch they could see ahead, and walked beside the wagon watching the wheel. It would turn once or twice and then stick fast and skid again; but they contrived to reach the ranch, and found a bronzed man in dusty jean leaning on the slip-rails.

"Have you a wagon-jack and a spanner?" asked Merril.

"I have," said the man, who made no sign of going for them.

"Then I should be obliged if you would lend me them," said Merril.

The man smiled dryly. "It can't be done. If that wheel won't turn, Miss Merril can come in and sit with my wife while you go somewhere and get it fixed. That's the most I can do for you."

"I suppose the man who wouldn't let us pa.s.s back yonder is a friend of yours?" and Merril looked hard at him.

"That's so. Runs this ranch with me. Guess you've seen me once before, though it was your clerk I made the deal with. That's why we're here on rented land making 'bout enough to buy groceries and tobacco. You know how much the ranch you bounced us out of was worth to you. Anyway, you can't have that jack and spanner."

Anthea flushed with anger, but she saw that her father was very quiet.

"Well," he said dryly, "they belong to you, but I'm not sure it wouldn't have been as wise to let me have them."

The rancher laughed. "You don't hold our mortgage now, and if I could get hold of that newspaper-man I could give him a pointer or two. Seems to me he's getting right down on to the trail of you. Are you coming in out of the sun, Miss Merril?"

"Certainly not," said Anthea; and the man took out his pipe and quietly filled it when Merril told her to walk the horses on again.

Though she was a trifle perplexed by what she had heard, it seemed to her that her father's att.i.tude was the correct one, and she seldom asked unnecessary questions. She had lived away from home a good deal since the death of her mother when she was very young, but her father had always been indulgent, and she had cherished an unquestioning confidence in him. It was also pleasant to know that he was a man of mark and influence, and one looked up to by the community. Of late, however, several circ.u.mstances besides the newspaper attacks on him had seemed to cast a doubt upon the latter point, but she would not entertain it for a moment, or ask herself whether there was anything to warrant them. It was rea.s.suring to remember her father's little smile when she had ventured to offer him her sympathy; but she could not help admitting that there must, at least, have been some cause for the rancher's rancor. The man, she felt, would not have displayed such vindictive bitterness without any reason at all. She, however, decided that he had no doubt made some imprudent bargain with her father, and was unwarrantedly blaming the latter for the unfortunate result of it.

They went on in silence, and Merril, who walked beside the wagon, shook the wheel loose now and then when the horses stopped, until they reached Forster's homestead. The rancher greeted Anthea pleasantly, but she felt that there was a subtle change in his manner when he turned to her father, who explained their difficulty.

"The trouble is that I have rather an important appointment in Vancouver this afternoon," said the latter.

"My wife is there now with our only driving wagon, or I would offer to take you over," said Forster. "I can, however, lend you a saddle-horse, and Miss Merril could stay with Miss Wheelock until we see what can be done with the wagon. If necessary, I will drive her across when my wife comes back."

Merril thanked him, and presently moved away toward the stable with the hired man while Forster led Anthea to the house, and left her in the big general room where, as it happened, Eleanor Wheelock sat sewing. The green lattices outside the open windows were partly drawn to, but the shadowy room was very hot, and the little air that entered brought the smell of the pines with it. It was not the aromatic scent they have at evening, but the almost overpowering smell filled with the clogging sweetness of honey the afternoon sun calls forth from them. The ranch was also very still, and for no evident reason Anthea felt the drowsy quietness weigh upon her. Her companion said nothing to break it, but sat near the window sewing quietly, and Anthea became sensible of a faint shrinking from the girl, though she would have liked to overcome it for reasons she was not altogether willing to confess to herself.

Eleanor Wheelock's face looked almost colorless by contrast with her somber dress, and there was a curious hardness in it, while Anthea, who remembered Leeson's speech in the _Shasta_'s cabin, wondered whether she were making the very dainty garment for herself, since it was suggestive of wedding finery.

"That should be very effective," she said at length. "You intend to wear it?"

Eleanor looked up from her sewing. "Yes," she said, "I believe I shall."

Something in her voice struck Anthea as out of place in the circ.u.mstances, for one does not sew bitterness into wedding attire, while the suggestion of uncertainty which the speech conveyed was more curious still. Anthea felt there must be something more than the loss of her father to account for her companion's att.i.tude; but that was naturally a thing she could not mention.

"I think I could venture to offer you my sympathy in what you have had to bear," she said. "I was very distressed to see the brief account in the newspaper."

Eleanor laid down her sewing, and looked at her steadily. "Why should you be?"

It was a disconcerting question, and asked with a still more disconcerting insistency. Anthea could not very well say that she did not know, nor yet admit that the news had grieved her because of her sympathy with Jimmy. Still, though she shrank from her, she desired this girl's good-will, and she compelled herself to an effort.

"In any case, I was sincerely sorry," she said. "Although I only met you that evening on board the _Shasta_, one could say as much without presuming. Besides, when we were away in the _Sorata_ your brother did a good deal to make the cruise pleasant for Nellie Austerly and me."

"When he was Valentine's deck-hand?" and Eleanor looked at her with a little sardonic smile. "You no doubt allowed him to forget it occasionally, and Jimmy was grateful. In fact, he admitted as much to me. He was always foolishly impressionable."

Anthea felt her face grow warm, and though she was as a rule courageous, she was glad that she sat in the shadow. In several respects her companion's last suggestion appeared almost insufferable.

"Perhaps I laid myself open to this," she said. "It is seldom wise to make advances until one is reasonably sure of one's ground, but I do not understand why you should resent a few words spoken out of friendliness."

The little hard glint grew plainer in Eleanor's eyes. "Then I think you should do so. There is a very convincing reason why friendliness--of any kind--would be very unfitting between you and me--or, for that matter, between you and Jimmy."

Anthea would not ask the question that suggested itself, for it seemed to her, as, crus.h.i.+ng down her anger, she sat and watched her companion, that the latter had been waiting for this opportunity. There was no mistaking the meaning of the thrill in her voice or the spot of color in her cheek, while the reference to Jimmy had its significance. She felt that the girl wished to hurt her.

"You admitted that you read the newspapers?" said Eleanor abruptly.

"Ah!" said Anthea; "I think I know what you mean by that. Naturally, I cannot discuss those libels with you."

"Libels!" and Eleanor laughed. "If you can believe them that, one would almost envy your credulity. Presumably your father has never mentioned our name to you?"

Anthea was somewhat startled, for, though Merril certainly had not done so, she remembered the momentary expression of his face when Forster had mentioned Miss Wheelock. She also remembered Jimmy's att.i.tude on the evening she met him at Austerly's, and the suggestion of distance in Forster's manner to her father. It seemed that there were others as well as the rancher who did not believe the statements made in the paper to be libelous.