The Girl From Kellers | Page 4

GIRL FROM KELLER'S

CHAPTER I
THE PORTRAIT
It was getting dark when Festing stopped at the edge of a ravine on the
Saskatchewan prairie. The trail that led up through the leafless birches
was steep, and he had walked fast since he left his work at the
half-finished railroad bridge. Besides, he felt thoughtful, for something
had happened during the visit of a Montreal superintendent engineer
that had given him a hint. It was not exactly disturbing, because Festing
had, to some extent, foreseen the line the superintendent would take;
but a post to which he thought he had a claim had been offered to
somebody else. The post was not remarkably well paid, but since he
was passed over now, he would, no doubt, be disappointed when he
applied for the next, and it was significant that as he stood at the top of
the ravine he first looked back and then ahead.
In the distance, a dull red glow marked the bridge, where the glare of
the throbbing blast-lamps flickered across a muddy river, swollen by
melting snow. He heard the ring of the riveters' hammers and the clang
of flung-down rails. The whistle of a gravel train came faintly across
the grass, and he knew that for a long distance gangs of men were
smoothing the roughly graded track.
In front, everything was quiet. The pale-green sky was streaked along
the horizon by a band of smoky red, and the gray prairie rolled into the
foreground, checkered by clumps of birches and patches of melting
snow. In one place, the figures of a man and horses moved slowly
across the fading light; but except for this, the wide landscape was
without life and desolate. Festing, however, knew it would not long
remain a silent waste. A change was coming with the railroad; in a few
years, the wilderness would be covered with wheat; and noisy gasoline
tractors would displace the plowman's teams. Moreover, a change was
coming to him; he felt that he had reached the trail fork and now must

choose his path.
He was thirty years of age and a railroad builder, though he hardly
thought he had much talent for his profession. Hard work and stubborn
perseverance had carried him on up to the present, but it looked as if he
could not go much farther. It was eight years since he began by joining
a shovel gang, and he felt the lack of scientific training. He might
continue to fill subordinate posts, but the men who came to the front
had been taught by famous engineers and held certificates.
Yet Festing was ambitious and had abilities that sprang rather from
character than technical knowledge, and now wondered whether he
should leave the railroad and join the breakers of virgin soil. He knew
something about prairie farming and believed that success was largely a
matter of temperament. One must be able to hold on if one meant to
win. Then he dismissed the matter for a time, and set off again with a
firm and vigorous tread.
Spring had come suddenly, as it does on the high Saskatchewan plains,
and he was conscious of a strange, bracing but vaguely disturbing
quality in the keen air. One felt moved to adventure and a longing for
something new. Men with brain and muscle were needed in the wide,
silent land that would soon waken to busy life; but one must not give
way to romantic impulses. Stern experience had taught Festing caution,
his views were utilitarian, and he distrusted sentiment. Still, looking
back on years of strenuous effort that aimed at practical objects, he felt
that there was something he had missed. One must work to live, but
perhaps life had more to offer than the money one earned by toil.
The red glow on the horizon faded and an unbroken arch of dusky blue
stretched above the plain. He passed a poplar bluff where the dead
branches cut against the sky. The undergrowth had withered down and
the wood was very quiet, with the snow-bleached grass growing about
its edge, but he seemed to feel the pulse of returning life. The damp sod
that the frost had lately left had a different smell. Then a faint measured
throbbing came out of the distance, and he knew the beat of wings
before a harsh, clanging call fell from the sky.

He stopped and watched a crescent of small dark bodies plane down on
outstretched wings. The black geese were breaking their long journey
to the marshes by the Arctic Sea; they would rest for a few days in the
prairie sloos and then push on again. Their harsh clamor had a note of
unrest and rang through the dark like a trumpet call, stirring the blood.
The