The Impostor. Harold Bindloss
the cigars were good. He had no esteem for his visitor, but men are not censorious upon the prairie, and Western hospitality is always free.
“Where have you come from, Courthorne?” he said quietly.
The other man laughed a little. “The long trail,” he said. “The Dakotas, Colorado, Montana. Cleaned up one thousand dollars at Regent, and might have got more, but some folks down there seemed tired of me. The play was quite regular, but they have apparently been getting virtuous lately.”
“And now?” said Witham, with polite indifference.
Courthorne made a little gesture of deprecation.
“I’m back again with the rustlers.”
Witham’s nod signified comprehension, for the struggle between the great range-holders across the frontier and the smaller settlers who with legal right invaded their cattle runs was just over. It had been fought out bitterly with dynamite and rifles, and when at last, with the aid of the United States cavalry, peace was made, sundry broken men and mercenaries who had taken the pay of both parties, seeing their occupation gone, had found a fresh scope for their energies in smuggling liquor, and on opportunity transferring cattle, without their owners’ sanction, across the frontier. That was then a prohibition country, and the profits and risks attached to supplying it and the Blackfeet on the reserves with liquor were heavy.
“Business this way?” said Witham.
Courthorne appeared to consider a moment, and there was a curious little glint which did not escape his companion’s attention in his eyes, but he laughed.
“Yes, we’re making a big run,” he said, then stopped and looked straight at the rancher. “Did it ever strike you, Witham, that you were not unlike me?”
Witham smiled, but made a little gesture of dissent as he returned the other’s gaze. They were about the same height and had the same English type of face, while Witham’s eyes were grey and his companion’s an indefinite blue that approached the former colour, but there the resemblance, which was not more than discernible, ended. Witham was quietly-spoken and somewhat grim, a plain prairie farmer in appearance, while a vague but recognizable stamp of breeding and distinction still clung to Courthorne. He would have appeared more in place in the States upon the southern Atlantic seaboard, where the characteristics the Cavalier settlers brought with them are not extinct, than he did upon the Canadian prairie. His voice had even in his merriment a little imperious ring, his face was refined as well as sensual, and there was a languid gracefulness in his movements and a hint of pride in his eyes. They, however, lacked the steadiness of Witham’s, and there were men who had seen the wild devil that was born in Courthorne look out of them. Witham knew him as a pleasant companion, but surmised from stories he had heard that there were men, and more women, who bitterly rued the trust they had placed in him.
“No,” he said dryly. “I scarcely think I am like you, although only last night Nettie at the settlement took me for you. You see, the kind of life I’ve led out here has set its mark on me, and my folks in the old country were distinctly middle-class people. There is something in heredity.”
Courthorne did not parry the unexpressed question. “Oh, yes,” he said, with a little sardonic smile. “I know. The backbone of the nation—solemn, virtuous, and slow. You’re like them, but my folks were different, as you surmise. I don’t think they had many estimable qualities from your point of view, but if they all didn’t go quite straight they never went slow, and they had a few prejudices, which is why I found it advisable to leave the old country. Still, I’ve had my fill of all that life can offer most folks out here, while you scarcely seem to have found virtue pay you. They told me at the settlement things were bad with you.”
Witham, who was usually correct in his deductions, surmised that his companion had an object, and expected something in return for this confidence. There was also no need for reticence when every farmer in the district knew all about his affairs, while something urged him to follow Courthorne’s lead.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “They are. You see, when I lost my cattle in the blizzard, I had to sell out or mortgage the place to the hilt, and during the last two years I haven’t made the interest. The loan falls due in August, and they’re going to foreclose on me.”
“Then,” said Courthorne, “what is keeping you here when the result of every hour’s work you put in will go straight into another’s man’s pocket?”
Witham smiled a little. “In the first place, I’ve nowhere else to go, and there’s something in the feeling that one has held on to the end. Besides, until a few days ago I had a vague hope that by working double tides, I might get another crop in. Somebody might have advanced me a little on it because the mortgage only claims the house and land.”
Courthorne looked at him curiously. “No. We are not alike,” he said. “There’s a slow stubborn devil in you, Witham, and I think I’d be afraid of you if I ever did you an injury. But go on.”
“There’s very little more. My team ran away down the ravine, and I had to put one beast out of its misery. I can’t do my ploughing with one horse, and that leaves me stranded for the want of the dollars to buy another with. It’s usually a very little thing that turns the scale, but now the end has come, I don’t know that I’m sorry. I’ve never had a good time, you see, and the struggle was slowly crushing the life out of me.”
Witham spoke quietly, without bitterness, but Courthorne, who had never striven at all but stretched out his hand and taken what was offered, the more willingly when it was banned alike by judicial and moral law, dimly understood him. He was a fearless man, but he knew his courage would not have been equal to the strain of that six years’ struggle against loneliness, physical fatigue, and adverse seasons, during which disaster followed disaster. He looked at the bronzed farmer as he said, “Still, you would do a little in return for a hundred dollars that would help you to go on with the fight?”
A faint sparkle crept into Witham’s eyes. It was not hope, but rather the grim anticipation of the man offered a better weapon when standing with his back to the wall.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “I would do almost anything.”
“Even if it was against the law?”
Witham sat silent for almost a minute, but there was no indecision in his face, which slightly perplexed Courthorne. “Yes,” he said. “Though I kept it while I could, the law was made for the safe-guarding of prosperous men, but with such as I am it is every man for his own hand and the devil to care for the vanquished. Still, there is a reservation.”
Courthorne nodded. “It’s unlawful, but not against the unwritten code.”
“Well,” said Witham quietly, “when you tell me what you want I should have a better opinion.”
Courthorne laughed a little, though there was something unpleasant in his eyes. “When I first came out to this country I should have resented that,” he said. “Now, it seems to me that I’m putting too much in your hands if I make the whole thing clear before you commit yourself in any way.”
Witham nodded. “In fact, you have got to trust me. You can do so safely.”
“The assurance of the guileless is astonishing and occasionally hard to bear,” said Courthorne. “Why not reverse the position?”
Witham’s gaze was steady, and free from embarrassment. “I am,” he said, “waiting for your offer.”
“Then,” said Courthorne dryly, “here it is. We are running a big load through to the northern settlements and the reserves to-morrow, and while there’s a good deal of profit attached to the venture, I have a notion that Sergeant Stimson has had word of it. Now, the Sergeant knows just how I stand with the rustlers, though he can fasten no charge on me, and he will have several of his troopers looking out for me. Well, I want one of them to see and follow me south along the Montana trail. There’s no horse in the Government service can keep pace with that black of mine, but it