Harold Bindloss - Lorimer of the Northwest

He flung back the wrappings, and before I could stop her Grace bent down over the drawn white face with the red froth on the lips, while Ormond said quietly:

“Very bad, poor devil! I fancied Robin’s hoofs struck something that yielded when he made a landing. You will take him in if it’s only to oblige me, sir.”

Grace stood upright with tender compassion shining in her wet eyes as she fixed them on the old man.

“I am a woman now, father,” she said, “and I should like to help to cure him if it can be done. We shall do everything possible for him, anyway. Bring him forward, Sergeant Angus. Geoffrey, you know something of surgery.”

“I don’t make war on dying men. You will do whatever pleases you, Grace,” the ruler of Carrington answered, indifferently.

They carried their burden into another room, and I waited beside the stove, with two faces stamped on my memory. The one was that of the wounded man with its contraction of pain and glassy stare, and the other the countenance of Grace Carrington transfigured for a moment by a great pity that added to its loveliness. Still, the coming of this unexpected guest cast a gloom upon us, and we seldom saw Grace, while Ormond, who seemed to know a little of everything, once said on passing: “I have fixed him up as well as I could, but I think a broken rib has pierced his lung, and he’s sinking rapidly. However, Miss Carrington is doing her best, and he could not have a more efficient nurse.”

It was late in the afternoon when, on tapping at the door in search of tidings, Ormond called me in. The daylight was fading, but I could see the limp, suffering shape on the bed, and Grace sitting near the window, leaning forward as though listening.

“Light-headed at times!” said Ormond; “but he was asking for you. Do you feel any easier now? Here’s another inquirer anxious to hear good news of you.”

The man turned his drawn face toward me, and tried to smile as he said: “I guess you’re very good. Hope you don’t bear malice. You oughtn’t to anyhow – nearly broke my neck when you fired me through the doorway. All in the way of business, and I’m corralled now.”

I bent my head with a friendly gesture, for even I could read death in his face, and the outlaw, glancing toward Grace, added:

“If I’d known you, Missy, we’d never have held up this homestead. White people all through, and you’re a prairie daisy. What made me do it? Well, I guess that’s a long story, and some of it might scare you. A big man froze me off my land, and some one rebranded my few head of stock. Law! we don’t count much on that; it’s often the biggest rascals corral the offices, and we just laid for them with the rifle. They were too many for us – and this is the end of it.”

Grace moved toward him whispering something I could not catch, but the man smiled feebly, and I heard the grim answer:

“No; I guess it’s rather too late for that. I lived my own way, and I can die that way too. Don’t back down on one’s partners; kind of mean, isn’t it? And if it’s true what you’re saying I’ll just accept my sentence. Going out before the morning; but I sent two of the men who robbed me to perdition first.”

Ormond raised his hand for silence, and again I could hear the shrilling of the bitter wind that was never still. Then he said softly: “You are only exciting him, and had better go,” and with a last glance at Grace’s slender figure stooping beside the bed I went out softly.

It was nearly midnight and a cold creepiness pervaded everything when he joined the rest of us round the stove.

“Gone!” he said simply. “Just clenched his hand and died. There was some fine material wasted in that man. Well, I think he was wronged somehow, and I’m sorry for him.”

We turned away in silence, for a shadow rested upon Carrington, while the outlaw lay in state in the homestead he had helped to rob, until the Northwest Police bore what was left of him away. But before that time we rode back to Fairmead.

It was some time after the holding up of Carrington Manor before I was able, with Jasper’s assistance, to fulfill my promise to Minnie Fletcher. Jasper knew everybody within fifty miles up and down the C. P. R. Line, and at least as far across the prairie, while they all had a good word for him. So when he heard the story he drove us over to Clearwater, where an elevator had been built beside the track, only to find that the agent in charge of it had already a sufficient staff. He, however, informed us that the manager of a new creamery wanted a handy man to drive round collecting milk from the scattered homesteads who could also help at the accounts and clerking. Such a combination might not have been usual in England, but in the Western Dominion one may find University graduates digging trenches and unfortunate barristers glad to earn a few dollars as railroad hands.

“I guess we’ll fix him up in that creamery,” said Jasper. “The man who runs it was raised not far from the old folks’ place in Ontario,” and we started forthwith on an apparently endless ride across the frozen prairie. Some of our horses are not much to look at, and others are hard to drive, but the way they can haul the light wagons or even the humble ground sleigh along league after league would surprise those not used to them. We spent one night with a Highland crofter in a dwelling that resembled a burrow, for most of it was underground, but the rammed earth walls kept out the cold and the interior was both warm and clean. We spent another in somewhat grim conviviality at the creamery, for the men whose fathers hewed sites for what are now thriving towns out of the bush of Ontario are rather hard and staunch than sprightly.

Still, the manager did his best for us, and said on parting, “Send him right along. I’ll give any friend of yours a show if Jasper will vouch for him. Pay’s no great thing as yet, but he can live on it, and if we flourish he’ll sail ahead with us.”

So we brought Thomas Fletcher out from Winnipeg by joint subscription, and it cost us rather more than we cared about, for he came second class, while at that time Harry and I would have traveled “Colonist,” or on opportunity would have earned our passage by tending stock. If we could spare a dollar in those days we wanted it for our land. The old jauntiness had gone out of Fletcher. He looked worn and thinner, with, I fancied, signs of indulgence in alcohol, but he professed his willingness to work hard at anything that would keep a roof over Minnie’s head. We drove him across to the creamery, and the manager seemed disappointed when he saw him, while on the journey home Jasper said:

“I’ve been sizing up that young man. Strikes me he’s too much like the trash you British are over-fond of dumping on to us. Why can’t your people understand that if a man’s a dead failure over there we don’t want him? Dare say he’s honest, but he’s got no sand. Let that fellow sit up and talk over a glass of rye whiskey and a bad cigar and he’s right there; set him wrestling with a tough job and he’ll double up.”

Jasper posed as a judge of character, and I felt inclined to agree with him. Fletcher had not the appearance of a vicious or dishonest man, but I fancied under pressure of circumstances he might become one.

We built a new stable and barn that winter, hauling suitable logs – and they were very hard to find – ten miles across the prairie, while Harry nearly lost his hands by frost-bite bringing in one load. Nevertheless, and there is leisure in that season, we drove over now and then to Fletcher’s humble dwelling beside the creamery, and were both embarrassed the first time Minnie thanked us with tears in her eyes. Already she was recovering her good looks and spirits, but as Fletcher’s pay would be scanty until spring the odd bags of potatoes and flour we brought them were evidently acceptable. We had received help freely when we needed it, and it seemed only fitting that now we should help others in turn; so we did what little we could, and, as transpired later, it brought trouble on us. Also we managed to pay a few visits to other neighbors who lived at any distance within thirty miles, including a few farms of the Carrington group, where, perhaps especially for Harry’s sake, they made us welcome, and we went twice to Carrington Manor. The second visit was a memorable one.