Harold Bindloss - The Greater Power

Waynefleet was dressed in duck, but it was whole and unsoiled, and Nasmyth made his own deductions from a glance at the delicate hands. As a rule, Waynefleet’s expression was discontented and querulous, but for the time being his manner was gracious. In fact, he was generally more or less courteous to Nasmyth.

“Miss Waynefleet tells me you are thinking of going away,” said the owner of the ranch.

Nasmyth replied that he intended to leave the ranch, and was explaining that he felt he had already abused his host’s kindness, when Waynefleet cut him short.

“We have been glad to have you here,” he said; “in fact, I have been wondering if you might feel disposed to stay. It is probably evident to you that I cannot do all that is necessary about this place with one pair of hands.”

Nasmyth knew, from what he had seen on other and larger ranches, that one man could do the work, though he felt that it was more than one could reasonably have expected from Waynefleet. It was, however, clear that somebody did a great deal, and he fancied that it was the rancher’s daughter.

“Well,” continued Waynefleet, “I am disposed to spend a little upon the ranch. They are talking of building a pulp-mill near the settlement. That will make land more valuable, and probably lead to a demand for produce. With that in view, I wish to raise a larger crop, and I’m open to hire somebody.” He made a little gesture. “My strength scarcely permits me to undertake any severe physical effort, and I may confess that my faculty is rather that of administration. Now I will make you an offer.”

Nasmyth considered it gravely. As it happened, he was feeling sorry for the rancher’s daughter, and it was this fact chiefly which led him to come to terms with the man, since it seemed to him that there were tasks the girl must shrink from–tasks of which he could relieve her. Though he was quite aware that when his strength came back, he could probably earn more than Waynefleet offered him, he accepted the chance to stay at the ranch. Moreover, the varied work was likely to be much easier than logging.

“It’s a bargain. I’ll make a start now, and haul one or two of those logs out with the oxen,” he said. “Still, I’m afraid you must not expect too much from me for a week or two.”

Waynefleet made no objections. There was, as a matter of fact, a great deal to be done, and Nasmyth went back to his new quarters over the stable almost too weary to hold himself upright that night. He, however, gathered strength rapidly, and a few days later he was chopping a great tree, standing on a narrow plank notched into the trunk of it several feet from the ground as he swung the axe, when the man who had instructed Miss Waynefleet how to nurse him came up the trail. Gordon sat down on a log close by, and looked at Nasmyth.

“I was coming round to make sure I was quite through with your case, but it’s tolerably evident you have no more use for me,” he said. “Stopping here?”

Nasmyth said he was, and Gordon nodded.

“Well,” he said, “in several ways I’m rather glad. It’s going to make things easier for Miss Waynefleet. Guess you understand what I meant when I said she ran the ranch?”

Nasmyth said he thought he did, and then, with a certain diffidence, he changed the subject.

“You must have spent a good deal of time looking after men–professionally,” he said.

Gordon laughed in a somewhat curious fashion. “We’ll let that go. In one sense, I’ve dropped my profession. I had to, and it’s scarcely likely that I shall take it up again.”

“I wonder,” said Nasmyth reflectively, “if it’s admissible for me to mention that I had fancied something of the kind. You see, in the Bush, I have naturally come across a good many men who have turned their backs upon the cities.”

Gordon made a little gesture. “It’s a sure thing you’ll hear a good deal about me at the settlement, where, though the boys don’t cast it up to me, I’m credited with having killed somebody back East, and as I’ve had an idea that I could hit it rather well with you, I’d sooner tell you the thing myself. Well, I was making my mark in a big city, several years ago, when I lost my head. When success comes too quickly, it’s a thing you’re rather apt to do. The trouble is that you have usually to face the results of it.”

He broke off for a moment with a little wry smile. “In my case they were serious. There was a woman of hysterical temperament with a diseased imagination. I was overworked and a trifle overwrought, and had a glass of brandy too much at a certain committee lunch. Then there was a rather delicate operation in a hospital, and though I’m not sure yet that I blundered, it was suggested that I did, and the thing was complicated by what the woman said when the committee took it up. It didn’t matter that the patient recovered, for when he took action against the woman, the thing made a sensation in the Eastern papers.”

He looked at Nasmyth with a question in his eyes.

“Now,” he said, “you more or less understand my reasons for ranching here. How’s it going to affect you?”

Nasmyth gazed reflectively towards the East. “I think,” he replied, “there are more of us who have left a good deal behind back yonder. Perhaps it’s fortunate that the thing is possible.”

Then he swung his axe again, and Gordon, who saw Waynefleet approaching, strolled away towards the ranch-owner.

It was a hot summer evening, and a drowsy, resinous fragrance stole out of the shadowy bush when Nasmyth, who had now spent six months at Waynefleet’s ranch, lay among the wineberries by the river-side. Across the strip of sliding water the sombre firs rose in a great colonnade from the grey rock’s crest, with the fires of sunset blazing behind their wide-girthed trunks. The river was low and very clear, and the sound of it seemed to intensify the solemn stillness of the Bush. Nasmyth had come there to fish, after a long day of tolerably arduous labour, but he did not expect much success, though the trout rise freely just after sunset in those rivers. Indeed, he had almost forgotten that the rod and net lay near his side, for his employer’s daughter sat on a fallen cedar not far away from him.

She had laid her hat aside, and, as it happened, two humming-birds that flashed, bejewelled, in a ray of ruddy light hung poised on invisible wings about the clustered blossoms of an arrow-bush that drooped above her head. She was, however, not looking at them, but watching Nasmyth with thoughtful eyes. Everything she wore was the work of her own fingers, but the light print dress became her curiously well.

“You have been here six months now,” she said.

“I have,” answered Nasmyth, with a little laugh. “I almost venture to think I do you credit, in view of the state I was in when I reached the ranch. If you hadn’t taken me in hand, two or three days would probably have been the length of my stay.”

The girl made no disclaimer. She was one who admitted facts, even when they did not chime with her wishes, and she still regarded Nasmyth thoughtfully. He certainly did her credit, so far as his physical appearance went, for his strength had fully come back to him, and, as he lay among the wineberries in an easy pose, his thin duck garments displayed the fine proportions of a figure that had been trained almost to muscular perfection by strenuous labour. The light of the paling sunset was on his bronzed face, and it revealed the elusive delicacy that characterized it. Nasmyth was certainly a well-favoured man, but there were respects in which his companion was not altogether satisfied with him. She had, as she admitted, restored him to bodily health, but, after all, that was only going so far, and she felt it was possible that she might accomplish a little more, though there was no very evident reason why she should wish to do so. Still, she was conscious of the wish.