Ranching for Sylvia. Harold Bindloss
The man smiled, rather wistfully. He could feel things keenly, and he had his romance; but Sylvia resumed:
"I sometimes wonder if you ever felt really badly hurt?"
"Once," he said quietly. "I think I have got over it."
"Ah!" she murmured. "I was afraid you would blame me, but now it seems that Dick knew you better than I did. When he made you my trustee, he said that you were too big to bear him malice."
The blood crept into George's face.
"After the first shock had passed, and I could reason calmly, I don't think I blamed either of you. You had promised me nothing; Dick was a brilliant man, with a charm everybody felt. By comparison, I was merely a plodder."
Sylvia mused for a few moments.
"George," she said presently, "I sometimes think you're a little too diffident. You plodders who go straight on, stopping for nothing, generally gain your object in the end."
His heart beat faster. It looked as if she meant this for a hint.
"I can't thank you properly," she continued; "though I know that all you undertake will be thoroughly carried out. I wish I hadn't been forced to let you go so far away; there is nobody else I can rely on."
He could not tell her that he longed for the right to shelter her always—it was not very long since the Canadian tragedy—but silence cost him an effort. At length she touched his arm.
"It's getting late, and the others will wonder where we are," she reminded him.
They went back to the house; and when Sylvia joined Mrs. Lansing, George felt seriously annoyed with himself. He had been deeply stirred, but he had preserved an unmoved appearance when he might have expressed some sympathy of tenderness which could not have been resented. Presently Ethel West crossed the room to where he was rather moodily standing.
"I believe our car is waiting, and, as Edgar won't let me come to the station to-morrow, I must say good-by now," she told him. "Both Stephen and I are glad he is on your hands."
"I must try to deserve your confidence," George said, smiling. "It's premature yet."
"Never mind that. We're alike in some respects: pretty speeches don't appeal to us. But there's one thing I must tell you—don't delay out yonder, come back as soon as you can."
She left him thoughtful. He had a high opinion of Ethel's intelligence, but he would entertain no doubts or misgivings. They were treasonable to Herbert and, what was worse, to Sylvia.
Going to bed in good time, he had only a few words with Sylvia over his early breakfast in the morning. Then he was driven to the station, where Edgar joined him; and the greater part of their journey proved uneventful.
Twelve days after leaving Liverpool they were, however, awakened early one morning by feeling the express-train suddenly slacken speed. The big cars shook with a violent jarring, and George hurriedly swung himself down from his upper berth. He had some difficulty in getting into his jacket and putting on his boots, but he pushed through the startled passengers and sprang down upon the track before the train quite stopped. He knew that accidents were not uncommon in the wilds of northern Ontario.
Ragged firs rose, dripping, against the rosy glow in the eastern sky, with the narrow gap, hewed out for the line, running through their midst. Some had been stripped of their smaller branches by fire, and leaned, dead and blackened, athwart each other. Beneath them, shallow pools gleamed in the hollows of the rocks, which rose in rounded masses here and there, and the gravel of the graded track was seamed by water channels. George remembered having heard the roar of heavy rain and a crash of thunder during the night, but it was now wonderfully still and fresh, and the resinous fragrance of the firs filled the chilly air.
Walking forward, clear of the curious passengers who poured from the cars, he saw a lake running back into the woods. A tall water-tank stood on the margin with a shanty, in which George imagined a telegraph operator was stationed, at its foot. Ahead, the great locomotive was pouring out a cloud of sooty smoke. When George reached it he waited until the engineer had finished talking to a man on the line.
"What are we stopping for? Has anything gone wrong?" he asked.
"Freight locomotive jumped the track at a wash-out some miles ahead," explained the engineer. "Took the fireman with her; but I don't know much about it yet. Guess they'll want me soon."
George got the man to promise to take him, and then he went back until he met Edgar, to whom he related what he had heard.
"I'm not astonished," remarked the lad, indicating one of the sleepers. "Look at that—the rail's only held down by a spike or two; we fasten them in solid chairs. They're rough and ready in this country."
It was the characteristic hypercritical attitude of the newly-arrived Englishman; and George, knowing that the Canadians strongly resent it, noticed a look of interest in the eyes of a girl standing near them. She was, he imagined, about twenty-four years of age, and was dressed in some thin white material, the narrow skirt scarcely reaching to the tops of her remarkably neat shoes. Her arms were uncovered to the elbows; her neck was bare, but this displayed a beautiful skin; and the face beneath the turned-down brim of the big hat was attractive. George thought she was amused at Edgar's comment.
"Well," he said, "while we put down a few miles of metals they'd drive the track across leagues of new country and make a start with the traffic. They haven't time to be particular, with the great western wheat-land waiting for development."
The girl moved away; and when word went around that there would be a delay of several hours, George sat down beside the lake and watched the Colonist passengers wash their children's clothes. It was, he thought, rather a striking scene—the great train standing in the rugged wilderness, the wide stretch of gleaming water running back among the firs, and the swarm of jaded immigrants splashing bare-footed along the beach. Their harsh voices and hoarse laughter broke discordantly on the silence of the woods.
After a while an elderly man, in badly-fitting clothes and an old wide-brimmed hat, sauntered up with the girl George had noticed, and stopped to survey the passengers.
"A middling sample; not so many English as usual," he remarked. "If they keep on coming in as they're doing, we'll get harvest hands at a reasonable figure."
"All he thinks about!" Edgar commented, in a lowered voice. "That's the uncivil old fellow who smokes the vile leaf tobacco; he drove me out of the car once or twice. It's hard to believe he's her father; but in some ways they're alike."
"I can't help feeling sorry for them," the girl replied. "Look at those worn-out women, almost too limp to move. It's hot and shaky enough in our cars; the Colonist ones must be dreadful."
"Good enough for the folks who're in them; they're not fastidious," said the man.
They strolled on, and George felt mildly curious about them. The girl was pretty and graceful, with a stamp of refinement upon her; the man was essentially rugged and rather grim. Suddenly, however, a whistle blast rang out, and George hurried toward the engine. It was beginning to move when he reached it but, grasping a hand-rail, he clambered up. The cab was already full of passengers, but he had found a place on the frame above the wheels when he saw the girl in the light dress running, flushed and eager, along the line. Leaning down as far as possible, he held out his hand to her.
"Get hold, if you want to come," he called. "There's a step yonder."
She seized his hand and smiled at him when he drew her up beside him.
"Thanks," she said. "I was nearly too late."
"Perhaps we had better make for the pilot, where there'll be more room," George suggested, as two more passengers scrambled up.
They crept forward, holding on by the guard-rail, while the great engine began to rock as it gathered speed. The girl, however, was fearless, and at length they reached the front, and stood beneath the big head-lamp with the triangular frame