"I'm thinking that will do in the meantime. Chapleau, ye'll ride in to the depot and wire for a surgeon. Now, boys, are any of ye willing to take Niven home?" asked Mackay.
Apparently none of them were willing, though at last two offers were reluctantly made. It was the only time I ever saw the prairie settlers deficient in hospitality; but the man's conduct had confirmed their suspicions as to his connection with Lane, which was sufficient to prejudice the most generous. "Maybe he would be comfortable if I took him along with me," Mackay said dryly.
Thereupon the assembly broke up, and I rode back to Bonaventure, reaching it with the first of the daylight, blackened and singed, while, as it happened, Lucille Haldane was the first person I met. "Where have you been? Your clothes are all burned!" she said.
"Gaspard's Trail is burned down and I helped to save some of the horses," I answered wearily; and I never forgot the girl's first startled look. She appeared struck with a sudden consternation. It vanished in a moment, and, though she looked almost guilty, her answer was reassuring.
"Of course; that is just what you would do. But you are tired and must rest before you tell me about it."
I was very tired, and slept until noon, when I told my story to Haldane and his daughter together. The former made very few comments, but presently I came upon Lucille alone, and laid my hand on her shoulder as I said: "Do you know that somebody suggested it was I who burned Gaspard's Trail?"
The girl's color came and went under my gaze; then she lifted her head and met it directly. "I--I was afraid you might be suspected, and for just a moment or two, when you first came in looking like a ghost, I did not know what to think," she said. "But it was only because you startled me so."
"I would not like to think that you could believe evil against me," I said; and Lucille drew herself up a little. "Do not be ungenerous. As soon as I could reason clearly I knew it was quite--quite impossible."
"I hope any work of that kind is," I said; and Lucille Haldane, turning suddenly, left me.
Winter passed very monotonously with us in the sod-house at Crane Valley. When the season's work is over and the prairie bound fast by iron frost, the man whom it has prospered spends his well-earned leisure visiting his neighbors or lounging contentedly beside the stove; but those oppressed by anxieties find the compulsory idleness irksome, and I counted the days until we could commence again in the spring. The goodwill of my neighbors made this possible, for one promised seed-wheat, to be paid for when harvest was gathered in; another placed surplus stock under my charge on an agreement to share the resultant profit, while Haldane sent a large draft of young horses and cattle he had hardly hands enough to care for, under a similar arrangement.