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V

THE REAPER

BY A. E. W. MASON

HE great reaping-machine came swaying over the uneven ground toward her, along the edge of those glistening acres. A huge arm rose and fell, catching up the swathes of wheat and flinging them into the machine, whence they rolled out tied. Six horses harnessed behind pushed it and a man, perched in the front upon a tiny saddle, steered and controlled it. The machine was about twenty paces from her when it came suddenly to a stop. The driver leaped down from his seat. It seemed to Cynthia that the mechanism had gone wrong. She expected to see him bend over a joint or a spring. But he did not stoop. The moment his feet touched the ground, he ran straight toward her and very swiftly.

He ran with his head down, and his shoulders bent. It was a heavy rush rather than a run. Cynthia recoiled. The words of Richard Walton sprang into her mind, and her hand rose instinctively to her throat. Could she have forgotten after all to remove the string of pearls? But she had removed it. And still the man was running toward her. The fear that she wore the pearls, and the proof that she did not, had followed so immediately upon his rush that he had as yet covered only half the ground between them. It was herself he aimed at then. She cast a rapid glance toward her cart. The Gaucho was leaning down over the opposite side, and talking to some one who stood by the wheel. A cry would not bring him to her side in time. She turned, with half a mind to run. But, though her white -skirt reached only to her ankles, it would still impede her. She turned back and with a beating heart faced him. And a few feet from her he stopped.

He looked at her, drew a great breath, and cried "Ah!" like a man who has reached his goal.

"What do you want?" asked Cynthia, and in spite of her efforts her voice shook.

A South American harvest finds no use for the weak. The man who stood opposite to her was broad and powerful, with a heavy, coarse face, burnt to the color of brick by the sun. The sweat streaked it, and the dirt of many a day clung to it, and it was seamed by exposure. He was of the men who move from estancia to estancia, while the harvest lasts, working from sunrise to dark, living upon matte tea and roasted sheep, and earning a pound a day, and thereafter lying soddened in some den until the last centavo has been squandered. A battered black hat was pressed low upon his clotted hair; a month's growth of beard straggled over his chin and cheeks. And his eyes were evil. That, more than any other quality of the man, Cynthia noticed. Their quick glance held her. She was terrified.

"What do you want?" she asked a second time, and her voice wavered still more audibly.

She stood in front of him, her lovely brows, under the big brim of her straw hat, troubled, and her great eyes wide and alert with fear. She was in the poise for flight like a startled deer, yet did not dare to turn to fly. And in the man, as he looked at her, there came a change.

But

He did not answer her question. very slowly he smiled, and the smile was spiteful. He nodded his head at her; a malicious contentment overspread his face; and from head to heel his eyes inspected her. They approved her beauty and the simple daintiness of her clothes; they took note of her slenderness of hand and foot; they remarked the lines and supple youth of her figure; and through her white frock they seemed to make sure of the roundness of her limbs. Cynthia grew suddenly hot with shame. This man was appraising her-nothing less. Appraising her as if for a market! Her fear dropped from her. She cried a third time, but with spirit:

"What do you want of me?" and if her voice shook now, it was with a quiver of indignation.

She heard the thud of horses behind her. The reaper heard it, too. Without a word, and without any hurry, he turned away from her and slouched back to his machine. Cynthia's cart the next moment was driven up to her side. She climbed into it and took the reins. The encounter had shaken her more than she had known. She was trembling, and she drove over the ground quickly, until she saw the slate roof of the house, flashing like silver, from a clump of dark trees quite near.

Then she reined in her horse and turned round. Far away at the edge of the wheat, the man and the machine and the six horses stood out black like a little toy. The clank and rattle of the iron came to her ears through the still air, faintly, like the mechanism of a toy. But Cynthia shivered as she looked back.

"Who is he?" she asked of the old Gaucho. He shrugged his shoulders:

"I do not know him, Senorita. I do not think he was here last year. They come in herds and go in herds when the corn is stacked."

Up and down, along the glistening line, the man drove his horses, and manipulated his machine. He stopped no more. With each journey a wide band of wheat went down. Thus he had been working balanced in his saddle since daybreak. So, with but a two hours' rest, he would go under the burning afternoon sun until darkness came and bade him stop. To the Gaucho he was one of a herd of men who did the like; for a few weeks here; then for another few weeks on another estancia further down the line. But for Cynthia this man stood strangely out from the herd. He had stopped her, and she did not know why. She sat and watched his slow, obstinate progression. The persistence, the physical strength of the man daunted her. There was something of nature's own relentlessness in his capacity to endure and work. She magnified him and was, at the same time, interested and alarmed. For of this she was sure. He had not stopped her merely because she was a girl, and alone. He had stopped her because she was herself. She remembered his smile, his nods of the head, his malice. He had a

personal feeling, a personal animosity. She could not understand it, yet she was sure. "How long will he stay?" she asked. "A month," said the Gaucho. "He was not here last year?" "I do not recognize him."

"Why, then-" she began and did not finish the question. It was in her mind to ask, "Why does he hate me?" But she was aware at once that the Gaucho could not answer it. "And he will stay a

month?" she asked again, uneasily. "Yes, unless the Senorita wishes him to go. It will be, of course, as the Senorita wishes."

Cynthia nodded her head. There was a way out of the trouble, to be sure. But, on the other hand, she would have to say why she wished the man to go. At the recital of her story Mr. and Mrs. Daventry would be excited and alarmed. She herself would henceforth be surrounded with precautions. She determined to say nothing at all about her adventure. She would be careful during this month where she roamed. The man would be at work and it would be easy to avoid him. She gathered the reins again in her hands and drove to the house.

VI

A VISITOR AT THE ESTANCIA

CYNTHIA accordingly held her tongue. Nevertheless, that evening Richard Walton said to her across the dinner table:

"So you were, after all, molested by one of the hands, Miss Cynthia." "Molested!" cried Robert Daventry, indignantly.

Cynthia's face flamed.

"Who told you?" she asked of Richard Walton.

"Pedro."

Cynthia had not thought of the Gaucho. He had seemed so entirely uninterested, so utterly unalarmed.

"Molested' is too strong a word," she said hastily. She now meant to make as light of the encounter as she possibly could. "It was very likely my fault. I got out of the trap and walked toward the wheat. It may be that the man fancied I wished to speak to him."

"What did he do?"

The question came from Joan Daventry. "He sprang from his seat, ran to me, and stopped in front of me. That was all." "Quite all?"

Cynthia nodded.

ruptly at a second warning from his wife. "We will pack that man off about his business to-morrow."

"Yes," said Mrs. Daventry. She had mastered her agitation, and now affected

"He just stood and stared at me until carelessness. "We can't really have Cyn

Pedro drove up."

"Did he say nothing?"

"Not a word."

In spite of her resolve to treat the adventure lightly, Cynthia's voice grew troubled as she answered the questions. For she answered them with her eyes upon Joan Daventry's face, and she saw the perplexity there deepen into disquietude and misgiving. She turned toward Robert Daventry. Upon his face uneasiness was still more evident. He was plainly agitated. He sat listening in suspense. His indignation had gone.

Cynthia's fear revived under the stimulation of their anxiety. She continued slowly:

"But although he did me no harm, although he threatened none, there was something strange. He saw me at once. He ran so very quickly to me the moment I was within reach. He seemed almost to be looking out for me."

Joan sank back into her chair with a gesture of helplessness, which was all the more alarming because it was so singularly out of keeping with her character. Her eyes sought her husband's and sought them in dismay. Cynthia noticed both the gesture and the look. They kindled a vague terror in the girl. The wide brown plain was as a picture before her. She saw the great wheat-field glistening in the heat, a windwheel in a corner above a well, and this man with the evil eyes and the face of malice looking her over from head to foot. "Yes," she said. "He seemed to be expecting me, and there was something else. He seemed to hate me"; and Robert Daventry with a cry sprang sharply to his feet.

Joan raised a quick warning hand. But the cry had been uttered; and with a sob Cynthia buried her face in her hands.

"I am frightened now," she said. "You frighten me."

Robert Daventry stood over her, clumsily remorseful, and laid his great hand on her shoulder.

"There's nothing to fear, Cynthia,” he began. "Joan and I—” he broke off ab

thia's birthday spoilt in this way."

"No, of course not," cried Robert Daventry, seizing upon this explanation of his distress. But he could not leave it in its simplicity. "It's abominable that Cynthia should have her birthday spoilt. She has only one a year, poor girl. That's what's troubling us, Cynthia. Nothing else. But it's enough to upset us, isn't it? To think that you should actually have your birthday spoilt by one of my men, too."

So he went on, like a commentator on an ancient text, expanding the explanation, underlining it, and forcing upon Cynthia's intelligence its complete improbability. Even in the midst of her fears she could not but look with amusement toward Joan; and the two women exchanged the smile of their sex at the perennial clumsiness of man.

"He shall go first thing to-morrow morning," cried Mr. Daventry; and Richard Walton quietly rejoined:

"He has gone already. I paid him off this morning."

Mr. Daventry ceased abruptly from his vociferations.

"Thank you, Walton," "he said. "Then that's ended," and he sat down.

But he had hardly taken his seat when the door opened and the parlor-maid brought to him upon a salver a folded slip of dirty paper.

"A man came with this to the door, sir. He is waiting for an answer."

Robert Daventry unfolded the slip and read the message written within it. He did not lift his eyes when he had read. He sat staring at the paper like a statue. And he sat amidst a deep silence. The cloud which had but now been lifted, had gathered once more above the heads of that small company. Though Robert Daventry did not speak, his long silence spoke for him; and though he schooled his face to composure, it was plain that he schooled it. A vague disquiet held the others at the table. Not one of them but had a conviction that this dirty, insignificant, scrap of writing announced a catastrophe.

Joan was the first to move. She walked round the table and stood behind her hus

band. He did not hear the rustle of her gown; and he was not aware that she leaned over him to read the message until the pressure of her hand upon his shoulder reminded him that she was his ally. "You had better see the man, Robert," she said. "He calls late, but probably he needs help."

off.

Thus she sought to pass the message "Very well, I will," said Robert. He turned to the parlor-maid. "Bring him to my study when I ring the bell."

"I will come with you," said Joan, as the servant went out from the room.

Richard Walton rose from his chair. "Perhaps you would like me, too?" "No, I don't think that's necessary," replied Joan Daventry. "But, perhaps, you would stay within sound of the bell. We don't know who this man is, or what he wants. If we ring again, you would know that we needed your advice."

"Certainly, I will be upon the lookout," said Walton, and he went from the room and crossed the hall to the servants' quarters. There he would hear the bell at once should it ring for him. Joan meanwhile turned with a smile to Cynthia.

"We will leave you here for a few minutes," she said, and the composure of her voice almost reassured the girl, would indeed have quite reassured her but for Robert Daventry. She saw that his hands trembled so that the paper shook in them, even as her hands had trembled this morning when she climbed up by the edge of the wheat into her cart.

"Yes, wait here, Cynthia," said Robert Daventry, as he got to his feet; and Cynthia noticed that while he spoke to her he altogether avoided the glance of her eyes. The old couple went out of the room to gether, leaving her alone, and carefully latched the door behind them. In the hall for a moment they stood resting from their pretence. A broken word or two burst from Robert Daventry:

"What shall we do, Joan? This is what we have dreaded always."

Joan raised her finger to her lips. "Hush! Speak lower. What I said was true. We don't know who he is, or what he wants. He may not be the man who stopped her in the field at all."

Robert Daventry shook his head. It was rather his nature to run to meet misfortune if he saw its shadow in his way.

"What shall we do?" he repeated. "Money will send him away," said Joan. "And bring him back again," replied Robert hopelessly. "Sooner or later she will know"; and Joan threw up her head at his words.

"No," she said vigorously. "No."

At her left hand a door stood open upon a dark room. This was the smoking-room. She entered the room and crossed it to the opposite wall. Then she opened a door, and, advancing into this inner room, felt for the switch in the darkness and turned on the light. Bookcases, filled for the most part with books on agriculture, lined the room, a round table, littered with papers, occupied the centre, in the recess of a window stood a writing-desk. This was Robert Daventry's study. Her husband followed her, and saw that her finger was already on the bell.

"Let us decide what we are to do," he said, "before you ring.'

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Joan shook her head. "We can't. We must be guided by what the man knows, and by what he wants. Only we admit nothing," she declared resolutely; and she pressed the bell. It rang in the passage by the kitchen, but Cynthia, left alone in the dining-room, heard it too.

The moment she heard it, Cynthia rose from her chair, and ran silently to the door. She unlatched it without a sound, and drew it toward her until it was just wide enough open for her to see through. There she stood grasping the door-knob, and in a moment a heavy foot sounded in the hall. Cynthia set her eyes to the chink. She saw first a maid-servant cross the hall, and pass into the smoking-room, and after the maid a man. The man was the reaper who had leapt from his machine and rushed. toward her that morning. The maid-servant came back alone and crossed the hall again to the servants' quarters. A door was shut loudly-the door of Robert Daventry's study-and then another door opened noiselessly, and opened wide-the door of the dining-room. Cynthia came out into the hall. All the color had gone from her face, her eyes were wide with terror. The man meant her harm-not a doubt of it. He had some power to inflict the harmthat was sure. Otherwise why was he admitted, why were her friends in such concern?

Cynthia was quite alone in the hall now. Voices sounded faintly from the kitchen and in the room behind her a clock ticked. But there were no other sounds. She crossed to the threshold of the smokingroom and looked in. At the other end a bright bar of light on the floor held her eyes. The light came from the study. Cynthia watched it for a moment irresolute. But the temptation grew. She was sure that beyond that bright bar of light, behind that closed door, here in this far-away corner of Argentina, good and evil were at grips for her. A sense of loneliness suddenly possessed her, she longed for the neighborly noises of a city. And while she stood she heard her own name pronounced by Robert Daventry, and at once a harsh, strange voice rose in a laugh, loud and arrogant. She looked about her in a panic. She must fly, or she must know the truth, the whole of it, the worst of it. She stole swiftly and noiselessly into the room. Close by that bar of light a big, low chair stood against the wall. Cynthia crouched in the chair, her frock a blur of misty white in the darkness. There she remained, very still and quiet; and every word spoken in the study came clearly to her ears.

VII

BOTH SIDES OF THE DOOR

WITHIN the room the three people were standing, the reaper upon one side of the table, Joan and Robert Daventry close to gether upon the other. The reaper was still laughing.

"Cynthia!" he cried, repeating contemptuously the name which Robert Daventry had used. "There's no Cynthia. There's a very pretty little girl I saw this morning in the corn. But her pretty little name is Doris Challoner. And, taking all in all, it's the better name of the two."

He spoke with an easy and most disquieting assurance, but Joan had enough of that quality to meet with him in the gate. She had always been a good fighter; she had stood by her husband often enough in the early days of the estancia, when his nerve would have failed him but for her; and she was for putting up to-night the best fight of her whole long, active life. Money,

to her thinking, they could make again, old as they were, if the need came. But they could not open their hearts to a second Cynthia, even if they could find one. "Nonsense," she answered, boldly. 'Her name is Cynthia Daventry."

"Where was she born, then?" asked the reaper.

"In Patagonia."

"Never in this world," cried the man. "She was born in Concepcion, and that's her farthest south."

Joan shrugged her shoulders.

"We ought to know. She is my husband's niece."

A grin overspread the reaper's face. "And is that so?" he asked, in a mock surprise. "I wasn't aware of it."

"Well, you are now," said Joan. "Yes, and the news alters our relations altogether, doesn't it?" he said pleasantly. He tossed his battered hat upon the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down in it at his ease, his legs stretched out, his hands deep in his pockets. He nodded familiarly to Joan.

"How do you do, sis?" He turned his face toward Mr. Daventry, "You have got a nice little place, brother Robert. Shows what honest work can do if persevered with day after day for a great number of consecutive years. Quite a nice little place. You haven't, by any chance, got a nice little cigar too, have you, Robert, for your long-lost brother?"

Robert Daventry's face grew red, and the veins swelled upon his forehead. He was a man quickly moved to passion, and quick, too, the passion exhausted, to swing back into doubts and hesitations. He blew either hot or cold, and, sooner or later, he was sure to blow cold. Now, however, his temper was up, and he brought his great fist down with violence upon the table.

"What do you mean by your insolence?" he shouted. "Stand up!"

Joan laid a hand upon the old man's arm, to restrain him. The reaper, for his part, never budged from his attitude.

"You have got a nerve," he said. "You tell me a pack of lies-that's all right, you've got money. But when I take you at your word, it's 'insolence' and 'stand up.'How's that, if you please?" He sat and laughed for a little in contemptuous jerks. "Your niece, indeed! The girl's my daughter."

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