"Well!" And Lane helped himself before he answered. "In that case, I'll have to tax you an extra ten per cent. It seems high, but no bank would look at encumbered property or a half-developed place like Crane Valley. Take it, or leave it, at six months' date. That would give you time to sell your fat stock and realize on your harvest."
I fancied there was a covert sneer in the last words, because I had faint hope of any harvest, and answered accordingly. "It seems extortionate, but even so, should pay me better than sacrificing now."
"Money's scarce," said Lane suavely. "I'm going on to Lawrence's, and will send you in the papers. Lend me as good a horse as you have for a day or two."
I did not like the man's tone, and the request was too much like an order; but I made no further comment; though a load seemed lifted from me when he rode away, and I started with my foreman to haul home prairie hay. It was fiercely hot, and thick dust rolled about our light wagon, while each low rise, cut off as it were from the bare levels, floated against the horizon. The glare tired one's vision, and, half-closing my aching eyes, I sank into a reverie. For eight long years I had toiled late and early, taxing the strength of mind and body to the utmost. I had also prospered, and lured on by a dream, first dreamed in England, I grew more ambitious, breaking new land and extending my herds with borrowed capital. That had also paid me until a bad season came, and when both grain and cattle failed, Lane became a menace to my prosperity. It was a bare life I and my foreman lived, for every dollar hardly won was entrusted in some shape to the kindly earth again, and no cent wasted on comforts, much less luxuries; but I had seldom time to miss either of them, and it was not until Haldane brought his daughters to Bonaventure that I saw what a man with means and leisure might make of his life. Then came the reaction, and there were days when I grew sick of the drudgery and heavy physical strain; but still, spurred on alternately by hope and fear, I relaxed no effort.
Now, artificial grasses are seldom sown on the prairie where usually the natural product grows only a few inches high, and as building logs are scarce, implements are often kept just where they last were used. It was therefore necessary to seek hay worth cutting in a dried-out slough, or swamp, and next to find the mower, which might lie anywhere within a radius of four miles or so. We came upon them both together, the mower lying on its side, red with rust, amid a stretch of waist-high grass. The latter was harsh and wiry, heavy-scented with wild peppermint, and made ready for us by the sun.
There were, however, preliminary difficulties, and I had worked myself into a state of exasperation before the rusty machine could be induced to run. After a vigorous hammering and the reckless use of oil the pair of horses were at last just able to haul it, groaning vehemently, through the dried-up swamp. I was stripped almost to the skin by this time, the dust that rose in clouds turned to mire upon my dripping cheeks and about my eyes, while bloodthirsty winged creatures hovered round my head.
"This," said Foreman Thorn, as he wiped the red specks from his face and hands, "is going to be a great country. We can raise the finest insects on the wide earth already. The last time I was down to Traverse a man came along from somewhere with a gospel tent, and from what he said there wasn't much chance for anyone to raise cattle. He'd socked it to us tolerable for half-an-hour at least, when Tompson's Charlie gets up and asks him: 'Did you ever break half-thawn sod with oxen?' 'No, my man; but this interruption is unseemly,' says he. 'It's not a conundrum,' says Charlie. 'Did you ever sleep in a mosquito muskeg or cut hay in a dried-out slough?' and the preacher seeing we all wanted an answer, shakes his head. 'Then you start in and try, and find out that there are times when a man must talk or bust, before you worry us,' says Charlie. But who's coming along now?"
I had been too busy to pay much attention to the narrative or to notice a rattle of wheels, and I looked up only when a wagon was drawn up beside the slough. A smooth-shaven man, with something familiar about his face, sat on the driving-seat smiling down at me.
"Good-morning, Rancher Ormesby. Wanting any little pictures of yourself to send home to friends in the old country?" he said, pointing to what looked like the lens of a camera projecting through the canvas behind him. "I'll take you for half-a-dollar, as you are, if you'll give me the right to sell enlargements as a prairie study."
The accent was hardly what one might have expected from one of the traveling adventurers who at intervals wandered across the country, and I looked at the speaker with a puzzled air. "I have no time to spare for fooling, and don't generally parade half-naked before either the public or my civilized friends," I said.
"Some people look best that way," answered the other, regarding me critically; whereupon Thorn turned round and grinned. "The team and tall grass would make an effective background. Stand by inside there, Edmond. It's really not a bad model of a bare throat and torso, and as I don't know that your face is the best of you, the profile with a shadow on it would do – just so! Say, I wonder did you know those old canvas overalls drawn in by the leggings are picturesque and become you? There – I'm much obliged to you."
A faint click roused me from the state of motionless astonishment his sheer impudence produced, and when I strode forward Thorn's grin of amusement changed to one of expectancy. "You don't want any hair-restorer, apparently, though I've some of the best in the Dominion at a dollar the bottle; but I could give you a salve for the complexion," continued the traveler, and I stopped suddenly when about to demand the destruction of the negative or demolish his camera.
"Good heavens, Boone! Is it you; and what is the meaning of this mummery?" I asked, staring at him more amazed than ever.
"Just now I'm called Adams, if you please," said the other, holding out his hand. "I hadn't an opportunity for thanking you for your forbearance when we met at Bonaventure, but I shall not readily forget it. This is not exactly mummery. It provides me with a living, and suits my purpose. I could not resist the temptation of trying to discover whether you recognized me, or whether I was playing my part artistically."
"Are you not taking a big risk, and why don't you exploit a safer district?" I asked; and the man smiled as he answered: "I don't think there's a settler around here who would betray me even if he guessed my identity, and the troopers never got a good look at me. I live two or three hundred miles east, you see, and the loss of a beard and mustache alters any man's appearance considerably. I also have a little business down this way. Have you seen anything of Foster Lane during the last week or two?"
"Yes," I said. "He has just ridden over from my place to Lawrence's, in Crane Valley."
"You have land there, too," said Boone, as though aware of it already; and when I nodded, added: "Then if you are wise you will see that devil does not get his claws on it. I presume you are not above taking a hint from me?"
I looked straight at him. "I know very little of you except that there is a warrant out for your arrest, and I am not addicted to taking advice from strangers."
Boone returned my gaze steadily without resentment, and I had time to take note of him. He was a tall, spare, sinewy man, deeply bronzed like most of us; but now that he had, as it were, cast off all pertaining to the traveling pedlar, there was an indefinite something in his speech and manner which could hardly have been acquired on the prairie. He did not look much over thirty, but his forehead was seamed, and from other signs one might have fancied he was a man with a painful history. Then he flicked the dust off his jean garments with the whip, and laughed a little.
"I am an Englishman, Rancher Ormesby, and, needless to say, so are you. We are not a superfluously civil people, and certain national characteristics betray you. I fancy we shall be better acquainted, and, that being so, feel prompted to tell you a story which, after what passed at Bonaventure, you perhaps have a right to know. You will stop a while for lunch, anyway, and if you have no objections I will take mine along with you."
I could see no reasonable objection to this, and presently we sat together under the wagon for the sake of coolness, while, when the mower ceased its rattle, the dust once more settled down upon the slough. It was almost too hot to eat; there was no breath of wind, and the glare of