Ranching for Sylvia. Harold Bindloss

and the immigrants meant to get on board them without loss of time. There were two gates, guarded by officials who endeavored to discriminate between the holders of first and second class tickets, but the crowd was in no mood to submit to the separation.

      It raged behind the barrier, and when one gate was rashly pushed back a little too far, a clamorous, jostling mass of humanity stormed the opening. Its guardians were flung aside, helpless, and the foremost of the mob poured out upon the platform, while the pressure about the gap grew insupportable. Women screamed, children were reft away from their mothers, panting men trampled over bags and bundles torn from their owners' hands, and George and the elderly Canadian struggled determinedly to prevent the girl's being badly crushed. Edgar had disappeared, though they once heard his voice, raised in angry protest.

      They were forced close up to the outlet, when there was a check. More officials had been summoned; somebody had dropped a heavy box which obstructed the passage, and a group of passengers began a savage fight for its recovery. George seized a man who was jostling the girl and thrust him backward; but the next moment he was struck by somebody, and he saw nothing of his companions when, after being violently driven to and fro, he reached the gate. A woman with two screaming children clinging to her appeared beside him, and he held a man so that she might pass. He was breathless, and almost exhausted, but he secured her a little room; and then the pressure suddenly slackened. The crowd swept out like a flood from a broken dam, and in a few more moments George stood, gasping, on the platform amid a thinner stream of running people. There was no sign of the Canadian or his daughter; the cars were besieged; and George waited until Edgar joined him, flushed and disheveled.

      "I suppose I was lucky in getting through with only my jacket badly torn," said the lad, "I wondered why the railroad people caged up their passengers behind iron bars, but now I know."

      George laughed.

      "I don't think this kind of thing is altogether usual. Owing to the accident, they've no doubt had two trainloads to handle instead of one. But the platform's emptying; shall we look for a place?"

      They managed to enter a car, though the stream of passengers, pouring in by the two vestibules, met within in dire confusion, choking up the passage with their baggage. Order was, however, restored at last; and, with the tolling of the bell, and a jerk that flung those unprepared off their feet, the great express got off.

      "Nobody left behind," Edgar announced, after a glance through the window. "I can't imagine where they put them all; though I've never seen a train like this. But what has become of our Canadian friends?"

      George said he did not know, and Edgar resumed:

      "I'm rather taken with the girl—strikes me as intelligent as well as fetching. The man's a grim old savage, but I'm inclined to think he's prosperous; when a fellow says he can't afford cigars I generally suspect him of being rich. It's a pity that stinginess is one of the roads to affluence."

      The car, glaringly lighted by huge lamps, was crowded and very hot, and after a while George went out on to the rear platform for a breath of air. The train had now left the city, and glancing back as it swung around a curve, he wondered how one locomotive could haul the long row of heavy cars. Then he looked out across the wide expanse of grass that stretched away in the moonlight to the dim blur of woods on the horizon. Here and there clumps of willows dotted the waste, but it lay silent and empty, without sign of human life. The air was pleasantly fresh after heavy rain; and the stillness of the vast prairie was soothing by contrast with the tumult from which they had recently escaped.

      Lighting his pipe, George leaned contentedly on the rail. Then remembering what the Canadian had said, he thought of his old friend Marston, a man of charm and varied talents, whom he had long admired and often rather humbly referred to. It was hard to understand how Dick had failed in Canada, and harder still to see why he had made his plodding comrade his executor; for George, having seldom had occasion to exert his abilities, had no great belief in them. He had suffered keenly when Sylvia married Dick, but the homage he had offered her had always been characterized by diffidence, springing from a doubt that she could be content with him; and after a sharp struggle he succeeded in convincing himself that his wound did not matter if she were happier with the more brilliant man. He had entertained no hard thoughts of her: Sylvia could do no wrong. His love for her sprang rather from respect than passion; in his eyes she was all that a woman ought to be.

      In the meanwhile his new friends were discussing him in a car farther back along the train.

      "I'm glad I had that Englishman by me in the crowd," the man remarked. "He's cool and kept his head, did what was needed and nothing else. I allow you owe him something for bringing you through."

      "Yes," said the girl; "he was quick and resolute." Then reserving the rest of her thoughts, she added: "His friend's amusing."

      "Percy? Oh, yes," agreed her father. "Nothing to notice about him—he's just one of the boys. The other's different. What that fellow takes in hand he'll go through with."

      "You haven't much to form an opinion on."

      "That doesn't count. I can tell if a man's to be trusted when I see him."

      "You're generally right," the girl admitted. "You were about Marston.

       I was rather impressed by him when he first came out."

      Her father smiled.

      "Just so. Marston had only one trouble—he was all on top. You saw all his good points in the first few minutes. It was rough on him that they weren't the ones that are needed in this country."

      "It's a country that demands a great deal," the girl said thoughtfully.

      "Sure," was the dry reply. "The prairie breaks the weak and shiftless pretty quick; we only have room for hard men who'll stand up against whatever comes along."

      "And do you think that description fits the Englishman we met?"

      "Well," said her father, "I guess he wouldn't back down if things went against him."

      He went out for a smoke, and the girl considered what he had said. It was not a matter of much consequence, but she knew he seldom made mistakes, and in this instance she agreed with him. As it happened, George's English relatives included one or two clever people, but none of them held his talents in much esteem. They thought him honest, rather painstaking, and good-natured, but that was all. It was left for two strangers to form a juster opinion; which was, perhaps, a not altogether unusual thing. Besides, the standards are different in western Canada. There, a man is judged by what he can do.

CHAPTER V

       Table of Contents

      THE PRAIRIE

      After a hot and tedious journey, George and his companion alighted one afternoon at a little station on a branch line, and Edgar looked about with interest when the train went on again. A telegraph office with a baggage-room attached occupied the middle of the low platform, a tall water-tank stood at the end, and three grain elevators towered high above a neighboring side-track. Facing the track, stood a row of wooden buildings varying in size and style: they included a double-storied hotel with a veranda in front of it, and several untidy shacks. Running back from them, two short streets, thinly lined with small houses, led to a sea of grass.

      "Sage Butte doesn't strike one as a very exhilarating place," George remarked. "We'll stroll round it, and then see about rooms, since we have to stay the night."

      They left the station, but the main street had few attractions to offer. Three stores, with strangely-assorted, dusty goods in their windows fronted the rickety plankwalk; beyond these stood a livery stable, a Chinese laundry, and a few dwelling-houses. Several dilapidated wagons and buggies were scattered about the uneven road. In the side street, disorderly rows of agricultural implements surrounded a store, and here and there little board dwellings with wire mosquito-doors and net-guarded windows, stood