CHAPTER XV

ON THE TRAIL

Nevis was not, as a rule, easily turned aside when he had taken a task in hand, and his failure at the Calvert homestead only made him more determined to run Winthrop down. Besides, he had not failed altogether, for he had at least caught a glimpse of the stamp on the letter, and he had no doubt that it was a Canadian one. There was an appreciable difference in the design and color of the American stamps. This indicated that in all probability Winthrop was still in Canada, in which case there would be no difficulty in arresting him once his whereabouts could be discovered. The tracing of the latter promised to be less easy, but Nevis set about it, and shortly afterward fortune once more favored him.

His business was an extensive one; he had money laid out here and there over a wide stretch of country, and he had already discovered that it required a good deal of watching. As a matter of fact, the latter was advisable, for some of the men to whom he lent it were addicted to disappearing without leaving any address or intimation as to what they had done with the movable portion of their hypothecated possessions. It is true that they generally had repaid Nevis a large part of his loan, as well as an exorbitant interest for a considerable time, but then had abandoned the struggle in despair. From his point of view, however, neither fact had any particular bearing on the matter. He expected a good deal more than the value of a hundred cents when he laid down a dollar.

One night a week or two after he called on Mrs. Calvert, he strolled out on to the platform of a train that had been run on to a lonely side-track beside a galvanized iron shed and a big water-tank. He was leaning on the rails, when the conductor came out of the vestibule behind him.

"We're not scheduled to stop," he commented.

"No, sir," replied the conductor. "Guess the company had once a notion of making a station here, but they cut it out. It's used as a section-depot and side-track, and now and then a freight pulls up for water. There's a soft spring here, and you can't get good water right along the line. Any kind won't do in a locomotive boiler."

The man was unusually loquacious for a western railroad hand, and Nevis, who had been glancing out at the shadowy sweep of prairie, amid which the straight track lost itself, felt inclined to talk.

"But what's holding us up?" he asked.

"Montreal express. She's on the next section, and it's quite a long one. They side-track everything to let her through."

A thought took shape in Nevis's mind. The point that suggested itself appeared at least worth attention, and he asked a question:

"Would a wire to anybody in the district be sent to the station ahead?"

The conductor said that it would, and added that the man in charge of the place where they were then stopping was called up only in case of necessity to hold a train on the side-track. He explained that although the instruments clicked out any message sent right along the circuit the operators, as a rule, listened only when they got their particular signal. This had a certain significance to Nevis.

"Is there often a freight-train waiting here when you come along?" he asked.

"That's so," said his companion. "We take the section if the Atlantic flyer's late, and they have to cut out the pick-up freight if she's in front of us. When she was standing yonder one night a little while back I saw what struck me as quite a curious thing. Just as we struck the tail switches a man dropped off a caboose coupled on behind the freight-cars; it was good clear moonlight, and I watched him. He kept the train between him and the shack behind you, and started out over the prairie as fast as he could. Then we ran in behind the freight-cars, but as soon as we were clear the engineer pulled them out, and as I looked back the man dropped into the grass like a stone. Bill, who runs this place, was standing outside his shack, and that may have had something to do with it."

"It sounds strange," commented Nevis. "Can you remember when it was?"

The conductor contrived to do so, and Nevis was not astonished when he heard the date. He decided that it would be wise to compare his conclusion with any views his companion might have about the matter.

"It's possible it was only one of the boys stealing a ride," he suggested.

"In that case he needn't have been so scared of Bill," was the answer. "It's most unlikely he'd have got out on the prairie after him. Strikes me the man was mighty anxious nobody should see him. Anyway, I thought no more about the thing, and only remembered it to-night."

Just then the scream of a whistle came ringing up the track, and the conductor pointed to a fan-shaped blaze of brightness which swept up out of the prairie.

"The express; I'll have to get along. We'll be off in two or three minutes now."

Nevis lighted a cigar as soon as he was left alone, and by the time the great express had flashed by with a clash and clatter he felt convinced that Corporal Slaney had erred in assuming that Winthrop had escaped across the frontier. Having arrived at this decision, he strolled back into the lighted car as the train crept out across the switches on to the waste of prairie. He had now something to act upon.

In the meanwhile, a weary man, dressed in somewhat ragged duck, sat one evening outside a tent pitched in the hollow of a prairie coulée, with a letter in his hand. His attitude was suggestive of dejection, but he clenched the paper in hard, brown fingers, and there was an ominous look in his weather-darkened face. It was careworn, though he was young, and his general appearance and expression seemed to indicate that he was a simple man who had borne a burden too heavy for him, until at last he had revolted in desperation against the intolerable load.

A new branch line crept along the side of the shallow coulée, which wound deviously across the great white sea of grass, and the trestles of a half-finished bridge rose, a gaunt skeleton of timber, above the creek that flowed through the valley. A cluster of tents and a galvanized iron shack, with a funnel projecting above it, crowned the crest of a neighboring ridge, and a murmur of voices and laughter rose faintly from the groups of men who lay about them. Winthrop, however, had pitched his camp a little distance from the others, so as to be nearer his work, which consisted in removing the soil from the side of the coulée to make room for the road-bed. He had obtained a team from a neighboring rancher, and a satisfactory rate of payment from the railroad contractor. Indeed, during the last few weeks he had almost fancied that he was at last leaving his troubles behind him, and then that afternoon another blow had suddenly fallen. The letter from Lucy Calvert contained the disturbing news that Nevis, who seemed to have discovered that he had not left Canada, was still in pursuit of him.

Presently two of his comrades from the camp strolled up to his tent and stretched themselves out on the harsh, white grass in front of it. They were attired as he was, and they had toiled hard under a scorching sun all day handling heavy rails, but one was a man of excellent education, and the other had owned a wheat farm until the frost had reaped his crop and ruined him.

"You're looking blue to-night," commented the latter.

"Well," acknowledged Winthrop grimly, "there's a reason. I've put quite a lot of work in on that road-bed the last few weeks, but the trouble is I won't get a dollar unless I stay with it and keep up to specification until next pay-day."

"Of course!" said the man who had spoken. "Why should you want to quit?"

Winthrop glanced at the letter.

"I've had a warning. Guess I'll have to pull out again sudden one of these days."

There was silence for a few moments after this. The men had gone on well together, and within certain limits the toilers in a track-grading camp make friends rapidly, but for all that there are unwritten rules of etiquette in such places, and questions on some points are apt to be resented.

Still, Winthrop's face was troubled, and his expression hinted that it might be a consolation to take somebody into his confidence.

"Creditors?" one of his companions ventured to suggest.

"You've hit it first time, Drakesford. Bondholder who's been bleeding me quite a few years now. Raked in what I made each harvest--left me not quite enough to live on--until I began to see that I'd have to work a lifetime to get clear of him. When I knocked a little off the debt one good year he piled up something else on me. Then I was short last payment, and he shut down on my farm."

Drakesford turned to his companion.

"Ever hear anything like that before, Watson?"

There was a trace of dryness in the other man's smile.

"I have," he answered; "it's not quite new on the prairie. One or two of the boys I know have been through that mill."

He turned toward Winthrop.

"How did the blamed insect first get hold of you?"

"I'd a notion of getting married, and meant to raise a record crop. Went along to the blood-sucker, who was quite willing to back me, and took out a mortgage. Pledged him all the place and stock for what he let me have."

"Probably a third of its value," interposed Drakesford.

"About that," Winthrop agreed. "A big crop might have cleared me then, but we had frost that year, and he commenced to play me. Made me insure stock and homestead in his company--and I guess he stuck me over that. Then I had to buy implements and any stores he sold from him, at about twice the usual figure; and one way or another the debt kept piling up."

"Couldn't you have gone short in your payments before it got too big, and let him sell the place?" suggested Drakesford. "In that case, anything over and above what he advanced would have had to be refunded to you. Still, the man you dealt with would probably have provided for that difficulty."

Watson grinned.

"A sure thing! He wouldn't shut down until it was a year when wheat was cheap and farms were bringing mighty little. Then he'd sell him up and buy the place in through a dummy, 'way down beneath its value. After that he'd rent it out until wheat went up and he'd get twice what he gave for it from some sucker."

It is possible that the farmer had arrived at something very near the truth, but his companion, who still seemed thoughtful, looked at Winthrop.

"When you got notice of foreclosure I suppose you cleared out and left him the place," he said. "How does that give him a hold on you?"

"I sold the team and stock first," replied Winthrop grimly. "He sent the police after me."

The man made a sign of comprehension.

"Naturally! But haven't you got some homestead exemption laws in this part of the country?"

"They don't apply to mortgaged property," Watson broke in. Then he looked up sharply. "But, I guess you've hit it. The debt secured by mortgage wasn't a big one, and the man piled up more on to it afterward. The law would exempt from seizure on that."

Winthrop considered this moodily.

"Well," he answered at length, "suppose you're right. Who's going to take up my case, and where am I to get the money to put up a fight? The only lawyer in the district wouldn't act against the bondholder, and I couldn't get at my mortgage deed anyway. It's in the man's hands, and I haven't a copy. I got out with the price of a few beasts, and left the rest to him." He paused, and clenched a big, brown hand. "If he's wise he'll be content with that, and quit; but you can't satisfy that man. He's got my farm; he's made my life bitter; brought three years of trouble on the girl I meant to marry; and now he's after me again. Seems to me I've laid down under it about long enough!"

He broke off and sat silent a while, gazing out across the prairie toward where the red glow of sunset burned far off on the lonely grassland's rim. Iron shack and clustered tents stood out against it sharply now, and the faint sound of voices that came up through the still, clear air seemed to jar on the man.

"They can laugh," he complained. "I could, once."

Then Watson changed the subject.

"Butler had a notion he'd try a shot or two to-morrow where the road goes through the rise, and he sent some giant-powder along. He wants you to clinch the detonators on the fuses and put them in."

Now dynamite is not often used in prairie railroading, but Winthrop had once handled it in another part of the country, and had mentioned the fact to a foreman who was disposed to experiment with it.

"It's no use in that loose stuff," he pointed out.

"Butler wants to try it," answered Watson. "There's no reason why you shouldn't let him. I dumped the magazine he sent you in the coulée. I didn't want to lie about smoking too near the detonators."

He walked away a little distance and came back with a case, out of which Winthrop took what looked like several yellow wax candles. Then he cut off three or four pieces of fuse, and carefully pinched down a big copper cap on the end of each of them. These he inserted into different sticks of the semi-plastic giant-powder in turn, and his companions drew a little away from him as he did so. It was getting dark now, but they could still see his face, and it was very hard and grim. It impressed them unpleasantly as they watched him handle the yellow rolls which contained imprisoned within them such tremendous powers. Giant-powder is a somewhat unstable product, as Winthrop knew from experience and the other two had heard, and in case of a premature explosion there was very little doubt as to what the fate of the party would be. Annihilation in its most literal sense was the only word that would describe it, for there was force enough in those yellow sticks to transform material flesh and blood into unsubstantial gases. The fulminate in the detonators he cautiously imbedded was even more terrible, and sitting with his bent form outlined darkly against the shadowy waste of grass, he looked curiously sinister. He finished his task at last and handed one of them the magazine.

"Shouldn't there be another stick?" Watson asked. "Have you left it in the grass?"

"You can look," said Winthrop curtly, as he moved aside.

Watson glanced round the place where he had been sitting.

"I can't see it, anyway. I dare say I couldn't have brought another one, after all."

He moved away with Drakesford and looked at the latter when they were some distance from the tent.

"It's curious about that stick," he observed. "I'm not convinced yet that I've got as many as I brought with me."

"Why should he want to keep one?" his companion asked.

"I don't know," Watson confessed. "But there was something in his face that didn't please me."

"Yes," agreed Drakesford; "I've once or twice seen overdriven men look like that, and so far as I can remember there was trouble afterward."

They said nothing further, and while they proceeded along the crest of the coulée Winthrop, still sitting beside his tent, took a stick of giant-powder from his pocket.