Mackay drew himself up stiffly, as if for his inspection parade, and a white streak on his forehead showed the graze a bullet had made. Young Cotton smiled wryly as he glanced at his uniform, for it was probably under very different auspices he had last appeared in the society of ladies; and I was uneasily conscious of the fact that the black leather tunic which a German teamster had given me was much more comfortable than becoming. I might have felt even more dissatisfied had I known that my fall had badly split the tunic up the back. That, however, did not account for the curious mingling of hesitation and expectancy with which I followed our host.
During a brief visit to England some years ago I had met Miss Haldane at the house of a relative, and the memory had haunted me during long winter evenings spent in dreamy meditation beside the twinkling stove and in many a lonely camp when the stars shone down on the waste of whitened grass through the blue transparency of the summer night. The interval had been a time of strenuous effort with me, but through all the stress and struggle, in stinging snowdrift and blinding dust of alkali, I had never lost the remembrance of the maiden who whiled away the sunny afternoons with me under the English elms. Indeed, the recollection of the serene, delicately cut face and the wealth of dusky hair grew sharper as the months went by, until it became an abstract type of all that was desirable in womanhood, rather than a prosaic reality. Now I was to meet its owner once more in the concrete flesh. It may have been merely a young man's fancy, born of a life bare of romance, but I think that idealization was good for me.
Haldane held a door open, saying something that I did not catch; but young Cotton, whose bronzed color deepened for a moment, made a courtly bow, and the big grizzled sergeant smiled at me across the table as he took his place beside a laughing girl, while I presently found myself drawing a chair back for Beatrice Haldane, who showed genuine pleasure as she greeted me. Her beauty had increased during the long interval. The clustering dark hair and the dark eyes were those I remembered well, and if her face was a trifle colorless and cold I did not notice it. She had grown a little more full in outline and more stately in bearing, but the quiet graciousness which had so impressed me still remained.
"It is a long time since we met, and you have changed since then," she said pleasantly. "When you raced past our wagon I hardly recognized you. That, however, was perhaps only to be expected; but one might wonder whether you have changed otherwise, too. I recollect you were refreshingly sanguine when I last saw you."
This was gratifying. That I should have treasured the remembrance of Beatrice Haldane was only natural; but it was very pleasant to hear from her own lips that she had not forgotten me. Her intention was doubtless kindly, and it was inherited courtesy, for Haldane did most things graciously.
"The light was dim, and this life sets its stamp on most of us," I said. "May one compliment you on your powers of memory? Needless to say, I recognized you the moment I saw you."
Miss Haldane smiled a little. "A good memory is useful; but do you wish me to return the compliment?"
"No," and I looked at her steadily. "But there is a difference. In your world men and events follow each other in kaleidoscopic succession, and each change of the combinations must dim the memory of the rest. With us it is different. You will see how we live – but, no; I hardly think you will – for Bonaventure is not a typical homestead, and the control of it can be only a pastime with your father."
"And yet it is said that whatever Carson Haldane touches yields him dividends; but proceed," interposed Miss Haldane.
"With us each day is spent in hurried labor; and it is probably well that it is, for otherwise the loneliness and monotony might overpower any man with leisure to brood and think. Heat, frost, and fatigue are our lot; and an interlude resembling the one in which I met you means, as a glimpse of a wholly different life, so much to us. We dream of it long afterwards, and wonder if ever the enchanted gates will open to us again. Now, please don't smile. This is really not exaggeration!"
"Which gates? You are not precise," said my companion, and laughed pleasantly when, smiling, too, I answered, "One might almost say – of Paradise!"
"It must be the Moslem's paradise, then," she said. "Still, I hardly fancy a stalwart prairie rancher would pose well as the Peri, and, by way of consolation, you can remember that there are disappointments within those gates, and those who have acquired knowledge beyond them sometimes envy the illusions of those without. No, you have not changed much in some respects, Mr. Ormesby. You must talk to my sister Lucille – she will agree with you."
Her manner was very gracious, in spite of the badinage; but there was a faint trace of weariness and sardonic humor in her merriment which chilled me. The dark-haired girl I remembered had displayed a power of sympathy and quick enthusiasm which had apparently vanished from my present companion.
"I am curious to hear if you have verified the optimistic views you once professed," she added languidly.
I laughed a little dryly. Being younger then, and led on by a very winsome maiden's interest, I had talked with perhaps a little less than becoming modesty of the possibilities open to a resolute man in the new lands of the West, and laid it down as an axiom that determination was a sure password to success.
"You should be merciful. That was in my callow days," I said. "Nevertheless, with a few more reservations, I believe it is possible for those who can hope and hold on to realize their ambition in this country, whether it be the evolution of a prosperous homestead from a strip of Government land and a sod hovel – or more desirable things. The belief is excusable, because one may see the proof of it almost every day. I even fancied, when in England, that you agreed with me."
There was a faint mischievous sparkle in Miss Haldane's eyes, but she answered with becoming gravity: "Wisdom, as you seem to intimate, comes with age, and it is allowable to change one's opinions. Now it seems to me that all things happen, more often against our will than as the result of it, when the invisible powers behind us decree. For instance, who could have anticipated yesterday that we two should meet to-night at table, or who could say whether this assembly, brought about by a blizzard, may not be the first scene of either a tragedy or a comedy?"
I was more at home when Haldane turned the conversation upon practical matters, such as wheat and cattle, than when discussing abstract possibilities; but I afterwards remembered that my fair companion's speech was prophetic, and, as I glanced about, it struck me that there were dramatic possibilities in the situation. We were a strangely assorted company, and to one who had spent eight years in the wilderness the surroundings were striking. Tall wax candles in silver standards, flickering a little when the impact of the snow-laden gale shook the lonely dwelling, lighted the table. The rest of the long room was wrapped in shadow, save when the blaze from the great open hearth flung forth its uncertain radiance. The light flashed upon cut glass and polished silver, and forced up against the dusky background the faces of those who sat together.
Carson Haldane, owner of Bonaventure, which he occasionally visited, sat at the head of the table, a clean-shaven, dark-haired man of little more than middle age, whose slightly ascetic appearance concealed a very genial disposition. He was a man of mark, a daring speculator in mills and lands and mines, and supposed to be singularly successful. Why he bought Bonaventure ranch, or what he meant to do with it, nobody seemed to know; but he acted in accordance with the customs of the place in which he found himself, and because the distinctions of caste and wealth are not greatly recognized on the prairie there was nothing incongruous in his present company. Sergeant Mackay – lean, bronzed, and saturnine when the humor seized him – now bent his grizzled head with keen gray eyes that twinkled as he chatted to the fresh-faced girl in the simple dress beside him. I knew this was Lucille Haldane, but had hardly glanced at her. Cotton had evidently forgotten that he was a police trooper, and, when he could, broke in with some boyish jest or English story told in a different idiom from that which he generally