The man turned his eyes a moment, and that was enough, for before he looked up again Carrie swung the kettle round, and there was a crash as it struck the lamp. Then there was sudden darkness, out of which rang venomous expletives and howls of pain. Carrie sped towards the second door. She heard the man falling among the chairs behind her, and wasted another moment or two turning the key, which was outside. This cost her an effort, for the lock was rusty from disuse. Then she flitted along the dark corridor, and, opening the kitchen door softly, looked out upon the prairie. There was no moon, and the night was still and dark. She could hear no sound on that side of the homestead.

Slipping out, she crept in quiet haste along the wall, and with wildly beating heart crossed the open space between it and the stable. Nobody, however, attempted to stop her, and in another moment or two she was standing beside the horse which Jake had ready saddled. The animal was fresh and mettlesome, and she lost several precious minutes before she contrived to get into the saddle by scrambling on a mound of sod piled against the outside of the building. Then she struck him viciously with the quirt. One cut was all that was needed, and they were flying out into the darkness at a furious gallop.

She knew that her flight was heard, for shouts rose behind her; but she knew too that her horse was fresh and the outlaws' tired after a hard day's ride. It was also very probable that his comrades had tethered their horses somewhere while they watched the trail, since it is usually difficult to keep a prairie broncho quiet very long. All this flashed upon her while the lights of Prospect blinked and vanished as the barns and stables shut them in. With a sigh of relief, she brought the quirt down again.

There were stars in the heavens, but the night was dark, and she could just discern an outlying birch bluff, a shadowy blur against the sky, a mile in front of her. The prairie was rutted deep along the trail by waggon-wheels, and riddled here and there with deadly badger-holes, but these were hazards that must be taken as they came. One thing was sure – the man she had married was in imminent peril, and she alone could deliver him. The fact that Urmston was left behind in the outlaws' hands did not seem to trouble her. Indeed, she scarcely remembered him at all.

She swept on, her light skirt blown about her, her loosened hair whipping her hot face, while a thud of hoofs broke out behind her. The horse's blood was up, too, so she let him go, stretched out at a flying gallop, up low rise and over long level. The birches flashed by, and the open waste lay in front. While nobody riding that pace could find the trail, there was a shallow coulee a league away with stunted birches on the edge of it, which would presently rise for a landmark out of the prairie. Once she glanced over her shoulder. There was only the soft darkness, out of which there came a thumping that seemed to be growing fainter.

She was almost upon the birches when she heard another beat of hoofs in front of her now, and she sent up a breathless cry.

"Charley!" she called, and again in fierce impatience, "Charley!"

For a moment she was conscious of a torturing suspense, and then a man's voice came out of the darkness in answer.

"All right," it said. "I'm coming straight along."

In another few moments a shadowy figure had materialised out of the prairie. She pulled her horse up with a struggle when Leland drew bridle beside her.

"Steady, my dear," he said. "Get your breath and tell me what it is."

Carrie gasped out her news, and the man sat silent a moment or two.

"Urmston's there, and Mrs. Annersly," he said. "I don't think they'll hurt them, but I'd better get on."

Carrie leant out from the saddle, and attempted to touch his bridle as the fidgeting horses pranced side by side.

"No," she said, "you mustn't. I will not have you go. I think they mean to kill you."

Leland appeared to smile. "I guess that contract would be a little too big for them. Still, if Urmston riled them, they might hurt him. The man's a friend of yours."

Carrie laughed somewhat bitterly. "I don't think he will do anything very injudicious. Eveline Annersly's room is just across the house, and she sleeps very soundly."

"They wouldn't hurt her," said Leland, reflectively. "One could count on that. Urmston would be all right, too, if he has sense enough to keep quiet. Now, there are two of Grier's troopers camping in a bluff a league back to watch the trail, and if I could only bring them up before the rustlers go, we ought to get one or two of them. It's 'most worth while trying. You'll ride round with me?"

Nothing more was said when Carrie signified that she was willing, and they rode on again to where the troopers were. Then with these reinforcements they turned back to Prospect, arriving there when dawn was climbing into the sky. There was no sign of the rustlers, but Urmston stood just outside the door.

"They went soon after Mrs. Leland got away," he said. "I feel that I ought to make excuses for leaving the thing to her, though I'm not sure that there was, in view of the circumstances, any other course open to me."

Leland laughed as he swung himself from the saddle. "That's all right. You did the sensible thing, and nobody's going to blame you," he said. "If you don't mind rousing Jake, we'll get the troopers breakfast before they go away. You know your way to the stables, boys."

Urmston and the troopers disappeared, and Carrie looked down on her husband, who stood, a shadowy figure, beside her stirrup.

"You," she said, with a little soft laugh, "would have found another course."

Leland said nothing, but stretched his arms up, and, when she slipped from the saddle into them, held her there while he kissed her.

CHAPTER XIX
PRAIRIE HAY

It was the middle of a scorching afternoon when Carrie drew her waggon over a low rise and down the long slope to the dried-up sloo. Urmston, riding beside it, sprinkled white with dust, looked uncomfortably hot, and Eveline Annersly, whose face was unpleasantly flushed, tried in vain to shelter herself beneath her parasol in the jolting waggon.

"I am positively melting, and my head aches," she said. "If I had known how hot it was, you would never have got me here, and, if Mrs. Custer will keep me, I am not going back to Prospect to-night. How does your husband work this weather?"

Carrie laughed as she pulled her team up near the sloo. She, at least, looked delightfully fresh and almost cool in her long white dress and big white hat.

"He would probably tell you it is because he has to," she said. "In any event, he seems to be working rather harder than ever."

"It is one of Charley Leland's strong points that he knows when a thing has to be done," and Eveline Annersly glanced at Urmston with a little smile. "There are men who don't, and never will, though they are sometimes able to shift the consequences on to the shoulders of other people."

Then she turned, and blinked about her with half-dazed eyes. In front of the waggon a haze of dust floated up against the intense blueness of the sky, and under it a belt of tall, harsh grass rustled drily in the scant, hot breeze. Everything seemed white and suffused with brightness. Beyond them, the parched, grey prairie rolled back to the horizon. There was no shade anywhere, nor, so far as the eye could travel, a single speck of green.

"And this is a prairie sloo!" she said. "I had pictured a nice, cool lake where the wild duck swim. Charley is, presumably, haymaking, though I never saw it done this way before."

The dust settled a little, and, with a clashing tinkle, there came out of it three big teams and lurching machines. The grass went down before them crackling harshly, and the horses plodded on with tossing heads and whipping tails amidst a cloud of flies. Men followed behind them heaping the hay in piles, and across the mown strip of sloo more men, almost naked, were flinging the last of the mounds into a waggon. There is no need of turning and winnowing in that country. The one thing necessary is to find grass tall enough to cut, and get it home before the fires do the reaping.

The big machines came nearer with a clash and clatter and gleam of sliding knives, and Leland, swinging his team out from the grass, got down from his driving-seat.

"Where's my jacket, Tom?" he said to the man on the machine behind his.

"I expect it has gone home. You pitched it into the waggon," said Tom Gallwey, who, swinging off his hat as his team went by, plunged into the dust again.

Leland moved forward with a deprecatory gesture as he stopped beside the waggon. He wore a coarse blue shirt and old jean trousers, both of which were smeared with black grease, on which the dust had settled, for one of the mowers had given him trouble that morning. There was dust, too, on his dripping face and bare arms, which were scarred here and there. Still, the thin attire lent a certain grace to his wiry figure, and he appeared the personification of strength and activity. From another point of view, his appearance was, however, distinctly against him, and Carrie fancied she knew what Urmston was thinking, as he sat still in his saddle, immaculate, save for a sprinkling of dust, in neat boots, straw hat, and tweed. The difference between the men would have had its effect upon her once, but now she looked down at Leland with an understanding smile.

"You have been mowing all the time?" she said.

"Since sun-up," and Leland laughed. "I couldn't give the teams more than an hour's rest, either. We have to clean this sloo up by dark."

Carrie glanced at the great belt of grass and wondered how it was to be done.

"It looks out of the question, and it's very hot," she said. "Couldn't you stop a little earlier, for once, and ride over to the Range? Mrs. Custer half expects you at supper."

She evidently wanted him to come, and Leland, who seemed to feel it, glanced back irresolutely at the sloo.

"I'm afraid not," he said. "It's quite a way, and I haven't a horse. The others couldn't get done by dark without me, and we couldn't come back here to-morrow. You'll have to excuse me."

Carrie was displeased, though she would not show it, for she had seen the smile of satisfaction in Urmston's eyes. Appearances, she knew, counted for a good deal with him, as much, in fact, as they had once done with her, and she would sooner he had not been there when the dusty haymaker made it evident that he was unwilling to leave his work, although she had suggested that this would please her.

"I suppose it's necessary?" she said.

Leland appeared to hesitate a moment. "I must get this grass home to-night, but, if it's not too late, I would like you to drive round and pick me up. It would get me back 'most an hour earlier."

Carrie was sensible, with a little annoyance, that Urmston was watching her. "Well," she said, "I can't exactly promise. It will depend upon when Mrs. Custer lets us go."

Just then a light waggon came jolting down the opposite slope, and its driver pulled his team up when it drew even with them.

"I've some letters for Prospect, and you have saved me 'most a league's ride. That counts on a day like this," he said.

Leland caught the packet from him, and handed one or two of the letters to Urmston. The man drove on again. As Carrie's waggon also jolted away, Leland leant against the wheel of the mower, opening those addressed to him. Gallwey, who was passing, pulled his team up and looked down at him inquiringly.

"Anything of consequence?" he said.

Leland shrugged a weary shoulder. "The usual thing," he said. "The implement man wants his money now, though I understood he was going to wait until harvest. The fellow in Winnipeg can't sell the horses. There's a letter from the bank, too. If I purpose drawing on them further, they'd like something as security. The rest are unpleasantly big accounts from the stores."

Then he thrust the papers into his pocket with a harsh laugh. "I'm not going to straighten things out by standing here, and they want a lot."

He called to his horses, and the mower clashed on again. The dust rose and settled on his face, once more set hard and grim. As he was toiling on, with the perspiration dripping from him, Urmston rode beside Carrie's waggon, exchanging light badinage with her. Carrie was feeling a trifle hurt, but she would not have either of her companions become aware of it. Urmston, she noticed, did not open his letters. After they had been an hour at the Range, he came, with one of them in his hand, into the room where she sat. His face was flushed, and there was an anxious look in his eyes. He glanced round the shadowy room. "Where is Eveline Annersly?" he asked.

Carrie smiled absently, though something in his attitude caused her a slight uneasiness. "Looking at Mrs. Custer's turkeys, I believe," she said. "It shows her good-nature, because I don't think they appeal to her any more than they do to me."

Urmston stood a moment or two as though listening. There was no sound from the buildings outside, and the house was very still. He moved forward closer to her, and leant upon the table, his hand clenched on the letter.

"I have been endeavouring to get rid of that insufferable Custer for the last hour," he said. "There is something I have to tell you."

"Well?" The incisive monosyllable expressed inquiry without encouragement.

"The men I came out with are going on north to Edmonton, and expect me to go with them. In fact, they have been good enough to intimate that they are astonished at my long absence, and it is evident that, if I am to go on with the thing, I must leave Prospect to-day or to-morrow."

"Well," said Carrie, with a disconcerting lack of disquietude, "you couldn't expect them to wait indefinitely."

The man gazed at her in evident astonishment. "Don't you understand? I couldn't get back here from Edmonton."

"That is tolerably evident."

Urmston looked his disappointment, but he roused himself with an effort. "Carrie," he said, "I can't go. You don't wish me to?"

Carrie looked at him steadily, though there was now a faint flush in her cheeks.

"I think it would be better if you told me exactly what you mean by that," she said.

"Is it necessary to ask me? You know that I loved you – and I love you now. If you had been happy I might have hid my feelings – at least, I would have tried – but when I find you with a ploughman husband who could never understand or appreciate you, silence becomes impossible. He cares nothing for you, and neglects you openly."

The girl glanced down at the ring on her finger. "Still," she said, with portentous calm, "that implies a good deal."

Urmston grew impatient. "Pshaw!" he said hoarsely, "one goes past conventions. You never loved him in the least. How could you? It would have been preposterous."

"And I once loved you? Well, perhaps I did. But let us be rational. What is all this leading to?"

Her dispassionate quietness should have warned him, but it merely jarred on his fastidiousness. He was not then in a mood for accurate observation.

"Only that I cannot go away," he said. "This summer was meant for us. Leland thinks of nothing, cares for nothing but his farm. He has not even feeling enough to be jealous of you."

"Ah," said Carrie, while the red spot grew plainer in her cheek, "and then? A summer, after all, does not last very long."

The man appeared embarrassed and confused at the girl's hard, insistent tones.

"Go on," she said sharply. "What is to happen when the summer is gone?"

Again Urmston was silent, with the blood in his face. Carrie Leland slowly rose. For a moment she said nothing, but he winced beneath her gaze.

"You do not know?" she said. "Well, I think I can tell you. When I had earned my husband's hate and contempt, you would go back to England. You would not even take me with you, and you would certainly go; for what would you do in this country? The life the men here lead would crush you. Of course you realised it before you came to me to-day."

Urmston made a gesture of protest, but she silenced him with a flash from her eyes.

"I have had patience with you, because there was a time when I loved you, but you shall hear me now. If you had shown yourself masterful and willing to risk everything for me, when we were at Barrock-holme, I think I should have gone away with you and forsaken my duty; but you were cautious – and half afraid. You could not even make love boldly. Indeed, I wonder how I ever came to believe in such a feeble thing as you."

"But," said Urmston hoarsely, "you led me on."

Again Carrie silenced him. "Wait," she said. "Did you suppose that if I hated my husband and loved you still, I could have requited all that he has done for me with treachery? Do you think I have no sense of honour or any sense of shame? It was only for one reason I let you go as far as you have done. I wanted to see if there was a spark of courage or generosity in you, because I should have liked to think as well as I could of you. There was none. After the summer you – would have gone away."

She hesitated with a catch of her breath. "Reggie," she said, "do you suppose that, even if you had courage enough to suggest it, anything would induce me to leave my husband because – you – asked me to?"

The man winced again, and his face grew even hotter beneath her gaze.

"You would have done so once," he said, as though nothing else occurred to him.

"And I should have been sorry ever since, even if I had never understood the man I have married. As it is, I would rather be Charley Leland's slave or mistress than your wife."

At last the man's eyes blazed. "You can love that ploughman, that half-tamed brute?"

Carrie laughed softly. "Yes," she said, "I love him. If it is any consolation, I think it was partly you who taught me to."

There was a moment's silence, and then Urmston, who heard footsteps in the hall, swung round as Eveline Annersly came in. She looked at them both with a comprehending smile, for she was shrewd, and their faces made comparatively plain the nature of what had taken place.

"I wonder," she said, "if I am intruding?"

"No," said Carrie. "In fact, I think Reggie would like to say good-bye to you. He is going away to-day."

"Ah," said Eveline Annersly, the twinkle still in her eyes, "I really think that is wise of him. He must be keeping the farming experts waiting. Indeed, I'm not sure it wouldn't have been more considerate if he had gone before."

Urmston said nothing, but went out to make his excuses to Custer. In another half-hour he was riding to the railroad across the prairie. Carrie watched him from the homestead until at last he sank behind the crest of a low rise. Then she went back into the house with a little sigh of relief. Eveline Annersly, who was in the room when she came in, smiled curiously.

"I am not going back to-night. The sun has given me a headache, for one thing," she said. "Besides that, Mrs. Custer insists on keeping me for a day or two. You can drive round for Charley."

"The waggon," said Carrie, "will easily hold three."

Her companion looked at her with twinkling eyes. "I almost think two will be enough to-night."

Carrie made no answer, but did as was suggested. It was about nine o'clock that evening when she pulled her team up beside the sloo. Leland, who had found his jacket and brushed off some of the dust, was standing there beside a pile of prairie hay. There was nobody else in sight. A row of loaded waggons and teams loomed black against the sunset at the edge of the prairie. There was a fond gleam in his eyes as he looked up at Carrie.

"Eveline Annersly is staying all night," she said. "You will be worn out; there is almost a load of the hay left."

Leland looked at the big pile of grass. "We couldn't get that lot up, unfortunately. It's a long way to come back to-morrow."

"Well," said Carrie, merrily, "this waggon must have cost you a good deal, and it is one of the few things about Prospect that has never done anything to warrant its being there. I really don't think a little clean hay would harm it."

Leland appeared astonished. "You are sure you wouldn't mind?" he asked.

"Of course not! I will help you to load it if you will hand me down."

The gleam in Leland's eyes was plainer when he reached up and grasped her hands. Carrie, who remembered what had happened last time, shrank from the caress she half expected. Perhaps Leland realised it with his quick intuition, for he merely swung her down. Then she threw in the hay by the armful while he plied the fork. The soft green radiance that precedes the coming dusk hung above the prairie when he roped the load down securely. It was piled high about the driving-seat of the waggon, making a warm, fragrant resting place, into which he lifted his wife. Then, as the team moved on slowly, he turned and looked at her.

"Thank you, my dear," he said; "that was very kind."

Carrie flushed. "Surely not, when you have so much to do. It saves you a long drive to-morrow, doesn't it? But why were you waiting? I did not promise to come round, and you could have ridden home on one of the waggons. It must be six miles."

"Well," said Leland seriously, "it seemed quite worth while to wait most of the night, even if I'd had to walk in afterwards. I knew Mrs. Annersly meant to stay, and you and I have had only one drive together."

Carrie felt her cheeks grow warm again. Her usual composure had vanished. During that other journey, she had lain half frozen in his arms. There had been snow upon the prairie then, and she had shrunk from him; but it was summer now, and all was different. The hay overhung and projected all about them, so that there was very little room on the driving-seat, and she felt her heart throbbing as she sat pressed close against his shoulder. Leland said nothing, and the waggon jolted on through the silent night to the tune of horses' hoofs, while the green transparency faded into the dusky blueness of the night.