Hawtrey's Deputy. Harold Bindloss
grew out of the white waste, and presently a cluster of darker smudges shot up into the shape of a log-house, sod stables, and strawpile granary. A minute or two later, she pulled the team up with an effort, and a man, who flung the door of the house open, came out into the moonlight. He stopped, and apparently gazed at her in astonishment.
"Miss Creighton!" he said.
"Don't stand there," said Sally. "Take the near horse's head, and lead them right up to the door."
"What's the matter?" the man asked stupidly.
"Lead the team up," said Sally. "Jump, if you can."
It was supposed on that part of the prairie that Sproatly had never moved with much expedition in his life, but that night he sprang towards the horses at a commanding wave of the girl's hand. He started when he saw his comrade lying in the bottom of the sleigh, but Sally disregarded his hurried questions.
"Help me to get him out," she said, when he stopped the team. "Keep his right leg as straight as you can. I don't want to lift him. We must slide him in."
They did it somehow, though the girl was breathless before their task, which the snow made a little easier, was finished, and the perspiration started from the man. Then Sally turned to the latter.
"Get into the sleigh, and don't spare the team," she said. "Drive over to Watson's, and bring him along. You can tell him your partner's broke his leg, and some of his ribs. Start right now!"
Sproatly did her bidding, and when the door closed behind him she flung off her blanket coat and thrust fresh billets into the stove. Then she looked for some coffee in the store cupboard, and set on a kettle; after which she sat down on the floor by Hawtrey's side. He lay still, with the thick driving robe beneath him, and though the colour was creeping back into his face, his eyes were shut, and he was apparently quite insensible of her presence. For the first time she was conscious of a distressful faintness, which, as she had come suddenly out of the stinging frost into the little overheated room, which reeked with tobacco smoke and a stale smell of cooking, was not astonishing. She mastered it, however, and presently, seeing that Hawtrey did not move; glanced about her with some curiosity, for this was the first time she had entered his house.
The room was scantily furnished, and, though very few of the bachelor farmers in that country live luxuriously, she fancied that Sproatly, who had evidently very rudimentary ideas on the subject of house-cleaning, had not brought back all the sundries he had thrown out into the snow. It then contained a table, a carpenter's bench, and a couple of chairs, and there were still smears of dust upon the uncovered floor. The birch-log walls had been rudely panelled with match-boarding half-way up, which was a somewhat unusual luxury, but the half-seasoned boards had rent with the heat, and exuded streaks of resin to which the grime and dust had clung. A pail, which apparently contained potato peelings, stood amidst a litter of old long boots and broken harness against one wall, and the floor was black and thick with grease all round the rusty stove. A pile of unwashed dishes and cooking utensils stood upon the table, and the lamp above her head had blackened the boarded ceiling, and diffused a subtle odour of kerosene.
Sally noticed it all with disgust, and then, seeing that Hawtrey had opened his eyes, she made a cup of coffee and got him to drink it. After that he smiled at her.
"Thanks," he said feebly. "Where's Sproatly? My side stabs me."
Sally raised one hand. "You're not to say a word. Sproatly's gone for Watson, and he'll soon fix you up. Now lie quite still, and shut your eyes again."
The man obeyed her, in so far as that he lay still, but his eyes were not more than half-closed, and she could not resist the temptation to see what he would do if she went away. She had half risen, when he stretched a hand out and felt for her dress, and she sank down again with a curious softness in her face. Then he let his eyes close altogether, as if satisfied, and by and bye she gently laid her hand on his.
He did not appear to notice it, and, though she did not know whether he was asleep or unconscious, she sat beside him, with compassion in her eyes. There was no sound but the snapping of the birch billets in the rusty stove. She was anxious, but not unduly so, for she knew that men who live as the prairie farmers do, usually recover from such injuries as had befallen him more or less readily. It would also not be very long before assistance arrived, for it was understood that the man she had sent Sproatly for had almost gone through a medical course in an Eastern city before he set up as a prairie farmer. Why he had suddenly changed his profession was a point he did not explain, and, as he had always shown himself willing to do what he could when any of his neighbours met with an accident, nobody troubled him about the matter.
By and bye Sproatly brought him to the homestead, and he was busy with Hawtrey for some time. Then they got him to bed, and Watson came back to the room where Sally was anxiously waiting.
"His idea about his injuries is more or less correct, but we'll have no great trouble in pulling him round," he said. "The one point that's worrying me is the looking after him. One couldn't expect him to thrive upon slabs of burnt salt pork, and Sproatly's bread."
"I'll do what I can," said Sproatly indignantly.
"You!" said the other. "It would be criminal to leave you in charge of a sick man."
Sally quietly put on her blanket coat. "If you can stay that long, I'll be back soon after it's light," she said. Then she turned to Sproatly. "You can wash up those dishes on the table, and get a brush and sweep this room out. If it's not quite smart to-morrow you'll do it again."
"Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those dishes on the table.'"
Then, while Sproatly grinned, she went out and drove away through the bitter frost.
CHAPTER III.
WYLLARD ASSENTS.
Sally, who brought her mother with her, spent a couple of weeks at Hawtrey's homestead before Watson decided that his patient could be entrusted to Sproatly's care; but she came back afterwards twice a week or so with odd baskets of dainties to make sure that the latter, in whom she had no confidence, was discharging his duties satisfactorily. She had driven over again one afternoon, when Hawtrey, whose bones were knitting well, lay talking to another man in his little sleeping room.
There was no furniture in it whatever, beyond the wooden bunk he lay in, and a deerhide lounge chair he had made during the winter; but the stovepipe from the kitchen led across part of it, and then up again into the room beneath the roof above. It had been one of Sproatly's duties during the past two weeks to rise and renew the fire when the cold awakened his comrade soon after midnight. At present he was outside the house, whipsawing birch-logs and splitting them into billets, which was an occupation he cherished a profound dislike for.
Spring had, however, come suddenly, as it usually does on the prairie, a few days earlier, and the snow was melting fast under a brilliant sun. The bright rays that streamed in through the window struck athwart the glimmering dust motes in the little bare room, and fell, pleasantly warm, upon the man who lay in the deerhide chair. He was a year or two older than Hawtrey, though he had scarcely reached thirty, a man of tranquil manner, with a rather lean and deeply bronzed face, of average height, and somewhat spare of figure. He held a pipe in his hand, and was then looking at Hawtrey with quiet, contemplative eyes. They were, indeed, his most noticeable feature, though it was difficult to say whether their colour was grey or hazel-brown,