"Stop a moment," she said. "You daren't hurt a woman. It would raise all the prairie against you; but, if one of you comes near that lamp, I will certainly shoot him."

The leader made a little gesture, half of admiration and half of anger.

"Now," he said, "we've had 'bout enough talking, and your husband spoiled our game when he brought those troopers in. We know who sent for them. Well, we're lighting out for good after we've cleaned his safe out, and done one or two other little things. We don't want to hurt you, but we're not going to be held up by a woman. It's your last chance. Do you mean to be reasonable?"

Carrie was white to the lips, for it was perfectly plain that they intended to have a reckoning, before they went, with the man who had driven them out.

"Keep back from the light!" she said.

Then the outlaw made a little half-impatient gesture of resignation.

"Well," he said, "you'll have to get hold of her, boys."

They came forward, but, though that would have been wiser, they did not run. Two of them moved crouchingly, and Carrie could not see the third man. Still, they had only made a pace or two when one of them suddenly straightened himself.

"Look out!" he said; "we're going to have trouble now."

Carrie could not see the door behind her open, but Eveline Annersly saw it, and gasped. Then she laughed, a little hoa.r.s.e laugh that at any other time would have jarred on those who heard it, as Leland appeared in the opening. He was in pyjamas, and his face was white and haggard.

One arm, still bound up, hung at his side, but a big pistol glinted in his other hand. One of the outlaws recoiled, but his comrade sprang towards the lamp. Mrs. Annersly saw Carrie's rifle pitched forward, there was a double detonation, two jarring reports so close together that one could scarcely distinguish between them, and the man nearest the light reeled and struck the table before he sank into a huddled heap on the floor. A streak of blue smoke hovered in the middle of the room, and another filmy cloud floated about the inner door, through which Leland presently lurched, gaunt and pale and grim, with a look in his eyes that Eveline Annersly remembered afterwards with horror. He said nothing whatever, but his pistol blazed, and the room resounded with the quick, whip-like reports. Then there was thick darkness as the light went out. So far as Eveline Annersly, who was the only one who remembered anything, could make out, two of the outlaws retreated towards the door, shouting for their comrades; but they did not reach it, for a voice rang sharply outside.

"Hold up!" it said; "we've got you this time sure."

What took place outside did not appear at once, but a few minutes later somebody came in, calling out for Mrs. Leland, and struck a match. It went out, but another man soon appeared, holding up a lamp, the light of which showed Leland leaning upon the table with an arm round his wife, who was laughing hysterically.

"I didn't hit him, I didn't! You fired first!" she said.

"That's all right," said Leland, soothingly. "Anyway, there's a good deal of life in him yet. I'm quite sure I plugged another of them just before the light went out."

Carrie turned half round, glancing towards the man, who was struggling to raise himself from the floor, and then once more clung to Leland with a little cry.

Then Trooper Standish set down the lamp, and Sergeant Grier came forward, while several hot and dusty troopers stood revealed about the door.

"Is there anybody hurt except this man?" he asked.

Leland said there was n.o.body so far as he knew, and the Sergeant nodded.

"Then I guess you and Mrs. Leland had better light out of this, while we see what can be done for him and another man the boys have outside. I'll come along and tell you about it later."

Leland began to expostulate. "I've been tied up by the leg long enough, and there are one or two things I want to do right now."

The Sergeant, who ignored him, turned to Carrie with a little dry smile.

"Get him back to his bed, Mrs. Leland, as quick as you can, and send your friend away," he said. "You're going to have no more trouble, but this is no place for you."

Carrie seemed to rouse herself, and with some difficulty led her protesting husband away. Half an hour had pa.s.sed when the Sergeant and Gallwey, who had arrived in the meanwhile, were admitted to Leland's room. He now lay, partly dressed, in a big chair, for nothing that Carrie could do would induce him to go back to bed again. Grier sat down with a little smile, and Carrie looked at him warningly.

"You are not to excite him," she said.

"Excite me!" said Leland. "It's the one thing that has cured me. I'll be going round with the threshers in a day or two."

"Well," said the Sergeant, "it's quite a simple tale. One of your friends, perhaps a boy who'd worked for you, gave us the office at sun-up, and we started as soon as we heard what the rustlers meant to do. It seems, from what one or two of them have admitted, that they knew the game was up when the new troopers came, and meant to get even with you before lighting out."

"How did they know the boys were away, and what in the name of thunder did Gallwey keep them all this while at the ravine for?" Leland broke in.

Grier raised his hand. "You keep still. I'm telling this thing my own way. How the whisky boys found out more than that is one of the points I'm going to inquire into. Well, we started, and before we were half-way most of the horses were dead played out; and though I went round by a ranch, the boys were out driving cattle, and had only two horses in the stable. I guess we led the horses most of the rest of the way, until, when we were a league off, I rode on with one of the boys. Then, coming in quietly, we saw there was something wrong. While we waited for the boys, we fixed things so that we got our hands on four of the gang. Two of them are the bosses, and one of them wants a doctor, as well as the other man with the bullet in his leg. That's about all there is to it.

You're not going to have any more trouble with the rustlers."

"Will the man Charley shot get well?" asked Carrie, with tense anxiety.

The Sergeant smiled. "Oh, yes," he said. "He'll be on his way to Regina jail in a day or two."

He went out with Gallwey by-and-bye, and Carrie sat down by her husband, with a little happy laugh.

"Oh," she said, "that's one trouble done with; and, if you won't excite yourself, Charley, I'll tell you something more. Wheat is going up."

CHAPTER x.x.x

HARVEST

There was no longer any fierceness in the sunshine, and the day was cloudless and pleasantly cool when Carrie Leland and Eveline Annersly strolled through the harvest field at the middle of afternoon. The aspect of things had changed since the morning Leland had fallen from his binder, for, though there was a little breeze, the wheat no longer rolled before it in rippling waves. It stood piled in long rows of sheaves that gleamed with bronze and gold in a great sweep of ochre-tinted stubble, beyond which the prairie stretched back, dusty white, to the cold blueness of the northern horizon.

The sheaves were, however, melting fast, for waggons piled high with them moved towards a big machine that showed up dimly against a cloud of smoke and dust in the foreground. A long spout rose high above it, pouring down a golden cascade of straw upon a shapeless mound, and a swarm of half-seen figures toiled amidst the dust. The threshers are usually paid by the bushel in that country, and since they have, as they would say, no use for anything but the latest and most powerful engine and mill, it was only by fierce, persistent effort the men of Prospect kept the big machine fed. Its smoke trail drifted far down the prairie, and through the deep hum it made there rose the thud of hoofs and the sounds of human activity, which, it seemed to Carrie Leland as she stood in the bright sunshine under the cloudless sky, had a glad, exultant note in them. It stirred her curiously with its vague suggestion of faith that had proved warranted. Once more there had been a fulfilment of the promise made when the waters dried, and, in spite of drought and scourging hail, the harvest had not failed.

"Ah," she said, "it is easy to be an optimist to-day. It is the looking forward when everything appears against one that is difficult; but, when I remember the springtime, I feel I shall never have any reason to be proud of myself again."

Eveline Annersly's eyes twinkled. "I'm not sure the time you mentioned could have been particularly pleasant to Charley, either."

"Still," said Carrie, with a little sigh, "he held fast to his optimism and worked, while I let the gloom of it overmaster me."

"And now, as the result of it, that machine is threshing out I don't know how many thousand bushels of splendid wheat."

Carrie's eyes grew gentle, and there was a little thrill in her voice.

"We have both of us ever so much more than the wheat to be thankful for," she said.

Then she changed the subject abruptly. "Aunt, if you want to catch the New York mail, you will have to answer that letter to-night. You know that neither of us wants you to go."

"Would you like to go back to England?"

Carrie looked at the wheat and great sweep of prairie with glowing eyes. "I think I should be content wherever my husband went. There was a time when I fancied that if we had several good harvests and he sold Prospect, it would be nice to go back with him to the old country, but now I do not know. I seem to have grown since I came out here, and the prairie has, as he would say, got hold of me. It is so big and strenuous, there is so much in this country that is worth doing, and I think Charley is like it in many ways. No, I scarcely fancy he would ever be quite happy in England. But, after all, that is not the question. We want you. Do you feel you must go back again?"

Her companion smiled a little. "I am not altogether sure that I do, but one has to consider a good many things. The house Florence writes about at Cransly is pretty and convenient, and, by sharing expenses, we could live there comfortably enough. Still, you know the life two elderly ladies would lead at Cransly, and after Barrock-holme--and Prospect--there are ways in which it would not appeal to me very strongly."

"Oh, I know," and Carrie laughed. "You would be expected to set everybody a model of propriety, and to rule with the vicar's wife such society as there is in the place. You would have to know the exact shade of graciousness to bestow upon the wife of the local doctor, and how to check the presumptuous advances of the retired tradesman or the daughters of the stranger who settled within your borders. Isn't it all a little small and petty?"

She turned once more to the prairie with a gesture of pride. "Ah," she said, "out here it's only what is essential that comes first. We open our gates to the stranger and give him our best, even when he comes on foot in dusty jean. It's manhood that counts for everything, and Charley and the others are always opening the gates a little wider. We take all who come, the poor and the outcast, and ask no questions. One has only to look round and see what the prairie has made of them. Aunt, I think the greatest thing in human nature is the faith of the optimist. No, I shall stay here, and you will stay with me."